"Operant."

"Operant."

"We need to talk about what I found in the silo archives."

"Bon -- and?" The old spy shifts forward in his booth. "What wonders awaited you inside?"

"You were right. The rocket disaster was a cover. Project AUTONOMÍA successfully put a manned satellite into high-orbit."

He raises his brow and tilts his head forward slightly.

Continue, he's saying.

"Something very strange was going on up there. I don't really understand it."

Alternative wording

"Something very strange was going on up there. I found documents about psychoactive drugs and other disturbing stuff."

Alternative wording

"Something very strange was going on up there. I found documents about secret detainment modules and other disturbing stuff."

Alternative wording

"Something very strange was going on up there. I found documents about psychoactive drugs, secret detainment modules and other disturbing stuff."

Alternative wording

"Something very strange was going on up there -- I found documents about secret detainment modules, psychoactive substances, 'remote host windows'. Really disturbing stuff."

"Bit overboard for meteorological research, wouldn't you say? However, if your true subject were the nature of human consciousness, well, that's different weather entirely."

"Out of curiosity, while you were slumming it in the dark, sexy tunnel, did you come across any references to the Polytechnic University of Treffe?"

"The psychologist onboard -- he was from the Treffe School."

"The eminent Dr. Juno Avré Straniak. Captain of the glue-sniffing wing of the Treffe School, so I'm told."

"Controversial individual. Lots of miscarried ideas about the origins of consciousness."

The words circled beneath the doctor's signature return to you.

"'Borders are illusions'..."

"'And everything looks back', yes. The standard Treffe thesis holds that consciousness is itself one such border, and only recently erected, evolutionarily speaking."

Silken web of awareness, holding dark tides in place.

It's at this moment, as the Paleolithic huntress pinches shut the great aurochs' lower intestine with one hand while with the other she expertly slices the hide around the anus from without, that the boundary is suddenly and fatally crossed. 'What am I doing here?' her brain asks in her own voice, as her head falls back and the terrible weight of sentience descends on her with a roar.

"Wait, how recent are we talking?"

"Couple thousand years? Last week? Once you begin to contemplate the timescales involved, hardly any distinction, really."

"So what came before?"

"Lots of competing explanations, take your pick: Some hold that we were simply like other mammals, driven by unconscious instinct, just on a more complex dimension."

"That's your so-called 'conservative' wing."

"Where do they get this idea?"

"If you read their output -- which I don't necessarily recommend -- you'll find it's built on some esoteric interpretations of ancient poetry, old Capoblancan burial practices, that sort of thing."

"Freaky stuff, according to most."

According to gäng, shit is positively school-like.

"It could get freakier. Lay it on me."

"Then you have the so-called 'astrologists', more dippy types, arguing that we used to receive orders directly from the stars, puppets of the void and things like it."

The ur-controllers. Vast, omniscient, orchestrating the entire human drama.

"And Straniak? What wing did he belong to?"

"His own, the 'glue-sniffing' wing. He thought the astrologists got it half-right. It's not the stars talking to us, it's our distant progenitors..."

"'Distant progenitors', meaning..."

"Meaning we were once part of a single, universal consciousness. Galaxy-spanning, as he had it. All minds, threaded together, knowing and feeling as one."

"So what happened? What severed the connection?"

"Personally, think it's got to do with the origins of writing. Been downhill since we started keeping records of things. Terrible stagecraft, what it comes down to."

"From there we got notions of linear time, then narrative and history, since then it's been one rolling catastrophe after another."

"What's this got to do with Straniak's theories?"

"In Straniak's telling, consciousness is the mind's effort to simulate that lost interconnection."

Of course, some possess this to a greater degree than others.

"But History's been over for a hundred years."

"True, that order of things appears to be breaking down. Even worse, whatever's meant to follow has yet to emerge. So here we remain, in the valley of grotesques and prototypes."

"That most people possess even a somewhat coherent picture of themselves is a credit to the mind's ability to hide from itself the irreducible truth."

Say it.

"We were not meant to be alone."

"Once you've heard it in your own voice, it becomes hard to deny." He nods.

"This is utter gibberish. Extremely unmaterial."

"Always thought it was rather melancholic myself... everyone watching their own personal picture-show, no way to know if the person in bed next to you is seeing the same show or not..."

For a moment he seems to consider his reflection in the bottom of the tiny glass.

"One's got to ease off the schnapps before he starts doubting the whole human project."

"And this 'Project AUTONOMÍA', it was Straniak's attempt to reconnect with this ancient consciousness."

"Yes, makes sense. And presumably his crewmates aboard this oh-so-secret satellite weren't just up there watching the tide roll away..."

"I think they were too busy being tied down and drugged with Orlavin-3."

"Turning their minds into what he thought were always meant to be: exquisitely sensitive instruments, made to detect signals nothing else in creation can."

Collapsing the mind's conscious defences in order to channel raw cosmos into human language.

"His methods sound a lot like traditional Luzian imprinting techniques."

"Unsurprising, lot of psychological anthropologists in the Treffe School. Probably heard about them somewhere."

"It was torture. Completely inhuman, and probably illegal."

"If it occurred within the Developed World, it surely would have been. Unfortunately for Dr. Straniak's subjects, it occurred 400,000 kilometres above it."

"But did it work, operant? Did. It. Work?"

"There was an accident of some kind. All contact lost. Straniak, the rest of the crew -- all presumed dead."

"And? Don't tell me that's all, operant. I'm getting that iron taste on my tongue. There's more."

"There's a disc. A recording of the satellite's final transmission."

"And you've got it?"

The old spy's grey eyes flash like light reflecting off a rifle scope.

Board tilting. Your favour.

"The files on it are completely blacked out."

"Come on, operant. Have you got the disc or not?"

"I'm not sure we can play it, though." (Give him the disc.)

"Umatic. Mmm. Not many things play this anymore. Old format..." He turns it over in his hands.

Lightly, like an artefact he's both drawn to and afraid of.

Oh god, it's another stairs-related task coming on.

"... fortunately, I'm an old format myself."

He pops the front panel off his box with a heavy plastic clunk. Nearly hidden among the skein of tubes, pumps, and wiring -- a built-in disc-changer.

Also visible: A micro-compact auto pistol and a blister pack of statins.

"Still leaves the matter of venue. Much as I like this place for the ambience, doesn't entirely suit our purposes, I think."

"Hold on, that's been in there this whole time?"

"You know how men get after a certain age. Can't throw anything away." He gives you a wink.

"So where do we listen to this thing?"

"I think yours should do fine." He nods. "If we have any outstanding business, we should settle it now. Hard to predict what'll happen once we spin this thing up."

"Wait, why my place?"

"Meets Opera standards, I presume. Free of listening devices, comes with a housekeeper. Safest place in Quisach, most likely."

"Alright, I'm ready now." (Proceed to Foto 24.)

"Bon. Let's go."

The yellow disc slots into the disc-changer with a soft click.

"On your mark, operant."

"On second thought, maybe we shouldn't."

"Like hell." He reaches a hand over and presses PLAY.

A click, a fog of static...

... a whoosh of blood between your ears...

... a shapeless figure twisting in darkness...

... and then:

"... WHEN AT LAST YOU'RE CONSUMED BY THE GREATER EXISTENCE, WHEN THE BORDER BETWEEN LOVE AND TERROR FINALLY DISSOLVES..."

"... AND YOU COME FACE TO FACE WITH THE CRUEL ANGEL..."

You know the next words. You've been hearing them since you got here.

"... who wears a face like you but from a dream..."

"... THEN YOU'LL KNOW HOW LOST YOU'VE ALWAYS BEEN IN THE WORLD OF FALSE IMAGES..."

The voice speaking these words, it's not entirely natural.

Like something inside has seized control of his vocal cords. A speaking puppet.

No-no-no. Keep away.

A solitary anchorite in a cell of aluminium and carbon fibre, 400,000 kilometres above the world.

Massive fail. Total gäng wipe.

His colleagues are decaying vegetables, he chants words he cannot himself comprehend, as pulsating orbs of blood float from his eyes, nose, and mouth.

Just then you become aware of another sound, coming from the old spy's heart-box, one you've not heard it make before.

High-pitched, dissonant. A sound that compels you to stop it.

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

The machines are talking about you all.

The old spy's body appears to be vibrating. His hand presses the headphone close to his ear.

"Hey, your box." (Tap him on the shoulder.)

"Shhhh! Damn you." He swats your hand away.

"... FLICKERING ACROSS EMPTY ROOMS, AND WHEN YOU PASS THROUGH THE DOOR IN THE AIR AND RETURN FROM YOUR BRIEF EXILE..."

You can feel your own sanity pulling away from you, as though on the cusp of a black hole, stretching, spinning...

An insane thought flits across your consciousness, to be kept absolutely to yourself.

Wait, what's this insane thought?

That this would sound incredibly cool set to music.

Yes. Yes! Hyper cool.

Again, kept to yourself.

"... ALL TIME AND PLACE BEFORE YOU, LUMINOUS, SENSE AND NO SENSE, COSMOLOGY OF A DREAM YOU MAY HAVE LIVED AND MAY YET LIVE AGAIN..."

Meanwhile, the old spy's lips move quickly, silently...

... wet, silent, like a fish behind glass...

You watch silently as the old spy communes with the dark secrets of the universe.

Dust motes hang in the stale air. Unbound stars drifting in space.

Slowly, the old spy removes his headphones. He turns to you.

Alternative wording

Slowly, the old spy lifts his hand from yours. He removes his headphones and turns to you.

"How in god's name did you do that?"

His face. Vision of pale horror.

"Do what?"

"Don't dick me around. The words. You knew them. How did you know them?"

"Those are song lyrics. I recognised them."

"Those don't sound like any song I've ever heard."

"Remember the Ultra Violeta disc I showed you?"

"The Einzeltone." He frowns. "Right, the title."

"'You but from a dream'... like the voice said..." He works his jaw as though chewing a piece of leather.

"Never understood music myself. Partially tone deaf." He pulls a loose cigarette from the pocket of his ugly shirt. "You mind?"

"Only if you're sharing." (Take one.)

The old spy cups a large hand near your face as the end sparks to life. He lights his own and leans back.

A man with access to more of humanity's secrets than nearly anyone, and yet the simple pleasure of a good pop song eludes him.

"But alright. So this Ultra Violeta, the missing pop star, she hears it too, that what you're saying?"

"She's not missing. She's here."

"Is that right?" He nods. "Well played, operant."

You mark a distinct change in the old spy's demeanour. Gone are the cryptic circumlocutions and knowing flourishes. For once, you're on the same page.

He's in unfamiliar seas here. It's your lights he'll navigate by.

"So our pop singer gets on humanity's unlisted frequency, cuts a new record, which lo and behold turns out to be some sort of 'metaphysical superweapon', if the bagheaded individual is to be believed."

"The lyrics came to her in a strange dream. She doesn't feel that she wrote them."

"You believe her?"

Savour this moment. One of the old ones of your craft is asking for your opinion.

"I believe she's scared of it. That it came from her."

"Frightened of her own artistic prowess." He nods. "Perhaps she's right to be."

"But then how did one of these discs make its way across the wide and teeming Noscorrentes Sea to Portofiro, and into the stereo of your unfortunate double?"

"It was given to him by one of EMTERR's operants."

"Tested in-theatre, then. Smart spy might ask what this EMTERR fool is doing with his hands on such a thing. Seems important."

He brushes the braid of cords aside so he can mash the remains of his cigarette against the side of his box.

From the window you can hear the sound of two people laughing out on Orphanage Street.

Two teenagers, stumbling home after a long night on Party Alley. An empty bottle echoing along the paving stones.

"One thing. This red disc of yours. It's not broken: it's an Einzeltone."

"What's an 'Einzeltone'?"

"Obscure format, self-erasing. Doubt they ever imagined it would become a tool of assassination."

"Bagman seemed very convinced that he'd found a way to reconstruct it." (Look at the red disc.)

"Exactly. Exactly that."

"Weapon like that, in the hands of an operant with a mind to use it, could be extremely potent."

Not a weapon, a tool of psychic eviction, a means to disinhabit the soul.

A MEANS TO POISON THE ENEMY'S POLITICAL ECOLOGY.

"Against the Grand Lich, you mean."

"A chance to turn the techno-fascists' own weapon against them. Poetry in that, were one so inclined."

"You're describing a metaphysical war crime. They'd never forgive us."

"Probably not. Then again, true art's rarely appreciated in its time."

"Unfortunately said weapon is currently in the possession of an insane man with a popular television program."

"Reminds me. Your thing."

Yes, what this was all about -- the Grand Lich's time of arrival.

It sounds so pitifully small now -- 'your thing'.

"Save your breath. The ginkyo tree. I already know."

"That right?" He gives you a level glance.

A fresh appraisal. Impressed.

"I have the location too. The plot is in motion."

"Tending, like all plots, toward death. Will be a hell of a season finale, I'm sure." He hoists himself to his feet.

"And now, operant, we come to our parting."

Probability of a future encounter: 0.000006%. Then again, the odds of your trajectories intersecting as they did were far lower.

"Wait, where are you going now?"

"Lots of new questions, lines of inquiry. Think I may wanna speak to one of these 'cruel angels' face-to-face."

Nothing facetious in his tone there.

"Luck and skill, Hauzmann."

"A strong draught of both." He nods.

He takes up the heart-box. His heavy frame shudders with new vitality.

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

One of the shadow-world's ancient deities preparing to slip back into the black sea beneath a starless night.

"I hope you get a good price, operant."

His heavy steps echo down the hall stairs and then fade to nothing.

Say nothing, just watch him go.

"I just need the location now."

"Shouldn't be too hard, I'd think. There's a couple of negotiators from the Bank's side of the table mucking around about town."

"Turn one of them inside out, you'll find your answer." He hoists himself to his feet.

"That's right."

"Season's rapidly approaching its climax. You'll tie it off, I'm sure." He hoists himself to his feet.

"It's a tree you're waiting on. Luzian ginkyo. Planted a long time ago."

Poor, dead Dante's words confirmed. The Lich will come.

Nod.

"So you know. Bon."

"Funny thing about Luzian ginkyos, they all lose their leaves simultaneously. Genetic, supposedly. Big ritual day."

"A good day to visit a shrine devoted to old war criminals, in other words."

"For example." He hoists himself to his feet.

"A ritual. But what kind?"

"Yours to find out, I'd say. There's a couple of negotiators from the Bank's side of the table mucking around about town."

"Funny thing about Luzian ginkyos, they all lose their leaves simultaneously. Genetic, supposedly. Big ritual day."

Confirming Dante's words -- a small consolation for your unexpected fumble.

Confirming what Dante told you. No doubt left, then. The Lich will come.

"There's one of those near the Party Alley tram stop."

"What kind of tree is that?"

"Big and yellow, nigh unmistakable. There's one near the Party Alley tram stop, incidentally."

"What's a tree got to do with the Lich's arrival?"

"Untraceable, technically nonlethal."

"Probably impress your controllers."

"Sounds messed up, I'll take my chances with bullets."

"Can't blame you, seeing how it's currently in the possession of an insane man with a popular television program."

"Your assignment, your prerogative."

"I'm working on a bomb-thing, currently. But this is a good backup."

Say nothing.

"And yet Bagman seemed very pleased to have gotten his 'metaphysical superweapon'."

"Now this fool with a bag on his head claims he's managed to reconstruct this disc, meaning he now possesses a weapon that can melt the minds of his unfortunate viewers or whomever else he decides to inflict it upon -- have I got that?"

"He thinks it's going to help his viewers 'break out' of Reality."

The old spy nods thoughtfully.

"Maybe a TV conspiracist is not the best person to possess such a thing."

"A TV conspiracist is exactly the best person to possess such a thing."

"We don't know for sure what he's going to do with it."

"Assuming it even works."

"The man with the paper bag on his head sounded rather convinced, have to say."

"I've only ever gotten ominous feelings from this thing, you're not helping."

"Too bad, much too bad."

"Whatever it was, but it's useless now. Completely spent."

"One thing. This red disc of yours. The Einzeltone. One play only, that's the deal?"

"Not quite. It's theoretically possible to recover its contents, with the right expertise and equipment."

"Sounds like you should start making more theoretical friends then. Just a thought."

"There might be some way to recover whatever's on it, but I don't know what it is."

"That's what I thought. It shouldn't be possible to reconstruct its contents." (Look at the red disc.)

"Not quite. It's theoretically possible to reconstruct its contents." (Look at the red disc.)

"That's right. 'The first time is the only time'."

"Don't know, don't care. I'm done with disc-fuckery on this assignment."

Two teenagers, skipping class. An empty bottle echoing along the paving stones.

Two teenagers, on the way to the tram stop after a few hours on Party Alley. An empty bottle echoing along the paving stones.

"That I still don't know."

"I do."

"Right. And I believe your belief is well placed."

"I don't trust artists on their own work. All massive liars."

"And yet, we have her song, and we have the transmissions we just listened to. Don't think we're in the realm of egotistic puffery any longer."

"I tried listening to it. No sound comes out, but it gave me a deeply unsettled feeling."

"Suggesting some shade of its power yet remains. Interesting."

"One immediately wonders, has the Ministry of Mass Culture got any idea about this, what powers they're tempting?"

"That's why the song's never been released. Ultra Violeta fled La Luz rather than perform it."

"Mmm. Poor thing. The Weeping Eye'll hunt her all her days." He takes a drag.

"Before UV escaped, the Grand Lich came to see her personally. The Ministry is planning some kind of concert from space."

"Of course. Massive spectacle. They'd want to broadcast across the Developed World, make an 'event' of it." He takes a drag. "Endgame of these secret treaties, I suppose."

"I suspect they think it'll help to bring about the Final Society."