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A good poet listens more than they speak.

You're in -- as a poet. Don't let them believe you're anything else.

Abandon all logic. You're about to enter the Poet's Domain.

Intercom looks expensive, the interference suggests a building-wide system. Nothing 'light' about this security.

The kind of places that need security intercoms: Gated communities. Government buildings. Prisons.

Very vague. Almost... secretive.

Seems you need a good reason to be here. Fortunately, you are trained in reverse reasoning.

This door opens for someone, that's why there's an intercom. You just need her to tell you who.

Of course. When an industry dies out, its buildings are repurposed into offices for that contemporary, utilitarian feel.

They have. Many people have.

WHAT IS THIS, THE MAKING FRIENDS INTERCOM? IT IS IN YOUR WAY, BATTER ITS DEFENCES.

First blood: CASCADE.

Translucent and grotesque, like an electronic gecko molt. It will never be skin again.

Genuinely upset.

With a certain weariness, you discern.

Blaming us 'cos this bitch edged her peel game. Sick shit.

A melodic voice that makes you think of flowers blooming in timelapse.

Holiday phone girlfriend. Claim her.

Yet another device bearing the Renotel emblem. Only recently installed, too.

Tautening the outer defences.

Strip that plastic off. Now.

Only recently installed.

This isn't only way through. You can always go the long way, around the docks to the west.

Fuck 'around'. Go through!

A system compromised at the sub-atomic level.

We're going to need tools for this one.

In another life it would've been a serpent.

Only ghosts can pass freely between such crevices.

Unless you're planning to hop off the end of the pier and swim for it, you're stuck.

Your human situation.

Far left. A frame built for violence. Bulbous glistening skull shaved bare every morning.

They didn't really talk, but she gravitated toward his presence like an animal to an abandoned building.

Now they remind you of her.

You still have them, in fact. On your feet. Right now.

Leather jacket, moustache and military cut. A face that could fluctuate wildly between innocence and depravity depending on the setting.

Older than anyone else there by at least ten years. Small eyes in a smaller frame, looking out from her corner with cold intelligence.

Your double. Together you assembled the crew from the ground up, but he never crossed professional boundaries the way you did.

And yet so many do -- the eternal and the doomed.

But he isn't just a cop. He's a carabinero -- one of the investigative branch's best.

You still have them, in fact.

Then why does everything hurt?

And per the standards of stagecraft, should never have occurred in the first instance.

It wasn't actually your birthday, you just said it was.

Right. The young watcher.

You can feel the tension going out of her shoulders, her diaphragm slackening as she straightens in her chair.

Tk-tk-tk. The sound of a pen marking three boxes in short succession.

At the Greater Quisach Gymnasium, the bell rings three times: Recreation Period is over. The children file back into the building covered in peeling plaster. The grey play-yard is empty.

Ice crystals fractal in your veins.

What she means is the real account will be buried in a centre-held file for 30 years. You will never so much as glimpse the outside of its folder.

9,179 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 163 of 184