Midway City Episodes: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Note: A lot happened this session, so if my players could please let me know if I missed any details, I would greatly appreciate it.

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Before the episode starts, Ami takes Cat with him to go to the Alessandro family to discuss the price of weapons and get shipments going. He says that it will take a few days to get everything arranged, so in the meantime Tommy is in charge as "louie" (lieutenant).

Tommy pulls the crew together to start discussing how to proceed with getting into "Lucky" Lucian's pants and hopefully getting information out of him. At one point Hardigan comes back from questioning a call girl (Viviane Leblanc) about Lucky's habits, and notices that two cops are coming into Archer's. Henry Eighteen hits the hidden "cops are here" buzzer in the bar, and clicks the intercom button down, allowing the group to hear his conversation. Officer Wayne (male) and officer Cruz (female) ask about a guy named Wilson who is wanted for questioning. Henry denies everything, and after Wayne gets a little pushy he tells them to come back with a warrent or "any other piece of paper that might be of interest to me". Wayne and Cruz storm out, but Hardigan stops them and tells them a little information about Wilson without tying it to the bar (since it's good for private dicks to be friendly with the cops). Wayne thanks him, and they leave.

Hardigan returns to the group, and tells them what he's learned - that Lucky is a two-bit thug that likes to play at being the big man, and often takes to roughing girls up a bit. They continue to discuss with Nikki how they want to handle the situation and the best way to keep her safe during this scene, when the phone rings. Ling is calling to let Ami (or in this case, Tommy) know that they've been looking into Tavares, and he has a gambling habit. It's not a full-blown problem - he can go for stretches at a time without gambling - but he does have a two grand debt to the DiCarlo family. He tends to do his gambling at the Charleton Building, an office building that the DiCarlo family uses in Tower Groves as a speakeasy, casino, and brothel. Tommy thanks him for the information, and Ling hangs up. Hardigan decides to use his forced connections with the DiCarlo family to his advantage, and sets up two rooms at the Charleton Building for two nights later - one for Lucky Lucian and Nikki, and one for another group (which turns out to be Oona and Henry pretending to be a whore and a john).

The next night, officer Cruz returns. Henry hits the intercom again as Cruz gives him a fifty. Henry spills a little bit of information, and Cruz starts to mention Henry's "group" - an obvious reference to Ami's operation. Henry denies everything, but Cruz passes along a warning that Wilson is dangerous, and is wanted for impersonating a G-Man. She leaves, and Henry hands the bill over to Tommy ("It ain't my money.") The bill doesn't look like the usual tactics the cops use to pass bribes - it looks to be clean money, possibly Cruz's own cash instead of MCPD cabbage.

The group decides to see what Ling knows about Wilson, and has Gai call Ling up. Gai agrees, and Ling says he'll have his man Charles look into it and call back in two hours. Two hours pass, and a man with a strange monotone voice calls the bar asking for Gai. Gai takes the phone, and the bizarre voice (who claims to be Charles) tells him that Wilson is an rogue G-Man that currently sells his services as an assassin, and that they are in danger. Panicked, Gai goes down the street to call Ling back, and Ling confirms that the call was from Charles, but that he is a bit reactionary - they should be safe, as long as they are careful. He also says that he has "resources in place" that will try to keep an eye out for Wilson, and assure that if Wilson does move against the group, that they will take action against him. Gai thanks him and leaves.

On the night of the "date" with Lucky, the plan is finalized. Nikki is going to be taken by limo from an apartment building to the Charleton Building, where she'll wait for Lucky. Cat (who Ami sent to help with this operation) will be set up across the street in case Lucky needs to be taken out. In the room next door, Oona is going to be set up for when Henry arrives as the "john", despite Oona's reluctance to do anything sexual. They call Henry in to explain the situation, and after a couple of tries they mention Lucky. Henry stops them, and says he can't do it. After some questions, he explains that Lucky knows his face, because he stole some money from Lucky a couple of years back. Lamenting, the group starts to find an alternative, but they can't think of one. Henry says he'll be right back. A few minutes later, a man of Henry's height with Henry's clothing and Henry's voice returns, but he doesn't look like Henry at all. Even his Blank "tattoos" are missing. Henry explains that he has something called "nanotech" in him - a highly illegal form of technology. The money he stole from Lucky helped to pay for it. Confused at the sudden and mysterious depths to Henry's character, they go ahead with the plan. What they don't know is that Johnny has went on ahead and is watching Lucky's guards.

The plan initially goes well - Lucky doesn't seem to suspect anything (even if he does have two of his guards follow him into the building), and Henry starts ranting about how Oona isn't "the girl he wanted" (thus having her avoid the whole mess of actually having to pretend to have sex with him). However, the plan starts to go bad. Lucky gets a call, and tells Nikki to get dressed - he has to take care of some business, and he doesn't want to interrupt his session. Nikki asks to call to tell her driver she'll be late, which he agrees to. She calls Archer's, and Tommy answers. Through a complicated system of both sides trying to express their situation while making the conversation seem as innocent as possible (Nikki talking to a driver, Tommy telling her she's got the wrong number), it manages to get across that Nikki's in trouble. Luckily, Henry calls in at that point as well, and they have another bogus conversation. Henry and Oona storm out of their room minutes before Lucky drags Nikki out of hers.

Henry gets to the street, sees Johnny, and hails a taxi. Johnny ducks around the corner, finds a taxi, and knocks out the driver. He puts the cap on, squeezes into the seat, and bring the taxi around. Henry and Oona get in as Lucky drags Nikki out. Nikki intentionally stumbles in front of the cab, and Johnny sees her as she sees him. Lucky, furious, drags her to his car (a red sedan with tinted windows that has LUCKY as a license plate), and his driver speeds off. As Johnny ditches the cab and switches back to their car, a second car with Lucky's two other goons follows, and Johnny follows them.

The cars travel across town to Douglas Industrial Park, near the Alleyway (where shipments go to and from the food dome). Lucky the entire time is swearing, talking about how "those people shoulda been secure" and "the drugs were workin' on 'em just fine" and "Binny really fucked up this time". The cars pull in front of a warehouse, one of the goons opens the door, and both cars pull in and the door is closed. Inside, Nikki is told to wait in the car, and Lucky and the two goons walk around the corner of some wooden crates, and a loud wooden CLAP is heard. Meanwhile, Johnny sends Henry back with the car, and Oona picks the lock on the door and sneaks inside with Johnny, but she stumbles on a rusty metal plate. Johnny picks her up and carries her inside, but noone seems to be reacting to the noise. Nikki sees Johnny, and rolls down the window so that he can see her. They talk, and Johnny starts to take the batteries out of both cars. He tells Nikki to find a gun and bullets in Lucky's car (which she does) while Oona goes to find a phone to call the bar and tell them what's happening.

Johnny goes around the corner, and sees a large door in the wooden crates. He opens the door and sees stairs, and listens. He hears a conversation between Lucky and a man that is soon revealed to be Wilson. Wilson talks about how he's handling security problems in Binny's organization, and if he found "these people" then others could. Lucky refused to accept that he was from Binny, and had his goons waste him. A loud ZAP later, and Binny was begging for his life. Another ZAP, and there was silence.

Johnny quickly put the battery back into the car, put Nikki back in the car, and they drove off to the bar that Oona went to. Oona had called Archer's, and Tommy and Gai were on their way over (Hardigan was no where to be found). Tommy told Johnny to dump the car, and Johnny was reluctant until Tommy mentioned that the license plate said LUCKY (Johnny is illiterate). Johnny agreed, and they went to the Douglas hotel, afraid of leading any enemies back to Archer's. Johnny went outside the room to guard, but Tommy yelled at him that he screwed up the plan. The night turned into day, as the remaining group got more and more drunk and Tommy got more and more incoherent.

And things were about to get worse.

End of episode 5

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Although we were missing mrogre and cresida, this game was very fast-paced. A lot of plot I thought I was going to spread out over a couple of sessions happened in short order (this summary took me TWO HOURS to write), and natural NPC movements pushed things even further. However, it worked out really well - the story is pacing a lot like a film noir, where everything just seems to go wrong. The PCs are nervous, on the run, and aren't sure who to trust, and that's with $10,000 worth of weapons on the way. Episode 6 should be the half-way point, where the backstory finally stops falling into place and characters can start really reacting. But before that happens, things need to get just a little worse before they can get better.