He knows full well you wouldn't be here that were an option.

He works himself up into a bout of romantic fervour with practiced ease.

Fresh blood vessels pop in his eyes.

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

Before he was insane, but sure of himself. Now he's in uncharted territory even by his own measurement.

A labcoat splattered with blood both new and old.

Fresh veins pop in his red eyes. You can almost see the neurons shorting.

There's got to be some other way to assuage his paranoia than assaulting an actual child.

A relic from the military coup in Mircea.

No hesitation. No stutter. Entrusted to the dieties of the wound.

OUR AGRARIAN UTOPIA WILL HAVE NO NEED OF DOCTORS -- LET HIM SELF-PURGE.

Coiled. Fingering the safety latch.

A noose around his neck. A labcoat splattered with blood both new and old.

His left foot twitches in anticipation of the jump.

Description matches the fidgety teenage boy spoken to outside. Emphatically not an asset of any sort.

A vision of a future stillborn.

Big rocket go big boom-boom.

A few months, at most, after EMTERR offered Portofiro the chance to develop their own space program -- and the funds to do so.

Everyone else simply assumes they have one.

Stage separation events and plum signatures were observed fourteen times above Luzian airspace in the past decade alone.

For the people of Portofiro, the stars receded; austerity remained their orbit.

TRANSNATIONAL CAPITAL DOESN'T GET THE LAST LAUGH, IT GETS THE LAST INVOICE.

After the rocket exploded live on the world's television screens, Sweet Nestor made bold televised speeches blaming 'foreign hands'. By the time he boarded the helicopter that would ferry him to exile, he'd accused at least half the Developed World of engineering the disaster.

If the story were that simple, Hauzmann would have no interest in it.

If the story were that simple, the heartless man would have no interest in it.

Historical figures never live up to the tyranny of the mundane.

She rubs the card between her discerning thumb and forefinger.

She's about to tell you something awful.

Same age as you were when you were shot in the chest.

No sympathy.

And now she has macrame.

Riled, not yet convinced. Keep pushing, make her believe you're capable of this.

The Weeping Eye have defeated her without even laying a finger on her.

Again. Harder. She needs to believe you've got it in you.

She pats her left hand dry on the tea towel hanging from the cupboard. There are tiny little daisies on it.

The moment crystallises. The world is empty save for you and your enemy.

A stoic drunk. Tourniquetting the slur with sheer concentration.

Your would-be asset Ignatz wasn't far off. All's not right in the enemy camp.

Imprint-on-imprint violence. You're in the middle of an old mind attacking itself.

What was that about a 'body double'?

In the background you can hear the sound of machinery and men hurling masculine insults at each other as cargo is hauled from ship to shore.

A cargo boat brushes gently against the canal. The smell of fuel oil hangs heavy in the air.

Raindrops gather on the wreckage overhead.

You see a haze of coloured light, dark figures moving within.

You hear laughter and music ahead.

Certain deaths can't help but take on a metaphorical quality.

It's like a brushfire. You can almost smell the animal panic as the jungle goes up in flames.

Dust and carbon paper flakes dance in the circle of light.

The galleries in Satellite Facility B were similar. Vast swaths of human knowledge, packed and ordered by esoteric means.

Checks