... a shapeless figure twisting in darkness...

You know the next words. You've been hearing them since you got here.

The voice speaking these words, it's not entirely natural.

Like something inside has seized control of his vocal cords. A speaking puppet.

No-no-no. Keep away.

A solitary anchorite in a cell of aluminium and carbon fibre, 400,000 kilometres above the world.

Massive fail. Total gäng wipe.

High-pitched, dissonant. A sound that compels you to stop it.

By the wall, the magic box chirrups in response. A warning tone, indicating an unstable connection.

The machines are talking about you all.

You can feel your own sanity pulling away from you, as though on the cusp of a black hole, stretching, spinning...

An insane thought flits across your consciousness, to be kept absolutely to yourself.

... wet, silent, like a fish behind glass...

Dust motes hang in the stale air. Unbound stars drifting in space.

His face. Vision of pale horror.

A man with access to more of humanity's secrets than nearly anyone, and yet the simple pleasure of a good pop song eludes him.

You mark a distinct change in the old spy's demeanour. Gone are the cryptic circumlocutions and knowing flourishes. For once, you're on the same page.

He's in unfamiliar seas here. It's your lights he'll navigate by.

Savour this moment. One of the old ones of your craft is asking for your opinion.

From the window you can hear the sound of two people laughing out on Orphanage Street.

Not a weapon, a tool of psychic eviction, a means to disinhabit the soul.

A MEANS TO POISON THE ENEMY'S POLITICAL ECOLOGY.

Yes, what this was all about -- the Grand Lich's time of arrival.

It sounds so pitifully small now -- 'your thing'.

A fresh appraisal. Impressed.

Probability of a future encounter: 0.000006%. Then again, the odds of your trajectories intersecting as they did were far lower.

Nothing facetious in his tone there.

Fully charged now. The world's first augmentoid hyper-spy.

One of the shadow-world's ancient deities preparing to slip back into the black sea beneath a starless night.

Poor, dead Dante's words confirmed. The Lich will come.

Confirming Dante's words -- a small consolation for your unexpected fumble.

Confirming what Dante told you. No doubt left, then. The Lich will come.

He doesn't actually think it's 'bon' -- it's one of the strangest things he's heard in his long, strange life.

No judgment -- only the curiosity of a navigator asking another about her compass.

In Mircea you knew only cold and austere churches of fine stone, all consecrated to the One Indivisible God.

An emergency venting cycle; motors spinning down. The device is trying to adjust to an unexpected baseline.

The world is huge, and strange, and it is flirting with him. He is pondering the offer.

It's not about contact, it's about scale. If the universe can sustain that much empty space without collapsing, you can take another hour in your own skin.

There is no correlation between mental petitions and the fusion of distant bodies. Praying is a recursive loop.

The air is heavy, your chest tight. You've been holding your breath for approximately an eternity.

... mouthing the shapes of the words that fill your ears...

The skin -- clammy, coarse.

A warning.

'YOU BUT FROM A DREAM'. The words on the red disc that was unceremoniously stripped from you.

'YOU BUT FROM A DREAM'. The words on the red disc.

Referring to your obvious lie.

La la la. What's the old man on about? You can't hear anything.

ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO PRIVATISE THAT WHICH PROPERLY BELONGS TO THE STATE.

Of course, the Operant Bureau's psychomancers share the same interest. They just call it 'Conditioning'.

'Borders are illusions. Everything looks back.' That's their motto.

Checks