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This must be the party vendor the GM mentioned -- the one whose father has gone missing.

This must be the girl the kids by the TV mentioned -- the one whose father was eaten by a payphone.

Ramses said he'll need 'around half a day' to capture anything significant.

Ramses said he'll need 'half a day' to capture anything significant.

A paragraph from his red folder flashes redder across your mind: '... POSSESSING A MONSTROUS INTELLIGENCE THAT RESTS ON HALLUCINATORY LOGICAL CONSTRUCTION.'

Rumour has it that an old vending machine in Lower Viudas once sold anonymous murder confessions to anyone willing to pay ten sol.

'FOR CASCADE ALL WILL BE FORGIVEN'

Some memories warp and bend with handling, but not this one. Dissimulate and dissociate all you like, it doesn't change anything.

There's nothing in the filing cabinet on this. Did you misplace that folder?

A telephone from five years ago startles in its cradle, waking you from the thin end of a dream.

The instructions were very clear: 'Party Alley, West Side.' It's for you.

The site of the failed launch.

The Pitol Tract was the site of Portofiro's aborted space program.

In fact, you haven't heard it since you got here.

You dust off and briefly consult your topographical maps of the Teenage Psychosphere. It remains as wondrous and enigmatic as you left it.

A far too familiar gesture -- something grinds and sparks against the inside of your skull.

The teen with the scarf. Though you recall him as more scarf than teen...

Ouroboros Black. Tempo's brand.

''Gunshot victim D, long-range penetration. Anterior left chest entry wound w/ surrounding burning stain. No exit. Extraction impossible without death.'

... In the hot tub. You have half of the crime in your pocket right now.

Bad news. He has.

Eno -- her father's name. You saw it in the document you read in the filing cabinet.

To Eszti's right -- a man with a familiar mop of upstanding hair.

You watched her over the university courtyard, waited until she parted from a group of friends. You recognised her from the dossier -- the daughter of Dr Abe, head of the sleep study.

Ash on a black fur collar. Piercing blue eyes through smoke, a laugh that could turn wicked.

You've seen these before. Smoked them before. This was Tempo's brand.

All true, none of it useful just now.

Suprema 100s. Cheap Superbloc export.

Length of time he's been waiting for you to walk through the door: unknown.

Tempo used to swill the coffee around his mouth, then spit it back with a muttered 'mierda de cerdo'.

A chime echoes somewhere in the back of your memory... 'Re-no-tel'.

Your short-term memory is being severely tested. Fried, even.

The day the leaves fall from the ginkyo is a day of transformation -- he told you himself.

The result of non-competitive bidding and a bit of self-dealing on the part of the city's governing elite.

Your obsessions and secret passions have saved you more than once, and may yet again.

If the words of the old Luzian prisoner are true, you have days, not weeks.

Scenes flash against the bedsheet screen of your mind -- framed in the same red veinage as the book's cover.

Some tossed off dregs involving space shamans and deals with ascended beings.

It was you who taught him the cigarette trick in the first place. The Opera speaks to itself.

The shrine lacks the sacred air of Mircean churches you knew as a child -- it is an organic thing, maintained by locals of their own volition.

All past entries pertaining to Operant CASCADE are stamped with the words 'NOT MY FAULT'. Twice.

So this rumour about Luzian 'imprints' goes back at least a generation.

Your old haunt. Where you met with your former assets, once upon an assignment.

It must be said there's no mention of a 'Fogged Mirror' in the files. It almost certainly holds no deep personal or professional significance for you whatsoever.

You realise you have seen no dogs in Portofiro.

A.k.a. 'The Freezer'. The Opera's labyrinthine archival complex. Where the old, useless, and discredited are consigned until they're dismissed or die of despair.

Five years, three months, ten days. That's how long it's been since her voice was in your ear.

It's the metal stripper. The one who urged you to come down here.

If what you're looking for is still down here, it must be on the other side.

'He's no one. Just a seedy little oddity'.

159 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 2 of 4