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574 checks

The axis of the world inverts on half-muttered sentences.

A gäng of ten million hearts beating as one.

You catch the scent of iron on the breeze.

Right. The young watcher.

Something you missed.

At the Greater Quisach Gymnasium, the bell rings three times: Recreation Period is over. The children file back into the building covered in peeling plaster. The grey play-yard is empty.

There is a correct answer, but neither of you know what it is.

There's another Melita, she thinks, looking at the same form but filling it in differently. She wishes she were that Melita.

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

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

The machines are talking about you all.

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.

A MEANS TO POISON THE ENEMY'S POLITICAL ECOLOGY.

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

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

Can you say the same?

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.

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

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

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

The genius loci, rising to speak.

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.

A wistful lover, content to gaze upon beauty without ever touching it.

Fantasies he'll never follow through on.

She attempts to smile on the last word, an unnatural twitch like broken clockwork.

Not him too. Everybody's woo woo.

A flash of annoyance in her expression.

Nor for you, either. You've made her just like you.

She touches a hand to the wounds on her chest.

It's not climbing fast, but it is climbing.

Warm cottage cheese dragged through battery acid.

A twitch under his eye. He masks it with anger but there is real upset there.

Acid sildenafil.

You don't have conclusive proof he was not like that, at any rate.

Must be some kind of mystical euphemism.

Definitely arousal.

Is that... arousal?

Maybe you are a board narc?

No you're not, she wanted it bad.

We're definitely more believable than that wet drunk.

She outsmarted the Bank. She may be a pain but she is undeniably skilled.

Because she doesn't know what to say.

The intensity in her gaze changes colour. A subtle new hue eats into the trembling edges of her dilated pupils that you haven't seen before and can't quite name.

Her jaw slackens, her face seems strange. All the little muscles that form her usual expression have been abandoned in fear.

She's just playing hard to get.

Gears spinning behind her eyes. Systems on high alert.

574 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 11 of 12