A.Journal

Checks

9,179 checks

Trivial

EMTERR, a.k.a. L'Empire sans Territoire, a.k.a. 'The Bank'. Equal parts global development fund and spy service. Linchpin of the Developed World.

Medium

THE BLOODY HAND OF TRANSNATIONAL CAPITAL.

Medium

The Luzian high caste known to be a box of scorpions. Internal elimination virtually assured.

Formidable

The genius loci, rising to speak.

Medium

Like the fresh scent of stone after rain.

Medium

And no one else to attest to what he saw. Over years the memory has smudged into dream.

Medium

In other words, he was in three places simultaneously, each separated by thousands of kilometres. A physical impossibility, unless...

Easy

Comically vague. Very little to work with.

Medium

A message to the world's intelligence agencies.

Easy

A tinge of respect, beneath the bruised ego.

Medium

He can't be serious. The gastrointestinal system isn't designed to make those kinds of call.

Medium

He relishes the thought. He thinks it's funny.

Medium

Just like Ignatz said.

Challenging

Scent of marked territory. What can be pissed on can be possessed.

Easy

Defector accounts confirm Buendia favours a hands-on approach to counter-intelligence. No foreign network, including yours, collapses without his say.

Trivial

Director-General of the Weeping Eye.

Medium

An effulgent burst of colours, the blast passing through buildings, turning bodies to particulate matter.

Trivial

A mix of emotions in his voice.

Medium

The dialectic assumes a predictable trajectory. It does fail to account for one thing.

Challenging

Marginally impressed.

Medium

Spoken like an artist admiring a rival's technique.

Medium

No playful jab, no implied wink. He doesn't know you met her.

Trivial

He's not implying anything. Just lean in.

Trivial

The PR Lävendi -- the less socially developed neighbour of the PR Kohila.

Easy

Money. Power. King with no crown.

Trivial

THE ONLY PARTY GAMES RECOGNISED IN THE SUPERBLOC ARE PURGES AND SHOW TRIALS.

Medium

THERE WAS AN ALTERNATIVE: TO RID THEMSELVES OF CAPITAL AND PROPERTY. THE LUZIAN BOURGEOIS FOUND BLOOD MYTHS PREFERABLE.

Medium

Basic tradecraft: if the mark is focused on the shiny coin in your hand, they won't feel the left slipping a wire around their neck.

Easy

Renotel -- the dolphin payphones. Invisible courier of the city.

Trivial

Reno. One of Portofiro's most successful vulture capitalists. Major beneficiary of EMTERR's privatisation schemes.

Medium

No attempt at deception here.

Medium

And opens his memory house. An old remembrancer's trick.

Challenging

A name he'll never answer to again.

Trivial

A tiny knife twists in your chest. The less said about 'red folders', the better.

Challenging

A question your controller would surely second.

Medium

A small comfort: he did not address you by name.

Medium

The Subcomandante's 'metaphysical superweapon' is useless, unless.... could it be he's found a way to reconstruct the red disc?

Trivial

You dimly remember seeing his signature yellow posters plastered around the city. They probably have his call-in number on them.

Medium

Strange. Somehow you do know where his studio is, despite having never been there before.

Medium

The Operant Bureau concurs with the null entity. You are not actually considering this.

Formidable

A shimmer across your field of vision, or was that the television screen?

Formidable

Through the television screen, his eyes meet yours.

Formidable

Dubious cryptonym. Likely self-assigned.

Medium

Like a dead octopus smothered and forgotten about.

Trivial

It should be said that you've never seen this man before in your life.

Easy

Your stomach tightens. Predator. Caution.

Easy

You might still be able to play this off.

Trivial

Null entity, the Operant Bureau's preferred name for those it would rather forget.

Easy

His shirt is very ugly, it must be said.

Medium

Perhaps a kind of social scramble pattern.