Sensors

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.

"You've come back."

The shrine is eerily still.

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."

"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..."

"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.

You loom once more over the shrine and its congregation of frames.

She will not look at you.

"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…

The receiver awaits your hand.

"My agent of fortune returns. Happy Dante."

Tiny figures jog across the screen, lobbing the hard pelota ball back and forth.

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

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

"Dull the blade, and unsteady the hand. The great CASCADE makes her appearance at last."

The chair waits before you, sagging and forlorn.

"Anything interesting in the shack back there?" He smiles at you.

"You should move, CASCADE."

Whatever light that's slipped in from above has nearly drained away.

You crawl back into the tunnel, as far in as you were before, where it starts to shrink.

The control unit idles in its cradle, lights softened to a tired glow.