Free Ghosts of Punktown by Jeffrey Thomas

five hundred years after they were created, but obviously this one isn’t. Do you know if the gears are inoperative, or is it just that no one has set the mechanism? It has to be reset about every four days.”
     
         “I’m told it’s rusted and seized up inside.”
     
         “A pity. But that can be cleaned up and repaired. Otherwise, she looks to be in incredible condition! It’s not easy to find one of them intact. As you can see, our lovely lady here is fully disrobed and anatomically correct. This offended followers of the more prevalent Choom religions, who persecuted Raloom’s followers – they hated Lupool more than they hated Raloom himself. So they went around razing the temples and smashing most of these columns. Some were hidden away, thank Raloom.” He grinned at his joke.
     
         Cynth knew enough about the Raloom faith to know it had become obsolete, all but extinguished, and that Raloom himself was always portrayed simply as a head and shoulders, these busts often rendered in metal and sometimes so large they served as temples themselves. Cynth found it telling, and typical, that the male deity should be portrayed as a head, focusing on his mental attributes, while his wife should be celebrated for her sensuality.
     
         “What I’ve been wanting to do at the Hill Way Galleries,” Colores told her, “is frame the entrance to the antiquities hall with the facade of a temple to Lupool, sort of like a dolmen with the two sides upheld by these caryatids. We already have one of these on display individually, and I’ve acquired the lintel for the top, but I’ve been looking for a matching figure. And to get both of them into a state where they can raise and lower their arms, turn their heads and open their eyes according to the time of day –” he clapped his hands together “– sublime!”
     
         “That would be impressive,” Cynth conceded.
     
         “Better than having the figure hidden away in some private collector’s home, huh? Used as a coat rack or something?” He chuckled. “The public should be able to appreciate this lady.”
     
         “Well, I wish you the best at the auction, then.” Cynth’s wrist comp beeped. “Sorry, I should take this.”
     
         “By all means.”
     
         She drifted away to leave Chard Colores admiring the seductive nude figure, leaned against the sill of a large window and raised her arm with dread. To her relief, it was not Simon, but a consignor she had been working with. She accepted the call and his face appeared on the device’s tiny screen. As she conversed with the client, however, she found her eyes lifting to the window, drawn to the scene beyond.
     
         It had been twenty years, yes, but it still surprised her that Tower 1 of the complex formerly known as the Triplex should have gone from its original brass color to a uniform shade of pale green verdigris. The building that contained Jango Auctioneers and Appraisals, formerly called Tower 3, had been kept in a much better state, shone as brightly as when it had faced her own building in her childhood – but then, the property had been sold off and divided over a decade ago. While Tower 3 had been converted into business offices, Tower 1 had remained an apartment building, though its clientele was apparently no longer as upscale as when Cynth had lived there. Sitting at her desk, gazing outside idly, Cynth often took note of the people who came and went through the building’s front doors. Their shabby coats, their furtive or dispirited movements, the sometimes misshapen forms inside the shabby coats that hinted at mutation. The battered vehicles in the lot, making it look more like a junkyard than the shiny showroom it had resembled in her day. Amazingly, there were even parasitic vines growing upon the face of the building that caught the most sun, so thickly that they obscured some of the windows, though these hardy city