The provided text contains excerpts from Charles Stross's science fiction collection Wireless, which compiles stories written over a decade and ranging widely in length and subgenre. These narratives explore various complex and often unsettling scenarios, including dark alternate histories where the Cold War continues on a disk-shaped world created by powerful alien entities after a devastating nuclear exchange. Other plots focus on occult espionage, following an agent of the British secret service known as the Laundry as he investigates a terrifying, conscious mainframe at a psychiatric facility. Additionally, the collection features agents of the Stasis, a temporal organization dedicated to policing complex historical timelines, and satirizes the dangerous and decadent lifestyles of posthuman oligarchs engaged in extreme sports on Mars. The excerpts collectively introduce a world populated by paranoid agents, cosmic horrors, technological rebels, and time travelers, showcasing a broad spectrum of ...

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.