LogThe City Never Sleeps-Jason-3

Game log for the 2023/12/03 session of AW:The City Never Sleeps, as taken by Jason

It's been a week or two since last session.

MacWillards' out in the marketplace, when local kid Benji runs up to him and tells him that someone needs his help really bad right away. There's an old taxi, trunk lid long gone, and the trunk contains a woman covered in blood, hair matted with it, one leg obviously broken. It looks more like an industrial accident than a beatdown. Here eyes are extremely wide open. As he cleans her up, he realizes she's Tart, one of the Stooges. MacWillard immediately sends Benji to find Twiggy and tell him to meet up at the Bakery. The Angel works on getting his patient ready to move to his office at the Bakery.

Twiggy is already meeting with Grandma, trying to convince her that the thing in the dark is real, and buildings changing while people watch really did actually happens. Grandma doesn't seem real enthused about any specific plan. Benji runs into deliver the news, but then hangs around casing the place until Grandma chases him out. Since she didn't tip him for the message, he tries to steal a stapler on his way out. Frost trips him as he passes. The poor kid asks why she did that, and she tells him to get out before he loses a limb. After looking at her and the staple a couple times, Urchin decides to leave without stealing anything. Or at least, nobody sees him steal anything.

Urchin comes back as Bedford is helping him unload Tart from the trunk of his taxi. Twiggy comes running, and Bedford tells him that she was lying next to an open manhold cover. Twiggy tells him about how the darkness grabbed her. When MacWillard tells him that Tart looks to have been mangled by a machine, Twiggy explains that she was in a building when he saw it shift. The Angel's blown away by this news, and listens long and hard to see if his former gang boss is lying or not, but concludes he's not. The city really did change while he watched. MacWillard starts thinking about possible connections between the Darkness and the shifting.

Grimes comes to visit Augustus, and tells him he needs to arrange a fight. It needs to be big, serious gladitorial action, and the fighter Grimes puts up needs to be dead at the end. Apparently Crusher has outlived his usefulness. Grimes would like him to go out in some sort of showy event, like a motorcycle death match or something. He has confidence Crusher will agree to the fight, because Crusher will think the fix is in the other way, and will get "a payback." Gus twigs to the idea that Grimes might owe Crusher, and see this as preferable to settling the debt like a gentleman. Grimes makes it very clear to Gus that if Crusher walks out, Augustus does not. The maestro doesn't seem concerned, but he makes it clear he's taking a cut to cover Crusher's opponent as well. Augustus drives a hard bargain with him: this squares him and Grimes up, permanently. He then asks Grimes if maybe, once they're square, he'd like to work as the house bookie.

Jones is fighting one of the guys who got their cereal stolen last week. They came hard into town, and ran into Jones, which is just tough on everyone, including the surrounding structures. Unfortunately, Jones seems to have eaten something that didn't agree with him, so he's having to fight through the gastrointestinal turmoil and the bad guys both. Worse, one of the guys Jones is about to be fighting has occasionally taken a little jingle to provide certain pieces of information for Grandma, and it would really suck if he got iced. Jones is hiding in a convenience store, and he can tell he's about to get spotted, so he opens fire with his SMG. This guy returns fire with a shotgun. The shot perforating Jones hurts bad enough that he doesn't catch the guy sneaking up behind him, and he gets blasted again. He retreats deeper into the store, then starts looking for a way out. There's no easy way, since they have the front and back covered, but maybe if he mag-dumped the wall with AP ammo, that would weaken it enough for him to crash through. Of course, then he'd be on the street against a bunch of thugs with a wizard van.

The sound of that firing gives the bad guys pause, and the gunlugger uses that pause to make his move, out through the wall. He's out of AP ammo for the moment, but that doesn't stop him from running and gunning his way back to town. He's able to keep them at bay, but he can't break contact altogether.

As the firefight approaches her part of the city, Grandma starts to hear them drawing closer. She sends her gang to battlestations, which includes just a couple of them scouting.

Frost hears the same thing, remembers the riots, and leaves, telling Grandma to find her when they go investigate this weirdness. When she walks out the door, she promptly spots Jones doing what Jones does. She runs across the street and realizes who the people following him are. She tries to flank them, but gets spotted. One of them yells, "Holy shit there she is, get her!" She quickly busts into the nearest building, which is a boarded-up office facility, and the pursue with some modest amount of caution.

Jones heads for the Bakery, hoping to use the gang there to solve his problem. The guards there open fire when they see some dude crossing the street in a gunfight, then stop when they realize it's, if not a friendly, then an ally, but not before he takes some hurting.

The Stooges were out front, but they aren't getting paid for this fight, so they departed the vacinity.

Frost checks her situation and looks for a way out. There's an open elevator shaft, which would certainly be a quick way to get to someplace else. She pokes her head in, confirms that there's a ladder there, and starts climbing up. A couple bad guys see this and pursue. She climbs for two floors and then hits the door release. She exits into a dark hallway, counts ten, then pokes her gun into the shaft and opens fire down that ladder. The guy climbing the ladder shoots back. His gun says 9mm, and her gun says .88 Magnum, so she wins that exchange, and he pulls out of the shaft. She decides to look for a window and goes through the nearest door into what looks like a dentist's office. Exterior windows create some light in this space, so she tries to throw something to break the window. It's shatterproof. She opens fire on it, and makes a series of small spiderwebs. She then throws a stool at it and the whole thing cracks wide open. She looks out and concludes this is the opposite of the side she came in on, and jumps out the window, making a superhero landing. Nobody sees it. What a shame. She runs off, hearing maybe just a faint sound of beeping.

The attackers have lost Frost, but since they came to the settlement for payback, they take some of their anger out on the town. Grandma's scouts report as much to her. She sends her scout Timber out next to find out what's at the Colosseum tonight. Timber doesn't really want to go and suggests maybe Grandma should go with him.

Grandma asks MacWillard to come with her. He explains what's up with poor Tart, and asks Twiggy to have a Stooge stay with her. Twiggy will do that and will also go with Grandma to the Colosseum. (By the by, Abnett has become a Stooge.) The four of them head out.

Augustus heard the gunfire getting closer, and then he heard it stop, and then someone starts pounding on the door, telling him to return their food. That's stressful. If he doesn't come out, they'll probably break in, and though there are a bunch of people in the Colosseum, they all left their guns at the check. He tells Marly to give everyone their shooters back, and she gets on the PA to tell the patrons to queue up for their items return. Most of the guests just tool up and then sit down again.

Grandma's party arrives. She recognizes one of the attackers as Bloodhound. Shame if he got killed.

Augustus yells out that he's closing early and his customers are coming out. Then, he says, he'll talk to the bad guys. They agree to this. Gus tells Spartacus to be ready if they try to rush the door. The bad guys rush the door. Spartacus shoots at them from his covered firing position in the stand. The first attacker goes down but the next one gets in, and in no time, one of the bad guys has Gus backed against a wall with a pistol in his mouth.

Grandma and party see all this, and Grandma decides to go in. As they come out, the van driver comes out and levels a weapon at them, which prompts Twiggy to go for his gun. Grandma tries to flank the driver, but that takes her across Twiggy's line of fire, so his bullet takes a chunk out of her ear. As she falls down, MacWillard lunges to protect her. Twiggy's bullet seems to take the driver out of the fight. He runs around the van, thinking to execute the driver, but he's somehow managed to sneak out, leaving a blood trail behind him, leading past the Colosseum and around the corner. Twiggy pursues.

Augustus cannot tell the intruders where the food is because there's a gun in his mouth. When the bad guy realizes what a dumb thing he's doing, he pulls the gun out and pushes it into Augustus' eye instead, growling, "Don't make me repeat myself." Other bad guys have Marly and Spartacus covered. Augustus tries to tell them he gave the food away. The (who is Ace, leader of the Street Sweepers), cocks the gun and tells him he has ten seconds to give him what he's owed, or he's going to take a bullet to the head. Gunfire starts outside, and that makes Ace pause and order his gang to check it out. That gives Augustus a moment to ask if they can sit down and discuss this like men of business. He'll confer with Augustus and Marly in an office. When Augustus tries to convince Ace to let Marly tend to Spartacus instead, the gang leader shoots him in the foot. Ace makes it clear that he's done screwing around. Marly rushes to his aid, and as she helps him to a chair in the office, she slips a holdout pistol into his hand.

Two Street Sweepers come out of the Colosseum. One of them aims a rifle at MacWillard and Grandma, but since Mac has his hands spread out, showing that he's not a threat, the other pushes it down. The Angel does not know that the guard who pushed the gun down is Bloodhound. Mac calls out that he's going to be cool and he's trying to treat a gunshot wound. Bloodhound tells him to get her out of there. Mac's happy to do that.

Twiggy follows the blood trail and sees into go into a door. It seems likely that going into that door would get him shot, so he makes a different choice, coming back along the wall in time to hear Bloodhound yelling at MacWillard. He can see the doc helping Grandma up and leading her away. Grandma isn't happy about this and wants Mac to let her at them, but he's got the momentum on his side and gets her around the corner, where Timber can help take care of her.

Back in the ticket office, Augustus, Ace, and Marly are having an uncomfortable sit-down. Ace reckons that Augustus owes him for the food, which they legitimately found via exploring the shifting city. Augustus suggests a short-term arrangement that would allow Ace to recoup his losses. Ace doesn't have any interest in arrangements. He wants jingle. Gus explains that Frost is the only one in the transaction with any jingle. Ace isn't distracted and tells Augustus to find a way to come up with the jingle, but Gus once again says that he's a businessman who bought food from someone who was selling it. Ace concludes that his problem is going to be with Frost, and decides there's no point killing Gus when he had no intention to traffic in stolen food. He does, however, caution the maestro against warning Frost.

MacWillard calms down once he realizes that Grandma just took a graze. She's still raring to go, and there are still Street Sweepers outside the Colosseum. She comes out and tries to tell them that she's going to pick up her property and be on her way. She picks it up with two finger, so as to make it clear there's no threat, and holsters it. At that point, Ace and another gang member come out. Once they come out, Twiggy will he in position to light them all up, but that will expose Bloodhound to fire. She calls out to Bloodhound that he should come over so she can talk to him. Ace prevents that and explains why his gang is here, and that their beef with Augustus is concluded and they're coming out. When they come out, Twiggy opens fire.

The angle isn't quite right and he's not able to blow them all away, so the Street Sweepers back into the Colosseum and lock the doors. Ace comes over and makes Augustus lead them to the back exit. He tries to loose them in his warren of passages and boltholes, and he does to at the expense of another bullet hole.

Twiggy calls Grandma over and explains that the Sweepers are trapped in the Colosseum. The door opens again, but this time it's a stream of patrons leaving. Twiggy suggests that Grandma should go in and get the bad guys. MacWillard tells her that's a real dangerous idea. They're dickering when Augustus comes out, bleeding some fair bit. Twiggy suggests loading the wounded into his new wizard van and taking them back to the Bakery. As they go, Gus reads Grandma, and concludes that despite all the evidence, she really does intend to do something to protect the citizens.

Back at the Bakery, Augustus responds very well to Mac's treatment.

Twiggy is reunited with the Stooges and shows off his new van. The Stooges have been recruiting, including a few of Abnett's followers. He mentions to Marly that she's welcome to ride with the Stooges if she ever wants a change. Back at the Bakery, some of Grandma's crew are real unhappy to see Abnett wearing some different colors after all the shit he caused, and the Stooges are real eager to fight for the honor of their colors. Twiggy has to crack the whip on them a bit to get the gang into line. Abnett and friends go to visit The Watering Hole instead.

They meet Frost there, and Abnett walks right up to her and warns her that Ace is looking for her. She's not entirely surprised. She finishes her drink, closes her tab, and opens her brain to see if she can imagine where Ace and his men might be. They're beneath her. She goes to the market and talks to Jones about removing the Street Sweepers as a problem, and conclude they'd like a cargo vehicle. They walk past the bakery and see Murdock guarding the bikes and the van. Frost swaps him sex for the van. Then she has Murdock drive them around the town, looking for Street Sweepers. They don't see any when they drive around, so she asks him to drive past the same old grocery store. They aren't there, but it's still a grocery store, and the loading dock is open.

She goes in and sees that the place seems old, and also it's a mess inside, as though a bomb had gone off. There are rats here. Frost flicks on the lights, and most of the rats scurry away. She and Jones look to see if there's anything worth stealing. Most of the cans are bulged, and the rest are bad for other reasons, but there are drag marks heading toward the cooler. They open that up, and there's a ton of rotten produce there. It's an absolutely horrid smell. Seems that the breaker got thrown and the cooler isn't so cool. Also, in the middle of the cooler, the drag marks continue to a pool of blood, which is dripping out of the ventilation unit above. The ventilation grate is hanging open. Jones looks at Frost and closes the door on the murder cooler. Jones sees a propane-powered forklift, which he confirms does start. Frost goes out into the retail part of the store, which looks like it was pretty well ransacked. Frost hears the beeping again. Jones does not. She tries to look for it, but can't localize it. This is making her a little crazy. Eventually she gets to a place near the bathrooms, and she can hear the beep, which is a little stronger, and also the sound of people speaking, though she can't make out what they're saying. Jones steals all the toilet paper. Frost can make out two voices - a man and a woman? a man and a child? - but not any words, and it doesn't last for long. The beeping continues. Jones decides to steal the forklift. Also, food has appeared on the shelves, so they get some pallets and start using pallets and lift to steal food wholesale. Murdock drives the van back, and Jones follows very slowly in the forklift. The forklift reverse beep does not match up with the beeping in Frost's head. To her relief, she stops hearing that sound when they leave the store.

Murdock wants to pull over and close their deal on the way home, but Frost insists on business first.

The Stooges notice that Murdock and the van are gone. The bikes have all become pedal tandems. Twiggy details a Stooge to not-watch the bikes so that they'll turn into something else, hopefully.

Back at the Bakery, Grandma is having herself a nice whiskey, but Augustus is already at work trying to get his gladiator show going. He asks his people to help find the perfect gladiator for him.

Later that day, Jones goes to the Colosseum and sells the forklift to Kenworth, who asks him if he'd like to fight in a bout. Jones will do violence for jingle! Gus is back in his office by then, so after confirming it's cool, Kenworth leads Jones into Augustus' office. The boss pours Jones a drink, excusing himself for not imbibing any alcohol himself, and he explains to Jones that he needs a fighter, a real killer. Jones acknowledges that he is a real killer. Augustus explains about how the fight has to end with Jones' opponent dead. Jones seems unperturbed. For 2-barter, he doesn't seem to care that much who he kills, or why. They set the fight for the next Saturday, to give Augustus time to promote it. Augustus sends word to Grimes.

Much later, Murdock comes back to Twiggy, limping slightly, looking very happy for himself. Twiggy sees Frost drop him off and then drive away, which just makes him crankier. He tells Murdock he's out. Murdock swears he'll still be there for Twiggy when Twiggy needs him.

Twiggy checks in on Tart. MacWillard says she's sleeping, which can't be bad, but that it would be good to have someone familiar there if she woke up. He promises to come by a lot. He then visits Grandma to apologize for shooting her. Finally, he tracks down Frost, and asks what's the story with the van. She confirms it. Twiggy cannot believe this happened, but when Frost reports about the grocery store, Twiggy's real into it. Grandma loves it but wants then to keep it real quiet.

Jones asks MacWillard to speed up his healing, but sadly, Mac can't do that reliably. Since he's a little dinged up, the gunlugger goes back to Augustus and asks him to push it back until he's healthy. The maestro will work on that... he hopes.