On the plus side: she's probably so psycho-fucked from this that she won't remember that you abandoned her.

If she's staying conscious through sleep then it isn't real sleep. She'll die of exhaustion.

She's using the equipment to do something to her dreams...

Probably some kind of curse. She's cursing you.

What's that? An odd etching noise coming from somewhere else in the sprawl. Familiar, somehow.

Something's not working right over there.

Fuck her boyfriend. Pull the plug. Get her out!

Try the console on the other side.

Get her out of this thing.

Machine's watching you now. Onto you.

Rün!

Not a chance that this is just bootlegging equipment. Look at all this power, this sheer monstrous energy! It's cooking something awesome.

A soft hissing noise accompanies the steady beat of its cooling pumps. Sounds like a human body, amplified.

Operant CASCADE's first special bench. Filed: age 14. Location: Landau, capital of the Holy and Democratic Republic of Mircea.

Patrolling cadres of Milites Sacrarii, clad in tallow-white surplices, never noticed you there. An early lesson in craft.

Hidden in the shade of Saint Erentudris' Basilica, three streets away and five years early to your appointment with a bullet.

We only pieced it together a couple years later. Sniffing around her desk, finding the stacks of passports -- all under different names.

A snorkel to messier, louder, brighter worlds. Maybe you'd have never left Mircea without them.

As the minutes pass, you catch yourself scanning the surroundings. Lamp posts, trash cans, flower planters...

Novessa sputters beneath an implacable leaden sky. Smoke billows from Obrekh furnaces. Stone gryphons leer down on Kalandar Square. Rail lines thread through blocks of dark slate and vermillion-streaked towers. The streets teem with people -- an endless, thrumming patchwork of crimson, charcoal, and indigo.

You miss them all terribly, for a moment. Or maybe you miss being lost among them.

EIGHTY-TWO OUT OF EIGHTY-THREE NEIGHBOURHOOD COUNCILS VOTED IN FAVOUR OF CITY-WIDE SECURITY MEASURES. THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE MERELY APPROVED.

The interconnected parts of you loosen, melting into the bench, until every sensation tells you that you have become one creature with the wood.

People float by in the distance, trams rattle overhead, but all you care about is how your spine seems to be rippling with ease.

Though we might thrive when coursing with energy, we appreciate the downtime, sis.

Marks to be revered from seating many people over the years.

For fuck's sake. Leave these people to their madnesses.

Statistically possible...

Wandering from one peccadillo to another like an inverted travelling circus; the world is their clown.

Do not.

There's no such thing as luck.

Luck is the most important tool you have.

Throw the lucky bottle to them.

The angels stop their shimmering and turn to watch this one perfect throw.

Told Eszti that fucking seagull was watching us! But shit, it's helping?

Seagulls are territorial. It was defending its airspace.

It was fucking magical!

That's twice you've been saved by a trash animal. Kin?

Hush as it falls.

Inevitable yet strangely crushing.

He waves his hand in a circular motion, tracing the course of lost interest that will one day return.

Perfect zone. Look at the view! No trees, ocean, or mountains getting in the way. Pure, uninterrupted structure.

Epic, epic!

True shock in her voice.

She winks at you.

Amused by her own obscurity.

She'll be in Novessa's underground dancehalls by spring.

A joke. They don't care about 'winning'.

It wants to fall on them. It wants to smash bone.

Obsidian, reflective, a pool of blood spills out beneath a mound of broken concrete. The sound of a keyboard comes from somewhere within, stuck on a diminished C.

Checks