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Physarum polycephalum, to be specific.

Belonging to the order of things that should not exist.

The child trembles in his ice bath. He can't tell the shivers of cold from those of fever, nor the numerous unknown words in the book from the gibberings of his delirium, but he sits there and trembles and holds the matico leaves to his brow.

Psychic salivary glands water at the prospect of unknown neurological fun right at the edges of lethal.

It's not the drugs. This man was born high.

It's not the drugs. This man was born high.

That's a 'would'.

They'll ask for the moon.

Of course she does. No more playground shit. Operant CASCADE has arrived.

Fucking coward.

Waves curl endlessly onto a shore of fine pebble. Pascal takes the lid off the teapot, notices two men walking up the garden path. He opens the door with a smile.

This is an open goal. A match-winner. Don't overthink it.

Horrific chemical orgasm. A hallucinogenic purge of everything stored within the brain's archives, known to the laywoman as life flashing before your eyes.

It's over, operant. You've failed.

In spite of you, the knowledge slips into its natural niche in your brain - common sense, inevitable in retrospect.

Someone has to die today.

A faint but all-encompassing shiver passes through the old man like a tree-shaking wind. Then it's gone -- the tree resettles, a few leaves less than before.

That was his last show of fear, now he sucks it all back into himself.

Meat dragged out of the freezer starts going bad the minute it is done thawing.

Understanding dawns on his features, and with it something like peace.

Enough fooling around. Drop the false livery. Let the Operant Bureau's anthem play him off the world-stage.

Each new sentence is appended to the puzzle of the preceding ones.

He is the hiss in the tapped phone, the thud of boots in the hallway, the unmarked car and the form letter to next of kin with the bill for the bullet.

You suddenly picture Melita, Luzian features behind her clipped, trained Kohilan accent, smiling to herself as she manipulates you from a control room just across the Noscorrentes.

Overdetermined, like so much else in the smashed and leaking world.

Simple, obvious. The only way it could be.

With that, one of the final loose pieces slots into place.

A soul vacating the premises.

ONE TECHNO-FASCIST DOWN. THREE HUNDRED MILLION REMAIN.

Say the line again. It will hit harder this time, for sure.

Maybe you can redeem your line from earlier. Maybe this will tie it all together.

Sky burial by seabirds. The gulls will pick the scant papery skin from his bones.

Distrust. Then relief. Then an even greater mistrust.

Behold, the dialectic in action!

The feeling isn't even bittersweet. It feels like something that happened to someone else entirely.

285 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 6 of 6