## Preface

The Hollow Man in the city of lights
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at https://archiveofourown.org/works/38425747.

Rating:
  Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
  Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category:
  F/M
Fandom:
  Transistor (Video Game)
Relationships:
  Red/Subject | The Boxer, Red/The Transistor, Red/Subject | The Boxer/The Transistor
Characters:
  Red, Subject | The Boxer, Sybil Reisz, Royce Bracket
Additional Tags:
  Melancholy, Philosophy, Digital Realism, Mystery, more to be added - Freeform
Language:
  English
Stats:
  Published: 2022-04-17 Words: 2,129 Chapters: 1/?

# The Hollow Man in the city of lights

by PeculiarlyEmpty

Summary

> A stranger in a city of lights; a singer's troubles with humanism and exploitation; a conspiracy to overthrow the kingdom of heaven.

> Or, flickers of meaning in the midst of a sea of turgid mediocrity as Boxer saves two lives by attending a concert on a whim.

Notes

> More to come, hopefully.

## Chapter 1: The wheeling stars

itr@tux ~ $ gcc init.c
cc1: fatal error: init.c: No such file or directory

compilation terminated.

Init()...

The City was a place of schizophrenic moods, weather patterns that, on a good
day, verged on nonsensical, and a populance that loved it for that. The City had always been --
that was what they said at least. Administrators were always there to guide
the Will of the people, and the people were there to add that spark
of ingenuity that Administrators could never properly synthesize.
And thankfully, in their divine wisdom, the Administration provided the people
of City with copious amounts of alcohol, in a dazzling variety of forms.

Boxer, arms propped on the counter, threw back his fourth drink of the evening,
coughing slightly at the taste. The bar he was in wasn't packed -- nothing this
side of the Narrows ever was, bless em. This far from $CITY_CENTER, either the
poorest residents, or the astonishingly misanthropic lived. Boxer still wasn't
really sure which one he was.

Cloudbank's citizens never really 'worked', perse. At least that was the line
everyone spouted. Citizens were provided for, and in return, they beautified the
dazzling streets of City with their being, their lifeforce, their personality.
Grand words that rung hollow in cynical ears, but nobody was *forced* to live in
Cloudbank, after all. This was no despotic hell hole, and even Boxer couldn't
fault the Wardens, in their grand towers of spun glass and Synthement too much.

'Another shot'? The Tender was a man of medium height who nontheless appeared
squat. Bearded, with a hint of jowels, he lived up to the cliche admirably and
was one of the reasons Boxer liked this bar.

'Please', Boxer responded, 'I've nowhere to go tonight.'

The Tender, whose nom d'plume was apparently Slick chuckled, before palming a
bottle of the odd liquid riddled with green traceries, like veins. 'I understand
that, most certainly I do.' He refilled Boxer's glass. 'I don't normally pry
into my customer's lives, but I've a way with faces, and you're young enough to
be at Acadamy -- not interested?'

And that was the way of it, interest. It wasn't like Cloudbank charged for
people to study; to go pursue a lifetime and a half of artwork, finery and chase
the dream of being truly *wanted*. Boxer sighed, sipping at his drink this time.
'Not much the Academy type, myself.'

Tender -- for Boxer was damned if he was going to say 'Slick'-- hmmed along,
feigning interest in a manner neither too attentive, nor too polite. Boxer would
continue if he wished to, or he wouldn't. That was the unspoken rule of the Bar
so to speak. When the drink started crawling in his guts and the silence of the
two men began to feel leaden, Boxer finally gave in. 'It strikes me as ironic,
that in a city that's constantly changing, everybody just wants you to be the
same -- you know?'

The Tender smiled and nodded because he *did* know. Too many out here, far from
$CITY_CENTER and the Cloudbank heights preferred themselves or ways even they
weren't too sure of. It was why he'd pain the lease on the space for the Bar.
Though it'd not been much, it would've been easier to rent the place, but he
preferred to have full control over its mannerisms, and not have it subjected to
the kaleidoscopic workings of the inner city.

Boxer guessed at the whistful smile behind the Tender's pudgy face and nodded.
Many of them had a similar story -- individualists in a city too aggressively
individual to tolerate. Boxer coughed then as the drink got a second life in his
stomach. 'Edge, man -- what is this stuff? It's like it's alive or something.'

'My own personal brew,' the Tender said, pulling the bottle off the shelf.
'Hayworth and I dreampt it up way back before the Bridge to uptown was a thing.
I get it out on the wistful nights, when there's less grey folk to waste it on.

Boxer nodded, knocking his knuckles a little too hard on the material of the
Bar. He couldn't tell what it was made out of, but that was true for a lot of
things in City.

The heat of the alcohol was going to his face now, and that edging feeling like
somebody was just over his shoulder, or the need to keep an eye on the Tender
had finally faded. He actually smiled briefly at the guy, finishing the drink as
it continued about its magic.

'You ever wonder about it all, Slick' inwardly, he
cringed at the sobriquet, but continued: 'Why we're here, how the City came to
be, why you never see any banking Selections? This last was an old joke, and
Tender chuckled obligingly. Still, he sighed and seemed to give the questions
some serious thought.

'Does it matter?' His usual indulgent smile was missing, leaving his face
weather-worn and tired looking. 'You and I, a gray, hell -- even the most
uptight human resources Selectionist -- we don't truly care. We live in Utopia
-- or some lil' piece of it. Naw'body starves, naw'body has n'ought to do but
live 'ther best lives and get *marvelously* drunk.

Here the Tender stopped to sample his own product, a different bottle that
seemed like it contained starlight in tiny clusters.

The bar was empty save for the two of them. It was that tired time of night
where the stars seemed to wheel overhead, and clear out here beyond
$City_Limits, you could hear an owl or two in the distance. Boxer sighed. He
didn't *need* to get up tomorrow, just like nobody *really* needed to work. That
was the gift (and the curse) of Cloudbank. You could just gray out; drift from
place to place and fade into the background like an old, cardboard box.

Some people enjoyed that, the sacrifice of their individuality on the alter of
material comfort.

Boxer sighed again, the melancholy of the moment seemingly fueled by the
alcohol. 'I have work in the mornin... *later* this morning' he corrected. 'Best
be getting going, how much do I owe you?'

Bartender quoted a sum that was probably less than it should've been, and Boxer
paid him slightly more than that with some clever slight of hand. The hiss of
the door closing behind him was comforting somehow, and he let the darkness of
the night here on the outskirts of City swallow him whole.

--

There are few things as absurd as volunteering for unpleasant things. Boxer kept
busy how he could, usually, and today found him delivering stacks of some such thing up
one of the absurdly tall towers in $CITY_CENTER. Coming this far uptown seemed
almost garish to him, but it was a job and while he wasn't needy he enjoyed the work.

He'd ridden his bike up past crowds of grays going about their buisiness, then
stores all dolled up with their Mid_town finery and finally passed the tollgate
and Bridge into $High_Town proper. Miles of entangled buildings, soaring
balconies and skywalks the color of misty clouds during sunset soared above him,
and he had to slow down lest the dazzling light cause him to wreck. With every
new sight bringing something more beautiful than the last, it seemed to him a
waste to clump them all together like this.

Parking his bike and using his Device to lock it, he unlatched the package from
behind him and stepped into the flow of the crowd. He almost held his breath, as
if he was diving under water and as usual, the countless numbers of people and
their clashing, almost anachronistic styles took him aback.

He bumped and shoved his way to the doors of the building he needed, and stepped
from the causeway, and almost ran into a lone gray that was trying to get in as
well. Boxer sighed; grays were like pets in the way they seemingly worked
their way into places they shouldn't be.

It took him a full fifteen minutes to navigate the stairs and elevators that
snaked their way around the monolith. At this point he wondered if it never
ended; if there were just hidden kilometers and kilometers of antechambers and
grand staircases, lobbies and conference rooms up here.

Just when he thought he might never actually find the place, the System spat him
out at an unassuming floor that held a modest entry chamber and a solid looking
door that held the lavish Academy designs you rarely found anywhere else.
Confirming that this *was* the place with his device, he set the package he'd been lugging down
and rapped conspicuously scarred knuckles on the odd, transluscent metal.

Turning to leave, he heard the door fly open, and a wry, woman's voice ask
'Won't you even stay for drinks? Gah -- usually it's just grays they send, but
finally it's somebody *interesting*.'

--

Her name was Sybil Reisz and apparently she needed another job done. That there
were six other people in the apartment never seemed to cross her mind as she
invited him in, and poured him a glass from another ridiculously ornate bottle
of something.

'It's *review* day,' she exclaimed, over the other conversation in
the room. This meant nothing to Boxer, but he let her assume he was some Academy
student looking for experience or chasing some muse.

'Sky above! Anyway, we need a whoole *lot* of material delivered -- but not
here, mind you-- and frankly, I don't have the patience to wait for
another worker -- you haven't *heard* Adrien and his poetry, or Royce's --'

Her voice broke off as she seemed to outpaced herself for a moment. Boxer just
stared straight ahead, trying to imagine not being here. These people saw
whatever they wanted to see, heard whatever they wanted to hear.

Still though -- Boxer could work a room. Stepping forward, he plastered that
smile that, when given with genuine feeling turned the ladies' hearts.

'I'm certain whatever Royce does is superb -- what job did you have for me?'

Sybil didn't even blink.

'Oh it's just a delivery -- you know how they are --, but we prefer to avoid
grays whenever possible -- you know how uncomfortable they make people --. But
there'll be a lot of people there, and when I saw you, all I thought was you
would blend in nicely.

Boxer considered the fact she hadn't paused for breath and was mildly impressed.
Also, the gaudy pink-ness of her ensemble extended to the apartment and his
regard slowly withered into a touch of disgust. While she went on and on about
the job, her friends, the up-and-coming performers that would be there, he
worked his way to the drinks counter and poured himself a generous slug of a
whiskey he enjoyed. Sybil certainly didn't mind, commodities were more of an
academic concept in cloudbank when you were a favorite of Traverson.

Abruptly, she took his arm and led him to the window. Before him, the shifting
city-lights of Cloudbank, and the dazzling core that was $City_Center which he
noted wasn't too far away.

'I can't get enough of the lights,' Sybil remarked, back turned to him. 'I love
this city.' She spread her arms and grinned, 'I love the lights, I love the
parks, I love how every time I go out in the morning something is different.'
She had the look of a genuine Cloudbank zealot, and Boxer didn't want to
interrupt.

Like a curtain falling, any passion he held for this deceit, for this
conversation fell away leaving the avolition and the crushing emptiness behind.
With the desperation of a drowning man, he choked down the rest of his drink in
an attempt to rekindle some of his zest. However the alcohol, rather than
feeding his withered sense of humanity seemed to kill him inside.

He needed to get away. He needed to be apart from these glitzy, glamorous
children of an empty city. He was a Hollow man among a populace of twittering
bird people feeding off each other's energy. He stammered something about needing
to be someplace else, barely maintaining the barest vestige of polite candor.
One of the two other men in the room, who had been conversing with a third,
older man seemed to frown as if he'd only noticed Boxer just this second.

When he'd already wrenched the door open and was halfway to the elevator
already, Sybil called after him, 'Before you go, I still haven't your name! Or
your Selections!' She seemed confused.

Boxer stabbed the call button, throwing over his shoulder the first lie he
normally used with these people. As the doors closed, the look on Sybil's face
was enough to lighten his mood somewhat.

For some reason people always believed him when he said Animal Husbandry and Meditation.

--

## Afterword

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