The Toy-Maker's Dilemma

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IamLEAM1983
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Re: The Toy-Maker's Dilemma

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Three pursed his lips in thought. "My sister was around, she probably read about it all. We're both natives, but I was off in Afghanistan. Folks going kookoo for Coccoa Puffs if they're not of a sound mental constitution seems to be par for the course in some corners. Not many of us are surprised; it more or less falls into the same basic feel as the Buck family curse. Hope's a place that can be awesome on its best days, but there's still plenty of weirdness and misery to go around."

His already pale cast turned slightly greenish. "I'm not looking forward to the team seeing its first juicy number, if you get my meaning. That's something you don't forget, no matter if you're the one who pulled the trigger or if you just happened upon something gnarly. This Alfie case? All I know is the Archduke personally went over the Feds' case files on the guy. He seriously wants the the guy dragged off and locked away."

***

Archie took one of the last few turns to the city's biggest stretch of greenery. "Let us start with the simply foppish lot, hm? The bored American aristocrats looking to piss their money away, throughout the late seventeen-hundreds and onwards... Boredom is a fantastic motivator, in several cases."

It wasn't likely and Jimmy would know Archie was aware of how unlikely it was for a bunch of bored one-percenters to have staged these murders - but it was a start. Weeding out the simple VIP cigar and steak houses from the lodges and glorified union locals would help them frame out what not to look for.

Still, he added an amused scoff. "I haven't heard you leaving, you know. I'm quite serious when I speak of trading a few sips with the dryad."

His tone was a tad playful by now, aping a chiding parent, only with a few extra chuckles in his voice. "You. Whiskey bottle. The Tree. Now."

***

Flynt looked away in thought. "I, uh, I guess I could try scribbling one for ya..."

He pulled out an old invoice and an HB pencil and started etching out what he believed he remembered. The process was long and slow, as this clearly was something he hadn't paid much attention to.

"They looked kinda like this, I guess? Like, uh, blueprints and cogs those squiggles I can't focus on even if I close my ruddy eyes... It all felt kind of, uh, death-ish, I guess? Evil, maybe."

***

"What did they tell you?" asked Three.

***

"I suppose so," confirmed the tailor. "You don't go and call someone else's arm meat if you don't hold it in contempt."
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Re: The Toy-Maker's Dilemma

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The female selkie frowned at Katherine's explantion. "Seems familiar, but five years ago, I was nose-deep in my apprenticeship. I was really focused on work at the time."

After hearing Three's question, Aislinn suddenly appeared rather uncomfortable, in the the way she shifted her shoulders. She became very quiet in tone and answered, "Oh, about the squid men, or as they're more appropriately called, Void Weavers. They live in the deepest part of the ocean and use selkies, merfolk or any other aquatic species like chattel.

Sometimes they'll come on land disguised as humans, wearing flesh masks made from the skins of those they've captured. Their language is supposed to make you go mad. Sometimes they collaborate with people to further their agenda with the Others. Parents tell these stories to their kids, so maybe they'll know what to watch for, to protect themselves."

***

Ciaran grimaced tensely upon seeing the Drifter's sketch. "Yeah, I really don't the looks of this," he muttered. "It definitely fits with what's been going on."

***

"Yeah. I'm sorry to hear that you lost contact with your brother," Neasa answered.
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Re: The Toy-Maker's Dilemma

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"Of course you're serious," Jimmy replied, all joviality once more. "And this is a landline, you know; of course I haven't left yet. Now, should I bring a few of the boys, or just Brody and Rocko?" Those two were Winters' vampire lieutenants, themselves war veterans and all-around capable sorts; Jimmy rarely went out on business without them, unless they were off doing other stuff already.

---------------------

Katherine didn't say anything, but the way she grimaced and looked away was all the answer one needed; she knew all about "juicy numbers".

At Aislinn's comments she looked up at them again. "Void Weavers, huh. Maybe they're behind all this clank shit? Or one of their cults?" She made a few adjustments to the holster, mostly to ensure her bust wouldn't be chafed, and slid the C96 into the sleeve and pulled her jacket back on. "The only way we'll know for sure is if we go check this Mertown place out, so let's go."
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Re: The Toy-Maker's Dilemma

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Archie didn't seem to entirely approve of the suggestion. "I would rather you kept the lads well away from the Tree, largely for the purpose of maintaining a casual approach. We won't do much more than exchange a few words with Sophia, and perhaps a teacup or two."

Still, his disapproval didn't sound too critical of Winters, either. "This is merely a collegiate effort at investigation," he lightly added. "You certainly don't see the campus-goers and Institute researchers request armed escorts now, do you?"

He hesitated for a moment, conveying thoughtfulness. "Here; have the boys partake of the bicycle trails that loop the park. They receive the benefits of a constitutional whilst being able to draw a bead on either of us until we enter Sophia's abode. I trust this will appear to be sufficient."

Of course, he was aware that Clanks were closely involved in the current affairs. He was also aware that Jimmy was offering bodyguards largely for the purpose of keeping the both of them safe. On the other hand, he was also aware of what it meant for the average citizen when you saw a local figurehead hobnob with a local community leader - and some of his best men... It wouldn't be too profitable or even desirable for their attempts to see this mess through to end up feeding the tabloids; much less the legitimate news outlet who might see it as a proof of the former Lord's "corruption" and free association with members of the Commission...

Plenty people knew Archie had been a spy, and several more saw past the historical adventures and realized he had an aptitude for murder and subterfuge. In 2025, however and in the age of instant leaks and hair-trigger journalism, both Jimmy and the Clank needed to ease up on displays of control or power, however casual they might be. Nobody wanted to realize that police work and general sleuthing meant asking for help from supposedly disreputable sources, and everyone liked to imagine that the myth of the free and independent superhero and vigilante was still alive.

***

Three headed back outside. "That's my first time hearing about sentient squids. It's kind of a shame that Lovecraft wasn't just having really weird dreams, then..."

Making their way to Mertown, they found themselves staring at a fairly ordinary strip mall along one of Meer Island's smallish areas dedicated to local businesses. The top floor of the strip seemed to be made up of office space for rent and was largely dark. Either nobody had rented it in a while or there was nobody in for the day.

Or it could be a trap waiting to be sprung.

Three started with a more casual approach, entering the strip's shared staircase lobby and trying the buzzer for a few of the designated office spaces. None of them carried any names that evoked anything like a detainment area for kidnapees, kooky Victorian-slash-Steampunk cults or secretive illegal work unions. He wasn't surprised, as he assumed that even the most crazy of all cult-wrought degenerates would know to keep a low profile.

"Well, nobody's home," he said, sighing nervously despite attempting to sound casual. He started up the staircase, mindful of each glass door they crossed. Through all of them, they wouldn't see much more than cubicles, office workstations and the usual photocopiers and business printers.

***

Flynt looked down on his drawing. "Shite, man; I don't want to see this guy ever again!"

***

The tailor shrugged. "It's in the past. I've made my peace with it. I'm not Eric and what he does doesn't have to reflect on me."

He kept working. "The last time we spoke face-to-face, I barely recognized him."
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Re: The Toy-Maker's Dilemma

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"Can I have your drawing, please? Could use it to match up with something one of my co-workers finds," Ciaran said.

***

"When was the last time you spoke with your brother?" Neasa asked, raising an eyebrow.

***

"It may not be a bust just yet," Aislinn whispered, following the human.
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Re: The Toy-Maker's Dilemma

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Flynt folded the invoice and handed it to Ciaran. "Here," he said. "Hope this helps."

***

Ernest briefly looked up to Neasa and stopped working. "Um, about two weeks ago. I've got a decent client base despite my age; there's still plenty of Clanks and vampires who like their suits cut old-fashioned. I was wrapped up in a fairly busy day, maybe one hour short of my lunch break, when he comes in. He's never been the duster-wearing type, and there he is with one on, along with some sort of floppy old fedora. He looked both younger and... older than me. I can't really explain it, seeing as he didn't look like he'd been turned by any vampire. He's maybe a hundred years old now, and the man I saw walked and carried himself like someone who'd barely turned sixty."

He paused briefly, perhaps to fully recollect what had happened. "He had liver spots all over his face, and some strange markings... I noticed one of his eyes had been - augmented, maybe? I don't know; it didn't look like the Clank-ware from my days and it sure didn't look like today's newfangled Russian and Japanese hardware, either. I'd never seen anything like this before!"

Ernest showed his arm to Neasa again. "This here's standard. There's still classic Victorian attention to detail in it, it was a - see the little flowers there? Well, Eric's arm was ten times more decorated than this. That and, well - the gear sizes. I know classic Clanks work with ridiculously small cogs in places, but this was something else. Most of the mechanisms were bare, as if someone had wanted to brag about their work - or deliberately set some sort of weak point.

So Eric comes to me and asks me how I've been. For a while it's just regular small talk. He seems fairly sane, even if his newfangled implants scare me. He asks me what I've been up to and I give him the usual platitudes. When his turn comes up he sort of comes alive, somehow. He starts talking about an important project he's working on, about something he says is going to change things for every implant user, every augmented person, every cyborg and every Clank out there. He says it's going to introduce the rest of us to what the transhumans already know.

The more we talk and the more I'm starting to see what I told you we couldn't see, back in my day. The contempt, the disdain for others who aren't physically altered, the lack of care for his own body - I could see old grime caking his face, like he hadn't showered or washed himself in so long he didn't even stink anymore. I tried keeping the conversation on things I could help him with - suits and the tailoring business, naturally - but he wouldn't listen.

After a while, he starts asking about my arm. It's working well, I do regular maintenance work on it - but I don't want anything more, right? I've had one living left arm for longer than you've been alive and I'm not about to part with it. He reacts to that as though I'd offended him! We start shouting a bit, he grabs me by the lapels and brings me in closer. That's when I noticed it: the monogram hidden in all the little details, on the left side of his monocular. GMG, it sald."

Ernest shrugged. "There's only one person in Hope with enough technical expertise to beat out retired Naughton engineers, and he's been missing for the last few days. I think mister Gammell made that eyepiece for Eric."

***

On the topmost floor, the trio was confronted with a long corridor. On one side waited the light gloom of those office spaces who faced the windows, while the other opened out to the rear of the strip mall. With a larger distance to cover before more windows would be seen out the back, this other half was larger and significantly darker. Daylight was limited to distant patches of radiance in walls, and maybe a few short rectangles of light along the floor. The midday sun and the building's position in Hope meant not a whole lot of natural light could pool in without assistance. A quick once-over showed that this had been one of the earlier reconstructed buildings from after the Battle of Hope, most of the furniture not having changed an iota since the eighties. Old black-and-yellow monitors still stood in place and spring-activated keyboards slept underneath decidedly retro plastic covers. Still, the place wasn't exactly abandoned - it felt more like a case of the owners never investing in new infrastructures in over thirty years. It was an engineering firm by the looks of it, perhaps one of the few surviving independent outlets that hadn't been swallowed by Weasel Biggs and the Commission's crackdown on corporate real-estate.

It wouldn't take long to explain why. They'd find all of the expected documents and forms of an engineering firm that more than likely had a few assisting architects in its roster - but they were all typed in a strange code. Some of the characters resembled simplified versions of what they'd found at the Laidlaws', pared down so that an electric typewriter could reliably produce it and so it could be turned into a low-fi typeface for the old monitors to render. As a result of this simplification effort, none of them would feel anything resembling the noxious effects Phyllis' scrawls had had on them.

But why not produce reports in English? Why go through the trouble of blueprinting disparate mechanical elements using something that didn't have much in common with the Metric or Imperial systems?

Going through cubicles, they'd eventually find a door that led to what seemed to be the manager or supervisor's office. The nameplate on the door simply read Architect, which was bizarrely nonspecific; and the room contained a desk, chair and cot - along with a bolted chain and loose manacle.

Someone had been held prisoner here, and oddly supplied with space enough to work and rest. On the desk rested several tools Katherine might have taken to be derived from a watchmaker's arsenal, along with a small array of gogs, wheels, springs and unused rivets.

"Gammell was definitely here, and recently," summarized Three. "Let's look around. He wouldn't haven given this address to Tam if he hadn't expected us to find something."
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Re: The Toy-Maker's Dilemma

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"Thank you. I believe that's all I need. I'll get someone over here to watch your shop for any suspicious characters," Ciaran told the Drifter. "If you have any other info or issues, just call over to Holden Hall."

***

"The toymaker. I remember wanting one of his dolls, but they were way out of my parents' price range," Neasa observered. "What happened after your brother started getting agitated with you?"

***

"All right." Aislinn then immediately began checking the desk's drawers for anything Gammell might have left behind for them to find. That included any secret compartments the toymaker might have been able to construct without his captor knowing.
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Re: The Toy-Maker's Dilemma

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Intrigued by the documents, Katherine picked them up and glanced over them, thinking to apply her linguistic talents to figuring them out. But before she could get any headway the others moved on, so she stuffed them under her arm and followed. "Oh ho," the lawyer murmured, going right for the desk and running a hand over its surface as she called up her powers. Her glance went from the desk and the objects it held to the manacle and cot off to the side, knowing these would be the most charged objects in here.

Unless there was some little tidbit lurking elsewhere, naturally.

----------------------------

Jimmy sighed regretfully. "I cannot leave by myself," he replied simply. "Brody and Rocco must come with me, for personal reasons if nothing else." Archie would know quite well that Winters was rather up in years, and that his health was likewise precarious. To go about town without some of his men was unthinkable; what if something happened to him? What if, while driving, he lost track and crashed? Any number of little incidents that younger generations, or even Holden with his mechanical constitution, would simply grit their teeth and shrug off could easily prove crippling or even fatal for the elder gangster. And he would not take such risks, not even for his fellow former agent.
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Re: The Toy-Maker's Dilemma

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What Katherine would pick up would feel rather surprising, to say the least.

You'd have expected Gammell to exude discomfort or at least severe distress at the thought of being detained, but Starr would only pick up traces of faint annoyance. These spiked on occasion, like small waves beating against the regular tide of what had probably been a tedious existence spent in this room. Someone asked the toymaker to design a killing implement, and one of these spikes occurred. The rest of the time, he barely seemed to have noticed he'd been imprisoned.

All the same, digging a little deeper than usual would reveal a recognizable sense of frustration. The object of it, however, was even hazier than usual for Katherine, as if the object of that one solid nugget of anger was something her waking mind and powers alike couldn't reliably encompass.

Interpreting, it felt as though Gammell had always known how to escape, and as though his manacle wasn't exactly what was keeping him imprisoned. It was limiting him, obviously, but physical restraints didn't seem like they'd been much of a concern...

Aislinn's own examination of the restraints would show that peculiar sigils had been engraved on the inner side. They weren't written in that mind-boggling script from earlier, but in a kind of mnemonic encoding Amazo wouldn't have shown her how to decode just yet. Furiously trying to make sense of it all, she'd maybe understand that Gammell had been immobilized on levels deeper than strictly physical. The flesh hadn't mattered; there was a whole other level the toymaker had been prevented from accessing...

The Shadowlands? Faerie? The Far Reaches? Who knew?

***

Ernest sighed in thought. "We argued, he pinned me against a shoebox cabinet and squeezed my shoulders hard enough to leave me bruises - saying I was weak. That I was missing out on what could potentially save me. He told me where he and his team were working from - an old office building in Mertown. They'll have moved camp by now."

***

Realizing that he'd failed to consider certain things, Archie pursed his lips together. "Yes - Yes, of course. How shortsighted of me, Jim - you find me mortified. My deepest apologies. At the very least, would you consider their coming unarmed? They are both undead already, and I can fend for all four of us more than adequately, if required."

***

"I will," nodded the Drifter. "Just keep the fucker out o' my store, alright?"
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Re: The Toy-Maker's Dilemma

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"Apologies accepted," Winters replied promptly. "Give us a few minutes and we'll be out soon, whiskey in hand. See you soon."

He hung up and turned to Liam, who already had the bottle waiting in a small ice chest. "They're here?" he asked, hefting the cooler. At the man's nod, Jimmy heaved a sigh. "Alright then, get the car ready. I've got to prepare." Cooler in hand he went down the bar and ducked around into a back room, where he dry-swallowed a number of pills and took a few sips from a bottle afterward. He'd eaten before, so that was okay.

He went back out and headed out back, where his two men waited already. "Where to, Jimmy?" a short, stocky vampire with swarthy Italian features grunted as he held the door for his boss. The other, a taller fellow with a disarmingly open smile, was already in the driver's seat of the idling full-size. Reminiscent of older Cadillac-series limos, it gleamed white in the afternoon sun, but the quiet throb of the motor and the modern luxury of the interior bespoke updated sensibilities.

"Centennial Park, Brody m' boy," the old man replied as he settled into the cushy leather seats with a faint groan. "Hand me a glass, Rocco, there's a lad." Rocco poured the drink as Brody drove off, and they settled back for the drive.

---------------------

After a few minutes, Katherine shook her head and focused on Three again. "Gammell wasn't a prisoner. Not in the regular sense," she told him. "He was more annoyed by the tasks they gave him, I think; most of the time he wasn't even aware of his restraints."

She looked down, fiddling with one of the small tools on the desk. "It's almost like he was... bored? Something was pissing him off, sure, but I can't quite grasp it..."
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