The Nameless City

So. Penny and Pound made it out of their deposing alive, after all.
 
Hate to admit it, but part of me was hoping they didn't. The whole time we were meeting with the Matron, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and for her to ask for a hit job. I'm still not sure if I would have been able to do that if it came to it, and I don't want to think about what it would have meant if I could do that to the bos - to the old bosses.
 
The missions itself started simple. Do a favor to get communications in the city and beyond, but even the moment I got in, everything felt weird. It was like seeing the half-eaten body of an old friend. Parts of it were unrecognizable, and the parts I did see were faded, like a shadow of what I remember. Old colleagues that became cops, big time mob bosses reduced to combing the beach directly with disloyal hired help, and a gearhead accountant whose brain gears slipped all over the place. And somehow almost all of then knew me and knew about me. I still don't understand how they know about some random smuggler, but maybe they all got tipped off that an old employee was coming. It wouldn't be the first time that info got out.
 
And even separate from that, there were these waves of rage coming over everything and everyone. It's more than once that I tried to attack and kill someone out of the blue, and I wasn't the only one, either. As best as the others could tell, it was something to do with that heartbeat rock we found that made the whole city angry. We actually had to fight old Mr. Numbers, Melvin, because he wanted to use it to take on what's left of the city's power brokers. We were able to take him down in enough of a piece to hand them to the cops afterwards, and somehow Officer Ceylon was able to sneak most of the blueprints the bosses wanted away from them. That may be one of the most frightening things I've ever seen, but she managed to pull it off like it was nothing. And it looks like we'll have our in for the towers no matter who wins the new gang war.
 
At least we all made it out okay-ish. I think I'm gonna go to the diving belle, get a gin and tonic like old times, and try to forget that damn city and its leaders all over again. Maybe this time my history can stay dead and buried.