As in my earlier actual play reports, small green text indicates out of character talk, mechanics and other game aspects outside of the fiction.
Our main characters are:
- Gator (the Gunlugger, but not for long!) is an assassin and part-time bodyguard who wears customized scrounged armor made from Kevlar and ceramic inserts. Camouflaged for the jungle, his face was ruined in a fight with an alligator. His eyes are always sizing things up and his brutal life has left his body a hard sheet of muscle. He runs a gang of mercenaries and was hired to kill White, the warlord of Miami. The job is done.
- Jarhead (the Savvyhead) is a thin African-American man with a short goatee, long dreads, and clothes covered in pockets and gear. Travelling around in an old news van, he repairs items for a living. He is investigating a device that can bend space and time. He has also obtained employees in the form of a young woman Allison and her brother Waters as well as a little girl named Memo. His old mentor Sir Fredricks warned him of danger from the psychic maelstrom. Now Gator wants him to build a weapon to kill 'the gods' that live there.
- November Orleans (the Skinner turned Battlebabe) is descended from a family which left New Orleans before it sank. She is a beautiful woman of mixed heritage with dark eyes and skin, a sweet face and lush body. She dresses herself in a mix of scavenged clothing that somehow works together and wears a necklace made from rows of antique coins which jingle and shine as she moves. Her main profession is as a dancer, especially belly dancing, but she has a sideline business in cooking and animal training. She works for the "gods" but hopes to betray them.
- Violet Jefferson (the Touchstone) is descended by survivalists and her clothing and gear reflects her origins. Plain looking but fit, she carries a pocket copy of the Federalist papers and founding documents of the United States of America, an idea she hopes to revive. Her followers are demanding her help to liberate Miami from a tyrant. November blew off half her face recently.
We start by checking experience. I found that Jarhead is due another move from last session. He chooses to advance three moves. I forget which but it doesn’t matter as you will see.
Violet tells us about an idea that came to her on her canoe trip between sessions: giant water strider mounts!
”But then they get too big and break the surface tension,” Gator says.
”If we’re ignoring that they would suffocate from being gigantic,” I say, ”we can ignore their ability to walk on water.”
Start of Session
I quickly recap. White is dead. The Big Ship is free and peaceful thanks to Gator and the Militia. But climber zombies are attacking the Autodoc.Gator picks his new playbook. Hardholder!
Taking the Big Ship as his holding, he jokes, “and then I’ll retire as Conan.”
His gang gets assimilated into the holding’s gang. As I explain, “in this case you actually lose something.”
”At least he got rid of White,” Violet mutters.
With regards to the Autodoc situation, November advises Violet take her clothes off.
”It doesn’t work like that,” she says to the stripper.
We start with Hx highlighting:
- Violet gets Cool (from November) plus Hard.
- November marks Hot (from Jarhead) plus Weird.
- Jarhead gets Hot (from Gator) plus Weird.
- Gator highlights Hard (from Jarhead) plus Weird.
Then Violet rolls Fortunes and gets a 6. Her followers are diseased, argumentative, and deserting!
”They only liked you for your looks after all,” November says.
”That’s a low blow,” Violet replies.
”Could be the zombies,” she offers.
”I was going to blame Gator actually,” I say.
Gator works out his holding: well defended with a bustling market, good armory, and a disciplined gang. However the citizens are decadent and perverse as well as filthy and unwell.
”Radiation poisoning, that a disease,” I suggest.
He rolls Wealth and gets a 9. He chooses disease as his want.
“Radiation poisoning it is, or the climbers. It could be a lingering death trap. White’s revenge.”
Changing Course
Violet pauses at the stairs. The cries of alarm ring down the hall behind her. She turns and grabs a fleeing nurse.“The climbers! They’ve smashed into the front lobby,” the woman shouts.
“Grab anybody who can handle a gun, make a stand at the main entrance,” Violet orders. “I’ll see about hunting up more people. We’ve got to act quickly.”
Violet makes a Towering presence and gets 10. She marks experience.
The obese woman nods dumbly. As she hurries away, Violet tightens her grip on her rifle. She looks up the stairs, her mind visualizing the big glass enclosure in front of the hospital. She turns and makes for the main entrance instead.
A half-dozen nurses struggle at the double doors, pushing up makeshift barricade of gurneys and batting at glassy-eyed men and women with axes. A couple of men fire blindly into the mindless horde with rusty pistols.
Violet rolls Indomitable. She marks experience, gets a 14, and holds 3.
She then seizes by force, specifically the lobby. She again marks experience and gets a 12 on the second roll. Since she has this move advanced she takes all options and doubles down on take definite hold.
“Follow me!” she cries opening fire on the mass of infected.
Together the gang pushes back the sleepwalkers. The attackers scatter, melting into the chaos of the main lobby. Under the starlit glass, dozens of the infected swarm the area, pulling down nurses and patients alike and tearing them apart. Men, women, and children bite and claw like feral beasts. Outside Lily fires again and again as she and her dog Exit race for her motorcycle.
Violet turns and fires on a half-naked man climbing the exterior wall. Krin directs the other nurses forward to take the lobby.
As they push deeper into the atrium, the climber victims begin to falter, peeling away in ones and twos. Violet knocks a broken faced woman aside in mid lunge. Meanwhile Krin puts two rounds into a little girl with blood stained lips.
“Why?” he cries. He reloads with tears in his eyes. He fires again. “Why!?”
I let her secure the main entrance and take the center of the atrium. She uses 1 hold to eliminate any damage she would take.
Her small gang takes 2-harm (2 base +1 for size -1 for little harm) as does the medium gang of infected. A few die on each side and lots of pain is dished out.
A man in green T-shirt stops his mindless attack. He blinks his eyes. “What where am I?”
A big man, one of the defenders named Crazy Joe, sinks an axe into his head. He grabs a woman with a shattered arm and thrusts her through a plate-glass window. Stepping back, he rubs his bald surgically scarred head with a bloody hand. He turns and gives Violet a smile.
Then five twitching attackers pounce on him, dragging him to the ground in an orgy of blood and brutality.
”This universe sucks,” Violet says.
”This is a crap universe.”
Violet glances around her. Orderlies and nurses from inside reinforce her dwindling band, doubling their numbers. The climbers, beaten and broken, continue to come at them but with each encounter the defenders push them back another few feet. The front entrance is in sight.
Through the glass, Violet spots Lily. Standing atop her motorcycle, Exit at her feet, she desperately fends off a half-dozen of the infected.
Violet pulls her eyes away from her friend. “We must protect the Autodoc!”
We jump to the Big Ship.
Gator looks at the crowds below from the darkened tower. Cheers and laughter drift up from the market, an island of light in the dark night. Carefully conserved moonshine sloshes freely.
Jarhead continues, “So how about these detonator collars? There’s a lot of people down there you still can’t trust. I could rig it so a simple flick of a switch takes them out if they try anything. All I need is some spare ammo and time. Or we could do shock collars.”
”No shock collars,” Gator says. “No explosives either.”
“I thought you were going to be a fun ruler. I thought we understood each other.”
Morgana speaks up, pulling Gator’s attention to the other side of the small room. “We’ve got to do something about those people, the ones White used as his insurance policy. The climber victims. We’ve rounded them up and put in a shack on the south end. Should we shoot them?”
Gator looks north. “We should negotiate something with the Autodoc.”
The rugged woman nods. “OK I’ll try to radio them.”
Elsewhere.
November mingles with the crowds, soaking in their cheer and smiles. A helpful threesome point her to Shell’s.
Only an elderly oriental woman seems to be browsing this stall. The proprietor, a well dressed man with a cape, smiles and asks what she desires.
“I wants something strong. Something that will knock me out for a while.” She glances around. “Any Second Life?”
Time for a barter move. November gone into a holding's bustling market and rolls sharp and gets a 9.
Shell’s smile falters. “Well I had some before all this trouble came up. But not in quite a while. I got this.” He holds out a vial of red liquid. “Not quite the same. It’s made from blood ferns but the distillation isn’t very good. It will knock you out but has some side effects.”
I inform November that it can cause physical paralysis.
November considers the vial for a moment before handing over some jingle. She hangs the vial around neck. As she vanishes into the crowd, she grasps her new talisman.
Back at the Autodoc, I call for a custom move, essentially to keep to an untenable course as Violet pushes to clear the lobby of the infected. She rolls hard and get a 12. She marks experience.
Violet and the others reach the front entrance. Blood, mostly not theirs, covers their hands, arms and weapons. As the final remnants of the hospital’s defenders arrive, they clear the lobby.
As the nurses move to seal the broken windows and secure the doorway, Violet rushes outside.
Violet seizes by force (specifically Lily) and gets a 10, she chooses to inflict terrible harm, dismay her enemies, and take definite hold. She marks experience and uses another hold from indomitable to negate any damage.
The few remaining climbers swarm Lily’s bike. A large man throws her to the ground. He looms over her, asleep to the dog chewing at his leg. His head explodes.
Pulling up her still smoking rifle, Violet runs forward and leaps over the remaining attackers. She pulls Lily free of the crowd and dashes for the entrance. The climbers stumble after them. Letting the other woman run ahead, Violet turns and fires at a parked pickup. The bullet strikes the gas tank solidly. A second later a subdued explosion covers their right flank, distracting their pursuers for a moment.
A minute later both women breath heavily within the glass confines of the lobby. Outside the attackers withdraw, beaten and broken for now.
Violet straightens up. "Get that window barricaded," she shouts to nurses.
Teams of patients and orderlies wheel gurneys into the lobby and turn broken chairs and tables into makeshift walls. As the nurses begin to help the wounded, Violet steps in to deal with the more pressing cases.
As she binds a badly bleeding leg, she overhears someone say, “a call just came from the Big Ship. They say it's been liberated! They say White’s dead.”
She tightens the tourniquet and looks around. Scavenged boards and duct tape seal off the damaged windows and a half-dozen armed men watch the front doors. Satisfied for the moment, she looks for the head nurse.
She finds Millions inside.
“Thank you for saving us," the porcelain skinned nurse says. "If they had gotten past that doorway it would be over for us. And if we had lost the atrium, all of our food would be gone. If there is anything that you need let me know.”
We realize she is acting with hope. But she doesn’t need anything now.
“I can’t think anything right now,” Violet tells the androgynous figure.
Millions smiles. "Our doors will always be open to take care of any harm that you have suffered.”
Violet gives her a quick rundown on her recommendations for improving defenses. Then she excuses herself.
In the lobby she finds Lily. After checking for any climbers nearby, they grab Lily’s bike and ride south to the liberated ship.
We return to the Big Ship.
November slips away from another party. All around her the holding continues its celebration. Shadow’s muscular form materialize next to her.
“Now that these troubles are past." The savage warrior holds his breath for a moment as he shuffles his feet. "You’re the Messenger.”
"The what?" November says arching an eyebrow.
“Jarhead had said you were the Messenger. You’re the one we’ve been searching for.”
"Cool," she says calmly.
Shadow presses on. “The gods granted me a vision, they said you were the one who would lead my people to salvation.”
"Cool," she says, her eyes searching around. "I don’t know much about your religion, sorry. What salvation were you thinking of?"
“You need to lead my people away from the devastated land they live in," he explains.
“That sounds like a good idea but I don’t know any place better. You’ve got a nice set up.”
He throws his arms wide. "There’s no food there, my people are starving.”
"I see," she says.
November considers other possible locations. She suggests the abandoned hotel where they killed Dustwich.
To get a better idea she opens her brain, gets an 10, earns experience and gains an advancement: a gang!
First I ask, "who do you miss the most who has died?"
She describes Panhandle Meg, an old woman in Oklahoma. She schooled November in the art of cooking and gathering herbs. Unlike most she died of old age. November was present when she passed. Meg was completely fine with dying at that point. “It's my time,” she said. November however was not okay with it.
November stretches out her thoughts. The image of a ruin hotel floats to the surface. The site of Dustwich's death. Between the mangroves and the rising seas. The clear waters teem with life. But in the depths something stirs with a hunger of its own.
“I think I know a good place," she says after a pause. "How do you like seafood?”
Shadow shrugs. "I see food, I eat it."
”We should see if there is anybody who would like to join us." She grabs Shadow's shoulder. "And don’t call me the Messenger to them, they wouldn’t understand.”
I go deal with dinner while the group discusses experience and advancement. Along the way my son makes a break for kitchen.
Violet decides on her next advance. She becomes a Scholar.
Morgana briefs Gator in the command room high above the top deck. “Seems the Autodoc had a bit of an incident.”
"Incident?" Gator asks.
Morgana leans on the table between them. “Yeah they got attacked by a whole gang of climbers.”
"So that’s where all those people went."
She nods. “They managed to drive them off. They said something about Violet helping out.”
"That’s good, as long as they are okay over there. How have the negotiations gone?"
“I’ve talked to them about taking the climber cases but they are kind of in disarray. But I think we should be able to ferry them up.”
"Let’s get on that then."
Morgana smiles. “I’ll arrange a boat.”
November works on her gang. She goes with +rich and +1-armor and the downside of +desertion. Very similar to Gator's old gang.
We jump to Jarhead.
Gator and Jarhead patrol the deck of the Big Ship early the next morning. Only the mutant gulls and a few groaning drunks disturb the hulk’s silence. The pair of men look over the rusty 50 caliber machine guns.
“We need to patch up this place’s defenses,” Gator says.
I tell Jarhead to overhaul this he needs 3-barter worth of parts and a week.
Jarhead rubs his goatee. “We can do this, we can make them fire at full speed, like they’re almost out of the shop but we will need to buy some parts.”
“Okay how much.”
“It will cost four barter to get it all said and done. I can guarantee it will spit bullets like nothing around.” Jarhead turns to Gator. “I know you are good for these things. So I’ll do it for three now and you can pay the rest when it’s finished.”
Mechanically it would be a 5-harm far area braced weapon.
We go over Gator’s barter, he has only 3-barter, including the extra from the holding. He’d have more if his holding wasn’t full of decadent savages.
”Jerks. Taking all of our money, they’ll learn,” he mutters.
Gator considers three people lying in a drunken heap. “Four is a bit much.”
“Okay,” Jarhead’s smiles fades away.”Then you don’t get your gun.”
“Make sure you are working on that god puncher thing,’ Gator says.
“I prefer god smiter.”
Gator turns back to the rusty hulks. “The machine guns work enough for now.”
“Suit yourself.”
Jarhead hurries back down below. As he returns to work on the weapon, he smiles at Allison’s progress on the shock collars. She should have some done soon.
The shock collars will take a week to get two done and Allison will need to disassemble the taser first.
For the god smiter he needs to hook up the ship’s power source, install his augury, get a psychic to aim it, and then expose himself and others to danger. Easy.
Jarhead connects another cable with a yawn. He looks around. Allison and the others have yet to return to the workshop. He lets his eyes close for a moment. He blinks and yawns. Jarhead grabs another cable and plugs it in. He tries shrug off the accumulated lethargy of two sleepless nights. He wanders over to his augury. After polishing it up he rests his head again.
He blinks.
His feet sit in ankle-deep water. A low mist fills the gaps between the trees that surround him.
“Jarhead.”
“Jarhead.”
Voices whisper to him from all directions. Some he recognizes. Tom who died while Jarhead was out of town. Crazy Jane who popped while he worked on a carburetor. Tram, Skinhead, and Headlight. All dead. All victims of the climbers.
“This is not good, this is not good.” He mutters as figures move in the mist. “This is not good.”
Jarhead rolls acting under fire and gets a 10. He also marked experience since he rolled weird (he is spooky intense).
Jarhead creeps away from the voices. His back hits a tree. Nervously his hand sneaks around and finds a knob. Quickly he pulls the door open and steps inside.
”Is it a christmas tree shaped door?” he asks.
”No more like a pumpkin.”
A dark field spreads in front of him. He looks up and back. A towering factory looms over him. Broken windows and gray crumbling wood. Illuminated by a dying moon.
“Psst, over here.”
Jarhead looks past a withered old tree, bleached at the roots. A child lurks in its shadow.
“I can help you, they are coming for you,” the boy tells him, “I can protect you, but you need to do something for me.”
Jarhead glances behind him. Several massive step pyramids rear into the sky. Blood drips down their staircases.
“That’s not intimidating at all,” he mutters. “Okay, who are you?”
“You know who I am.” The child steps out from behind the tree. The scars still remains, years after the savaging the crocodile dealt him.
“White,” Jarhead states. “Right. Not the first person I expected to find in this place. Then again I don’t know why I should be surprised. So what do you want? Besides not being dead. I don’t think I can help with that, your head is all leaky.”
“I need a new body.”
Jarhead shakes his head. “I was afraid you would say that.”
”Make him a cyborg!” November suggests.
Jarhead scratches his chin. “If I make you a new body, you keep them off my back?”
“Yes, I’ll protect you from the gods.” Thunder rumbles around White.
”You know what I’m trying to do,” Jarhead says.
White steps in front of him. “Yes.”
“Can you wait until I finish before I bring you back among us?”
“I’d like a sign of good faith,” White says, the moonlight illuminating his teeth through his ravaged cheek. “The gods know what you are up to, you told their emissary. They will come from you.”
Jarhead opens his mouth and then closes it. “In the end I guess it doesn’t matter who said what. But I wonder if you can wait? Look, I assume you are the maelstrom.”
“I’m always in the maelstrom.”
“So if I ever want to go back in, you’ll be there.”
“They are all here,” White says looking past him.
“Screw them, I mean you.” As White nods, Jarhead continues, “so if I attempt to renege on our deal here, I can never go back to the one place I need to explore. I’m not going to cut myself off.”
Jarhead rolls to manipulate a person, gets a 9, and marks experience.
The boy remains impassive. The tinkerer sighs. “How about I set one of my assistants on it once I get back. I suppose the assurance that you are doing your part is that my soul stays in my body.”
White nods. “I will protect you on this end. Your friends will have to protect your body.”
“You know I’m only the one who can build this device. You want this as much as we do.” White stands stone-like before him. “Can I get up now?”
Jarhead wakes with a jerk. He spots Waters and Memo enjoying some breakfast. “You two! I’ve got a job for you. I need you to build a metal skeleton. Nothing fancy. No super strength. And we need to put a big kill switch on back. Red and well-labeled.”
We establish some members of November’s gang. Lafferty joins in as do various people not loyal to White but uncomfortable with the new leadership. One group are the Kites, a family of transients looking to settle down. She also gets a few ex-Music Bowl cultists, including one named Sunset. I remark that she’s soaked up the unruliness that would have been part of Gator’s gang.
Shadow joins November’s crew as well, leaving Jarhead’s gang.
November remarks, “Ha I get the crazy religious nut job.”
The sun turns the eastern waters into a golden sparkle. November looks over her ‘congregation’. The giant, Lafferty, nurses a shattered arm. The Kite family huddles around their packs and gear. Off on her own, Sunset hums a tune while she scrubs the stains out her robe. No one looks comfortable amid the Big Ship’s field of tin shacks.
Shadow comes up beside her. “We should head back to my holding. They’ve been waiting for me for almost a month.”
November nods. “We’ll need some transportation and supplies. Let me see what I can find.”
Onto Gator.
Morgana finds Gator in the tower watching the boats below move in the gulf between the Big Ship and shore. “Boss we’ve got a problem.”
“What is it?”
She points to the south end of the holding. “Wire went to check on the climber victims. We don’t have to worry about them anymore. But we do have to worry about It.”
Gator’s scars twist down. “So it ran its course.”
“Yes.”
“Burn it.”
Morgana nods with a smile. “I’ve got Wire and Crudehammer on it right now.”
A fireball erupts at the south end moments before the boom of the explosion arrives. Morgana’s voice sinks. “I told them not to use grenades.”
“Let’s cordon off that section,” Gator orders. “Seal off the vents.”
Morgana hurries off, leaving Gator to watch the plume of smoke. His eyes shift to the beach. A motorcycle pulls up on the white sands. Grabbing a scope, he spies Lily and Violet on board.
He talks into a speaking tube. “Pheonix, you there?”
“Yes, boss?”
“I’ve got a job for you.”
With Morgana and Wire busy, Gator needs a new face person. Phoenix was a weapons merchant but is now part of his gang. She wears a long coat and a short skirt.
November and Gator then makes some jokes about my descriptions.
“I think she’s a keeper,” November says referencing a Cake song.
Violet and Lily pull up to the shore just as a rough gang of tattooed freaks boards the last boat. The circuit board armored savages let loose a cry as they row toward the Big Ship.
The women and the dog Exit look for another way across. Minutes later their answer comes in the form of a second boat slowly rowed across the bay. An unfamiliar woman in a long coat stands at the bow.
“You’re Violet right?” the woman asks, jumping down to the sands. “I’m here to greet you. Name is Phoenix.”
“Alright,” Violet says, eyeing the woman. Phoenix’s long coat hangs heavy over her short skirt. “We need to get to the ship.”
She gestures behind her. “Right, get aboard, Gator sent me over to welcome you onto the Big Ship. We’ve got business up and running again.”
“Great,” she says climbing aboard with her companions.
Phoenix jumps back on the boat. “Okay boys get us back over.”
The men at the oars begin to row back across the still waters.
Phoenix turns back to Violet. “So Gator didn’t give me a lot of information, but you are friends right?”
“Associates,” she corrects her.
“He mentioned some business you had to talk about. Some deal you had.”
“There’s a little something I owe him. I’ll make sure we’re square.”
“Good, good,” the young woman says, shaking her auburn clad head. ”Don’t want to make the new boss unhappy.”
“New boss?” Violet asks.
“White’s dead. Out with the old and in with the new.” She hastily adds, “with more sanity.”
“This doesn’t seem like what we wanted,” Lily says sharply.
“We have to take into account what the people on the ship want,” Violet patiently says.
“Well if they are like her, it looks like they are happy.” Lily raises her hands. “Crap, we struggled for a whole month on this! People died!”
“I’m not happy with it either,” Violet says. “But if that’s the way it is then maybe we need to find somewhere else.“
Lily glares at her passionless leader. “After all of this, you are just going to give up?”
“That’s what the people want.” Violet lapses in a lecture. “I’ve told you before, it just as much of idea that the people have to be onboard with.”
“Damn it, Violet!”
Lily’s outcry rebounds off the Big Ship’s rusty hull just as they dock.
Phoenix bounds off the rowboat and gestures to an elevator. “Well we can go this way.”
“You go that way!” Lily shouts. “After all of this they put another dictator in charge. Wonderful. Great.”
“I’m not happy about it either,” Violet says.
“You could fool me!”
Lily storms off into the bowels of the ship.
“I guess she deserted,” Violet says.
”You can guess that.”
Phoenix leads Violet to the top deck and then up the tower. As they climb the stairs, she says to Violet, “she seemed a little upset.”
“Well, yeah. Some of people had been hoping to start a republic.”
Phoenix looks up the stairwell. “Sounds great and all, but there something to be said about going with what works.”
They continue up the metal steps. The damp rusted stairs moan briefly at the fourth floor.
“Anyway I don’t care either way,” she says turning to Violet. “You look pretty bad off. With your friend gone...let’s just say if you leave on your own, talk to me first. I can set you up with something to protect yourself.”
“Don’t worry. I can take care of myself,” Violet smiles as she points to her face. “Plus I’ve got a friend here who can patch up this shiner.”
Jumping forward.
Phoenix throws open the door to the command room. Gator and a few men look up from a metal wheel covered in bits of paper. Violet scrutinizes it for a minute before Phoenix announces, “Gator! I brought her.”
Gator stands up obscuring her view of several words: amputation, death, Gator’s choice.
”I think I’ve gone through all of the stages of grief.” Violet says about the wheel.
“Oh Violet, glad that nasty of business at the Autodoc didn’t take you out,” he says. “Sounded pretty bad.”
“Well if my face didn’t show it already, I’m kind of hard to kill.”
Gator grins, his scar twisting horribly. “I guess we have that in common. You heard that White was killed.”
Violet moves into the room, getting a closer look at Gator’s wheel of punishments. “I have to admit that I’m a little surprised that you set yourself up here.”
“Well the way I see it, these people need some stability. The only place in this god forsaken land that at one point had a purpose is here.”
Violet walks up to the imposing ex-mercenary. “So I guess my ideas of the Republic didn’t mean anything.”
“That’s not why I was with you,” he says frowning softly. “I thought I made that pretty clear.”
“Yes,” she says. “But think of what could be. This country was great once and it could be again.” She begins to lecture on what the United States was and how they could build a new nation here. Gator listens and tries to get a word in without success. Finally she concludes, “think about it, a world without tyrants, with guaranteed rights and freedoms.”
Violet rolls Visionary, gets a 10, and marks experience. Gator tries to interfere and gets a failure. Violet holds 3 experience but Gator refuses to bend. I hint she could manipulate him using the experience as leverage but she chooses not to be a jerk.
Gator sighs. “That sounds good in theory but there are way too many batshit crazy assholes out there. That’s not going to work right now. What these people need is stability. Vote someone in, then that person leaves and the next guy has to start from scratch.”
“But eventually it begins to build up and take root.”
“But how do you do that?” he asks.
“Have a good solid foundation to build on.”
“What foundation?”
“A moral one,” she argues.
“That’s what I’m doing.” He points at the wheel. “This right here. It’s the wheel. Break a deal, face the wheel.”
“More than that I think,” she mutters.
“It’s a start, more than most places have.”
Violet looks at Gator and his men. “Well I tried. Now we do have a little business to conduct. I believe I owe you something.”
And we learn that she’s sitting on 9.5 barter!
“You could buy almost anything,” I say.
November adds, “You could buy an election. Ha! That’s the irony! She can’t buy a fair and honorable election.”
She digs into her bulging pack and hands Gator some barter. As Gator takes it, she asks, “where’s Jarhead?”
Gator hesitates. “He’s working on something very important.”
“OK can you tell me where to find him? I have some important business with him too.”
“He’s got a workshop below,” he says. “Phoenix show her down.”
We discuss how hiring Gator worked out.
”He’s a damn good mercenary,” Violet says.
”The best two barter ever spent,” I say. “Just got spell it out in the contract ‘I will not take over the holding after I assassinate its leader.’”
”That will be something to remember.”
And that's it for now. See you in two weeks.
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