The Punta del Muso is a fanum devoted to chronocentrism. Within the sanctuary, whether day or night, the affluent devotees pray to a pantheon of the present. With no favoritism, of course.

Day does not grow old, receding into night. Nor is night beaten back by a triumphant morning. Existence is ouroboroic, the two lovers in endless minuet, dancing together without stopping. Though the gavotte songs may change their measures depending on choppy on cloudy days, upbeat on cloudless nights like this, they work in perfect harmony. One that all sway along to. Visitors and locals alike, on the tips of their loafers, plastered with perpetual grins brought on by excess.

That’s why you feel out of place. Piteously underdressed compared to the double-breasted jackets of the passerby. Fervidora pays the other tourists no mind, obviously more interested in whether her empathetic attire is doing its job, the two anthropomorphs dressed as if they were prepared for an evening à la plage on the rocky beaches barely a block away, its midnight tide pools crawling with crustaceans and covered with seaweed stalks.

Ø is particularly bare. Unarmed. Star pistol stowed in the porter’s clutches, Narragansett revolver left under Zelmire’s bundled quilts. It leaves her embarrassed, her tense skepticism drowned in alcohol.

“Never!” Fervidora had shouted into the berth from below. “Never any pistols while disembarked!”

The gladiatrix had heard that one before. Momentarily, the ass had been demoted in her mind. She was another bank teller, pawn shop proprietor, or organ skimmer. Prey. Targetable, fearful of the power wrought by a mare wielding a semi-automatic something.

“But for your safety!” The ass implored.

“What?” Ø had shouted back, derringer rotating from her index finger, swaying with intent, insulted by the implication.

“Deformation,” spat Fervidora’s translator, enunciating every syllable. “Of the space and time. We’re too close to the galactic center for weaponry to remain stable for very long.”

“Isn’t that just an old myth?” You asked with the accumulated knowledge of a few scattered travel sites.

The uplinks revealed all. Namely, the complex mathematics needed for settling this close to the supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy.

The most exhaustive explanation, no doubt translated through multiple different languages before your discovery, noted that Fontvieille was under a constant gravitational pull. Reality corrupting forces that claw matter towards the black hole’s maw. As if a card were pulled from the middle of a deck, continuously, by the hungry galactic depression. It’s a pull strong enough to destabilize nearby objects, warping minute details at random, vertical supports becoming curved, roulette pills oblong after decades of effects.

“No, Monsieur, not at all! The explorers were right when they ventured so close to our galaxy’s center. Charybde is a cruel mistress, and a little physical deformation goes a long way on such complex hardware. Why, just last month—oh, it’s embarrassing for me to recount—while in orbit, there was a smuggler of sorts, a weaponry dealer, who was carrying this, this thing, a bomb—”

“The one that ripped a ship in half?” You questioned. You saw the articles, the accidental discharge of a category seven weapon just beyond the atmosphere. Locals recounted the auroras, run-off radiation arcing like golden ribbons across the sky. “A black hole caused that?”

“Oui, I would swear on my very life! Even in the jours heureux, right when our beautiful world was founded, there had to be extra precautions. Always, rifles discharging, grenades igniting, all on their lonesome! It may be strange for visitors, but we feel less safe with pistols at our hips. Lest you sit in the casino, drink in hand, then boom!”

“Well, I’m not leaving this ship unarmed!” The mare shouted back, reaching for her Kanapaha rifle once more out of reflexive anxiety.

“And I would never let you!” The attendant laughed in return, confident that another round of drinks would placate the pirate queen. “Just not loaded, of course!”

The metal casings clacked together, jingling as they do now, unsorted, in the hatboxes beneath the porter’s arms. Bulletproof containers, Fervidora assured, their off-red paper exteriors hand-pressed at the mercer on the opposite side of the island.

But the cacophony does little to make up for the lack of warm embrace. It feels different. Colder than the reliable vibration wafting from a charged disintegrator, lighter than the slight gravity of anti-personnel explosives dangling at the waist. The way she picks at her nails tells you she’s on edge at the prospect of playing pretend as a law-abiding citizen. You feel her pine, as always, for more complimentary alcohol.

You can’t say you’re sedated either. You’re wired, like her, marginally soberer and stupefied by your surroundings.

You’ve never seen such order. The thin cobblestone streets are clean, each step polished. Instead of the hum of mosquitos or far-off gunshots, only the click-clack of hooves accompanies the quiet footsteps of yourself and Fervidora’s attendant. The cigarette at his lips is nearly spent, and you’re slack-jawed when he doesn’t try to bum one off of you.

Above your silhouetted forms, the three-story apartments, hostels, and hotels hold hundreds of Fontvieillians in residual luxury. Entire generations of families made wealthy by the gold that rolls downwards from the former caldera, leaking from the slot machine troughs. Day-laborers pass their wives fine jewelry. Porters uncork wines normally saved for dignitaries. Bakers inspect their uncovered floor safes filled with hard currency and letters of nobility, searching for forgotten flour.

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Taverns and cafes are open, laid bare in the evening. Ion-powered street lamps, decorated with wrought-iron bouquets, illuminate the darkness. To your left, a tavern, the Twenty-Seventh Marshal, is packed to bursting. Finely dressed gentlemen pick their teeth over midnight aperitifs. The circles under their eyes are artificially rejuvenated, injected with vitamins, their darkness only emphasized in the awning’s shadows.

The way one twitches at his lowball glass, gyrating his wrist, drink threatening to spill over, eyes darting from waitress to waitress, tells you he’s been awake for two days straight. He strains to maintain the aura of politeness begged by Fontvieille. The same one you flaunt openly at the behest of your attendant.

“The Fisherman’s Quarter,” Fervidora declares. She gestures with a hip towards the taverna, subconsciously inviting you.

Doesn’t smell like a fisherman’s district. It’s chestnuts that assault your nose, wafting stenches of rosemary instead of wharf. The docks are empty of trawlers, replaced with slumbering catamarans with cedar finishes. Fervidora once more yells ahead of her, continuing her speech.

“Our fishermen conduct their business at sea. Far from the coast. We keep our Department as clean as possible, for all who reside, even only temporarily. Most of the men are gone for quite some time. Months, years,” she muses with a buck-tooth smile. “And so this is where our most ‘well-stocked’ tavernas are situated. Empty seats, lonely women,” she laughs, “at least until the ships come back to port! Only then does it reek like fish, and you can’t find a drink on the whole island!”

“Huh,” you reply out of politeness. A group of well-dressed gentlemen holler in joy as a smiling server uncorks another bottle. Ø realizes none of their chairs are plastic. They’re warm, luxuriously inviting.

“Would you both like to stop in?”

Ø wants to. She’s losing her battle over wallet and soul, plowing through the hand-held welcome boxes of vices that prime her for further consumption, leaving a trail of cigarette butts that will be swept up in the morning haze. Distractions to placate the half-naked fear of being disarmed. You want to reprimand, but you’d rather not cause another violent bar scene.

You remember New Kankakee. The explosions that sent sawdust and gunpowder into the still air, clouding your face. Grating, lingering within your nostrils when you least expect it, making you sneeze. One bar-side argument over the past week is enough, and you do your best to maneuver away from the temptations.

“Not now,” you interject before Ø can be suckered. You change the subject. “How far is it to our suite?”

“Not far. Only a little further up the cliff. We’re nearly halfway there. But first, here is the Merchants’ Road. Your reservation mentioned you both would like to sample our artisans?”

“Sure,” the mare agrees. She rolls her eyes with the lie, wondering on who’s dime you’ll be shopping. She reaches the bottom of her pack of cigarettes and snorts. “We need a new bed.”

The ass laughs, as she must do with every client. “Well, then my father will be happy to help you.”

“And why’s that,” you prod.

“He’s a carpenter,” Fervidora chirps with delight. “And that is his shop.” She points to a closed storefront, door slightly ajar and lit with low-energy lamps, allowing the inebriated to browse with no regard for security or precaution. After all, theft is nonexistent on Fontvieille.

“Hell of a coincidence,” Ø says, eyes wandering upwards, to where a man drinks champagne on an uncovered balcony, as if he were floating in the stars above.

“It is! Our family has made much of the Department’s furniture, even a few of the pieces in your lodging! Here,” she gestures across the street, “my family lives just above—my father, my mother, my sisters, and my grandfather, too. Never hesitate to call on us, we’re only a stone’s throw away from your suite!”

“That’s here on Merchant’s Street?”

“Your lodging?” The ass blinks. “Oh, no, never! Your suite is in the Casino, as you’ve requested.”

“Ah,” you pretend. Your confusion appears aloof. A tantalizingly blasé attitude that only the hyper-wealthy can possess. It’s the one that wafts from your mare’s bare thighs as she scratches herself in public, lingering with impatience. “And remind me, we’ve paid in advance, correct?”

“I’m sorry Monsieur, so long as we are outside the Casino, I cannot discuss such matters,” she apologizes, turning to face you directly, giving full groveling attention.

She gestures to the translator on her neck. The terminal is no doubt self-policing, capable of limiting speech based on geolocation, gathering body heat data and biometrics to limit conversational topics derived from profiles beamed from the stations above. “But, I assure you, we are nearly there.”

The winding path up the cliff side grows narrow, its width holding room for three people arm-in-arm. On the cliff face are carved coats-of-arms. They’re concealed within olive-branched cartouches, painted with bright colors, popping through the dark.

The path opens to the triumphal staircase, up which lies the top of the caldera, where the acropolis sits.

The grand staircase is awash with people. They linger at the vee-shaped funnel’s zenith, where the stairs are widest. Masses trudge downwards past you for seaside departure, upwards for gambling and frolicking, their dual pilgrimages never-ending.

Atop the cliffs, arches and gardens snake around the caldera’s edge. They box in the terrace where the most exclusive of landing craft linger only momentarily, ejecting their occupants before returning to the stars in blazes of orange and blue. Such architecture bolsters the base of the Casino which stands high into the sky.

Its marble façades are chiseled in place. Inset with state-sponsored metalwork. A mixture of steel, stone, and golden embellishments reflects against the darkness, lit by ground-level spotlights, creating the giant flame visible from orbit.

And you’re the moth. Drawn to the explosive display of red flames on white marble. It beckons you onwards, drawing your breath and wallet, as does Fervidora.

She herds you away from the wrought-iron, two-story penultimate gateway to the First Floor gambling hall, towards another entrance. One at the side. For attendants like her, guiding marks like you. The four of you meander through a set of pavilions and gazebos decorated with creeping greenery, butterflies asleep in their rafters for the evening.

You blink, and you’re in the elevators, staring at the back of the bellhop’s head.

He’s young. Younger than you. A child, squirrelly blonde hair beneath a red velvet cap, gold buttons on his monochromatic outfit like an ancient soldier ready for promotion. With bated breath, you watch the floors tick higher, higher, to the tenth floor of fifteen.

“Not the penthouse?” The mare snorts.

“Oh, but the view, Madame LeFlore! Wait until you see it. The location of your suite is much better than the upper floors,” she jaunts, gesturing you down a hallway that seems to grow longer with each step, your calves straining under the pressure. “The eleventh floor I could never recommend. Too far from the ground—you can never smell the lavender while it blooms in the Summer. Or when the wind shifts, and the heavenly aroma of Baker’s Road wafts through your balcony. And the ninth! The ninth would make you wish you never visited at all!”

“Why?” You entertain.

“Why? Because it has no bar! Unlike the tenth, of course.”

“Top shelf?” Ø interjects. Her mind fixates on her next hit, begging to be relieved of her anxieties.

“Only! And I’ll be happy to show you once we’re finished,” Fervidora pushes.

Impatient for her nightcap, lacking further cigarettes, tapping her hooves with impatience, the mare demands, “Finished with what?”