ic What Price Mercy?

[Supercape]

GM

 

The Greenbank was a wreck of crumbling buildings and old railroads. More than a few of Freedom Cities homeless lived here. Many ill, in body and mind. Many lonely, many desperate. Young and old, men and women, and every race of earth. Possibly, even races other than earth. This was Freedom City, after all. 

 

The Mission of Mercy was a charitable mobile medical unit, run by volunteers, to try and give at least basic medical care to the homeless, some who were extremely ill. Run by a nun, a pair of nurses, and a rotating number of doctors who gave up their free time, it was well received, and at least made a little difference to a few lives. It saved more than a few. 

 

And Mad Jake, the hobo who was suitably mad, was stumbling scared from it. He had seen some crazy things in his time. Why, a few months ago he had sworn he had seen somebody open up the "Grin and Bear it" building, and descend into its basement. But then, he was blind drunk, and, he had to admit it, pretty loopy. 

 

He was frightened out of his wits, stumbling in the dark, vodka bottle in hand, tumbling, stumbling, and running from the Greenbanks, towards the Fens, and shouting to the world...

 

"The Devil! I saw the Devil! Drinking blood!" he screamed in fear. 

[April]

Though she hasn't been in Freedom City long--no more than a few weeks--the sight, sound, and even smells of urban decay where as recognizable to Nicola here as they were in her former home half a world away. The young woman had spent most of her life immersed in it, always of her own choice but not always for the best reasons.

So Greenbank was home, after a fashion, because it was a place she felt she could do some good. Which is why, she supposed, the Mission of Mercy was here as well. Though she was no longer a novice sister, officially, it was still an organization funded by her church. Besides, rumor has it that it had an unusually well stocked supply of blood, one that wasn't quite as well protected as it should be.

And, well, a girl's gotta eat, the vampire mused, when her thoughts were interrupted by the shouting of Mad Jake. A corner of her mind told her he could be drunk, or hallucinating, or both but what if he wasn't?

It was a simple matter to catch up to the hobo, for all his frantic flight he wasn't covering distance very well, and Nicola placed a steading arm on his shoulder.

"What seems to be the trouble, friend?" she asked.

[Supercape]

GM

 

Mad Jake looked at her with mad eyes. Eyes that seemed not quite to meet hers, eyes that had a slight divergent squint. Eyes that were wide dilated, full of fear. 

 

His breath, however, was full of wretched booze. 

 

"Who are you! I ain't your friend, lady! I ain't your friend! Ol' Jake knows better than to have any friends! Not since the CIA put a chip in my brain! You after my brains, ain't ya? I can feel ya in there!" he shouted at her, tapping the side of his skull repeatedly. 

 

"Everyone thinks I am mad, Ol' Crazy Jake! They ain't gonna be laughing when the invisible Iraqi Warplanes suck all the oxygen from the air!" he explained, as he started wheezing and sucking in the night air in horrible gasps. 

 

"But that ain't all of it! The Nurse at the Mission of Mercy, I saw her! Sproutin horns! Tongue from her mouth like a snake! Licking all the blood they have their! Mus' be Satan himself! I ain't ever goin' back there! Not if wild horses dragged me! Not even the CIA radio beams can make me! I got defences!" he said winking at her, and rustling in his filthy coat pockets. 

 

He grinned at her, and put a tin foil helmet on his head. 

[Tiffany Korta]

“So what’s the conspiracy going on this time Jake?†Lucy had heard his ranting from the other side of the parking lot and had come over to check on the old man.

 

Ever since she had woken up into the 21st century she had volunteered at the Lady of Mercy shelter on Broadway, and the various homeless had more or less come to accept her and her strange looks. In fact she had discovered quite a few nefarious scheme’s from what they had to tell her, though she commonly had to filter out what was simply mad ramblings. Helping out the mobile clinic was a natural extension of her volunteer work. Plus things had been quite at the Bloodhound Agency ant Fred and Harry, as charming as they could be, were driving her to distraction.

[Supercape]

Jake squinted at Revenant, jamming his tin foil helmet on tighter. 

 

"Is that you, Lucy? Really you?" he asked suspiciously. "The CIA not injected you yet?" he said with a conspirational wink and a mime of an injection into the top of his skull. 

 

"Everyone reckons old Mad Jake is Mad!" he whispered, fear coming back to his voice. "Ask me, its them thats crazy, saying Mad Jake is a Madman!" he said, eyes wide. 

 

"Its the Mission of Mercy...you know, the one run by the nun, giving all sorts of drugs and things to the homeless. Experiments, if you ask me..." he said, eyes shifting left and right. 

 

"Dunno what they cooked up there, but it looked like the Devil Himself! The Nun, she had horns, forked tongue, and tasting the blood they have there! I always knew it was a government conspiracy, that place, but looks like they are using black magic now!" he said, full of contempt. 

[April]

Nicola tried very hard, and largely succeeded, to ignore the constant mention of blood. It was like casually trotting an addict'ss vice, even if they weren't craving it now just mentioning easily puts it back into the forefront of their mind... and it didn't help that the young Czech woman was feeling a little peckish.

So she ignored Mad Jake for a moment, turning to face the newcomer, smiling faintly. "Hello.. Lucy was it?" Nicola asked in lightly accented English, an eyebrow raised. "I'm Nick."

[Tiffany Korta]

Lucy gave a Jack a patient smile, she’d heard it all before with a few details differing each time.

 

“Remember what happened last time Jack? I’m willing to listen but you’re going to have to give some reason to believe you.â€

 

She then looked up at Nicola with her coal black eyes before giving the other woman a broad friendly smile.

 

“Yes I’m Lucy Harker, though you might have heard of me as Revenant. Though Lucy’s fine.â€

[Supercape]

GM

 

"They injected me last time! I'm not falling for that again!" shouted Jake, hoping from foot to foot. 

 

"You!" he pointed to Lucy, "I trust! you look out for the Fens. 'Can trust you, not like those idiots Bloody Mess and the Hound!"

 

"You!" he jabbed a thumb at Nicola "I don't know! you look kinda spooky to me!" he mumbled, eyeing her suspiciously. 

 

"But I'm telling the truth! the nun at the Mission, she sprouted horns, claws, and licked the blood up, grinning madded than ol' Mad Jake, and that's me by the way!" he explained. 

 

"You goanasker her!" he mumbled. "I ain't goin' back there again in no hurry. Even if they were servin' vodka matini's with olives!"

[April]

Nicola shook her head at Lucy.

"I have not heard that name," she apologized. "Famous though this city, and it's chief export are, the details are often left out in Prague." The young Czech woman favored Lucy with a smile, which suddenly became something of a wince at Jack's comments. Though, from what she's heard from the guy already, everyone looked spooky to him.

"I was planning on entering the Mission anyway," Nicola said after a moment. "To volunteer my services." It wasn't a lie, not really, after all it'd be easier to gain access to their blood supply if she worked there. She didn't think her own currently nebulous relationship with the Church would be much of a barrier. She hoped it wasn't, anyway.

[Supercape]

GM

 

The azure sun hanged low, casting long shadows. Freedom City was not in the grip of winter, but it was in the cool embrace of autumn. It was a time of anticipation for the homeless, knowing that the warm hot summers were gone, and the bitter life of cold winds on wet clothes was to be endured again. 

 

The Mercy was a long vehicle, an atriculated truck, parked in the Fens, amidst the crumbling buildings and rusted trail lines. It looked like it hadn't moved in years - it was anybodies guess if it would still fire up. It served its purpose though. 

 

A couple of hobos where sharing some soup outside, together with the Nun who ran the joint, Sister White, was sharing the soup with them, a thick bean and lentil mix, asking how they were. She was a smallish lady, without being fully shrunken, maybe in her fifties, with lines and white hair and a face that looked both resilient and weathered at the same time, with deep green eyes. 

[Tiffany Korta]

How exactly was she going to handle this one? Hello a crazy hobo says that one of your fellow nuns was possibly possessed? Very carefully was probably the best idea.

 

Just to make things easier she put on her sunglasses rather than have to explain her eyes, they had enough to possibly explain with those as well.

 

“Sister  White how are you? I wonder if you mind us taking a look round?†she gave the sister a warm friendly smile.

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Mind?" asked Sister White, somewhat surprised. "Wait..." she said, tapping her fingers together. "You are Revenant, are you not? The...undead....ah...lawyer...."

 

Her forehead furrowed and she put her fingers, in a nervous manner, around her cross. She took a step back. 

 

"I am...sorry....for your...condition..." she said, trying to choose her words carefully, but not too carefully. "But your presence is not a Godly thing. A shell without a soul...I cannot let you in. I pray for you, whatever you are, that you may find true peace and rest in God's embrace. As it is, you are stuck in Limbo, an..." 

 

She disliked the word. 

 

"Abherration" she said, almost whispering. 

 

"You should be dead. I am afraid I cannot allow you here. This place is much about souls as the mortal flesh. Here, we find purity"

[April]

Nicola's lips twisted into a small frown and she worried at the inside of her lip; lightly of course, she didn't want to cut herself. "Sister White," the young Czech woman started, "The Church has often been accommodating of our World's heroes, regardless of their circumstances."

She shrugged.

"Though perhaps things are done differently here in America? The voice of the Holy Father is, perhaps, too difficult to hear across the Atlantic?"

[Supercape]

GM

 

For the merest second, Nightingale caught some flash in Sister White, something angry, contemptuous, something almost mocking. Something that almost blurted out, but was slammed back inside the gates of her face. 

 

"We all here the word of God in different ways, do we not?" she said, smiling at Nightingale. 

 

"Alas, only God is perfect, we are not. I am sorry you hear...differently...to me...." she said politely. 

 

Then, the iron fist. 

 

"Perhaps the only ungodly thing is for one to claim that you hear better than others. Like you did"

 

The cruelty in the velvet was harder than any Iron. Concealed in politeness, but cruel, nasty, and contemptuous. A look at Nightgale was far worse than the look at Revenant. Her eyes spoke, and spoke hard. 

[April]

Nicola's friendly, if not strictly polite, demeanor was shattered by the nun's iron words and expression. It was replaced with something Nicola was more familiar with, something harder and more cruel than a nun's words, no matter how nasty and contemptuous they were. It took effort to not act like the thief she once was, to remember that legitimate society functioned differently than the world she grew up in. It's a fight she normally won but... she was a little hungry.

Snapped something in Russian that was short and cruel at Sister White.

But the observant would notice that the young woman's anger at the insult wasn't quite there anymore. It was the eyes, her outward mask of anger didn't reach her eyes. They were cold, almost reptilian, and no longer focused on Sister White's face but her neck.

[Tiffany Korta]

Lucy gave a little sigh it wasn’t common but occasionally she came across someone who was prejudiced against her because of her undead status. She couldn’t blame people for that reactions, it took her time to come to terms with it after all, but it could be a bit of a pain.

 

“Someone might be in trouble and this place might hold the key to stopping that. Now how would you like me to convince you to let me in? I could quote scripture about how the dead sleep in the earth or how the most important person in the bible was undead. Or point out that if I was evil I wouldn’t be able to enter holy ground, which is in doubt as I go to worship every weekend.â€

 

She wasn’t trying to sound arrogant or angry just trying to use rational arguments to convince the sister.

 

“I don’t want to have to but I could always bring down the media and make a song and dance about you denying me access. So what's it going to be?â€

[Supercape]

GM

 

At the sound of "Media" Sister White stopped, uncertain. 

 

"I don't want this place...in the limelight" she said, laced with bitterness at the concept. "That would be...cruel..." she said, twisting the words around her tongue. 

 

"What do you want here anyway? Are you seeking to...help?" she asked, once again twisting the words. 

 

"You twist my arm, and apply thumbscrews. Very well, you have the better of me, and the better of my judgement. I am powerless to resist. So come then, unwelcome as you are, come and do what you will to the helpless homeless and my own helpless self, and my eyes shall be upon you at all time. The sooner you leave, the better for all..." she said, sharp and tight. 

 

She bade a stiff welcome to the pair, showing them into the Mission of Mercy, to the tune of some grumbles from a few hobos outside, not best pleased with Sister Mercy being apparently harrassed. 

[Supercape]

GM

 

Inside the Mission of Mercy

 

It was not best clean, it was not best spacious. The staff did the best with what they had, but what they had was not much. Ill babies in hospitals attracted much charity, mad and filthy homeless, not so much. 

 

Sister White was stiff as a board, with fixed iron gaze, as unpleasant as she could be. 

 

"This, then, is our modest mission, to heal the sick and homeless..." she said, showing the pair the medical staff and the equipment. It was meagre, but still, much could be done. 

 

The two nurses and tired looking doctor quickly picked up on the tone of Mother White. The doctor, a man of oriental descent and thinning hair, looked particulary irritated, as he listened to a coughing hobo sat in a chair with his stethoscope. 

 

"What are these two doing here? This is a clinic!" he objected. 

[Tiffany Korta]

“Sorry to disturb you Doctor we just need a quick look around the place.†she gave him a warm friendly smile “I promise that we’ll stay out of you way to get on with you work.â€

 

She honestly didn't expect to find much amiss, but best to look around just in case. but out of courtesy she paused to wait for the doctor to agree before they looked around further.