Hook it right up to your pleasure centre, this is the good stuff.

Like you, the eternal stranger. All safehouses, no home.

You are reminded of certain religious teachers of your childhood, who wore traditional silk raiments all year round.

They frequently lost fingers to frostbite in the Mircean winter, and wore their absence like trophies.

A gäng of ten million hearts beating as one.

It's nighttime in Party Alley. The people are out, nothing can keep them away.

Bands of rain continue to move slowly north and east across the region. Walks home expected to be unseasonably melancholic. North wind 5-8 kph, becoming calm after midnight.

Overcast skies incoming, bringing light rain and a strong tendency to see oneself reflected in the environment. Expect gusts up to 20kph.

Patchy fog in the morning expected to burn off yesterday's illusions. Increasing clouds, low near 9 degrees.

It's evening in Party Alley. The people are out, searching for comfort and pleasure.

It's morning in Party Alley. There's almost no one around.

It's midday in Party Alley. The people are going about their shopping.

Describe the ginkyo tree.

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THE WORLD WILL STOP FOR THE VERY THOUGHT OF US

TAKE ME TO THE PEOPLE'S SQUARE CARNATIONS IN YOUR HAIR AT LEAST YOU GET TO KEEP YOUR NAME

Education: University of Landau (Degree incomplete). Course of study: Modern economy (maternal pressure).

Preferred vices, mother: Nicotine, alcohol, 'diet shakes'. No known history of solvent abuse ('low-class').

No references found under 'mother' and 'abuse, physical' ('low-class'). 'Abuse, verbal' contains frequent references to 'withholding affection' and 'withering criticism'.

Speculative freelancing. Your old asset had no authority to make offers on behalf of the Opera.

HE CAN FIND HIS 'IMMUNITY' IN THE LUNAR CADMIUM MINES.

A romantic image drawn from postcards issued by the Tourism Bureau.

Slavering, savouring.

No judgement in his voice. His curiosity is innocent, almost childlike.

You can practically feel the fetid water sloshing about his feet.

Silence pops and hisses on the other end of the line.

Where the Opera would send him, he'll have no need for papers.

You've exchanged the tyranny of history for the tyranny of the spreadsheet. A poor bargain.

FALSE, TECHNO-FASCISTS ARE ALWAYS EASY TO KILL. THE NAMES ARE SIMPLY THE TRUTH OF THEM.

A broad-set man surveys his cards through double-lensed spectacles, whispering to himself as he draws. Agents of the Weeping Eye sit heads bowed around him, waiting for the word of god.

A cleavage you'd do well to remember. There may be something to exploit here.

Fuck that. Grant him one instead.

Trapped between the old reality that created it and the new one it failed to bring about.

... like your unfortunate double, for instance.

A little impressed, a little disturbed.

We would never... would we?

He's leaning against the wall for support, pressing his mouth to the receiver. He stirs the dark water with the tip of his foot.

You can't betray what you don't know.

A dry, barking laugh, it reverberates off the walls of the cell and back into the receiver.

So bitter you can taste it on your own tongue.

It dawns on you that you've delivered the punchline to a cosmic joke only he will understand.

OF COURSE, THERE'S NO DENUNCIATION LIKE SELF-DENUNCIATION.

A name you recognise from your political theory training. A quasi-mythical figure, the first man to describe the ideology now known as techno-fascism, dead 150 years before the invention of the computer chip.

Your would-be asset Ignatz used very similar language.

Somewhere, the sound of a bell muffled by a dishcloth.

THE PARTY SYMPATHISES. THE PROBLEM WITH THE WORKING CLASS IS THAT THEY ARE INSUFFERABLE.

THE EPOCHAL STRUGGLE, THE TRIUMPH OF DIALECTICS OVER HISTORY ITSELF. YOU'RE WELCOME, HUMANITY.

A line from an old communist anthem returns to you, a fragment from your reeducation.

An operant of the cosmic plane.

Only a single face! Embarrassing.

He did not, in fact, mean it.

Why is he fleeing from La Luz?

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You can nearly make out the sound of sloshing water without the irony to muffle it.

AS THE PEOPLE ARE MOVED TO SERVE THE STATE, LIKEWISE SHALL THEY BE MOVED TO SERVE THE STORY. A RARE POINT OF CONCURRENCE.

The motif of dream-instruction recurs periodically throughout Mircean history and culture, most recently as a weight loss fad.

Your mother once tried it to keep her breasts from sagging.

In the storefront of a one-hour photo shop, a middle-aged woman watches as the fax machine ingests a sheet of paper, then thoughtfully regurgitates it. A moment later a second paper comes out, warm from the machine's laser stylus. She compares the two pages with deep suspicion.

Missteps in the chromosomal dance, without which you and everyone else would still be proteins sloshing about in the primordial soup.

A wariness in his voice. Even now he thinks the Weeping Eye may have ears as well.

Tesoro Buendia. To the Operant Bureau he is the Hundred-Eyed Golem. To La Luz he is the Chief of the Weeping Eye.

An urgent question bubbles to the top of our mind.

A VISION OF HYPERKITSCH, TO BE RESISTED ON POLITICAL, MORAL, AND AESTHETIC GROUNDS.

Ejected from a helicopter over the Noscorrentes.

SOMETIMES THE PEOPLE NEED A VULGAR EXPRESSION OF POWER. FOR THEIR HEALTH.

Any recordings of the event would become highly sought collectibles for certain segments of regime insiders.

He phrases it like he's asking if you'll be over for tea next week. It doesn't hide his desperation.

Syllables -- mangled. Something in his mouth?

As with anything that talks in this city, it is emblazoned with the blue Renotel logo.

Suddenly, so quiet that it's almost imaginary, a muffled pounding answers from the other side.

You already have a name for him, even if it's a fraudulent one.

The outline begins to ripple with colours, gestures, tones. The viscera of voice and name.

You can practically feel the gaffer up in the rigging, guiding the spotlight along your path.

Where is that 'subeditor'? When is she going to spring the trap?

No way out but through. The deal. You're here for the deal.

Something you probably should've figured out before now.

EMTERR, a.k.a. L'Empire sans Territoire, a.k.a. 'The Bank'. Equal parts global development fund and spy service. Linchpin of the Developed World.

THE BLOODY HAND OF TRANSNATIONAL CAPITAL.

His seething anger appears genuine. No false notes in his voice.

We contain mültitüdes.

Here it is, the side deal. First of several, potentially.

There could be yet another angle here. It may be TAXMAN was planning to sell out his new friend at first opportunity.

Wait. A discrepancy, like a false note.

'Extremely rare'. Tingle along arm hairs.

A detail the girl Yana conveniently left out. You need to confront her about this.

The girl Yana is withholding sacred Luzian artifacts from you! This cannot stand.

Is this the sound of the trap springing?

Nothing but the empty space he once deformed.

No sound of movement above, just drops dripping.

At the base of your skull, a tickle in your brainstem.

Who is Facundo Reyes?

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HALBERD: Zeroed out, 71. ████████: Declared 'null entity', 74. SEDIMENT: Zeroed out, 76. VAPOUR: Lost, 81. COMFORT: Zeroed out, 86.

THE BANKER AND THE SECRET POLICEMAN IN PASSIONATE, TONGUE-HEAVY EMBRACE. THE PEOPLE'S STOMACH TURNS.

Enough chatter. Get out of this place while you're still able.

You can practically hear the fetid water sloshing about his feet.

A shift in his tone. Barely disguised concern.

Underneath his speechifying you detect a melancholic tinge, a shadow on the mirror's surface.

Twenty stories below the surface of Novessa, the double-time click-clack of practical heels down a long hallway. On the desk of a high ranking Opera official, an amber light blinks.

A shiver of electromagnetic interference.

Amidst the violent buzz of fluctuating electrical signals you sense the presence of nearby power lines, servomotors, and radio emitters.

The edges of your eyes begin to burn. Pooling at the back of your mouth, an unpleasant taste... petroleum?

Vanish. Now!

Disappear without a trace.

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We're dead-ended! The gäng sends its regards!

Tactical misfire -- always leave yourself a clean exit.

Hemmed in. Not even a shadow to hide under.

More background radiation than man.

Another piece of the outline begins to fill itself with colour and detail.

You picture your interlocutor, ankle-deep in dirty water, less than a metre away. He's not used to standing this long. He rests his arm atop the intercom's cool metal.

Your mind hums. Your inner eye awakens.

The way he pronounces the name tells you there's no love lost there.

Don't let his evasions and insinuations throw you off course. The deal. You're here for the deal.

A knot of tension forms between your eyes. Once again you're a step behind.

Even through the distorted connection, you can feel him weighing his next words.

No, it still matters a great deal. This little corner of the outline refuses to be filled in for now.

Hook it right up to your pleasure centre, this is the good…

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