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Some primal part of your brain rejects the information like a gag reflex.

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.

The Operant Bureau is plunging in the rankings with each passing moment. Relegation zone, coming up!

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.

372 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 8 of 8