Reading

Open fileNeed to knowMy clearance

A.Journal

Checks

9,823 checks

... 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.

How did HOLOCENE become a spy?

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.

I COMMAND YOU TO DETONATE, LITTLE BOMBCHKA.

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.

Reason through this. There will be some logic, underneath it all.

No irony here. No dress rehearsal either.

The iron artery that was intended to link Portofiro with La Luz, until the collapse of the Old Luzian Empire prior to Year Zero. The ruins became an infamous suicide spot in the 50s.

None of that sounded real. It was a scene from fiction, from an espionage novel.

Flashes of HOLOCENE's red folder: 'MONSTROUS INTELLIGENCE'... 'HALLUCINATORY LOGICAL CONSTRUCTION'...

He pushed his finger down so hard it's left a red imprint in his skin. A target marker.

As with any espionage catastrophe, there is no true answer. Or there are one hundred answers. That's what's killing him, the unknowing.

Better to go along with this. You'll have a stronger chance of pulling him clear of this psychological wreckage.

He's hurt by that direct accusation, even though it's his own working theory.

A perfect memory turned against itself -- false insertions indistinguishable from the real.

Stop the ride. We want öff.

Behind his gaze, he is cast in iron. You are being entrusted with this.

You would be well within your right to leave him down here.

His voice is in the cipher now. Commune.

Of them all, he was the one you least expected to ever see again.

His hair looks like it exploded.

Deceptively blank. Just behind, his perfect memory ticks and whirs like ancient clockwork.

The dark arts of the Opera's Remembrancer Division. Much storied, often unsuccessful.

'HOLOCENE' is already a cryptonym...

A brief grin irradiates his pale face.

How did he know you were there?

Skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 149 of 197