Karolina's chest rises and falls, her blue, paper-thin eyelids twitching.

Her first real sleep in months, maybe years. Your voices won't wake her.

His fingers go to her hair, reflexive. Blunt nails scratching gently against her scalp.

Something inside him breaks.

Strands of her long, dark hair falling through his fingers as he pulls his hand away from her.

Turn around. Stop. Mercy.

He's a little afraid of you now.

Beneath his self-deprecating exterior there is something genuine -- sensitive, loving, hopeful.

And beneath that is the part that desperately wants to hear the whole sordid tale.

This still carries some weight with him.

No smug self-satisfaction here -- just pride.

Show this skinny dickhead we mean business.

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Catching the look in your eye, Septimus shifts his stance, weight on the back foot.

Punchable face. Begging for your fist.

It's far from the first time he's been threatened like this.

Mmm. Yummy gunny.

Spittle? In your barrel? Who knows where that mouth has been?

A psychologist would probably call this a side effect of being the object of violent loathing from birth.

The fabric of his oversized shorts begins to sway.

He bounces a little on the balls of his feet, considering combat.

Not the first time he's taken a hit like this. Not even close.

"I'm here to help."

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He can't help her. He's tried.

An old-school, derogatory term for spies.

Most likely overheard during one of his father's notorious tirades.

All the time?

Shit, he really has tried everything.

The gäng can hold their own -- he's probably exaggerating to make you feel bad.

This is not your fault. The risks were the risks. This is not your fault.

Your fault. Un-fixable. Fucked.

Want her? Through.

Fuck. She sounds wretched, this is mega-tragic.

Translation: They have no ideas and no money.

The fantasy of the eternal studio-hang is more vivid in his mind than any actual 'production' that might occur there.

They haven't written a word.

Maybe it's all in her head. Maybe there really is new energy in the wires... either way, it's doing something, and it's wicked.

Glimmer of hope. Maybe she's been doing alright without you. Maybe she's figured herself out.

Closing the neat nutritional loop as the culture digests itself.

He has no idea how many parts of his life bear your fingerprints.

Karolina's never told him that Tempo was your asset, too.

He's genuinely proud of what he and Karolina are able to accomplish here.

One of the few people he can call anything close to a friend.

Know them? You introduced her to them.

These implications have never occurred to him before. Now he won't be able to un-think it.

And demand is high. Higher than it's ever been.

A criminal syndicate like that will come for him eventually. Nicely at first. Then with weapons.

Eyes: blood-shot.

Something about him has relaxed at this information, a performance partly abandoned.

An infamous image, from Nestor's 64 campaign -- the dictator, holding a baby with his own face superimposed over the infant's, moustache and all -- 'Soy Nestor'.

He assumes he won't make it past 40.

Squinting, you overlay the image of the phantom you saw at the Palace of Culture on top of this lanky young fuck.

Same nose. Same dark eyes. Wildly different posture.

It's hard to see any resemblance to the proud, mustachioed leader behind the coloured hair, the spindly pale legs, and the permanent sneer.

Squinting, you overlay the image of Nestor from his t-shirt on top of this lanky young fuck.

Squinting, you overlay the image of Nestor you've seen in a hundred faded murals on top of this lanky young fuck.

Other people's distaste is a warm blanket, familiar in its itchiness.

Nestor had already been forced from power the last time you were here. The toppled regime was old news.

Sure, you could use that as an excuse for your ignorance. Or you could just admit that the Hershel of five years ago was somehow even more self-centred than the Hershel of today.

A scab across his heart he can't quite stop picking.

In truth, it was Portofiro that got 'fucked' when the local economy collapsed and EMTERR swept in with another round of 'stabilisation' packages that only tightened its clamp on the city's collective throat.

Nearly two decades gone, and he's still making his home in a cinema: a love that's never died.

Sense memory.

Artificial, canned laughter.

The comparison to his sire is inevitable. He's resigned himself completely to the umbilical tie -- a noose, a lifeline.

A name he has no business knowing.

KINDRED. You played down the cryptonym when she asked you about it half-drunk one night. Nothing to it, you shrugged. First name that came to mind. Which wasn't a lie -- it was the first. You just also happened to mean it.

Blatantly incorrect. Evidence of a malformed creative spirit.

RARIFIED OPPORTUNISM.

His father directed a whole city-state -- he wants to do the same, minus the hassle of elections, or governance, or approval ratings.

Pussified behaviour.

DYNASTIC INHERITANCE, SQUANDERED! NEPOTISTIC FOOLISHNESS, DELUSIONS OF GENETIC SUPREMACY.

One name, no context, as if you're expected to already know him.

He knows without a doubt that you are not a real cop, and is playing along solely for his own amusement.

Probably thinks you're a strip-o-gram.

His tone changes as your identity dawns on him -- wary, curious, teetering on the edge of hostile.

In his tone there's a spark of excitement not sufficiently smothered by anger.

Eszti wasn't just trying to hurt you -- she was telling the truth.

For some spies, interrogation is a proving ground. For others, it is a distant shore from which they can only wave, and never return.

You once heard an old hand say that the tortured walk their own province.

He finds his girlfriend's dark past equal parts enraging and intriguing.

He was born within one. Knows little else.

All systems go down. A brief but total outage.

Don't act surprised. The network was blown, this was inevitable.

And thus, off-limits. Hence his guard-dog duty in front of the velvet curtain.

He does not elaborate.

The padlock on the door breaks easily. Dust motes in the air, a sneeze, a flashlight shining around the darkened room -- threadbare velvet, faded posters, a broken glass box office window.

There hasn't been a movie shown in this theatre in years. It was already closed when you were in Portofiro last, vacant and waiting.

Bad is good, good is bad, and everything is shit. Got it.

If wretched and rancid are good... is 'grandma' an insult or a compliment...?

Also, notably, hidden out of sight in the back somewhere.

It goes: ffffff.

HE HAS DISCOVERED A WAY TO BRIDGE CYNICISM AND EARNESTNESS. THIS METHOD REQUIRES STUDY.

Musicians. Electronic artists.

The sort of people making heavy 9-minute epics with a target audience of mind-altered twenty-somethings.

Who's Karochka?

Afternoon matinee -- plush red carpet, the frosted glass windows of the box office reflecting warm orange light.

That explains the cardboard boxes littering the theatre lobby.

Ooh! Score! Hit a nerve with that one. Dig your little fingers in.

Your vanities are not so different.

Thirty-two.

Grey hairs at twenty-five, a memory of the barber who came in to trim daddy's moustache twice a week... two hours does seem a long time for such a small job...

The realization of yet another carefully maintained lie in a lifetime full of them.

Totally unperturbed by the paranormal.

Genuine appreciation for the old man's resilience, tinged with something like resentment.

Shudder.

THE FATHER HAS FLED. THE SON MUST SERVE PENANCE IN HIS PLACE, A GENETIC WHIPPING BOY.

He's much more comfortable with this line of inquiry.

The muscles in his ropey calves tense visibly.

Run to her.

Impressed and terrified by the lengths you'll go to to get what you want.

The muscles in his ropey calves tense visibly.

Run to her.

And he'll be listening from behind the curtain to whatever you talk about once you get her up again.

He is 100% stealing the imagery of his beloved's freakouts to use in a music video some day.

That's inspiration, baby.

Fear, hope -- and jealousy.

So far, his curiosity hasn't got the better of him. Not if would mean hurting her.

She's his true gäng.

He wants you to tell him that it's not bullshit. He wants it to be real.

Absurd. KINDRED would never have been accepted by the Greenhouse -- she had a hundred disqualifying factors.

Too soft. Too kind.

Weeks, he said. The Weeping Eye had Karolina for weeks.

She may be missing fingers. Toes. Other mutilations hiding under the sarcophagus of scarves and sweaters she's wrapped herself up in.

They took everything from her. Flesh, family. The safety of her own mind.

HE HAS NO REBUTTAL. KINDRED SHALL BE THE FINAL ARBITER OF YOUR DEBATE.

Defensive. Suspicious. Morbidly curious.

An impressive display of dexterity, wasted on an act of utter cringing lameness.

Lights come up. Enter stage left: the attention-starved knave, mugging for any audience.

Karo's dating this dickhead? No. No way.

Supreme Leader Nestor, more often referred to as 'Sweet Nestor' (once earnest, now ironic) was the political leader of Portofiro from 28 to 80, when he was finally exiled for good.

His voice reverberates around the once-grand lobby.

The echoes fill the empty space perversely. It used to be a palace.

You don't lollop. You bound, gracefully, like a whippet or a red hind.

Self-awareness seizes your legs. You wobble, unsure how to distribute your weight.

You could totally pull off a little finger trick like that, if you wanted to.

Karolina's chest rises and falls, her blue, paper-thin eyelids…

Resets