None

Having been a smoker since the age of sixteen, Marti made many attempts to break the habit. She first went cold turkey at nineteen when she couldn’t afford to buy cigarettes, but found herself bumming smokes at every opportunity.

At twenty-two, her boyfriend introduced her to nicotine gum. It tasted unsavory and did little for her cravings, so she dumped both the gum and the boyfriend.

At the age of twenty-five, she tried the patch. After making herself sick from applying too many at once, she found smoking to be safer after all.

The girl in the flat opposite drifted onto my balcony. I didn’t see or hear her footfall; hands still clutched about the rail, the gasping sob as she settled, exhaled. So the girl tapped the glass. Twice. And I answered.

“Hello.” She whispered. “Can I come in?”

“Financial services, this is Eric. How can I help you?”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Oh, hey, honey! Are you at the doctor’s office yet?”

“Yep, they just started my physical a couple minutes ago. Thought I’d give you a call.”

“Ah, good. Are you naked?”

“What do you think? Of course I am.”

“Awesome. How’s it coming so far?”

“Oh, you know the drill… I’m all belly… Is now a bad time?”

“Oh, no, not at all, of course not. It’s Friday, things are pretty slow here.”

Dougal Macintosh, renowned mesmerist, dashingly swept through the Empire’s second city in his stylish black cape. Since Princess Victoria’s convenient demise, his family’s pneumatics concerns had risen dirigible-like through the smoky vapours of Glaswegian society. One brother devised the Pneumatic Analytical Engine, and the other headed the North British Atmospheric Railway Corporation, whose air-driven carriages vigorously thrust through the tunnels beneath the former Dear Green Place. Yet beneath his dark brocaded waistcoat beat a heart of jet-black dastardliness.