Black Market Merchant

Jackson and Jerry were chilling in a bar, not far from the gang’s headquarters. A river merchant had just delivered a fresh batch of beer and the gang was taking full advantage of it. However, they were the only two there not having a good time.

"Boss, what are we going to do about the Queen?" Jerry asked rubbing the rim of his mug in absent thought. "After all, she killed our guys like they were nothing."

"Keep your voice down, idiot!" Jackson scolded in an urgent hushed voice. He looked carefully around the room, but no one seemed interested in them. "We can't let anyone know we made contact with her. She has killed lots of our own other than those two useless Fighters. They might question our loyalty or worse."

"I know that." Jerry replied timidly. "It's just that, she going to be coming with us to the tournament. Won't people question us then?"

"You don't need to worry about that. All you need to do is your job and let me do the thinking. Got it?" Jackson replied hotly.

Jerry gave a nod, but he still seemed worried. "So, tomorrow when I bring her, what if somebody stops me and asks about her?"

"Just tell them she's here to speak with me about business or something." Jackson said as he agitatedly swirled the dark beer in his cup. "Also, don't let her speak to anyone. We need to know what she's up to and why she wants to meet with Boss Martinez."

"Ok. I'll try, but I can't possibly stop her on my own. She's way stronger than me." Jerry complained.

Jackson gave a shrug and answered, "Just tell her, when you go to the Ragged Flagon, that it's important to keep quiet to avoid issues with other gangsters. She seems reasonable enough to listen to that request."

Jerry slouched forward glumly in his chair while staring at the table in front him before speaking. "I better get there early. I don't want to be late and have her mad." Before Jackson could reply, Jerry had a sudden mood change and had already jumped up from his seat and was dashing out of the bar.

Jackson snorted seeing this. "Jerry, you are one of the biggest cowards I have ever met."

…

After Lisa and the others had finished dealing with the hole, they reset Lisa's snares before heading back across the dam. Benny wanted to observe the creature and take sketches of it before he had to leave. He already had a small note pad and pen ready to use that was carefully tucked into his pants back pocket. Definitely an old-fashioned idea, but perfect for a place with no power.

Lisa and John decided it would be alright, the Twisted was dead anyway. Richard even offered to remove the body for her once Benny was finished, so naturally Lisa agreed. She wanted nothing to do with the hideous and bloodied Twisted. Even though she had been on the battlefield and seen death and gore before, seeing the unnatural corps was not something she wanted to keep seeing.

After again opening the metal door to let them in, John asked her some questions. "So now that the dam is generating electricity, is everything functioning properly?"

"Well, I feel kind of stupid for saying this, but I hadn't even checked the control room at all since that Thing attacked me." Lisa replied scratching the back of her head embarrassed. "Let’s go check."

John followed her up the stairs to the control room. He raised his eyebrows in surprise seeing the busted down door to the room but didn't say anything. He already could guess that Lisa was the cause from the footprint pounded into the door. Lisa went up to the main computer screen and started looking for anything helpful. Lisa had only glanced over the blueprints and hadn't really read too much about how the dam actually functioned according to the control room's computer systems. The battery of the laptop just didn't seem to want to last long enough for her to do so.

"Hey John?" Lisa said turning to face him. "Can you start looking around for a charger cord for a standard laptop? I need to recharge mine if I'm ever going to understand these systems."

"Sure." John nodded. He wiped a thick layer of dust with his finger off a nearby monitor and peered at it momentarily. Shaking his head, he spoke aloud, "I don't have a clue what I'm looking at anyway."

Lisa hurried up to her room on the third floor to retrieve the laptop. Meanwhile, John was opening dusty cabinets and looking in boxes all around the control room. After a few moments he got lucky! He found a cord inside of a cobweb covered box that had a head capable of connecting to an older laptop. He had just pulled it out from the box when Lisa returned.

"Oh, good. You found one." Lisa said seeing it and coming over. John handed her the cord and when she got it, she felt worried. "This cord feels so dry rotted."

"I hope it works, but I'll look for another just in case." John said going back to searching.

Lisa walked over to the wall where an outlet was while at the same time starting to unwind the cord. She grimaced as the cords rubber covering cracked and flaked as she moved it. The areas of the cord that were bent crumbled, exposing the multicolored wires inside. Carefully, she plugged it into the wall then to the laptop. When she did there was a tiny beep.

Looking at the corner of the laptops screen, Lisa sighed feeling relieved seeing the battery indicator showed it was charging. The outlet also didn't explode or smoke from lack of use. Gingerly Lisa felt the length of the cord, checking for anywhere that it might be overheating. Finding it was completely cool, she determined the cord would hold up for now, but it was going to be a must to replace it with one less damaged.

Lisa then called to John who was rummaging through an old cabinet, "John, this cord will be fine."

"Good. 'Achoo'!" John said giving a sneeze. "This dust is getting to me anyway."

Lisa opened up the control room features files on the laptop and quickly read through the basics. After a half hour she understood enough to assess the situation. Getting up she went over to an auxiliary computer and opened an icon on the touch screen. Several electronic dials appeared, and they were labeled with titles like: Electricity Output, Electronic Stability, Electricity Production, etc.

John had been in the meantime wandering around the building but had now returned and was looking over Lisa's shoulder with some interest. Lisa tapped on the touch screen and lowered the 'Electrical Output and Production' to the minimum settings. Then she clicked on another button at the bottom of the screen that said, 'Run Diagnosis'. A loading bar with a timer popped up. It said, "No internet access, time till competition: thirty hours."

"So why did you do that?" John asked.

"Well I don't want the dam to overwork itself and become damaged." Lisa replied squinting disapprovingly at the counter. "This place is clearly old and probably needs some massive repairs. I want to run this test to see exactly where needs the most attention. Then I can try to do what i can or find someone to buy parts from to fix any issues I find."

"I see, that makes since." John said nodding.

"Hey guys!" Someone called out from below.

Lisa and John looked out of a window to see that Richard and Benny were back from the tunnel. Richard was hulling the stiff creature out of the building and into the parking lot. The blood was fortunately already coagulated enough that there were no bloody streak marks left on the floor. With nothing left to do in the control room, Lisa and John came back down to meet them.

"I got some exciting stuff from that creature. The Twisted really are such fascinating specimens! Sometimes I wished I'd studied them more rather than to have become a cop." Benny said again with a sigh.

"Well I'm glad you at least enjoyed yourself." Lisa said giving a small smile.

"Same here." John said patting the older man’s shoulder. "Anyway, it seems like we are done here. I hope everything keeps running smoothly while we're gone."

"Thanks for your help guys." Lisa said shaking John and Benny's hands before they followed Richard out of the door. "Goodbye to you too, Richard." She called out waving.

Richard stopped pulling the creature for a moment to look back at her. "I'll toss it behind the fence. The wind shouldn't blow from that direction, so it won't stink."

"Thank you again." Lisa said as Richard went back to pulling the dead animal away.

After the trio had gone, Lisa went back to the control room to study more of the laptop’s contents. She ended up stayed in the room for so long that before she knew it, night had already fallen. The lights in the control room were bright enough for her to keep reading. However, going to bed every night at dark had become a habit to her and she could hardly keep her eyes open.

She closed the laptop and left it on the dusty desk she had been reading on. Lisa did, however, take one more look at the Diagnostics to check on the timer. It said that it now had been lowered to twenty hours. An annoyingly long time.

"I guess I'll find out about it tomorrow, after I meet up with the Mad Dogs." Lisa said to herself. She then made sure all the lights were off in the building. Don't want anyone poking around seeing the light shining in the night. Giving a yawn, she headed off to bed.

…

The next morning, Lisa arrived early to the Ragged Flagon. She had her coffin on, metal knuckled gloves and her weapons at the ready. Just to be safe. The gangsters might have set an ambush for her.

Upon going inside Lisa wasn't all to surprised to find that the room was mostly empty. Only a few drunken patrons sat at the bar and one lone guy sitting at a booth. It was Jerry. Apparently, he too had also gotten there very early. Lisa headed directly over to him. He watched her nervously as she did. His eyes darted all around like he was looking for a way out.

"Well, you are here early." Lisa spoke calmly to him. "I guess we both wanted to make sure everything panned out properly."

"Yep, I sure did." Jerry said giving a nervous laugh. "Are you ready to go?"

"Sure. Lead the way." Lisa replied gesturing with her hand for him to go first.

Once on the road, they headed north towards the Political Sector. As they walked Lisa noticed that this area appeared to be in far better condition than the rest of the town. The buildings managed to stay in good condition. The streets had less trash and abandoned cars on it. The only obvious similarity was the people all looked just as hungry and worn out as anyone else in town.

After a half hour they arrived at a five-meter-tall scrap metal wall that encompassed a large area. Lisa couldn't see how far it actually went, but it could have been several blocks. It looked very out of place compared to the town’s buildings and gave her a new perspective to how powerful the Mad Dogs might be. At the base of the wall was a small, barred gate. Several gangsters were lazing around guarding the entrance.

Seeing the two approaching one of them called to them. "Hey Jerry. Who is the chick with you? Don't tell me she's your girl! What trick did you pull to snag her? I know it's not your looks."

The others snickered at this, but Jerry seemed used to this kind of treatment and ignored the comments. "Oh no. She has a meeting with Jackson. So, can you let us through?"

"Jackson huh?" The gangster replied. "Fine, you can go in."

As they stepped into the enclosure, Lisa was interested by the various things she saw. The interior looked nothing like she had anticipated.