LogApocalypse World: Purgatoria After Dark-Jason-7

Game log for the 2016/03/20 session of Apocalypse World: Purgatoria After Dark, as taken by Jason

The most horrifying thing Konstantine saw back in the day was the starvation and rioting that lead to martial law in St Petersburg. He was on the jury in the trial of a man who killed and ate his own children. He's never quite forgotten the insanity of the man who admitted the crime but insisted that he was just so hungry.

In Stasis, Natalya explains to Konstantine what's been going on with General Tartakoff. She goes off to work on the clinic, and Konstantine talks to Babushka about trying to protect the sanity of the people who wake up. She doesn't understand the issue, so Konstantine decides he'll go off on his own while Babushka guards the general.

When Konstantine goes back to Coffeemesto, he finds Adrian, looking for the things he needs to finish his little demolition project. It so happens that Yavno is in the house at the time, so they talk. Konstantine gets to tell the story of how Semyon died, and then Adrian talks to Yavno about his dynamite needs. The block leader suggests a deal. He will give Adrian the explosives to blow up the building next to Had'ich's place if Adrian will blow up a building for him. Adrian asks for assurance that the building won't be inhabited, and Yavno gives it, but Adrian can see what he's lying.

Mikhail Popov comes in at that time and sits down at the table with them. He asks Yavno for introductions, and Yavno introduces Adrian as "someone who can help them with that project they were talking about." Then the Striyanka come in! Konstantine looks at Adrian and says "run!" then leaps up, hops across a couple tables, over the bar, and into the kitchen before anyone can react. The Striyanka begin knocking people over and making arrests. Adrian's a bit too slow reacting and isn't able to get away. Yavno grabs Mikhail and swaps places with him in the booth, then pushes Mikhail away saying "go, go, go!" Adrian tries to kick the Striyanka in the crotch, but the cop has seen that move before, and clubs him right in the kneecap instead. The impact actually smashes the kneecap, leaving Adrian writing on the floor. Konstantine knocks over the pots on the stove and shuts the flue, hoping to smoke up the place and add to the confusion, and then runs into the tunnels. Yavno tries to buy time for Mikhail to escape while Adrian tries to crawl away. The artificer ends up handcuffed on the sidewalk with gawkers looking on from across the street - at least until one of the Striyanka orders them to disperse.

Inspector Kevashian shows up and asks who among the crowd knows Mikhail Popov or can tell them of his whereabouts. Nobody speaks up, so Kevashian nods at one of his soldiers, and the soldier executes a prisoner. He questions Adrian next, and Adrian admits to having met him. The Striyanka promptly put him in the paddwagon, and from inside, he hears shots, interogations, and beatings. Then, they all get shipped off to the Striyanka. Adrian's right back in the box, as it were. Kirill also gets caught and sent in.

Konstantine gets back to stasis and tells Karina and Vadim what happened. As he's asking the kids to help get the word out to the People's Party, Nastie returns. Once Konstantine has explained everything to Babushka, she goes to protect the children. Konstantine grabs his AK and follows. Gleb comes out of the tunnels about that tieme, looking to check out Stasis. When he catches up, Babushka explains that he won't need the AK, as she intends to present herself as Kirill's mother and ask for her boy back.

Gleb arrives in Stasis and can tell it's not deserted. He looks around for some nifty portable items of pre-Collapse technology. At one point when Natalya's distracted, he sees his chance to make off with something. Unfortunately she sees him, and asks him to return whatever he took. He runs off instead. She rushes after him and gets a hand on him, but he still refuses to give it up. Instead, he starts shouting "don't beat me, Mama." She grabs a syringe off the counter and tries to stick him. She manages to stick him good while ensuring that he doesn't get her too badly with that knife. He loses consciousness and she sees that he was trying to steal a glaucometer.

As they approach the Striyanka, Konstantine tries to read Nastia to see what insane caper she'll try to free Kirill. He can't read her at all today. Tough luck, Major, I guess you'll find out about it when it happens. Babushka borrows a handkerchief from one of the kids and ties it around her hair. She approaches the front gate, sobbing, and tells the guards that her poor Kirill is in there. She describes Kirill for them and they admit that such a child is there, and was arrested in a collection of known People's Party sympathizers. They offer to let her in to speak to a Sergeant or Inspector, if she can make it worth their while. She appeals to their guilt instead. She promises that anyone who brings her in will get a glowing report of their virtue to their captain, and that's enough to get things moving. They bring her to Inspector Feodor, and she praises her escort to him. She thanks Anatoly the gate guard so profusely that Feodor can tell she's been coerced, which pisses Anatoly off. Once she's alone with Feodor, she cries some more and tries to convince the Inspector to turn Kirill loose. He tries to "comfort" her, which rapidly transitions to an attempt to get sex out of her in exchange for questioning Kirill in her presence and letting him go if he's innocent. She tries to negotiate a better deal but can't, and they end up banging on his desk. He doesn't find it entirely satisfying.

Feodor keeps his part of the bargain and has Kirill brought to them. Kirill tries to lie about Popov's associates but gets caught, so he decides to come clean, and ends up providing damaging testimony about Yavno, Arbo, and Rem. Feodor then hits Babushka up for a bribe to release Kirill. She comes up with a bit of barter and Feodor agrees to let Kirill go, and throws in a request that Babushka should come directly to him if she has difficulties of any sort in the future. When Kirill and Babushka walk out, Konstantine is... surprised.

The cops begin interrogating Adrian. He talks about getting explosives through Havno. This information intrigues them. Adrian acts totally unaware of any criminal or political issues and talks plainly about people he's met and problems he's trying to solve. Eventually they leave and come back in company with a man wearing coke-bottle glasses and wires in his head. The geek begins fiddling with Adrian's neural interface and then glues something into it. Adrian's job is to get in contact with the People's Party and get the explosives. He will put them 30ft from the southwest corner on the ground floor. He will break Yavno out of jail and gain his trust. He will bring the Striyanka Yavno and Popov. Once that's done, they will remove the tracking device from his neural interface. Then they beat the crap out of Adrian, to make sure he looks like someone who went through a proper interrogation.

The kids, Babushka, and Konstantine return to Stasis and find Gleb tied down. Natalya tells them that Gleb tried to steal from the facility. Babushka and Konstantine try to explain to the kids that stealing from Stasis means your Stasis privileges get revoked. The kids seem a little displeased to hear the grownups talk like they run things. After all, the kids discovered Stasis, Stasis didn't discover them. This conflict feels unresolved. Babushka carries Gleb out, with the other kids in tow.

Gleb comes through and says, "Babushka, we want you." She assumes this is the drugs talking. Gleb also realizes they're taking him to his own squat, and redirects them back to the Hoard. Babusha expresses concern that this is not an appropriate environment for children, an impression with increases as she notices the extremely messed up stuff around the Hoard, like human heads and stuff. The other kids are askance but relent a bit as Gleb begins to describe all the amazing stuff he found. Babushka tries to ignore the insanity and focuses on getting Gleb to sleep. He asks for help feeding Anton with his sugar solution, which she does, and in doing so, she'd see Oksana's head in a jar. Gleb assures the other kids that sometimes the head speaks to him. At that point Babushka starts checking Gleb for head trauma, 'cause this is crazy, yo. Gleb grabs the sword off the wall and tries to attack Babushka with it, so he can add her to the hoard. Yeah. No. Nastia slaps Gleb across the face the moment he starts walking toward Babushka, and confiscates the sword. Gleb must have it back, of course, but for the moment, he lacks the capacity. The other two kids drag Gleb back to bed. Babushka reads Gleb and finds that he's coveting her for the Hoard. If she could lick his brain, she could taste the madness.

Once Babushka returns to Stasis, Natalya completes reviving the general. Tartikoff seems a little out of hit. For example, he thinks someone named Yvgeny is in the room. Babushka begins bringing him up to date on everything that's happened. At one point he actually has a conversation with Yvgeny, and Natalya can tell that he's talking to an actual dead person. Yep, the CO can talk to dead people, just like the locals can. Konstantine faints dead away. Babushka explains to the General that Yvgeny's dead. The General gets it. He doesn't even flinch. Oh yes, this guy is the leader Konstantine has been waiting for. Natalya explains more about how all this works, and Tartikoff experiments with the phenomenon. Babushla explains how Gennady passed away. The General goes to sleep, but after that, he keeps waking up screaming.

Adrian begins trying to figure out what the Striyanka did to his neural interface. The interface seems to be working perfectly. He identifies the tracker as a Symmetek product meant to track people doing top secret research. It can not only trace but also record sensory input from the wearer. He also finds that it's glitching and he can play back the last recording in the device. He does so and gets to hear a conversation between two people, one from Murmansk and one from elsewhere... perhaps Aquitaine. They're discussing sending someone to Nurnburg to get Adrian and the box. Adrian then begins putting together a plan for how to get it out of his head. He then goes back to Coffeemesto.