'Cracking' 'cracking info', 'cracking data', are commonly used terms. They arise from the access modes of most early forms which required the recipient to alter the angle between the central segment and the flanking hooked segments in order to start data flow on the screens.

Polymer models have a singular tendency toward reverting to earlier versions when cracked: they emit an inane tootling whistle. Some cannot be stopped. Purchase new and only from reputable dealers if you wish to avoid embarrassing and irritaing incidents.

Round pellets are able to hold a great amount of information due to their overrecord capability. Units hold the superposed data in a superbly compressed series of alternating modes and display it in elegantly readable form.

Luminosity is greatest in the composite metals models. You'll never lose that unit just when you need it most. They never glare and they're never harsh.

If I were you, I'd never use the pink. It fades to the hue of dead tusqer flesh after 5 uses. Max.

Don't use the Sharpie with the platinum access buttons. The night glow never works without additional purchases from assemblers and the stop button jams.

In general, spectacular claims are spectacular frauds. To save time and marks respond only to product statements issued by registered assemblers.

Mediators prefer the segmented style, familiarly handled 'the hooks'. Their preference is clear to us. They like the feel. Smooth, sleek, yet easily grasped and with uniquely graded and responsive action buttons. Screens accommodate individual mediators' favorite screen configuration and content formatting and easily adjust to their varying access formulas.

Try to get 1 of the rings models from 40-50 years ago. Once programmed they're almost impossible to divert from their mission. They know the drop points and depositories throughout the city extremely well, even some now rarely used. And a delightful bonus: they inform you they've been sufficiently programmed by emitting wonderfully scented vapors which rise and waft about you.

Want to be the best occult courier in the city's life? Find yourself a wily old repeater comm unit and get it to show you the many contact points now seldom used or unused but still viable. Peak value. Crack the edge.

You want to be marched off among the breaklaws? Then get yourself an old rings model. You'll destroy city streets venting your frustration trying to program it. For anything. And if you succeed before you expire it'll reward you with a big stink you can't get off your skin for days.

If you're curious, or bored with the high-risk offerings at the entertainment center, contact a rogue vendor. You'll be amazed at the trouble they've taken to decieve. I've discovered instances where the requirements of deception cost the rogue far more than a legitimate repair and upgrade would have. But rogues are rogues. They also find personal satisfaction and the glow of peer admiration from their creations (some of which are referrd to as 'employed abortions' or 'chimeras' by sour victims.) But from time to time you'll come across a remarkable gem, some unique improvement or a fine unit reclaimed from the far past.

Get the hottest and the latest, get the coolest and the greatest reusable comm units graded for official use without the usual premium price gouge. Contact Karrr, ID 4572112j for specifics.

Always there, never pushy. Designed to arouse pity, curiosity, or delight.

The slender, aerodynamically adept form ensures the most rapid delivery. In addition, their compact form allows them to find an advantageous position under almost any conditions. Able to hover at 20 standard levels.

Guaranteed not to lock down in trying environmental conditions. Guaranteed not to sting due to vapor induced insulation breaches or oxidation.

These little dynamos carry more than models 4 times their size. Be free from fear of adverse conditions. They sense access attempts and bare their buttons to fumbling fingers (and other appendages) in any lighting and environmental conditions.

Comm unit collectors exchange is located at 51157a. Access and provide data, answer your questions, buy sell and trade units. Have your mystery unit classed and ID defined and traced. Learn the history. Find excitement. Official and customized, repeaters and single-use.

I find the old metals fascinating to work with. And when you finish, well, then you really have something. Solid. Pure silver casings, gold, copper, even bronze and chrome, certain grades of hard steel, but not the forced carbon injection grades.

I was always an assembler. I can't conceive of being anything else.

You gotta love this. You gotta love the units. Repeaters, one-timers, the old cranks, the doolies customized out of recognition. If you don't you'll never get anywhere as an assembler, except maybe among the rogues. But they're in for the marks. They miss the best part.

Get yourself a mentor. Get yourself several. Each with a specialty. They'll show you how to weave wires, track guides, level gates, sequence switches, do a multidimensional photonic grid. They'll save you a lifetime of effort on your own.

I couldn't think what else to do. I was sitting under the Fantasy Tune Generator in the entertainment center when I decided to become an assembler. I crawled out and started searching the first waste disposer I found. It resisted, knowing I was going to ruin its quota time, but I found what I wanted. My first unit. A one-timer. I took it apart. That's how I began.

I guess I'd be classed as a rogue. Because I get my components from nonstandard sources. Some call them unauthorized but that doesn't influence me if they're better. I get the best gates, from partnered copper and doped molybdenum. They haven't been produced in a century. But they're still the best.

Assemblers have real power. A powerfully customised unit can bring you love, war, riches, victory. It can bring you secrets. It can convince. Find yourself a good assembler and you've got the key. If you are an assembler then you create the keys. You have all the matrices.

I can spend weeks getting a unit into just the look I want. Doesn't matter if it's a one-timer. Some of them have design elements that have never been topped.

In our profession we're inclined to accommodate all varieties of pleas and requests which arrive by comm unit. The nature of our calling as well as training induces us to examine all such communications equally. It is not our way to be swayed by elements of fashion, adornment, or emotional ploys. We are aware of them, we situate them in the totality of each unique session, but we are not swayed by them. ---- Sarejh

We attempt to take up the units in the order of arrival, in most cases. There are exceptions. Some cases are inherently more urgent, more crucial. We must allow for that. ---- Hadras

Every mediator can give accounts of comm units gone wack. A unit wildly stuttering one phrase over and over when clearly it has been assigned to divulge much more. A screen designed to slide out instead spins wildly like a blade. Shocks from damaged or corroded units. Access buttons extruding and retracting in mad abandon. It never hurts to know something about the workings and maintenance of these units. ---- Wuprassen

Want to catch someone's attention? Use the Sharpie. Its color repertoire is derived from the fire and reload timing of retinal columns and adheres to their inherent tonal sensitivities, a secret cracked through astute and prolonged examination of every part of the eye.

When I was in first quarter training, I saw Likku in the corridor outside her depository. She had a hook unit around 1 ankle, another around her neck, and she was wrestling with that one awkwardly while hopping on 1 foot and trying to shake the other from her leg. It gave me pause, I tell you, about pursuing this profession, for all my desire to. Likku was the most senior mediator at that time, and I had chosen her for my mentor. She held fine sessions and has remained unequalled in Metaspace, but certain elements of common city life baffled her. ---- Rnuu, taken from conversations in Cube Sector, Merut's place.

I remember Aqsandrrru, who would never admit the efficacy of our routers. She would walk through city streets followed by a swarm of all units associated with all of her active sessions. ---- Nunen, taken from an informal discussion of his profession on a terrace at the PlasNarrru Cafe.

Trulahn once cracked a sullen disc unit by chanting to it. Everything else we could think of short of complete destruction we had already tried. He chanted to it for 15 hours. Then it opened. ---- Mlkonen

Our first record of comm unit use as a vehicle for a plea for a mediated session is within 4 decades of the city's founding. Probably year 28. Very early use reflects some intent to offer these rare and prized units as a gift to the mediator, not a bribe but as partial payment. They quickly became the favored means for both supplicants and mediators. Supplicants lost no time tracking mediators or waiting near their offices. And mediators were not harrassed by clusters of importuning and vociferous citizens. ---- Sidd