New Egypt

Egypt has become a new superpower. It all started when they elected a pharaoh - the first divine being to walk the earth in centuries. Vast mineral resources were found under Giza, giving an instant boost to the nation's wealth and technological development. Under the new pharaoh's rule, the Egyptian kingdom expanded to encompass the entire African continent.

The Egyptian trains weren't a success. They looked amazing: sleek, white shapes resembling larva, moving along the tracks in an undulation motion. Unfortunately that same motion tended to throw the last train car onto the others, like a scorpion's tail. Many casualties resulted.

I'm sitting on a crumbling set of stairs in a market somewhere in Cairo. The nation may be blossoming, but the market hasn't changed. There's an old woman sitting next to me. She is wearing belly-dancer clothing, her sagging stomach hanging out over the sequined skirt.
"You need to go to the upper levels", she says to me. "There is a ghost there that cannot rest."
I follow her advice, going upstairs. There's a transparent girl sitting on a balcony. She speaks to me. She was born in Prussia in the early 1800s. She hasn't been allowed to die, because her last owner started a tattoo on her that was never finished. She shows me the tattoo. It looks like a badly drawn Band-Aid. I can't help her, I tell her. She sighs. She looks sort of like Madonna in the Who's That Girl-era.