At the far western edge of the city, a long wooden staircase drops through the trees toward Wreck Beach. Everyone agrees there is a beautiful beach at the bottom. Nobody agrees on how many steps it takes to get there, and the people who make it down describe the beach differently every time.
The stair is the city's way out. It feeds something Terminal City cannot make for itself: scale, sky, sea, the feeling of leaving the useful world behind for a while. People stand at the bottom and feel small and glad about it, and the city receives that too. The stairs know when you are counting. Stop, and they add steps.
The Outer Circuit cannot quite contain it. The Beyond starts somewhere past the bottom. Sometimes the fog comes up the stairs instead of in from the sea.
The Morning Meeting
Morning Mist
The Wire Choir
The Clock
The Probes
The Old Line
The Repair People
Crows
Sunset
The Sixth Hour
The Nocturnals
Terminal Fog
Eternal Night
The Outer Circuit
Green Static
The Endless Stair
The Beyond
Far Shore
The 3:17 Freight
