He can no longer look you in the eye.

A man with the demeanour of a goalkeeper whose team has fled the pitch.

Whoa-whoa. A missing model kit?! This cannot stand.

'Baby'? You may have miscalculated here.

Yeah. We should have asked for more money.

The corners of his glasses fog up.

An audience member at his own vivisection.

Stop all the clocks: A purloined model kit? This investigation is Priority Alpha!

A guest at his own vivisection.

His own appearance is neat and precisely kempt. Even the way his jumper is tied around his neck appears studied and deliberate.

They moved out before garbage collection day, hoping to avoid another fine stacked atop the broken lease, the lost deposit, the month's rent half-wasted...

Tiny debts, each magnified and made more impossible by a greater loss.

Old clothes, soft on your hands from repeated washings and cheap detergents. Plastic toys, delight outgrown.

Three people lived here: two adults, a child approaching adolescence.

A woman leans out the open window, shivering in the cool evening air. She tries not to blink. They've had to pack so quickly, this is the first chance she's had to try to memorise the view she's mostly ignored for the last six years.

In the end, the outcome was the same: a flurry of packing, a quick shuffle of locks and keys in the dark.

It all happened very quickly, once they'd made the decision to leave. In that moment, the priorities seemed clear.

Approximately 25 items are missing from the count of Operant CASCADE's possessions following her extradition from Portofiro in 91. Due to failure to keep up with requests for a formal inventory, the exact number of CASCADE's lost / forsaken belongings remains officially unknown.

They knew they weren't getting the deposit back. Why bother.

These babies have some heft to them. Planar magnetic drivers. Premium foam cups. And a triple-padded suspension headband, designed to distribute their weight ergonomically.

GROTESQUE. YOU ARE ADRIFT IN THE OUTER REACHES OF BOURGEOIS HEDONISM.

You can feel the value in their heft. It's a tribute to his pomade that there isn't a permanent dent in his hair from wearing these things.

The clatter and hum of the bar around you deadens to nothing. Then he presses 'PLAY'.

Maybe they do... You wouldn't know. Operant CASCADE has yet to turn around a 'success'.

Our shitty life is bumming him out.

HE WILL TAKE THEM TO HIS TOMB, LIKE THE SELF-STYLED GOD EMPERORS OF PRE-HISTORY.

Once more into auditory oblivion. Nice.

A state asset for life, in voice and image.

She'll never make it that long.

The noise-blocking effect. Anechoic.

The world mutes utterly. It's like being smothered by the future.

Still, a part of him was hoping for a little more out of their private journey.

You've asked him to part with the feather from an angel's wing.

Good choice. But he's dictating a lot of terms here.

Bring a gun. He will.

Apart from the girl around which it is built.

Behind the white blue of his eyes, a rapid recalibration is occurring.

Alongside fear... and RESPECT.

The point of zero return. If he goes fully off-script and abducts the prisoner, he will be EMTERR's fugitive son from here on out.

Speaking about her like a newly-adopted kitten.

A face flashes on the underside of your mind -- expression stern behind a black cigarette. Yana needs to agree to this too.

A whole career cast off in a single moment.

And possibly a whole life.

You don't have to emotionally prybar these two girls apart. There must be another way through.

It's not Ultra Violeta who must agree to this, but her custodian, Yana.

There's a friendship to sidestep first. Yana won't agree to this easily.

It's not. More favourable would be a clean trade, the prisoner for the girl.

Forget mere 'info'. Trade the popstar wholesale.

You've brushed up against this popstar already. The Yana girl knows more than she is letting on.

There was a third presence in that safehouse, on the fringes. Back to the teen.

Checks