06/23/15 A Laundromat [Attn: Ben]

Make the approach, then. We have your back.

From the Umbra, Steelheart maintains his watch on both sides of the Gauntlet in the area using Pulse of the Invisible to check each in turn. His hands rest comfortably on the grips of his guns, ready to draw at a moment's notice.

Artemis nods, "He looks like he wants to talk, Mitch." She goes inside the Starbucks, orders a Venti S'mores Frappucino and returns, sitting a few tables away from the prospective encounter.

Pit Stop...if that's who it is...scratches at his unshaven jaw. He twitches.

"You might as well come on over," he says. It's addressed to the air in general. Whether he knows you're there, is bluffing, or is just talking to imaginary friends is not entirely clear. He looks, for want of a better term, like he's a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

Mitch (after a quick change) comes into the Starbucks. He gets a Peppermint Mocha and two brownies, walks towards Pit Stop's table and sits down.

He pushes one brownie toward the other Garou. "One for the road?"

"Thanks." A sardonic smile. "Gonna be a long trip, I think." His eyes flicker over Mitch, at once alert to everything around him and not entirely there. "Figured my luck would run out sooner or later. At least it's you guys. Could be worse."

"Well, you weren't what we expected, exactly." He glances at the bag. "Yer luck keeps holdin'; somebody put in a good word for you when we saw you. We try to watch out for each other, don't we?" He pauses. "So how did you wind up way the heck out here?"

"Doing what needs to be done. Fighting the fight that needs to be fought." A twitch. "Wish I could say it was going better."

Mitch takes a slow sip of his coffee. "I get the feeling we're on different sides these days. What happened in Ohio?"

"Not Ohio."

The ragged man stares down at the tabletop.

"Long, long way from Ohio. We were checking out a situation, and the trail led us...out. Way out. All the way to Cyberspace, if you know what I'm saying."

He shudders.

Over Pack-link: you getting this, Steelheart? Gaia I hope so!

"I think I get you. I hope you had the time for a few 'pit-stops' on the way?" Mitch takes a bite of brownie. "Sorry to ask, but I gotta - what did you find and what happened to the others who went with you?"

Pack-link: I'm with you. Cyber doesn't sound right for the taint I'm getting off him, but he could be masking his words for the Veil. Let's see where this story goes.

"I don't like to talk about it."

He stares down at the table.  "If you've never been there...you have no idea.  No fucking idea, at all.  We think we see what the Weaver is like when we go to cities.  That's just a shadow."

"We...Rebar, Freecycle, and me...we thought, hey, we're city wolves.  We know how to keep a low profile in the city.  Cyberspace is just like a big city.  We'll get by."

"We were wrong.  They came after us.  Got us, too.  Big steel spider-hounds, with scorpion tails.  But they don't inject poison.  Oh, no.  They inject something worse."

He holds out his left arm and rolls up his rumpled jacket sleeve.  Looking closely, you can see a fine tracery of silver lines under the skin.  It looks like circuitry.

His words are clipped, rapid, tumbling over themselves as he stares at something that's not there.

"Shit moves fast, lemme tell you.  Aims for the brain.  And when it gets there, it's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, man.  "This unit now online," THAT kinda crap.  That's what it did to Rebar and Freecycle.  I got away--barely.  That was Freecycle's doing.  He nailed me with one of his Theurge juju powers just before it took him over, I don't know what it was, maybe an Exorcism."

"Anyway, it stopped it--just in time, too"  He tilts his head, and you notice for the first time that the tracery of silver runs up his neck--and, disquietingly, the same circuit-like tracings can be seen in his left eye.  "It was already starting to reprogram me, guy.  And I saw.  I saw."

He rubs his temples.  "The Rats, man.  The Rats were right all along."

Pack-link: Well...*tense thoughtful silence* Definitely off my list of places to vacation anytime in the near future. This may be what Rat was talking about with a fall that still made him a brother, but it still doesn't explain what he's been up to here, and why he smells like a Spiral.

Trying to camouflage his scent from the Weaver by playing with the Wyrm could be a reason, but it'd be a damn dumb one. He's still got some explaining to do.

Mitch pushes back ever so slightly from the table. "That's......terrifying. I'm guessing it's not, well, spreading anymore? And why not come to the rest of us with this? Christ, you have the evidence right there!"

He takes slug of coffee. "What did you mean about the Rats? It's been a mite...tense around here after the whole war thing, y'know? Getting anybody to listen is gonna be damn hard. Plus, there's the teensy problem of what you're carrying around with you now." He taps his nose. "There had to be a better choice, man."

"Sometimes, the choice isn't between "right" and "wrong."  Sometimes, the choice is between "wrong" and "end of everything."

He runs a hand through his hair in agitation.  "Yeah, the war.  The Rats, they fell.  Did anyone ever think to ask why?   They were telling us for years before that, man, and we wouldn't listen."

"It's got to come down.  All of it.  Black powder and alcohol, when your back's against the wall.  We don't like the world we made, bring it down, bring it down..."

He chants it like a mantra, like a child's prayer to ward off things in the dark at night.

Pack-link: Gaia. We need to run this down, I think. Can we afford to try bringing him in and Cleansing him? Or is this too deep for the ritual?

Mitch slips a flask under the table. "You look like you could use something a wee bit stronger than coffee right now, dude. So you've been trying to fight the...OTHER enemy for the last three years? Who'd you wind up hiding with, and would you ever consider coming back with us?" He cocks his head. "Also, did you ever see Rebar and Freecycle again?"

Pack-link: "We can always give it a go. We don't expressly need the caern to do it, either. Just need somewhere relatively private. Good questions, by the way. We need to know who he's working with now. He's running money for someone, and it's nothing clean if he's this tainted.

"Yeah.  When I came back and finished them off.  Least I could do for them."

He looks up at you.  "See, there's the thing.  "Coming back with you?"  I don't think that can happen.  There are lines you won't step across.  I stepped across those lines a long time ago, and I can't step back.  I wouldn't if I could." He fixes Mitch with a level gaze.  "Don't make this out to be something it's not.  Don't try to convince yourself that I'm some kind of innocent victim here, because it ain't like that.  Yeah, I'm messed up in the head.  Yeah, I'm probably crazy.  But that's not why you smell the stink on me.  I've done shit that's inexcusable.  I've done shit that your people would kill me for.  I've done shit *I* would have killed me for, three years ago.  And I'd do it all again.  Because some things are so bad, they justify ANY means.  I don't think the Nation's ready to accept that yet."

He pauses.  "Yet.  Give it time."

"The guy I was working for?  You drove him out of the old hospital...or some of your people did, anyway.  Mad scientist type, but he was able to give me a lot of the supplies I needed for the job that needs doing, and drugs to keep the worst of the dreams out of my head. Moot point now.  They got him before they moved on the Pit. But they won't get me. The job's almost done. Hell, I'm looking forward to finally being able to rest."

He says all of this matter of factly, then lifts the flask.  "Cheers."

Pack-link: The hell?! I don't know about any old hospital job, but it could have been the Get or someone else. However, whatever job he's planning, the one that's nearly done? Yeah, that can't be good. See if you can get any info about that from him.

"The formor breeding ground we took out several weeks ago," says Artemis over the pack link. "If he's got a job he's doing, ask him what it is, and them lead him away so I can take him out in private."

She seems firm, yet resigned. She didn't want to kill anyone today.

"Goddammit." Mitch takes out another flask and drinks. "Cheers back atcha." He grimaces. "Fuck if I can agree with what you think you had to do; I'm not in yer shoes. I WOULD love to have a Theurge look over that stuff in your veins but I doubt that's gonna happen. You say we're aiming at the wrong enemy? Before you go and walk into the furnace, how about at LEAST giving us enough intel to point us in the right direction?!?"

Over Pack-link: I doubt he'll be dumb enough to go wandering out with me, so you should probably leave first and set up a kill-shot. Steelheart, he might break for the Umbra or try a back-door route.

He leans in closer. "Also, I don't suppose you'd be willing to share enough about that job for me to get Kin out of the way? They sure as hell don't deserve to get caught in the blast radius if it's avoidable. From what you say it's already in motion anyway."


"Ah, hell. Code of the Road, if you still follow it, anyway. It really does make me sick to hear you say there wasn't another choice. We got word from a buzzard a few weeks back that 'we' were aiming in the wrong direction. Didn't put much stock in those words, obviously. Now you show up with THAT" he nods at the guy's arm "leaking out of you. You want to really make more of a difference here? Give us the info to start looking in the right direction." He cracks his knuckles. "Part of me really wants to give you that release right now, but I really try to follow the Code when I can. May Mama Rat keep the rain off your head, dude. I advise you to steer clear of Rat's other side."

"Oh, hell, I didn't say there wasn't another choice. I just think it was the wrong choice. Now, listen, because I really doubt I'm ever gonna have the chance to say this to you again."

He fixes your gaze with his, and for once, it doesn't waver at all.

"The Rats have been warning us for years that the Wyrm was just a symptom, and they were right. The Wyrm is corrupt, yeah, and it's insane, yeah, and it's out of control, also yeah...but how did it get that way?

It got that way because it was backed into a corner. It got that way because of the Weaver.

It's like...look. I was at the hospital a few days ago. There was this girl there. Anna Desjardins, her name is. She wiped out on a motorcycle, and let me tell you, there's not a lot left there. She's ready to go. But they won't LET her. They have her hooked up to all these machines. Machines to breathe for her, machines to keep her heart going, machines to feed her and keep her hydrated.

She's not alive, but they won't let her die.

THAT is what the Weaver wants to do...to you, to me, to all of us. We won't be dead. We won't be alive. We'll just...exist. That's what I saw...and, son, there are not enough toilets in the world to contain the amount of shit-spewing fear that evokes in me.

The rats have been blowing up Weaver-crap for years. The problem was, they didn't blow up ENOUGH."

He nods, solemnly.

"You'll see. You'll understand. I wish to hell things were different, but...you'll understand."

He finishes up his brownie and sighs.

"Figure your buddies have probably had enough time to get into position now. So do we do this here, or did you have someplace more private in mind?"

"I'd prefer not to do it messy and in public. I can pass on a message to anybody you'd care to send one to, at the very least. Shall we?" He gets up and moves toward the door.

"Yeah, can't mess up the feng shui of Starbuck's with a curbstomping, can we?" A bark of acerbic laughter. "Look, before we do this, do you get why I waited? I mean, seriously...do you get it?"

"I'd figure either you were waiting for your own reinforcements, you were hopin' for something you've got to hit me with a whammy....or...." he pauses, "you're tired of running and you really do want an end. At least this way you get to try and pass on a warning to somebody who might actually listen."

"Of course, the final option is that any chance we had to stop whatever is gonna happen is now too late. That's just me bein' real paranoid, though."