1.2 Chopping Block

When Last We Met

Geoffrey, Kevin, John and Maeve met Wren when they yanked her out of an underground fight club name Discord, along with her friend, Briana Short. The club was headed by three mysterious and mythically powered women. They regrouped at Maeve's apartment, sans Wren and Bri, and discussed their next steps. The leads to follow up on included:

• Rogelio Lopez - Briana said to talk to him if we want to know more
• Precinct 246 - the police precinct that doesn't actually exist
• The Men in Gray
• Briana's seeming ability to negate the powers of the mythic woman she was fighting, using her boxing gloves
• Hades (eventually, not the immediate priority)

Opening Montage - Geoffrey

Geoffrey sits at the computer early in the morning two days after the events at the fight club. He stares at the search bar of his browser (which he's protected behind a VPN).

He types in a name. Deletes it. Types it again. Deletes it again.

Wildknock... 

Nothing good comes from going there. Nothing good happens there. Nothing good ever came out of there. Certainly not me. I try to be there for Maeve, lend Daniel a hand because this is obviously important to him, and look what happens. As usual, he has to clean up my mess.  

It's not enough that he's co-fostering a pre-teen, he has to pick me up, clean off the shit, and take care of me. Like an infant. Inez brings enough chaos into the home, which I know Daniel tolerates, but I can tell it makes him cringe a bit inside. Poor Danny, he works so hard to make our life safe. Always considering risks and reward, and how to mitigate the worst that could happen. Especially since the candy factory thing. He doesn't like to talk about that, and I get it. Why dig up that horror story when we have such a great life? It's great, and comforting, and... safe. It's not boring, never that.  

I'm not bored.  

I'm not bored.  

I am not, I am not, I am... I am... 

Shit.  

I am bored.  

Why the hell else would I go back to Wildknock? I never go back there, for good reason. He's going to accuse me of trying to make real life into one of my D&D campaigns. The thing is, this feels like one. Like a plot is being written right in our faces, and I want to live in it. I want the story to be real, to prove to Daniel that this... thing that we went through together isn't some dark dream. Something's happening out there, and this guy is the next step.  

He types in the name and finally hits enter.

He grabs his coat and a hat. As he pulls his coat on, he thumbs through his phone until he finds the number he's looking for. London.

We need to meet.

Geoffrey hustles out the door, leaving the condo.

John is at the university, teaching a master class to a couple of students. He is still reeling a bit from his concussion, pupils blown. He's a little unsteady coming down the stairs. He goes to sit on a drumming stool, misses. Self-medicates with a generous fistful of gummies.

The next day, different set of students. He walks in and hops down the stairs. He sits down at the drums and he's playing. He reaches down, he gets one gummy, pops it, and starts playing like the rock god he is. The students are relieved he's back to full power... it probably helps when you're used to whacking your head regularly on the tour bus.

Maeve: "I wouldn't want to mess with your macros."

Maeve saunters in to the police precinct, chatting up friendly faces she knows before asking if Detective Tennant is in. In "the dragon's cave" she plies Cillian with donuts before asking if he'll help her research the non-existent Precinct 246 and associated "men in gray." Turns out he's already done a little digging and will share what he knows... for a price. That price is happy hour. She agrees to meet him at a dive bar in Miller's Square that evening.

Daniel: "Where the HELL is my husband?"

Daniel, hooked up to a CPAP machine, is only half asleep despite the device's best efforts. He reaches across the bed, groggy, to find Geoffrey not there.

Denver: "He doesn't think— well, if I want to learn how to surf, I should probably do it real soon."

Kevin is eating a breakfast of microwave mac and cheese in his very small industrial-styled and simply-decorated apartment in Independence. He sits in the only chair in the room, watching his foil-laden TV report on the events at Discord two days ago. He stands and stretches briefly, throwing out his trash and making green tea. In the cabinet next to the tea canister sits an almost canopic-looking ancient jar. He glances at it, contemplating. He leaves it where it is.

Denver knocks and enters, and the two chat for a moment, Denver sitting on the floor. She asks Kevin if he'll teach her to surf. He readily agrees, but as Denver rises from the floor, her strength gives out. Kevin helps her to his only chair and she tells him her grim news: she has cancer, in her blood, and her doctor doesn't think she's got much longer. Something about her catches Whiro's interest. Not just the cancer – he's seen that before. This is something else.

Kevin helps Denver up and they decide to tackle her surfing goal head on, at whatever pace they need to go. They get ready to go to the beach.

A bell rings out over a doorway as Geoffrey strides into the grimy-looking tattoo shop he rents out in La Colonia de Sombras.

He locks eyes with a tough-looking man behind the counter, who clearly is part of Tío Tez's operation. Stepping through a beaded curtain, Geoffrey enters the main work area of the shop, where there's a marked change to the atmosphere. The tattoo area is sparkling clean and almost antiseptic looking.

Continuing on, he heads into the back office and employee lounge. He heads to the bar, where there's an assortment of liquor and a few jars of weed.

He texts London again, telling him to come straight through to the back of the shop, and waits.

Sergei: "I was, um, sort of flagging in my endurance, and I was thinking of getting coffee."

Sergei shuffles down a hallway in the lab, pausing outside of Michelle's door. He straightens and knocks, a bit hesitantly. He opens the door when she calls out to enter.

Michelle is absorbed in a hologram suspended in the middle of the room. It appears to be It's some sort of rat-like creature splayed out, but it looks like it's not quite a rat. As she spins and manipulates the hologram, it appears to trigger a dissection of the virtual image. She's taking notes and referencing the image, lost in her work.

In his halting way, Sergei asks her if she'd be interested in a coffee break. She agrees... but in a "please bring me a coffee" way, not a "let's go on a coffee date" way.

Deflated, he agrees, and walks out, looking at the floor.

Geoffrey: "I'm, I'm not really... used to this stuff. All of... this. Being in this neighborhood, being in this shop. I have kind of like a free pass. Well, no, I earned it, but this is not— this is not my world, you understand?"

London: "...Completely."

London strolls into the tattoo shop, setting off the bell over the door. Totally confident in this setting, dressed (and inked) to suit it, he nods to the man at the counter before passing through to meet Geoffrey in the back.

Geoffrey: "Daniel's going to be incredibly pissed at me. [Looks at his phone] Oh no, sorry, is incredibly pissed at me."

Geoffrey is sitting on the couch, nursing a seltzer, clearly ill at ease. He tells London all about the fight club incident, and how furious Daniel is at Geoffrey's departure. He doesn't know where Geoffrey is right now, and he thinks it best to keep it that way.

Geoffrey wraps up the saga of Discord with the name Briana gave them – Rogelio Lopez.

That name gets an instant reaction from London. It turns out that the two men have very different impressions of Lopez.

Geoffrey: "So... what is he into? I mean, everybody's got some angle they're working. What's his deal?"

London: "Nothing. That is what set him apart."

According to Geoffrey's research, Lopez is an alleged murderer and probable child molester who was wrapped up in a high-profile court case a few years ago centered around working conditions at his company. His sins and perversions all came out in the context of the case, although he never went to prison for his crimes. An all-around Really Bad Dude. You want to look at this guy with binoculars at minimum, from a distance. A horrible, awful human. Clearly the worst of the worst, and highly dangerous.

According to London, Rogelio was a close friend of his older brother, Mateo. One of those upstanding guys, always had your back, never got involved with Tez or his "business," unlike the rest of them. Always did things the hard but honorable way. And he was a loyal friend to Mateo even when they made different decisions and Mateo took a darker path. He's family. If he's been accused of something – London was willfully ignoring La Colonia news for a while – there's no way in hell he did it. He was clearly set up.

They are at a bit of an impasse, and decide the simplest (if not the most advisable) path is to just go talk to the man, who works in the Meatpacking District. That's not a place where you venture without numbers, so they make plans to meet up with John and Kevin mid-morning at Taquería El Dorado, which has the best tacos in the city.

Geoffrey texts Daniel that he had an appointment at the tattoo shop and will be home later...

Taquería El Dorado

John: "She rang my bell so bad."

The group collects in the busy and colorful shop where the smell of warm tortillas permeates the air. They bump into Wren, and quickly introduce her to London. After they order tacos, Geoffrey gets a rather nasty text from Daniel. He saw the debit card charge.

Daniel (texting): "I just saw the charge at the taco shop. Why are you not here making breakfast for me and Inez?"

The taquería sits on a picturesque plaza, and there are two other locations of note: an Appleseed's Soup Kitchen and a Pandaloria Healthcare Clinic. Kevin notices a young woman come out of the Appleseed soup kitchen, and something about her catches his eye; something off and otherworldly. Somewhere between 15 and 21, armed with a popsicle and an oversized backpack, she locks eyes with him briefly before disappearing into the crowd.

Fortified, the group (Wren included) sets off on foot for the Meatpacking District.

Meatpacking District

The air thickens and turns rancid as the group approaches the processing warehouses of the Meatpacking District. Some of the buildings in the area have A+O logos and appear to be better maintained. They approach Wilson's, the warehouse where Lopez works which is... not one of those. Thicker flies, thicker stench, thicker atmosphere of decay.

The same girl from the plaza appears, slipping from the shadows. She ducks through the fence somehow and is gone.

John: How serious is this dude with a—

London: Did you bring a gun?

John: I did not bring a gun.

London: Then he is more serious than you.

Looking for her way in, the group is stopped at the fence line near the loading dock by an armed guard. He eyes the gringos with suspicion and tells them this is no place for tourists.

The guard starts to lead them away, and then gets a closer look at John, realizing he seems familiar. Once he realizes that John has played drums for the Isabella Aguilar, he abruptly shifts from menacing security staff to hearts-in-eyes fanboy. John keeps him distracted with photos and a personal phone call with Isabella. London chimes in once the conversation turns to climatological change to get a spirited debate going, and the other three quickly sneak towards where they last saw the girl.

She confronts them in Spanish, telling them to go home. Geoffrey uses his halting Spanish to talk to her. He explains that they are looking for Rogelio. She introduces herself as Adriana, but is suspicious of them. Eventually John and London get free of Julio, the guard (and John's new best buddy), and the group meets back up in an alley – but one where Adriana has an easy exit strategy.

Once London talks her around as to how he knows Rogelio, she softens and tells them Rogelio is her friend (determined after deciding that people with big age gaps can be friends). Adriana shares her version of the truth of what happened to him, and what she knows about A+O operations in this area.

She agrees to take them to his home in a different part of La Colonia, and warns them they need to be polite to his landlady, Señora Santos. She rents the room to Rogelio for far less than it is worth.

Adriana: "You are... like me. You have... a rider. You can see this, I can tell. Sometimes they're invited, sometimes they're not, but they come with you."

As they travel, Adriana tackles the subject of their mythos head-on. She knows that they can see that she has a "hitchhiker" and she can tell the same about them. Kevin and London both realize that she is tied to Xipe Totec, The Flayed One, an Aztec god of cyclical life, death, and rebirth (oh, and ritual flaying). Not an easy "rider" for a young girl.

On the way, Kevin reveals to the group that he saw a masked woman watching the warehouse. She was a luchadora... not La Águila but... someone similar.

Geoffrey: "Um, so are we sure it's not that Rogelio is so bad that Tío Tez won't have him?"

London: "Absolutely not."

Geoffrey: "Just trying to cover the options here."

Adriana: "Rogelio is a good person. He is a good person. It's the rest of us that are the dark, and he is the light."

Adriana and London fill the rest of the group in on the war between La Águila, a masked vigilante luchadora, and Tío Tez, the mob boss who runs La Colonia. Many of his gang are Geoffrey's clients. The mob presence in La Colonia is the type that "keeps the peace" for a price, as well as running assorted legal and illegal "businesses." While things in La Colonia are bad with him around, Adriana feels that the violence and problems would probably escalate in the power vacuum if he was gone. And his presence is ubiquitous – he is both the district's greatest philanthropist and its greatest perpetrator of crime, and many have been on his payroll at one time or another. But there are always those who refuse.

Rogelio is one of them, despite apparent evidence to the contrary.

La Casa de Señora Santos

London: "Whatever Señora Santos wants, she gets."

Lucia's house is in a comfortable part of La Colonia where the houses are a little bit larger and the streets are a lot less touristy.

Luica Santos is a high-energy woman in her mid-forties who lives with her two children, Santiago and Carmen, and lets a room to Rogelio. While Santiago is no great fan of the gringos, Lucia is welcoming. The price of entry: they have to get Rogelio to go to the Huerta High School fútbol game this evening. After accepting her terms, her, generous hospitality, and her horchata, the group retires to Rogelio's small bedroom to talk.

Rogelio: "One death in a meatpacking plant, gonna be an accident. Two deaths, a little suspicious. But three? Three in 6 months?"

After an emotional reunion with London, Rogelio tells them what really happened. He did indeed work for A+O, and the conditions were horrible; people forced to work when sick, forced overtime, dangerous conditions, poorly maintained machinery, underage workers. People were vulnerable to outside forces and so they could never complain, which was intentional.

Rogelio let the press know that this was happening, and tried to do something about it. He connected with Jessica Haimer, the same reporter the group crossed paths with during the Candy Witch incident. She helped him find a pro-bono lawyer, and together they built a compelling case. Too compelling; once the evidence was compiled and presented, suddenly Rogelio was being accused of murdering a child. Their key witness invalidated, the case never went anywhere.

He managed to get another job, but ironically, he's pretty sure Wilson's is also run by A+O, just under a shell corporation.

They talk about the Appleseeds soup kitchens as well. Rogelio is justifiably cynical about them, and the way A+O benefits from the optics of "serving" a community that they force into the situation by underpaying them. So generous.

But they suspect there's more to it than that. On a hunch, London takes a closer look at Rogelio, and is pretty confident he has a mythos of some kind. He can't quite figure out what it is, but he's suddenly struck by distant strains of an eerie lullaby. And maybe... teeth?

Duérmete niño, duérmete ya...

They question Adriana about the Appleseeds soup kitchen and she reveals that yes, they seem to know about "riders" and they've told her before that if someone has one and wants to get rid of it they can help. She was going to get more information before talking to Rogelio about it, since they both have riders they do not like. There's a woman there, Angela, who said she is much happier now and she can help Adriana if it is something she wants.

As promised, the group talks Rogelio into going to the game at the school, which involves talking London into going to the game at the school. Lucia loads her kids into the car and they all take off for the Estadio Unido. Wren opens up briefly to London about her challenges at her auto shop, getting enough customers to pay rent, while Geoffrey antagonizes Santiago with intentionally terrible Spanish pronunciation he needs some "help" with.

¡Vamos Lobos!

Daniel (texting): "A stadium charge. Looks like you're having an amazingly fun day. Hope you continue to enjoy it because it's not going to be fun when you get home."

Geoffrey: "He's using sarcasm. Do you understand how how nuclear that means he is? He hates using it. I'm... I'm basically a dead man."

Geoffrey seems genuinely concerned about Daniel's text-based reactions at this point, prompting his friends to either insert themselves into the narrative to take some of the heat off (John) or offer him a place to stay and change the power dynamic (London).

As they walk towards the stadium, John engages Santiago in trying to teach him some of the cheers and songs. Kevin glances around and sees the same shadowy luchadora at a distance. They lock eyes for a moment, and she vanishes. He alerts the group that he saw her again, and the collective is concerned that maybe she's dealing with something, or someone, they'd be better off knowing about. He describes her appearance: Her mask has wings, and it is shimmering teal and purple.

Fans stream into the stadium and the whole vibe is electric and joyful, despite a heavy police presence. Chanting and singing are loud enough to hear from the outside as the group approaches. The colors of the home team, Los Lobos, are everywhere. Tío Tez and his entourage are settled front and center, enjoying the pageantry. The police aren't bothering them, and they aren't bothering the police.

The team is playing Parkside, the predominantly white, affluent suburban district next door. Their fans only make up about a quarter of the stadium capacity, and they all look distinctly nervous. Lucia makes sure to outfit John, Geoffrey, and Kevin with Lobos gear before they get themselves into trouble on the "wrong side" of the stadium. London and Rogelio are deep in conversation about the past in between lobbing encouragement at the field and at Carmen, who is on the cheer squad.

The conversation shifts as Geoffrey joins them and starts talking to Rogelio a bit more about the deaths at the meatpacking plant.

It's right around halftime when...