By the time I was done taking notes I'd developed a formula for the rate at which humans use volumes of time (measured in liters).

This pleases me.

There's nothing much going on right now, so I thought it'd be fun to just flex my world-building muscles and write a street scene. This isn't related to anything at all and I don't have any plans to do anything with it. It just is.

It's mid afternoon and the sky is the color of sandpaper. There's no wind, no weather reports. City noise thrums in the distance on a quiet residential street. Someone is cooking. Burning sesame oil and roasted processed meat almost obscure the wet-algae smell of the civic drains.

A man wearing a torn greatcoat is hunched over a set of glyph tiles that he's trying to glue to the sidewalk with a tube of illegal epoxy. An armored audit walker makes a show of ignoring him by cleaning it's guns -- barrels pointed skyward -- and issuing stock threats against rights infringements.

A ferropaver lumbers around the corner searching for discontinuities. It whines as it lays down fresh road. The noise scatters a group of basking skinks. Down the street a couple is arguing. From two blocks away, all arguments sound the same.

A wealthy couple comes out of one of the secure tenements, they're wearing complimentary jogging outfits that are blinking the names of corporate sponsors neither man has ever met. They walk around the audit walker and stop to see what is going on with the tile-gluer.

Without looking up at them, the man in the greatcoat rearranges two glyphs and presses them down into the epoxy he's put onto the sidewalk. He starts to chant. The wealthy joggers look at each other and then continue walking.

The ferropaver grinds back and forth over a divot from an accident the previous day. A little breeze picks up bringing the scent of spiced coffee. The grinding of the paver is getting louder. There's something else, though. A whisper. Not quite a voice, but there's an unmistakable pattern of words. It isn't quite coming from the man in the greatcoat.

His tiles are glowing now. The audit walker is paying attention now. It signals all the automated windows on the street to close and levels its guns at the man who is now sitting on the sidewalk.

There's a faint pop. The auditor stops moving and the windows all unlock, but don't rise. The man leans forward and kisses the tiles he's placed. They're glowing faintly. He gets to his feet and walks away. Thin snakes of smoke rise out of the engine core of the auditor.