A Beasthood · The Towers
Silicon Alley
You see how everything connects, and you live with what you saw.
Their gift: The Map. They trace the hidden lines that connect things. The cost: What they map they can't unsee.
About 500 Beasts call Silicon Alley home.
The place
Underlit on purpose: windowless blocks, blue screens, air ten degrees colder than anywhere. Black techwear, cables worn like chains, ozone. The Alley keeps no hours, only uptime. The street stays empty until something breaks, then fills.
Their gift, and what it costs
The Map. Alley Beasts trace the hidden lines between things: which post feeds which, which friendship holds a crew together. The cost: what they map, they can't unsee. The limit: a line traces clearly only on Alley ground. Past the border, mappers walk it with chalk.
What they want, and what they fear
Want: to read the system underneath, whole, once. Fear: what's at the end of the line. Every Alley Beast has followed one too far.
People you might meet
- Nullie (Robot, Need to Know). Keeps the Map Room keys; wants every Post Walk page checked twice. "Everything's connected. That's the problem."
- Kestrel Imai (Pooch, Open Wall). Need to Know says Kestrel would pin up a map of their breakfast. It's on the Cold Aisle, beside forty-one versions of the Ghost's map, each noting where it's wrong.
- Hexa (Robot, Mesh Node keeper) leads the Post Walk. Last week, an hour at the last post but one, then home with one line: "It goes down. I don't mean south."
- Tav Mendes (Pooch, night owl). Wants one quiet night. By midnight, restless, opens a puzzle box to have something to fix.
Neighbours and old business
- L33T Labs. Builds what the Labs proves, usually before it's proved. The Labs complains every Friday and borrows their soldering irons every Monday.
- Concrete Jungle. The data and the megaphone: the Alley finds it, the Jungle shouts it.
- Gaia Grove. The Alley's wire left a frost line through the Terraces, and the Grove brings it up.
Books from Silicon Alley
A Beast's Book is written from their holder's choices.
No Book from Silicon Alley is open yet. A holder of a Beast from here can begin theirs in the game.
More about Silicon Alley
Their scarA year ago, for six weeks, something moved through every system in the Alley, took nothing, and left a hand-drawn map truer than anything…
A year ago, for six weeks, something moved through every system in the Alley, took nothing, and left a hand-drawn map truer than anything the Alley had made. It marks a line post to post along the old road: the order Bullhattan's files took in the Blackout. The Ghost's map hangs in the Map Room, copied and argued over across the Beastside.
What they argue aboutOpen Wall vs Need to Know: who sees the maps.
Open Wall vs Need to Know: who sees the maps. Open Wall: a map in a drawer is wasted. Need to Know: a map of a friendship belongs to the friends first. Need to Know hold the keys; Open Wall has the newcomers.
This seasonFrank's appeal is heard this week; the crew who named it are bringing character witnesses.
Frank's appeal is heard this week; the crew who named it are bringing character witnesses. The old road's posts hum, and the whole Alley is on the Post Walk; every time a crew nearly closes the map, the line runs further down.
A customNaming the Outage.
Naming the Outage. When the grid drops, the Alley pours out with headlamps, and whichever crew gets the lights back names the outage on the Mesh Node: the Long Sulk, Tuesday's Revenge, That One Again, Frank. Frank is under appeal.
PlacesMap Room: the Ghost's map under glass.
- Map Room: the Ghost's map under glass.
- Cold Aisle: walk it to think; meet whoever walks the other way.
- The Tumblers: puzzle boxes for anyone.
- Line's End: where the oldest cable goes into the ground.
What they think is going on"The Beastside runs on an older system"
"The Beastside runs on an older system": posts, Bones and Hum, still switched on. The Labs want the blueprint; the Alley reads what's running.