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Harry gazed out at the city from his nighttime perch on the rooftop. Wilmington — a city that never quite slept, nor fully woke. It simply existed, and seemed content to keep existing. He was sure it would go on just like this long after Armageddon.

This was perhaps the only luxury Harry had. Tee Tee allowed him access to the roof as a way to clear his head.
“Now don’t go flinging yourself off the side, Harry,” she’d rasped the first time she unlocked the roof door. “I don’t wanna have to clean up the mess. It’d scare customers away.”

He’d promised, and she’d allowed it. And truth be told, it was nice up here.

Downtown Wilmington had a skyline like old teeth — mostly flat, with the odd spire stabbing the sky: a church here, a tall office building there. Corporate America has money, Harry thought. A pity they don’t use it to help anything that isn’t Corporate America.

Off in the distance was Kennett Square, the self-proclaimed mushroom capital of the world. That might have been a lot of BS — and during fertilizing season, it certainly smelled like it. The most interesting thing about the place was the large mushroom-shaped tower erected to celebrate the industry’s economic impact. At least, it was supposed to be a mushroom. It didn’t look like one. And Harry was sure the engineers knew exactly what they were doing when they… ahem… erected it.

Harry let out a long breath and sipped from a glass of scotch. He couldn’t usually afford to drink, but every now and then he’d scrape together enough for a small bottle of the cheapest swill he could find — a little help for contemplating life’s greatest mysteries, such as who and where that engineer might be now.