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As with anything that talks in this city, it is emblazoned with the blue Renotel logo.

The girl Yana is withholding sacred Luzian artifacts from you! This cannot stand.

A shiver of electromagnetic interference.

Amidst the violent buzz of fluctuating electrical signals you sense the presence of nearby power lines, servomotors, and radio emitters.

What's wrong with the picture?

Some form of explosive device may have been useful.

Region-locked sound encoding. You'd need a top-line Luzian InfraVision player to invoke it.

The bitter taste of an old dye factory.

Thank you for your service.

The locking mechanism on those two shelves -- it's still in place.

Right. The locking mechanism needs to be released on both shelves.

One seems to be pulling the other.

All risks you're willing to take. This is a matter of professional pride.

Trust the techno-fascists to have all the best stuff. What's so good about Novessa, anyway?

An advanced technique known only to those with a lifelong passion for it.

With luck, it'll pull down the line signature.

That maintenance frame seemed intended for wireless connections, but it's worth checking out.

You'd need to cross-reference the number. Renotel must have maintenance terminals hidden away -- keep an eye out.

You need the cicada's scream, you crave it -- shrill and empty. It silences the nonsense of your dreams.

In and out, in and out of the machine's insatiable whirling jaws...

Yes! Yes!! That's not a real model but fuck it!!!

This is it. The closest you'll ever come to transcendence.

Amateur wirework.

No use. The Umatic disc encoding method is basically extinct. You can't play this thing without specialised equipment.

No use. This disc must use a non-standard encoding method. You'll need special equipment to play it.

A Protypo 909 50-watt with multi-disc changer. Last-generation model, designed for affordability at the expense of power and clarity.

Wait! There's no neatly perforated line to guide your tearing. And the binding's flimsy -- any operation you attempt, without the proper precautions, will become a dissection.

At the cost of its resell value. Condition: DEFILED.

This is a Umatic. While the form-factor's the same as any modern disc, the encoding method is entirely different.

Reroute the phone to call the prisoner.

Machines don't make mistakes, mister.

Baleen -- whale keratin. Also used to manufacture the cuirasses worn by Lävendi's revolutionary brigades.

A perfectly even burn line recedes throughout the joint, a milimetre with every puff.

It's much more expensive than a mere toy.

By the sound of it, it's more expensive than a mere toy.

A joint would be quicker. No tobacco.

One takes longer as it includes tobacco. This is a bad time to forget which.

The editing job alone is probably a week's work.

Only a monster would say 'no' to free, top-grade telecom nerdery full of hyper-specific details.

The baseline rhythm of the electrical signals in his body has steadied, a regular pulse instead of that jittering telegraph blip.

'Crickets' as in bugs. Ramses' signature wiretap devices.

Easy. Plug them into a phone or terminal box, and they'll listen in. From there, Ramses can record calls, or reroute them.

Sure. Attach bug to phone line and then it will do a bleep-bloop-blorg to the circuit thing.

No wires, switches, or screws anywhere on that thing he's holding. Remarkably untechnological for a Ramses project.

One, two, dead. One, two, dead -- a precise interval. The lightbulb isn't flickering, it's pulsing.

A faulty seal, a minor propellant leak, next thing you know four cosmonauts are splattered across the face of god.

465 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 8 of 10