text: [Themes: Espionage]
  
  > Go downward
  I make my way back down to the lounge, past rows of uninteresting
  guest rooms.
  
  The hotel's lounge is a maze of overstuffed leather chairs. Next to each one is a narrow table with an ashtray and an occasional discarded newspaper or magazine on it. A trolley with drinks sits at the ready against the far wall. Passages lie in all four cardinal directions. In addition, an ornate, sweeping staircase leads upward into the part of the hotel for guests. While the human guests are of little interest,
  my predecessor also kept a room here on one of the upper floors.
  
  The tourist sits off to one side.
  
  > go south
  At the center of the hotel is this wide atrium, a plaza of orange
  brick dotted with flowerboxes and ornamental bushes. The ceiling of
  the lobby is made of glass, and so the sunset outside gives an unnatural hue to the hibiscus vines adorning the open doors to the south. Despite the location, it's mostly quiet here. Even the rattan chairs overlooking the garden to the east are empty.
  
  The hotel reception is to the west, and a corridor to the north leads deeper into the hotel.
  
  A thermostat is located unobtrusively in a corner.
  
  The bellhop stands near the entrance, looking nervous.
  
  The guest is loitering off to one side.
  
  I can also see a large puddle here.
  
  The detector vibrates faintly in my hand, and a magnetic force is pulling it east.
  
  > go east
  The gardens on the eastern edge of the hotel lie in uniform, geometric precision. Straight gravel paths bound squares of brightly colored flowers, each with a placard bearing the scientific names of its contents. The breeze from the nearby sea mixes the faint aromas in the various plants into an unidentifiable but not unpleasant smell. A ponderous chapel made of rough stone looms at the eastern edge of the gardens, and a well-worn path leading northeast skirts around it. To the west, there is a wide portico that leads into the hotel.
  
  The detector vibrates faintly in my hand, and a magnetic force is pulling it northeast.
  
  > Go northeast
  This small lawn runs between the hotel toward the southwest and the squat building to the east. It is trim and spartan, with no ornamentation aside from the tall hedges forming its boundary. They also block the breeze coming in off the sea, so the air here is warm and still.
  
  Lying at the base of one of the bushes is a small package.
  
  There's a set of open double doors here leading east.
  
  The drunk sprawls nearby.
  
  The agent stands next to the doors.
  
  The detector buzzes insistently.
  
  > examine package
  It's an unmarked package with some sort of nondescript wrapping. Of course, it wouldn't be a problem if it were descript; the package is a spiritual object, so humans wouldn't be able to notice it anyway.
  
  The detector buzzes insistently.
  
  > get it
  I shred open the package, revealing the wiretap that Whiptail showed
  me earlier. I deftly pocket the item, and the remains of the package helpfully self-destruct.
  
  > examine the wiretap
  The device we've nicknamed an "egg tooth" is the spiritual equivalent of a wiretap, designed to pierce the thin security layer around
  certain parts of the Other Side's communications network. It's not going to give us access to their deepest secrets, but it's a quick and dirty way of getting some basic signals intelligence. The inner workings of the egg tooth are complicated, but its operation is simple enough: Just set it to the address you're targeting and put it on a convenient communications relay. The trick is getting access to that relay, of course.
  
  The device is currently set to AA-000.
  
  > set the wiretap to LN-199
  Done.
  
  > Go east
  The interior of the chapel is exactly what you'd expect: A ???????????????????????????????????????????????? in front of a ???????????????????????????????????? without the ???????????????????????? and ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????. The whole place ?????????????????????????????????, but that's hardly
  surprising, given ??????????????????????????????????????????. It's a ???????????????????????? place, for obvious
  reasons, and the ?????????????????????????????????????????? doesn't make it any less ??????????????? or
  ??????????????????????????? to those of my kind, the ??????????????????????????? notwithstanding. Even
  though humans would undoubtedly love to know that ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????,
  it's simply ???????????????????????????????????? and ??????????????????????????????????????????, which neatly explains the meaning of life. An unobtrusive stairway at the back of the room leads upward, and the much more inviting exit from the chapel is to the
  west.
  
  A hatrack stands to one side of the doors.
  
  > examine the hatrack
  It's a little-known fact that humans sometimes wear hats, though
  nobody knows why. When they're not being worn, hats are often placed
  on a hatrack like this one. Not exactly like this one, of
  course, because this one is a spiritual object. The principle is the same, though.
  
  > get it
  That's fixed in place.
  
  > talk to Kingfisher
  I'd rather boil my eyeballs than engage in unnecessary conversation with that idiot.
  
  > put the wiretap on the telex
  I shouldn't show him that I've got the wiretap. It's highly classified equipment, and Kingfisher is literally the worst person to have access to it.
  
  > look at Kingfisher
  Kingfisher is a dangerous, stupid, smug idiot, and he looks exactly like you'd expect him to look.
  
  My editor has informed me that that isn't a useful description, so let me try to elaborate in terms humans are familiar with. Like me, he's not a physical entity, but the manner in which he's composed his metaphysical substance is analogous to wearing an impossibly expensive suit in order to impress or intimidate onlookers. His aristocratic, condescending demeanor combines the oiliness of an elected politician with the thoughtless obstinacy of an appointed commissar. He speaks
  at people rather than to them, and certainly not
  with them. He considers me to a spectator in some elaborate
  performance he's starring in, and he expects me to play the role of a grateful audience who's dazzled by him.
  
  Beneath that veneer of vague professional courtesy is a stupid, bumbling hitman who has no ideas beyond unfocused violence. He's a dangerous, incompetent, vicious lunatic who thinks that a superficial layer of charm makes him clever and deep. My only explanation for why he's been allowed on a mission in the mortal realm is that his superiors hate having him around as much as I do.
  
  > put the explore on Kingfisher
  It would just slide off. Kingfisher isn't a mortal; I can't give him intentions???or vice versa, fortunately.
  
  > Go up
  From here, I can only go down.