The words circled beneath the doctor's signature return to you.

Silken web of awareness, holding dark tides in place.

It's at this moment, as the Paleolithic huntress pinches shut the great aurochs' lower intestine with one hand while with the other she expertly slices the hide around the anus from without, that the boundary is suddenly and fatally crossed. 'What am I doing here?' her brain asks in her own voice, as her head falls back and the terrible weight of sentience descends on her with a roar.

According to gäng, shit is positively school-like.

The ur-controllers. Vast, omniscient, orchestrating the entire human drama.

Of course, some possess this to a greater degree than others.

Say it.

For a moment he seems to consider his reflection in the bottom of the tiny glass.

Collapsing the mind's conscious defences in order to channel raw cosmos into human language.

The old spy's grey eyes flash like light reflecting off a rifle scope.

Board tilting. Your favour.

Lightly, like an artefact he's both drawn to and afraid of.

Oh god, it's another stairs-related task coming on.

Also visible: A micro-compact auto pistol and a blister pack of statins.

... a whoosh of blood between your ears...

... a shapeless figure twisting in darkness...

You know the next words. You've been hearing them since you got here.

The voice speaking these words, it's not entirely natural.

Like something inside has seized control of his vocal cords. A speaking puppet.

No-no-no. Keep away.

A solitary anchorite in a cell of aluminium and carbon fibre, 400,000 kilometres above the world.

Massive fail. Total gäng wipe.

High-pitched, dissonant. A sound that compels you to stop it.

By the wall, the magic box chirrups in response. A warning tone, indicating an unstable connection.

The machines are talking about you all.

You can feel your own sanity pulling away from you, as though on the cusp of a black hole, stretching, spinning...

An insane thought flits across your consciousness, to be kept absolutely to yourself.

... wet, silent, like a fish behind glass...

Dust motes hang in the stale air. Unbound stars drifting in space.

His face. Vision of pale horror.

A man with access to more of humanity's secrets than nearly anyone, and yet the simple pleasure of a good pop song eludes him.

You mark a distinct change in the old spy's demeanour. Gone are the cryptic circumlocutions and knowing flourishes. For once, you're on the same page.

He's in unfamiliar seas here. It's your lights he'll navigate by.

Savour this moment. One of the old ones of your craft is asking for your opinion.

From the window you can hear the sound of two people laughing out on Orphanage Street.

Not a weapon, a tool of psychic eviction, a means to disinhabit the soul.

A MEANS TO POISON THE ENEMY'S POLITICAL ECOLOGY.

Yes, what this was all about -- the Grand Lich's time of arrival.

It sounds so pitifully small now -- 'your thing'.

A fresh appraisal. Impressed.

Probability of a future encounter: 0.000006%. Then again, the odds of your trajectories intersecting as they did were far lower.

Nothing facetious in his tone there.

Fully charged now. The world's first augmentoid hyper-spy.

One of the shadow-world's ancient deities preparing to slip back into the black sea beneath a starless night.

Poor, dead Dante's words confirmed. The Lich will come.

Confirming Dante's words -- a small consolation for your unexpected fumble.

Confirming what Dante told you. No doubt left, then. The Lich will come.

He doesn't actually think it's 'bon' -- it's one of the strangest things he's heard in his long, strange life.

No judgment -- only the curiosity of a navigator asking another about her compass.

In Mircea you knew only cold and austere churches of fine stone, all consecrated to the One Indivisible God.

An emergency venting cycle; motors spinning down. The device is trying to adjust to an unexpected baseline.

The world is huge, and strange, and it is flirting with him. He is pondering the offer.

It's not about contact, it's about scale. If the universe can sustain that much empty space without collapsing, you can take another hour in your own skin.

There is no correlation between mental petitions and the fusion of distant bodies. Praying is a recursive loop.

The air is heavy, your chest tight. You've been holding your breath for approximately an eternity.

... mouthing the shapes of the words that fill your ears...

The skin -- clammy, coarse.

A warning.

'YOU BUT FROM A DREAM'. The words on the red disc that was unceremoniously stripped from you.

'YOU BUT FROM A DREAM'. The words on the red disc.

Referring to your obvious lie.

La la la. What's the old man on about? You can't hear anything.

ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO PRIVATISE THAT WHICH PROPERLY BELONGS TO THE STATE.

Of course, the Operant Bureau's psychomancers share the same interest. They just call it 'Conditioning'.

'Borders are illusions. Everything looks back.' That's their motto.

His information was good once before. There's no reason to think it won't be again.

First, bait. Now, trap.

In your mind's eye riffles a deck of faces, regular people, people with modest apartments and pensions, every single one of them disposable.

A senior aide with a mistress he's committed to an asylum for her own protection. A secretary who's been indiscreet with certain carbon copies. An old torturer for the Weeping Eye who was photographed taking an envelope from someone he shouldn't have.

Can you say the same?

A desolate spit of land on the edge of the city-state. Formerly the site of Portofiro's doomed space program.

A long, dark, sexy tunnel built on top of a worthless old village. Progress, baby!

Including in gymnasiums across the former Republic of Mircea. Regular class cancelled for the occasion.

FLIRTATIONS WITH CAPITAL ALWAYS LEAD TO UNWANTED PREGNANCIES: DEBT AND COMPOUND INTEREST.

The Bank's propaganda mob.

Bottom-feeders of the secret world. Making a small-time trade of stale information.

He's not seriously suggesting...

A devious species of lie: The entries are there but forbidden from circulation. Falsehoods and misperceptions enforced by phalanxes of smiling lawyers.

A flawless timepiece of coordination and execution. Take notes.

Above you, the last visible stars dissolve in the dawn-light. Elsewhere, the bark of a small dog muffled by a window.

Blood nearby. A kill to be made.

Crackling tree squirrel impaled on a spit. Savoury smoke rising into the night. The Paleolithic huntress turns her gaze upwards.

You feel that subcranial itch coming on, the one that longs to draw little lines between the glowing dots inside your head, until your mind smiles at the picture that emerges.

The sign for the ritual of death to begin.

Time. Place. Weapon. Squad. One-fourth of your plot in hand.

A shame. A good weather report's harder to produce than it looks.

He doesn't know, but he has suspicions he's not prepared to share yet.

... more than 50 known political prisoners, a number of priceless works from the Museo Moderno...

A spiraling column of amber and green lights, twenty stories deep, pulsing as one.

Strange man. Strange wishes. Strange destination.

Oh boy, you're finally going to get your steps in!

You brought that one on yourself.

Above you, uncountable stars veiled by the scattering of blue light. Elsewhere, the bark of a small dog muffled by a window.

Above you, the evening's first stars blink into life. Elsewhere, the bark of a small dog muffled by a window.

Above you, a canyon of stars, framed by the buildings of the Housing Campaign. Elsewhere, the bark of a small dog muffled by a window.

He remembers every betrayal, every expression of horror when his target hears the mental click of the cage-door locking behind them.

Information has a half-life. At all times, windows close. Seize what is there.

A cost-benefit analysis. The probability of determining the why of him is near zero. Conversely, the utility of him is high.

He's not a puzzle. He's a lever.

To 'shake the Hand of Fate' is to die, in this part of the world.

Gentle electronic tones rise and recede from it like the tide against a digital beach.

Who is this man?

modifier +1gates.IsFlagSetgates.IsFlagNotSet

There are old reports of a botched naval blockade in 69. Eastern Republics -- a friendly fire incident. Tenuous, but failure has a cost.

A name whispered among tutors and veterans, invoked like a demon from a lost mythology.

The posture remains yet the gravity in the air thickens.

Suprema 100. Like the ones your double brought.

THIS NON-MAN IS UNWORTHY OF THE PEOPLE'S TAR.

Suprema 100. Smoked by tens of millions across the People's Republics.

A name passes through your skull like a ghost, a shiver on its tail.

Whatever happened in 69, it must have to do with that box. Maybe it's not just a medical necessity. Maybe it's something more.

Predator smell. Sharp. Outgrew his cage.

Whatever happened in 69, it may not have had anything to do with him at all.

That's because you're not speaking with a man, you're speaking with an augmentoid.

DISREGARD THE NON-ENTITY. PREVIOUS EFFORTS WERE SO 'HOT' THE PARTY GRANTED YOU FIVE YEARS IN THE FREEZER TO 'COOL YOUR JETS'.

That was merely a test-run, proto-gäng. Now's the one that counts.

An uncanny buzz in the air, as though a director might pop out of any one of those doorways, yelling 'Cut!'.

But no one jumps out of anything. No one appears to fix your hair or tell you exactly what to say. It's just you, the man with the box for a heart, and a few metres off, the maintenance man going about his lonely offices.

The strange fax. The one that was waiting for you at Foto 24.

A bead of cold sweat slides down your back, whispering 'no'.

You're not really about to spill your guts to a null entity, are you?

He's not a null entity, he's our number-one fan!

You haven't yet emerged from the fog of sodium thiopental. There's no deflecting just now.

Wow! This truth sauce is strong. Hahaha! But ooohh, should you really be saying all this?

Face it, gäng is döömed.

WHY ARE YOU SPILLING THE PEOPLE'S SECRETS TO A NULL ENTITY HAHAHA OH IT'S THE LUNAR CADMIUM MINES FOR YOU.

A note of genuine disappointment. He wishes he could think better of his former employer.

An unplumbed abyss, haunted by strange and incomprehensible monsters.

A brief reminder that you don't know anything about this man.

The girl. The paper heart.

You know your role, operant. Play it.

Cue your main theme -- synth-driven, with a few woodwinds and an upright bass tossed in for organic effect.

Spoken like an old coach haunting the edge of a pitch.

Grounded, wet trail, retreated into his shell... not bad at all.

A phantom itch. He's scratching at something that hasn't happened yet.

A brief sniff. Total lack of interest.

B diminished. Phantasmal. Soul rattling.

Disturbingly topical.

Enough said.

THE PUNISHMENT FOR DESERTION IN-THEATRE IS REASSIGNMENT TO THE LUNAR CADMIUM MINES.

Your inner ear fills with the groans of ancient machinery, hydraulic mechanisms, your nostrils with the smell of exhaust and heavy fuel oils.

A place where the gäng can do gäng-stuff undisturbed.

One must think of multi-tiered privileges. Access granted or withheld via radio wave. Most likely off-the-shelf.

You had all the pieces, you only needed to slot them together.

A damaged heart, longing to redeem itself.

A fevered mind, desperate to order the world around it.

A tool for a task, nothing more or less.

Another plaything of the stars, impelled by processes beyond its comprehension.

He's slightly baffled by your timing. That leaves him open for a follow-up.

You could ask about his motivations -- casually, as he asked about yours.

Tempo was laying low from the Weeping Eye, not EMTERR. It would be very bad news if both the Operant Bureau's ancient enemies were mixed up in this.

Everything you know has directed you to the Bazaar thus far. Doesn't exactly scream The Bank.

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.

Nothing at all, like a bell struck in a vacuum.

The Weeping Eye -- La Luz's secret police. The dark subconscious of the state.

La Luz. Once a powerful empire, now reconstituted as a modern techno-fascist state, the rising military and cultural power of the day.

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.

The Luzian high caste known to be a box of scorpions. Internal elimination virtually assured.

The genius loci, rising to speak.

Like the fresh scent of stone after rain.

And no one else to attest to what he saw. Over years the memory has smudged into dream.

In other words, he was in three places simultaneously, each separated by thousands of kilometres. A physical impossibility, unless...

Comically vague. Very little to work with.

A message to the world's intelligence agencies.

A tinge of respect, beneath the bruised ego.

He can't be serious. The gastrointestinal system isn't designed to make those kinds of call.

He relishes the thought. He thinks it's funny.

Just like Ignatz said.

Scent of marked territory. What can be pissed on can be possessed.

Defector accounts confirm Buendia favours a hands-on approach to counter-intelligence. No foreign network, including yours, collapses without his say.

Director-General of the Weeping Eye.

An effulgent burst of colours, the blast passing through buildings, turning bodies to particulate matter.

A mix of emotions in his voice.

The dialectic assumes a predictable trajectory. It does fail to account for one thing.

Marginally impressed.

Spoken like an artist admiring a rival's technique.

No playful jab, no implied wink. He doesn't know you met her.

He's not implying anything. Just lean in.

The PR Lävendi -- the less socially developed neighbour of the PR Kohila.

Money. Power. King with no crown.

THE ONLY PARTY GAMES RECOGNISED IN THE SUPERBLOC ARE PURGES AND SHOW TRIALS.

THERE WAS AN ALTERNATIVE: TO RID THEMSELVES OF CAPITAL AND PROPERTY. THE LUZIAN BOURGEOIS FOUND BLOOD MYTHS PREFERABLE.

Basic tradecraft: if the mark is focused on the shiny coin in your hand, they won't feel the left slipping a wire around their neck.

Renotel -- the dolphin payphones. Invisible courier of the city.

Reno. One of Portofiro's most successful vulture capitalists. Major beneficiary of EMTERR's privatisation schemes.

No attempt at deception here.

And opens his memory house. An old remembrancer's trick.

A name he'll never answer to again.

A tiny knife twists in your chest. The less said about 'red folders', the better.

A question your controller would surely second.

A small comfort: he did not address you by name.

The Subcomandante's 'metaphysical superweapon' is useless, unless.... could it be he's found a way to reconstruct the red disc?

You dimly remember seeing his signature yellow posters plastered around the city. They probably have his call-in number on them.

Strange. Somehow you do know where his studio is, despite having never been there before.

Wait, you don't actually know where his studio is... do you?

The Operant Bureau concurs with the null entity. You are not actually considering this.

A shimmer across your field of vision, or was that the television screen?

Through the television screen, his eyes meet yours.

No one is suggesting that he's watching you through the TV screen, that's ridiculous. The raised hairs along your arm must have some other, more mundane cause.

Dubious cryptonym. Likely self-assigned.

Obviously making a commentary of sorts.

Like a dead octopus smothered and forgotten about.

It should be said that you've never seen this man before in your life.

This man must be part of our welcoming committee. The gäng's legend spreads far and wide!

Your stomach tightens. Predator. Caution.

You might still be able to play this off.

Play it off.

modifier +1

Null entity, the Operant Bureau's preferred name for those it would rather forget.

His shirt is very ugly, it must be said.

Perhaps a kind of social scramble pattern.

There's no threat behind his words. He's simply describing the objective state of things.

Out of the corner of your eye, on one of the little rounded tables, you notice someone's left an old sausage, casing black and blistered, pool of grease congealing around it.

The cost of a new set of tyres.

Or a compact pistol.

Knowledge, exactly what you're lacking just now.

THE PARTY GIVES PRECISELY ACCORDING TO THE PEOPLE'S NEEDS AND NOT ONE IOTA MORE.

A little shiver runs down your spine and gathers in the small of your back.

Continue, he's saying.

Resets