Grey Matter

You return to the staircase.

"I really think you'd dig this. You look like the type."

"Back again, Hershel."

H.S. Lastra's blood-obsessed pulp epic awaits you.

With awkward reverence, you approach the shrine again.

He turns his head toward you in slow-motion and barely.

The lump of flesh you extracted from HOLOCENE's head sloshes about in the mysterious red liquid.

"You've come back."

You step into the booth and press the receiver to your ear.

"Operant. Something big is happening, isn't it?"

The magic box hums its secret tune. In a dark Novessa sub-basement, your controller answers.

The sleek metal callbox stands guard.

The cleaning tuk-tuk with its soap bubbles and secrets seems almost prestigious now.

"All sleeping soundly here, CASCADE... Any luck with those brakes?"

The building noticeboard stands beside a communal area, full of ads and scraps of daily lives.

It all happens in milliseconds. A sharp blow to your elbow, the flashlight flying out of your grasp...

"Hello again." The subeditor smiles at you with the left side of her mouth.

"Yyyes?" Again the heavy, authoritative Azzurri voice comes through.

"Thanks again for clearing out the squatters. I won't forget that." He nods, then looks away.

You approach Shelves B and C once more.

Ultra Violeta remains frozen mid-song, trapped within the shimmering projection. Her music plays somewhere behind you.

"As I suspected, my sources were very pleased with your work. Well done, Hershel. It's an honour to work with you again."

"Fuck off, Tigerpussy."

The glimmering purple keyboard is just as you left it.

"Yyyes?" Again the heavy, authoritative Azzurri voice comes through.

Look, around your feet.

THE WANG GUIDE TO IMPROVISED FIREARMS, VOL 2.

"Wow... an actual liquidity mage..."

"I'm good, Hersh... I'll live."

"Goodbye."

The abandoned cardboard moving boxes remain in the corner of the little apartment.

"Here again."

You have already engaged in model train repair and improvised weapon manufacture here. There is nothing else to do at the workbench.

"It's cold out here." The girl rolls her shoulders and lightly stamps a foot.

There's nothing to do here anymore.

"Didn't work, did it?"

"Hello, lapinette."

"Hi again. Still not leaving yet, sorry." She puffs on her pipe.

"..." His idiotic expression remains unchanged.

"You. Again." The tapping begins.

She will not look at you.

The pipe twists out from the concrete like the roots of a plumbing tree.

"CASCADE." The barest of nods. "I've been playing 'I Spy' relentlessly with myself to pass the time. Pretty even as things stand, but I'm…

You return to the postbox.

"..."

"My agent of fortune returns. Happy Dante."

The one personal touch in the otherwise sterile, bland clinic, the wall has been decorated with photographs, documents, evidence of Dr.…

The pink paper tab is no bigger than a fingernail. One side is decorated with a simple illustration of a cockerel.

A sheet of thick paper lies on the floor, folded in half and partially covered by shadow.

The chair waits before you, sagging and forlorn.