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990 checks

Brilliantly played, operant. When you get back, there'll be champagne and a line of women's athletic socks commissioned in your honour.

It's over, operant. You've failed.

Assignment rating: Catastrophic failure. Turn gun on self.

It's hardly news. The Opera did not drag you back into the field to live a long and productive life.

Enough fooling around. Drop the false livery. Let the Operant Bureau's anthem play him off the world-stage.

He is the hiss in the tapped phone, the thud of boots in the hallway, the unmarked car and the form letter to next of kin with the bill for the bullet.

Stop, stop, stop. This is getting phantasmagoric. Your controller is right where she belongs, in Novessa, five-thousand kilometres away.

The sacrifice. Centrepiece in a ritual orchestrated around it, but not for it.

What was that about a 'body double'?

There is no 'occasion'. Nothing has happened. All is right with the world.

The infamous Reverse-Faux Execution, cruelest of all forms of foreplay.

Assignment rating: Catastrophic failure. Turn gun on self.

You let him go. You let him go. You let. Him go.

The quarry is dead. You have already completed your assignment.

Representatives of whichever syndicate happened to control illegal imports at that time.

The Party lives on.

She's made the exchange with your opposite number on your behalf.

A forking road, then. Above, you'd have to blend in. Below, you bask in the shadows, and hope trouble doesn't await beyond the door.

You have so far gone unnoticed. You may spoil that by exploring other routes.

A sneaky way in, far from prying eyes...

Minor additions won't compromise the bag's usability. You may proceed.

Recall the emblematic cigarette. Mystery, composure, lives lived on borrowed time -- an homage to your craft.

This silo is also where you'll find the mysterious 'MIHO', according to the fax you received.

And where the mysterious fax told you you'd find 'MIHO'.

Better look around the premises before stumbling in again. It's possible you already exposed yourself.

A theatre-grade inference. Operant CASCADE re-emerges from the shadows.

Lurkers draw attention. Operants walk in, then convince the world they belong.

And yet only a single clear point of entry.

Back when you were still the old CASCADE. Pre-failure, pre-disgrace, pre-despair.

An operant should blend seamlessly into their environment, leave no trace.

Meanwhile, your assignment lies neglected by the side of the road.

Shadowboxing against an invisible and in all likelihood totally imaginary opponent.

For all intents and purposes, the only answer that should matter is your controller.

Stagecraft, elevated by mystique, becomes myth. There's great power in that.

And seal the doors behind you.

Proposals to put assets through empathy-effacing conditioning protocols have been stymied by 'humanist' elements within the Operant bureau, creating a generation of vulnerable, emotionally-compromised spies.

During your training an old psychomancer told you that it's only in the faces of others that you come to know your own.

Operant PROBABLE is definitely a man.

There are times when an operant's humanity prevents them from getting the job done...

990 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 20 of 20