Good Way to Go Out

Desi looks at the smooth black rectangle. It had been easy to take it from her. After the sweating and explosions, Desi had simply taken it from her handbag while dressing. The darkness had provided cover, as had the discussion of job addiction.

The Connie’s location was shared with this piece of glass, so it is easy for Desi to walk there, down Main Street, to an old tenement building.

There is a sign out front, and Desi reads it: THE BRUBAKER.

Beneath the name, the plate gives the date of construction and restoration.

Something about these dates seem significant to Desi, but there is nothing to hang them on, and therefore nothing to do but release them.

Desi checks the windows, finds they are tight. They are old and painted shut, and there are flexible fields around some gaps.

Giving up on that option, Desi examines the doors.

The doors are modern but made to look old. The whole place has the feel of a fortress underneath the façade of a quaint historical building, which makes Desi wonder who this Connie is that lives in a place like this. Wonder, yes, but it is no matter. Desi is quite excellent at the craft, thanks to the sickness of it.

The basement.

The image enters the mind, and Desi once more wonders if this is a memory—a slime trail—or an innovation of the killcrafted mind.

The wondering persists like an electrical hum as Desi goes down the alleyway. Between the Brubaker and its neighbor, there is a storm cellar. It has been fortified in all the ways Desi would expect. But there is a leak. A small thing really—a seam along a flexible field near a lock. It does not take much coercion from Desi to widen it enough to access the building’s network.

Desi plays a song for the network that tells it all it needs to know, and so it lets go of the cellar door lock, opening the way into the basement.

The basement, like most of its kind, is dark. Dank. This reminds Desi of the childhood spent in the City of Rivers, spent in a basement such as this. Desi recalls the friend who has big arms flexing, pretending to be a wrestler. Desi recalls sneering at him. But Desi had liked him well enough. He is all right by me, Desi thinks.

The sounds of feet on some floor above puts Desi’s head back in the game.

Desi sighs at the thought of taking another life, and thinks back to what the lovely woman at the party house had said, about all this being the end.

Drunk is drunk, and dead is dead, and all that, Desi thinks. But relapse is part of recovery. And I need a little more research. I need one more data point to seal it for me, and then I will be free.

The door lock from the basement to the first floor is easy. Desi thinks about how exterior defenses tend to be the real defenses. The interior is for comfort and privacy. It is a common configuration and a grievous error—not that Desi could blame anyone. Who wants to live within one defense after another?

The lock gives way, and Desi moves up and into the house, silent as a mouse.

It was not in Desi’s nature to enjoy using unfair advantages; however,  given the strength of the game, Desi concedes to the impulse to let the network help out more.

It reveals there are two living people in the house.

Desi pushes it a step further, wanting to verify who they are. It is a gamble because if one or both of them are on the network, they will see that something is odd. The risk gives Desi a charge as the eyes watch the data become isolated by things the fingers are doing while Desi watches, waiting.

The game is really on now, Desi thinks.

The network reveals one to be the Connie: Willa Tracy Anderson, XIV a.k.a. Teresa Van Santana. The second one is unknown to the network; a guest.

Desi frowns and releases the information, purges the tracks, thinks it over.

The biometric data fed to Desi reveals the Connie has mixed gender configuration and several registered augmentations—including partially shielded circulation, rib reinforcement, vision enhancements, and memory buffering. Many of those systems are offline currently, and they have a Ministry-grade memory cap, Desi notices.

The guest is a problem. They are a problem because Desi cannot figure them ahead of time. There are likely options: the guest is a Lily, a delicate flower that is precious to the Connie. Or the guest is an Arnold; a bodyguard. There are other possibilities, of course, but none of them really concern Desi much. Wrong place, wrong time; but does not otherwise affect the equation.

That is good enough to proceed, Desi thinks.

There is a wire in the forearm. Desi pulls it and tests its tensile strength.

Desi thinks over the options as the feet move the body toward the Connie and the guest: I cannot cut them easily because of the shielding. I cannot shoot them easily because of the reinforcement. A headshot would do, if I can get close enough, but it is risky. No, the wire is probably best. And it needs to be the stronger one first. Even if the guest is a Lily I could exploit for emotional advantage, the Connie poses too much threat. I am no Arnold. I do not do so well against that kind. It would be best to be silent, unseen.

Desi repeats it, mentally: Silence is my weapon.

With a slow and regular breathing pattern, Desi watches as the feet take silent steps down the hallway.

The network provides their location. They are down the hall, on the left, on top of another.

Making love, Desi concludes.

Good, Desi thinks. That is good for them. A good way to go out. And good for them is good for me. Just this once more. One more, and then I am done forever.

Play procedures

• Desi is on high alert but is also managing stress. As with all Desi chapters, you need to make a stealth check or a similar kind of roll to determine if Desi is aware of your presence.

  • First, though, determine if you are in the Brubaker already—and if so, where—or if you are following Desi there from the party. If you are following, you roll at disadvantage unless you have some secret (such as ghosting) or other trait (like being a demigod or something) that cancels it.

  • Unlike in previous chapters, you will know immediately if Desi spots you. If Desi has spotted you, decide what makes sense in the narrative. Would Desi try to kill you? Persuade you? Or bail on the whole thing and try again at another time? Whatever you decide, play that out. Desi is not particularly persuasive unless you are vulnerable to that type. Desi is a dangerous and tricky combatant, though, and will likely kill you unless you have some reasonable trait that would protect you, or if you get very lucky rolling.

• If you are elsewhere, you might be pinged by the Brubaker’s network. Fifty-fifty chance.

• If you are within the Brubaker, that can be me and you making love, if you want that, babe. Otherwise, you’re wherever you want to be and not logged in to the network—or I’ve shielded you from it, whichever you like better.

• Should Desi make it to the room where I am, there is a surprise in store. That’s next chapter. If you’ve read The Thieves of All That You Are and you recall what it is (or can guess what it might be), you get a gold star. We’ll do something with those eventually.