Don't listen to her. Fuck archives.

Our man needs to suck it up and learn to dissociate like us. Teach him, sis.

He blows as hard as he can against the world, but it blows back a thousand times harder.

The warmth in her voice dipped, only for a moment.

A name from legend. A mythical creature.

Yes, yes! Sniff her, taste her, need her smells.

A trace of concern. Lean into it.

A remarkable mirage. If your paths ever cross, this woman could prove useful.

YOU ARE BEING LULLED BY A SIREN.

The magic phone, in your room... Her knight, her sword, her lover returned...

In and out, in and out of the machine's insatiable whirling jaws...

CASCADE, hero of all mankind!

A fundamentally flawed, but potent machine.

On the hidden side of the sun, a polar radiation storm congeals.

Or maybe that's just your vision burning prismatic at its folding edges.

The artist has broken the boundaries of the panel to traverse time and space, the Hombre slithering through a chiarascuro dreamscape.

He wants to transcend suspicion and lies. And if everything's fucked anyway, what harm is there in trying?

A click, a woman in a rented apartment picks up a ringing phone. On the other side, a man with a deep voice utters words that will make her consider ending her life tonight.

Voiceless, limbs tied to a chair, both eyes pushed all the way in. Frantically, they trace the word 'help' on the roof of their mouth with what remains of their tongue.

The words sing above the quiet hum of the machines in the room. They ascend through the ceiling, past the clouds that line the world, entering a realm lit perenially by the shimmer of godbeams.

For most people, this would be a severe blow to their confidence. But not you -- a professional shit-taker.

Wow. A mega-blow. An all-in-one Hershel-ender.

You're not equipped to deal with this kind of blow. There's no controlling how this makes you feel.

Where have you heard of The Civilisation Trust?

There's more to it than that. Having a break wasn't her choice.

An obscure pleasure, one only accessible to sensitive minds.

A single missed thread in the neat chain at the hem.

You're going to have to take his word for it.

Underground caverns filled floor-to-ceiling with cultivation beds, fat larvae munching on mulberry leaves.

Whistling a new melody into existence. A dance step in the mud. The rasp of a hand-plane against cedar. Wonders yet unmapped.

Your old double has been known to have an unsettling effect on certain people.

Superstitious at heart, you can almost see the shivers run down his spine as you stray into weird metaphysical territory.

Who is Hershel Wilk? What is techno-fascism? Is squirt piss?

Smoke unfurls from his nostrils, like an ancient dragon.

Women trained to elicit joy, to be polite and obliging, to please. It genuinely does nothing for him.

His eyes acquire a ceramic-like quality. Brightly dead, impenetrable.

Beyond the walls of the dingy bar, the city breathes.

The image forces its way back to you -- the man's unblinking, obsessive stare, while on the bed Ramses convulsed uncontrollably.

Massive? That's the second time you've heard about a majestic woman with a gigantic form. You must find out more.

You ran right into that one.

You are reminded of a ripe cherry tomato, about to burst between thumb and forefinger.

Infused with transcendant meaning, somewhere between a symbol and the thing it represents, the junior negotiator's conception of the gap escapes definition.

She's concerned, but she knows his limits.

Voice somehow constricted, as though some heavy object really were pressing down on her chest.

A pseudo-language stretching back centuries, cobbled together from imperial slang and colonial patois. You first learned of its existence after joining the Opera.

A FETISHISTIC RESIDUE OF OUR ENEMIES' PAST, BACK WHEN THEY OWNED LAND -- AND PEOPLE.

A possible rendezvous. Actionable intelligence.

A poorly conceived, underbaked hodgepodge of old and modern Developed World languages -- mostly from Mircea and Ile-de-Söze.

'Tomorrow night'. A battle arena.

A tremor in his voice. Like a kid addressing his crush.

Checks