Branch
You can make out an impression of the Bazaar beyond the window, obscured by dust and grime.
Branch
Wipe the glass with your sleeve.
You gather up your sleeve and exhale onto the window, where your breath reveals a clear handprint in the dust.
Leave the handprint there.
The condensation from your breath fades, taking the print with it.
Branch
Rub it away.
Branch
You push aside images of Tempo standing here as you wipe off the stain.
You wipe off the stain, leaving a section of glass clear at eye level.
Put your hand on it.
You raise your hand and place it gently onto the print -- it's smaller than your own.
That is not Tempo's hand.
Someone else has been using this place.
You are late to the party, and the afterparty.
Branch
Has to be this teenage underboss...
The print could fit the hand of a young woman.
Has to be the 'hussy' Carmuna mentioned.
Look across the water.
Across the canal is the district of Lower Viudas, a mess of slums sprouting from the defunct ruins of itself.
A cross section of the city would be a cliff face eroded by floods, political tides, and fossils of forgotten hardware.
Branch
Scan the Bazaar.
Branch
Nighttime finds the Bazaar nearly empty. You observe a few teenagers and individual souls going about their routines.
The former overseers of Essilk #3 stood at this very window, studying the movements of the dye workers, looking for any signs of disturbance.
SIGNS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY CONSCIOUSNESS ORGANISING ITSELF.
I see no consciousness. Just a mess.
BECAUSE THE WORKERS HAVE BEEN DISMISSED. NOW THE RUINS OF THE FACTORY ARE HAUNTED BY OPPORTUNISTS.
Something's off with this place...
The former overseers of Essilk #3 stood at this very window, studying the movements of the dye workers,…SIGNS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY CONSCIOUSNESS ORGANISING ITSELF.BECAUSE THE WORKERS HAVE BEEN DISMISSED. NOW THE RUINS OF THE FACTORY ARE HAUNTED BY OPPORTUNISTS.He is stained all around you. Best he can do, currently.
An unusual shape breaks the pattern -- a large orange figure, sliding between the stalls.
Glancing up at the office, too much and too often.
Branch
The man from the photo shop. The Weeping Eye's errand boy.
Branch
The seedy little oddity.
A possible cover.
Something flashy to distract from something ugly.
Branch
A tail. Has to be.
Of course. In espionage, coincidence is folklore.
What's my move?
Lose him in the bazaar. Turn its layout against him.
Branch
End of this branch
The tail.
The man from the photo shop.
Wish you were here, Tempo.
He is stained all around you. Best he can do, currently.
It hums with free flowing commerce: Pensioners with oversized bags, teenagers carrying skewers of fried shrimp, dockers moving pallets off the canal.