"Donny? Donny Basso?" Blue-Eyes laughs and a smile comes to his face, although it seems unnatural there. "Now I know you're feeding me drek. Crusher wouldn't listen to that rat. Donny couldn't explain how to jack your own--"
"I dunno, boss," Leather Jacket says. Blue-Eyes turns to regard him, his lips drawn in a thin frown. "They seemed awful chummy last poker night. Cracking jokes and all. Crusher even gave him one of his beers, remember?"
Blue-Eyes nods, and turns back to Sylvie and Nick. "I see. In that case, I suppose I should thank you for giving me a heads-up, at least. Let me introduce myself--I'm sure you've guessed, but I'm Blowtorch, the other leader of this lovely outfit."
When the message comes in, Blowtorch watches calmly as Sylvie takes it, loses it for a moment, and then turns back to keep talking to him. He takes a few seconds to just regard the group, while mutters pass around the bar from her announcement. The phrase "Crusher's dead" comes up in whispers, the tone ranging from incredulous to borderline hopeful to ominous. Finally, Blowtorch raises a hand and stands up, and the gangers fall quiet.
"Something about what you're saying isn't true. That much, I can tell. But if somebody geeked Crusher... I suppose I should thank them before dropping their body in the bay." His voice is too hollow and mechanical to tell if he's joking. "But seeing as I can't be sure what's true and what isn't at the moment, and there's a chance I can't afford to lose anyone beating it out of you, I think our business is finished here. Spurs!" The man at the bar starts to attention and steps forward. "Take some of the boys and start looking for Crusher. Find out what happened." The man nods, motions for a few of the others to join him, and heads out of the Steak Well.
Blowtorch moves to the bar and points to a bottle, which the bartender fetches down. Before he can grab a glass, though, Blowtorch spins and hurls the bottle against the opposite wall. Cheap glass shatters across the surface, and he breathes heavy, his eyes now a burning amber. After a moment, he blinks, and they're back to blue. He turns back to the bar and points to another bottle, and then pours himself a drink.
"I don't know where Donny is," Blowtorch says, not turning back to Nick and Sylvie. "If I did, I'd tell you. I've never liked that scum-sucker. But I haven't seen him since poker night. He mentioned something about payback and a big score, and then he dropped off the face of the earth." He picks up the glass and takes a long drink, draining most of the liquid. "Now get out of my bar."
Gauntlet nods. "Good luck on your hunt," she says simply, before walking out with presumably Sarge in tow. As soon as they get out of sight of the Steak Well, Gauntlet leans against the wall, breathing hard. "I have never bulldrekked so hard in my f%*+ing life, and that includes the time I convinced Fix-It to let me borrow some RPGs for a run." She shakes her head, before pulling out her commlink and messaging back.
>>Not much luck on our front. Seems like Donny found something big, and is planning something big to get revenge on someone. Oh, and look out for pissed gangers. Try not to look like a hit squad.<<
"I... maybe?' Nathaniel shrugs. "I'm sure I can trace that commlink address, that won't be a problem for me. If that's some kind of computer hardware in the card, though, that might be tough. I can find my way around that sort of thing, but it's not really something I'm great with." He turns the little metal card over in his hand, and sighs. "I'll get through it eventually, but it'll be a pain, if that's even what this is."
Gauntlet turns to Nick. "I'm going to crash at my place for a bit. Devi gets a little crazy if I don't check in once in a while during a run. You wanna come?"
Nathaniel leads the way to his home, still hopped up on Nitro for most of the trip back. When he gets in the building and opens his door, the stress on his body seems to hit him like a freight train as he collapses into the couch. "S@~@," he said, groaning as he pulled out his medkit again. "That... let's not do that again, if we can help it." He does his best to apply some salves for the strain on his muscles and takes some medication for the pain, then settles deeper into the couch. "Alright, let's get cracking on this stuff. Do either of you know anything about hardware? It might be better if you work on that while I work on the commlink address. If not, this'll just take a bit longer." He lets his body droop when he goes into VR, preferring the relaxation with his injuries.
"There's food in the kitchen if you get hungry. Also, my roommate will probably be showing up soon. His name's Cuervo, if I'm passed out working on this when he gets back just introduce yourselves."
"Good luck with that." Victoria goes to the kitchen to find some dinner, then comes back and finds a chair in the living room where she can sit and wait for him to finish up with his work.
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On the way home, Wraith suddenly stops and her ears perk up. She looks about in every direction. "Hey, did you guys hear that? It sounded like someone wanted to drop my cold, stiff corpse in the bay. No? Meh, that happens to me, like, every week."
After they enter Paladin's nice place, Anya wanders off at the mention of a kitchen, only catching the last half of the introduction. "Oh yeah, Cuervo, good guy." She considered tossing in a half-hearted sexual innuendo, but then she spots a full stack of Gremlin-brand noodles next to a case of Warhorse beer, and she can't be bothered with such tripe.
She fires up the stove and makes enough for everyone, flavoring the noodles with whatever is handy.
"You got a vid in this place?" Anya asks, walking in with a giant punch-bowl full of noodles and a lager under each arm. "Wyrm talk. Priorities!"
She digs in and is, mouth dripping with dripping noodles, blessedly silent for the moment.
Their first day of investigation and excitement coming to a close, the runners decide to head back home and lay low to get some rest. Gauntlet heads for her apartment, perhaps with Sarge tagging along, and the others go to Paladin's high-class home.
Paladin "plugs in" to the Matrix and begins searching in VR. Finding out about the basics of a commlink address is a pretty simple affair, and it doesn't take him long to determine simple facts. The number seems mostly unused, and there isn't any additional information attached to it--no names, physical addresses, even accounts or basic details on who bought it. It doesn't take a genius to connect the dots, and Paladin's seen enough burner comms in the past to recognize one now.
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Nick turns to Sylvie and nods "My flat's further away, plus we shouldn't be alone least the Chromies track us or Donny mans up." says the ex-PI before tapping Paladin in the shoulder "If any of that happens... make sure Anya doesn't kill them all, we'd better interrogate them."
On the way to Sylvie's, Nick lights yet another cigarette -You run out of luck before running out of cancer sticks Nicky boy-
"Y'got me curious, who's this Devi? I thought Runners tended to be loners, buy I might have heard the wrong sources
<<"We're clear, but thanks for the head's up. Crusher clocked me pretty good once the fight started, but he's dealt with now. We'll see what happens with this commlink address... it's a burner, for sure. Should we just try contacting it? I haven't found anything to identify who it is, unless it has to do with this card we found. I'd venture a guess it's a way to contact Donny, but who knows?">>
"Haven't touched it. I'm... not sure I can even do anything with it, to be honest. It looks like it might be a key card to something, maybe wherever Donny is laying low, but I'm not positive. I'll see if I can crack anything from it, though."
The two groups of the team reach their homes safely, and settle in for the evening. Having gotten what info he could on the commlink, Paladin turns to the strange metal card, but there isn't much he can do. Not only is the item free of markings, but it isn't engraved, either, and as far as he can tell it has no actual properties that can be cracked, short of trying to physically bend or break it. On close inspection, it's also slightly larger than your standard keycard, but that doesn't really give any information on its own--especially given its lack of any identification.
"I've got nothing." Nathaniel peels off his goggles and hoists himself into a sitting position, looking at the card again. "There's no way to discern anything about this, as far as I can tell. There's nothing on it, it doesn't even look like a standard key card." He recalls the commlink address he found, sliding his goggles back down onto his head again. "All I've got is the commlink address, and it's definitely a burner. That jackass who jumped out a window might've had something, but given that he was searching the place, I kind of doubt it."
"Should we try the comm? It's all we've got to go on."
Victoria stirs. It seems like she actually managed to drift off for a little bit while Nathaniel was working. "I guess we don't really have much else to go on," she says with a yawn. "I hope the other two had more luck than we did, because this really doesn't seem to be going anywhere useful."
Sylvie shrugs as they walk towards her flat, weaving through the hivelike structure of the near-slums. She attempts to look unconcerned, which makes her look even more concerned. "Eh, she's my..." Sylvie searches for a lie, leaving an awkward gap in the conversation. "roommate." She pulls out her datapad and conspicuously pounds out a message on it before hitting send.
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Anya starts, most definitely having drifted off for an undetermined time. "WHA! He was like that when I got here officer! ... Oh, it's just you guys. Uh, never mind." She picks off and eats a noodle that had fallen on her chest.
"Wha, sure. Whatevs. Let's go check out the comm. If that's all we got then that's all we got. Ya never know what you'll find until you look. And hey! Can we at least TRY letting me toss my two big, round, perky eyes and nice smile and some nice cheap words in someone's face before we start shooting at things with a shotgun?
Anyway, yeah, you wanna go now or....?"
Anya's head starts to drift back toward the couch. It looks if you don't go now she might...would she really just fall asleep on a stranger's couch?
Yes. Yes she would.
"Did she just fall asleep in my chair?" Nathaniel looks at her for a second and shakes her head. "She must be tired to think I was talking about a physical address. Well, let's... give this a shot." Nathaniel pulls up his chat program and plugs in the burner address, and takes a deep breath. "Here goes nothing. Hopefully I don't ruin our payday."
Paladin_Ares: Hello?
Paladin opens his program and sends the address a message. There's a long, tense moment... and nothing happens. He stares at the program window for a few seconds, and then they turn into a minute, which stretches into three.
Finally, after nearly five minutes of waiting, an icon pops up indicating that the other party is composing a response. A few moments later, several messages come in, very quickly.
19290400: Save or remember this.
19290400: 17 Ocean View Drive.
19290400: Bring a bag for the garbage.
19290400: We'll be in touch.
Paladin has only a few seconds to wonder about the meaning of the final pair of messages before the first line's meaning is clear: the entire program starts glitching, with static disrupting the view and the messages fragmenting into bits. It's clearly a virus encoded in the final transmission, and although Paladin is able to work quickly and mitigate the damage, the conversation is soon lost into the ether of the Matrix.
"What the... sh*t," Nathaniel mutters as he salvages the damage caused by the virus. He pulls his goggles off his head and heads into the kitchen to grab a trash bag. "Hey, we've got a lead. The burner account gave me an address, 17 Ocean View Drive, and said to bring a bag for the garbage. I have a feeling it's Donny's safe house. We better move quickly before he gets jumpy or hears about what happens at his apartment." He stands up and slings his shotgun across his back again, before patching into his comms to contact Nick and Sylvie. <<"Sarge, Gauntlet, we've got a lead. Can you meet us at 17 Ocean View Drive? It looks like it's Donny's home away from home.">> He looks at Anya before he nudges her with one foot, trying to wake her up.
"Hey, we've got business to take care of. Wake up. Also, don't sleep on my couch."
"If they're asking their 'friend' to take out the trash for them, it sounds like they're done with Donny as well. Assuming it's not a trap of course." It's likely that whoever's contacting them doesn't know the fate of the original owner of the commlink, but it never hurts to be ready for the worst. She gets up and checks her weapons, reloading her shotgun and pulling open the compartment to check her infiltration tools. Hopefully they can actually handle the situation quietly this time. "Well, let's not leave the trash lying around until it starts to stink up the place."
"Actually, my guess is he's just got... trash. You can't exactly take the garbage out when you've got people out hunting for you, you know? Actually, back in Seattle I found a target like that. We got an anonymous tip when a neighbor saw him taking the garbage out of his safe house apartment. The team--" Nathaniel cuts himself off, and clears his throat. He shakes Anya shoulder once or twice, trying to cover for the awkward silence he made. "Anyway, I wouldn't bet money he's dead. He could be, but I've got a feeling he's still lying low."
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"LOOK OUT THE ORC--" Anya shouts as she wakes up, again, as Paladin gently nudges her. "OH! Uh, it's just you guys. Um, nevermind. Nothing to see here."
Wraith listens as she puts her shoes back on, buttons up her shirt, and slurps up the last of the cold noodles. "Eh? Nah, I'm going with Nix on this one. I think its a double-entendre. Might not be Don-Don's body, but probably someone. Ummmm, maybe take a couple bags, just in case it's a big body? Or more than one?" She walks over to where Paladin got the trash bag and nabs the box. "Yeah, let's just take the whole roll and hope its enough.
Everyone ready?"
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Nick laughs, not ironically nor intimidatingly, he simply laughs for the first time in months if not years "Stop Gauntlet, you will make me believe I fiund someone in the city worse at bulldrekking than me." he says as the laughter turns into a smile "I'm not one to judge, darling, and even if my job usually involves digging dirt from others I won't do that to a... pal. Don't worry."
Hey Nicky Nick, you almost used the F word there. you are getting soft, ain't ya?
Gauntlet slumps. "Yeah, yeah, I figured. Honestly wasn't worried about what you'd think of the status of our... relationship and more of how somebody might exploit it if they found out. We didn't exactly move to the second-biggest a~~&~~& in the UCAS of our own accord, y'know."
"I'll be ready when I hear from the others. I'll ping them again and see if I get a response." Nathaniel changes a few of the settings on his goggles before hailing the other half of the team. <<"Hey Gauntlet? Sarge? Did you get my message? We've got an address and instructions. Let's try and get Basso--or whoever might've taken his place--before they bail on us.">> He stops the signal and shrugs, heading toward the door as he adjusts his shotgun. "Hopefully they're getting my message."
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Nick looks for the buzzing sound before realizing it comes from his commlink.
"Damned gizmos, I don't get used to them... you know, the whole my eyes are my PDA, my recorder and well, my eyes."
After reading the message, the private eye grins "Oi Sylvie, we got a lead on Basso. Looks like sleep is for the weak, we gotta work." he says before answering the message. <<"Copy'd Paladin, Gauntlet and Sarge returning to the group. We'll be there in twenty.">>
There's a bit of back and forth on the comms, but eventually the team is in gear to finish things out and find Donny--or what's left of him. By car, bike, taxi, or feet, they head down to the address Paladin received, and congregate a couple buildings down before approaching as a group. The address is right along the waterfront of Dorchester Bay, and looks to be a small, abandoned building, likely some sort of store. The windows are completely covered over with sheet metal or wooden boards, but the door is unlocked when someone tries it.
Inside, the place matches the outer shell: abandoned, run-down, and hollow. The tiled floor is cracked and covered in dust and grime, and the walls are much the same, devoid of decoration beyond the stains of disuse. There's a door to a back room, which is much smaller than the main area and equally empty. For a brief while the group isn't sure what's going on, but then someone catches a muffled sound from the floor. One quick search later, and a cleverly concealed trap door is found under a section of the lone counter in the building. With a little effort the structure is swiveled out of the way, and the door is pried up to reveal a steep stairway heading down.
"F*ckin' finally!" The nasal voice calls out from the dim room below almost as soon as the team opens the door. "Christ, you stick a guy in a safe house, you'd think there'd be somethin' to do. I been down here four f*ckin' days with what, two water bottles and some Stuffer Shack sandwiches?" The owner of the voice comes into view at the bottom of the stairs, gesturing at the room in annoyance. "I mean, you could at least..." His voice cuts out when he turns to look up, and his thin face turns pale.
He looks the worse for wear from his days in this basement, with grease and dirt visible across his hair and face. His plain white wifebeater tank top has stains on it, and a patchy growth of stubble is stretched along his jaw. But from his beady eyes to his misshapen nose, it's easy to recognize the man as the object of your search: Donny Basso, in the flesh.
"Oh, drek."
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"Morning, princess, the knights have arrived to your rescue." jokes Sarge as he levels his gun on Basso and checks -for the tenth time since the team entered the building- his commlink.
"Now Donny, you are going to make it easy for us. Ya see, scumbag, we need ya alive... but the matter of kneecaps is a lot fuzzier."
Without stopping to aim Basso, Sarge turns his head to the others "We pick him up already or start the questioning here? This place sure would muffle any scream and this bastard owes us more than a few words."
Victoria cocks her shotgun and keeps her eyes firmly on Donny. He certainly doesn't look like much. "Let's ask a few questions, just in case someone tries to stop us from getting him back to our employers. If he gets capped before we get him there, we can at least hand over what he tells us."
Nathaniel has his pistol pointed at Donny from the second his head pops out from the trap door, and doesn't seem to feel like moving. "Get out of the hole, Donny. I really don't feel like cleaning your blood out of my clothes." His shirt and pants are already splattered with Crusher's blood from the fight before, but Nathaniel doesn't comment on it. When Donny climbs out, Nathaniel directs him to stand up against the wall with a flick of the pistol in his hands. "Who's safe house is this, Donny? Somehow I doubt even Lone Star thinks you're worth wasting a safe house on."
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"Yeah, Donny! We're gonna...ooo! Sandwiches!" Anya states as she descends into their captive's former hidey-hole.
She pings with her radar and flips on her flashlight, taking a look-see at what he'd been living in for a bit.
4 hits
It also let Pally play 'bad cop' for a while. She'd let that percolate and see how far it got. If they needed a change of gears she could come up, offer him a drink, and see how a 'good cop' phase-change went.
But we'll see.
Donny takes one nervous look to the side, then glances back at Sarge's gun, and then he raises his hands, defeated. "I'm comin' quiet an' easy. No need to get quick with the triggers, huh?" He begins walking up the stairs, taking them one at a time, and he doesn't any moves that could be described as threatening or stupid. At the top, he does blink as he looks around at the team. "So who are you guys, huh? Buddies sold me out? Chrome Boys hiring out to hit squads? Morellis maybe, cleaning up the mess." As he looks around, his gaze lingers on Anya, and it's clear he's doing more than just appreciating the human form.
Paladin's gun-flick draws him back to reality, though, and he hurriedly moves to the wall. Whether out of fright or muscle memory, he assumes the typical position of someone under arrest and interrogation--hands on the wall, legs spread wide, face close to the surface. "Yeah, this ain't Lone Star's house, I'll tell you that much. Not that I know anything about the boys in blue. I'm sorry to hear you imply such a thing." He sniffs, then continues. "This place, I got hooked up with through some friends. But I'm guessing they're the ones who told you where to find me, so I guess they're omae no more, huh?"
Wraith steps downstairs to look around, but there isn't much to see, and her radar doesn't pick up much. The basement is a single room, smaller than the building above, maybe fifteen feet on a side. The floor and walls are all plain cement, with a thick layer of dirt across the floor. The first thing she notices is the awful smell--the kind that builds up when a person is stuck in a room like this for a few days, with a metal bucket instead of modern plumbing. There's a single blanket and a pillow in one corner, opposite the bucket, and a few wrappers and two plastic bottles next to it. Beyond that, the room is bare. Whoever Donny's mysterious buddies are, they don't go in for luxuries, it seems.
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Anya stands boldly under Donnie's scrutiny. 'IF you got it, flaunt it,' has long been a motto of hers. She follows his gaze with a quick wink. "Keep thirsting, Ace," she says before descending to his hidey-hole.
"Whelp. I've seen worse boltholes. But not many."
Nonplussed she comes back up to catch the last sentence. "Yeppers. People step up to the Wraith, they don't get to go home. I tried to be reasonable, he tried to be tough. Do the man-dance. He didn't dance so well."
She pipes down, letting the others take the lead, but itching to just jump in. She takes a quick sip form her flask instead.
"He punched pretty well, though." Nathaniel rubs his jaw. "Not well enough, though. Consider yourself lucky. It could be Crusher meeting you here, you know that? Granted, I only met him once, but somehow I think he would've been... well, 'crushing' by now. Don't you, Donny?" Nathaniel moves forward and searches Donny for weapons--in a surprisingly similar manner to a cop, really--before spinning him around. "I already saw your criminal informant file with Lone Star, you greasy idiot. But I also know they didn't give you this safe house, and neither did the Chrome Boys we geeked; they wouldn't have had to try and look through your apartment if they did. If the Morellis were tying up loose ends, they wouldn't have put you in the safe house in the first place. So, who was it?"
"Crusher? Nah, he liked me well enough by now. Spent a long time gettin' him to chum it up with me. Blowtorch, though... I doubt he'd be too happy." Donny stays still as he's patted down, and Paladin doesn't find anything on him--weapons, wallet, commlink, nothing. Donny blinks when his file is mentioned, and he slumps a little, but he doesn't respond to the gibe.
"Alright, alright. I'll tell you what I know." He sighs and licks his lips, apparently gathering a thought before it dies for want of company, before beginning to speak.
"So a few days later I get a knock on my door, early f*ckin' morning. I open it up and there's two of these drekheads outside, robes and everything. They say their brother told 'em to come get me. This point I think they're some Universal Brotherhood type drek and I tell 'em to buzz, but they get real on my case about it. So I start to argue, but halfway through, I guess..." Donny's eyes get a little unfocused, and then he shrugs. "I guess I just decided it wasn't worth the time to argue. Figure hey, quicker I go quicker it's over with. So I head down with 'em, they got a car. They said I had to be blindfolded for safety, I guess? I didn't like it, but I went along.
"So when the blind comes off I'm in... Actually, I think it was here. Go figure. And the assh*le from the club is here. I don't remember most of what he said, but basically it was like, he thought we could help each other, even if I didn't want to join their group. Like, if I met with him and told him stuff when he wanted, he'd help me out too. I say, sure. I mean, you can't have too many people watching your back, and to be honest, at the time, the Morellis didn't seem like they were the winning hand. Neither did the Chrome Boys.
"So last month or so I've met with the guy every couple days, sometimes my place, sometimes he comes up when I'm getting lunch or something. Seems like he can always find me when he wants. I tell him what's going on. So a few days ago I told him about the Muldoon b*tch, and how last week at one of the family gatherings her brat threw up on my new shoes. He got real interested in that, and said we should do something to get back at her. Seemed ballsy, but... I dunno. Somethin' about what he said, it made sense, you know? Get back at everyone who thought I was nothing, and maybe get in good with the Morellis, right?
"So a couple days back, we got it all set up. He played Johnson to get some lowlifes to do the job, said it'd be easier than runners and wouldn't leave any traces to me. Told me they were gonna kidnap the girl and her kid, get a ransom, and then he'd funnel half to me and I could let the Morellis know I got it done, quiet-like. He offered me a safe place to stay for a few days, before it all blew over, and I said sure. Next day, same two goons from before show up and bring me here, blindfold again. I knew this would be the safehouse, I'd have told him to buzz."
Donny finishes and sniffs, then swallows nervously. "Before you ask, I don't know the guy's name. He was a human, dirty blond hair, maybe in his forties? Had cybereyes, they changed color a lot, so that doesn't help. He didn't tell me too much about what his group was into, but, uh, he did mention a name." Donny licks his lips. "Said it was the Conference of Seven Dreamers. Dunno if that means anything to you."
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Anya usually didn't mind strange lips on her flask, but something about this guy made even her skin wiggle. So she fishes out one of the empy bottles, pours a stiff bolt of her bourbon into it, and hands it to Donny. "Sound like you had a hard day, chummer," she says hefting her own bottle in salute and mirroring a sip.
She sits down cross-legged from him. "That's a good story, helps a lot. Thanks. Still, you know why Crusher was knockin' on yer door with two cyber-goons an' a bad attitude? Also, there was someone in yer place. Elf, by the looks of things. Like we said, we cleared up Crush, but, ah, there was some, um, overszealousness with some shotguns. Accident. Never got his name. You know who he was?"
2 hits
"If it jobs your memory, the elf was carrying this." Nathaniel fishes the metallic card out of his pocket and flashes it in Donny's direction, waving it back and forth in front of the man's face. "This ringing any bells for you? Wraith plucked it off the body after he jumped out a window. He was rummaging around in your stuff, presumably looking for the commlink address."
"Give her a call... let's see if Donny can't answer this last question before she takes him away."
"Crusher at my...?" Donny screws up his face in thought as he accepts and downs the bourbon. He coughs, and shakes his head, doing his best to keep from ogling outright. "I dunno. Maybe he was just looking for me? I don't think I owed him--oh, drek, he probably realized I took one of his beers when I left last. He drinks the real stuff, you know, real protective of it. F*ck, I didn't think he'd notice." Donny shakes his head again, then lets out a nervous chuckle. "But uh, I guess that doesn't matter now. Far as the elf goes, I dunno. Dunno about that thing either, what is it, a card? Your guess is as good as mine. But yeah, probably he was one of those weirdos, there to get the address. The guy gave it to me, said to call if I needed help. I never used it, though. He ran into me often enough."
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"Funny, Donny, that you mention robbed figures..." mentions Sarge as he lights a cigarette and offers one to Basso "Any other day of the week, a boyo with your history and a price tag over his head? I would call bulldrek and beat you for trying to sell me on that."
Here comes Sergeant Smith, the dreadful interrogator! C'mon Nicky-boy, show Basso the moves
The ex-PI relax a bit, walking up to Donny and passing an arm around the man's shoulders. "But I know you ain't lying to us. First because you are small time and I don't need to have a hound's nose to smell the drekk in your pants. You fear us, and I pity you because we are merely middlemen. And second, Gauntlet and I were at The Lumen... and they spoke of some cats in robes, making a fuss about moral purity and other New Age bulldreks."
Nick finishes his cigarette before throwing it on the ground and walks up to the others. "Call her, but tell her Donny is just a tool and they'll probably want us to dig deeper... Hoop fragging religious nutjobs, I'd seen my fair share and I'd rather wrestle with Rusky Mobsters, at least you know how the Ruskies gonna play it." he whispers to them.
Mobs at war, a Nutjob Cult and Fragging Wizards... Nicky Nick, pray Saint Michael your luck stops evading you now
Nyx stays quiet, letting the others do the talking while she stands there and tries to look menacing with a shotgun. She's actually not bad at it, all things considered. "I imagine they're still going to want to talk to Donny, but I'm not going to complain about more work. I could use the nuyen."
Donny has no more information to offer, but he looks even more nervous and on edge after Nick's actions. You get the feeling that if he had more water in his system, it might be leaking into his pants about now.