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421 checks

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.

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.

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.

The keypad sends its input to a series of relays inside the door. If the input is right, solenoids pull the bolts open.

There is only one security system that uses that setup, the Abwehr-Pastorius Mk. III. A legendary keypad and lock duo.

With a certain excitement, you discern.

Intercom looks expensive, the interference suggests a building-wide system. Nothing 'light' about this security.

Of course. When an industry dies out, its buildings are repurposed into offices for that contemporary, utilitarian feel.

With a certain weariness, you discern.

Yet another device bearing the Renotel emblem. Only recently installed, too.

Only recently installed.

A system compromised at the sub-atomic level.

The digital birdsong of a signal jammer. When you want your target to know they're being disrupted.

Aural torture. Wicked.

By the wall, the magic box chirrups in response. A warning tone, indicating an unstable connection.

Fully charged now. The world's first augmentoid hyper-spy.

An emergency venting cycle; motors spinning down. The device is trying to adjust to an unexpected baseline.

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.

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

One must think of multi-tiered privileges. Access granted or withheld via radio wave. Most likely off-the-shelf.

The Subcomandante's 'metaphysical superweapon' is useless, unless.... could it be he's found a way to reconstruct the red disc?

Perhaps a kind of social scramble pattern.

Velodisk! A modern laser-hybrid format, played using a heated stylus unit. Astounding sonic fidelity. Cause of thousands of home fires.

You see him now -- eyes wide, reward circuit shorted out by the cut and thrust of commerce.

Behold! The paladin who stands before Absurdity and declares 'Well, technically...'

A technological muscle flex. Reproduction and erasure just millimetres away in space, milliseconds in time.

Remanence: the charge that remains after the removal of a magnetic field. The ghost of magnetic possession.

Makes sense. Forbidden media. Desecration of a tomb, the broken seal...

Reproduction and erasure just millimetres away in space, milliseconds in time. Precision humans can only dream of.

As if to ward you, vector of the techno-plague, away.

But... but... all of them?

Velodisk! A modern laser-hybrid medium, played using a heated stylus unit. Astounding sonic fidelity. Cause of thousands of home fires.

Necro-techno sorcery. Awesome!

Please please please let her try it...

She has surpassed him.

Check for a pulse, with any luck you might find none.

At least two different colours and three different consistencies in there. That's not a drug, that's a cocktail.

Two words: Lab Grade.

Enabling subconscious links between several participants, all wearing headsets. Very futuristic.

Two words: Lab Grade.

421 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 8 of 9