The sound of your name on his tongue -- unnatural, upsetting.

You may have gotten the better of him in the Bazaar, but he's a step ahead here. Keep your guard up.

A likely story. More likely... he's viewing you right now.

Of course! Reread the cipher using the book as a new key.

Smart. About what you'd expect from the 'pride of the Remembrancer Division'.

Why's he starting at the end... ?

Or, message conveyed, he has cut the psychic link and stopped remote viewing you.

An ancient map to the catacombs of meaning.

Operant! You're so close!

Can't you just solve this fucking thing and be done with it?

You're with him now -- it sinks into place with a solid mental thunk. 'MBP' becomes 13/2/16.

Uh... 13,216?

Ah, ah! Maybe something like...

Easy? So, like... alphabet but reversed...

This is old news. You've cracked his stupid cipher.

In one, human forms emerge from the black depths of a dilated pupil. In another a man stands naked facing a guerilla batallion, his hand upraised pointing at the sky.

Lastra was aiming big and bloody with this one.

Supposedly, The Vessel was disgusted by the practice, but eventually ceded as a political gesture to earn the support of the traditionalists in the Shogunate.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A 'HUMBLE WARLORD'. FASCIST VS. FASCIST.

Scenes flash against the bedsheet screen of your mind -- framed in the same red veinage as the book's cover.

Trepanning, yes, yes, yes! Any book that contains skull holes is okay by the gäng, even if it has no pictures.

Trapped between hack-hire genre fiction, philosophical exploration and straight up gore fetish smut, the book cackles in your hands.

Some tossed off dregs involving space shamans and deals with ascended beings.

Masquerading as a pulpy exploitation novel, in reality it's a work of what the Treffe school of psychoanalysts call Vorbewusstseinweh.

Around the words, a memory coalesces of HOLOCENE in his prime, novel held aloft.

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

Any operant who stares too long behind the stage curtain has historically gone insane.

The ego must perform a dissociative split before it can look back at itself and say 'I'.

You have struck the cruelest blow.

NOW BURN IT TO PREVENT CONTAMINATION OF INCENDIARY IDEAS.

Pièce de résistance levels of self-confidence.

Pay close attention to what you find in here -- it clearly holds deep significance for your troubled friend.

The words jar a memory -- HOLOCENE engrossed within its pages, maybe the only time he was oblivious to the world.

A stab of pain in some unknown psychic organ.

The longest you endured was eight and a half minutes. Basically an audio-disc.

As soon as you pick it up, you feel that whatever's inside is not cigarettes.

It was you who taught him the cigarette trick in the first place. The Opera speaks to itself.

Paper ages quickly exposed to the greasy, moist air around the docks. This hasn't been out here for more than a week.

Dante's ticket out. He will need this.

Whether you choose to stamp his ticket or not is another matter.

Brow slightly ruffled, not entirely sure where to look. He's not used to having his picture taken.

Just the papers, no note. A sense of strange finality settles into you; he's gone.

More smokes, more secrets. Nearly everyone in-theatre learns this trick eventually.

Brow slightly ruffled, not entirely sure where to look. He's not used to having his picture taken.

Nearly everyone in-theatre learns the cigarette trick eventually. You've taught it to half a dozen assets yourself.

An improvised welcoming party, here to greet the distinguished visitor from the People's Republics.

Each heavy with significance, all of it lost on you.

The sound reminds you of a die.

Yes, correct.

A little voice somewhere intones: 'No take-backs'.

Checks