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CHAPTER EIGHT
EUGENICS
CHAPTER NINE
SERVANTS AND WARRIORS
CHAPTER TEN
AT THE STREET MARKET BY THE CROSSROADS
CHAPTER ELEVEN
XUXU: ARTISTIC MOVEMENT OR ACADEMIC PRANK?
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE WALKING WOUNDED
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE WONDERS OF THE SOUTH
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE CORRUPTER OF INNOCENCE, ACT 1
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
FOOTNOTES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY RICHARD KADREY
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
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The great war was over, but everyone knew another war was coming and it drove the city a little mad.
Near dawn, Largo Moorden pedaled his bicycle through the nearly deserted streets of Lower Proszawa. It was exactly one week since his twenty-first birthday. Fog from the nearby bay and smoke from the armaments factory left the center of the city looking like a flat, ashen mirage. As Largo sped over the Ore Bridge, the edges of Gothic office buildings, dwellings, and cafés coalesced into view. Streetcars gliding atop silent magnetic tracks in the street and above, old church spires—shadowy outlines a second before—solidified and were gone.
At the bottom of the bridge, where Krähe Vale crossed Tombstrasse, a line of Blind Mara delivery automata sat waiting for the crossing signal to change. Some of the larger contraptions—the Black Widows carrying machine parts for the factory—resembled wrought iron spiders the size of pushcarts, while the little tea and breakfast Maras were wooden bread boxes decorated with wings and carvings of flying women. Largo was tempted to veer into the line of machines and kick over one or two of the smaller ones. He knew that someday soon the Maras were going to put human couriers like him out of business. Each time he thought about it, a little wave of panic bubbled up from his stomach because, aside from a strong set of legs, the only things Largo possessed that were worth money were his bicycle and an encyclopedic knowledge of every street and alley in the city.