Nerve

A giant squid, transmuted into metal.

Amid the chaos and disrepair, the ghost of what this room used to look like emerges for a moment:

Electrocution waiting to happen.

The lock clicks into place behind you.

The doctor has probably no need for it.

Your flashlight beam pans across a series of steel shelves on floor rails. Some aisles sit half open.

Ink on metal: 'BUTANE', and a column of dates. Last refilled three days ago.

The bin should be put out of its misery.

Doors crowd you, stacked upon each other. Behind one of them -- your former asset, ESTOC, draped in a see-through cloak.

'ROOFTOP USE FOR RESIDENTS ONLY'

Rest your elbows on the railing.

The sounds of plates clattering call to mind the first time you met Eszti. She's waiting for you in the corner of a restaurant occupying…

Ramses' disc collection: hours upon days of violent noise, not for the uninitiated.

Weeks' worth of mail.

There was barely any mess to speak of. The room is functionally unchanged.

The open hatch beckons.

Polaris' silent watchman oversees the shrine from the concrete surface.

Needles in the red.

Silk pyjamas flutter like wings.

Nature is reclaiming this place -- watch for things that bite.

You'd look like this crater too had you not jumped out of the way.

An unlocked cabinet.

A ladder hugs the edge of the canal, rust eating at its rungs. Darkened patches show where the water level has risen, lowered, then risen…

The platform is suspended above a sheer drop, cloud creeping beneath.

The violet night comes on like a stain. The full moon makes its stately procession as, one by one, the first of the fixed stars reveal…

You spot a few tiny skeletons within the wall of jumbled cages.

Ominous quantity of tape.

You might survive the fall from this height.

You stop and take the world in, a figure jittering on PAUSE. Nobody looks up. Nobody asks why you're here. Nobody waves.

A weather-worn building looms over you, its back to the road. Yellow-beige plaster peels like parchment, exposing old brickwork.

An unopened beer, cold and inviting, has been left on the table.

Refrigerated. The office's supply of coffee?

The half-skull above a bib of organs makes you shudder.

Seeing these binders reminds you of your own red folder in Foto24.

There is enough space beyond the railing to walk along the crumbling wall.

Fresh. The paint fumes make your head ache.

A low hiss emits from the tank, sets your teeth on edge.

Collapse imminent.

The question before you is the same one that obsessed Operant PROBABLE during the period of their precipitous decline.

Looks like you're on your own. If you're going to believe in anything, shouldn't it be the friends you've brought along with you?

It's 96 now. There are still day labourers, and students, and soldiers, but they no longer burn calendars or shout slogans in the streets.…

Other people, they just go for it, but you, you like to keep something in reserve. Limit your exposure, you know?

It all comes down to you, Repentful Spy. Ninety-six years of human suffering -- most of which you weren't even alive for -- it's time…

This line of work can be nothing but songs you sing to yourself between curtain calls.

Keep up your hardcore ways and they'll have you in a bulletproof box, facing a tribunal for the crime of 'getting results'.

It's time to begin. Turn the scalpel inwards and then peer into the orifice you have made.