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Contact the Secret Prisoner

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Say the words that will get you disappeared.

yana · ToldYouPayphoneDisappearanceTheoryhershel · KnowsJailLocationeditor_in_chief · PoemRejectedOncemagazine_offices · FailedCrackCodeWCmagazine_offices · ExploitedSecurityDoorVulnerabilityconditioning · timeBonusActiveconditioning · noExertActive

A sudden cramp wracks your body as an electricity runs through it, but there was no current.

The crackling void is different from the last time you used this phone in some inexpressible way.

True emptiness - no signal reroute.

Occurring at a perceptual level so low that it's hard to distinguish from things merely imagined, you hear a click down the line.

Have you seen yourself? A solitary woman jabbering into a phone, repeating random words.

This is exactly what sane people do.

It's possible that Yana's intelligence was faulty, and that the old Luzian guy's disappearance had nothing to do with the 'hyper incriminating shit' he said into the payphone.

They probably listen in through the wire. Try making a call and then saying the words.

Say a few words into a random payphone? Easy.

A lance of dread pierces your sternum at the thought of it.

Surely you have better sources than the natterings of deranged old men.

Time seems to hold its breath with you as you wait, listening.

Then it all lets go, dissipating into the micro-traffic of the imperceived world.

Maybe you imagine it. Maybe you heard it, infinitely faintly... a slight, barely perceptible, click.

The old man was kidnapped for what he knew or had discovered, and you know nothing.

Just address them.

Say the words that will get you disappeared.

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An absolute lapse in stagecraft that plays to your advantage just now.

Occurring at a perceptual level so low that it's hard to distinguish from things merely imagined, you hear a click somewhere down the line.

You become aware of an infinitude of tiny movements. A total convergence on your surroundings -- all drawn to you, here, right now...

End of transmission.

DEFEAT ALL DOWN THE LINE.

Don't forget your coats as you make for the exits.

The damp tells you that you must still be in the lower city, near the canal.

First, the prisoner. Then, a way out.

In the silence after she speaks, the audio momentarily wavers. The telltale sign that the line has just been interrupted.

In the silence after she speaks, you sense, rather than hear, something on the line. A presence. Someone is listening in.

Spared from catastrophic error by your own incompetency.

Straight to the basement of the magazine office. You can't be sure, and yet you are.

Somewhere down the line is a makeshift switchboard with six phones manned by six bored assets. One of those assets is listening in on this call.

It's a common joke that the Opera have preemptively bugged all public phones to spare the Superbloc's citizens the awkwardness of uncertainty.

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