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There. Two lines of inquiry converge. Bring this purchase order to the Bazaar. That's your next stop.

There. You feel the baton hit your hand. This Bazaar is your next stop.

You have shit, in other words. Chicken bones.

Terrible stagecraft across the board. PSEUDOPOD should've caught this while examining the safehouse.

Something she should know better than to ask and you should know better than to tell.

Restless eyes, evasive demeanour. This man may not have zeroed out your double, but you're sure such things aren't beyond him.

Your controller was clear: She doesn't need to know anything beyond her station. Compartmentalise.

To assemble and guide the rest.

That's assuming it's a legitimate defection and not a double bluff from a vastly superior operant.

There will be no 'extraction'. Just a box of tools discarded at the worksite.

The Operant Bureau probably has loads of boats. A whole secret navy.

Even as you've been speaking your controller's silently been gaming out every possible manoeuvre. She knows what she's doing.

The sound of a coin purse jingling from behind the curtain... a single copper rolls onto the stage.

PROBABLE's service history is required reading for controllers. She's stalling you.

There is a zero percent possibility that PROBABLE, statistically the Opera's most valuable performer in 66, was here on babysitter duty.

PROBABLE was the Operant Bureau's most valuable performer in 66. His true assignment must have been a high-level hold.

'Null entities' are the lowest forms of matter in the Operant Bureau's extended cosmology. Reserved for traitors, falsifiers, and thieves.

A matter of interest for the psychomancers, perhaps.

Just a little, for fun.

Eliminated. Killed. Rendered inoperant.

You already have your task. You need only commit to it.

The ciphertext. You have the pieces, you just need to put them together.

Something about the strange red disc nags at the edge of your consciousness. Perhaps the room contains other leads as well.

That numberless phone line may be worth investigating. Perhaps the room contains other leads as well.

The room remains to be searched. There may be leads to follow up on.

Maybe it's worth taking another look at the cleaners' tuk-tuk.

There's a delicate balance to be maintained here.

This must be Reno's place, the dolphin indicates as much.

When the things you're cleaning up after are especially sensitive in nature.

Why didn't everyone do that, then? This may well have been high-level psychogenic stagecraft.

A life sacrificed on the altar of her cover.

The resident list you saw by the door may prove more revealing now.

A colossal operational fumble. There are about three people in this whole city who know her by her cryptonym, and only one who would leave this message.

Cryptonym on full display on a public noticeboard. Bravo, operant. Potentially a match-ending 'own goal'.

Operant status: ready to shuffle your way back into cold storage.

You should return to the surface, operant. You have questions that need answering.

You have been too public in who you talk to about an artefact that effectively zeroed out a fellow Operant, even if it has been rendered useless.

And that Ile-de-Söze is a human trafficking destination. An EMTERR labour colony.

And who else?

There. Finally he makes the mistake of assuming your identity and letting drop something he shouldn't.

A principled man who can't keep his mouth shut. This can be exploited.

That's a call and answer protocol, also known as a sphynx. He asks a question to which there is only one right answer.

Is this... how HOLOCENE located you?

Nothing you haven't already uncovered. It's starting to appear this 'assignment' may've been a wash.

Not one that he has any business knowing.

No need to slam a door you might want to use later.

Tesoro Buendia. To the Operant Bureau he is the Hundred-Eyed Golem. To La Luz he is the Chief of the Weeping Eye.

Maybe he's got himself fooled.

Most likely overheard during one of his father's notorious tirades.

A criminal syndicate like that will come for him eventually. Nicely at first. Then with weapons.

1,044 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 13 of 21