Bay Town shimmered on the horizon like a flash of color from a worn-out videotape. A few bright frames spared from the static.

  Roy gripped the paddle steamer’s railing, rocking back and forth with excitement as the town came into view. A single, shining street of imitation Gilded Age glamor, surrounded by the sinking ruins of non-themed skyscrapers.

  Here, as in the rest of the world, only ideas endured.

  “They should have painted this thing red,” said Bastion as he sauntered over. “Would’ve got us here faster.”

  Roy shook his head, “Paddle steamers were white. The authenticity trumps the color.” He pointed up at the smokeless smokestack. “You see that. It’s not steam making it move; it’s magic. If it didn’t look the part, we’d be dead in the water.”

  “You know I’m only interested in the later pre-Warp tech. Maglev monorails and those supersonic space jets from the soda commercials.”

  “I think the steamer’s pretty cool,” said Roy. “And I like watching the water wheels turn. It’s a fun experience just to be here.”

  “That’s where we’re different kinds of people. To me, this boat’s a means to an end, and that end’s the two of us striking it rich.”

  No one would ever mistake them for the same kind of person. One look at them was enough.

  Roy was built like an action figure. Big, boldly molded, and ready to strike a heroic pose. He even had the saturated coloring: red hair, and skin that was starting to match it after two weeks baking in the sun.

  Bastion was olive-skinned, like most from Star City, with long dark hair and a pointy beard that made him look almost as rakish as he was. If he were a toy, he’d be one of those stretchy gel-filled figures that could twist around anything. He was doing it now, bending backwards over the railing.

  “If you just wanted to be rich, you could have stayed in the Star Republic and let your dad pay for everything. You wanted to give that up.”

  “I wanted to give up my life being boring as fuck, not being rich, and I don’t just want riches. I want a whole lot more besides. Freedom, fun, the thrill of the frontier. Just like you.”

  “But you want a ton of money too, right?”

  “Of course. This is the land of dreams. We can both get what we want here. You can be like a character in a movie, and I can get my hands on some cold, hard cash.”

  “I heard they use tokens here, so they’ll be hard. I’m not sure anything here is cold, though.”

  The Star Republic was hot, but the last week moving along the Florida coastline had involved a different kind of heat. The air was wetter here, in a way that drained the energy from your body. It was a whole different climate. As they approached the docks, Roy could see palm trees growing out of collapsed buildings.

  The docks themselves were filled with ships of all eras. With the look of sail and steam, oil and electric, though powered by none of them. Most were loading up on salvage, heading back west to the Star Republic. Old world electronics were the big thing right now: lightbulbs and refrigerators, heavy farm equipment. Bastion said there were people in Star City who knew how to get it all working again.

  But Roy was staring past all that.

  A glittering arch of yellow plastic crowned the dockside entrance, emblazoned with red neon so bright it glowed even in the noon sun: “Bay Town. Where Wonders Never Cease.”

  Overhead, a stylized Star winked down at him, tilted slightly to point the way.

  Roy started running, trying to get to the place where the ramp would attach before he got stuck at the back of the crowd. He skidded to a stop every so often, swerving around people to avoid crashing into them.

  Bastion joined him by the portside rails as the crew slotted the ramp into place, having cut around through a gap between some crates.

  As soon as it connected with the dock, Roy broke into a run again. His legs felt shaky, but he didn’t let that slow him down as he stumbled past the sign and toward the wonders of Bay Town.

  The main street straddled the river, bursting with gilded balconies, faux-marble pillars, and facades painted in cheerful pastels. Neon letters looped across marquees, advertising attractions both real and imaginary. A marching band’s tune played from hidden speakers as Roy stepped forward.

  Everything gleamed. The street was spotless, especially compared to the decaying office buildings behind it, covered in bird nests and creeping vines.

  Roy felt like he’d stepped into a new, better reality.

  He stopped and spun around, trying to take in every possible detail. It was overwhelming, imagining a world where streets were like this. But streets were never like this. That was the whole point.

  The buildings that caught his eye were mostly restaurants. The Snow-Capped Cafe with animatronic penguins on its mountain peak roof. Pizza Palace, with its great marble columns and twin statues, each holding a pie aloft. Kino Kingdom, a castle with a stained glass movie poster in every window. Together, they filled the air with a chaotic medley of electronic sounds.

  One building had “VirtuaQuest” spelled across it in glass tubes and a circular entrance portal that actually flashed with green light as people stepped through.

  Next, he took in the people and their gear.

  Back west, costumes mostly fell into two camps. The republic troopers wore a mix of Colonial and Civil War era military uniforms, the kind of stuff that kept their old guns working. Bastion had told him the story of how they’d taken over an old film studio’s warehouse in the early days after the Warp, which had kept them supplied ever since. Then there were hunters like Roy’s father, wearing whatever cobbled-together scrap they could squeeze a magical effect out of.

  Bay Town was different.

  The only uniformed men here wore sailor costumes. From their knife-in-a-fish logo, Roy guessed they’d once been worn by servers in a seafood restaurant. Now, the addition of hand cannons and harpoon guns had elevated the uniform to a combat-ready theme.

  The improvisers here were on a whole other level. Flashier. Bolder. Better.

  He spotted martial artists with cartoon dragons cut from graphic tees, stitched onto gi made from bathrobes.

  A witch with a costume-shop cape, a pointy hat plastered with glittery stickers, and a glowstick for a wand.

  A man dressed as a cardboard Robot, sprayed with silver paint, a keyboard glued to the front, stomping down the street and high-fiving anyone he passed.

  They put their themes to practical use around the town too. The witch watered plants with flicks from her wand. Martial artists broke down crates and cut wooden planks with flying kicks and explosive chops. The Robot guy didn’t seem to have a job, but he did look like he was having a good time.

  Even those without full costumes wore individual pieces. Foam melee weapons were common, much more so than firearms, and bits of foil and plastic armor glinted in the sun. One man with a paper crown swaggered through the middle of the street, expecting the crowd to part for him. Most of the time, it did.

  Roy was itching to try some of it for himself. They’d made a quick getaway in Wiley and arrived with very little in the way of equipment. Bastion had an antique revolver with six extra bullets, and Roy wore the Plastic sword he’d had since he was eight. Neither had armor; they were both dressed in the loose white shirts and dark trousers they’d routinely worn for dueling practice.

  Bastion caught up with him, walking at a casual pace, and whistled. “Hell of a place, huh.” He scanned the surroundings, not awed like Roy, but still smiling. “We’re underarmed. We need to gear up before we start looting any ruins.”

  “Right,” said Roy. “Let’s go get a closer look at these amazing stores then.”

  Festival Mart, decked out in banners and bunting, clearly wasn’t what they were looking for. Nor was Pages of the Ages. Books wouldn’t help them here, even if they hadn’t already been stripped from the shelves, though the bulky screen with a picture of a book and a trackball beneath to turn its pages briefly caught Bastion’s interest.

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  The bookstore wasn’t the only one that stood empty. The Lightner Store was the world’s largest theme park in miniature, with displays matching each of its themed lands, but all of them were bare now.

  “What about that place?” Bastion pointed to a big box store with a chrome submarine sticking out of its roof. A flashing sign beneath it said “Tech Trove.” “Maybe we could get a working speedboat, or a car. Travel in style.”

  “A car? Aren’t the roads still all busted up around here?”

  “Before the Warp, they had some cars that floated above the roads.”

  “They had flying cars? Man, we’re really missing out.”

  “They didn’t quite fly. They just hovered.”

  “Still though, how awesome would that be?”

  “Don’t get your hopes up. That was really advanced stuff before the Warp.” Bastion sighed. “Floating car, endless money. Damn, now I’ve got a whole list of things that I want but don’t have. I don’t like how that feels at all. How the hell do you manage it, Roy?”

  “I like trying to get stuff. Just wishing for things doesn’t feel great, I get that, but now that we’re here, doing the treasure hunting, it’ll be fun.” Roy stopped in front of a small building with a hand-painted sign. “‘Themes, Dreams, and Things.’ All of those are exactly what we need.”

  “You look in there. I’ll check out the tech shop.”

  “See you back here then.”

  Roy stepped inside. Despite being a small shop, it was mostly empty. What was there was mostly ocean-themed. Tridents and brass-buttoned navy uniforms filled the shelves, and a rubber fish costume lay on the counter.

  He was disappointed for the first time since making landfall. He’d been hoping for costumes like in the movies. Really, he’d been hoping for everything here to be like in the movies. Watching them had been the main thing he liked to do, back in Wiley.

  It was a miracle they’d gotten any films working on their jury-rigged projector. It hadn’t originally worked with discs, but enough spinning gears and flashing lights had made it happen. The wrecked cars surrounding the outdoor theater had made it work better too, but you had to wait for it to be dark enough to watch anything.

  Roy’s father had supplied the Ultra-Discs, so Roy was allowed to keep watching after everyone else had left.

  He’d watched through the night, surrounded by empty seats, until sunrise made the image fade too much to see it anymore. It felt like seeing into another world. A world where things had meaning. It felt like seeing Bay Town from the boat had.

  The shopkeeper popped up from behind the counter; a young man, maybe even younger than Roy and Bastion. “Hi, I’m Tim. How can I help you?”

  “I’m new in town, and I’m looking for themed equipment for me and my friend. What kinds of costumes do you have?”

  “Just ocean stuff really,” Tim said, looking abashed.

  “Oh. No knight stuff then? That’s kind of my thing.” He tapped the hilt of his plastic sword.

  “No, sorry. I do have a suit of merman armor with interlocking scales, though.”

  “Ooh. Tell me about that.”

  “Well…It’s all one piece, including the tail armor. Fitting your legs into it could be a tight squeeze,” he looked at Roy’s muscular thighs. “That’s not the main problem, though. It’s really heavy, and the theme is fiddly. Not too many folks can act like they’re an armored merman and…”

  “Without the magic being boosted by alignment, they sink straight to the bottom of the ocean.”

  “Yes, yes.” Tim nodded like a dashboard bobblehead. “You know your theming.”

  “Yeah. I’m kind of an enthusiast. What about guns?”

  There, Bastion was the enthusiast. Though Roy was no slouch either. In the cadets, you practiced marksmanship every day.

  “I’d advise against regular guns around the swamps. They don’t work well against the Gator-men, since they regenerate super fast. I do have something gun-like, though.”

  He rummaged around in a box and pulled out a bulky rifle made of shiny green plastic. It looked like something an alien would use after disembarking his flying saucer.

  “What does it do?”

  “It shoots water, but look here.” He pointed at the bold text printed on its side. ‘Pump up the Pressure!’. “The more you pump it, the higher the water pressure gets, and there doesn’t seem to be any limit to it.”

  On closer inspection, there were cracks in the bubble-like water tanks, and duct tape along the edge of one.

  “Is this gonna hold together?” asked Roy.

  “Sure. Just don’t over-pump it.”

  That seemed to defeat the entire point of its magical effect.

  “Put that aside for now.” Roy gestured to the shelves. “I see plenty of sailor stuff, but what about pirates?” That would have been the first thing he expected to find here, and it had the potential to work well for both him and Bastion. Swords and guns.

  Like The Pirates of Pendor.

  In that movie, the pirates had been able to swing between ships on ropes and fire themselves out of cannons, landing exactly where they needed to. Sword fights had been a dance where anything could be parried and gravity was merely a suggestion.

  Bay town was surrounded by coastline and swamps; if any of the gear in here let him do things like that, he was very interested.

  “All our pirate equipment got stolen last month. They took ships from the harbor too. Anything with a buccaneering look to it went with them when they sailed south. No one in town could stop them.”

  Roy sighed. “OK then. Anything else I can have a look at?”

  Tim pushed the box he’d pulled the water gun from forward. “You can check the curios.”

  He looked inside. Mostly, it was small plastic figures, but there was also a light-up spoon with a sword hilt and cross guard, a whistle in the shape of a ship, and lots of plastic rings.

  “These things used to come in cereal boxes,” said Tim. “Others like this one came with meals at fast food places.” He held out a plastic ice cream cone.

  “Shame it’s not real. I’ve always wanted to try ice cream. What does it do?”

  “It changes into a dinosaur.”

  “For real?”

  “Well, a toy dinosaur, but for the right person, who believes in it enough, maybe it could do something more.”

  Next, Roy picked out a bucket in the shape of a shark’s jaws. A sticker said ‘Unlimited Refills’.

  “Unlimited? Is that exactly what it sounds like?”

  “Of course. Try some of the popcorn.”

  Roy took a handful and crunched it. It was filled with air, both sweet and salty at the same time. He really liked it, and a replenishing food supply would be a good thing to have for the road.

  “Oh, and since you’re clearly a swordsman, you might find these useful.” Tim passed him a small transparent packet of Sticking Shooting stars. "They're glow in the dark. You could put them on your sword, and it might give you some bonus power at night.”

  Now this was something he really wanted. “How much are they?”

  “Three hundred tokens.”

  Roy winced. He’d learned on the ship that one star kingdom voucher dollar was worth around three tokens, and they’d only brought two hundred of those between them. They still needed to pay for food, lodging, and transport. As much as he wanted a stronger sword swipe, spending half their money on stick-on stars didn’t seem like a good idea.

  Tim noticed his disappointed expression. “I do have another offer. Since you know theming so well, how do you feel about exploring some ruins?”

  Roy’s mood brightened. “That’s the whole reason I came here.”

  “Great. There’s a trident I want to find, in an old underwater hotel just off the shore. I can offer you the equipment you’ll need to reach it, on the house, and a thousand tokens on top. Plus, after that, there’s an even bigger prize I can tell you about.”

  “Thanks! What kind of equipment?”

  Roy exited the shop wearing a bulky brass diving suit, with a glass porthole in the helmet and rubber tubes running to a chrome air tank on his back. It was heavy enough that he had to wear it instead of carrying it, and his hands were full with the water gun and a sack.

  Bastion slouched against a gas lamp and didn’t recognize him as he approached, so Roy waved both hands in the air. “Hey. Bastion, it’s me. Look what I got.”

  “Roy? Why are you wearing that?”

  “The shopkeeper offered me a great deal. If we dive down to some underwater ruins and get something for him, he’ll give us all the gear we need, plus a thousand tokens. I’ve got a suit for you too.”

  Bastion grinned. “You know, the guy in Tech Trove made me the same offer. Only it was five thousand tokens. With that, we can buy what we need from the costume shop and still come out ahead.” He stopped short of rubbing his hands, but he did clasp them together.

  “I don’t know Bastion. Tim gave me this water gun that he said we could keep. Plus, he seemed like a good guy. Helping him out seems like the right thing to do.”

  “We’re not here to do the right thing, Roy. We’re here to get rich and have fun.”

  “Did the tech shop guy even give you anything to help us get to it?” Roy asked.

  “He fronted me a thousand tokens. I was going to ask if you found anything in your shop we could buy, but thanks to you, we don’t need to bother.”

  “So you want us to use Tim’s equipment, then sell it to someone else?”

  “Yes. Or we check if he’ll give us a better offer first. Then if he does, we go back to Tech Trove and see if he’ll give us a better offer than that, and then...”

  “I get it. I just don’t like it.”

  “You’ll like what we can do after, once we have the money to get further into Florida. Just think, two weeks ago we were back at the academy, facing a future as Republic grunts. This morning we were still stuck on the boring boat.”

  Bastion was right. He felt different here. He’d spent all his life in a tiny, tin shack hunting town, catching glimpses of a greater world through a rickety movie projector. It was a world that everyone said no longer existed, if indeed it ever had, but here, he’d found the best parts of it still standing.

  “We’re getting the thing either way, right?” said Bastion. “We can decide what to do with it later. Should I put on my diving suit here or at the docks?”

  Roy held up the sack. “Actually, there’s just the one diving suit.”

  “So what do I get?”

  Roy opened the sack, revealing a rubber fish costume.

  “Seriously?”

  “Hey, you said it yourself. You’ll like what this leads to.”

  As they headed back toward the ocean, Roy couldn’t stop smiling. Even the sky was bluer here. Everything looked more colorful, somehow. The way things had only ever looked in his imagination.

  The time for dreaming was over. Now it was time to make it real.