Eli had visited Genua twice, once with his father as a child and once in his early days as an information broker.

He remembered despising the visit both times.

Genua and the surrounding area was a deceptively pleasing place with its warm wind, shining sun and bright blue sky; even the city itself was beautiful: Thousands of panes of crystal glass refracted millions of tiny rainbows sending dazzling sprays of light out across the countryside. The picture it painted from a distance was one of idyllic perfection, like something one might find in a storybook, but perhaps it was the deceptive veneer of the city that made it so repulsive to him.

They continued down the small dirt path until they came upon a marble pathway trailing with lazy undulations of color as it wound towards the distant crystal city.

Peter's eyes were wide with wonder, "So...clean."

It was quite a stark difference from Veerus, and he could see on Peter's face that the city had done its job, luring him in with its bright and inviting appearance, never considering what hideousness lay inside.

Soon they began to see other people on the path, walking in from outlying houses,which were also made of gemlike glass. Peter looked on in wonder, raising his head to the people as they passed close.

It wasn't until a distraught woman scurried onto the path in front of him, that Peter finally understood what the City truly was.

"GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF!" The woman howled, throwing herself to the ground in a tight ball, ragged nails tearing and scratching at her skin until bright red blood marred her body. Peter stepped back in shock, and Eli stepped with him, placing a hand protectively in front of Peter as she rolled on the ground before them. Her hair was matted and wild with dirt, grime was caked under her fingernails, and the smell which emanated from her reminded Peter of the infected ones in Veerus. What he been misconstrued as light brown and black clothing, was now nothing more than grime.

Her only coverings were massive black words which scrolled across her skin.

The woman rolled on the ground clawing at her arms and chest as the words continued to roll across her.

She was completely naked.

I am a liar, I am a cheater and a liar and now my children are dead.

Peter turned away hurriedly, face ashen, his bright blue eyes wide in horror as the woman went rolling away leaving a steak of crimson and brown on the white marble path.

Barely anyone looked towards the disturbance, continuing their unfailing daily commute down the white marble road. Peter stood nonplussed on the marble and stared into the tall grass where the woman had vanished, his mouth open in an expression of horror. Eli, for his part, steadied Peter and walked the two of them around the quickly drying blood. The scene was not entirely characteristic of Genua, but a good representation of what Genua could do to a person under extreme circumstances. It was a blessing that Peter had been forced to experience it so early on in their visit. Now he would be under no illusions as to the reality of the city. Better to experience Genua hard and fast then try to dip your toes in and walk in slowly. The shock was only that much worse if you tried to coddle yourself.

The true horror of Genua became apparent as they got closer. Peter realized it was not, in fact, clothing that these people were wearing, but simply their own thoughts, projected on their skin like rolling ink. He was able to read flashes of words as they passed.

Cheated

Hated

Everyone is looking at me

Judging you

Peter kept trying to keep his eyes turned away, but Eli could see how his gaze was always drawn back to them as the eye is always drawn to the obscene..

A few people walked past and sneered at them as they passed by. Peter could clearly read the words.

What are you hiding?

Peter's trembling voice broke from behind Eli, "What, what is going on?"

Eli kept walking but kept his voice low when he answered anwswered,, "Remember what I told you, Peter, Nothing is secret here, the Exposed has that effect, causes your very thoughts to be projected onto your skin, your deepest darkest secrets there for the entire world to see." He motioned a hand to the city, "There is nowhere to hide in a city made of glass, there is nowhere you can seek refuge."

Peter's eyes widened in shock as they passed by people kneeling, curled in around themselves in an attempt to cover themselves with anything they could find, but instead the bolded words on their bodies only grew larger, until it was impossible to ignore.

Private agonies,and insecurities represented on the skin for all to see, and what was worse were the responses from the people who saw, their true feelings about the revelations of others written on their skin: every judgment, every disapproval. Acknowledgements that their insecurities were warranted, all the bad opinions, and snap judgements about appearance and even personality were there for the whole world to see. There was no hiding behind little white lies to save face.

Eli grabbed Peter's arm and shook harshly, "Peter, when we go into the city, I want you to try and think of a poem, or a song, anything you can think of. If you feel overwhelmed just repeat the words in your head. It will be your best weapon for keeping your thoughts private."

Eli watched as Peter's eyes went wide, "You mean, this is going to happen to us?"

"You didn't think we were exempt from the rules did you." The look on Peter's face calmed Eli's response somewhat, "You can turn around and wait for me here. You don't have to follow me inside the city." Eli offered, feeling guilty that perhaps he had not adequately explained the reality of Genua. Words could seem so sterile coming from books, and despite his best attempts at describing the city, he had clearly failed.

Peter glanced around them as the crowd grew even thicker, men and women glowering at them with looks of mistrust, envy and hatred.

And these weren't guesses, it could be read just as easily on their skin.

Not from here

Outsiders.

not wanted.

They kept walking. "Well, maybe it won't be so bad for me." Peter stammered, "My skin is darker so...so the words won't show up so easily."

Eli shook his head, feeling bad for the young man, desperately reaching for some sort of comfort, but pointed forward to where a woman was standing by the gate to the city, her dark brown skin crisscrossed with lines upon lines of stark white lettering.

When her eyes locked with theirs, they could see her annoyance written plainly across her body.

"Stop!" She ordered and the two of them drew to a halt, craning their necks to gaze up at the colossal wall of crystalline glass that surrounded the exterior of the city, dwarfing them where they stood, and providing context to the immensity that was the crystal metropolis.. Inside that wall of glass, Eli could see a complex system of gears and pulleys that would open or close the glass gate.

The woman cleared her throat. Eli sighed, pulling his satchel from his shoulder and setting it down by his feet. There was a little glass hut next to her, and inside that glass hut were glass shelves containing piles of other people's possessions.

Eli undid his tie.

"Eli?" Peter began nervously.

Eli rolled the tie up around his hand, "We are in the domain of the Exposed, Peter, and while we are here we must follow its rules."

He undid the buttons of his vest and slipped it off folding it neatly with practiced hands.

Peter looked around, "Right here? In the middle of everyone?"

Eli turned to look at him with one eyebrow raised motioning around them with a finger "Right here is as bad as anywhere else." He rested a hand on Peter's shoulder, "You can wait for me outside if you need to." Beside them, other travelers were beginning to strip off their jackets, folding them into neat piles as they prepared to enter the city. The line wasn't long, as travels were relatively rare but it was substantial enough. On the other side of the road, Eli could hear a merchant, tugging a wooden cart full of fruit, arguing with one of the gate guards.

Peter stood there for a long moment but stubbornly shook his head, "No, I'll come with you."

Eli nodded tightly, "Then get moving. We don't have all day."

Eli knew how this worked, he had done it twice before, stuffing his clothing and supplies into the bag before being allowed to stow it in one of the glass compartments. Wink blinked at him from the inside of the bag, but didn't move or make himself known. Who knows what would happen if it was found Eli traveled with a minor fear.

Eli's feet were cold against the cool marble below, but the wind was warm. He glanced down at himself, skin pale. There was nothing written there yet, but he didn't expect that to remain the case for long.

He adjusted his glasses on his face and stepped back.

Behind him Peter was nervously shuffling after him, shoulders hunched, head down. Eli could already see the faint lines of white beginning to appear on Peter's skin. Peter looked away when he caught Eli's glance.

They passed through the massive glass gate, in a tide of other nervous travelers. Great luminant shards of light bounced around them as the massive gears inside the city walls rotated clockwise and counterclockwise.

The gate was a pointless barrier as far as defense was concerned. In all the years since the Dreads had taken control, Eli had not known a time when defensive battlements had been needed. At this point, it was just an excessive demonstration of Genua's advanced technology.

The rolling hills of grass had been replaced by a burned and flattened plane of charcoal upon which the glass city had been built. Atop a partial rise, the city maintained its position as the center of attention, and what seemed to be the center of the world. The flat plains and rolling hills around its base only served to make the city taller. They were dwarfed in every sense of the word, glass towering on all sides like glittering cliffs of ice.

There were thousands of people here, he could see many of them, crawling through the city like termites crawl through moldering wood. Nothing was secret here, nothing was safe, as every life was on display for everyone else to see. He wondered, not for the first time, if people born into this madness were somehow immune to its effects. This city seemed so very unnatural to him, someone who had been born in complete isolation, clinging to secrets, and he found himself wishing for the crushing psychological silence of the Desolate, but quickly pushed those thoughts aside.

No no, he couldn't think like that, wouldn't let himself think like that.

Not again.

He was here for something different and needed to keep his focus.

Eli glanced down at his skin, now aware of the scrolling gray lines beginning to appear across his chest and arms.

It wouldn't be long until he was just as readable as the men and women walking around him.

I need Desolation

He made a halfhearted attempt to cover up the scrawling words, despite knowing it would do no good. Looking over, he found Peter staring at the words, though he made a concerted effort to look away once Eli caught him looking.

The residential district of the city passed by them on either side, a kaleidoscope of glass and flesh tones refracted in a thousand panes of glass, as the most intimate moments of people's personal lives were broadcast to the visitors just entering the city. Children scampered about their feet, cutting through glass alleys and behind houses, watched by parents who never even had to leave their dwellings to keep an eye on their children. Overhead, the sky blazed an unforgiving blue.

A few people stood or sat on street corners, their knees pulled up to their chests as they gently rocked back and forth, mouths moving, eyes staring straight ahead. The crowd flowed around them like water flows around a stone, never slowing.

They had left the outer city now and were approaching the main market, which was a mass of spiraling steel and glass built in constructions that shouldn't have been possible. If he threw a stone he might have worried that the entire city would shatter, but below that, below the glass and the steel, he could see powerful mechanical systems in mirrored metal churning inside the city, causing water to flow freely through metal pipes.

It felt strange to see the city's musculature, skeletal and digestive systems on display. He knew the Exposed didn't have a physical form, but the metaphor did not escape him as he realized Genua city was the embodiment of the Exposed. The glass her skin, the steel her bones, the gears her nerves, and the pipes, her organs.

The comparison was a gruesome one if not poetic.

He wasn't sure how all the people fit into this. He might have called them parasites, were it not for the parasitic nature of the Dreads themselves feeding off the people's fear

Looking at their faces, he finally determined what they were.

Prisoners.

Or food.

Despite the many people who called this place home, it felt cold and lonely. The people here kept their eyes downcast and their arms wrapped around themselves as they walked. Almost everyone desperately trying not to see the people around them, desperate for isolation. Those that weren't walking alone clustered in small groups, huddling around each other in tight knit circles attempting, in vain, to hide each other's bodies from the masses.

Eli filed these observations away in his mind as he moved forward, anxious to write them down later.

Eli and Peter made their way up a shallow incline to the main thoroughfare with buildings rising high on either side of them. People walked above, and below them on all levels, crossing over in the sky as Sunlight fractured down from above and into rainbow patterns on the floor. Men and women walked with their heads down and their arms crossed over their bodies as shame scrawled across their skin, doing their best not to make eye contact. Long tracts of pipe rolled below Eli's feet which drew his eyes in a circuitous route through the city

Eli was pulled from his study of the city as voices rose around them in a great, echoing cacophony which melding together in a rush of sound that was not dissimilar to the roaring of the sea. The sound was accompanied by a scent as the air around them was awash with the smell of bodies, closely packed and layered with perspiration.

The main road tightened to a choke point rather quickly, and he found himself leading Peter through a tight alleyway of the indoor market, which felt more open if it hadn't been for the people walking above him on the second level. Suddenly, and for the first time since he had entered the city, Eli noticed vivid colors. He saw abundant fruit piled in large clear baskets outside vendors stalls. Men and women yelled over each other just to be heard.

"Four chips."

"Four Chips! That's robbery."

"That's the price I got them for, so you're lucky I don't ask for more." The argument melted into the roaring crowd as the air around them was suddenly filled with the pungent aroma of spices, which were displayed in large clear tubs by some of the vendors.

"Eli, where are we going?"

"To visit an old friend," he explained over the roaring crowd, pushing his way through a throng of women standing to buy rice at one of the waiting stalls.

The sun stayed stationary in the sky above.

All around them humanity was presented in all its nakedness, quite literally, flashes of arguments and disputes were seen as honestly as any argument had ever been made. The world here was hard and brutally honest.

Peter remained silent as the two of them traveled up the nearest incline and onto a strange glass platform. They stood there as others filtered onto the platform with them. Peter opened his mouth to say something but suddenly, the massive gears below them lurched, and metal chains in the walls began to strain as they began slowly rolling upward. Peter clutched his arm tight, eyes wide despite what Eli had told him.

Looking down brought him a strange and uneasy sense of vertigo. If it weren't for the reflection of the sun on the glass, he could almost imagine that he was walking in the sky.

Looking down, the lines of black script that rolled across his skin were bold and clear as words on a page. He did his best not to read them. He didn't need to see his own thoughts and insecurities mocking him from his skin.

The thought of Peter seeing them, of anyone seeing them made his insides churn.

The script grew darker and bolder as those thoughts pervaded his mind.

Luckily for him, the need to navigate the strange glass maze, took his mind away from his own thoughts.

They continued heading up, higher and higher into the city. Eli had never been afraid of heights, and yet there was something about standing hundreds of feet in the air with an entire city laid out underneath him that made him feel quite sick. Overhead the sun still bore down on them, and the higher they went, the hotter it seemed to become. He pondered idly how the refracting glass didn't set everyone's insides on fire.

They were high enough to see out over the entire city, and the distant rolling hills beyond: hills with neat crop rows lined up one after the other tended by laborers baking in the sun

They were at the top of the city now looking down on thousands of miniscule forms living and walking beneath their feet. He coaxed Peter to open his eyes before making their way down a glass hallway towards a small which hung at the very edge of the city. The box room hung over open air, and had the glass shattered, the occupant would have fallen hundreds of feet onto burnt charcoal ground far below.

But as it was, the woman sitting in the center of the box seemed unperturbed. Displayed around her, in all corners of the room, lay an assortment of trinkets from distant and exotic places. Eli could not identify many of the objects, nor could many of the people perusing the items as he noticed their questions and conjectures simply appeared on their skin.

There were many little rooms like this at the top of the city, and most of them seemed primarily for the moving of more... pricey and unusual goods.

Together the two of them walked forward and stepped into the small room, the ground below them spinning away into the distance. Peter turned to look at some of the strange objects while Eli turned towards the woman sitting at the center of the room. She was just like the rest of them unclothed except for her strategically placed graying hair which cascaded down over her shoulders like a shawl. Despite the gray of her har, her face was rather ageless both old and young at the same time.

And most shockingly, there were no words on her skin.

Not a hint of gray or black to cover her body anywhere.

Eli approached calmly, made to feel that much better by the woman's sightless white eyes.

She turned her head towards him as he approached tilting her head to one side like she was listening. As he approached, she clicked her tongue sharply producing a strange and almost inhuman noise which echoed sharply off the walls and back to her just as he stepped forward.

She tilted her head back as if to look up at him, her sightless, milky eyes staring into, and past him, "Adrian?" she queried.

Eli froze, his breath catching in his throat.