While Carmen's high scores get her a dream job, a starship pilot, Rico is gutting it out in infantry boot camp and then in the trenches on desolate planets.

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These were the real ghosts, he would say, the phantom limbs, phantom minds, phantom loves that haunt us, because they were used, then abandoned, because they were desolate, because they were violent, because they were merciless, because they were out of choices, because they did not want to be driven away, because they were poor.

NEWYORKER: Ghosts

Claude Avenue and a police checkpoint, then over the Industrial Canal brings you to this desolate place.

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