Faust's Bargain Bins

The opening bars of “745 sticky,” by 100 gecs, play. Eight shots, one of each of the principal characters, appear. Each shot is monochrome and includes a title card of the character’s name.

LENNA IJORR’s shot is in shades of blue. Lenna is in her mid-twenties, small, and dressed in an elegant, all-black suit; her straight hair hangs in a single, glossy sheet. She sits at a wide desk in a repurposed aircraft control tower. A long, matte-black coat and scarf are slung over the back of her chair. Magical plants, moving with a life of their own, frame the window behind her in impossible shapes. The lights of the suburbs spread out across the cave floor outside. An inviting, empty chair is pulled up in front of her desk. She tilts her head and flashes a brilliant, warm, professional smile at the camera.

MATTEW SAN PETTRU’s shot is in shades of brown and orange. San Pettru is in his mid-forties; he has wide shoulders and a square face. He wears a brown leather bomber jacket with a short hand-woven scarf. Crows’ feet frame his eyes. He stands on a crate in his store. His head brushes the tent ceiling; the floor is architectural-rendering-smooth stone. He finishes pushing a cardboard box to the very back of the top shelf, then looks down and notices the camera. He barely hesitates before he smiles, tired but genuine.

INDRIYA SANTA KARMNI’s shot is grayscale. Indri holds a rapier in each hand. He has a razor-sharp face and narrow, startlingly light-colored eyes. He’s nineteen and painfully skinny: he’s swimming in his sweatshirt, and he’d drown in it without the cloth strips tied around his arms and crossed over his chest, which hold the material down but squeeze it into lopsided bulges. The hood is cut off completely, and a bandana is tied around his neck. He’s at a public gym, surrounded by the silhouettes of other fighters, who he doesn’t notice. He’s frozen in the final stance of a rapier form, glaring past the right edge of the frame.

CHENSINA SAK KA’s shot is a purple “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog.” Chensina stands alone on the edge of a cliff overlooking her suburb, leaning on her polearm. She’s in her early twenties and dramatically beautiful, with dark skin and a long, straight nose. Her hair reaches the middle of her back in two tight, slick Dutch braids. She wears a bulky, scratched black leather jacket with a swirling logo embroidered on the back and four stripes on each shoulder; her knee-length scarf is split down the middle with a dense octagonal pattern. Her forearms are covered in tight-fitting steel bracelets, and her fingers are protected by rows of rings. She finishes scanning the cave floor below her and turns inward, staring into space out the right side of the frame.

KARMENA BAYA TAR RAMEL AHAMAR’s shot is dark maroon. Karmena sits behind her desk, staring confrontationally into the camera. She’s in her early twenties, with broad shoulders and heavy features, wearing a crisp suit with a triangular silk scarf. Her hair is pulled into an immaculate chignon, and her lipstick is the brightest thing in frame. She wears no other makeup. Her desk is a ruthlessly organized grid of ledgers. A map of shipping routes between the southern coast of Astun and the crescent-shaped island of Imsaren is pinned to the wall behind her, covered in miniscule notes. Something left of the frame calls her attention and she slides smoothly to her feet, standing like a statue of an explorer.

NIKOLA KORSIYET TAL MARSA MELHA’s shot is green. Nik stands at a workbench littered with stacks of open books, pages torn from legal pads, and stone panels carved with precise geometric patterns. Similar patterns are sketched on the blackboards lining the walls, and a unicursal hexagram is set into the floor in mother-of-pearl. Everything is smeared with a fine coating of chalk dust. A map of the city of Halk and the surrounding cave floor is pinned to the wall. Nik is in his early twenties, tall, and actor-handsome; he’s light-skinned, and his hair is tightly curled. He wears elegant glasses and stacks of elaborate bracelets on both arms with a resort shirt and chalk-streaked chinos. He looks to the left and grins at someone out of frame.

MAWRU PERIKLU’s shot is white, pale silver, and jet black. Mawru stands in a workroom even more chaotic than Nik’s. Bookshelves line the walls, with papers stuffed between the books like mortar between bricks. Geometric patterns are chalked on every surface. Papers ranging from legal to post-it note size are stuck to the walls or hang suspended in the air behind Mawru like a peacock’s tail. Globs of light float through the room like bubbles in a lava lamp. Mawru is in his thirties. His long hair is pulled back like he hasn’t looked in a mirror in days. He wears a clearance-rack sport coat over a sweater and dress pants. None of his clothes fit; his jacket bulges especially awkwardly over his left shoulder. He grins and throws a paper airplane into the camera. The frame is wiped with walls of white and silver fire.

When the flames fizz away, AWAS’s shot is bright red. She sits on the landing wall of a cramped staircase, swinging one leg over the sheer seven- or eight-storey drop outside. Towers of shipping containers rise from the cave floor behind her; glow-taped steps half as wide as her feet are long lead up to the left. She wears cargo pants and a utility vest over a white shirt. Like Indri, she’s too small for her clothes, and she’s strapped them to her body to make them fit. Unlike him, she’s used the straps to craft a clear, elegant silhouette. Her hair is pulled back tightly from her face, which is harshly angular. She’s done as much makeup as possible using charcoal, ash, and cooking oil. A blood-red scarf, the brightest thing in frame, is wrapped around her neck, and a polearm lies across her lap. She smiles wickedly at the camera.

Title card for FAUST’S BARGAIN BINS.

Vocals in. Shots alternate of the five characters from Halk’s Periphery, Awas, Lenna, Indri, Chensina, and San Pettru, dancing in front of flat backgrounds in their respective colors.

I make my money on my own, yeah

Awas lip-syncs in front of a solid blood-red background.

Wakin' up five in the morning, yeah

San Pettru, in front of alternating diamonds of burnt-sienna lilies-of-the-valley and mahogany climbing roses, slides deliberately through a sequence of stances and extensions that flow upwards through his body from the ground beneath his feet, like a form from a mostly-forgotten martial art.

Throwin' money in the oven, yeah

Chensina, snapping with efficient grace through sharp lines and swooping flourishes like she’s writing cursive on the air. The pattern behind her is tiled with octagons and diamonds; in each octagon, a bird, rendered in sharp triangles, sits on huge, curled talons, looking over its shoulder.

Fuck sleep and his cousin, yeah

Awas, still lip-syncing, flips off the camera.

I've been on a roll, yeah

Lenna’s dance surges from glacial to lightning-fast and back like waves breaking on the ocean, decorated with minute, glittering ornaments in her fingers and face. Behind her, midnight-blue squares scroll and interlock, decorated with botanical hooks.

I spend my money like it's stolen, yeah

Chensina continues her dance, this time with her face covered from the cheekbones up by a gleaming, pointed mask. Sharp rectangular cutouts expose her eyes.

Shit, I'm already broke

Indri, defeated in front of a dark gray net of stylized rose blossoms and ferns dripping with teardrop-shaped leaves.

and it's only 7:45 in the morning, yeah

He shrugs and flies into graceful, self-consciously technical motion, dominated by hard angles and fast, sharp twists. He ends with his spine bent so wildly that it should be impossible for him to stay on his feet, then holds himself there and flashes a triumphant, contemptuous smile at the camera.