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Suspect. No true gäng would ask you to read something this big.

REACTIONARY THEORISING. HE SHOULD DIRECT THIS DOORSTOP-SIZED CRITIQUE INWARD AT HIS NEXT IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE SESSION.

You hear his words, then unhear them.

Old wounds split open within your mind. Are you between crosshairs? What have you missed? What has the other not missed?

Such crucial information should have been conveyed directly to the Operant Bureau. Something is out of step.

Absolute conviction behind his words. This is no bluff or bait.

'Intra-agency'? But there's only one agency... The one you both work for...

He keeps mentioning this 'M.I.H.O.' thing... ominous.

HOLOCENE has never once lied to you. As far as you know, at least.

The cold flat of dread's knife presses against your heart.

Hold on. Monoaxial... Hermetic... this is literally just him. Your old bandmate's gone and tried his hand at a solo career.

In a dark basement in Novessa, a female controller in her mid-thirties stifles an inexplicable urge to push a palm into her face.

A banishment of mirrors.

He's taking this seriously. You should too.

How fucking stupid it is to live in a höle for half a decade. That's what you're thinking.

Surely there's a lift to get out of this silo. Not the stairs every time... Surely...

Sixteen-years-old, physical education class. Mia Holloway climbing the rope ladder directly above you. Panties, constellation pattern, eking loose from sweat-damp gym shorts.

Origin point for a long-held dream of being smothered by the firmament.

Melita. Bust size. Mystery.

At least we have a building with working electricity.

A trace of concern that you've pre-achieved the very thing he was attempting to do when you found him.

'What is this? Arrête! Get off me!'

Snagged on a memory. A pleasant one.

Operants of the Psychic Wars!

... Have they? Is that the endgame?

Suicide mission. House always wins.

M.I.H.O. is gängless. Front of the bus. No friends.

A one man intelligence agency. Typical Remembrancer histrionics.

A shade of jealousy.

Visual only. No touching.

As were you. A bullet knocked you down, the communists dragged you clear.

Odd cadence. He hasn't said that name in a long time.

Spring's thin edge, a promise yet to be delivered on. Trembles of blossom on the tree branches lining People's Square. A woman in a blue cardigan pauses at a wooden stall stacked with old books.

Sometimes he recites them to himself, when the darkness feels total enough.

WORST OF ALL. THE SO-CALLED 'REFORMED' COMMUNIST. GULAG.

Afflicted by that odd loneliness that comes from seeing and knowing a lot that you can't do much about.

A nonchalant tone disguising obsessive amounts of research.

He's weighing it up against his current living situation.

Oh yeah. Mentally snapshot this. He's impressed.

Sunless, six stories below ground, he still synthesises information about your life better than you.

Tasting a strange syntax.

IT'S ALL SUPERBLOC, BABY.

You are pre-entombed.

He's attempting Functional Invisibility again. Or 'Psychogenic Translucency', as M.I.H.O. calls it.

Everyone else here is actively avoiding him.

He doesn't move -- but you swear you feel the gentle weight of a hand upon yours.

The gaps in his remembrance are more detailed than most people's actual memories.

Within the darkened mass you think you see a slither of movement.

That explains communicating through cipher... though we may soon be rezoning the boundaries of 'explanation'.

The air in the room thickens like an aggressive tumour.

9,179 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 139 of 184