Story timeline

467/02/15In game

Mobolisi withdraws to the Rhythm Star

Mobolisi announces he is going into seclusion and leaves Clear a doll to call on whenever the Bureau needs his help; Clear was sent to watch him. Mobolisi says he will stay on the Rhythm Star and Clear can find him any time, ‘as long as I don't notice’.

• S3Operthief
• The Tiaoyin Tiangou & Rhythm Star
• Artemis's remains

482/04/07In game

Orders at the sanatorium; the doll becomes Mob

Mobolisi orders every unit at the sanatorium to turn themselves into melody and hide in the public music if a stranger comes to look, and the security posts to erase any stranger until the treatment is over. The same day Clear names the doll Mob and asks it to tell him about Mobolisi.

• S3Operthief
• The Tiaoyin Tiangou & Rhythm Star
• Artemis's remains

610/11/24In game

Clear asks where the remains are

Clear asks Mob where Mobolisi put ‘her’ remains. Mob has been told to keep it secret and says Clear can only work it out by elimination.

• S3Operthief
• Artemis's remains

663/02/23In game

The Botticelli prototype catches a figure on the moon

The stargazer Mobolisi invented the Botticelli action camera. With the prototype he photographs a figure on the moon; Clear analyses it and says it is ‘100% a cloud’. Mobolisi asks how a city built entirely of artificial things could have clouds, and closes with ‘all normal’.

• S3Operthief
• The Tiaoyin Tiangou & Rhythm Star
• Artemis's remains

664/02/21In game

Botticelli II's fake moons and the black dot

The commercial Botticelli II adds moon texture to any round pale-yellow light, streetlamps included. In 665 a reporter photographs the real moon as a control, and the prints show a blurry black dot where the moon should be; an expert suggests it is the figure of a girl.

• S3Operthief
• The Tiaoyin Tiangou & Rhythm Star
• Artemis's remains

673/07/23In game

Stripping away the Tiangou's effect

Fuli keeps watch at the console while the Tiangou's effect is stripped away and finally nods off. She wakes to find her double, the Tiaoyin Tiangou, asking in a full sentence whether she will take the remains, and stammering that they are the source of the pollution. Fuli says she will take them to find the real culprit and take the Tiangou along too, and it agrees.

• S3Operthief
• The Tiaoyin Tiangou & Rhythm Star
• Fuli
• Artemis's remains

673/07/25In game

Fuli brings the remains to Clear

Fuli demands to know whether Clear is behind the Rhythm Star's moon, and Clear recognises what she has brought as part of the remains of a legendary whim that, while still active, could have polluted the whole Pixel Tower. Fuli says she has already fixed the planet with it, using the local trick of melody, and that ‘he’ left a huge amplifier-like device on the moon, with a log saying he was waiting for someone. Clear says he will wait in vain: ‘Artemis has probably logged out.’