Prague

Marek Havel falls from a third-floor window.

Witnesses agree on three things.

He did not scream.

He was pushed.

Nobody touched him.

Then another Marek Havel steps through the broken window and looks down at his own body.

Then the body looks up.

“That,” the dead Marek says through broken teeth, “is a matter under appeal.”

Welcome to Prague.

The Office of the Second Census is built for death, not litigation conducted simultaneously by two versions of the same man.

Prague considers this a distinction without much practical value.

Soon the Office is dealing with old seals, older authority, duplicated claimants and the possibility that history is not a settled record but a stack of rulings nobody has had standing to challenge.

The city has always closed cases with a final answer.

This time, Prague refuses one.

Included free: a complete Reality Services story, where appeals are normally filed by one person at a time.