Detective Mertens – Personal Audio Journal. Entry 002.
Recorded privately. Not submitted for review.
A shuttle drops me ten blocks from the target. No closer.
I descend fragile steps. The smell of decay hits: metal, sewage, rot. I’ve entered The Well. Once a sewer runoff. Now a dumping ground for the unstable. The State doesn’t fix it. It forgets it. They call it human sludge. They’re not wrong. But they’re not right either.
Shacks teeter, stacked like bones on paper. Alleyways made of trash claw upward. I stand out. My clothes too clean. My scent too fresh. People stare. A pod of three follow. Tight. Silent. Sharklike. I keep my hand on the Vox Coil; state issued.
I’m not sure how to find the painter. Only lead: she’s old.
Then a red light catches graffiti. A sign? I move to investigate, but something cracks against my skull. Everything goes black.
That’s the last thing I remember. Then…nothing. End entry. Destroy transmission.
This has been Encrypted Frequencies, part of the Shortacool Fiction series. New transmissions drop weekly. Subscribe on Substack or Spotify to follow the signal.
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