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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.

THE BLOODY HAND OF TRANSNATIONAL CAPITAL.

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

The genius loci, rising to speak.

Like the fresh scent of stone after rain.

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

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

Comically vague. Very little to work with.

A message to the world's intelligence agencies.

A tinge of respect, beneath the bruised ego.

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

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

Just like Ignatz said.

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

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

Director-General of the Weeping Eye.

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

A mix of emotions in his voice.

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

Marginally impressed.

Spoken like an artist admiring a rival's technique.

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

He's not implying anything. Just lean in.

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

Money. Power. King with no crown.

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

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

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.

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

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

No attempt at deception here.

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

A name he'll never answer to again.

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

A question your controller would surely second.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Through the television screen, his eyes meet yours.

Dubious cryptonym. Likely self-assigned.

Like a dead octopus smothered and forgotten about.

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

Your stomach tightens. Predator. Caution.

You might still be able to play this off.

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

His shirt is very ugly, it must be said.

Perhaps a kind of social scramble pattern.

9,179 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 168 of 184