A.Journal

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Trivial

'L' for Luz, as in Luzian Electro-Pop. A blend of traditional funeral ballads and cutting-edge synthesisers. Once a minor regional trend, today the ascendent musical form across the world.

Medium

Remember the box of dubbed martial arts tapes that one of your mother's 'work friends' smuggled in for you when he came to visit in 79?

Trivial

Even in this spectral form you recognise him -- Sweet Nestor.

Trivial

Even in this spectral form you recognise him -- Sweet Nestor, Portofiro's former supreme leader.

Trivial

Sweet Nestor: Portofiro's former Supreme Leader.

Easy

A paragraph from his red folder flashes redder across your mind: '... POSSESSING A MONSTROUS INTELLIGENCE THAT RESTS ON HALLUCINATORY LOGICAL CONSTRUCTION.'

Trivial

A memory is knocked loose -- it's a scene from HOLOCENE's favourite novel -- a science fiction offering with elements of horror.

Easy

Rumour has it that an old vending machine in Lower Viudas once sold anonymous murder confessions to anyone willing to pay ten sol.

Trivial

'Ignatz' -- Could be the individual of flexible loyalties that Carmuna mentioned.

Trivial

'Ignatz'... Nothing in the archives.

Challenging

Acuerda -- a coastal city of the Illuminated Empire's mainland. A corrupt commercial centre functioning as the launchpad for Luzian goods, directed at the Developed World.

Easy

'FOR CASCADE ALL WILL BE FORGIVEN'

Easy

Some memories warp and bend with handling, but not this one. Dissimulate and dissociate all you like, it doesn't change anything.

Easy

There's nothing in the filing cabinet on this. Did you misplace that folder?

Medium

There were reports of a ghost-site labour colony on Ile-de-Söze that the Opera took seriously.

Trivial

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.

Trivial

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.

Easy

A telephone from five years ago startles in its cradle, waking you from the thin end of a dream.

Easy

The instructions were very clear: 'Party Alley, West Side.' It's for you.

Formidable

Tempo never really got nervous either -- a sociopathic streak which often served him very well, but occasionally very poorly.

Trivial

The body double. Favoured anti-assassination technique of the Illuminated Empire.

Trivial

Nothing in the directories. Only thing under 'MI-' is Mia Holloway, your first almost-girlfriend.

Easy

The site of the failed launch.

Easy

The Pitol Tract was the site of Portofiro's aborted space program.

Medium

Not since the crew dissolved and you left Portofiro.

Medium

A conversation. Fogged Mirror. Two gin cocktails, her regular table.

Medium

Immediately apparent in the copies she passed you. Annotated, pertinent sections marked with colour-coded flags.

Formidable

Blank entries in the archive. Impossible to query or cross-reference. A form of willful oblivion.

Medium

Five years ago, he was one of the top experimental somnologists in the Developed World.

Formidable

They had to make sure it didn't smell too sour, so the test animals would eat it willingly.

Medium

Gonza seemed pretty serious. But the speech also felt rehearsed.

Medium

'Plaything'? The immortal image of the 'thing' on the bed upstairs comes back to haunt you.

Medium

Not in the official literature? Interesting. Take notes.

Challenging

TEMPO DEL SUR: I heard some stuff over in Cicatriz F. It got me seeing pictures, Hersh. This thing, when it hits... new world order.

Easy

In fact, you haven't heard it since you got here.

Easy

You dust off and briefly consult your topographical maps of the Teenage Psychosphere. It remains as wondrous and enigmatic as you left it.

Medium

You remember him saying that, a long time ago. Chant-like. A little ritual.

Trivial

A theory often dismissed as rumour, but taken more seriously on the top levels of the Operant Bureau: the Luzian political ministry are all identical psychic grafts of the same ancient philosopher.

Challenging

Holiday memories of your mother, struggling with an antenna, trying to access foreign cartoons -- through the static, glimpses of a shaggy, vintage vagina.

Medium

Sounds familiar... she's talking about Goat-Eyes, the lovelorn soul of many endeavours.

Trivial

The Ultra Violeti encountered this man. He scared them.

Medium

When you were sixteen you once put your blood type down as 'mysterious' in an attempt to impress a vaguely attractive doctor.

Easy

A far too familiar gesture -- something grinds and sparks against the inside of your skull.

Medium

Not precise, no. But not a liar either.

Medium

'Ritual' brings up zero matches in the Tempo archives. Or any archives.

Easy

The teen with the scarf. Though you recall him as more scarf than teen...

Trivial

Oh yeah. You did let it slip back there.

Legendary

The inner city gangs of Rega Seven regularly use teenage girls as assassins.

Trivial

Oh yeah. You did let it slip to her.

Medium

CASCADE: 'Are you sure it's okay to just... leave them behind, M?' CONTROLLER: 'They're assets, CASCADE.'