He's trying his best to trust you.

The danger isn't over for him. He's still waiting to see what you'll do.

Callous... but KALEIDOSCOPE did murder him.

Hershel... Now he's going to lose his mind trying to activate nonexistent beetle powers.

Someone has scratched 'SONIDO Y LUZ' into the pale pink plastic.

Hook it right up to your pleasure centre, this is the good stuff.

Like you, the eternal stranger. All safehouses, no home.

You are reminded of certain religious teachers of your childhood, who wore traditional silk raiments all year round.

They frequently lost fingers to frostbite in the Mircean winter, and wore their absence like trophies.

A gäng of ten million hearts beating as one.

It's nighttime in Party Alley. The people are out, nothing can keep them away.

Bands of rain continue to move slowly north and east across the region. Walks home expected to be unseasonably melancholic. North wind 5-8 kph, becoming calm after midnight.

Overcast skies incoming, bringing light rain and a strong tendency to see oneself reflected in the environment. Expect gusts up to 20kph.

Patchy fog in the morning expected to burn off yesterday's illusions. Increasing clouds, low near 9 degrees.

It's evening in Party Alley. The people are out, searching for comfort and pleasure.

It's morning in Party Alley. There's almost no one around.

It's midday in Party Alley. The people are going about their shopping.

THE WORLD WILL STOP FOR THE VERY THOUGHT OF US

TAKE ME TO THE PEOPLE'S SQUARE CARNATIONS IN YOUR HAIR AT LEAST YOU GET TO KEEP YOUR NAME

Education: University of Landau (Degree incomplete). Course of study: Modern economy (maternal pressure).

Preferred vices, mother: Nicotine, alcohol, 'diet shakes'. No known history of solvent abuse ('low-class').

No references found under 'mother' and 'abuse, physical' ('low-class'). 'Abuse, verbal' contains frequent references to 'withholding affection' and 'withering criticism'.

Speculative freelancing. Your old asset had no authority to make offers on behalf of the Opera.

HE CAN FIND HIS 'IMMUNITY' IN THE LUNAR CADMIUM MINES.

A romantic image drawn from postcards issued by the Tourism Bureau.

Slavering, savouring.

No judgement in his voice. His curiosity is innocent, almost childlike.

You can practically feel the fetid water sloshing about his feet.

Silence pops and hisses on the other end of the line.

Where the Opera would send him, he'll have no need for papers.

You've exchanged the tyranny of history for the tyranny of the spreadsheet. A poor bargain.

FALSE, TECHNO-FASCISTS ARE ALWAYS EASY TO KILL. THE NAMES ARE SIMPLY THE TRUTH OF THEM.

A broad-set man surveys his cards through double-lensed spectacles, whispering to himself as he draws. Agents of the Weeping Eye sit heads bowed around him, waiting for the word of god.

A cleavage you'd do well to remember. There may be something to exploit here.

Fuck that. Grant him one instead.

Trapped between the old reality that created it and the new one it failed to bring about.

... like your unfortunate double, for instance.

A little impressed, a little disturbed.

We would never... would we?

He's leaning against the wall for support, pressing his mouth to the receiver. He stirs the dark water with the tip of his foot.

You can't betray what you don't know.

A dry, barking laugh, it reverberates off the walls of the cell and back into the receiver.

So bitter you can taste it on your own tongue.

It dawns on you that you've delivered the punchline to a cosmic joke only he will understand.

OF COURSE, THERE'S NO DENUNCIATION LIKE SELF-DENUNCIATION.

A name you recognise from your political theory training. A quasi-mythical figure, the first man to describe the ideology now known as techno-fascism, dead 150 years before the invention of the computer chip.

Your would-be asset Ignatz used very similar language.

Somewhere, the sound of a bell muffled by a dishcloth.

THE EPOCHAL STRUGGLE, THE TRIUMPH OF DIALECTICS OVER HISTORY ITSELF. YOU'RE WELCOME, HUMANITY.

Checks