A.Journal

Checks

9,179 checks

Medium

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

Formidable

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

Trivial

You hear his words, then unhear them.

Medium

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

Medium

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

Easy

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

Trivial

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

Easy

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

Challenging

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

Medium

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

Challenging

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

Challenging

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

Formidable

A banishment of mirrors.

Easy

He's taking this seriously. You should too.

Medium

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

Challenging

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

Medium

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.

Formidable

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

Medium

Melita. Bust size. Mystery.

Challenging

At least we have a building with working electricity.

Challenging

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

Medium

'What is this? Arrête! Get off me!'

Medium

Snagged on a memory. A pleasant one.

Formidable

Operants of the Psychic Wars!

Medium

... Have they? Is that the endgame?

Challenging

Suicide mission. House always wins.

Medium

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

Medium

A one man intelligence agency. Typical Remembrancer histrionics.

Medium

A shade of jealousy.

Medium

Visual only. No touching.

Challenging

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

Medium

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

Challenging

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.

Challenging

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

Challenging

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

Medium

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

Medium

A nonchalant tone disguising obsessive amounts of research.

Challenging

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

Medium

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

Easy

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

Challenging

Tasting a strange syntax.

Challenging

IT'S ALL SUPERBLOC, BABY.

Challenging

You are pre-entombed.

Formidable

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

Challenging

Everyone else here is actively avoiding him.

Formidable

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

Challenging

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

Medium

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

Medium

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

Medium

The air in the room thickens like an aggressive tumour.