By the time they got to the bottom of the ziggurat, June was ready. She pulled out her key and called the bike to her.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Yeah, how are we going to get out of here?” Hank asked.

June paused, then turned and looked at Hank, her expression feral. “Witness said it. I’m a memory-worker. And this place is just going to have to accept that right now, I’m the one in charge.”

“You sure?”

“Completely,” June said. She got on the bike, Hank sitting down after her. They gave up, June thought, remembering the vast expanse of Darktown. But it was so small, compared to the city. Big if you were on the inside… But small.

Like she’d been when she’d had tantrums or was in a bad mood and just went and sat in her room. It didn’t matter how grumpy she was, how much she wanted everyone else to feel like her. The world outside…

Went on its way.

Like her moods, Darktown was only vast because the people on the inside made it vast. June flicked the lights on and they shot out, looking almost like solid bars of light as they cut through the mist and ash of the dying forest that surrounded the ziggurat.

“Let’s go.” The bike shot forward as June drove through the ruins. She didn’t look for a path.

You will be open, and I will go through you. And as they drove, the congested pathway they’d come down was now a broad lane, small branches crunching under the wheels.

A room is only as hard to get out as you make it. There was always a door. Now they were hitting the slope up and into Darktown, the walls full of their jagged rocks pulling to the side, letting the bike through.

And none of you can trap me in your room! Now they were in the graveyard, shooting down into the maze of Darktown. But June didn’t have eyes for that. She focused on the bright lights of the City.

That is where people are. We might have died up top, but the Memory Lands let us hold on to what is precious. That’s our decision. The people in Darktown made theirs, but they can’t make the decision for Hank or I. It’s our decision.

Specters and phantoms arose out of the coiling mist, memories of forgotten heroes and fallen saints, but they dissolved as soon as they were revealed by the lights of the bike. They passed one last complex of crypts and mausoleums, names of disgraced politicians marked out in tarnished bronze.

“It wasn’t my fault… I had to take the bribe…” excuses and demands rose in the air and were then whipped away. June didn’t have any time for them.

But now they were in the main body of Darktown, the decaying buildings rising around them, brownstones, high rises, warehouses, empty windows looking down on them like the eye sockets of an ancient skull. In other places there were dim lights, or people staring down at them, faces indistinct in the gloom.

June took a deep breath.

“What is it?” Hank asked.

“It doesn’t want me to go,” June said. Here, there were more people, more memories, more activity, and she could feel Darktown pressing on her. My friends. Teacher, Sally. The people who came down to the City and accepted what happened. Who are alive, for all that their bodies are rotting in the Living Lands. She fastened onto those memories, and felt the pull, turning the bike down one narrow alley, the walls scattered with graffiti and posters of lost people and lost dreams.

Now people were coming out of their homes, some looking at them from where the cold blue flames rose from barrels.

“Don’t go!”

“You can be hurt out there!”

“You don’t deserve to be happy!”

June felt Hank’s hands tighten around her waist, and in the mirror his face was shadowed, muscles taut from where he was gritting his teeth.

“You okay?” June asked.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Hank said.

“Right,” June said. She kept driving, turning one way, then another, ignoring the calls and sights to either side of them. Sometimes she turned away from the lights of the City that even now could be seen over the silent structures of Darktown, but every turn seemed to bring them closer to the edge of Darktown. Finally, she turned one last time, and brought the bike to a halt before a brick wall. Dying vines ran up and down it, and small creatures skittered around their feet. Behind them, a growing gloom seemed to consume the street behind them.

“Darktown is really unhappy,” Hank said.

“What Darktown says doesn’t matter.” June looked back, dismissed the bike and then stood still for a moment, breathing in the miasma of Darktown. The hopelessness, the anger, the rage that someone might be leaving.

Just like the rage you felt when people had fun without you, when everyone else refused to bow to your anger. Not everyone here was like that. That much, June knew. But that was the end result for those who were trapped in Darktown.

June held out one hand, and closed her eyes, and remembered the spear. Remembered what she’d seen, the strength in it. You died, all things die, but it took a chunk of a comet to kill you, and even now, Witness remains. I remain. The spear formed in her hand, and June felt the weight of memories, the pride of those long-lost beings as they took the world and made it theirs. She closed her eyes. “I want to go back,” June said. “I will go back.” She lifted the spear, the tip gleaming as if the afternoon sun was shining down on it, and then June struck the wall. A dull boom echoed through the streets of Darktown and cracks ran up and down the wall. Behind them, there was a howl of fury.

“Shit!” Hank said, and spun around, a switchblade appearing in his hand.

June paid him no mind. She raised the spear again and slammed the tip into the wall. More cracks appeared, and the sound of screaming rose in the air. A third time she struck, and now she could see the busy streets of the City just beyond them.

“June, hurry!” Hank shouted. A man, half his face eaten away by rats, charged Hank, a baseball bat in his hands.

“I should have hit the home run!” he shouted, his single remaining eye crazed.

“Yeah, maybe you should have,” Hank said. He dodged his attacker and tripped him as he went by, but then there was a woman, wearing the remains of a ballgown, who leaped on Hank, fingers clawing for his eyes.

“Now!” June shouted, and hit the wall, one last time, and with a roar, it collapsed. From beyond there was the sound of laughter and people talking, the crowded streets of the City gleaming with light. It was raining, the puddles on the ground reflecting the bright lights of the buildings.

The woman released Hank and shrieked in horror and rage. She turned to run, joined by the others, as they fled the light, heading back into the comforting nightmare that they’d made into their home.

They could walk out with us. June shook her head. Nothing would stop them… “Except themselves.”

“What?” Hank was standing up, dusting himself off.

“Nothing. Let’s go.” With that, the two walked out of Darktown, passing into the busy streets. June turned around to look…

And now, they had just left a small alleyway. She couldn’t see to the end, but… And then with a shiver, the alleyway was just a normal passage, and she could see the busy street on the other side of the block.

“I wonder if Darktown really is just on this block.”

“There’s a way to Darktown on just about any block.” Hank stared down the alley. “If you want to find it, that is.”

And unless you’re inside, it’s so small compared to the City.

“We need to go talk to Teacher,” June said. “Whatever was happening in there…”

“Do you think they might be trying to expand Darktown?”

“I don’t know. But they’re taking the parts… the memories that could see people one day leaving Darktown.” June hefted her spear. “And I think I’m going to stop that.”

“Right. June…”

“Yes?”

“I think you need to talk to Sally. She can tell us a little more about what’s going on.”

“How?”

“She used to live in Darktown.”

June didn’t have anything to say to that.