A Bad Name advance release

Just to keep you all updated, I'm planning on a back to back release of 2 chapters of A Bad Name. I'm still working on the second chapter, but here's the first of them just in case it takes longer to finish the second than I'm happy with.

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New Game+ Chapter Two

I'm still a light sleeper; I wake up almost instantly at the sound of feet thumping on floor and the scrape of loose carpet. My eyes snap open, searching the darkness for moving shapes. Observe.

[QUOTE] Sound: Footsteps
Sources: 2
Direction: -7°/-2°, -1°/-2°
Distance: 268 cm (Approaching/Oblique 3.3 kph)
Scent: Human male, canine male
[/Quote]

"Looks like a good spot, Meco," mutters a raspy voice probably not much older than me. I hear a bit of motion, a zipper, then cloth on nylon before a wave of air passes over me, a soft flump of something like a blanket hitting the floor. The dog whines softly, and from the sound of it, I can tell the animal is facing me.

"I'll move," I offer in a quiet tone of voice, startling the man enough for him to take a few steps backwards as I slip out of the alcove and sidle along the wall, facing them both.

"Who's there?" the man asks.

"Just a dude, bro," I reply, "I'm leaving, I'm going." It's well known in this town that you don't fuck with dogs, and that goes for homeless people who have dogs too. Bitch-- or Hellhound, depending on who's talking about her-- has been quite violent on the subject, and regularly makes her displeasure known. While I'm not worried about her, per se, another homeless guy in my situation WOULD be, and deferring to the guy with the dog is only common sense. The less cause I have to stand out in anyone's mind tonight, the better.

Besides, I just got these clothes. I don't want to tear them or get them bloody if this guy decides he wants to fight over the sleeping space.

The guy doesn't move, although the dog paces restlessly, trying to keep track of me by sound and scent if I had to guess. I just keep track of them myself as I leave the room.

Nobody else engages with me as I walk the hallway, down the stairs, and through the side door that's perpetually open. Broken glass crunches under my left shoe sole with the light sound, and I feel a chunk of it poke through my shoe and into my instep, although it doesn't break the skin. Yeah, I should probably hunt down some decent shoes before long. I lift my foot and tug the glittering shard free, flicking it away into the darkness.

Reliable street lights become a thing within a few blocks, but they're only going to be a few blocks before we're back into the shitty part of town again as I make my way to Caleb's rat trap apartments. Perhaps not as run down as the raT race, but it's still considered something of a shithole. Then again, as far as I know all the apartments have utilities and doors, so who am I to judge? Not everywhere can be as comfortable as Arthur's little sanctuary.

Unfortunately, delaying however long I was asleep didn't give enough time for all the police and PRT to clear the area between the raT race and Caleb's place; if anything, they've cordoned off a wider area, still trying to catch people. Thankfully, they have nothing on me right now, so the only thing I risk walking near them is a stop and frisk. Which itself is massively unwelcome, so I take pains to not be seen anyway. The detour takes me long enough that the first hints of color are starting to appear on the horizon when I finally cross the cracked and weed scattered pavement of the parking lot. I note in passing that the car Caleb and I were in when we got pulled over is sitting there in his usual spot, sans the dents in the bumper from where I'd lifted it when that guy tried to rob me when I was getting the books out of the trunk.

Thinking of this elicits a chuckle from me. I really had no fucking idea what I was doing back then, did I? Could I have been any more conspicuous? Yet it was being conpicuous that got me into the Merchants in the first place.

Maybe I can do things better this time. If nothing else, at least this time Skidmark isn't likely to hold off on dealing with his dental abscess. Which also means... Alpine might die? Hell fucking no. Not happening. So I need to make sure I'm free that night.

It's around this point in my mental musing that I realize I've been standing here next to Caleb's car for a while, fifteen seconds? Thirty? Stupid. I resume my walk into the apartment building itself, go inside, and walk up the stairs.

There's already someone at his door, and the pair of them glance at me. I shrug, leaning against the wall and looking away, waiting for them to conduct their business; Caleb must recognize me because they go back to their transaction and within a few seconds the guy is walking down the hallway in my direction. As he passes me, despite me leaving him plenty of space, he makes a point to kick my supporting foot, making eye contact with me, daring me to do or say something. I keep my expression bored despite my urge to laugh.

I turn my head back to Caleb, who's typing something into his phone. He waits a moment, reading something, then tucks in back in his pocket, looking down the hallway to the guy who's leaving. After his visitor is out of line of sight, Caleb acknowledges me with an upnod before giving a jerk of his head to indicate I should go in the apartment.

"Gun." First word out of his mouth.

Fair enough. I fake pulling it out of my waistband behind my back, popping the gun out of my inventory into my palm and handing it over to him.

His poker face is good; he barely bats an eye as he takes it. He looks me over a moment, before he responds, "Fifty and a dime." He tucks the gun into his shirt and glances around, then back at me. "Hey, you want some food? I got stuff for sandwiches."

"Yeah," I reply. "That'd be great."

The apartment is still a bit on the dirty side, much like I remember it. I follow Caleb into his kitchenette; he pulls open the cabinet and scowls at it for a second, before taking out both of the Starkist tuna and some dried dill, tossing them negligently on the counter with the particular 'clack' made by the squat cylinder cans favored for canned meats. "Good to see you had some spare clothes stashed," he comments as he turns to his fridge to retrieve a whole loaf of bread, mustard, pickles, a stalk of celery, and a quarter of an onion. "You have a lot of trouble getting back here?"

"A little," I answer, watching him curiously.

He grabs mayo and butter next, then a few slices of plastic wrapped American cheese. "Glad you made it. At least one of the guys we sent out tonight got shot."

Fuck. Observe.

[Spoiler]Caleb Washington
Drug Dealer
Level 8
HP: 307/315
STR 11-1.6= 9.4
AGI 13 -1.3= 11.7
VIT 14
INT 17-1.7= 15.3
WIS 13-2.6= 10.4
CHA 16
LUK 11
Affiliations: Merchants.
Condition: Well Connected, Fatigued
Formerly a low ranking member of the Teeth, Caleb jumped ship shortly before Marquis drive them out of Brockton Bay. Skidmark caught him around the back of a Dollar General slinging coke, and rather than rough him up or run him off, offered Caleb a job. Caleb proved himself to be competent, discrete, and discerning. He quickly became one of Skidmark's best scouts.
He now deals drugs and serves as a face for Merchant recruiting, both temporary and permanent. He has heard from other hirees that one of the recuits was killed in the shootings, and with Peter Gardner's arrival all of them have checked in and received their pay. Caleb currently believes that Peter Gardner has triggered as a cape, and is fishing for information he can pass along to Skidmark.
[/Spoiler]

I was made before I got here. If I hadn't stopped to sleep off Recently Revived, I might have made it out without being spotted. It feels unfair that I screw this up by accident right at the beginning of my miracle do over, but I push on. Maybe if I lean into this, I can steer things differently.

Caleb layers the tuna salad over several slices of bread, draping a slice of american cheese over each, then slaps down another slice of buttered bread over the top. Two of the sandwiches he hands to me taking the third for himself. Each of the sandwiches has more tuna than I probably would have used for myself but I find myself wolfing them down anyway; all thoughts of wasting tuna gone. "Yeah, you look like you haven't eaten in a while," Caleb comments, not having finished his own sandwich before both of mine are gone. "Still hungry?"

I shrug, and nod. "Uh, yeah," I say, even as I mentally dismiss the 'You are no longer malnourished' notification. "I could eat more, if you're offering."

"Yeah, sure. Gimme a sec." Caleb digs through the cabinet, pulling out a large sleeve of instant mashed potatoes. That bothers me a little; I don't remember those being in his cabinet last time. For that matter, I don't remember there being a whole loaf of bread in his fridge. I'm pretty sure I left... three slices that day?

Caleb catches sight of my frown. "Everything alright?" he asks me. "Don't like mashed potatoes?"

"Huh? No, I'm good. Just... thinking, is all." I look around the kitchen, now a little on edge. Are there other differences? Little things I'm missing? Memory is a tricky thing. Was I just wrong the last time this happened? "Sorry, just felt a little guilty," I improvise. "I'm standing here in your kitchen while you're feeding me and I'm not even helping fix it."

"Pshh," he scoffs at me. "You don't know where anything is in here. But you wanna help out? You can wash the dishes." He pauses, then adds, "You need a place to crash? The couch pulls out."

I remember him being more... dismissive, last time. A completely different approach from last time, where he made it sound like he was grudgingly giving me a place to crash til morning. Practically the perfect thing to say to get past any suspicions I'd have had for him helping me out of the blue, now that I think of it. So, that makes this time around the soft approach? I say, "I'm pretty sure you already figured it out, but I'm the one." He doesn't react, as he sticks a mixing bowl half full of water into his microwave and sets it for four minutes. "The one who got shot," I add.

"Yeah, yeah I figured. Only one wasn't accounted for, last one here, new clothes. I always liked Mad Magazine, kinda hard to mistake that shirt."

I grunt. "So what now?"

"Depends on you," he says. He opens up the spice cabinet and pulls out granulated garlic, and throws it into a shallow pan he set on the stove on low heat. "You've done work for the Merchants before. Doesn't have to stop now."

I think for a moment. "What if I want to be a hero?"

He snorts. "Those peacock bastards? All for show, and everyone in Brockton knows it. I mean, sure, it's a sweet gig if you can pull it, easy work walking around and waving to cameras, signing autographs... But the money's better on this side."

I tilt my head to the side, considering this. "Heroes do work to protect people."

"Bullshit." Caleb says it with no hesitation. "Heroes are just security guards for the rich end of town. Can't tell me you think otherwise; when was the last time you saw a hero in the Docks? I mean REALLY in the Docks, not just responding with a token appearance and a small dustup before going back to their headquarters? Everyone knows that Armsmaster could roll over just about any single villain in the Bay except Lung, if he actually wanted to. Or if the Protectorate wanted him to. But the Empire holds territory over almost a third of the city, Lung a little less, the Protectorate basically playing playground monitor to Captain's Hill and the Boardwalk."

"You know a lot about the power blocs in the city," I observe drily.

Caleb shrugs. "It's not that well hidden or anything. Anyone can see it if they just keep their eyes open and look at the big picture."

He's not wrong, I suppose. "So, that's your sales pitch? 'Heroes are useless, join the winning side'?"

"Ha! Nah, man, I'm just the middle man here." He shakes his head, pulling the bowl out of the microwave, scrapes the toasted garlic out of the pan into the bowl, and follows it up with the whole pouch of instant mashed potatoes. He whisks it all quick and fast with a fork, then dumps a half a stick of butter on it and whisks that into it too .

"You already called Skidmark." It's not a question.

"I already called Skidmark," he confirms. "I mean, you're not subtle, man. But tell me the truth. You already KNEW I'd figured you out the moment you walked in here, didn't you?" I don't answer him. He continues, "So really, you already knew what you were gonna do, what you were coming here for, before you walked through the door."

I grimace. "I came here for my fifth and my weed, man."

"Yeah, that's nice for now. What are you gonna do in a week, when the weed is smoked, the money is spent, and you still don't have a job or apartment or more than the clothes on your back?" Caleb opens the fridge again, and pulls out a beer, one of his microbrew cans, and sets it on the counter next to the mashed potatoes. "It's up to you, man. You can have that money and that weed, either way. You did the work, you get the pay. The question here is, do you want more?" He nudges the mashed potatoes and the beer towards me, with a raised eyebrow.

I take them. "You seem awful sure Skidmark even wants me. You don't even know what my power is."

"Regenerator, probably," he says with a shrug. "Not a mark on you after getting shot. Seem pretty smart now compared to what I'd seen before, so guessing it repaired your brains too. Always room for a good regenerator in a fight."

I grunt noncommittally. "When's he gonna be here?"

"He's on his way over now."