Reading

Open fileNeed to knowMy clearance

A.Journal

Checks

1,044 checks

Hemmed in. Not even a shadow to hide under.

Don't let his evasions and insinuations throw you off course. The deal. You're here for the deal.

Needless to say, a significant part of their player's salaries are paid by EMTERR.

Maintain plausible deniability for everything, at all times.

Remove it right now. You cannot lose your only hope of reviving your double.

Operant, please. This kind of stagecraft takes application, a methodology. You can't just dash it off.

There they go. Your people.

You have been uncovered, maybe from the very beginning. All of this has come to zero.

You are being strung up. All of this has come to zero.

The assignment is lost. You no longer exist. Bite down on the poison. Turn the gun on yourself.

The Hundred-Eyed Golem. One of the most feared and hated men in La Luz.

The man KALEIDOSCOPE had never seen before. The high conjuror.

Highly-trained. Blood under the fingernails. Unfamiliar with the cold of the freezer.

The day hasn't even begun, and already his hands are dripping with the blood of your sometime-asset.

His hands are dripping with the blood of your asset.

He's known from the beginning.

He knows, but he does not necessarily know you know. This smallest of advantages you can retain.

Shattering even the faintest confidentiality at the last moment. You are now exposed on every level possible.

... Because they should've spread out to cover off potential threats.

Don't forget the trigger. The song.

Because no one ever sits near him on public transport. Nonce vibes.

Isn't it a treat to work with an actual professional? What fun.

You should let this very competent man lead the assignment from here on out.

It wouldn't take much to break into it and set your own music. At best a distraction... at worst a war cry.

Ignatz was right. The idiot was hiding gold in that hideous coat all along.

Fabricating a solid story would have been a more surefire way to get you down here.

Focus, operant. You're here for the records about Project AUTONOMÍA. Get in, get out.

There are two ways to cope with situations like this: tactical breathing, and grounding techniques. Choose one.

You know you have training to deal with situations like this, but the panic clouds your mind. It's just not coming to you...

Time to show some grit, operant.

Why are you doing this? This isn't your role -- it's that technician's.

Isn't it nice being in the liminal space of 'assuming you've been had' and 'knowing you've been had mega hard'?

Impenetrable cover. Almost as if... it's not a cover at all.

This doesn't mean his information is falsified. In fact, in some ways it strengthens its veracity.

This is proving out to be a costly mistake.

It appears the manoeuvre was successful, although it likely set his training back by a couple of modules.

A 'CASCADE' slipped through there -- that question clearly annoyed her, for some reason.

Trade agent, not CASCADE. A verbal reminder that not everything should be discussed openly on a public payphone.

During operant training, you were taught to swallow your fear through dissociation...

Suspiciously nonchalant...

A fine place to hide in a moment of crisis. Marked and remembered.

Stop wasting your time. Fix this. Now.

This man is an Unknown Known, ignorant of what he carries inside him -- you can't let him go on like this.

Demolish his persona.

Your double seems to have retained the outline of the assignment despite his recent coma.

When operants lose themselves in their own fiction, the only solution is demolition -- the Cardenas-II Verbal Manoeuvre.

There's a manoeuvre you were taught to use when an operant is lost within their chosen persona. A kind of psychic demolition technique. Unfortunately, you've only retained the basic idea of it.

1,044 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 17 of 21