By god, the craftsmanship of it.

The antennae extend tens of metres into the void, their length dwarfing the satellite's.

Spectrum analysers, amplifiers... Heavy-duty radio stuff.

A window large enough for the stars to spill in.

Orlavin-3. Terribly effective for interrogations and 'shock pacification'.

Written over months, if not years, given the different pen colours and how the inks faded. This is something Straniak returned to.

Sun-facing panels glimmer like the frost-touched carapace of a great insect.

Signals unfurl around you. An ocean of drifting voices and prayers lost amid the electromagnetic spectrum.

He'll have a talk with the vendors later today. A firm one.

The slightest hesitation. Skirting around a secret.

This is the only way through. Darkness visible.

YOU DO NOT EXIST. YOU ARE MERELY THE SHIMMER OF A RIGHT WING PROPAGANDA MINISTER'S FEVERED IMAGININGS.

He's genuinely perplexed.

A face flashes in your mind unbidden -- heavyset, boyish grin, traces of the underworld clinging to him.

A familiar silhouette peels itself from the dark.

Your friend is here.

Even before you ask the question, the outline of a name is forming, letter by letter.

As the sun smears across rooftops, a man with a briefcase full of carefully-folded socks sits on a metal bench. He sits there for a long time, considering the tangle of alleyways that surround him.

From day-player bootlegger to directing the full production in five years. Quite the ascent for an exposed asset.

Khalti -- a Rustamian term of endearment for an older woman.

Not part of his job description. A caring gesture.

Maybe he bottomed his way to the bottom.

He's not.

A rough voice down a splintering phone line: 'No silly cunts! CASCADE only, person to person! CASCADE or nothing!'

A phantom hand across the precipice, awaiting a return grip.

They farmed out your asset, your friend, to some trouserless infant?

Teeth bared, but nothing left to guard. Fear of the dark.

High pressure tries to expand from the direction of the Eastern Republics, but low pressure from the Noscorrentes region will continue to compete. Conditions likely to remain unsettled throughout the week, seek comfort in the familiar.

Innocent use of past tense, but still, you don't care for it.

Many old assets cry 'urgent' -- especially when they're looking for a handout or a favour.

Maybe it was company he wanted. A chance to palm away the frost and peer into the old days. For some, that counts as 'urgent'.

It would have. It would have brought you running. If they'd bothered to tell you.

A hollow centre, expanding with every passing hour.

Better to know. Always better to know.

Come straight to me. Never cross my path again. Both true at once.

He's rattled. And not used to the sound of rattling.

The end of that sentence sharpened to a point. Your friend asked for a single name.

A phantom hand across the precipice, awaiting a return grip.

He already fears the worst. You don't need to get into the uglier details.

He doesn't know what he's asking for. Not really.

You see him, boots braced on a trembling deck. His vessel noses out past the breakwater, into the Noscorrentes sea. Behind, Portofiro dissolves into a golden blur beneath a pale sky.

The man may be gone, but the ties live on.

It's about what's right.

Had you been standing a couple metres farther away, you wouldn't have registered movement.

He'll make a call, as soon as you step away. It will work out.

Everyone swears silence until it can buy them something.

Behind the words, you feel your old asset's ghost, smiling.

There's a hollow in his voice, one you doubt was there just weeks ago.

A jolt of fear snaps through you, but you kick it down.

One of eight great trenches in the mapped world. Its edges run from the Telmaar Gulf to the Lioaran sea. Conservative estimates suggest a depth of twelve thousand metres.

Checks