Where things happen
The city is cut by use, not by map.
Magret doesn’t think in districts. She thinks in what a place does to the body. How long it holds. How fast it turns. Where Gerben can stand without becoming the center of something forming.
A balcony is not just height. It’s first contact.
A stairwell is not just passage. It’s where traces collect.
A street is where alignment becomes visible.
Each location carries a function before anyone enters it.
The main grounds
The collapse sits underneath everything.
Montreal doesn’t disappear. It loosens. Systems withdraw unevenly, leaving pockets where things still work beside areas where nothing resets. A block can hold structure. The next one doesn’t.
Sanctuaries condense control.
Inside, movement is shaped, timed, narrowed. Food passes through hands in sequence. Bodies are spaced, redirected, contained. The system is still there, but it’s broken into parts so it doesn’t overwhelm the space at once.
Outer zones stretch it out.
Nothing interrupts. A drop lands, someone eats, a body changes, others gather. It runs from one moment to the next without being cut. What happens stays visible. What remains pulls the next movement in.
Air drop sites are ignition points.
They don’t hold for long. They trigger. Bread falls, bodies align, then disperse or collapse into the next stage. The site empties, but the effect moves outward from it.
The Mill stays distant.
It produces without appearing. Everything traces back to it, but no one moves through it directly. It’s the source that doesn’t enter the field it creates.
How space is divided
The environment is divided into regulated and unregulated zones. Sanctuaries function as controlled spaces where movement, access to food, and population density are managed. Outer zones operate without stable governance, where consumption cycles are active and continuous. Collapse areas persist as transitional environments where institutional control has weakened or withdrawn.
There is a line, but it doesn’t stay still.
Sanctuaries mark one side. Outer zones mark the other. Between them, the collapse shifts, opening and closing routes without warning. What was controlled becomes exposed. What was exposed becomes temporarily held.
Magret reads those shifts.
A corridor that used to lead inside now spills outward. A street that felt open begins to compress. The division isn’t fixed. It’s happening in real time.
Regulation doesn’t remove the system.
It redistributes it.
How the system behaves in each place
Locations determine how systems behave. Distribution networks prioritize access points such as air drop sites. Governance systems concentrate within sanctuaries. Transformation events occur across all zones but are most visible in unregulated areas. Each location shapes the intensity and visibility of the system’s effects.
Distribution follows access.
Drops land where movement can reach them. Sanctuaries receive through tables and queues. Outer zones receive through impact and scatter.
Governance gathers where it can be enforced.
Inside, it holds bodies in place. Outside, it disappears, but its absence changes how people move.
Transformation doesn’t choose location.
It runs wherever ingestion happens. The difference is how long it can be seen. In sanctuaries, it’s contained or moved. Outside, it completes in the open.
Visibility changes everything.
The same event feels different depending on where it happens, but the sequence underneath doesn’t change.
Mobility and Access
No path is neutral.
Entry into a sanctuary is controlled, slowed, observed. Exit is not guaranteed. Movement inside is guided whether you follow it or not.
In the outer zones, nothing stops you.
That doesn’t make it free. It makes every step exposed. There’s no correction before consequence.
Infrastructure shapes what’s possible.
A confiscated car gives one crossing, then becomes a signal. A distribution route pulls movement along it, then fills. A broken passage opens a new path until it doesn’t.
Magret moves through all of it the same way.
Reading what a place is doing now, not what it was meant to do.
Gerben moves because she moves.
The locations don’t define them.
They define what happens if they stop.
Movement between locations is controlled, restricted, or contested depending on the zone. Sanctuaries enforce regulated entry and exit. Outer zones allow unrestricted movement but expose individuals to continuous risk. Infrastructure such as distribution routes and confiscated vehicles affects how populations navigate the environment.