You

You had meant to demonstrate to Karolina how to infiltrate an apartment -- instead, one of you knocked over a flowerpot and you had to dart…

A stray cat hops soundlessly over a nearby wall. Your double turns to you.

Doors crowd you, stacked upon each other. Behind one of them -- your former asset, ESTOC, draped in a see-through cloak.

Small white flowers have opened up at the touch of a sunbeam, tight buds unfurling. Pale, fragile things.

The sounds of plates clattering call to mind the first time you met Eszti. She's waiting for you in the corner of a restaurant occupying…

There was barely any mess to speak of. The room is functionally unchanged.

Nothing can be seen through the opaque glass of that narrow window, but you know exactly what's on the other side: a cramped, dirty…

You emerge from the tunnel into darkness. It crowds around you for a better look.

You were panting from the run over, heart thudding in your ears. Hours late. There was an astral door beside that trash can and an exchange…

Your eyes struggle to adjust to the dim light provided by the recessed bulb above you.

Iron Petal IV was playing on the television -- our heroine finally had Johnny Khasm at her mercy on the peak of Mount Raa. Karolina's foot…

A ladder hugs the edge of the canal, rust eating at its rungs. Darkened patches show where the water level has risen, lowered, then risen…

You're not going to just wear that boring, brown paper bag, are you? It's an insult to the rich tradition of facial ornaments.

The violet night comes on like a stain. The full moon makes its stately procession as, one by one, the first of the fixed stars reveal…

You stop and take the world in, a figure jittering on PAUSE. Nobody looks up. Nobody asks why you're here. Nobody waves.

The wind combs through yellowed grass. Around you, old foundations and half-built walls lean crooked against the sky.

A weather-worn building looms over you, its back to the road. Yellow-beige plaster peels like parchment, exposing old brickwork.

The control panel glows steadily, its purpose fulfilled.

Are we trying to fuck it?

Cobblestones awash in early morning lights. Vespar hovers by the Fogged Mirror's doors, his cap tilted against the drizzle.

The crumpled paper should crinkle in your hand, but it doesn't, stained with something rancid and dank.

You step over the threshold and into a memory. This place -- this bar -- the centre of the frozen world.

The question before you is the same one that obsessed Operant PROBABLE during the period of their precipitous decline.

A Mircean background makes you a natural for in-theatre work across the Developed World.

Why would you deny that beauty is real? Why would you turn from the gentle sadness that is the passing of the world?

Does it make you feel powerful? To live so many lives in sequence and in parallel?

Nothing means what it seems to mean. In fact, safer to assume the opposite.

Pretty clever, isn't it?

You are a blast zone. A vast circle of scorched earth and human ash waiting to happen. Abandon all pretense to the contrary.

They say that, once, a whole tribe stumbled upon the valley during their winter migration, and they became enamoured with those plants --…

Looks like you're on your own. If you're going to believe in anything, shouldn't it be the friends you've brought along with you?

It's 96 now. There are still day labourers, and students, and soldiers, but they no longer burn calendars or shout slogans in the streets.…

Beware, CASCADE. You have seen how easily you can be shelved. As soon as your assignment is over, all bets are off.

It doesn't have to be so hard. You wrestle with the guilt, the shame. But if you just said 'the world did this to me' -- some of that…

Some say the Philosophical Spy is simply the Manus Fati's finger puppet. Others call it a walking massive depressive episode. But one thing…

Vending machines are basically a ten-thousand year old grift, you ever think about that?

The regular verbal acrobatics won't cut it anymore. Time to pull out the big guns -- Diplomatic Privileges.

Debt is platonic, Hersh. Big or small, it doesn't exist as long as you don't pay it.

Other people, they just go for it, but you, you like to keep something in reserve. Limit your exposure, you know?

You've an expansion now, Hersh. Revel in your success.

It all comes down to you, Repentful Spy. Ninety-six years of human suffering -- most of which you weren't even alive for -- it's time…

The track goes round and round forever. You can't escape its logic, so you may as well embrace it.

Absolute hostility on behalf of the infiltrator must be presumed. It is the only sane approach.

The world expands and contracts like god's lungs. Birds fall silent. The eternal circular march of clock hands grind to a halt, forming a…

Be the shroud the city needs. Walk the streets, snuffing out lanterns and hope. Be an acolyte of Gloom and spread the word.

How many full moons have you seen in your lifetime?

News from the crash site: Recovery crews have pulled a scorched orange box from the wreckage.

This line of work can be nothing but songs you sing to yourself between curtain calls.

Keep up your hardcore ways and they'll have you in a bulletproof box, facing a tribunal for the crime of 'getting results'.

Uhh... something's peeling underneath your chin, right there.