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'And you tell her -- if we pull this one off, all will be forgiven!'

There are other ways. There always are.

Half a city away, an old man hunches on a damp mattress and thinks of the odd stranger who went through so much effort to find him.

'For my old friend, CASCADE, tell her TAXMAN is ready to begin the ritual. No silly cunts! CASCADE only, person to person! CASCADE or nothing! And you tell her -- if we pull this one off, all will be forgiven!'

Never on your own. One among the dancing thousands -- multi-limbed shadow, neon-scaled beast -- the spirit animal of the city.

A trembling young hand searches for the bite of the deadbolt. It takes five attempts.

A red disc passes from one man's hand to another, then disappears into a leather briefcase.

A red disc passes from one man's hand to another, then disappears into a leather briefcase.

A red disc passes from one man's hand to another, disappears into a leather briefcase.

Above you, a little girl holds up a snail for her father's inspection. Its eyestalks stretch toward him, inspecting the giant in return.

She is checking her hair in a darkened window.

No images, no sound. Only static on a dead feed.

SILHOUETTE. That is the name they've given her.

She sits hunched over her desk, fingers crawling over lines of poetry -- the artistic overspill of strangers' souls. She reads, and finds herself repulsed.

In another life, you are both earnestly selling your cotton wares, far beyond the shadows of international intelligence.

Thousands of miles away, his mother flinches in her sleep.

The ending of the End.

Birdsong, dread. Footsteps ascend a staircase.

Upstairs, something screams.

A chorus of figures from your past shout the words at you in unison. All will be forgiven.

Inside a dark desk drawer, contracts and architectural drawings for a sixteen-story luxury apartment building and retail complex await the day the Palace's ceiling finally caves in.

Drunks in a bar celebrate their team's victory. Across the street, a crowd in opposing colours wait, broken bottles in hand. Among them, a young woman, gritting her teeth harder with every cheer.

'Angel, keep him away, keep him away from me for good...'

In a very real sense, he has already passed beyond your reach.

Say a prayer to Polaris.

Whose cat is that?

A man, white-knuckled, spits on the stone yet to be engulfed by the plants. 'Traitor', he says afterwards, curling his lip in contempt.

The plumber fills his cup with ice and a little bit of water first thing in the morning. By the afternoon, sweating away in the hot, dark, half-flooded humidity, he sips at the lukewarm liquid.

She feels his eyes on her, through the bag, through the paper, the second she enters the room. She shuts the door quickly and totters back down the stairwell with a shudder.

A lonesome utility shack high above the city, its door broken on its hinge. A white cat tracks bloody prints in the dirt. Sadness overwhelming.

You've not seen the last of him. The two of you are bound by a hideous orange thread.

A pen stands to attention in a long-fingered hand.

The heavy thud and sway of the Kohilan National Railway. She knows every jerk and bend along the route.

Chewing the inside of her cheek.

The window rattles. Some night-bound animal scratches at the door.

Five-thousand kilometres away, in a small office deep underground, a mid-level controller of the Operant Bureau leans forward and cups a hand over her earpiece.

The tendrils of a watery, alien intelligence.

Somewhere in subterranean Novessa, an Opera controller's nose twitches.

On a neolithic tundra, a woman in skins stalks an aurochs. She trails behind it, leisurely, determined. The huge ungulate's knees buckle with each laboured step. She'll strike when the animal can't run anymore.

A man sprinkles dried kibbles into a bowl. His companion pads around him, brushing against his ankles, tail fluttering. Streetlights smear against the window, but the fragile machinery of routine holds the world at bay.

16:42:17: START OF TRANSCRIPT - What is that? - Oh fuck, did we -- why's it turning? - Full power. [increase in ambient noise] - I gave it full power -- the speed -- [unintelligible] - Oh my god. Oh my god.

Farther south, past the fraying edges of Party Alley, a man in a crisp tracksuit climbs into a heavily-loaded tuk-tuk. He adjusts the rearview mirror and checks himself. Verdict: 'dope'.

An evil alignment of celestial bodies, the spearhead of that dread constellation hanging directly over the heads of you and your old comrades.

Across time and space you feel another intelligence reaching out to you: insane, methodical, murderous.

A heavy voice through light static: 'CASCADE only, person to person! CASCADE or nothing!'

A feline ancestor stalks the dark, snowy forests of Skaalslaand. While the cold forces other animals to shelter, the skaalskat paces through, leaving only deep prints from thick-furred paws and the blood of its prey behind.

High upon high, the Manus Fati swivels in its stars and raises a middle finger in PSEUDOPOD's general direction.

In a grey-curtained apartment on the fringes of Novessa, a mother has not heard from her son in days. She pulls her cardigan tighter around her shoulders and tells herself the odd dream she had last night meant nothing at all.

Whips of dust blown by helicopter blades. Thud of boots on ground, billow of trench coats, steel cackle of assault rifles. The Empire Without Territory descends.

You can hear the prayers of the tribespeople echoing up from the pass:

150 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 2 of 3