The desk is as you left it.

The desk is as you left it.

Inspect the notebook.

It's soft and ringed. The word 'ACCOUNTS' is written across the top in black marker.

Flip through the pages.

A thicket of serial numbers, dates, columns and rows cover the pages top to bottom along with short-hand references to incomes and outgoings.

You notice the handwriting completely changes in the more recent entries.

Compare the two sets of handwriting.

The first dates back years -- harsh-lined, heavy-handed, all-capitals.

Tempo's.

The second set is an elaborate, looping cursive. Some of the 'i's have little hearts instead of dots.

Boring. Boring. Boring.

Check for variations in grammar.

There are none. The first set of handwriting even uses the word 'cunt' with the same wild abandon as the second.

Did Tempo have a stroke?

It would be quite rare for a rupturing artery to entice one into calligraphy.

Whose handwriting is this?

Definitely not Tempo's.

You avert your gaze.

This must be the new teenage boss.

The hearts suggest a compassionate touch... maybe even a human relations department.

Check the payroll.

A list of names, titles and compensation. One of the rows has been firmly crossed out with aggressive black lines.

'Ignatz' -- Could be the individual of flexible loyalties that Carmuna mentioned.

'Ignatz'... Nothing in the archives.

Check the expenses.

Rent, utilities and other minor operating costs, including travel: multiple instances of round trip tickets between Portofiro and Acuerda, La Luz.

Acuerda -- a coastal city of the Illuminated Empire's mainland. A corrupt commercial centre functioning as the launchpad for Luzian goods, directed at the Developed World.

Look elsewhere. (Back.)

Turn on the e-terminal.

It doesn't turn on. Someone's cut the cord.

Inspect the eye.

The crying powder-eye stares at you.

Why's it here?

It is a signal.

The crudeness of it points toward a sick joke by the Weeping Eye.

Ha.

The eye watches you.

Think I got the message from the blood.

A pretty badass symbol -- the fascists have us by the balls, aesthetically.

The silence in the room agrees.

Spit on it.

The eye dissipates.

Wipe away the tear.

Your finger returns to you with a dusting of white.

Power. Plant.

Hershel, no!

Put your finger in your nose.

If gasoline could kiss, this would be the perfume on the collar of its shirt.

Snort.

The privatized roads of your mind are now a high-speed rail network which penetrate the brain-blood barrier. Enjoy. It's cocaine.

The eye is no longer weeping.

Leave it there to melt.

It loses its shape, becomes liquid-like -- then, it is a part of you. Cocaine.

Put your finger in your mouth.

It tingles on the tip of your tongue. It prances underneath your lips. It keeps you cool. It's cocaine.

Wipe your finger on your pants.

Nothing good or bad happens.

Look elsewhere. (Back.)

Your eyes turn.

Inspect the picture frame.

As you turn the frame around a blade of light momentarily obliterates the row of faces presented.

Cutting straight to our heart.

A surprise attack launched from your own past.

Here you all are...

Tempo.

TAXMAN.

Your former network, known to the Opera as:

'The Whole Sick Crew'.

Also known to you as: The friends you left to die five years ago.

A set of implements arrayed upon a work bench.

Your people.

Look at them.

None of them meet your eye. Apart from you -- the only one looking down the camera.

They were counting on you, and you abandoned them. While they thought of you, you thought only of yourself -- you selfish little child.

Rub the dust from their faces.

What a thoughtful gesture. Very late, but very thoughtful.

Put the picture away.

You slip the photo out of the frame, into your pocket.

Pressing against your heart once more.

I left these people behind.

You did what the assignment called for. What you were told to do.

'FOR CASCADE ALL WILL BE FORGIVEN'

Some memories warp and bend with handling, but not this one. Dissimulate and dissociate all you like, it doesn't change anything.

Why did Tempo hold on to this photo?

A fatal case of sentimentality. Leading cause of death among old assets and spies.

He wanted to keep you all around.

I should've got on that tram...

Too late. Fading lights in the fog. You are here now, under attack.

The goal difference after the previous outing: ENEMIES: 7. CASCADE: 0.

Count today's set-pieces and you're on 9-0. That's the relegation zone. The manager's position is in jeopardy.

Time to go. (Conclude.)

Beneath the photo, and your heart -- a tug.

The window to your right. Did someone see you come in here?

Look at yourself.

Your controller told you to run -- and you did.

TIMELINE OF EXTRACTION: NOT FOUND.

Eszti.

ESTOC.

Vespar.

VIRTUE.

Me.

CASCADE.

Ramses.

RADIAN.

Karolina.

KINDRED.

HOLOCENE.

HOLOCENE.

Inside your stomach, spiders scuttle.

Do some more coke (for protection).

You tap your fingertip across the dusty eye, then turn it upward into your nose.

If the entire Weeping Eye came through that door right now, you'd kill them all.

That'll do. [Leave.]

You turn from the desk, back to the ransacked room.

On the desk are a grey notebook, an e-terminal and a broken photo frame, face down.

Next to the frame is an eye with a long, single teardrop, shaped out of a fine white powder.

The eye of your enemy. Weeping with joy at your return.