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A middle-aged vendor begins carefully laying sheets of tarpaulin over his wares. As he smooths out the creases, he hums an intimate melody meant for no one but himself.

A middle-aged vendor carefully arranges his wares in accordance with a strict personal algorithm. As he does, he hums an intimate melody meant for no one but himself.

What on earth was on that red disc?

Songs can haunt you longer than people. All the way to the end of a life, on perpetual loop in the background of your mind.

A six-year-old girl slowly lifts the corner of a heavy white sheet with frayed edges. Behind the sheet is a mirror. There is no one else in the living room. The girl catches a glimpse of herself and drops the sheet in shock.

Four young women bound in holding cells. The interrogations have not yet been violent, but they have been ruthless.

You can't quite shake the feeling that this girl is seeing visions of your death as you talk and keeping them all to herself.

In an apartment block in a suburb of Novessa, twenty minutes by commuter rail, a middle aged woman watches a few seconds of a heavily censored erotic thriller before changing the channel. An open can of treacly liqueur has gone warm next to her.

Solo-karaoke, no one around to hear her shout-singing along to the griefsludge disc she keeps in her bag for days like this.

Somewhere in a designer hotel, a bleach-clean prison where she waits for her one-way trip to the moon, a twenty-one year-old pop sensation feels a chill, followed by a sudden, uncontrollable bout of nausea.

The paleolithic huntress exhales as she fondles the precious river stone, the primal superstition inside her calmed -- for the moment.

You are milking your lucky cow dry, take it easy on him. Once a day is more than enough.

Not the bald spot! The font of luck.

The paleolithic huntress exhales as she fondles the precious river stone, the primal superstition inside her calmed -- for the moment.

You're milking your lucky cow dry, take it easy on him. Once a day is more than enough.

Every once in a while he accidentally wanders close to the edges of his limited experience in the world, and when he does a deep and primal fear enters his eyes.

The paleolithic huntress exhales as she fondles the precious river stone, the primal superstition inside her calmed -- for the moment.

The paleolithic huntress exhales as she fondles the precious river stone, the primal superstition inside her calmed -- for the moment.

It's never going to work like that. You have to believe.

A sinuous rope scar wound around his arm and across his shoulderblade, he screams.

Somewhere beneath the Noscorrentes Sea, a bloated body turns to face the sky.

Somewhere within the warren-like streets of Lower Viudas, an old man pulls a pelota cap over his face and ducks into a neon-lit bookmakers.

At the bottom of a hidden jail, a trembling old man turns and looks at the blank space where a window should be.

You're the highest thing in Portofiro. She can see you from up there.

Pray to Canopus.

Photons propelled through silver halide gelatine, nothing but the momentary flash of a false star.

The freckles and splatter patterns of blood droplets are indistinguishable from one another on the face of a tram driver pinned under rubble. The steel beams that have crushed her legs are the only thing keeping her blood inside her body. Even an inch of motion, and the arteries gush...

In a dark basement in Novessa, a female controller in her mid-thirties shifts uncomfortably in her seat.

In a dark basement in Novessa, a female controller in her mid-thirties stifles an inexplicable urge to push a palm into her face.

Operants of the Psychic Wars!

Spring's thin edge, a promise yet to be delivered on. Trembles of blossom on the tree branches lining People's Square. A woman in a blue cardigan pauses at a wooden stall stacked with old books.

He doesn't move -- but you swear you feel the gentle weight of a hand upon yours.

Whatever happens has already happened.

A broad-set man surveys his cards through double-lensed spectacles, whispering to himself as he draws. Agents of the Weeping Eye sit heads bowed around him, waiting for the word of god.

It dawns on you that you've delivered the punchline to a cosmic joke only he will understand.

In the storefront of a one-hour photo shop, a middle-aged woman watches as the fax machine ingests a sheet of paper, then thoughtfully regurgitates it. A moment later a second paper comes out, warm from the machine's laser stylus. She compares the two pages with deep suspicion.

Twenty stories below the surface of Novessa, the double-time click-clack of practical heels down a long hallway. On the desk of a high ranking Opera official, an amber light blinks.

Nameless corpses, piled in flames. Faces turned toward each other.

Tune in to the building's frequency.

You find yourself humming along with the building, involuntarily.

A few lines of song, like tinnitus in the back of your head. You can't focus on it.

The corners of the mouth vibrate pathetically against the rags that stuff it, gagging the scream in its throat.

In sync with the snap of his fingers, halfway across the world a young man in the midst of his birthday celebrations is stricken to the ground with an aneurysm.

The corners of the mouth vibrate pathetically against the rags that stuff it, gagging the scream in its throat.

And he wore the same imperturbable smile as he forced his hand down Karolina's throat.

Wearing the same imperturbable smile.

In a dimly lit ground floor flat in Novessa, a boy no older than eight picks up a toy rocket. 'I'll be like daddy one day,' he tells his mother.

Somewhere, in whatever cosmic accounts are settled, there has been a mixup. Until such a time as it is cleared up, you appear to be off the hook.

Another time, another place. A different life overlapping for a moment.

On the hidden side of the sun, a polar radiation storm congeals.

373 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 6 of 8