It wasn't us. We plead not guilty, officer.

The big man was dozing off. Now he's trying to cover it up with a vulgar display of authority.

All traces of fear, gone.

The boy who shouldn't be, looking at the girl you sold.

Does he remind you of her? Another victim of techno-fascist wizardry, not here of his own volition.

He wants mömmy too?

His voice breaks. The audible beat of a shattered heart.

Which the Operant Bureau will definitely not approve as a professional expense.

A new belonging.

Expression unreadable, as if you've caught her on the fringes of a dream.

This isn't working. Try using that console.

This isn't working. You need to work out what the machinery is doing.

Wrong. Mad. Evil.

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.

Ignore the weird aesthetic stuff -- she's cracked everything open and put it back together. It's all heavily modified!

Try the console on the other side.

Not a chance that this is just bootlegging equipment. Look at all this power, this sheer monstrous energy! It's cooking something awesome.

Hidden in the shade of Saint Erentudris' Basilica, three streets away and five years early to your appointment with a bullet.

A snorkel to messier, louder, brighter worlds. Maybe you'd have never left Mircea without them.

As the minutes pass, you catch yourself scanning the surroundings. Lamp posts, trash cans, flower planters...

You miss them all terribly, for a moment. Or maybe you miss being lost among them.

EIGHTY-TWO OUT OF EIGHTY-THREE NEIGHBOURHOOD COUNCILS VOTED IN FAVOUR OF CITY-WIDE SECURITY MEASURES. THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE MERELY APPROVED.

The interconnected parts of you loosen, melting into the bench, until every sensation tells you that you have become one creature with the wood.

People float by in the distance, trams rattle overhead, but all you care about is how your spine seems to be rippling with ease.

Marks to be revered from seating many people over the years.

Hush as it falls.

Inevitable yet strangely crushing.

The bomb vibrates happily in your hands.

The bomb sure does.

Your lips move, muscle memory. You know this song. You know the next line...

You feel chalk dust settle over you.

A few seconds later, you hear it crash.

He decorates the word 'song' with a wiggle of his fingertips.

Thump, thump, thump -- your arteries, or a bassline? It's hard to tell the difference, but something thrums through your body, a vibration from deep within the walls.

INSIDIOUS IMPERIALISM. TODAY, THE SOFT POWER -- TOMORROW, THE HARD.

The sight reminds you of a set of stairs descending into the dark of the basement.

Still -- it'd be ballsy. They've been left out in the open.

THE SO-CALLED DEVELOPED WORLD EASING IT IN WITHOUT CONSENT.

Trafficked and then violated. Sick world we're in, Herschen.

Under your fingertips, cellophane wrapping gives way to cardstock.

Top-shelf tobacco. There's at least 500 sol worth of cigarettes in this crate.

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

You're going to have to smoke it with the sun in your eyes. You're going to have to live.

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

So, technically: no.

No need to overthink this. This task doesn't require actual poetic talent, only the skilful mimicry that is your stock-and-trade.

Your character is a woman chronically obsessed with her own pain, a cripple, almost, but one who filters it all through an engine of language.

Probable cause: high-stress.

It screams: 'DANGER, NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION.'

All true, none of it useful just now.

Checks