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A young man stares at the advertisement, dry-mouthed. Between his legs he can feel the stirring of a novel infatuation.

Maybe it's already happened.

Sealed within the penthouse suite of a central hotel in Cicatriz Frontera, a girl looks up from her keyboard, caught unawares by a ripple of strange sadness.

You don't mind.

Blue heat, shaking in the boundless dark. The edges turn purple, widen. A moment of shivering anticipation before the soundless boom. Another dead star.

A loose bolt whines on the hull of a submarine, L-45 Class. Bioluminescent monsters swarm toward the sound, a flashing stream of wet greed.

At your fingertips, more than a dozen. A collector of false lives, burned onto false mirrors of polycarbonate. What are you saving them for?

Stiff limbs, orange suit. The tiny cosmonaut sees the world from between two large fangs resting wet and loving on either side of his head.

Five feet above your head, the bedroom window. Glass still bearing the dots and lines of bedtimes past, her fingers tracing a map of stars to guide the little ones to sleep.

An index finger hammers on the mouse. One click, and time jumps forward by exactly one minute.

Voices chanting and singing -- words learned out of spite. The sound of Nestor's window slamming shut. He looks down over them, watching from behind a half-drawn curtain.

It is imbued with its history. Psychic receptors bristle at something that is not quite a scent but is burned forever into the object.

The monkey calls out faintly in this strange place. His fingers are cold against the metal bars, he is blind in the dark.

Monaxial Intelligence and Hermetic Operations.

Submerged, dissolved. There is nothing to return.

Obsidian, reflective, a pool of blood spills out beneath a mound of broken concrete. The sound of a keyboard comes from somewhere within, stuck on a diminished C.

The sickly-green horizon of the Noscorrentes Sea encircles the lonely radio vessel 360 degrees.

His nails are white with the force he uses to grip the rifle. His gaze is fixed on the dark line of grit beneath them. Brown or red? Dirt or blood?

His fellow patriots were killed in the street, or by sniper's bullets. A few of their bodies are still in the compound behind him.

The rebel hero lies on the ground, haloed in red, a smile on his face. He knows his sacrifice will not be in vain -- he was able to inspire people to follow him in life, and so too in death, his voice will carry.

Somewhere down the line is a makeshift switchboard with six phones manned by six bored assets. One of those assets is listening in on this call.

The Housing Campaign, bathed in purple light. A man in a brown jacket and no pants looks up into the face of an angel. She regards him with radiant indifference.

Her eyes reflect the glow of the terminal screen. She's been at her desk for fourteen hours today.

A woman glides upside down, chanting. The sun revolves outside the window.

Spring morning. The girl tugs her father's hand. She presses her nose against the cool glass. A double-deck commuter train, 1/160 scale, rattles across a miniature country scene.

Afternoon matinee -- plush red carpet, the frosted glass windows of the box office reflecting warm orange light.

In a small recording studio deep in the Housing Campaign, a man slips his arms into an old military-style coat. He pops a tablet of pure L-theanine. On the desk nearby, a brown paper bag, reinforced with ultra-thin foil, waits for the head that will unleash its power.

A five-year-old girl in oversized sunglasses taps a tiny hand on her knee in perfect time with the backbeat -- emanating like a homily from the car speaker.

Somewhere in a designer hotel, a bleach-clean prison where she waits for her one-way trip to the moon, a twenty-one year-old pop sensation feels a chill, followed by a sudden, uncontrollable bout of nausea.

The paleolithic huntress exhales as she fondles the precious river stone, the primal superstition inside her calmed -- for the moment.

The paleolithic huntress exhales as she fondles the precious river stone, the primal superstition inside her calmed -- for the moment.

The paleolithic huntress exhales as she fondles the precious river stone, the primal superstition inside her calmed -- for the moment.

The paleolithic huntress exhales as she fondles the precious river stone, the primal superstition inside her calmed -- for the moment.

Somewhere beneath the Noscorrentes Sea, a bloated body turns to face the sky.

Somewhere within the warren-like streets of Lower Viudas, an old man pulls a pelota cap over his face and ducks into a neon-lit bookmakers.

At the bottom of a hidden jail, a trembling old man turns and looks at the blank space where a window should be.

Photons propelled through silver halide gelatine, nothing but the momentary flash of a false star.

Operants of the Psychic Wars!

He doesn't move -- but you swear you feel the gentle weight of a hand upon yours.

The corners of the mouth vibrate pathetically against the rags that stuff it, gagging the scream in its throat.

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.

A shimmer across your field of vision, or was that the television screen?

42 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual