A burned-out detective trapped in a cold case finds a curious lead-the severed head of an android who cries for help in the voice of his dead wife. It has her memories. It has her personality. But is it... Elsie? Welcome to the frayed-wire-and-spare-parts autopsy of a near-future Nebraska, lit bright by neon promises and smoldering with broken dreams. Society is high on body augmentations and self-interest and low on moral reckonings. Harlan's cold case takes center stage in the novella Our Bird Trills Mechanical, but desperate people willing to do whatever it takes fill the pages: people like Lucian Lucky, an augment-addicted prizefighter who must decide if the cost of winning is worth the size of the purse; or Javier, a love-struck henchman who's fallen for the niece of his violent boss. Freaks, fighters, fixers and f&%k-ups: fortune favors the corrupt in MIDWESTERN CHROME.