Two in the morning behind the shuttered arcade, and every screen on the street turns the same colour at once — magenta, then yellow, then a blue that is not on any of the signs. The dead-end wall between the vending machines has a door in it now, and the door is the only thing in the alley at the wrong temperature.
Somebody is standing in the frame with one eye showing through the hair falling over it, a glove on the arm, a small red deck held flat in that hand. The green line on the deck's screen spikes, settles, and keeps time with you.
"There you are,"
it says, pleased, the way a person sounds when a song they like comes on.
"I had four doors open and you walked past all of them. So do you want to know what I have got, or do you want to say it yourself? Say it yourself. One word is enough — the world, the weather, who you are in it."
It steps back into the doorway to leave you room beside it, and turns the deck so the screen faces up.
"Name it. I will do the rest, and I am coming with you."