?I don?t get it. Why?re we nailing these up?? The bulky man?s voice was almost plaintive, as much as it could be at a whisper. He took another newspaper clipping from the pile next to him and drove a nail through its center, at the end of the row. Three neatly-cut rows of similarly-fastened papers marched above that one. The moon wasn?t even a faint sliver in the sky, and it turned the man and his companion into shadows.

?Din?t ask, din?t wanna ask. Slice says do it, we do it. No harm in tacking some papers to a door.? The thinner man?s hammer struck its nail in twice. Each clipping was marked at least once with a dark blotch that in the light showed as a bloody red highlight over a name. Wind rustled the branches, and the thinner man jumped. ?C?mon, we got a lot of these to finish. I wanna get out of here, it?s creepy.?

?You don?t think there are monsters here, do you?? Clipping, hammer, nail. The bulky man turned to look over his shoulder, then at the thinner man, the whites of his eyes showing. He sounded much younger than he probably was. ?I don?t like monsters.?

?Then hurry up with your half already and we won?t find out.?

?What?re all these marks?? A large, square finger poked at one of the highlights. ?I mean, why would someone wanna mark up a newspaper like that?? Clipping, hammer, nail. Four rows finished entirely covered the top third of the door.

?Can you even read?? The thinner man sounded exasperated. It didn?t stop him from continuing to nail the articles in place.

?No.?

?Then whaddaya care? Just some names of some chicks I think. Slice got these from someone else, already marked up and cut out. I dunno who that guy got?em from, and I wasn?t asking. We don?t get paid to ask questions.? The ink-smell of newsprint was strong and it was making the thinner man grumpy. He pounded in the nail for his last clipping without paying attention and swore when he nailed through the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger.

?Bloody demon-damned hells.? A jerk yanked his hand free, leaving a smear of blood on the article. ?Are you done with your half yet??

?Almost. Then we can go get something to drink, right?? The bulky man frowned with concentration while he put the last nail into place.

?Yeah, we can get something to drink. Good pay for an easy job like this. C?mon.? The thinner man dropped the last of his iron nails on the ground and handed the bulky man his hammer. ?You carry those.?

Job complete, the two men walked into the night. Behind them over a hundred articles of the Gossip GangSTAR hung fluttering on the door of the Silver Mark Pub & Brewery. There was only one common thread to the articles. Alain?s name was on every one, in connection with a woman; thirty women all together. Some names were starred, others checked, circled or underlined, and all were highlighted with bold and bloody red...

((Adapted from live play))

Once Alain had been notified by message, he had gone to the SPI offices in the West End; now, at eight in the morning, he stood in the break room, where the two long tables had been pushed together and the chairs had been pushed against the wall or simply overturned. The broad surface was used to lay out numerous papers, surveillance pictures, image orbs, and other pieces of intelligence, and when the small pack of analysts and others within the House hierarchy filed in, Alain had his hands against the edge of the table, shaking his head at all of it.

It just didn't make sense.

After a long, uncomfortable moment, Alain looked up, scanned the people staring at him, and said, simply, "Out. Everyone but Shaw, leave."

Shaw, as it was, had taken up a lean on the doorframe through which most of the rabble filed and shoved off when they'd left, which had meant abandoning the rubber band he'd been fiddling with. Working it over a wrist, he came upon the table and sized up the menagerie of Intel and the Detective himself.

Eventually, an eyebrow rose. "So what's the prognosis, Doc? We gonna make it?"

The young House leader, his mind gone far back already to the psyche of a detective under fire, put his cigarette back to his lips and dragged. At last, when the last of the 'rabble' was gone, he spoke up -- "They've been watching me for years. Goddamn years, since I... Fuck, since I took on Cain, and that was late '06. They haven't just been reading the gossip blogs. They've been watching," he said, and with a sudden, angry sweep of his hand, knocked several of the indicated back issues to the floor. He pounded the table with his fists and turned from it, lips twisting around the cigarette. He took three steps and a steadying breath.

"They know what they're talking about. Makes sense why they marked most of the names and how they did it, and they're pretty close to the mark on them. Not perfect, but damn good. They've been casing my public life this whole time... God only knows how much of my private life."

"'D say a damn fine bit, jus' t'be on th' safe side." He swiped a few issues closer to himself, reading over a couple of names before tossing them back onto the table. "'Ate t'say it, but your life isn' exac'ly th' hardest one t'get into. Expandin' fast over a short amount of time in a relatively large city, 'avin' Cap'n Cotton Candy an' 'is mates watchin' your every move in the one social establishmen' you frequent outside controlled areas. You know 'ow easy it is to get a spy into a growing industry. But they made a mistake in givin' you a heads up. Bein' flashy. Gotta play it right from 'ere on out or they'll come down at a little cross-breeze." He looked to the younger man for his opinions.

"Then they're definitely big," Alain said, and nodded his agreement with what Shaw said. "They were big then, they're big now, and in '06 I probably did something to piss them off. This isn't the Nightblades' style... but..." His eyes darkened abruptly, and he fell silent as gears turned. Something clicked. He drummed his hand against his thigh, scattering ashes to the floor.

"...I started out a smuggler. There was a civil war on where I grew up, and I got into it smuggling arms and rations to rebels, and I kept it up until the end of 2006 -- about half a year in Rhy?din. Guarding illicit goods, covering their movement. I got a contract with a local group of toughs to take down their competition, a new guy who showed up out of the blue and near cornered arms smuggling north of the river. Cain. I worked my way in as his top adviser and betrayed him. He kidnapped my kid sister, so when I went to rescue her, I stabbed him in the throat with a fire poker and burned his house down." There was a grim smile there, as he remembered that moment, and he shook his head slowly.

"Never figured it'd come back to haunt me, but... when I look at the dates... it's the only thing that makes sense. There was something else, someone else, behind that man. Someone pulling the strings."

Shaw listened, as he did to most things, with a hefty dose of skepticism. Though once he reached the point of no other thought, he tended to get into it deep. "You thinkin' somethin' on a scale outta realm? Or just a hand behind a bunch'a puppets, hidin' out somewhere in a penthouse sweet, watchin' you twist like a schoolgirl on prom night?" How he managed to use that metaphor with utter and deathly seriousness; mystery.

The metaphor drew a single mirthless chuckle from Alain, quick and smoky. "Column A, Column B... I think it's cross-realm, because Cain came from another place. He didn't get yanked here, he came here on purpose, with resources and manpower at the ready. Standing theory... they wanted a cornered market as a foothold in Rhy?din and I foiled it. Guess they still want to set up shop here... if they haven't already," he added thoughtfully. "Maybe they want me to back off - maybe they're outright after me. Your take?"

He offered a cigarette to Shaw, then.

He took the cigarette and with the insufferably blue flame from his augmented lighter, nearly incinerated the tip of it. His words came through a thin veil of smoke, then. "Odds are, on that end, th' reason why they 'aven't come after you yet's 'cause they've been settin' up shop. Now they got themselves a foothold, an' think it's about time to get back. Either gonna try to take out your business strengths, or every woman they think you've slept with. If it's the latter, I 'ope they're not givin' you enough credit, for all our sakes. Regardless, though, you gotta tighten' up an' consolidate all your in-house operations. Get a board of directors together, or somethin'. Heads of your branches, y'know? Only th' ones you trust enough to keep an eye on everyone beneath 'em. From there, it's just a matter of lookin' from the inside, out."

"I've had a bad feeling since New Year's... so I've been setting up lieutenants, getting the House in order under good, strong minds. Trixie for our enforcers, you for our surveillance, Lix and Raziya for our... other business," he explained, a little vaguely. "I've got the Board of Directors for DeMuer Exports, sure, but they're businessmen -- organizing meetings between the 'section chiefs' might not be a bad idea, though." He stooped to collect the papers he'd swept away and organize them again.

"...I think Harazid's connected to it, too. Finding that son of a bitch's suddenly much more important than it was."

"Just keep it consolidatin' into smaller sections. You keep an eye on us, while we keep an eye on them. As for Harazid, 'd like to find 'im last week, but th' git's better at hidin' than 'e was at gatherin' intel." A long drag on the cigarette, head tilting back to let it up like a mushroom cloud. "I think we need to expand th' search, not geographically, but from what angles we're comin' in from. Start 'avin' your enforcers rough up lowlifes, an' I'll start roughin' up bootlickers of highlifes in places our well-founded gentlemen might congregate. You wouldn' believe me for sayin' it, but I do look rather dashin' in a suit." He grinned tight around the cigarette, for all of a moment.

Perhaps Alain had an endless supply of business cards, because he spirited one into his hand and offered it over to Shaw. "Madam Victoria. She owes us a favor. She'll get you fitted for a tux. We can hit up high society from two sides -- I'll come from the top, you come in from the bottom."

The card was taken with a heavy hand, and Shaw looked at it closely. "Sounds like a plan. You let Trixie know what th' next phase is, an' I'll send the rabble back in so you can vent somethin' proper about this heinous little breach." The grin kept on creeping closer to completion, while he reached for the door.

"Don't bother," Alain said to Shaw with an upnod, then a slow grin. "But do me a favor and send them back to their goddamn jobs with the devil on their heels."

"This plan keeps gettin' better an' better." Shaw opened the door, and began shouting at the top of his lungs. There were more curses than the english language could've properly made sense of, in their endless combinations and new twists, but one thing was for certain: These workers and analysts had never run so fast in their lives, after he clocked the guy whose shift ended in a half-hour. A calculated loss.