LogThe City Never Sleeps-Jason-8

Game log for the 2024/02/11 session of AW:The City Never Sleeps, as taken by Jason

Enough time has passed since last session for PCs at 6 o'clock or less to heal completely.

Now that he's well, MacWillard informs Twiggy that Lollipop came to check on him often during his two days of unconscious convalescense. Now that he's back to 100%, he goes looking for her and her followers. He finds them all in a park. He asks her what she thought of the race, and she tells him it was still too violent, and that Augustus is still making his money off other people's bodies. He tells her he'd like to make things more peaceful, and maybe her influence could help convince Gus to tone down the violence. He assures her that his leadership helps tamp down the Stooges' violence, but that some savagery is to be expected. She's not so sure that savagery is required. She pulls out an apple, asks him to hold out his hand, and drops an orange into it. Slight of hand? Conscious control of transmutation? She claims the latter. He tells her he'd like to learn more about that. She wants to, too... to bring about the end. The end of the pain. At this point he has the sense to ask whose pain she means. It turns out she doesn't know... but he's welcome to try to convince her that he's ready to learn. He pulls out the wanted poster with his face on it and tells her that's an example of the sort of thing he wants to learn more about. After all, that's his face, but not his name, and not his deeds. She asks whether it isn't him, really, and he concedes it might be a version of him. She takes a photograph out of her purse showing her and some other woman, selfie-style, showing them both all cleaned up and happy. She never met that woman, but she thinks she might be important. He suggests that they should hang out a lot more so she can tell when he's ready, but this transparently flirty gambit goes nowhere. She might accept him as an observer or pupil, but not as a date. He takes off so as not to seem like a stalker.

Grandma is making sure her new recruits are all properly fed and housed, and that the gang is accepting them and not excluding them. Semmel seems a little put out that Abnett has come back into the fold.

MacWillard is at work when he notices Semmel walk down the hall, check to see if he's being observed, and goes in. This piques Mac's curiosity, and he's watching the door when Semmel pokes his head out, sees MacWillard, and slams the door again. Mac immediately checks in with Grandma. She knows there's nothing especially valuable there, so there's no good reason for their behavior. He counsels her to talk directly to Semmel about his role in the wake of Abnett's return. She goes to find him, and he immediately makes a point of telling her that he's been doing his job. He also gives her a little attitude about knowing where his next meal is coming from. She tells him she wants to put him in charge of logistics, keeping track of what's in the supply rooms, etc. That gets a response out of him, and suddenly he's very fidgety. She has a sense that he's out for himself, and won't be loyal to her unless she allows him a certain amount of graft. She offers to set him up as supply boss, and tells him that if he can get better deals than they budgeted for, she'd be OK with him keeping the difference. He's very interested, especially if it means he gets off of guard duty. She's on the fence about the guard duty, but asks him to write her a report on what they have and what they need. He goes to work on the inventory. She then goes to talk to Abnett. She finds him and another guard coming off patrol, and asks to talk to him privately. She tells him how glad she is that he was able to resume his old role so easily, and tells him she wants him back as guard leader. He likes the idea as long as Semmel isn't going to be a problem. He's not convinced that he idea of making Semmel report to her independently is going to work out, but he's game to try. She tells him to make the watch schedule and leave Semmel off it, for a day at least.

Frost has been working a gig. Snubnose wants an air purifier, and offered her three barter for a working one or two for a broken model. She's out looking for one, and al the obvious places having failed, she's searching a (mostly) abandoned apartment building for one. Up on the seventh or maybe eighth floor, she suddenly feels that she's being watched. She looks around and sees movement on top of the building next door. She runs down the stairs, headed for ground level. She's on the mezzanine level when she hears the sound of broken glass from below. She risks a look down and sees a muscular man carrying a scoped rifle. He comes into the building and moves sideways on the lobby level. She thinks he looks familiar somehow. It might be easiest to get past him if she went up and then out the window, rather than trying to get down the stairs, because he's probably heading for a spot that gives him overwatch. She runs to try to beat him to the obvious hiding place instead, and hides herself. He comes in, goes to where he'd have overwatch, sets his gun on a rail, and takes his hood down. She sees that it looks like Jones, so she steps out of the shadows and lowers the hammer on her gun. The Jones, without turning, says, "Blades or fists?" "Hopefully neither," she answers. He takes his hand off the grip of the rifle, lowers it to the ground, and turns to face her. He shows absolutely no sign of recognizing her, and asks if he knows her. She tells him that unless he has a twin brother, he's known her for years. This is giving him a wiggins, and she thinks her best bet is to de-escalate, because this Jones-person seems like he's still game for a fight. She offers a wash, where they both go their separate ways. He suggests instead he could pin her down and remove teeth until she tells him more about her brother, and charges. She tries to shoot him, but he's too fast for her, and just sends her flying into the wall. She hits so hard she drops her gun, and he has a hand looped into the top of her vest. She responds by stabbing him with a railroad spike, and he takes her to the ground, producing a knife in his off hand as he does so, and stabs her. They're stabbing each other, really, but he's got so much more raw power that she's getting the worst of it. He has one knee and one hand holding her down, but she's able to wriggle sideways, causing him to roll off her, and runs for it. He goes for his rifle, she grabs for her gun, and then she's running away with him hot on her heels. She surfs the stair rail down, whereas he trips on those same stairs, and from there, she gets across the alley into an office building that's a maze of cubicles. She loses him there and heads back to town. As she does so, she sees Twiggy riding by! He offers her a lift.

She makes it to MacWillard, who's able to heal her, using a lot of drugs. She blurts out that there's another Jones out there.

Skint comes to Augustus to suggest that they the Colosseum could make money as a place where people with beef settled their disputes in the ring. If, say, Butcher and Snubnose's dispute got hot enough, maybe Skint could get Grandma to tell them to settle it in the arena. He gives her his blessing, then, once she's gone, opens his brain to see what sort of spectacle the maelstrom might like him to host next. As usual, he has memories of things that never happened to him. He's in the ring against a women he absolutely hates, they have boxing gloves on, and he's about to beat the tar out of her, or get the tar beaten out of him, or, in the event, both. They hate each other so much that when the third round ends, they don't stop fighting, they just whale on each other until they collapse. They both lost. He wakes up with a pounding headache, a bloody nose, and a loose tooth, and also the vivid memory of having been punched right in the tit.

He gets with Spartacus and Kenworth and tells them he wants to bump up security for the next big event, especially their thoughts on using the Stooges for security. The consensus is that the Stooges aren't disciplined, but they're effective, and also that they eat so much food that Gus has to include that in his expense calculations. Augustus decides to keep them as contractors, so that Twiggy and his people can also compete without the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Skint finds Twiggy, who's on his way to Joe's Crab Shack, looking for Jones. She has ideas for how Twiggy can help. He wants to brainstorm with Augustus, and won't be deflected by her attempts to discuss it 1:1. They go find the maestro'd, who brings in Spartacus as well. Twiggy points out that the race was a tremendous success, whereas the fight with Jones and the Stooges generated a lot of ill will. Twiggy want to do more in the way of non-violent competition. When he gets to suggesting mud wrestling, Skint points and says, "OK, that has legs." Skint only wants ideas that will generate bets, so no talent shows, no performances. She's not excited about this non-violent direction, and neither are the others. Finally Gus reads Twiggy and realizes that Twiggy is trying to push down the violence for external reasons. Skint wants to ramp it up for business reasons. She also needs the Stooges to steal some shit and hide it in a specific spot, for a couple barter. Augustus will bankroll that as long as Grandma signs off on the plan, and Skint agrees they should clear this first. Augustus is fairly confident this is all about naked avarice on Skint's part.

Twiggy then finds Jones and fills him in on what happened to Frost. Jones cannot believe the state she's in, but more than that, he's excited by the idea that someone found another Jones. See, he's an engineered being, and this is the first lead he's had on that. They agree that Jones will offer Frost pink flowers to show that he's her friend Jones and not just any old Jones.

He then leaves her and goes to investigate the place where Frost had her encounter. He can see where the fight happened, blood everywhere, etc. He collects Frosts' railroad spikes for her and then traces the blood trails. One ends in the cube farm across the street, and the other to a manhole. Jones opens it up and looks down, calling out his name. Nobody responds. He scratches a message on the manhole cover, saying to meet him in Churchill (which is the name of Grandma's turf now). He's just putting the cover back on when he hears something down there. A low growl? Heavy breathing? Jones nopes right out of that.

Augustus then goes to the Bakery to talk to Grandma. He's in an expansive mood, and talks about how wonderful it would be to have the Colosseum as an arena for resolving disputes. She's fine with this as a voluntary thing, but will not order people to fight. He wants her to offer it as an alternate means of adjudicating disputes, not just grudges. She's only interested in making it completely voluntary. She might be willing to make the results of disputes legally binding, but she refuses to tell people they have to go to the arena. She agrees to try it in the case of Butcher and Snubnose.

Skint then finds Twiggy and fills him in on the details of her scheme. She needs some stuff removed from Snubnose's premises and deposited elsewhere. Twiggy is so unwilling to commit to doing the work solo and not discussing it with anyone that Skint decides to take her business elsewhere.

Skint then goes to visit Frost in the infirmary, where she is promptly shocked by the battlebabe's depleted condition. MacWillard says she'll be able to work in three, maybe five days. Skint's not happy. She asks Mac to leave her and Frost alone to discuss some work. Mac makes it clear there's no warranty on his medical care if she checks out early and tells her that right now, one good shove could probably make her whole body fall apart. He then leaves. Skint tells Frost that she needs something distinctive stolen and put somewhere else. Frost immediately grasps that she's trying to frame someone for theft. Sure enough, she wants Butcher framed for stealing from Snubnose. Frost negotiates the price up to 1 up front and 2 when the job is done. Skint's just happy to be dealing with a pro.

Twiggy, going to visit Frost, runs into MacWillard, and also waits with him. When Skint comes out, she sees the chopper there, and tells him to keep his mouth shut. This naturally makes the doc curious, but Twiggy doesn't give anything away. Instead, he leaves the angel outside, goes in to Frost's room, and tells her she's going to need help on her job.

Grandma visits with Abnett and Semmel, paying them each an extra barter to know their new roles.