Red KirmizJohnny jumped as the payphone rang. He was on the street, wondering what to do with his new orders, and being very thankful he had gloves. Sometimes he wondered if there was ever a sunny day in this city. There was a question of etiquette with payphones that should have ended when cell phones became popular, as to whether or not you should answer a payphone that's ringing. It's uncertain as to why you would want to ring a payphone unless you were conducting a drug deal, but a ringing phone was a ringing phone.
Johnny looked at the payphone, then walked over and held his hand over it. He hesitated, leaving it to ring once more, then he picked it up.
"Johnny Carpenter?" said a guy on the other end. He had a light chinese accent, and had a certain charisma to him. It was different to Jack's attractive mannerisms, it was more casual and plain, like an excellent craftsman causally leaving his new masterpiece on the table without so much of a second thought.
He was getting way too used to this kind of shit. "Yeah, who's this?" he asked boredly.
"Me and my associates have shown interest in your activities." he said. "Entering the games of Heart's Desire, betting your life while remaining perfectly safe unlike Duffey, what a good show. We believe, in fact, that you could prove to be very handy."
"Listen, buddy, I get this whole conspiracy thing keeps relying on me to be your errand boy, but I'm Red's errand boy for now. You're going to have to get somebody else." said Johnny, ready to hang up the phone. "Have a nice day."
"We have information about the shootings. In fact, we have exclusive information about a more recent one by the same shooter." he said this quickly, but he didn't stutter or make a hint of worry. His voice indicated everything was under control. Johnny stopped the phone's receiver an inch from hanging up. He put it back to his ear, sighing.
"Okay, where are we meeting?" said Johnny.
"Fu Fisheries at the waterfront. Come alone." There was a dial tone. This stank of the Tongs, or maybe the Yakuza. Chinese accents? Guys with a smooth tone? Fisheries with an Asian name attached? This was getting distinctly criminal. Who cared? He knew something was up from the start, this wasn't a change in affairs. He walked away from the phone, turning up his collars, and began to head toward the Fisheries. If there was anything he felt, he felt confident. The time for being scared was long gone.
*
When he opened the door, the entire office was dark. It smelt of fish and spilt ink. This was a place that computers hadn't touched, obviously. He had a bet that the desk probably held an old office typewriter, like you'd see in Mad Men or those old period flicks. He looked around inside, squinting in the darkness. The streetlights outside screwed up his vision, their hazy light sliding in through the raindrops against the windows. There was a brief flare of light as someone lit a cigarette.
He could see a Chinese guy, about thirty or so, in a black cap and blue overalls. A worker, probably. Maybe from the place itself. Hell, he could see "FU FISHERIES" in faux-gold thread on the top of the overalls. However, there was something... off about him. He didn't look right. He was like those CGI people you see in films all the time nowadays: almost right, but not there yet. Johnny dismissed the thoughts. The chinese guy looked up at him and stepped off the table with the cigarette loosely hanging off his lip.
"Good night." He said. "Well, a terrible night in actual fact."
"Get to the point." said Johnny. "What am I doing here?"
"Good question, and one I'm glad to answer. I am here to give you this information." He held up a folder. "This is all the details we could gather about the shootings. It will give you a description of the killer, a list of possible suspects, the people he killed, and who ordered the hits. It will give you a blow-by-blow account of the two shootings, the second of which is not known by even the police, and most likely never will."
Johnny walked over and reached for the folder. However, the Chinese man held it above Johnny's head, above where his arms could reach. The informant smiled and said "You asked a question I ask mine. Who are you working for?"
It spilled out before he could keep a lid on it. "Guy named Red. Don't know his second name. I asked who he was. Used to be a big shot politician, but I guess the correct answer would have been to say what instead of who."
The informant nodded. "Good to know, thanks for telling me. Now, I would give you this right now..."
There was sirens in the distance. Johnny knew they were approaching rapidly. He realized he could smell something nasty. Like a dead body.
"But it turns out, a man's dead in this building. This very room, in fact. Murdered, too. And you've got the murder weapon in your hands. You didn't do it, but an anonymous tip-off says a homeless man did so. However, the evidence will be circumstantial at best if you play your cards right, and you won't even be caught if you're half as smart as you've shown yourself to be. Now, outrun the cops. Your reward's the folder." The chinese man dropped his cigarette, and Johnny couldn't see him again.
There was lightening and a dead body at the desk stared right at him, a bullet right through it's forehead. With a terrifed gaze downward, he saw his hand gripping a pistol. Thanking God he was wearing gloves, he dropped the pistol and started looking for exit routes. The door would go right out into the street, too obvious. He ran to the window and looked down. There was a skip full of garbage bags. He smashed the window and jumped out, plunging a story before landing painfully in the skip. The police cruiser zoomed by, skidding to a stop as two cops got out and kicked the door to the office down. He climbed out and looked down both ends. No cops on either side. He made a run for it, but then he heard the two words no fugitive wants to hear.
"Stop! Police!"
A few bullets streaked past him. A cop must have stayed behind to check the alleyway. He didn't stop running, but he turned right into an alleyway. Dead end at a brick wall. He looked at the pipe, thinking of doing some parkour action he saw in a movie once, then dismissed it. Movies aren't reality, it'd take too long to be efficient. He opened a dumpster and hid inside, trying to ignore the bad smell. There was a real good reason homeless people don't sleep inside dumpsters, even ones that weren't picked up by garbage men.
He could hear footsteps running down the way, then taking a left. Same way he went. They got closer and closer, stopping right by the dumpster. He tried not to breath, not to shift, not to do anything that could make a sliver of a noise. The footsteps moved again, towards the dumpster. Why'd he have to end up with the smart cop? He could feel the hands lay on the dumpster to open it, and he took his chances.
He kicked open the dumpster, and the young cop went stumbling back in shock. Johnny leapt from his position, knocking the cop to the ground. He fired his gun in a random direction as he went down, nowhere near Johnny. He smashed to the ground with all of Johnny's weight on him, knocking him out cold. Johnny wasted no chances, pushing himself to his feet and running into the night, alone except for the two people you wouldn't notice if you were there watching him.
The Stranger was very glad it had worn it's hood. It looked at the cop with an uncaring glance, then back at Johnny's fleeing form. It looked back at the Speaker. It did good.
"He's got potential. He can run when he needs to, detect when he needs to, fight when he needs to." said the Speaker with a slight Chinese accent. "Still, I think he knows I'm not what he thinks. You're right. There is something different about him. Those eyes... they see things clearly."
The Stranger shrugged, looking at the Speaker. The Speaker looked basically human, if you wrapped a human in tight black bandages from head to toe, the last bits loosening into a makeshift robe. It looked like a mummy in the early days, before the rot really sets in. It's head wasn't defined, but you could see when it opened and closed it's mouth.
"He'll find the folder by his side when he wakes up in the morning. Might as well extend an olive branch. He won't question it... I think he knows more then we give him credit."
*
Johnny stumbled into the bar where Blink said they'd meet up when they all had info. They wouldn't be drinking at it, but bars were convenient in that the bartender wouldn't throw them out just for stinking up the place, unlike diners and restaurants. He didn't know if the time was right, but he really didn't care at this point. He was in luck, as Blink and Quinn were waiting for him. He sat down.
"You look like you tried cartwheeling through a minefield. In the rain." said Quinn. "I can't tell if you're sweating or if that's the rain. What happened to you?"
"Long fucking story." He said dismissively. "In short, I got nothing. What have you got?"
[8] "Nothing." Blink laid back and sighed. "Just nothing at all."
[20] "I got something." She spilled a pile of Polaroid photos on the table, and Johnny took a few up and look at them. They were just some nerdy kid stepping into a car and driving up.
"Who's the kid?" asked Johnny, still looking at the kid. He looked awful worried, and was wearing mechanic's overalls.
"That's Elton Peterson, and he's the guy who made the Regulators. A guy at a videostore saw him acting awful crazy, bought a copy of Ghost Town. Said he needed it for science. Said in a mad scientist voice."
"That crazy?" said Johnny. "I watched that film. Ricky Gervais is pretty much the only saving grace."
"I liked it." said Blink, shrugging. "Greg Kinnear's a good actor, Gervais is too much of a jerk to be likable."
"Film discussion aside, I found he was also buying materials that would be perfect for making Regulators. He was in the Rust Streets a few times too, and that's where the Regs are the most common. But get this, shit's getting heavy, so he's gone into hiding. These are photos I got from this Hood who was originally going to give them to his bosses to show where Elton's disappeared.
"So you have a dead end." said Blink.
"You've got fuck-all, Blink. And get this, I think I know where the Regulators are being made. The old Absolon place has a lot of rumors about it. Some say they're making robots in there, some say it's aliens, usual shit. I looked it up on a library computer, it's a legitimate business again but it doesn't say what it's making. I traced the hand-outs of the Regulators from the survivors who bought one, and all the deals are made in and around the Absolon place. It's a front business for making Regulators!"
"That's brilliant, Quinn!" said Johnny. "Shit, that's great, we have the guy who makes them and the place they're made."
"Now can you tell me why the hell we're getting involved in this gangland shit?"
"Need to know, sorry."
"Oh, sorry, I thought I was just a hobo doing some idle detective work. It seems I'm a member of the CIA. Can I get a free car?" Quinn rolled her eyes.
"Sorry, the Hobo Divison doesn't have that in the contract." said Blink deadpanly. "They do, however, feature a government-issue hobo-beating sticks. They're great for making sure no-one gets your fried rat on a stick."
Johnny laughed. Even if everything seemed to be going in a weird direction, at least he had friends to back him up.
Johnny finds a folder of possible shooters, along with information on the new Absolon shooting. It doesn't mention what the factory makes, but it does mention it's the same killer and his bizarre ability to survive. Quinn found the maker of the Regulators, Elton Peterson, has gone into hiding and that the Regulators are being made at Absolon's place.
Nate RichardsThe town burned. It was not a wild fire, it was orderly and made to spread to everything it could. It was not a fire that illuminated hidden truths, a fire to warm, to protect. It was a fire to cleanse, to reduce all to ashes. It was not the fire of madness or rage. It was simply a force of nature that would not stop for anything.In a dream, you're never sure if you're you or someone else. Tom heard himself ask, "Why are they doing this?"
Someone beside him said, "It's their job, and they do it well."
"So many people... I've killed people." said Tom, but not really. It wasn't even in his voice, it was deeper. But he could recognize himself within it. "I've killed people because they dishonored me, because they tried to hurt my family, because I was hungry... But they are different. They burn people alive because they think it's justice. They think they're making everything better. They think this will save us."
"They won't stop. Even you can't make them even pause."
"I know. They're going to kill everyone."
"Not everyone. They'll let some people off. The people who match their ideals. The people who they think are worth saving."
"They're just going to kill every spark of magic there is in this world. They're going to make our world... a husk."
He looked down at the man beside him. Tall. Tall and thin, like a stretched corpse. He said in that voice of his that was vaguely Irish, vaguely British "So, we have a deal. Your wife, your youngest child. They alone will survive. You and the rest of your family shall perish by the Inquisitor's flame. Do we have a deal?"
The man had white hair, and the greenest eyes. His skin was pale and dead, and he moved like a cat but was still for now. His eyes twinkled with an unpleasant sense of mischief. Tom felt himself sigh deeply, and felt his heart snap in two. For the first time in his life, he felt what it was like to have a family... and to know you'd never see them again.
"We have a deal."
With a jerk he woke up from the morbid and depressing dream, which swirled around him vaguely. He couldn't remember the location and the meanings, but he could remember that real sense of loss, which lingered upon him as he looked into his girlfriend's face.
Kari smiled, lighting up her pale features like nothing else. She had long black hair in a ponytail, which made her look a bit like a gothic horror heroine if said gothic horror heroine worked in an office supply company. "You were talking in your sleep, Tom. Try not to do that, it makes me worried."
"Sorry... Christ, what's the time?" said Tom, rubbing his eyes and sitting up.
"Time for work. I gotta go soon, but I just wanted to say goodbye before I left." said Kari.
"Thank you..." Tom smiled. This was really what he needed. He gave her a kiss, and said goodbye. She got up and left, then Tom slowly managed to get up and get dressed. That dream had him knocked for six, and he felt like he had lost something. He had that feeling you got when you realized how fragile you really were, especially your friends. When he was eight, adopted by foster parents for two years after a long time of living at the foster home, he got this sudden fear for his younger foster-sister in the next room. What if she had a heart attack? What if she had already had a heart attack and the next morning Tom would learn she had died in the night? Tom would then listen very, very quietly for her breathing. He didn't have good hearing so he would always panic and open the door to her room. He'd calm down quickly when he heard her breathing, but she always woke up and got annoyed at him. He was a nervous child, and it got him into trouble a few times.
He walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. He opened the fridge and watched the amazing display of absolutely nothing. There was a spectacular amount of fuck-all in the fridge, which displayed how much money came into the house. Tom worked as a convenience store clerk, and Kari made a few donations when the time called for it, but college called and student loans weren't going down any time soon. He had two options here: improvise, or make some cereal. The last time he improvised, that led to the creation of the Dorito and Peanut Butter Sandwich. It's exactly as you imagine. It did not taste good. He took out some milk, then went to the cupboards for the cereal and the bowl.
"Yo." said Nate, eating his cereal at the table. Tom jumped. Jesus, Nate was quiet.
"Hey man, uh. What's the time, dude?" Tom said awkwardly and quickly. He wasn't good with chatting with Nate, not recently. To be perfectly honest, he was sort of afraid of him recently. He wouldn't admit this, but the sheer amount of power at his friend's fingertips was both awesome and freaky as all hell. Tom walked over and took the cereal from Nate, then got his own bowl and poured the cereal in, then the milk. He put in a spoon then started eating cereal leisurely.
"Oh, it's..." Nate looked at the clock. "9:47. In the AM."
"Wait, 9:47? I'm meant to be in work by nine, I'm late by forty minutes! Fuck!" Tom tossed the cereal to the counter, then narrowed his eyes when he saw a firefly crawling around the counter. "Nate, I told you..."
"Told me what?" Nate asked.
"I told you, keep your pets away when my girlfriend's over."
"I don't control them all, they're just there." said Nate. "Besides, your girlfriend's gone."
Tom groaned in frustration. On one hand, argument he was ready to get into. On the other hand, massively late. He rushed out the door with barely a goodbye, grabbing his coat on the way out. He bumped into a guy on the way out. The upside of living in a separate apartment from the dorms was that there was way less crazies. The downside was that the crazies tended to be even louder. The good news was that the next door neighbor of Nate and Tom wasn't crazy. He seemed out of it sometimes, but he seemed okay in general. Tom didn't mind chatting to him occasionally, a habit still there from living in a small town where you actually talked to your neighbors.
"Oh, sorry." said Tom. "Kinda in a rush, heh."
"No bother." Red smiled. Tom always thought his neighbor latched onto his namesake a little eagerly, though he had to admit that red suit did work out perfectly for him. "I won't keep you waiting."
"Hey, were you at a party or something?" said Tom, looking at his suit. "Your suit looks a little worn in."
"I was at the opera. Spent all night up having a long chat with a lady of some interest to me." Red smiled. "Only coming back now, it seems."
"Hohoho, nothing better then a night with a girl you like." Tom waggled his eyebrows in the way guys with new girlfriends liked. Good for Red, he thought; the guy looked like he needed a girl, cooped up in his apartment, only going out to have a walk or buy a newspaper. "Listen man, I'd like to stay and chat, but I gotta rush. Catch you later!"
Tom ran off, down the stairwell, out the apartment. Red chuckled and took out his key, putting it into the door and walking in. Two little eyes watched him from a hole in the wall. The salamander flicked it's tongue, then moved along the walls to Red's apartment. There was something about the man that the salamander found interesting. It was time to find out what...
The salamander is doing some silent surveillance on Nate and Tom's new next door neighbor Red, while there is a spark of tension between Nate and Tom.
Jacqueline 'Jack' CoupeWhy did Ryan V. Duffey always get into these sort of situations?
Okay, being trapped in a glass jar by some chick after apparently dying did not usually happen to the son of the Irish mob boss. In fact, Duffey had a generally easy life before this. He hadn't been as anything as bad as this was. Still, he was knowledgeable enough to know that he was in one hell of a pickle. In fact, he was in a pickle jar.
The girl was real pretty, but Duffey was pretty sure she was the cause of this. No-one would try gloating over him this much if they were totally unrelated to the situation. He wasn't exactly sure how he got into a pickle jar in the first place, or what was prior to this strange and glassy environment he found himself in. He didn't seem to have a body anymore, as such. He just seemed to exist. Perhaps he was a gas of some sort? Duffey began to wish he paid attention in science class. That would have seriously come in handy here. What was the material states? There's liquid, gas, and... Paper?
Ignoring the pointless thoughts, he wondered if he'd ever get out of here. Maybe they'd let him out eventually, like butterfly collectors? Wait, butterfly collectors pin butterflies to pinboards when they're done with them. If there was a worse situation then being in a jar, it was being pinned to a pinboard for eternity. There'd be almost certainly more gloating in that situation, and the pin would hurt. Duffey decided he'd have to get out of here using his own wits. That's when he realized he was doomed.
Outside the jar, someone stumbled in. Covered in some sort of an ashy... trenchcoat? Fedora? Oh God, was this the same guy as the one at the shootout? The chick and the thug started talking, the chick stripping his burnt clothes like an angry mother. The thug apparently had gotten himself blown up, somehow surviving despite being blown clear across town. The chick was merely annoyed that his trenchcoat got burned. Duffey made a deduction. Aha, he thought, she's obviously his fashion designer.
Confident he made the right connection, he watched as the thug went to sleep on the couch. Weirdly, he wasn't burnt at all. Unless he had stopped off at a plastic surgeons, he should have been more cooked then Thomas Azur's accounting books. Something weird was going on. Duffey watched as everyone set off for bed and the lights switched off, leaving the twinkling lights of the city. He wasn't sure if he could sleep. This had been the first notable thing that had happened recently: everything else was hazy and weirdly distant. He lost track of time easily in the jar.
Maybe he had been in here for years. It was possible. How do you keep track of time? There wasn't a nearby calendar, and the girl was rather lackadaisical with the scheduling of her gloating, so that wasn't an effective time keeping device either. How long until everyone forgot about him? How long until his captors died, and the jar gets sold to a middle class family in the burbs and he's put in an attic forever, trapped between a 1920s porno mag and a mediocre painting of a cow? Could he stare at corseted babes and crappy watercolor bovines for eternity?
The answer was a definite no. Escape was his only option.
He tried everything. He couldn't slip out the lid, as it was screwed on too tight. There were no cracks, no imperfections. It was too well made. He looked down at the jar, and saw it was on a shelf. A shelf a long way up. He had run out of options. He had only one. Duffey brought up all his strength, and slammed against the jar's glass walls. There was an almighty "plink", and the jar moved an inch to the edge.
The thug shifted in his sleep. He heard the plink, but it didn't wake him up. Duffey couldn't keep plinking away, though. The thug would wake up eventually, and he'd have a problem then. He couldn't reduce the name without reducing his speed to a crawl. He drew it all up, and shoved against the jar once more. A few more inches, but a louder "clink".
Duffey promised he would get so plastered when he get out of here that everyone would ultimately agree that his drunken bender would be the golden standard for any night out. He drew himself back, and gave one almighty push... "CA CLINK".
The thug got up as the jar tottered on the edge. Duffey could hear him mutter "Oh, shit..." and with that he began to move towards the jar. The jar was so close to breaking, to freedom, that Duffey would have cried if the thug managed to get ahold of him. The thug thundered closer, but one step was too much of a big step... The jar fell off.
Yes! He had done it. it was over now, he would go home and it would be all okay.
Well, it would have been if the thug hadn't caught him in his hands. The thug looked proud and held up the jar to his ugly mug, and Duffey squirmed away from him.
"Haha... Got you." He said, smiling.
The jar tipped forward, and was dropped unceremoniously. Barely heard above the clatter of breaking glass was the word "shit" from the thug. Duffey felt himself spread, but kept together enough to go out an air vent and up up up, into the city and into freedom...
*
The guy was an obvious drug dealer, but he was the only customer who actually seemed interested in what exactly the shop had to offer, and the only one who didn't laugh out loud when Matthew carefully explained the properties of the items. He wore black reflective aviators, wore a hoodie that hid his face carefully, and a bandana completed the picture.
"So, this is a soul catcher." Matt said, and held up the contraption of glass and brass. "Got a ghost that's bothering you? This'll sort it out. It's a bargain at 9.99 dollars. Remember, always use cash here."
"Cool." said the dealer. He was pretty quiet, just letting Matt do his pitch before asking questions. "Listen, you wouldn't have anything that can be ingested, like food or... maybe drugs?"
"Er, no, we don't go in for that. That's shamans you're looking for." said Matt, nodding. Yeah, drug dealer.
"Well, thanks for the pitches kid, but I'm afraid I'll have to pass on this. I got a deal with a customer in a few minutes, so I'll see you around at some point." The dealer adjusted his glasses, but something happened. A barely visible haze filtered in through the open door. There was a loud pinging sound, and the spirit catcher began to make an almost breath-like mechanical noise. The haze disappeared, and a white ethereal glow appeared within it.
Matt looked at the dealer, then at the spirit catcher, then at the door. Then, he looked at the door further into the mansion.
"Mer-liiiiiin! Need some help here!" yelled Matt, while the dealer slowly made his way out.
Duffey has managed to make his escape, and fallen into Merlin and Matt's hands.
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Topic: The Age Of Fire: Game Thread (Read 26478 times)