A.Journal

Checks

Medium

His information was good once before. There's no reason to think it won't be again.

Medium

First, bait. Now, trap.

Challenging

In your mind's eye riffles a deck of faces, regular people, people with modest apartments and pensions, every single one of them disposable.

Medium

A senior aide with a mistress he's committed to an asylum for her own protection. A secretary who's been indiscreet with certain carbon copies. An old torturer for the Weeping Eye who was photographed taking an envelope from someone he shouldn't have.

Formidable

Can you say the same?

Trivial

A desolate spit of land on the edge of the city-state. Formerly the site of Portofiro's doomed space program.

Easy

A long, dark, sexy tunnel built on top of a worthless old village. Progress, baby!

Easy

Including in gymnasiums across the former Republic of Mircea. Regular class cancelled for the occasion.

Medium

FLIRTATIONS WITH CAPITAL ALWAYS LEAD TO UNWANTED PREGNANCIES: DEBT AND COMPOUND INTEREST.

Medium

The Bank's propaganda mob.

Challenging

Bottom-feeders of the secret world. Making a small-time trade of stale information.

Medium

He's not seriously suggesting...

Medium

A devious species of lie: The entries are there but forbidden from circulation. Falsehoods and misperceptions enforced by phalanxes of smiling lawyers.

Medium

A flawless timepiece of coordination and execution. Take notes.

Medium

Above you, the last visible stars dissolve in the dawn-light. Elsewhere, the bark of a small dog muffled by a window.

Medium

Blood nearby. A kill to be made.

Challenging

Crackling tree squirrel impaled on a spit. Savoury smoke rising into the night. The Paleolithic huntress turns her gaze upwards.

Formidable

You feel that subcranial itch coming on, the one that longs to draw little lines between the glowing dots inside your head, until your mind smiles at the picture that emerges.

Medium

The sign for the ritual of death to begin.

Easy

Time. Place. Weapon. Squad. One-fourth of your plot in hand.

Formidable

A shame. A good weather report's harder to produce than it looks.

Legendary

He doesn't know, but he has suspicions he's not prepared to share yet.

Challenging

... more than 50 known political prisoners, a number of priceless works from the Museo Moderno...

Medium

A spiraling column of amber and green lights, twenty stories deep, pulsing as one.

Medium

Strange man. Strange wishes. Strange destination.

Medium

Oh boy, you're finally going to get your steps in!

Challenging

You brought that one on yourself.

Medium

Above you, uncountable stars veiled by the scattering of blue light. Elsewhere, the bark of a small dog muffled by a window.

Medium

Above you, the evening's first stars blink into life. Elsewhere, the bark of a small dog muffled by a window.

Medium

Above you, a canyon of stars, framed by the buildings of the Housing Campaign. Elsewhere, the bark of a small dog muffled by a window.

Challenging

He remembers every betrayal, every expression of horror when his target hears the mental click of the cage-door locking behind them.

Medium

Information has a half-life. At all times, windows close. Seize what is there.

Medium

A cost-benefit analysis. The probability of determining the why of him is near zero. Conversely, the utility of him is high.

Medium

He's not a puzzle. He's a lever.

Easy

To 'shake the Hand of Fate' is to die, in this part of the world.

Easy

Gentle electronic tones rise and recede from it like the tide against a digital beach.

Legendary

Who is this man?

Easy

There are old reports of a botched naval blockade in 69. Eastern Republics -- a friendly fire incident. Tenuous, but failure has a cost.

Medium

A name whispered among tutors and veterans, invoked like a demon from a lost mythology.

Medium

The posture remains yet the gravity in the air thickens.

Easy

Suprema 100. Like the ones your double brought.

Formidable

THIS NON-MAN IS UNWORTHY OF THE PEOPLE'S TAR.

Easy

Suprema 100. Smoked by tens of millions across the People's Republics.

Medium

A name passes through your skull like a ghost, a shiver on its tail.

Easy

Whatever happened in 69, it must have to do with that box. Maybe it's not just a medical necessity. Maybe it's something more.

Easy

Predator smell. Sharp. Outgrew his cage.

Easy

Whatever happened in 69, it may not have had anything to do with him at all.

Easy

That's because you're not speaking with a man, you're speaking with an augmentoid.

Medium

DISREGARD THE NON-ENTITY. PREVIOUS EFFORTS WERE SO 'HOT' THE PARTY GRANTED YOU FIVE YEARS IN THE FREEZER TO 'COOL YOUR JETS'.

Challenging

That was merely a test-run, proto-gäng. Now's the one that counts.