Mayday Plays - Doomed to Repeat Ep. 4 - "Verb is the Word"

Episode Date: November 11, 2020

We continue our playthrough of “Reverberations” by Shane Ivey. Our first ‘historical scenario’ begins in 1984’s Detroit. With four days before Devil’s Night, a tradition of arson in the northeast a day before Halloween, agents of F-Cell and their “friendlies” must discover why pushers selling the mysterious hallucinogen known as “Reverb” are going missing. However, nothing is easy on these mean streets, and paranoia and distrust immediately fracture the operation... This episode contains profanity, violence, and references to drug/alcohol use. Published by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this podcast are © Mayday Roleplay, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property. CAST OF CHARACTERS • Aaron - Agent Fluke, FBI • Allegra - Rose Alvarado, Professor at Detroit University • Amanda - Agent Frost, U.S. Marshals • Caleb - Oliver Lake, Journalist at the Detroit News • Eli - “Echo” Blackwood, Owner of Hightower Records • Zakiya - Agent Frogg, DEA • Sergio - The Handler MUSIC & SOUND EFFECTS • Post Sound Supervision: Sergio Crego, Eli Hauschel • Mixed: Eli Hauschel • Original Music: Aaron A. Pabst • Soundstripe (soundstripe.com) DELTA GREEN LINKS • Delta Green (http://deltagreen.com/) • Reverberations (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/218944/Delta-Green-Reverberations?cPath=1459_8165) MAYDAY ROLEPLAY LINKS • Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/maydayrp/) • Twitter (https://twitter.com/maydayroleplay7) • Mayday website (https://www.maydayroleplay.com/) • Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/maydayrp/)

Doom to Repeat is a Delta Green actual play podcast with violent themes and adult language. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to episode four of Doomed to Repeat. I'm Sergio, your handler. I'm Erin A. Papst. I'm Agent Fluke today. I'm Allegra. I'm Rose Alvarado today. I'm Amanda and I am Agent Frost. I'm Caleb and I'm Oliver Lake. I'm Eli and I'm Echo Blackwood.

I'm Sakia and I play Agent Frog. I want to take a moment to recognize my amazing players who have all contributed to making our show. Erin has scored our main theme, Agents Prognosis, and many musical pieces that play within the episodes. Sakia has beautifully rendered our agents and does all the artwork for each episode. Allegra leads our social media presence.

Caleb assists in our graphic designs and logo. Amanda has guided us through our legal and trademarking. And Eli leads our editing and sound design. Thanks to Josue Mendoza for helping us produce two amazing trailers and Josue Sanders for contributions to post audio and music. We also want to recognize everyone whose audio we have licensed and last but not least, you, our listeners.

Thanks again for all your support. It started at the green box. We're in Detroit looking for a heading to get us out of state. But it's just another stack of boxes. More things to sift through. Some stupid shit called Devil's Night. Samuel pocketed something from the boxes, a baggie, a substance. No one seemed to pay attention to that

as they oogled over the research. But I saw. And I hoped to handle the matter quietly as other security members would have been dramas about it. So we grabbed all the info we could and we bunkered down for the night. Samuel is, uh, Samuel's nails. The most Koloche priest I've ever met.

Scattered amongst the items recovered was this crystal. Boomer unboxed it and Sam took it and he was buzzed on him and refused to let it go. I managed to snatch it from him and I admit, I get where he was coming from, but, you know, not time to chase good feelings. Then came the comet. It's not like I don't have any other options anyways.

And just like clockwork, Merritt reacted. Full on search and seizure. Strikingly enough, found another baggie of illicit drugs. And the two decided to scrap them all out all over the hotel. We separated the two and then Sam took whatever was he had found at the green box. Liam, we both know the consequences

of getting involved with the program. My fears, Sam, will learn this lesson by a bullet before anyone can reach him. It's the only reason why I covered my tracks, why I wouldn't leave him behind. Whatever Sam took was strong, so strong that it influences those around him. It gave Merritt a panic attack.

I also need to note that a drug addict in the field is liability, but a green agent, cracking, and one with gun clearance is dangerous. And with an incapacitated agent and the commotion we made, we had to move on to the only other safe place. It was a silent drive back to Lansing. With the proper finangling, I got us onto Abrams Minnesota airport to our hangar.

Though excited to see what the program gifted me for this mission, dealing with Sam and getting the rest for priority. The hangars are based for the time being, after a cramped and unideal night, we got back to the research. Fuck man, this shit's boring. Notes and notes and notes of observation

from some group called F cell. Fluke, Frost, and Frog are the agents, and they have two friendlies, Oliver and Rose. On October 27, 1984, they were drawn to Detroit after a DEA FBI study and covered a drug called Reverb where the drug's pushers were going missing. It was speculated as something discovered by the group in the 60s.

F cell was tasked to investigate. Oliver and Rose are civilians from Detroit. One's a journalist and the other is a research translator of some kind, the snooping types. Their sole purpose is to put F cell in touch with contacts and follow up on leads. It was explicitly clear in the notes filed by F cell that preservation of information

outweighed the friendlies' lives. Isn't that sound familiar? Nice to know where the program gets their mentalities. After gathering what information the DEA had, they began to follow up on reluctant contact provided by Oliver, a record store owner with connections to the Pony Down gang. They hoped his echo would shed some light

on who was supplying Reverb and how. No doubt Reverb is what Samuel ingested. He currently looks fine, but I should keep an eye on him until we figure out why these pushers disappeared. Kona, PS, I put seven bullets into the only thing which might have been able to give me closure. I'm not sure if Marlene knew how to kill those things in the desert.

All I know is that I was too afraid to listen. I'm sorry. So it's Saturday, October 27th, 1984, at about 2.15pm. Agents of F cell, you've wired the friendlies and you are leaving the police station. As you are walking out the door, Agent Woo stops you, Agent Fluke. He's carrying a manila folder.

He hands it to you and he says, here's the missing persons. There's quite a few names on there, but the three important ones are highlighted. Good, good. Thank you. Appreciate that. So you guys walk out of the police headquarters. You're surrounded by Plymouth Furies.

Blue Plymouth Furies that have these single red lights on top. But you know you are going undercover. So you jump into a nondescript vehicle, all five of you, and you head on your way. You guys know that Hightower Records is in the northeast part of Detroit. It's in more of the suburban area. The closest kind of landmark would be the infamous Eight Mile Road.

As you travel to the northeast portion of the city, the downtown transitions into the suburbs. And the suburbs kind of remind you of an urban prairie. You will make a turn onto a street and literally for blocks, there will be empty lots with just overgrown grass and bushes and trees. And occasionally you'll pass a home that either looks like it's being lived in

or it looks like it's been completely blown out. It's missing windows or walls or roofs. And sometimes it's a 50-50 as to which type of home you pass. Sometimes it's hard to tell if the home is blown out, but people are still living in there. Eventually you make your way to a more commercial part of town where there are strip malls and different kinds of stores. Eli, could you describe what Hightower Records

looks like on the outside? Hightower Records is pretty simple. There's two giant open windows in the front area. One that has Hightower Records in a nice little golden textile print. There's one of those pull cage gates that has been pushed open. And just a simple, whole open closed door

with a bell on top of it. It doesn't look like much from the outside. Agents of FSL, how are we proceeding? Okay, so in that case, I think we're gonna kick Agent Frost. We're gonna, I think we're probably gonna send her in first to kind of, you know, scope things out and make sure that we're not gonna be walking a civilian into any fire here.

And Agent Frost, I assume you are dressed in kind of casual street clothes. Sorry, Sergio, I know you try to give me that cop out, but I'm gonna go for it. This is what we're going as. Okay, first off, I am gonna be rocking some nice red shoes, like pumps. We're getting them up, all right?

Now we're gonna have, yes, honey, we're gonna have tight red dress that will go like have a nice, not super v-neck, but just a nest. And then the sleeves are gonna be like, think of it like a rock, like a kind of torn, ripped, a little bit like you would see on a music video for a rock album, like who would be around that time?

I'll think. So think of that. And I'm talking, let's go with the hair is up. It is definitely got some height. It is sprayed, teased. It is, what is it, like, the bigger, oh, Aquanet, thank you. The bigger the hair, the closer to God. That's what we're talking about right now.

This is exactly like the one cop that watched a white striped music video at the time he walked into a record job. I'm not pre-yoked out, y'all. It's just like, I just, she's just got it and she got the makeup. She even got the deep, I don't even know makeup. Why am I describing this?

She's there, she's there to get some records. That's all I'll say. And then she just walks right in. Hey, so, so Agent Frost, are you getting out of the car and going into the store? Yes, I am. So around 2, around 2.45 p.m. Echo, you're sitting behind the desk

and a woman who looks like she's maybe a call girl, maybe a girl who was partying all night and like stayed up and has wandered into your record store walks in and starts kind of looking through the records. I'm watching her the entire time. Yeah, she, I don't see how she doesn't seem completely out of place. She's so out of place.

Not only just for the time of day she's out there, but like I would know all the street girls around my area and she ain't one of them, but I don't say anything. I'm just eyeing her with my shades kind of tilted down just a little bit as I'm watching her. I notice and I kind of do a little nod and wink and then keep going through the records. I just, I just slowly curl a smile at her

and I just keep watching her. Meanwhile, back in the car, I'm assuming that everything in there is going just fine. No problems at all. You are welcome. So our friend, Oliver Lake, I think it's about time that we kick you out the door to go in there and talk to this lady.

Yeah, we had discussed bringing Rose with me because she also knows Echo probably on better terms than myself. You don't mind if she comes with, right? No, why would I? Just making sure. And then I hop out. I'll slide out too.

So Eli, before the friendlies walk into the store, could you give a description of what the interior of Hightower Records looks like and could you describe Echo to us as well? It looks a little bit more spacious on the inside than it is on the outside. It's kind of like a loft looking kind of building. So there's a small upstairs that has like another

just row of collection of records and stuff like that. It's just like aisles of just CDs, records, various accessories. There's tapestries kind of hanged up on the wall, band posters ranging from a bunch of different decades. Like the newer albums that have recently dropped this month are kind of like more towards the front, including the Janet Jackson Dream Street

that has just come out like a couple days prior. And then right near the front is just a wide like long just kind of wrap around counter where she mainly sits and there's like a bunch of other like memorabilia and random other stuff that's kind of in the back that can be sold with people when they come up to the counter. Echo is wearing high-waisted jeans with a thick like black belt.

They're more fitted than like the typical 80s style. They're more of like the 70s like punk type of pants as darker with a folded leg and Doc Martin boots. She's got a red like kind of tank top on with like no bra underneath and an oversized like fleece lined denim jacket. She's got the Madonna teased updo with like the scarf kind of wrapped around the top

with one like dangly earring and a studded earring in the other one. She's got some like green tinted circular shades that she kind of just keeps on the bridge of her nose. She's kind of got darker kinds of makeup on but she's got like these golden eyes shadow that's kind of like streaked over both eyes. She's standing about uh five eight.

She's kind of intimidating. A little bit yeah. A couple minutes later Echo you see the faces of Oliver and Rose step into the to the uh record store. Hi uh hi Echo. I'm reaching for something underneath the counter. I'm taking a few steps back as soon as I'm like using rise.

It's like a barrier in front of me with my hands up. I'm gonna get up for my seat and I have a bat in my hand. I'm gonna chill with the records and kind of just stare what's going on. Now I know what you're gonna do. I know what you're trying to do. I know that you want to have a conversation and not one that involves a bat.

I know the bat is more for show right right. Echo we've been through a lot right. I just keep walking forward towards him with the bat to stare at him. Echo I mean this is a unique opportunity for you and I to become friends again to employ some some tactics that involve you and I keeping the peace right right.

It's Detroit we want to keep the peace right. Did you enjoy the world series Oliver. I loved it Tigers one we could go better right. Well I'm up to bat man. I take the bat and I just swing it at him. Can I can I hear oh yeah we can hear this. Can I can I speak to to to Oliver. Can I just hear I'll say it's one way.

You can hear what's going on though. So Echo are you swinging possibly hitting Rose at the same time. I I stop just for a second and then I realize that Rose is there and now I'm like a little confused but I stop. Hey I just wanted to thank you for that. That album recommendation.

I know it's a little it's a little outdated. It came out a couple years ago but the English beat that was really good. Yeah. Yes. Rose I'm sorry why are you here and why are you with him. And could you take could you take like five steps to the side. I don't I don't think I want to be responsible for this man's

brains on the. Yeah I don't want that either. Rose I love you you've been a wonderful patron. But if you don't move five steps out of the way. I'm not going to be responsible for what happens. What about what about new music. Can you tell me I'm you ignore him. He's you know he's just he's just a he's just a reporter.

Tell me about music tell me. Yeah he's just a reporter. I'm going to push Rose out of the way. I'm going to resist. All right so let's make an opposed strength check. Strength times five. Meanwhile back in the car I'm just saying well they sound like they're in trouble but no one said Twinkie yet.

So I guess we're going to keep sitting here. Yeah we'll just let this play out I think. Failed with an 80. I also failed with an 80. Oh wow who who has the who is the higher skill and strength. I have the 60% in strength. She beats me we only have 50. Yeah I'm going to say that you are.

Yeah I think that. Basically Echo is in the like trying to push Rose and Rose is resisting just enough. It's becoming a little bit of a scene. Is there anything new is there new music. I really like what's playing. What's playing right now. Can you tell me about it.

Who is it. I know I already gave you this album. I really liked it. Rose let go of that. Please I just want to talk to you real quick. I swear it's something good this time and then I'll leave. I'll go. I'll go as soon as we talk.

You don't get to talk to me. Do you know what the fuck you did. Do you know how much you fucked me. You don't understand how fucked I am. I got one hit on me. I got a bang deep on my balls. I got the police harassing me. Where the fuck I go.

I'm essentially fucked because of you. I'm real sorry about your balls. But you knew what you were getting into when you got in with me. Okay. I made it pretty clear. I'm going to let go the bat since Rose is holding on to it. I'm just going to go and try to punch Oliver in the face. Also I'll say you can reach and try to hit him.

Over the shoulder. So Oliver you can attempt to dodge. You know what I'm just going to I'm going to let her have it. Yeah. I think it went this but like you know let's let's. I think Echo's earned this. Okay. Just take it.

I think Ollie knows that too. So punch away. I'm going to hay make him. Did you succeed. Yes I succeed. Over 24. Okay great. I believe you roll a d4 minus one.

That's a three. Oh that's a holy shit. You get cold clocked in the in the eye Oliver. As I do that I turn to Rose. I grab my bat and I walk her back to the counter. And I just start asking her a bunch of other stuff. So actually I was hoping to see you a little bit. Janet Jackson.

All right. Dream Streets. Jess dropped. No one can go wrong with the Jacksons. I think this is our way into getting you into some problems. Ollie I trust you. You know that. I'll try anything.

I go and like sit down. At the counter. Okay. Any anything that the agents in the car want to do. As we come to them. I mean I would normally charge in. To break up the fight. But I kind of want to see where this goes.

And no one said Twinkie. So I'm just sitting there. I'm going to take this time to. Especially when I see him like getting ready to go. Important note. One of the people that may or may not be joining us today. Actually is on our side. So don't mess with Tony.

Just let Tony be. Who. He's a part of Pony Down. His name is Tony Bezos. He's important to us. Right. Just don't shoot him. Why not.

He's one of us. And she like gestures to her uniform. Like an agent or like FBI. No no no no. DA. Okay. I will try not to shoot him. But I make no promises.

All right. It shouldn't be a matter. It's a pretty small hole. Just don't focus. I wasn't going to open with gunfire if. Are you sure? Because you've because you've threatened people twice. Justifiably.

Okay. Just in case. I haven't shot anybody. I've just threatened them. There's a big difference. The fact that that is notable is why I'm saying it. Whatever. All right.

So we're back in the record store. Echo besides music. I have a I have a question for you. Okay. I know how connected you are. In certain circles around here. Have you a I'm going to try and like lean a little closer and keep my voice down.

Have you heard of pushers going missing? That's odd. I didn't know you were interested in that kind of stuff. You know me. I like I'm about everything. I like being involved with the community. Uh huh. I'm looking back at Ollie and then.

He's just painfully holding his left eye. And it's starting to swell. Stop crying about it. I'm sorry about that. You're fine with your life. I'll be quieter. Doing so well. Thanks.

I mean Ms. Rose I don't really know who you think I am. But I don't know. Echo I've seen you talking to folks of all walks of life. Just a member of my community. Why wouldn't I want to be friendly with anybody else. But I've seen how you talk to them. And how. And how would that be.

There's a certain familiarity that most folks don't have with members of the Pony Down Gang. I'm assuming if you know them and you've offered them certain privileges within your walls. Maybe they're helping you in a certain way as well. You know that's a little bit too information you know about me there was. I've just I've just watched it. I'm not much of a much of a talker with people but I do like watching. I want to see the the the random lady who's in the store since she's the only one in there and that I don't recognize.

Yeah what is this random lady doing at this point. She's like again because she's not trying to draw attention because she knew it's like all right she wasn't going to take it. Let's highlight one part trying not to draw attention okay continue. I'm drawing attention in certain ways to be disarming because you don't expect a chicken a red dress to go fuck you up. Definitely disarming. This is like before the Terminator and Sam Connor took off so that's how I'm going with it.

So I lost okay so I am going through the records and I'm going to see I don't know we got going through it oh okay let's grab something from Twisted Sister and I'm going to kind of like grab a couple other albums that I'm looking to buy but keeping my eyes on those two. Hey honey are you buying or are you uh you just perusing because if you're perusing I need you out. No I I'm really kind of liking this one band right here the Twisted Sisters I'm thinking of that. Twisted Sisters. Yeah do you also have anything like with Joan's butt at all? Down a couple aisles title Joan J.

Can you make it quick I'm about to close shot. Yeah it's under the J's. Okay. Fucking fudgers right it was a great plan. Hey Ollie are you gonna are you just gonna sit there on the floor are you gonna come over here. I was waiting for your call. Yeah do I have permission to approach the bench. Right now you do okay before I change my mind.

Yeah of course I pick myself up and I walk over and I'm keeping that distance away from her. So what's up what's going on I've never seen you two together in my life. Yeah you know it must be something with the water especially with people like these around huh and I make a very pointed look at her but uh you know strange circumstances with everything coming around uh you know what what Rose is asking you about is what I came to ask you about. I just want to know if maybe you and I can talk maybe you can give me some information I know you'd like. Information man I can't give you more information fuck you mean I can't even have you really hear. What if I told you that that information was very important to Detroit.

Much bigger than me and I know I said that last time but this this time is true it's so much bigger than me there's nothing. You know truthfully Ollie you say that you're really for Detroit but at the end of the day you leave Detroit high and dry. Sure you got your fucking story out man but who's gonna watch me I got the devil's breathing down my doorstep do you know what happens in four days. Yeah yeah I know what happens in four days that's why I'm here. Fucked. What if I could keep you safe. You can't keep me safe man. I can't but I know people who can. There's nobody else in Detroit besides who I already work with that can keep me safe at this point and I'll be lucky to come out with my night. Okay you're right you're right but

maybe I know some people who aren't from here and maybe that's the reason why me and Rose are here and what would these out of towners want. To fix some things. You're speaking so vague man I can't even begin to even extend just. I know I'm not used to it any more than you are but this is what I got and this is what I gotta do so maybe you let that person buy some twisted sister and then we talk. All right. Hey honey are you done you picked something up. I gotta close the shop I gotta leave. Found it. Walk right up to the front put the albums down. Start ringing it up. What's your name I've never seen you before. I'm Tiffany. Tiffany I'm from San Diego I'm just here for travel in the world. I'm trying to go. Trying to follow Canada Jackson on tour. Yeah you like in

Canada Jackson and you're buying a twisted sister. Oh that's interesting. I like all kinds of music. Yeah yeah you like in Detroit so far. I mean it's not bad it's better. What you're hoping to visit. Actually that's a great point where should I go. Oh you could go to the Joe Louis arena maybe they got a game on. You like sports. I. Who's your favorite team. Oh the. Were you in here for the World Series maybe. Okay back in the car. I hear this I hear this going on and I say to Agent Frog well now the witness the distraction is talking to the person that needed that is the distraction is distracting the the the actor here. So let's let's go let's get in there. This is going this is agent fluke. I will remind you you guys have pagers.

There are ways of communicating. Agent fluke definitely knows that there's no cell phones. I'll go outside. They're on the corner. I'll dial agent frosts pager. Easy enough easy enough and just as you're kind of finished paying your bill agent frost you get a buzz. Oh my god I have to go now. I'm so sorry thank you. Yeah it's nice to meet you Tiffany. Maybe you'll see you right. I'll do a little wave wink and out the door. So once she is completely out of sight right immediately like goes and he's pointing at the wire underneath his shirt he's pulling it free showing it immediately. Like a movement like same here. Echo you see Oliver's mic and you see Rose pointing at herself as well. So like I was saying there's a lot going on and they want to help

Detroit and I think they're they're going to do a lot for the city especially in those four days and they can keep you safe they're good people. They're eccentric they're not going to tell us a lot and I need a lot of information but they're going to help you and me. I know I've said this early in times but we're going to help. Ollie you're probably the stupidest person I know. I know. The stupidest person in Detroit city. Sort of god. I know I know that's why they love me so much here. You sure about that. I hit right in. Echo I need your help. More so let's be real. Rosie needs your help. You got five minutes. Thank you. All right. Oh shit. Ollie I think you're I walk at any point. That's fair.

Fuck Ollie where do we start. I mean the pushers you know I've been hunting and I'm sure you've heard about the street and everything that I've been trying to find information about this but I know that people are going missing and I need to know who what where and why. I also need to know whether you'd be willing to talk to some people. That aren't me. We don't blame you if that's not the case but they already know where you are and if you talk with us it might be safer easier I don't know. Is that are you threatening me? Like I don't understand what you're saying. No it's not a threat it's just they know where you are and if you're alone you don't have the resources you have with us and we can work together for

Detroit the way we want to and not the way they want to. Sounds like I don't have a choice. Yeah yeah no don't it. It kind of feels that way huh. You're not wrong but it's a good thing I promise you they're good people they're gonna take care of us. Okay I can't talk here. Are you on talk? I can talk in an hour studio overgrown. Oh okay yeah yeah we can go there. I just want to know what you know. I can't promise you that I know anything worthwhile. You're just totally fine. It's totally fine. Only you two come. Only us? I'm not interested in meeting your friends. Gotcha I'll let them know. Meanwhile outside I'm just shaking my head back and forth and looking at Agent Frost disappointedly and just saying that was a

fucking disaster. See do you not understand what he literally just did though like think of it this way they're supposed to be our allies on this mission and he not only brought attention but kept asking me questions to purposely get me out of this store so don't trust these assholes. Oh wait I'm who's talking about shooting them. Whoa whoa wait no no no it's just I'm that seems to be the bar for seriousness around here. I apologize I got a little frustrated this is not normally my forte. How are we gonna walk how are we gonna get in in uh because I'm already been marked are you gonna go in tonight when they go into this bar? Um is that you? I'm assuming we're just listening to them have the conversation about the bar right now and and

I'll tell her well I wish we had saved that disguise for the bar. Wait that's what I originally did that. Well I guess I'll have to go into the bar now. It's fine I'll scope the perimeter I'll look for all the exits and entrance width and I will I think that would be best. I think so too. I'll be in a roof across the street if need be looking in on you guys. All right I can hold it down in the car. Before they go I'm gonna go I'm gonna go grab a piece of paper from under the counter I'm gonna write the words circle back here and hand it to Oliver. I'll look him in the eye one hour studio over ground. Yeah. Just use it. Don't fuck me Ellie. Yeah thank you. Can I get that Janet Jackson or are you still mad at me? Here I go and I go under the counter because I had it

saved specifically for her and I ring her up and I hand it to her. You're the best you're gonna pull me into the right decade. The fuck out of my store. As we walk out as we walk out before we get to the car before we're like an ice out of the car I'm just gonna reach over and squeeze his hand really tight once and then let go. All right. Yeah we got this we got this. F cell you see your friendlies approaching. I roll down the window and motion for them to get into the car. I slide in and you know the first thing out of my mouth is hey I told you guys she'd look like a cop. I told you not look like a cop. I look like a hooker. I did not look like a cop. Oh I'm telling you that was read a mile away was the first thing out of the mouth. The hooker is a more kind word.

Hooker's a little derogatory. I'm sorry what was that? Probably a kinder way to discuss them if you want to. Names aside well I kind of feel like we we blew the sanctity of our undercover operation here pretty badly so let's talk about what we're gonna do going into this what you're gonna just you Oliver that's gonna go just you too. Well here's the thing I'm comfortable with one of you guys coming in but obviously Echo doesn't want to meet you guys so if you guys want to come in and you want to listen while we talk. Yeah Agent Frog and I'll go inside. Yeah if I do go inside I'm probably gonna hang back because I know half the people in the town. I forgot about that right as a police officer so it's not gonna be great. Well then again that whole if they can tell your

cops they don't want to talk. Yeah are we are we dumb it's wack. Well good thing we're not doing the talking but anyway Agent Frog you should maybe stay on the car and monitor things. Oh yeah yeah I'll be uh twinkie um but yeah the wires are done and she'll start like. Wires are done. Thank you. And angling the wire off. Okay so let's friendly as an F cell let's have a moment of transition where we decide what to do and we go do it. We're going straight to the club does anyone want to change. We got to be there in an hour I think that yeah I think we've got one person that definitely wants to change. I mean we have an hour we can probably go set up inside Agent Frost you can I don't know find some convenience store to change in or whatever. I already had a bag

because when we travel like I just already have a bag we do just pull over someplace nearby really quick for me to just with a sink really quick just to get the hair thing back tied up I just need like 25 minutes. So you brought that stuff you brought that stuff in a bag? Well yeah like change of clothing that I already have like. Does that mean that dress that dress comes with you on every mission? Well think of it this way I asked for something from evidence or something like that. Ah okay fair enough fair enough I don't know if that's worse but who knows. I think it's worse. It's worse. Okay so it's it's it's about say it's about 3.30 when you get to the club the club is a night club it is currently closed but you do see that

there is a elephant door where looks like the band that is going to be playing tonight is kind of loading in there does seem to be people that work here that are kind of attending to things they're bringing food in they're bringing drinks in looks like there's some people that are kind of cleaning up the interior so there does seem to be employees but it's not technically open right now. Okay well we'll just sit in the car and wait for Agent Frost to return then. Okay sure enough you know she comes back we just need to know what the plan is. Do we I'm so we said we were to have this conversation in an hour do we see like a placard or anything on the club that says when they they open. You don't see a placard no it's it's kind of a non-descript building the only

thing that stands out is the the sign for studio over ground but you don't see a placard. I mean one way or the other we're going to go in there eventually so I don't feel a need to to ask when when it opens because either way we're just sitting here until it it does so I guess I mean I guess unless anybody else has anything else that needs to be discussed I guess we'll just wait. Yeah Agent Fluke I had a question for you if you don't mind I know you're scoping the place out what is it you want me to ask her once we're in there. I mean we just she's a connection to these pushers that have gone missing so just focus it on that. I don't even know you don't need to mention drugs or or even a specific gang or anything we just want to know who these pushers are maybe

who their suppliers are actually preferably if you can figure out anything about the supply chain that that fuels these pushers so we can go hunting for the source that would be good to ask but just make no you know you spend a lot of time in that record store just kind of flim flamming around just once you get in there make sure you go straight in for that that hard shot. I'm sorry but you work with me before you know that flim flam is half the job. Whatever but listen you know my my process works you don't have to worry about that but I'm going to get you the information you need I am going to suggest something to you I hope you're all right with that. I keep an open mind. I think you ought to bring Echo into this and I think I ought to try

I know that you guys are pretty particular about who you brought in I know when you first met me you were probably thinking about killing me. No of course not never never would I consider that yeah ever all right all right no um but I mean what do you mean bring her in like bring her along yeah yeah that's exactly what I mean in the same capacity capacity that that you're bringing me and Rose along I miss Alvarado sorry you're you're gonna miss out if you don't have her in this car or you don't have her with you because she knows a whole hell of a lot about these streets a lot more than I do I know a lot I don't know nearly as much as she does she's a repository of information man if there's a use for her as long as the value proposition is there I don't see why we

want to bring her along understood I got you covered then okay well then we'll wait for the club to open oh Sergio really quick what is this neighborhood look like like can you give me like it's kind of more of the same it's a little bit closer to downtown but it doesn't necessarily mean it's better it's a it's a commercial district there are neighborhoods kind of surrounding this area the buildings that are near this nightclub that what I'm asking I'm trying to like during this time I'm going to have like frost kind of just like walk the block and look the perimeter is there any like something nearby that I would notice like different exits oh is there something through like is there a roof door entrance down into the club that's what I'm trying to like is there

another building I can look into down you see the front entrance it's like a two-door glass to two glass doors the the back entrance has an exit and also this elephant bay door where it seems like bans load in and things like that you don't see any other entrances besides that you do see that this building along with some of the surrounding buildings do have fire escapes on the exterior that you could theoretically climb one of them and there are buildings surrounding this building that are of the same level if not occasionally you know a story higher got you got you got you okay I was going to say like the way I see it I was like I was already walking by the time he's in this car like as soon as they finish their conversation up in the car I'm just going to

knock on the window and I'm going to be like I'm going to go and station myself up on the building like to the left of it next to it use the fire escape and I'm going to watch you guys from above yeah about that what do you remember that disguise you were just wearing just now yes the one the the lovely red dress yes we might need to have you put that back on after oh we're done talking to this woman oh so wait a minute is I just realized that we are at a music club which is a place where I understand a lot of drugs get done right so I'm thinking after this interview you can reprise your role as the backstreet hooker to maybe go ask some people about the drug so you need me to put on again my amazing outfit

earlier but you gave me so much crap for I will do yes yes I do I okay I want this to be a space where we all feel free to sort of express ourselves and pitch our ideas but you just called this a music club and that makes me nervous I guess you yeah about sort of the heat that you're bringing here to this place I know I'm are you calling me old not even old just strange from like a place of love I'll say it they can meet up here in an hour for sure but if we're trying to investigate this place as somewhere where these pushers might be we definitely are going to have some downtime and if if that's like I said the heat that you're bringing I'm I feel like I might have a better chance you don't want to waste six hours we have other things to check out during the day hours as

well yes but let's focus let's focus on the task at hand and then we'll figure out what to do from there what would you trust us to to go by ourselves while you follow other avenues well I can hear everything that you say I can't imagine this is going to take that long yeah frog was saying we don't have to wear them this time no so we're gonna stick around them I mean we're gonna be close by I mean this can't be this conversation can't take that long is there any way I could like break for lunch I haven't eaten all day I guess help me I guess so you know when you'd stop me at the car with the guns and all I was gonna go get a bite sure well a pasty sure but then we all probably should but let's you know I mean like I said this conversation what more than 30 minutes

I can't imagine well we just get it done and then we can you know we'll figure out what we're not supposed to be here they're not even going to chat with them for an hour so we might as well just go get some food game plan and then some of us will go back with the friendlies really quick and then the others can go investigate other shit sure it's I don't know what's my McDonald's oh what's good around here sure we check the map I feel like Chinatown because what Chinatown has bad food well I mean we need to go to Chinatown anyway okay but we only have an hour so let's just let's just grab you know something nearby while we wait okay I think that's easy enough you find a restaurant that everyone can agree to eat at you have a very awkward quiet lunch it's about four now

I'll sling my backpack over my shoulder I need the ladies room I'll be I'll be back in a bit thanks of course and I'm going to try and find my back way out of this bitch I'll just look at her weird as she moves that's it okay that's it um Rose you step into the bathroom and there is in fact um a window that kind of pops out and you think that with a little with a little work you could probably get out boy all right not built for this let's try it oh man okay just give me a dex check let's go let's Rosie's dex up in here Rosie is not a physical being oh better than I thought actually all right dex times five oh oh no Rose crit fails with a 99 she is not a physical being oh no do you hear it break the window you you slide out of the window

but that crit fail is for the fact that you just land on your side and you are going to take two points of damage um I mean it you are the wind is knocked out of you you're literally kind of sitting there frozen for a moment and you can't even tell you might have cracked a rib or something okay this is fine this is so fun this is very fine this is okay and I'm gonna really gingerly get up and like shift my backpack to my to the good side of my of my body and try and get myself together and not breathe too deep and head toward high tower records okay you would know Rose that the fastest way would either be to call a cab or to jump on the I'll take I'll take a cab I'm gonna go I'm gonna walk like a street away and take a cab

okay I think that's easy enough to do agents while you guys are having your lunch finishing up paying the tab you notice that Rose is not returned from the bathroom shit I'm gonna go check the bathroom yeah you do that you you walk in and there is a window that is wide open that's what I thought this might as well happen all okay I'm gonna walk back where we had lunch all right so it seems like we've kind of walked into a bit of a recess understandably so considering how this day went I don't know where Rose is Rose is gone if that was not clear oh shit yeah well we don't have time to go clean it up right now but after we're done with everything else we're gonna have to stop by and clean that up yeah no we can we can find her we got people

I can find her but I guess if she's gonna take an hour would you also Ollie would you like to sort of have a recess as well uh yeah it kind of feels like one of us is getting sent to the principal's office and the other one gets to told class is over but if that's the plan let's do it I got some things to accomplish great hey you're gonna like find her right because I don't know if this shit gets out I mean Fluke you told me all about this last time like it's bad right of course we're gonna find her that's not that's not gonna be a problem yeah okay I'm gonna head then is there anyone that could drop me off in my car maybe I mean we only have the one vehicle right now sorry I'll hail a cab then you know no worries I'm easy to work with right all right you can say

hey I don't I don't wear slutty dresses so you can you can knock that one off my list right all right um you guys have a good day I gotta tell you where some better lunch spots are next time I mean no fence frog this is nice but we'll try better um yeah all right uh you guys have my pager so just hit me up F cell you find yourself alone in this restaurant as he leaves I'm just gonna say what an asshole it's it's fine he he didn't make the dress oh okay so I can't help but feel like we just left both let both of our assets run away here we didn't let them run away we gave them time so it didn't feel like we kidnapped them which is important I don't know when we not kidnapped them that's the thing is we did and I don't know when

the last time you all worked with regular sort of lay people but if you if you do that they don't tell you shit it's just we know what we're in guys let's just I don't see like I I don't I don't know why we let's just go ahead and we can you know what no I'm just sorry I'm getting a little tired and cranky and frustrated I'm I apologize it was the dress I understand yeah well I mean it's like we've really done the last we got our like we're walking around with our heads like the chickens with their heads cut off like guys I'm not the brains of the operation what do we do next if we have a couple of hours then I'll you know I'll get everybody back in the car there's a plan in Chinatown that I think is connected to the drug that I'd like to go check out if we could go do

that sounds good okay so okay and we'll we'll we'll drive over the Chinatown while we're waiting for the families beautiful we'll cut away from you guys Rose we know that you are probably heading to high tower records and uh Oliver what are you up to I am off to high tower records as well okay the cab so we'll say about 20 30 minutes later it's getting closer to five that you arrived back at high tower is do I get there first I'm assuming okay unlock on the door I'll uh see that it's rose and I'll unlock the door and uh I climbed out of window I climbed out of window I'm not are you what happened come here um climbed out of a window come come come let me let me sit you down somewhere I just yeah I sit her just kind of climb out of the bathroom window that's stupid

right uh echo you you you roll up her shirt echo and you can see that likes her whole left ribcage is like uh it's it's bruised heavily uh hold on a second um I go into my back and I would have like a first aid kit of some kind and I'll try to attempt to do something are you proficient with the first aid skill yes 30 percent me too oh great okay go ahead and attempt to uh use some first aid I'll say that you can have a what is your score uh rose I also have a 30 okay I'll say you get a plus 20 to that roll sweet I got a 32 awesome so you may roll a d4 and uh rose you start feeling a little bit better it's a four hell yeah back up to fall oh thank you echo you're welcome but I gotta ask you what the fuck is going on what are you involved in it's around this time

that Oliver comes through the front door did he put you up to this no no he didn't it's not him it's not his it's it's I left him I sorry I'm sorry Ali no you're fine are you okay they don't have a fucking window it's rosey holy fucking oh it looks terrible holy shit this is insane this is fucking insane what the fuck is this I'm gonna go lock my front door yeah you guys all right you guys got your shit together for a second here no no it's not it's not it's bad are you are you uh are you uh you know so why are you still why is that no no no we're good we're good I don't know one of them they're from Detroit they just let them stick them off I don't know what the fuck they were thinking oh it's an agent frog

it's the only the only one I feel like we can oh god Ali this is stupid this is so fucking stupid rose you left for half a second I thought he was gonna shoot me they just let me go fuck I'm sorry I'm sorry he gave me this look I didn't like you that was so stupid I should have told you what I was doing no you're fine you're fine look at me you're doing so good you're doing so good look at everything we learned echo echo we got it we got to fill you in we got to tell you everything um before we continue echo do you have any human intelligence yes 50% I think it's enough echo you were a little unclear earlier as to why the hell these people work together but they're they're embracing each other they're holding each other

it's very clear they're in some kind of relationship echo we got to tell you some things we got to let you in because we know you're like us and you want to do the right thing okay I'm just kind of like holding on to the front of Ali's coat and like squinching it in my hand and trying to like chill the fuck out because I'm fucking shaking cut it by the the shoulders in the back and y'all are just trying to calm her down and breathe with her y'all are so stressful sorry why don't why don't we just go into my office from the back yeah so yeah I'll I'll leave them into the back into my my office it's kind of like a cluttered space but I take a seat at the at the desk so uh what the fuck why am I here why are you here why are you crying at

each other why are you hugging each other this way I'm very confused all I know is that you're Narcan and I don't know why and I don't know why you're at my doorstep about Narcan so we're not Narcan it's like the opposite we're never Narcan you know me I don't I don't know it's so far from Narcan so from the top maybe echo yeah yeah yeah so so have you ever heard of you heard a g-men right of course I've heard of g-men fuck all right well these are are the most capital fucking g-men you could possibly have we are so far far past the feds that I can't even breathe under feds but over feds and uh they're yeah but they're everything they're secret they're they're the the book man they're men in black and what is it that they do they do sort of both bad terrible things and good

things look in a couple years ago I met up with them and I was a hunt down a case and we had those weird thunderstorms over Detroit for like weeks and we had no idea what was happening and I found one of them and they brought me in and now they're back in the city and they're investigating that drug you know what I'm talking about right no echo come on fuck you fuck you man oh fuck you dude you're telling me you got some like fucking ghostbuster ass motherfuckers like just like knocking down on my doorstep wiring you showing up and now you've added me by name now they know where the fuck I am fuck you listen to me this isn't some fucking bill Murray bullshit don't give me that look at me this is something so far bigger than anything I've ever done in my career

that I can't even tell you what's gonna happen next they're here they're investigating this drug and it's got something to do with with a cult inside of Detroit some people that are pushing some people that are trying to get the answers inside of Detroit and that's why the pushers went missing so some pushers were pushing too hard and I guess they found something they shouldn't they um they said it had okay here's the thing these people are they are doing what they think is the right thing but they're not they're if you're not useful to them you're dead and

and Ollie they they basically said that if if if they need to they'll um they'll uh they'll get rid of us and so we pulled Echo into that but but but but Echo you're so useful you you know so much you know so much about what's going on underneath everything and and and with almost every part of the city and they'll they'll keep you around they'll they'll keep you useful but but this isn't this isn't a normal gang thing this this is something this is something weird and scary there's a book they had me translate last time they were here and and and and it's it's it's to do with this and I can't feel my hands right now but I'm good breathe breathe do you breathing I'll shut the fuck up I love you but shut the fuck up I'm sorry so what

drug are you talking about reverb a reverb are the ponies pushing that I thought they were are they nah ponies haven't touched it yet you know who has all right all right yeah yeah I know who's pushing it it's only one pushing it I want to share that information with the class oh all I know is that the arrow flins have been pushing it I've been slanging it last month or so okay and they're the only ones so far I mean do you know where they got it nah sure all I know is that the arrow flins were kind of struggling last few months with crack coming into the streets and stuff like that and then then primary money was heroin they've lost a lot of money in a short amount of time and they've need to find a way to rebuild that revenue so they started pushing reverb all right

so so we we got a direction we got something to give them if I'm stuck doing this and if you're basing my worth on what I know then you know Ali well it doesn't matter but you know I don't do shit for free it don't matter it don't matter who it don't matter if it's a g-man ghost busters or anything in between I don't do shit for free you gotta help you gotta help me if you want anything more than what I just gave you what do you need well I I'm basically working public cable and I'm the least favorite investigator a journalist inside all of Detroit I'm not exactly making boo-coop up bucks over here echo well I'm not gonna talk anymore unless somebody helps me with something I got on the back end something that's kind of involving this

well we have these resources kind of what what do you need my cousin Luca went missing two weeks ago I thought it was involving your shit but sounds like it might be something else he mentioned once or twice something about reverb I thought at first he was just dicking around told him not to really dabble with that shit but as far as I know he was honoring it but he didn't show up and I and that's odd you know I mean Luca does a lot of shit but you know there's there's only one thing he'll he'll never do and that's not show up for Cece not when he's got his little girl you help me find Luca I'll tell you what you need okay where was he last time you saw him okay we can do that last time you talked to

him I guess uh here usually stops by at least once a week is he is he uh hanging out with anyone in particular you shouldn't uh I mean more than the usual suspects not that I know of use the usual bout but yeah I haven't seen him two weeks okay yeah yeah we can do something about that echo I just want to tell you I I didn't really know I didn't know how much was on the line I didn't know they were planning on killing us yet I knew something was in the pike but I didn't know I was putting your your life on the line like that but I also know that you live for this as much as you say you hate me and and more than that it's it's us it's not them it's gonna be us and I want you to be a part of that this could be huge imagine if we took everything inside of this case imagine

if we took every bit of truth that came out of whatever the fuck this is and we brought it to the people who told the story about these g-men with true evidence with everything that you and I had I mean forget your fucking name we could rewrite Detroit we could rewrite the United States Ollie they're gonna kill us before we get half that far that's what I'm I'm saying we we gotta be a united front we have to realize that first is survival and then is the truth we have to do this for ourselves we we gotta watch each other's backs we gotta have a plan and we gotta know that we can't trust any of them we can only trust each other I know I'm I'm getting on my soapbox but there's so much that that the three of us can do that we have already done and there is a

unique opportunity here we find Luca we find out about reverb we find out about these three black-suited fuckers and we release whatever information we have about whatever this cult is whatever this drug is after we make it out we're not gonna let them get us and that's it you know I really hate your optimism Ollie I really do and the fact you think that truth is gonna be the answer to everybody's problems but whatever as long as you meet my ends I don't give a fuck yeah okay back okay you know we kind of tried doing this sorry all right well um I guess we probably need to find them again do you know where where they are now or where they're gonna be later or should we just should we just go ahead and meet them at the club I mean that was the last place I knew

we were gonna be it'll be hard for them to shoot either of us in the middle of a crowded bar right but did you guys actually go to the club they drove us there and then we those idiots said that the club was gonna be open it's hilarious yeah they did one of them called it a music club how old is he I'm not like 50s I don't know to be honest he's like ancient he could be you know brand new and he could be as old as time I don't fucking know so you're you need a phone or something I got a phone uh what are we doing yeah let's do that I'll lead them back to the first storefront where there's the phone that's attached to the counter Oliver you you dial the number uh agent fluke uh while you guys are in Chinatown so the three agents you pull into Chinatown

Chinatown in Detroit is really more like a a couple of blocks of a street but you know there's the decorative classic Chinese decorations and things like that you park you kind of walk up and down the blocks and you see that there are things like grocery stores restaurants tea shops what would you like to do so you say tea shops is that like any any like like kind of almost um I'm keeping my eye open for anything that looks like an eat like a Chinese medicine kind of shop is that that yeah you absolutely you know though there are some billboards that are in Chinese you see you know the the classic images of like body pain being healed foot foot massages that kind of things there's evidence of acupuncture and and candles and incense and things like that it looks like that

okay well while we're kind of just aimlessly looking around at some point I'll kind of like you know either in the car or outside and trying to keep my voice down say that everybody else DEA records indicate that this drug reverb is derived from a a Chinese plant or a plant with the Chinese origin called Liao Liao and I figure if we can trace that ingredient back to its source or if we can find a place that's selling it we'll be one step closer to figuring out how this stuff is trickling down through the streets and hopefully be able to shut it off right of its source all right do we know I guess we don't know anything else about it then we don't know what it's used for normally or legally I think we're probably gonna gonna want to start at the tea shop I'm agent

frog do you know anything about the culture here are they I guess I don't really know what I'm asking I just don't want to be you know I don't want to be the guy from out of town charging in there you know I think it's gonna be weird that the rainbow coalition comes in asking about something specific but I think if we're cool about it it should be fine and she takes her jacket off that clearly says DEA on it and leaves it in the car I don't notice what maybe just turn that inside out or or leave it but if we come in there look if we look like we're investigating they're not anything I sure so I'll take the jacket off leave it in the car okay so we'll we'll walk into the into the tea shop and I'm gonna turn on the radio so got it

agent fluke and frog you walk into this tea shop smells nice smells like incense there are several glass display tables with different kinds of teas and in little little bowls there's an incense burning it's kind of dimly lit in here and you see a man he is Chinese maybe in his very early 40s he notices you so hello welcome how can I help you guys yeah we're just we're looking for something kind of specific don't really want to get into why but would you per chance um sell liao I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly uh how do you spell it uh l i a o he he kind of chuckles and looks around it says lao okay uh that's interesting I I can't help but ask how you how you know about lao um we read about it uh in a book on uh on Chinese medicine

and it looked uh it looked beneficial well um the short answer is no I don't have any lao to be honest most Chinese don't like lao why well actually if you don't mind I have my my grandmother back here but maybe I can bring her up and she might be interested in talking more to you about this if she has any information about lao we'd love to talk to her she she told me stories growing up and I think maybe you might want to hear it from her if she doesn't mind one second yeah he goes to the back and brings forward in a wheelchair of an old Chinese woman that looks ancient I mean she is just she's just a big wrinkled raisin but she smiles at you she doesn't seem to speak a lick of English but um he's kind of translating between you guys and he mentions to her lao and she kind

of perks up and you know prunes her face at him and says something and he responds and after a moment of going back he says yeah so my grandmother uh she's from mainland uh and she lived uh in the north in the in the northern portions of shino there's a lot of mountains there's a there's an area there where lao comes from that's where as far as I know from what she's telling me it's the only place where it comes from um but to answer your question from earlier the reason most Chinese folks don't use it or don't uh well how do I explain this uh okay uh lao is used in ceremonies but only a specific kind of people use it he asks the he asks his grandmother she responds and he seems kind of offended and he kind of talks to her and he says there are these mountain people

that that live in the north my grandmother calls them yuqi and that translates to people with the dagger grin so needless to say she doesn't really like them but she says that these yuqi they use lao uh in ceremonies and things like that uh apparently it's made from like a flower like a lotus and when you have it in a tea you drink it and it's supposed to give you visions of uh visions of the past visions of premonitions of what is to come again this is stories that my grandmother told me I I never had lao myself getting back to the original point the reason why most Chinese don't really like lao is there's this rumor that if you abuse it something comes for you like what well he he starts talking to her for a moment trying to get the exact words

and he's like I it's a little hard to translate but in in buddhist teachings in sanskrit there's this word called preta p-r-e-t-a it's sanskrit for a hungry spirit folks that that abuse lao will sometimes see it and if it sees them it takes them away so there's this um there's this meditation that the gurus do that kind of combats this you you meditate on a you meditate on on on a a circular room a place without angles and it's supposed to confuse and and distract the spirit i know it sounds crazy but that's that's the simple answer about why most chinese folks don't mess with lao so what you're it sounds like what you're telling me is that that might be something that we have well it sounds like you're telling me we're looking in the wrong place well i mean

if you're if you're trying to get off uh yes you're looking in the wrong place because i i don't have lao but um geez i i i don't know anybody in town at least in the chinese community that would have something like that like i said it's you know i'm not saying this my grandma's saying it but like lower class people use that you know the mountain people interesting okay well um we're thankful for for the story uh and uh i'm just gonna i'm gonna leave you my number and if you know you happen to hear about any yeah that we could we could potentially purchase um we're just you know um actually i i remember now also um this whole legend is kind of uh it kind of revolves around the black lotus uh that's what they call lao it's another nickname for it it's kind of loosely

connected to to this pagan god called shukoran spelled s h u k o r a n uh maybe look it up and then you'll you might learn a little bit about the about the history of it okay at the very least you've um you've given us some stuff to look up at the library um so thank you one more thing actually do you have anything for anxiety oh yes i i have some lovely teas for for anxiety sure and he he takes you right over to uh a whole section dedicated to de-stressing teas perfect uh she's just gonna pick out whatever something sweet um and simple and okay yeah he is happy that uh this is not just an interrogation and he makes sure to help you out and get a nice one and he says uh well uh good luck with that um to be honest with you i'm kind of happy to to to know that

someone else other than me knows about this uh this old wise tale yeah thank you for sharing was fascinating all righty have a nice day you too uh as as you walk out of the store agent fluke your pager goes off and there's a phone number on there that you don't recognize i'll indicate that my pager went off to the other two agents and then i'll i'll search for a payphone and dial up the number absolutely it's easy enough to do you ring up and oliver you eventually pick up hey uh speaking yeah okay so um i got i headed out and i ended up uh just going to find uh echo myself just so that i let her know that our meeting time wasn't gonna line up when the club opened whatever that happened there uh you have a meeting place you want you want to have and

me and echo and meet you there yeah i thought we were gonna meet back at the club um at least we were going to pay to you to meet back at the club yeah i think we i think that's a that's a good place to be um well we have um some stuff we want to look into there so if you could just meet us there it's right by the garden view states too we might be able to take a look at that territory so yeah i guess um meet you there in an hour all right fluke i'll see you there see you soon it's about six p.m when this phone call has been made between fluke and oliver you guys are going to reconvene at studio overground studio overground opens at eight that gives you about two hours of downtime is anyone doing anything other than waiting around before studio overground

opens well before before me and echo head out in the same cab i go up to rosy and i say hey you got to give it some time you got to show up you got to talk to them you got to make some kind of story okay i'm actually not going to tell them i know hey hey you've done great so far i can't believe that yes but you got out the window right echo you're not um you said you didn't want to talk to them what do what are you saying echo's gonna come with us i mean that was the call i put through i i can't imagine how a call comes from hightower records from all of us and i didn't come make some deal with echo i don't know how you feel about that one echo but i mean it's the only way well if i don't

really have a choice and if they're gonna help me and then i guess i gotta go meet him so we're gonna find luke if anything we'll tell him that luke has something to do with this is a good lead and we'll present that as your information they'll pick up on that they'll let me say that i don't need you filling all the beans in one go hate for don't you start with me i'll just meet you i'll just come with you guys okay so order a cab whatever i'll come with you what like i'm just worried about them seeing the one that broke out of the window with the other two i don't want to act like you're the bad kid in class but i don't know you kind of didn't show up for history well what did you tell what did you tell them you were gonna do that i was gonna go get some lunch well that's

clearly a lie at least i didn't lie to them i didn't at least go to the bathroom that is clearly i told them i was going to the bathroom i told it to you okay i think we're losing the lead here just let me come with you i'll i'll say that i didn't know how to really tell them what i was i'm a i'm a weird nerd who's been in the library forever they they know i don't talk to people well so i'll just say that i went to high tower on my own and you just happened to walk by i guess i don't know okay all right that sounds all bad but all right well i'm just a third party person that's kind of been dragged into this but i'm saying sounds what would you have me do then echo i think you should wait

i think you should wait and if you have something worth giving them i'd give it to i don't know what i have that they already don't know i or lie can you lie i have an idea i already had an idea that i wanted to pursue but i can just pivot who i was going to pursue it with i'm going to go to the police station and i'll um i'll meet you back at the overground okay yeah yeah and then first chance we get we should probably go back to the apartment and talk yeah uh let's do mine it's close but i'll see you at the studio first right yeah okay as you go your separate ways you guys make your way eventually to studio overground as the sun goes down something you notice is there is an increased police presence you start seeing more and more police cars cruisers

just kind of patrolling there's more police officers just walking the street usually in pairs there's a point where you are traveling and two fires uh two fire trucks just blare by off in some direction where you assume there is probably a fire but eventually eight o'clock rolls around agents of f-cell i'm sure you are close to studio overground and you see the front doors open bouncer standing outside and little by little you start noticing young kids people under 30 dressed in punk outfits you know torn denim vests and baggy pants and iron maiden t-shirts and things like that kind of wandering into this this place and you can hear that there is some kind of heavy rock and roll uh to agent fluke it sounds like a real grungy rock and roll a real uh kind of

loud obnoxious music i'm gonna fit in real well here frost do you have any other like makeup or weird stuff in that mary poppins bag eyeliner i'm gonna pull out some eyeliner and it's a girl great uh you're you're not going in alone um she's gonna take off most of her business wear and sort of it's a bodysuit but it's it's spanks it's spanks but she's gonna play it off as intentional um and eyeliner eyeliner i mean she's gonna shake up the perm a little i guess and um like loosen up the boots and then we're gonna turn to agent fluke and say just close her eyes please don't play for what close my eyes for what the eyeliner i'm coming about to put on your face no i'm gonna grab his head and hold his head thank you thank you so much all right don't

blink because it's a stick and that's your eye okay here we go i'm gonna apply thick eyeliner over and under and we're just gonna like smear on the sides agent fluke does not understand what she's doing and just kind of lets it happen does anyone have uh a proficiency in the disguise skill no frost you don't have any disguise yeah about that uh i no i got a 10 you guys do your best to cover up um agent fluke he looks like a businessman that decided to become a punk rocker can we spike up the hair do can we like spike up and mess up the hair a little yeah absolutely yeah i mean you know you you mess up the hair you you take his tie off you take his jacket off

he just looks like a man who gave up on life and and put mascara on its face you know that's good you've had a rough day yeah i have had a rough day yeah we'll show that we wait for for oliver right yeah no we're gonna wait and i'm still planning on hanging back but just in case okay sure enough eventually oliver appears and he's kind of hanging out on the sidewalk waiting to make contact with you guys hey uh over here hello yeah so uh i got echo in a car down here okay um doesn't want to talk to you obviously and we're gonna have a conversation here in the club they were a little pissed off over the conversation earlier so i thought well i uh walked away from the lunch there you gave me that recess i had an opportunity to talk her down a little bit

good she's not happy with me but she's happier with the situation she's happy with the situation what does that mean happier happier um she's at least understanding that um well here's the thing she wants something from you guys uh if you want information from her it's it's simple and it actually has something to do with what we're doing anyway uh well i'm gonna let her tell you when she's ready i thought you said she doesn't want to talk to us yeah it's going to be a real funky experience isn't it you don't have to wait until she's ready uh if you don't wait she hits you with a bat or i could just go arrest her uh you guys really don't know how this works do you fluke i'm telling you like i told you the first time like i've told you a million times

if you act like a cop nobody cares to talk to you well there's ways that i can make people talk it's terrible can i talk to her for a minute seems like let me talk to her oh she's definitely gonna trust you you mean you mean the one she made in the dress all right fine then what else you guys got she won't talk to us but wait i don't get it she's not ready i'm gonna get her uh in a point of comfortability i i don't think that she's ready to uh participate yet i feel like okay well we're here to talk to some people about some drugs all right if you want i don't know if she's gonna be of any help with that but if she is you want i'll go i'll go ask her if she's ready to talk and see if anything is uh developed

in that situation on the car right over but she's only talking to frock why makes sense to me she's from detroit totally makes sense all right and i head back to the car over to echo hey uh development uh they're ready to talk if you are uh-huh i guess so uh approaching on the sidewalk is oliver with a woman i don't i don't even like go where oliver is off to i go to the bouncer at the front of the club and i just give him like a big old hug and i'm just like chatting him up i'm just asking him how he's doing like like oh dude i love the outfit you're wearing and shit like that and then i'm just bouncing side yeah he lets you in without issue and frost i'm assuming frost and i aren't gonna be too far behind that is correct on

the club entry um as frost and fluke make their way in the bouncer oh shit is whoa whoa they're pops uh aren't you worried your dangers are gonna fall out from the loud music who are you calling pops calling you pops bro i get up in his face and i'm staring him down eye to eye and i'm just kind of pushing myself into him and i just say call me pops one more time man get out of my face and he kind of pushes you off him i punch him in the face you gotta you gotta you gotta impress him so let's do this one thing at a time i'll say that this is triggering a disorder so i need you to make a sanity check for me okay so i got this i got a zero agent fluke you do not fly into a rage and my hope as your handler

is because you have some kind of a genius plan but nonetheless um nonetheless this man is basically defending himself so even fluke you're the first to act so if you would like to make a unarmed combat strike against this man you can yeah i'm gonna punch him in the face because that's the only way to get respect from people like this oh and uh okay so i fail because i get a 75 you you you just swing wildly at this guy agent frost you can tell i mean this is a 56 year old man trying to start a fight he's kind of stumbling a little bit who are you calling pops damn it the the bouncer continues to kind of push him away uh he even tries to to strike once at uh agent fluke but misses so there's this kind of fight happening and all of the people that are

coming are kind of noticing and they're stopping and they're pointing um agent fluke are you going to fight until one of you gets knocked out what are you doing i'm going to try one more time okay this time i succeed with a nine okay so it's it's two points and i'm just trying to crack him right across the side of the face okay you managed to do that you may contact this is this guy stands like six five um he certainly reacts but he looks back at you and he goes and he straight up kicks you in the balls he deals you he deals you a matching two points of damage okay i'm gonna wait in the car i'm gonna wait in the car i'm gonna wait in the car agent frost do you want to enter the club

i will follow after that and hot mess express just happened in front of you frost if you want to get back into the club i need you to make a persuasion check at minus 20 as you were obviously with this i was doing this the whole time i was like i don't know him like i am i you walked up with him this bouncer is pissed right now he might not let anybody know the club for a few minutes so 30 and i got a 15 i passed i don't know him i don't know this fucking food at the metal club you know he's he's massaging his chin he says just get out just get in there look at frog like what the fuck everyone else is able to get into the club agent frog yes it is very loud yes and there are flashing lights jesus you feel a little sweaty

are you going to continue into the club i am okay i'm gonna ask that you make a sanity check oh you think to yourself why am i not the lead of fcel i'm so much better than these guys you steal yourself and the the the concern that you had goes away you walk into the club you have repressed your disorder so in this club it's only about a 15 now and there's not a ton of people but as i described there's mostly kind of metal heads the band has finished setting up on the on the bass drum and now you can see inside the building there are several posters for the for the band that is going to play tonight at 9 30 a band name is god's lost children

everyone in here can see that there are a couple of folks that are just kind of hanging around they're getting drinks at the bar they're waiting around for the band there are waiters and waitresses someone behind the bar in fact as you make your way in and you find tables you kind of find your place um i'll say agent frog a girl uh with blonde hair looks to be in her 20s walks up to you she's holding a a train she says hi i'm ella can i get you some of the drink um yeah take a dark and stormy that's okay when dark and stormy yeah i haven't had one of those made in a while be be right up yep she eventually returns with the drink and says so you have so are you a fan of uh of god lost children me i i just saw the flyer and i got inspired

uh yeah yes well you you're gonna like them the metal that's what i'm here for hard hard rock what is everyone else doing uh i'm chatting up with the band if they're if they're like doing a sound check or something like that i'm just kind of i've taken the jacket off so i'm just wearing the tag top and the pants and stuff like that i'm kind of like just lounging i'm just chatting them up just you go around the back and there's the sound mixer you know the sound mixer he's a local guy the sound mixer lets you in that these guys are from new york and they're not local but they're real good yeah i'm still gonna go up and and talk to him welcome to detroit and stuff like that tell him i heard of their music before just being super

friendly they're cordial enough with you they they are kind of a classic cure bow house like band you know most of them are wearing mascara most of them are dressed in tattered dirty clothing but they seem friendly enough um after that i'll probably try to locate oliver or yeah oliver oliver what are you up to i probably went straight to the bartender um i ordered a screwdriver and now i'm just sort of looking around the bar trying to find um any noted notable people you know maybe people have seen out in the street people i think might be associated to all this and you know waiting for echo to come back you can i mean there's about 10 15 people in here right now most of them look young some of them look like they might be on something some of them are kind of giggling

you do notice elah the waitress who's very friendly and talkative with people you look over to the stage and you see that there's like a a grip or a stage hand who's kind of fixing a light and he looks like somebody that maybe enjoys the usual marijuana or something of that effect i mean pretty much anybody you walk up to here will probably you know point you in some kind of direction do i would i have time to follow up on one of those before echo comes back or would that happen first chronologically let's say that you see you speak to somebody first then i think i'm gonna wander up to that key grip guy key grips are great for that yeah he's uh kind of finishing taking down a light and anticipation for the show and he comes down

some some a step ladder so man hey man excuse me i got a few questions for you hey uh do you know who i am i just saying real quick i don't know who you are that's even fucking better promise uh my name is oliver lake uh i work here in detroit i wanted to ask you a few questions you know where i could score tonight i'm gonna be up front i'm not gonna sell you any shit i'm trying to find some drugs uh yeah i guess i guess i can score i mean what do you look for oh i don't know man uh look i've been experimenting with marijuana i really like it i mean i liked it in the 60s i like it now it's getting better every day but i don't know i i'm in a hard place i want to try something hard oh well i mean uh i don't fuck around with things like heroin or

or shit like that i mean no no no none of that none of that i'm just wondering if you know anybody who does you know coke something like it uh there's something that gives me real up something that might uh make this band a little more interesting right what is your human charisma my human inch is a cool 40 okay he says well i mean i i don't sell or nothing i i'm not into that shit but you know i use stuff from time to time i know this girl you can reach out to this girl i know um her name is hi sally please that's what her street name is hi sally hi it's a fucking great name hi sally do you know where i can find hi i mean sometimes she comes into here sometimes uh sometimes i get her at lever knocked um i don't know she's kind of just a street kid that shows up sometimes she's

had some stuff before some cracks and some other shit and as you're talking to him yeah what's she look like if you don't like oh well uh she's black she's got kind of kind of longer hair i mean she she kind of looks like black cindy lopper to be honest with you she she dressed kind of wild but um but she's cool yeah you know she's cool she's cool a little crazy but she's cool um yeah she she's got some stuff you should maybe hit her up uh i don't know if she doesn't come around here tonight maybe check out lead or not that you know where that is that's at the end yeah yeah yeah i know it's the second club right yeah it's at the lee lin you can see it at the lee lin hotel hey i i feel bad about taking up all your time not not doing anything do you sell maybe i got

to buy something off you i don't want i don't want to waste your time oh man uh i mean i got a little weed if you want to smoke some weed with me yeah yeah yeah we could go smoke some weed if you want okay cool cool well we got a little time before the band starts so yeah i just i'll meet you out back in like 10 minutes okay cool i'll see you as she walks away uh echo approaches you hey could either come with me and smoke some weed in the backdrop here um in about 10 minutes with some sort of burnout or we can go see agent frog and she likes to call herself and we can talk to her i don't think it was yeah that's probably the coolest so this is probably the coolest thing you've said to that i mean maybe we could get the maybe we could get the fed to come with us i don't know

i don't know her feeling uh no come on well i figured we should probably talk to her first because she's probably going to kill us otherwise not as good on that one no i would really it would be really cool to smoke some weed first yeah yeah let me just tell frog and back we'll see what we can get off of and i go over to frog and they say hey uh i don't know how you partake or anything but we're gonna go smoke weed and then we'll talk oh hey why did you tell uh jesus i'm a crystal cross you want some really helps with like uh if you're stressed out or this isn't your vibe it might uh okay frog's gonna stand up and pace back and forth a little bit either way either way we'll be out back see you and i walk away she's gonna look up at god

and go outside this this man this man uh that you've met a few minutes earlier Oliver is waiting outside he's kind of in the middle of rolling a joint and he looks up and he sees you and then he sees another person and then he sees another person he's like uh i thought it was just gonna be you man hey hey before you start getting worried i promise that echo has more okay cool oh oh echo you're square you're square i know like i'm straight you're straight what's up um echo you you know this guy this guy his name is damien damien lucas he's he's basically just like a locally he just kind of does odd jobs here and there you've seen him at house parties once in a while he's he's not anybody important but he's around so damien man i'm seeing you in a minute i'm good i'm good girl

it's good to see you looks like this up and he lights it up and takes a few puffs hands it to oliver yeah i i smoke like i was someone who smoked in the 60s and has never since i'll i'll hit it and then i'll i'll hand it out to to the frog i just i just smile at her sub bluth oh oh boy well i am i am here you're taking some shit are you gonna take it come on puff up pass her let's she's gonna take it and i guess i've let i'm she's gonna smoke it however that happens she's gonna take a deep breath on it so agent frog you are not attempting to deceive them you're just going to try and smoke i'm gonna take one deep breath make a make a constitution times five check please constitution constitution times five that's a good score right well

oh 16 well damn bluth there you go okay you you feel like a nasty cough is coming on but you know you you you managed to kind of control your your feelings and and and and how it burns and you just kind of let it out and you're you seem cool perfect who's i'll take it i'll i'll pass it back to damien damien did i tell you that you just made me maybe the most happiest person today yeah i aimed to please echo i think you did a good job there so what's up there what you guys all here to see god's lost children or what's up dude i haven't been to the club in a minute it's just a crazy you know need to let loose heard this bam was sick just look yeah i didn't know this was your thing yeah bluth you're here to have a good time i am just looking

for a change looking to switch things up that's why i'm here coco coco it's real cool yeah we're definitely gonna switch things up tonight so is that it now that we've all sort of had our time oh yeah i mean this is just a start after this we gotta go find high sally i'm in here for oh shit damien speaks up he's like oh you're all looking to score okay yeah yeah we're gonna have quite the party yeah man i mean that that's where i get my shit from uh from high sally she had she sells weed i think she sells uh she sells crack she sells i don't know she she sells other things and you can all tell that he's avoiding something hey uh does she sell that uh fuck what's the name of that shit um do you guys remember uh

it's like feedback or yeah yeah yeah just like a reverb yeah she got some of that if you're looking for that oh shit i've been begging for yeah it's just it's pretty crazy i tried it before yeah yeah what's it like i've been trying to get somebody to tell me they won't fucking tell me anything all i know is out there i mean it's cool it's cool you know if you ever done like i don't know if you ever done like acid or or um you know mdma it's kind of like that it's it's i don't know i i don't like to do it as much anymore i just feel like it's frying my brain you know yeah yeah i get that you get some burnout but you know that's how acid is too i'm sure you're gonna be fine it's just you know that shit blows back sometimes i'd like someone to make a persuade check i have a 66 you

can tell he's hiding something you can tell he's being coy about something as you guys are just kind of pressing him about well what does it do well what's it like this and that and he kind of starts to change his tune he's like you know what i don't know guys i think you'll have a bit of time with something else i mean i i don't know maybe it was just me but like you know it everybody likes reverb because it like it makes you feel like time slows down you know what i mean like you you kind of live the same moment over and over again and that's cool but um i don't know there's just like every time i do it there's just like these gaps of time where like i i don't remember where i was and like i i don't know more on one occasion i've woken up on a couch i don't remember being on and i don't know man i just

you see weird shit like i i feel like i was seeing stuff um no like acid like uh you know you know patterns and stuff patterns it's like it's almost like i'm like watching the tv but like in my head and it's showing me weird shit i mean i i don't know man i i've seen fucking dinosaurs when i've been on this ship before it's it's crazy more than that man it's like i don't know it's hard to explain it just it just feels like you go away and you you go someplace else uh it almost feels like i'm going back in time or something i don't know man it just fucks with me so i i just don't like to use it you know what i mean yeah you know what maybe we'll pass on it tonight maybe that won't be our style tonight uh it doesn't sound too good doesn't sound like it did too much just just high

sally say that happens to everybody who takes it or i don't know i i the couple times i've done it i i just it wasn't for me so i haven't really done it much since i haven't really talked to a lot of people about details that's okay i mean thank you for telling us man that's you did the right thing looking out for us man now let's just do plain old yeah yeah it was more my speed yeah you guys finished the joint damien clearly looks like he kind of wants to get back inside and he eventually parts from the group and goes back into the club i'm gonna dap him real quick and i'll tell him to come by the store uh sometime next week or something yeah yeah yeah i'll i'll for sure for sure it'll be good to see you again echo

yeah yeah yeah man take care he goes inside it's close to 9 30 you know that the band's about to come on while all that's been going on in there i would like to just limp my way over to 7 11 and buy some ice with my eyeliner and my messed up hair and then as soon as i get the ice i'll immediately press it into my groin and limp back to the car um agent fluke while you are in the 7 11 could you make an alertness check um success with a 50 you are checking out and you look out and you see that there's a street corner that's well lit and there's a guy standing on the street corner and sure enough after a moment young kid probably heading to the club walks up to them and you have seen this a million times before something is exchanged between the two of them

and the young kid starts heading in the direction of the club and the man kind of starts to wander a little bit i'm going to try to well first of all i'll try to buck off the pain and ditch the ice uh unfortunately sad about that but i will try to follow the dealer without being noticed okay okay please give me a stealth check success with an 11 you walk outside and his back is turned to you and he's it looks like he's kind of just like wandering down the block um he'll occasionally stop kind of turn around look around he's clearly just kind of hanging out on this block for no good reason hands in his pockets you can tell as you get closer to him that he seems to be asian you can't you're not sure if he's chinese but if he's a drug dealer in detroit

he certainly stands out of place this is not the typical drug dealer you find um he just there's something different about him he just doesn't look like a local well in that case i'm definitely just going to um try to hang on him and see if i can i don't know i'm just gonna i'm just gonna keep following him and keeping an eye out for something unusual or an opportunity to maybe maybe grab him but for now i'm biting my time gotcha so we'll say that you are kind of hiding in the shadows watching him um as you wait sure enough every once in a while a young kid a pair of kids will walk up to him they'll have some kind of exchange and they'll keep walking let's go back into the club everyone and i assume everyone who has finished smoking either goes back inside or is there another

plan i mean we're out we're out back if you guys want to talk i'm sorry to talk outside yeah that's cool uh i don't know echo do you want me here for this or do you mind if i go find and try and find black sindy lopper i mean sure whatever okay if you're cool if you're straight uh i'll go back inside and i'll try and find whoever this high sally is you know what everybody's gonna say when i told them that i smoked with dea agent alicia blue oh my god it was necessary for the case i would appreciate if you didn't i understand what i'm saying and what that means for you but i would really appreciate honey it's detroit baby i'm so i'm suffering for some clad i need something this can't be like i i don't know what i i hate this i hate this i hate that today um okay i don't

know what i need to do but i would really prefer that wasn't a reality that we could live in tomorrow if it just ended tonight that would be great you got money i mean yeah but i mean if it can end with money that's fine i figured you'd want something money is something of value something i don't know something worth it you know how information is this is so powerful it just slips off and then just carries like the wind you know isn't there um all he said something about you needing something too maybe oh yeah i do but that that's for the information for the regular investigation this is extra this is like interest familiar with the concept all right so money is where you're at that's fine money leverage you know me information is the streamline

it's the currency it's what pays my bills and keeps people off my back like the police okay i think it's possible there's still a lot of things that haven't been really digitized yet uh some of the stuff might not make it some of the stuff about you might not make it i like that sounds good for now great one thing might not make it then one thing several things well we'll have we'll have she's gonna put her hand on her hip anyway one thing honey i know you're not about to pull that that gun on me honey you know pulling the gun on me is not the way to go bluetooth you know you know why they call me echo and you know damn sure if you're trying to reach out for some drug shit that you ain't going to get anybody to talk past this point if i show up with a bullet in my

head i don't plan to shoot you i think guns are good for plenty other things i think it's reductive to think it's just for that but um i don't want to be mean i don't want to be mean either okay let's just so why don't why don't why don't we just talk about what you need from me in the first place and we'll just keep that on the side table for later well echo because i know that you're a profound snitch i need some of your specific talents tonight and continually i think your skills of observation are admirable i think they could be put to better use um in other places but if you insist on residing in a gutter i think you could get a good look from there i tried to be a police officer but you know what why don't you ask the police chief about it or did you not read all

of his article you guys are hilarious you guys just call yourself cops and investigators this is fucking amazing what do you need bluth okay so i need you obviously we're looking for reverb if you have any specific specific pushers that look lazy bad at their jobs like they might slip soon a name a location would be good i mean i told ollie that the only people pushing is the flint i know a couple people but uh that's about it i could put you in touch with somebody i think we could start there now i mean they're not far from from here so do you have names now or i'll give you names eventually but that brings up the second thing when i need from you uh oliver i don't know if he's explained it to you but i'm looking for someone uh i'm looking for my cousin he had some

connections with reverb and it's disappeared i need you guys to find him you help me find him i'll tell you i'll get you whoever you need to talk to i'll tell you what i know i'll give you whatever you need but my cousin's got to be found and that has to be a priority luke is missing yeah luke is missing shit all right i can actually do something about that okay and you yeah yeah we can but i do need those this old sort of ambiguity with when the names are gonna show up but that that could stop who i mean you're not gonna go talk to them are you none of your band and merry men's of of who i've seen so far it ain't gonna go talk to the flints are you crazy no no that's that's right none that's right that's nothing you have to worry about

but we can get in contact with them or i could go talk to them because how am i supposed how am i supposed to make sure you're gonna meet your my ends with luke i just drop names you just drive off i never hear from you assholes ever as much as people like to insist that we just eat suffering for a living if someone's missing i'm actually gonna try to find them uh i believe what i see that's fine so i'm willing to go talk to the flints for you and we just continue this mutual exchange of information that feels right to me perfect i think that feels right for you is that all is that it because like i do not hear that amazing sound coming from inside i'd like at least five seconds with that before i have to go get some narc with you all right enjoy yourself thanks

frog's gonna take a cool minute in the uh in the back frog you're you're taking a moment to yourself but um you definitely took a big hit and it's it's affecting you i mean you're you're feeling a buzz that was a mistake oh so much so many mistakes a combo combo mistakes okay okay uh is there a way for me to get back out to the front of the club without going through the club again yeah i think you can go around the block for sure okay great i'm gonna do that okay um inside the club there was still agent frost you were you're hanging around um a girl looks to be a waitress she introduces herself as ella and she asks if there's or is there anything i can get you honey oh my god can i just get like a rum and coke please sure yeah for sure she comes back with

that rum and coke you knew in town yeah i'm here for the show it's just uh i'm doing like like a day a new music thing a day so i'm touring the u.s doing this oh my god good for you that's so cool i know there's at least like one other guy that that's kind of doing the same thing he told me that he was kind of uh following this band oh my god really that's amazing yeah yeah it's that guy over there and she points to what looks to be like a 15 year old that's kind of towards the the front of the stage as the band begins and he's seeing real pumped okay i'm gonna i'm gonna think i'll be like oh my god ella that's awesome wait what else is there anyone here i can talk to about having like just making this an even more crazy experience she smiles and she kind of looks

around she says oh you you like you like want to party tonight yeah i'd be like not like super crazy but you know just a little fun you know okay make a make a persuade check i have a 55 and my crusade is 50 so she kind of looks you up and down says well i know that um there's this one chick i know named hi sally she's she's pretty cool um i'm sure you can get something from her she looks around again she says you ever tried reverb oh no is that oh my god girl you've got to try it it's amazing it's like it's like it's like ecstasy but like when you're on it it feels like time just repeats itself so it's like really good in bed if you know what i mean oh my god it just feels like the high can never end it's it's like it's awesome oh my gosh okay so i'm not gonna lie there's a

couple people here that are actually pretty cute for here so if you can anything to my like you know make my night even better i guess mary what was the name one more time hi sally i mean she she she sometimes come around here sometimes she's um i've seen her at that other club it's called leader knocked it's it's over at the lilin hotel oh okay i mean honestly she'd be here by now if uh if she was gonna be here can you do me a favor because i'm just gonna like i'm before i get into the crowd really go with it i'm gonna be around the bar just drinking if you happen to point to her just put her out oh yeah sure sure thing girl i'll look out for you cool you're awesome thank you all all right i'll see ya and um as she walks away uh you you notice her pull something out of her

pocket and put it in her mouth mm okay so who is inside the club right now i am i am so at least three of you are inside right yes the music is uh it's just so noisy who here has any kind of human intelligence or psychotherapy amongst the three of you have human intelligence i am human intelligence yeah okay um i need you all to make sanity checks please oh no i have failed with a 95 12 damn it all 95 i failed all three of you experience this though you're not necessarily all huddled together you're all kind of dispersed amongst the club the music's blasting people are dancing uh they're

independently all three of you begin to you kind of begin to feel like i mean those of you that smokes you feel like wow this was some kind of potent weed i mean it's you're starting to see little little traces of color and your body is feeling tingly i'm gonna say those of you that fail you're going to lose one point of sanity as you begin to realize that something is going on there are people in the club that are clearly on stuff and you think that maybe in some way the energy of what's going on right now is somehow affecting you and and you're starting to feel a little sweaty and worried um agent frost you are a little more experienced with narcotics and though you feel something is going on you can have a little bit more of a of a perspective on this

and you in fact see that a good majority of these folks are stumbling or giggling everybody in here is probably on reverb and you suspect that something is happening it's affecting you you can see oliver and you can see echo and it seems to be affecting them they're kind of stumbling themselves they're holding their heads oh okay i'm gonna walk my way over to to them they're like tap kind of tap their shoulders and like guys doing all right yeah you we just we just smoked up back so it's it's hitting i guess i don't know what the fuck this is it's a new hey weren't weren't you in my shop earlier oh i'm gonna just kind of like you like kind of dismiss

me like no no she fucking right she was the one she was the one in the dress agent fluke it's been a half hour now and this guy will move every couple of feet he'll kind of wander back and forth but he's just kind of holding down this block and you've seen him at least twice now so i have i've seen this guy hand off plenty of drugs to warrant my attention so after i see him pass a couple bags off and i'm convinced of what's going on i will sneak up behind him i will press my gun into his back and say you're under arrest okay so first things first let's get another stealth roll fail with the 76 he is standing on the corner you get almost as close as you want but he kind of looks and notices you and seems startled by you um what is your dex is

13 he sees you and you can immediately see he's pulling a hand out of his pocket okay if he's reaching and pulling something out of his pocket i will shoot the hand that is reaching into that pocket okay make that attack make a firearms attack success with a 53 no grappling huh a d10 right okay please roll the damage four points of damage you instinctively pull the gun out you fire you shoot him you don't actually strike his hand you strike just slightly above it's still a pretty damn good shot and he kind of fumbles backwards on his turn he pulls out a gun and he's gonna fire at you is this audible from outside i know it's a metal club but it uh you are able to hear it yes oh schnett you're dead already how how far

away is this is this like down the block or it's it's a couple blocks away at the most okay he pulls the gun out and just kind of flicks it in your direction and happens to hit you and he deals you three points of damage you get shot in the shoulder um at the once he fires at you he just starts booking it down i'm gonna chase him i'm gonna tackle him to the ground i still got seven hit points left agent frog you can hear two gunshots go off and when you look in the direction you see two men just booking it down the block let's call this a chase scene a pursuit scene i'm gonna say that there needs to be two successes on either side to catch this guy so if you want to try to catch him i'm gonna need you to make an athletics check and he is going to

attempt to make an athletics check to get away from you already said i was doing it my athletics isn't very good but here we go fail with a 93 the shoulder is burning and he already has a couple of steps ahead of you um you you kind of stumble past a trash can that slows you down he is looking like he's about to make a turn and disappear if you'd like to make another athletics check or if you'd like to shoot him or something like that shoot him in the foot do a called shot you're going to be at minus 20 percent at whatever your firearms skill is good shoot you got this he also fails he fails with an 82 so what happens is you fire it startles him he kind of tumbles to the ground he does make the turn you do not see him but the last that you saw him he fell to the ground

so it's still only one success on his part so are you going to continue to pursue him yep i'm going to try to whip around the corner as fast as i can point that as soon as i see him i'm gonna point the gun at his head and i'm just gonna say stop or i will kill you you come around the corner and he is running he ignores what you're saying he is going to attempt to make an athletics check to get away from you he's gonna succeed that's his second success as you are yelling out stop right there i'll shoot you he takes the time to duck behind an alley and when you run up he's already eventually agent frog catches up at this point there are people coming out of their homes there are people yelling what the fuck's going on out there seems like a little bit of a scene

is happening i'm kind of trying to put pressure on my shoulder to keep it from you know the blood from from being too bad um and i'll just i'll look at her and say well fuck all right um fuck what are you do what are you doing do you have a jacket does he have a jacket on he does no no no right now freaking jesus like i'm i'm wearing a latex glove do you have something to stop this my hand clothes um the ones i'm wearing that's all i've got great i'm gonna okay um i feel like because agent frog is kind of shredded maybe we can get a ripped sleeve sure yeah i mean if you want to tear some clothing to try to like create a tourniquet or something i think that's possible i'm not gonna i'm not gonna give you a

first day roll you need a little bit something more substantial but you feel like you could probably stop the excessive yeah um what are you guys immediately doing we should probably go well we should probably go to a hospital but we need to um we need to let everyone know what just happened you need to let me know what just happened there's no somebody yells out from their window i'm calling the cops we are the cops okay rose you have a couple of hours yep i assume you're going to the police uh headquarters yeah i'm going to the the police station where we were earlier you go in and you ask to speak to agent constants and they say oh i i think she might have left but i mean you can go back and

see if her if she's still in her office you go back and sure enough you do see deborah constants she is closing a briefcase and appears to be on her way agent constants uh i know you're i know you're heading home but i have a couple quick questions for you miss alvarado am i correct yes hi hi uh i wasn't expecting to see you here i was just on my way out i can tell i'm really sorry to stop you on the way um just a quick couple questions um do you have any of the uh arrest warrants and records of the of any from anyone from the aeroplanes uh for the last five months or so well um actually if you're if you're talking about the the missing people um agent woo gave me a copy of what he handed to agent fluke uh i have it here one second rifles through her desk opens it up and says yeah um

so it looks like one of the folks here is philip douglas his street name is downtown philly he disappeared about four weeks ago and she gives you relevant information the name of uh of his necks of kin where they might be found in town she says there was another guy uh his name is liroy smith his street name is nicky she does the same thing gives you his uh his family information she also says um there's another guy uh here says he disappeared about two weeks ago his name is ishmael muhammad rose this name is familiar to you ishmael muhammad was a student at the university of detroit who you tutored a little bit he was a good kid uh very early 20s um but he he confessed to you more than once that school and his education was kind of the best thing in his

life and that he was trying very hard to avoid gangs to avoid the street life but he admitted that it was it was a struggle for him because his family was struggling but that is the only name that immediately strikes you as oh my god i think i know that person um i have a i have a another person just uh luke blackwood maybe i don't have a last name for him but that's the closest i can well uh i don't um she looks towards the back and says oh yeah this he went missing just uh just two weeks ago his i see a luke madina there's a there's a luke madina here that's probably with him she gives you his relevant information great um mrs rose i have to ask you it seems like you're part of this investigation huh i've been uh called in for discretionary research work

i see well uh i was wondering if you could maybe do me a favor since i've just done you a favor um i'll do my best i don't know how much sway i have within this but i can try it's really nothing um agent fluke do you think you could just keep me abreast of the situation let me know what he's up to if i i don't know i've kind of been in this game for a little while and uh i got the sense that there was a little bit of awkwardness between you and him if uh if anything seems strange just please feel free to come to me as a a kind of secondary source uh someone you can speak to in confidence sure yeah um do you have a do you have a page your number i can i can take she gives you her information she has a she has a home number as well have you worked with him before

or is he is he new to you i can't say that i have no uh agent bluth i'm i'm closer with she's she's kind of been involved with the with the study from the beginning i was informed by my higher ups that fluke and frost were going to show up but uh i wasn't expecting his attitude to be quite frank yeah he's a bit harsh i guess well uh if you don't mind i'm going to get on my way i uh it was nice to speak to you of course she makes her way out uh do i still have like the the files that she was reading from or did she take them with her i i think that she would have not give them to you but she would have let you write down the names and all the relevant information and i think she also would probably guide you out of the police headquarters she wouldn't

leave you alone there yeah um so that was probably that probably was that didn't take too long didn't take too long at all no but it is probably 9 30 now okay i'll probably send a or i'll go back in the police station and ask the the front desk can i uh can i use your may i use your phone please i'm gonna pay jolly they they let you use it ollie you have not left the club you are vibing off of whatever is happening in here i will say that it's too loud and you are too fucked up right now to hear the page i think that things are a little chaotic things are a little crazy and i think now is a good place to stop for the evening so

wexford county coroner jones salazo stands over a charred corpse laying across her examination table she hits record on a personal dictation device april 21st 2020 i've completed my examination of the corpse of marlene bowman the body was burned to the point of being unidentifiable but after running the dental records i was able to confirm that this is in fact the late mrs bowman special note the first premolar on the right and left sides of her mouth are missing they seem to have been removed sometime after her death though most of the dermis and subcutaneous tissue were destroyed a small area of flesh located on the right buttock remained intact enough for analysis before burned the corpse was well into its decay but bloating around the thighs

indicate the body had been partially submerged underwater for some time a bullet wound is visible in the cranium the exit wound indicates the corpse was shot at point blank range there's bone fragmentation in the left shoulder then i've identified up to five other possible bullet wounds in the chest and abdomen finally the distal phalanx of all four digits on her right and left hands have been stripped of their flesh the state of this body is highly unusual the exposure of the bones on her hands for instance are reminiscent of patients who have attempted to dig with their bare hands for long periods of time either marlene woke up in her coffin and attempted to claw her way out or someone meticulously scraped the flesh from the tips of her fingers submerged half the body

in water dragged it out only to shoot it seven times before lighting it on fire the mutilation of the body to me indicates a deeply disturbed individual who took pleasure in doing this for years the only solace i can find is that mrs bowman was long dead before any of this occurred god rest her soul jone hit stop on the device covers the corpse with a white sheet and there performs the sign of the cross before stepping out of the morgue