"Keep it in mind, yeah! comes the reply as you walk away.

A few steps down the garbage strewn corridor, as your mind focuses on the idea of bringing fresh ingredients, it dawns on you; nowhere in this mall have you seen any fresh food grocery stores.  The closest thing you've seen is an On The Go! automated market filled with prepackaged, vacuum sealed, flavored mycoprotein.

There's a certain irony to it all.  No less than five miles from here there are probably a dozen fresh food ultramarkets in the walled corporate suburb of Orinda.  For you, those might as well be on the Zurich Orbital, there is no way a nomad troll is getting into one of those company stores.

Maybe, if you get lucky, you'll stumble onto something along the way, but The Ridge and greater Oakland aren't making it easy...

: LTG# 206 (90-4551) :: {Jenny :)}
Heading down to the Rockridge BART station if you want to join for the ride.

That was nice now, a good sign, and Grendel was not the kind of guy to keep a girl "on the hook" just to play games. Hell, he was not the kind of guy who even knew what he was doing in that arena anyway, the girls where he came from were half feral just like most of the Black Rock Clan, and that came with its own host of complications and issues.

But Jenny, well he didn't really know Jenny but he guessed that in some ways that she was going to be pretty different than the girls he had know. She was an Orc for one, but chances are even of she did grow some of their own food that they would have some interesting stories to tell one another.

He had the clothes, he had his ride, now he needed a gift. That was the way of things, and even if he could not find any "real" food he didn't feel he could show up empty handed.

: Fuchi# 209 (24-8878)::{Grendel:)}

Sounds good. Be right there.

-

Oh well, maybe he would come across something while they were hanging out.

With his bag of old clothes in hand he turned and made for the truck, his shoes still making his POCsec rumble from time to time as it presented him with tutorials and limited time offers.

I had assumed you would both take the subway, but your post has me guessing you want to take your truck?  Good with that too, just want to be sure I get it right in my post.

On reflection the subway makes more sense. Let's go with that.

Rush hour. Not the best time to try and meet someone in a busy BART station, but fortunately Jenny is on the ball and waited for you. You find her standing at the automated access gate scrolling through messages on her PocSec.

”Oh, you’ve been busy.” she says taking in your new clothes. ”Found some new clothes, looking a little more at home in the city.  Glad you kept the jacket though, it suits you.”

Tapping her PocSec to the scanner, she ushers you through the automatic gate first and skirts in behind quickly, masterfully skipping past the auto-teller’s slow moving dog brain before it asks her for the second fare. ”Dumb machines always frag up when a troll walks through.  Too much to handle.” she says flirtatiously.  Heading down toward the platform she adds ”We’ll head over the MacArthur and transfer to head into Orkland.”

The platform is a sea of meta-humanity. Most folks appear to be construction workers or labourers of some sort making their daily commute from worksites out in the suburban enclaves back into the C and D-zones of Oakland. There is no segregation here. There doesn’t need to be, this is where the Empire of Japan drops undesirables while the supposedly independent Republic of California turns a blind eye. To punctuate the social and economic divide, a heavily armoured silver train running “the gauntlet” barrels through the station, destined for Orinida, Walnut Creek and Concorde. You catch glimpses of the Nobanaga security forces in dark Imperial blue uniforms that almost outnumber the passengers travelling from their office jobs in San Fran’s human cultural zone back to their gated corporate communities.

Grendel felt that sort of giddy sensation wash over him as he spotted Jenny and saw her smile at his approach. It might have taken a geneticist, a biologist and a magician all together to explain why metahuman hormones worked the way they did across the spectrum, but work they did.

But the generally pleasant and warm feeling was comingled with another more latent sense of anxiety, overstimulation, and even something approaching fear.

The mall had been one thing, this was another. The crush of metahumanity all crammed into a shifting wall of cloth, flesh and illuminated accessories. The roar of the metro echoing off the corridors, the metallic squeal of the brakes, the barn heat of so many bodies all packed together.

For a young Troll accustomed to thinking in terms of groups of maybe sixty people at the very most, it all pressed in on him psychologically as well as physically. He felt tense like he was short of breath, like at any moment somebody in the crowd might lash out even if he had no real reason to be afraid of such a thing.

He followed her into the churning mass all the same, afraid of losing sight of her mop of curly auburn hair and grateful that he had the height to keep track of her and the mass to force his way through the crowd to stay close. "Yeah, it was time." he replied as she mentioned his clothes and he passed the scanner without incident, only a glance back betraying any sort of wrong doing.

"Sounds good." he agreed, then after another glance watching the massive juggernaut of a train roll through he added. "Wow...that's a lot of troops. Is that normal?" he could just imagine how he looked from their vantage point, from within the plush, clean and air conditioned comfort of the passenger car, a harry tusked savage, like a zoo exhibit.

Off to your left... he imagined the stereotypical tour guide voice and managed a wry, toothy grin to a man in a sharp suit who locked eyes with him from within the car for a fraction of a second.

”Yeah,” she replies sadly before baring her tusks to grimace at a sariman gawking through the window of the passing train.  ”All too normal, been this way all my life. Ma says that before the Expulsion and the Wars of ‘36 and the Imperial Occupation, things were different. Oakland was a real city like San Fran, not a metahuman ghetto.  Everyone just wants to carve Cali up, Elves, Azzies, Japan... how could a bunch of uneducated orcs and trolls dumped in the streets of Oakland stand up against all that? It’s no wonder that the only voice anyone hears from out community are the violent extremists.”

As a graffiti covered train screeches and sparks to a halt, you catch a glimpse of the news trid. With the sound cut off by the noisy arrival of the BART train, the sound is cut off but the words BREAKING NEWS and TERRORIST ATTACK catch the eye.  Before you can see much more, you’re both boarding the train. Normally trying to find some standing room wouldn’t be a problem for a pair your size, but a disproportionate number of Oakland’s residence are orcs and trolls, compounding the overcrowding in the subway car.

"Not much better where I come from." He agreed sympathetically as he crammed himself into a corner, stooped, uncomfortable and keeping his balance by sheer surface contact with the wall of the car. He could smell the cheap perfume of the older Orc woman to his left with her shopping bags and occasionally bumped into the vacant eyed human to his right who looked like he might collapse of exhaustion at any moment.

"Everyone's frustrated, everyone's tired, I'd be lying if I said I hadn't reached for a gun when nothing else seemed to be workin'." He admitted, recalling the fire fight in which he had nearly been killed.

"But you're right...they've got the cred and the training and the experience, and they're way better organized." He shrugged. "Gonna take a lot more than a bunch of shouting and bricks if somebody wants to go up against an Empire."

He looked down to Jenny. "Bet your mom has some wild stories if she's seen all that." He said in a way that suggested he would be interesting in hearing them first hand. "My own mom actually worked in Oakland for a few years when it wasn't that bad, was a midwife. Not a lot of work for Trolls and she had worked in a maternity ward. Mostly worked with Orcs obviously...that would have been what, around 2025 or so?" He guessed.

”That’s pretty cool. Almost like a home coming for you then.” she replies with a smile ”Wonder if she knows Doc Ida then? She’s been a street doc out here since forever, might have worked in the same circles as your mom. If we see the Doc tonight, I’ll be sure to introduce you.”

You chat through the transfer at 19th Street Station, barely noticing that the station is much dirtier than the one at Rockridge.  A few miles deeper into the D zone, you walk across the garbage strewn station where there are fewer workers, fewer people with enough nuyen to simply get past the automatic pay gates. The North/East bound lines have been closed.  Some kind of Knight Errant cordon has been set up, not many officers, but they seem pretty intent on keeping the trains from running on the other side of the track.

”Must be something going on in East Bay...” remarks a passerby.

After the transfer, it’s a short ride south toward Lake Merritt Station.  Leaving the BART you know see that now all eastbound trains have been stopped, passengers pulled off the trains, many being searched or questioned by Knight Errant.  There seem to be more and more police in the area.

Leading the way out of the station, Jenny muses ”Don’t usually see this kind of shakedown. KE doesn’t usually have this kind of presence out here, must be alll those news alerts about the hostage taking at the wastewater plant that are blowing up on social media. We’re only about a 15min drive from the bay where the plant is...”

Reaching street level, you find the cluttered refuse of the slum.  All manner of urban detritus; broken down cars, broken electronics and unidentifiable hunks of rust and plastic litter the streets where only a few intrepid drivers slowly squeeze their way through. Still, the place isn’t seething with violence like the Corp news channels would like you to believe. Seems like folks here are poor but industrious.  The buildings and vehicles may be a patchwork of homemade repairs, but those are sure signs that these people aren’t giving up.

Jenny leads you into the grounds of what was once Laney College. A couple of the larger buildings seem to have mostly survived the quake with a few slapdash repairs that have made them into suitable community living centres.  A number of orcs wearing yellow safety vests emblazoned “Community Patrol” casually walk the campus streets where there are signs of the oddly pastoral life Jenny mentioned.  Improvised fences to make animal pens, gardens in makeshift greenhouses even a small shop or two.

In a lot of ways, it seems like the clan’s camp nestled into the mountainside back home.

There were some obvious similarities. The prevalence of blue tarps, sun brittle and faded was the most obvious to him but there were other things as well. The animals fences, the greenhouses, and even the little stalls selling odds and ends were all familiar to him in a way.

Like his own people, it was possible to have multiple generations living in a space that would have been considered cramped for a single person in the nicer areas of the city.

But also like his own people the strain of it all was obvious. There was no real way to replenish some of this stuff, when this or that finally stopped working entirely it might wipe out somebody's life savings to get a replacement, if they could even find somebody willing to sell it. All too often it seemed that Corporate purchasing departments were unwilling to stoop to selling individual units, or taking funds directly from a cred stick.

"Nice, kind of reminds me of home." He told her as she guided him along. He caught a few stares, but these were the harmless, curious sort worn by children and old folks wondering what sort of person Jenny was bringing into their midst.

One thing that stuck out to him was how pale and lifeless their soil was. It had all probably been dug up locally and was filled with all manner of debris. It was impressive that they managed to grow anything in it at all, even the pale little tomato plants and struggling onions.

You find yourself in a wide lecture hall that has been converted into a community living space that has been sparsely decorated for Christmas.  A dozen or so residents have gathered for dinner preparations. ”We share in all the responsibility for meals and clean up.” she says passing you a small bag of carrots to peel and chop  ”Everyone brings a little and we try to put it all together with the things we grow ourselves. It’s not always crunchy granola.” she says holding up a grease stained bag containing a Stuffer Shack Kriller combo, ”The important thing it that we have a thriving little community. Outside Orkland, people think we’re all gunned up gangers and terrorists.”

As if to emphasize her point, one of the community patrol volunteers comes into the makeshift dining hall looking for Jenny.  Apparently one of the KE patrols swarming over the D-zone is looking for her, wants to ask her a few questions.

The mood of the dining hall turns from warm and boisterous to anxious. It’s no wonder, cops sniffing around the ghetto is bound to be disquieting.

18:48, Today: Mr. Johnson rolled 10 using 2d6+1.  Check the Situation.
Strong Success

You are very observant. Tell me one thing you pick up about the community residents react to the KE patrol looking for Jenny then I’ll tell you two more interesting things you observe.

Grendel felt a little out of place as the word spread about the Knight Errant patrol. There in the huge lecture hall he had actually been enjoying the spacious interior and seeing how the locals had been decorating and getting by when everything was kind of put on hold.

While most of the attention was on the messenger, and Jenny of course, he did notice that one of the younger Orcs jogged in the opposite direction and opened what appeared to be some sort of wire mesh cage or hutch attached to one of the windows.

Grendel couldn't tell what was inside it, whatever inhabited to space couldn't be very big, but he almost wondered if the locals were using some kind of animals as a low tech alarm system. Something that couldn't be blocked or intercepted, something that wouldn't need regular power or a specialist to operate.

It was a brief moment, but it was there, and it was not the only thing he noticed...

Now isn’t that interesting? What was that?  A bandit? Why would they be keeping one of those clever little critters caged up so close to hand?

While you were watching that bandit scurry off, a Latino human male approached Jenny. He sports a thick moustache and is wearing a t-shirt with “Remember Joanna Wyld” written in bold blue letters across the front.  He just followed the citizen patrollers into the room and seems maybe a bit short of breath. As soon as he arrived, he approached Jenny and, in the brief moment after she heard the news that the KE patrol wanting to speak with her they have a clipped, hushed conversation.  You pick up a few whispered words.  “Caleb”, “frag-up”, “East Bay” and “hostage”.  She definitely seems agitated by whatever this guy just told her.

While they are talking, from across the room, an orc who’s name you never caught, gave Jenny a cold hard look before he collected his heavy jacket and headed out the door. When that critter took off a second ago, it scurried right past him and was heading in the opposite direction of the cops.  This guy however, he just up and walked out toward where the cops are presumably waiting. You’re not sure Jenny even saw that, but that seems like a weird thing to do under the circumstances.

Do you think Jenny is the type to chance talking to the cops or will her mistrust in ‘the system’ cause her to make a run for it?

Your choice... tell me which way she goes and whether or not you stick it out by her side...

Huh, a Bandit, neat. He had seen them before of course, but this looked like it's more wiley, less robust city cousin.

He smiled at it as it passed.

Grendel watched Jenny from a distance, as much an outsider here as a lowlander would have been among his own Clan. This was serious business, not for the untried or untested, not for those that had the potential to do harm or spill secrets. He respected that.

So he was not sure what exactly was discussed, but at a certain point he knew they were going to run. Her, the human she was talking to, they were going to scatter. He had seen it before, hell, he had lived it.

But where would she go? This was not the Sierras, you couldn't just go "deeper" or "higher" and hope they wouldn't follow. They had the aircraft and the vehicles and the checkpoints. So what could she do?

What could she do?

Grendel knew though, that whatever it was, he was going to try to follow her.

The community reacts like a well oiled machine.  Clearly it is not the first time that the community has spirited someone away from the long arm of the law. The group assembled in the lecture hall go about their business as if nothing happened, although there seems to be a lot more people gathered near the entry way. Without appearing deliberate, they are very conveniently obstructing the way as the KE officers come to the door.

The Latino man follows you both into the trash strewn alley.  Your path is blocked by a broken fence, but you and Jenny make pretty short work of it leaving it hanging in sharp metal tatters.

”It’s not far to the old student center. We can duck through there and take the walkway into the parkade.” offers the man who’s name you still don’t know.

”Stop right there!” comes a shout from behind you as you skip through the student center doors...

A potent combination of feelings was coursing through Grendel as they proceeded down the alleyway, apparently intent on trying to escape the Knight Errant Patrol.

For pretty much the first time in his life, he had no idea where he was, and he had no idea who could be relied on. Knight Errant was world famous, but his interactions with them had been limited. They did not hold any contracts up where his Tribe normally roamed, but he knew that Ares itself was world class.

In short, he was scared, and he had good reason to be. He muttered a curse under his breath.

The shouting spurred him to a run, his brand new shoes feeling strange on his feet, one hand holding his precious keepsake shotgun close to his body so that it would not fall from its primitive holster.

He looked for Jenny, first and foremost. Trolls in general had a very long stride, that was physics for you, and he did not want to leave her behind.

Jenny and the as yet unintroduced man have no problems keeping up. It seems they may be well practiced at running from the cops.

Your fugitive trio makes its way through the old student centre that you find teeming with members of the community. It’s an open air market where food stalls and vendors mix in with a few community services offices. You easily slip into the small crowd of orcs and trolls hiding in plain sight as the cops reach to door and scan the crowd.

No longer running, carefully keeping your backs to the cops and walking at a measured pace to avoid raising suspicion, Jenny speaks up, her words rushed and clipped... “It’s my kid brother, Caleb. He and some friends have started hanging around with some wannabes in the MPA.”

The Metahuman People’s Army. Shadow talk says that their ranks  vary between hangers on and would be freedom fighters, but those who know speak of some hardcore members. Insurgents. Terrorists.

”He’s mixed up in this hostage taking in East Bay. I don’t know how, but that’s what the cops want to talk about.” she continues, a nervous tremor creeping into her voice ”If they tie the MPA to our community, there will be repercussions, a crackdown on the community. We can’t take that kind of blowback. I need to find out what is going on here and keep them from tying this hostage thing to Merritt Lake”

As you reach the stairs that lead down into the parking structure, she stops and grabs your hands ”I’m sorry you’re caught up in all of this. If you want to bail now, I completely understand.”

It occurred to Grendel that he had plenty of good reason to bail on this situation. This was not his fight in the strict sense, these were not "his" people and the risks were obvious, capture by KE and who knew what after that, and that was if they didn't just open fire.

But his gut rejected the notion. Why? He was not entirely sure. Maybe it was some archaic sense of honor or chivalry, maybe it was just the hormones, maybe it was because he just didn't want to be the sort of guy that ducked out when things got rough.

He didn't really know why, but he knew he was not going to leave Jenny.

"No, I think I'm gonna stick this out." he told her without looking to her, feeling incredibly conspicuous among the crowd. He knew they could all clearly see him, like a big shaggy blond mountain wading through a sea of Metahumanity.

"What's your plan?" he asked after they were briefly separated and then came back together in the crowd.

”Thank-you...” she says quietly, looking up at you, taking a moment to feel overwhelmed before gritting her tusks and adding firmly: ”I just need to talk to my brother and find out what the hell is going on. Caleb is young and angry, but not stupid. I can’t see him going in on this hostage thing. Hopefully this is all just a mistake and we can leave the MPA whatever mess they have made for themselves.”

Leading the way down a set of narrow concrete stairs, you follow the pair into a dank parking garage that miraculously survived the last quake. No small miracle considering it was poured by a construction company that made the lowest bid over half a century ago.

”Kinda hoping we can find a set of wheels down here.” the Latino man says.  Pickings are understandably thin, not much down here other than a beat up looking GMC Bulldog. Unsurprisingly the doors don’t yield to his cursory attempt to open them. ”Locked.” he says dejectedly.

You’re all about to give up when a jingling sound from the shadows of the garage catches your attention.  A tiny masked face chirps at you then, with deft little hands, shows you that he is holding a set of keys.

It can’t be, can it?

The bandit from back at the community center?

Bandit intelligence was a matter of fierce debate in the rural areas of NorCal, and in Grendels experience they generally fell into two camps.

The first camp figured they were sentient, and they were generally considered to be smarter then dolphins or chimps. This camp held that like so many intelligent creatures, the fact that they couldn't speak was the main reason why they were not given the same rights as other sapients. This was the group that basically thought that shooting at Bandits was tantamount to  a crime against humanity, not always a popular stance, because Bandits could roam in packs and they were very, very good at getting into valuable things like food caches.

Camp two figured that they were smart, but not so smart that people needed to get all existential over the matter. To a Tribe that already struggled with starvation some winters, stolen food is a serious problem, sentient or not. If you have kids to feed, and you can rightfully shoot a man for getting into your food, you can sure as hell shoot a Bandit for doing the same.

But what if the Bandits are starving too and they have kits to feed?

Well ok, food makes sense, but what about cred sticks, jewelry or ammunition?

Bandits can be assholes too, normal Racoons can be ornery and cruel, and it stands to reason individual Bandits can be just as cantankerous, if not more so.

So yeah, it was a thing.

Grendel generally stood in Camp One, in that he had been physically violent towards individual Bandits in the past (he had thrown a piece of firewood at an invasive one once and hurt it pretty bad) but he had never killed one. He felt there was an important distinction there.

But this Bandit couldn't know about that...right?

"Well hey there." he greeted the animal with a tusky grin and glanced to the others and over his shoulder for pursuers. "Those the keys for this truck?" he jerked his horned head towards the Bulldog.

The little fella (at least you guess it’s a fella) gives you a quizzical look that might mean Of course these are the keys, what kind of a simpleton do you take me for? or maybe it’s trying to say What’s a truck? What’s a keys? Take my shiny thing and I’ll nip off your fingertip, two-leg.

Only one way to find out for sure I guess...

...unless you find a peice of firewood laying around.

Grendel glanced either way, as if expecting to find more of the things lurking off to the side waiting to steal his lunch the moment he walked away. Old habits.

But then he approached the creature amicably with one dinner plate sized hand extended, trying not to move too quickly but cognizant that they were still being looked for.

"Can I have those?" he asked like he was speaking to a toddler, wishing he had not left his jerky in his own truck so that he might at least have something to trade. "I can try to bring you back something tasty next time I'm here." he promised hopefully.

Either you’re losing it or the bandit is considering your offer.  Perhaps an offer of something in exchange later is beyond his comprehension, but there is wisdom behind those little black eyes. You will never be sure what made him decide in your favor, but after a long moment of deliberation, he trots forward tentatively and slides the keys across the concrete floor toward you...

>> FF 10 mins later, in the Bulldog, headed north from Merrit Lake up to Easy Bay

The Latino man you now know as Jackie is behind the wheel, picking his way through street debris, avoiding KE patrols and playing with the sat feed trying to find a route up onto the freeway. Jenny sits in the passenger seat and has been silently rifling through the glove box since you left the college behind in the rear view mirror. Naturally, you’re in the back, you don’t really fit anywhere else.

”Oh drek,” Jenny exclaims, holding something she found during her cursory search. ”This just went from bad to worse...” she says holding up a Knight Errant badge and ID card.

Taking a closer look at the card, you notice it’s the orc from the community center.  The one with the heavy jacket that left the hall heading toward the cops...

...at least that explains where the bandit found the keys.

Note to self, buy snacks.

"I saw that guy." Grendel said with the tone of someone who was kicking themselves for not saying something earlier. "He stood out, looked right at me, but I figured he was one of your heavies or somethin' just gettin' territorial." he explained as he reached out to steady the badge in the moving truck to get a better look.

"Yeah..." He confirmed with a nod. "Not sure why he bailed right as we came in, maybe he ditched his tech for some reason and had to go get face to face" he let the badge go and sighed. "Probably in the wind now."

Grendel thought about bringing up his own Tribes vetting processes but bit his tongue. Each set up has its own pros and cons. It was way easier to screen people in a Nomadic tribe, people couldn't just wander in, and the numbers were so small that you wound up knowing everyone. Even then, they weren't perfect.

Mistakes had been made even in Grendel's time, and that was one good reason among many why Nomads we're notoriously slow to trust.

"So that place has got to be under siege by now. I get that you want to get him out, but doing that while half the cameras in the city are on the place is gonna be a heavy lift" he mused as Jenny rifled the truck interior.

"But I'd bet every resource in the area got sucked up into locking it down...so there's that at least." he rested his hand on the stock of the shotgun and rubbed his thumb against the wood grain subconsciously as he thought.