You wake to blurry vision, thudding ears, and a dull ache in your lower spine.

You wake to blurry vision, thudding ears, and a dull ache in your lower spine.

The setting sun is hot on your face. Purple light spots are burned into the back of your eyelids.

The sound of the canal water lapping the sand is soothing, through it all.

Where am I?

Alive.

YOU HAVE INFILTRATED THE ENEMY'S LABOUR CAMP: AN OPPORTUNITY TO BUILD COMMUNISM IN CAPITAL'S BACKYARD.

They put me on someone's couch. Pretty decent, considering the torture.

The couch doesn't belong to anyone. It is a couch of the city.

As much a part of it as any building, any crossroads, any patch of slate grey sky.

Someone is standing nearby, watching you.

Blink.

Your eyes realign and find a young girl staring at you, chewing a lock of her own hair.

"They got you too? The labour colony life is tough on children."

"I dunno what that is. But I don't think anyone got me."

"Where did you come from?"

"Over there." She points north, vaguely.

"How'd I end up here?"

"I dunno. I just found you asleep." She shrugs.

"Don't tell anyone how you found me, please. Might create the impression I haven't bounced back."

The girl nods seriously and gives you a little thumbs up.

Look around.

A derelict beach. A grey canal. And the Noscorrentes Review building, less than fifty metres away, up the hill, beyond the water-lock.

The city looms behind you like a titan. This is the Quisach quarter, by way of the southeast roundabout.

I've barely moved.

You didn't move at all. Someone else did it -- lifted you up and dumped you here.

A derelict beach. A grey canal. And the building you were interrogated in less than fifty metres away, up the hill, beyond the water-lock.

"Where's your dad?" (Proceed.)

"He had to go 'grown-up fishing', is what he said. But he said I can take the tram home all by myself." She beams.

It will be dark soon.

"Can you help me with something? I need to get this knot undone."

The girl holds out a small hook tangled in fishing line.

Binding. No. Not again.

"I can try."

You take the hook and its clot of near-invisible wire.

You can't shake the feeling of being watched. Each curtained window in this city could be an eye.

Double: LOST IN-THEATRE. Status: Captured. Interrogated. Loyalties: Non-existent. Conclusion: Failure, brackets, Inevitable.

Your hands are trembling.

A child is asking for your help. Focus.

"What are you trying to catch?"

"Mantis shrimp. But they move pretty fast."

Faster than you.

Study the knot.

It's a haphazard tangle of wire, formed on the universe's whim. Still, it conjures up an uncomfortable feeling in you.

Your wrists burn -- the skin chafed. Your shoulders ache from the pull.

Fiddle with the knot.

You pick at the wire, your fingernails slipping off the fine thread. Here and there, you make progress.

Coming apart at the seams.

I'm not supposed to come undone. I'm supposed to be better than that.

This time you weren't. Next time you might be.

I did what I could under extreme pressure.

You broke. They didn't kill you. A chance to face it down again.

Tougher than it looks.

They'll all learn, one way or another.

That's why you're here again, isn't it? To show them all.

CASCADE never breaks.

Just cracked a little. Barely noticeable among the rest of the fractures.

"Almost got it."

"Are you okay? Did something happen to you?"

A hot woman with an electric rod happened. Gäng's in shambles.

"I added another stop on the World Apology Tour."

"Oh cool, like a band. Ultra Violeta is the coolest."

"But you seem so..." She frowns, trying to gauge you.

You tug on the last loop of thread. The tangle vanishes as the hook slips free.

"So... what?"

"I dunno... Very..." Bouncing a little heel in frustration.

She knows the feeling, but not the word.

"I fixed it." (Give her the hook.)

"Cool! Thanks so much!" She takes the hook back and loses all interest in your emotional state.

"Oh, yeah." She pulls something out of her pocket. "The man told me to give this to you."

She holds out a clot of folded paper.

"Which man?"

"The man with no heart."

Hauzmann. The null persona.

"Old guy? Carrying a strange little box?"

"Yeah. Is he your dad?"

"We work together."

"Oh, okay. Adult stuff."

"No. I think he's a massive creep."

"He was nice to me."

"We're just good friends."

"Oh." She studies you. "Maybe you're old, too."

The man in the Fogged Mirror.

A chill unrelated to temperature flicks up your spine.

"You mean he wasn't very nice, right?"

"No, I mean he didn't have a real heart. That's what he said."

A revenant is stalking you through the city.

"What did he look like?"

"Old." She shrugs. "He was carrying a box with a lot of wires on it."

Look at the paper.

It appears to be an origami rendering of some kind.

An anatomically correct human heart.

Contoured. Dynamic. Expressive -- a shining example of the form. Or at least it would be, if it hadn't been subjected to the inside of a ten year old's pocket.

Wouldn't it have been easier to just fold it into a heart-shaped heart?

Easier, yes, but less fulfilling.

Maybe it's a threat.

If so, it promises a very technical and exact death.

People who are into this sort of thing are always making flowers or birds, but... this doesn't look like that.

What it looks like is an anatomically correct human heart, slightly squished from being stuffed into a ten year old's pocket.

Take the weird shape and unfold it.

Alternative wording

Take the heart and unfold it.

The flattened paper reveals a handwritten message within the shape:

'Big ticket item about to hit the organ block. Opening bids already coming in by payphone -- Party Alley, West Side. Who will we say is calling, operant?'

Below the scrawled text, a childlike drawing of a heart, coloured in red.

Hauzmann no doubt organised your release from the jail.

This message is no courtesy. It's a debt slip.

"Does this mean anything to you?" (Show her the note.)

"The heart is pretty." She taps on it with her forefinger.

"What do you reckon, would you trust this guy?"

"He drew a heart, so he must like you."

"Any thoughts on this 'big ticket item'?"

"Uh..." She twists a forefinger on her cheek. "Maybe it's like a prize?"

"Feels kind of ominous to me."

"I don't know that word yet. But yeah, probably it is."

"Did he say anything else?"

"Uh... Nope."

"Don't speak to any more strange men with no hearts."

"Okay." She thinks for a moment. "But how would I know? I can't see inside people."

"Thank you." [Leave.]

"For what?" She looks confused.

Your gaze instinctively turns north, towards the fog and colour of Party Alley.

To this marked payphone, then. It seems someone will be waiting for you on the other end.

This heartless stranger no doubt organised your release from the jail.

"Just another set up. I'm used to them by now. Maybe you're another one."

"No, I'm real."

"I lost a round of my favourite game."

"You can always play it again."

"I left the wrong part of myself behind."

"That's a shame. I'm always losing things too."

"I did a little bit of atoning, but still have a lot more to do."

"Atoning..." She doesn't know the word. "I get it."

"I won a hollow victory over the shadow forces which dictate my path."

"Nice." She nods in approval.

"I showed a stiff bitch who's boss."

"Oh, no." She covers her ears briefly. "You can't say that word."

"It's possible I'm dead at this moment. And you're a very endearing psychopomp."

"Uh... I just want to catch some mantis shrimp."

"It's possible I'm wanged at this moment. And you're a very endearing psychopomp."

NOTHING A PROLONGED IDEOLOGICAL REALIGNMENT SESSION WON'T FIX.

"Big ask. I've just been electrocuted."

"Woah."

"Rough on the central nervous system."

"If I touch you, will my hair stand up, like the electric ball in school?"

"Let's find out."

The girl extends her forefinger and places it gently on your head. You meet her eye as nothing happens.

"Looks like you're okay now." She holds the hook out again. "Please. I've been trying for ages."

"Don't you dare touch me."

The girl nods and puts on her best 'understanding face', even though she's not quite sure what's going on.

"I had a great time."

"If you're big enough to catch a tram, you're big enough to fix a tangled hook. Welcome to life."

"Okay. I'll keep trying then." She folds the little hook back into her palm.

That will stick with her for a long time. An unpleasant walk-on role in the story of her life.

"Are you on your own?" (Proceed.)

"I was with my dad... but he had to go 'grown-up fishing'. He said I could take the tram home all by myself." She beams.

I've been disappeared. Packed off to the labour colony.

Springs dig into your back as you shift position. Your skin feels like it's still crackling.

Maybe an aftereffect of the shocking. Maybe the first symptom of your augmentoid ascendancy.

That will be the last time they mess with CASCADE.

The shutter slams down behind you with a muffled thud in the splash.

There was a woman at the top of the stairs... I think she saw me.

Alternative wording

That weird subeditor woman definitely saw me.

A glimpse of your tail as you fled, perhaps. But you made it out.

Scent on wind. Afterimage.

So what now?

The assignment is not lost. You have critical information about your enemy's movements.

Half a horoscope.

Take it to your controller and let them all know -- CASCADE is back.

Busted in to jail, busted out.

All by yourself. A one woman Crew.

Chain gäng's gone fugitive.

The shadows embrace and cradle their courier.

The Umbral Host nods their approval. The courtiers bow in your direction.

An honour.

CASCADE takes another round!

Opera: 1. EMTERR: Nil.

AN 'AWAY GAME' AND EVERYTHING.