Ante Meridiem Electronics

Ante Meridiem Electronics (AME) is a used electronics shop in the Wormwood neighborhood of Edge City. The store is owned by Ackerman "Baby Blue" Dodridge, who operated it as a one-woman venture before bringing on Rido Lenni as a part-time employee.

Lestrade often loiters out in front of the store, much to Baby Blue's frustration.

Location

Ante Meridiem Electronics occupies a small storefront on the busy-two lane street of Wormwood Avenue in the eponymous neighborhood of Edge City.

Layout

The storefront space of AME is quite small but very densely packed. Baby Blue often encourages customers entering for the first time to walk all the way to the back of the store while browsing. "That's where we keep all the actually interesting stuff." Most merchandise is piled haphazardly on well-worn commercial shelving or even stacked directly on the floor. Many of the items lack visible tags, leading Baby Blue to simply make up a price on the spot when asked about them.

The front counter of the shop features Baby Blue's computer terminal, which she readily admits she uses more for entertainment and browsing social media than for work. It consists of a repurposed office PC with upgraded components, a cheap keyboard and mouse, and a dim 5:4 LCD monitor. Baby Blue often has a "project" on the counter that she works on when not assisting customers. Usually it's simply a disassembled PC in which she is swapping various components, but she has been known to take on more involved projects on particularly slow business days.

Conspicuously placed on a high shelf behind the counter is a strange nixie tube display with a long number constantly counting up. According to Baby Blue, this is a clock displaying the number of seconds elapsed since midnight on January 1, 1970. Somehow, Baby Blue is able to easily convert this number in her head to a conventional date and time, and she often expresses surprise that others find it incomprehensible.