LogBrink-Jason-9

Game log for the 2014/12/14 session of Brink, as taken by Jason

Eyeball's spending three days surveilling the Din, meaning everyone has plenty of time to get into trouble.

Cooze has hired Absinthe to break into someone's quarters on Ring Ten, someone who she thinks is moving contraband through Cooze's turf. She gets in and finds out that it's not just a stash house, it's a space meth lab. She tries to sneak out but trips an anti-theft device, in the form of a grenade. She runs for it, dripping blood from shrapnel holes in her vac suit, and ends up pinned down. Torch tries to burst through the wall to rescue her but immediately gets pinned down by suppressive fire. He tries to back out, gets peppered, and jumps back, ending up right where he started, but having taken fire. Absinthe tries to figure out how she can use Torch's distraction to her advantage, but ends up drawing attention back toward herself. She shoves the guy shooting at her just as Torch opens fire with his shotgun, which turns him into paste, but the messy nature of shotgun fire means Absinthe gets lit up as well. Absinthe flails around a bit and gets the door off her, allowing her to wriggle loose. She's not taking fire but she can see someone sneaking up on Torch with a spiked club. Absinthe calls out a warning, Torch spins and fires the shotgun, and both guys in that area go down. Torch moves in to the room to loot bodies, which provides Absinthe a wee distraction, and she slips away. Torch collects the shotgun ammo bandolier, backs out while laying down suppression fire, and pops into the hallway.

They end up at Fusty's. Absinthe's blood-soaked appeance pretty much clears the place out, but Cooze is there and ready to take the report. Absinthe tries to get Cooze to cover her medical bills, but Cooze isn't feeling it. Mite stirs the pot by calling Absinthe incompetent, and there's a moment when it looks likely to turn into a blazing point-blank firefight. Absinthe defuses it by getting up and walking out, giving Torch a quick "follow me" glance, and they go to Fletch's place.

Fletch calls Swan to let him know that Absinthe's back in the body shop. Swan goes there to pay off half his debt to Fletch, and then interrogates Absinthe and Torch about what went wrong. Unfortunately Absinthe decides to swing by the psychic maelstrom, and her conversation doesn't make any sense. Swan also finds Torch's alleged ability to tell when Absinthe's in trouble to be somewhat creepy. Swan rifles through Absinthe's pouches to come up with the jingle to pay Fletch off. Swan then goes to settle the Fletch's problem with Rattle directly, with Torch along, of course.

Eyeball tells Swan that Rattle runs with a gang called the Red Stripes. Swan sends for Flail and Warchest to lend muscle, and since Chronos happens to be around the hangar, to have him get ready too. They all meet up on Ring 14. Swan asks one of the Red Stripes for Rattle, they express concern over our ordnance, Torch hands over his shotgun, Warchest waits outside, and Flail brings her flail along, and the three of them get to go visit Rattle. The Red Stripe heavy introduces himself as Lou. Lou takes them to a clubhouse sort of space, a huge space with live jazz music. The ambiance is unfamiliar. The floor has been painted with wood grain, so it looks like a hardwood floor. Lou leads the trio through some bead curtains to Rattle, who seems to already know who Swan is, and seems pleased to meet him. Swan sends his muscle away, so it's just him, and Rattle, and some of Rattle's hangers on. Rattle serves him a cup of the local white fire, which smells like cherries but feels like napalm in the throat. Rattle mentions that he wants to distribute the product and maybe Swan could help with that. Swan expresses a guarded willingness to deal but moves the conversation toward Fletch. Rattle tells him that Fletch is small time and has no trainee or protege, so her skills will be lost if something happens to her. He wants to make medical care a more reliable and affordable service, and to make the station a better place, and Swan thinks he might genuinely mean it. Swan offers to try to push Fletch toward a more scalable approach and to distribute the cherry liquer if Rattle will stop pushing Fletch, and Rattle agrees. Then we all bug out before we can ruin it.

Cipher's been on a three day bender at Lefty's Bar. He's got a gig going with Henri to read people at the negotiating table, making sure nobody tries to put one over on him. Henri offers Cipher some more work, although it seems like it's really Henri asking Cipher to get Swan to do some work. There's some stuff he wants scavenged from a dead ring (26), and in return, he can offer some salvaged jingle.

Swan goes back to Fletch and assures her that Rattle won't be bothering her again. They then go back to the hangar. Torch makes a beeline for Eyeball and asks her for surveillance on Mite, to see if she ever leaves Ring Ten. Torch kind of wants to murder Mite. Eyeball assures him that she'll check it out, then goes straight to Swan and reports that Torch is going wrong, and that she is, in fact, not going to help Torch out with any such personal project. Chronos mentions that he knows Mite and actually gets along with her just fine. Torch asks him to arrange a meeting between him and Mite, and Chronos agrees to try it.

Cipher waves Swan over. Swan offers him some cherry moonshine, which Cipher admires. Cipher then relays Henri's offer and explains that it's either salvage or robbery, depending on who might be there. Swan's interested, so they go back to Lefty's, where Cipher immediately hits Henri up for a finder's fee for setting the meet up. Swan assures Henri that Cipher is not officially part of his crew, and as an individual operator, is actually worthy of a broker's fee. Then switch to talking business, and Henri lays out the nature of the job. Some of what needs salvaged from Ring 26 is big, so getting it out may be a challenge. No power means nobody lives there, but people who go there don't come back. Swan negotiates for some labor from Henri's team to help get things done, which is fine so long as Henri can guarantee security. Cipher gets a solar mat for his troubles, and all involved agree to go forward as soon as convenient, sometime in the next couple days.

Back in the hangar, Swan and Cipher talk more, and Cipher ends up joining Swan's crew and then having 2 hold from Hypnotic. Cipher then explains that he needs Fletch to think that she needs a protege, and to think it was all her idea.

Chronos heads over to Fusty's to try to broker the meet with Mite. Even hours later, the smoke and the blood trail from Absinthe's earlier caper can still be seen. He tries opening his brain to see how best to approach Mite, but it goes horribly wrong. He walks in and Mite looks at him and says, "How did I know you were going to come here today?" "Well, my name's Chronos, so timing is everything." He tries to be cool but she can tell he's totally not over the wild night of passion that they had a few years back. Trina and Falstaff are there with her and loom at him a little, but Mite tells them it's cool, and they leave. He asks her about the mess, and she explains that Cooze made a bad call, trusting the wrong person. She mentions that the drug gang is mostly on Ring 9, and maybe he could help with that. He tries to figure out how to get to her, to really connect with her, and realizes that he needs to validate her opinions, to be her sounding board again. They end up in bed for the night, and this time, it's cool. Of course, as he leaves the next morning, she says, "Don't make me regret this." He leaves her a note to meet on Ring 23 in Hangar C.

Torch gets Warchest to swap him a gun for the shotgun. Warchest is at first repulsed by the idea of letting someone else touch his guns, but suddenly reinvents himself as The Gun Library. He will allow Torch to have one gun checked out at any given time, and will chose a new gun for Torch on each mission.

Mite leaves a message for Chronos refusing his meeting and calling him an asshole. He has to go to Swan and tell him that the meet would be on Ring 10. Chronos makes sure that Swan just wants to talk before he goes for it. He then arranges to pick up Cipher on the way. Chronos wants Cipher to smooth things over with Mite. You could safely describe Cipher as "intrigued".

Chronos comes in to Fusty's and finds the atmosphere somewhat chillier. Mite immediately makes him aware that she's feeling some hostility, since he tried to get her to meet him someplace where she'd be in a lot of danger. He acts like he doesn't get it, so she lays it all out for him: she's got a big problem with two members of Swan's crew. Chronos ducks out, tells Swan to stay put, and brings Cipher in. Cipher pushes him aside so he can try to go in, find a corner, and act like he's not with anyone. He looks for a place to hide right away and he's thinking maybe he should duck behind a curtain, then gets distracted thinking about the amount of good stuff he could overhear in a place like this. He ends up sitting at a table, drinking, getting nothing done. A few minutes later, thinking Cipher will have laid the ground work, Swan and Chronos come in. The moment they see Swan, every member of Cooze's gang is standing up, hands on weapons, and Mite calls out, "Are you fucking high?" Cooze steps forward and asks, "What the fuck the fuck is going on here?" Chronos asks Cipher what happened. Swan says that there's some sort of problem and offers to meet privately with Cooze. Cooze is fine with that but makes it clear that Chronos is not off the hook. SIt ends up being Cooze, Mite, Swan, and Chronos at the table, with a few more gang members sort of around. Swan asks what's going on with Torch; Cooze admits that she set some trouble in motion by hiring Absinthe for a job she couldn't manage. The meeting is going well and Cooze acknowledges that Swan's a reasonable guy. Chronos tries to claim to be a reasonable guy and gets immediately smacked down by everyone else at the table. Cooze then asserts that Torch crossed a line by trying to back Mite down on her own turf, and accuses Torch of being undisciplined. Swan assures her that he's quite disciplined, and so she tells him to discipline him. Swan admits that he should do that but reminds them that a few words from Mite could make this all go away. Mite's not interested but Cooze is, so Mite gets her orders. Mite promptly blames Chronos for putting her in this position. Chronos tries to claim that this is still all about the two of them, but Mite's not pleased with him, no sir, not a bit of it. While Mite and Chronos argue, Swan tells Cooze that he likes the way she runs her crew, and looks forward to doing business. Swan and Chronos leave, with Cipher still camped out in a reverie, ignoring the viciously upraised finger Chronos is giving him. Mite goes with to get the apology done.

Mite apologizes to Torch, who immediately explains that she was supposed to apologize to Absinthe. Swan makes sure that an apology will cover it, gets affirmation from Torch, and takes Mite to see Absinthe. Mite whispers an "apology" to Absinthe, who she thinks is too doped up to remember. Absinthe actually will remember some of it, but she doesn't react. Swan reminds Mite that he can be counted on to uphold a deal, and offers Mite a shuttle ride home. She does not accept, so Swan joins her for the elevator ride from Fletch's place back to Ring Ten. Swan makes some small talk about business, aimed at getting Mite to respect him and trust him, and thinks he makes some progress. She asks him to get an exclusive on Absinthe's work, so Cooze would have to clear her work with Swan first. Swan won't promise to do that, so Mite won't promise to push him forward with Cooze.

Back at Fusty's, Fusty is trying to tell Cipher that he's not allowed to bring his own hooch to his own table. He asks him to sit down and starts selling him on cherry hooch. They agree to trade the hooch for fresh tomatos or green peppers, one for one. Cipher leaves and calls Swan on the way, letting him know that they have a buyer for Rattle's product.

Swan begins going through the footage from the Den. About three days in, the feed cuts out. There's no sign of someone stopping it. The last thing they see is a meet between Skinny, Crank, and Chainsaw, featuring wild gesticulating. About tenty minutes after that, it cuts out, so presumably they found it and disabled the feed. He reminds himself that the fiddly bit came from Doc Oculus, so even if they find it, it doesn't lead back to him.

Cipher returns and asks Swan where Chronos' thing with Mite is supposed to go. Swan tells him the entire issue is settled and asks Cipher to stand down.

Torch goes to figure out where Eyeball let him down, and she honestly tells him that she was looking out for him, because lets to his own devices, he'd get into way too much trouble. Torch acknowledges that and they part on good terms. While he was using yon psychic maelstrom, Torch sensed a consciousness in the collapsed wormhole. It's hungry. It wishes to devour. It's possible that reopening the wormhole would kill it, but then maybe not. Torch's impulse is to placate it by feeding it.