I enjoyed writing up and seeing positive feedback from this post so I decided to write up about an interesting prop bet that came from the 2+2 poker forums that I feel went under the radar. It's way longer than I thought it would be but this story has it all: large amounts of money being bet, furious grinding, 25 buy in swings, community outrage and Doug Polk.

The Site

The modern cash game grinder may be surprised to hear that there used to be a Sharkscope style tracking website for online cash games, it was called PokerTableRatings or PTR. It tracked hands fairly accurately. Today, it doesn’t exist and has been shut down for years but it was a valuable resource for grinders and having one browser open to check out opponents was useful. PTR showed your graph and win rates at different stakes, it also had an achievement system. Some achievements were serious like ‘1 Million Dollars In Profit’ and some were less serious like ‘Check Raise 3 Times In A Hand’. One coveted achievement given by PTR was the ‘Ultimate Grinder’. This was given to the most profitable player each month at each stake, this was all tracked on the Ultimate Grinder Leaderboard. So for example: if you are the top of the leaderboard for 50NL in December 2008, you will receive the ‘Ultimate Grinder December 50nl 2008’ badge on your PTR profile.

The Bets

The year is 2010. Johnathon Duhamel has won the WSOP Main Event. Poker, especially online poker is still booming. The grinders are plentiful. The fish are more plentiful. Posts flow on 2+2 like wine.
Enter Silent_0ne. He puts out a proposition bet on BBV (Beats, Brags and Variance: a subforum of 2+2 which is the precursor to Poker’s weekly BBV thread). Back in the golden days of online poker and 2+2 it was common for large prop bets to be made on BBV. Silent_0ne’s prop bet is he will be the ultimate grinder for December 2010 at 100nl. No easy feat, the previous months' ultimate grinders had won between $12k-18k and Silent_0ne claimed to have never played more than 10 tables or ever played on Pokerstars. The odds were set at 6:1 odds in Silent’s_0ne’s favour. Jalexand42 was selected to be the escrow and judge of this prop bet, so he will be the middleman for the money and he will arbitrate any disputes. The rules were set down covered many different situations. The judge was confident of this:

Jalexand42: Just a quick note about the judging... I'm optimistic there won't be any controversy in this bet the way the rules have been defined. (#83)

He would turn out to be so wrong.
Many 2+2 posters weighed their opinions in and started to place bets:

Chicago Joey (Joey Ingram): damn that is going to be interesting for a bunch of reasons(#46)
Canoodles: If I was OP, I wouldn't take this for less than 100-1. (#18)
Chinz: Settling for 6-1 and doing it on December when lots of SNE chasers are playing really high volume... You don't seem to like money. (#218)

Nearly all the posters doubted Silent_0ne but he seemed confident and Jalexand42 started collecting money.
By the 28th November, with 3 days to go until the challenge begins the bets were placed and finalized, 14 people put up between $600-$3k. Silent_0ne stood to gain $67,500 or lose $11,250 from the bet alone. In just a few days he would put himself at the mercy of variance and would dedicate himself to destroying 100nl. If he overcomes this challenging month, he stood to win a significant amount of money.

The Play

December the first rolled in and Silent_0ne starting playing. It was a rocky start for him, he finished day two down more than $2k and received comments from 2+2 posters like:

ChicagoJoey [Joey Ingram]: lol trainwreck (#392)
MinSixBet: are you still taking action? (#399)

But some posters really believed in him and were rooting hard:

Eaglesfan1: Forget about the leaderboard and focus on your game and playing ur best. (#406)

However things got worse and Silent_one seemed to be losing hope, on day 4 he posted this:

Silent_0ne: just got owned
bad rly bad "hero call" for big pot
set of 8s < set of As
KK < AK
bad river bluff shove
set of 6s < str
10s < Js
AK < AA
AK on AK6 board < 66
AA < 99 on 974 board
^ all greater than 200 big blind pots
could have prevented half of those if I didnt suck so much (#410)

Day 5 and Silent_0ne was doing better but was down a few buy ins, still far behind his target. Remember, he needs to be number one in profit in the massive 2010 pool of 100nl Pokerstars players. He posted this astonishing hand:
Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em $0.20 Ante - 9 players

Silent_0ne: $568.55 UTG+1: $444.30 UTG+2: $519.10 MP1: $226.75 Hero (MP2): $257.70 CO: $250.00 BTN: $100.00 SB: $257.70 BB: $120.90
Pre Flop: ($3.30) Silent_0ne is MP2 with 9h9c
Silent_0ne raises to $4.80, UTG+1 raises to $18.60, 1 fold, MP1 calls $18.60, 5 folds, Silent_0ne calls $13.80
Flop: ($59.10) 2h8s5s(3 players)
Silent_0ne checks, UTG+1 bets $32, MP1 folds, Silent_0ne raises to $92, UTG+1 calls $60
Turn: ($243.10) Kc (2 players)
Silent_0ne checks, UTG+1 checks
River: ($243.10) 4s (2 players)
Silent_0ne bets $127, UTG+1 raises to $333.50 all in, Silent_0ne calls $206.50
Final Pot: $910.10
Silent_0ne shows 9h9c (a pair of Nines)
UTG+1 shows 9dJc (high card King)
Silent_0ne wins $907.10

As you can see, 2010 was truly an amazing place for online poker.
Silent_0ne was bringing out his inner grinder and was playing 16 hour sessions and seeing huge swings in the first week. Day 7 and he posted some hands that shocked the community and his growing fan base:

DPred123: wtf at those HHs. (#520)
Transa: LoLolLololooLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL (#521)

Here are two of the hands he posted:

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em $0.20 Ante - 9 players
Pre Flop: ($3.30) MP1: $365.20 Hero (CO): $342.35 Silent_0ne is CO with 7s7d
3 folds, MP1 raises to $4, 1 fold, Silent_0ne raises to $15.50, 3 folds, MP1 raises to $41.90, Silent_0ne raises to $342.15 all in, MP1 calls $300.25
Flop: ($687.60) ThKc6s(2 players - 1 is all in)
Turn: ($687.60) Ts (2 players - 1 is all in)
River: ($687.60) 2h (2 players - 1 is all in)
Final Pot: $687.60
MP1 shows AcAh (two pair, Aces and Tens)

and:

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em $0.20 Ante - 3 players
BTN: $656.85 Silent_0ne(SB): $288.00 BB: $345.00
Pre Flop: ($2.10) Silent_0ne is SB with 4d4h
BTN raises to $3, Silent_0ne raises to $12, 1 fold, BTN calls $9
Flop: ($25.60) 3h6d5s(2 players)
Silent_0ne checks, BTN bets $18, Silent_0ne raises to $275.80 all in, BTN calls $257.80
Turn: ($577.20) Js (2 players - 1 is all in)
River: ($577.20) 9c (2 players - 1 is all in)
Final Pot: $577.20
BTN shows 3d5d (two pair, Fives and Threes)
Hero Silent_0ne 4h4h (a pair of Fours)
BTN wins $576.20

Silent_0ne explained:

Silent_0ne: barely ate anything last few days. i just get up and play, dont prepare anything. im playing right now btw. down around 2700$ for the month. im really dumb for spewing off 3k+ just cause i was tilted/ran bad, and snapped. another problem that people overlook is the extra attention i get at the tables for doing this prop bet. lots of regs can exploit my plays and then all tend to focus on owning me. (#554)

Silent_0ne had started the month on a $3k downswing, then won $2.5k before going on another $3k downswing in just one week. He must have felt desperate as after an hour and a half Silent_0ne had an idea and events took a shocking turn:

Silent_0ne: any interested if i give up 100nl and start tomorrow on day 7 at 50nl to try and get the badge there for 6 to 1. i wanna gamble and break even on the month, so im willing to put up 5k on this if any1 is interested? (#570)

This new bet must have seemed too good to be true. At this point he had been relentlessly grinding 100nl for a week, was losing badly, he was tilting, was likely playing more tables than he can handle and he’s a week behind getting to the top of the 50nl leaderboard. The bets started to pour in and within an hour he had 7 people place action. The community commented:

Absurd: This is adsurd (#601)
jalexand42: Seriously, take a day to cool off. (#599)
King Fish: I'd be interested but highly advise you to reconsider this and maybe take an hour and step back. Edit: will take $1800 to your $300 assuming same judge and escrow. (#574)
loK2thabrain: I call dibs on first bet when he moves down to win the 25nl badge. (#700)

Everyone on the thread couldn’t believe what they reading, However, Silent_0ne seemed to accept that the 100nl bet was dead and he wasn’t getting the $67k prop bet win. He was willing to pay the $11k out and enter a new prop bet. Now, being the Ultimate Grinder at 50nl is his goal. Again, the bets were substantial and he had 8:1 odds in his favour for being the Ultimate Grinder for December at 50nl. The same day he made the new bet, he started at 50nl and was off.

The New Bet

Enter Fees. Fees is the 2+2 username of Ryan Fee (Currently on Team Upswing), at this point he was known for being a fearsome 2000nl grinder and writing Ryan Fee’s 6 max guide, which he distributed for free. In a world where succinct and good poker strategy was hard to come by, this was a valuable guide for many players. He takes interest in the thread on the 7th of December:

Fees i'll take all the action, PM me (#746)

Fees booked action late and the details of this booking were not listed in the thread. The next day, Fees acts a question about the rules:

Fees: what if kerpowski or jeffmet wins the ugl and he gets second? (#878)

Kerpowski and Jeffmet are players who took action against Silent_0ne. They are also 50/100nl grinders. The case of fellow grinders taking action was covered in the rules. A poster quotes the rules and informs Fees that they have to be existing 50nl/100nl grinders. Fees then asks the following question:

Fees: i think that implies at the same tables as him, but what if they just play completely different games and just win the ugl?

Remember these probing questions, they’ll become relevant later.
By the 10th of December things looked tough for Silent_0ne, the player of the top of the 50nl leaderboard was already at $2.5k profit (50 buy ins). Silent_0ne was up $1.1k and estimated he was only 2-3 days behind pace. By the 12th of December he was still playing brutally long sessions:

Silent_0ne: just finished 11 hour session, too tired to post anything, ill go to bed for a couple hours then post graphs/hands when i wake up. was tilted throughout entire session, played 12k hands...eyes burn...ran bad for once (6 buyins below ev)

He also posted eight hands that looked pretty spewy, here is one of them:

Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em $0.10 Ante - 5 players BB: $50.00 UTG: $103.40 CO: $137.65 BTN: $133.00 Silent_0ne (SB): $144.60
Pre Flop: ($1.25) Hero is SB with AdQh
1 fold, CO raises to $1.50, BTN calls $1.50, Silent_0ne calls $1.25, BB calls $1
Flop: ($6.50) 6c6d6s(4 players)
Silent_0ne checks, BB checks, CO bets $4, BTN folds, Silent_0ne raises to $14.75, BB folds, CO calls $10.75
Turn: ($36.00) 8h (2 players)
Silent_0ne bets $25.75, CO calls $25.75
River: ($87.50) 4d (2 players)
Silent_0ne bets $102.50 all in, CO calls $95.55 all in
Final Pot: $278.60
CO shows JdJc (a full house, Sixes full of Jacks)
Silent_0ne shows AdQh (three of a kind, Sixes)
CO wins $276.60

Even people taking action against him gave him advice:

King Fish: I am speechless … It's NL50. Stop trying to get so fancy. (#1038)

But then, Silent_0ne has an explosive session and is up an incredible $2800 in one day, that’s 56 buy ins! The posters go wild as he moves into 3rd place on the 50nl Ultimate Grinder leaderboard:

1. vaike $3,142, 19.38 Hands BB/100
   
2. zzn1980 $2,833, 2.46 Hands BB/100
   
3. Silent_0ne69 $2,634, 5.19 Hands B/100
   

For the first time people are starting to believe that he can do this.
Fast forward to the next day, December 13th and with another miraculous winning session he reaches number one on the leaderboard. He has $3.4k profit at 50nl and number two is close behind with $3.1k, if he can maintain his win rate of 6b/100 hands then he should have a very real chance of making an incredible comeback.
14th December. Fees posts:

Fees: still taking action, I want 2:1

Despite Silent_0ne being top of the leaderboard when he posted this and Fees already buying action Fees seemed willing to take 2:1 in Silent_0ne’s favour.
Soon after, a poster in the thread reveals that:

tightmaniac: fees is 4th

It is revealed that Fees who is normally a 2000nl player is playing 50nl HU and is 4th on the leaderboard. HU 50nl still counts towards the 50nl leaderboard. With the higher rate of hands of HU, bigger winrates of HU and Fees' skill, it could mean he would soon reach the top of the leaderboard. 10 minutes after TightManic’s post Fees lowers his odds:

Fees: Looking to take action on this at 1:1 (#1180)

The judge weighs in:

Jalexand42: If fees' didn't disclose this to whoever has his action, it's obviously pretty questionable, although that probably should have been asked. As far as the prop bet tho, I specifically asked Silent whether HU players should be included/excluded and he said included. The rules clearly don't exclude some random player from dropping down and playing $50nl (or $100nl for the original bet). They DO clearly state that people who bet against Silent one as part of the prop bet are NOT allowed to interfere with the bet, but I don't have anything to do with whatever side action fees may have on this. I told kerpowski last night that I didn't want him to play HU to try to win the badge, since I felt like it was a gray area in the intent of the rules (since he obviously doesn't normally play those stakes).
Kind of sucks for OP if this is going on, but I can't really change the rules after it's started since that would affect the people that bet against Silent. (#1196)

As of the 15 December Silent_0ne was still top of the board with $4.4k and most posters were expressing their displeasure if Fees were to continue playing 50nl. Silent_0ne drops this bombshell:

Silent_0ne: ‘2. Actions must be in accordance with the intent of having a fair prop bet. No actions (chip dumping, collusion, ghosting/coaching players on Silent_0ne's tables, etc) can be taken with the intent to affect the outcome of the prop bet. Violations will result in the violator's action being forfeited and may result in additional modification/extention to neutralize the interference.’ [Silent_0ne is quoting the rules here.] ‘The spirit of the bet is that OP is competing against players who 'really' play NL100, both ring and heads up.’
I know a friend of Fees and his friend said he was legit and everything. alittle after the bet started and action was full, fees approached me and my friend about taking additional action at 10 to 1. my friend and I took an additional 2.5k to his 25k and escrowed to wcgrider. the bet was under the assumption that the same rules as the 100nl bet were going to be used, and whatever the judge decides would be final.
so given the quotes above, it is against the rules that someone betting against me should also be able to compete against me given that he does not regularly play at 50nl (he plays 6max 2knl and WON the UGL badge last month at that stake) also, im not allowed to play 50nl HU which is really fishy and easy to win the UGL badge at if you put in enough volume.
regardless of if fees action is with Jalex or not, i think the same rules apply, because he is not a regular at the stakes and he accepted the same rules when making the bet with my friend and I going to eat something then start up a grind session, hopefully I continue to crush and run good, though my heart has sunk when I looked at fees in forth, and I feel ill and tilted (#1205)

Silent_0ne posted that he did a deal, off with main thread with 10 to 1 odds (Fees betting $25k to Silent_0ne’s $2.5k that Silent_0ne will win ultimate grinder 50nl) with Fees and that WCGRider (Doug Polk, currently of Upswing Poker and poker Youtube fame) is the escrow, not Jalexand42. Most posters now seem outraged:

King Fish: Wow what an angle shoot by Fees on this. This does help define the measure of what type of person he is that he is even attempting it. (#1207)
Tumaterminator: sickest hustle ever. (#1210)
kp1022: wait, doeboyfre$h is fees?
he sat me in 50nl HU a few days ago FWIW
after PTR'ing him , i asked why was he playing so low? he replied, "busto" (#1234)

Some of the posters were trying to play Fees at the 50nl in attempt to slow down his winning streak and tell Fees that he is breaking the rules. Silent_0ne expressed his displeasure and downed mental state:

Silent_0ne: this is horrible. im going to start my first grind right now. imo what fees is doing is against the rules and is unfair. i really hope i dont lose alot right now, but im in a pretty poor emotional state
please whoever is decent, sit it up with fees and discouarge him to continue what hes doing. 2knl player won badge last month, makes big bet against me and decides to compete for 50nl badge against me... (#1267)

For the first time in a few days Fees posts:

Fees: Hey,
Just to clear a few things up,

1. I haven't broken any rules, there isn't a rule that explicitly states that I cannot win the UGL.
2. I'm not trying to scam/do anything shady/etc, when I made the bet I posted in this thread asking if a bettor could win the UGL […] anyway I'm going to try and win the 50nl UGL this month... I haven't done anything wrong and there is nothing wrong with me going for it.

Then, an enflamed debate about the rules erupts, almost every poster is furious at Fees

Silent_0ne: had a conversation with WCGRider over the phone. the assumption was that jalex is the judge of this bet, and his word is final. WCGRider is simply just an escrow. fees and I agreed on the rules of the bet and having jalex of the judge. #1352

Then WCGRider (Doug Polk) posts for the first time:

WCGRider: Wanted to make a quick post here because i talked to colin earlier about this and i want to clear up a few things.
First off, I was never told i was going to be an escrow. I literally woke up with colins [Silent_0ne] money in my account. I was never asked anything, I was never told anything, I just was sent the money and thats it.
So now im being brought into this to make a decision, which i dont think really is fair. I haven't read any of this thread, I haven't read the rules. Also, fees has to be one of my best friends here in las vegas, and I want that to be clear before i give my opinion about this. I think its sort of unfair that i get put into this situation.

jalexand42 then posts his judgment in a lengthy post (#1526) but I believe this excerpt sums it up:

jalexand42: So, while it is not UNFAIR of fees to be playing $50nl, he has CLEARLY taken actions that will influence the outcome of the bet IF he wins the UGL for $50nl for December. Fees would clearly NOT be playing $50nl (and in fact is still playing his normal stakes) if he didn't have action on this bet. Fees also clearly understood this was a questionable area with regard to the rules based on his posts in this thread and he did not clarify it with the judge. He posts also indicate clearly that he felt he was subject to the rules. Therefore, I rule that Fees' standing on the UGL for December WILL BE IGNORED for purposes of determining this bet if he wins.

Many posters praise Jalexand42. But Jalexand42 does not have the money from the sidebet between Silent_0ne and Fees. WCGrider does. Silent_0ne gives his piece of mind and a quick poker update:

Silent_0ne: yes, i agree with this [Jalexand42's judgment].
also, fees can keep the 25k in the bet without any forfiet. im just really happy things worked out okay.
however i probably should have read this before my session I just played. probably wouldnt have spewed as much at the endodays been my worst day since the start of the 50nl bet so far. gonna play 1 more session later tonight and going to be in alot better and focused mood (#1561)

Then, another bombshell drops, a friend of WCRrider’s reveals that Fees didn’t even escrow his money to Doug:
theskillzdatklls: Afaik, Fees did not ship his $25k share to Doug, only Colin [Silent_0ne] sent his part. (#1669)
2+2 reacts:

Handbaggio: LOL wtf, fees hasn't escrowed his bet??? (#1676)
rnb0sprnkles: LOL and when I thought the drama was starting to die down, the thread gets even crazier (#1698)

Jalexand42 has a conversation with WCGRider to reach an agreement and reports:

Jalexand42: Okay, so here's the summary of my conversation with WCGRider:

1. He is only holding Silent & the_most's action, $2,500.
   
2. He did talk to Fees. Fees told him he was going to talk to Colin [Silent_0ne] today and 'hopes to work out something reasonable'.
   
3. I asked what that means, he said he didn't feel like he could tell me, because he felt like what Fees told him was as a friend, but that it sounded fair in WCGRider's opinion.
   
4. WCGRider said he thought my decision making sounded reasonable.
   
5. WCGrider said that noone told him what to do, so he figured he was just holding on to Silent's money.
   
6. I told WCGrider I was willing for him to ship me the $2.5k now if he was feeling uncomfortable, he said he'd wait to see what Silent & Fees work out. ( #1703)
   

Back to actual poker and Silent_0ne reports a bad losing session on the 16th December citing all the ongoing drama:

Silent_0ne: 22 buyin downswing im playing really bad right now, and I really wish I didn't have to think about and deal with all these other problems.

The community are rooting really hard to him at this point and are all telling him to stay strong. Things start to get messy when Jalexand42 speaks with WCGRider and Fees and in a long post ( #1957) said that WCGRider protested his participation was unfair and Jalexand42 accused him of not of not already sending the $25k to Jalexand42. Fees also tried to offer Silent_0ne a $1k buy out saying it was ‘super generous’, it was refused. Silent_0ne states that the reason fees doesn't want his money escrowed by Jalexand42 is that he is afraid that his bet will be forfeited due to breaking the rules. WCGRider chimed in to defend himself (he also spoke about playing 50nl-100nl and having a rough year, which is interesting as he developed into the top HU player for a time and couldn’t get action, even at the highest stakes.) The 2+2 community then debate and lightly harass WCGRider and Fees to concede and send the money to Jalexand42. Fees finally agrees to a 50% buyout.

The Outcome

On the 17th of December and Silent_0ne slips to number 2 on the leaderboards.

1. vaike $3,835 ,17.44BB/100
   
2. Silent_0ne69 $3,523, 4.25BB/100
   

Silent_0ne then makes a post that changes everything:

Silent_0ne : Hello everyone
firstly, I would like to say thank you so much to everyone who supported me throughout this bet. i cant stress how much it meant to me to see any post wishing me goodluck, or someone pming me given me some life lessons and more encouragement.
ive been approached by the bettors on numerous occasions regarding a buyout. the original buyout deal offered was 33%. eventually 37% was offered, and then 44%, and finally I agreed on 50% of total wagers from all 6 bettors as their buyout.
I am not really satisfied with a buyout, and I was not the one originally looking for the buyout. the bettors wanted it and I decided to see what they had to offer. what I wanted was time to spend with friends and family throughout the christmas break. With continuing this bet, I do have alot of confidence of accomplishing it, but at the expense of isolation through one of the most special times of each year. My family was mad at me when I tried explaining to them I probably wouldn't be able to particpate in any family events and have much if any celebration of christmas.
my goal the next 14 days was to just grind it out 10 hours each day with breaks inbetween, and sleep. Instead I will be able to go back to my regular, stress free grinding, and shipping 50% of the total wagers after half the month as gone by. In the end, including both the 100nl and 50nl prop bets, I made a net of roughly +20k. The other two options would be risking a net of -20k or a net of +60k. I took the variance free route, and all the bettors did the same thing. None of us wanted to lose the bet obviously, so I think we worked out a fair resolution with this buyout.
I have no hard feelings against fees or wcg rider. Perhaps a different scenerio would have occured if the recent issues did not occur, but thats in the past now and i'm looking forwards to a postive future. (#2511)

So, in the end all the parties involved reached a buyout agreement on the 50nl prop bet. Silent_0ne would stop playing the 50nl prop bet and would be up $20k. The community replies:

Ditch Digger: Silent, nice job. 50% is more than reasonable. (#2516)
kelnel: gg on +20k, u rocked!! (#2520)
shhhnake_eyes: I call this the most anticlimactic finish ever. (#2522)

Link to original thread.
Note: Please note I’ve tried to be impartial in writing this. Please let me know publicly or privately if there are any errors or you feel I misrepresented something or someone. The quotes I’ve included don’t always show the full post made but I’ve included the post number in each quote so you can read it on 2+2 in full context. If you want to be fully informed you should read the whole 2+2 thread.

So this is my review roundup of the first time I’ve attempted Bingo now at the halfway point (more or less). To be more precise this is a mini-review of every single fantasy book I’ve read during the first half of the Bingo year. Everything below was listened on Audible. They are listed in Chronological order by finish date.
A final note, these reviews are terrible. They don’t tell you much of anything about the plots of the novels. Instead you are going to hear thoughts on tone, characterization, and world building, but it's more judgment and less description.
City of Blades - Robert Jackson Bennett (Book 2 of Divine Cities)
BINGO: Not picked for Bingo, but qualifies for Novel with Chapter Epigraphs (Hard Mode)
Rating: 4 out of 5
Summary: Fantasy Noir, set in an age of steam world dominated by an Indian themed stand-in for the British Empire. A retired female general is sent to find a missing secret agent.
Review: So first, I greatly enjoyed this series. I started it right after finishing the Licanius Trilogy, which I found…. A bit meh. And this was a refreshing change of pace. I tore through City of Stairs, and immediately plunged into this one. I personally loved Mulogush in Book 1, and so although surprised by the change in focus, I was happy enough with this book's protagonist. This whole series has extremely good characterization, and this book was no exception. A weakness in the first and third book in this series is generally boring villains. In book 1 you will recall that the human ‘villain’ is largely offscreen the entire book, with his minions harassing our heroes, while he himself shows up only briefly. In this book, the two human ‘villains’ are much better fleshed out, even if both are a bit one dimensional. I also enjoyed the lovecraft-ian aspects of this story. Without getting into spoilers, there are some great dark god appears on cliff over sea scenes, and a couple of our characters questioning their own sanity was fun in that grand old lovecraft tradition.
On the negative side, some of the plot twists here are pretty obvious, and I don’t really think it's that subtle who is going to end up the bad guys. So the ‘mystery’ itself isn’t that clever and is worse than book 1 in that respect. Having said that, I’d much rather have a mystery in a book that can be guessed, rather than the modern impulse to just be surprising for its own sake.
The Return of the King - J. R. R. Tolkien (Book 3 of The Lord of the Rings)
BINGO: Not picked for Bingo and a re-read. As far as I can see doesn’t fit a single Bingo square– does this book feature ghosts? Or since Sauron is ‘the necromancer’ could I use it for that square?
Rating: 5 out of 5
Summary: High Fantasy set in a middle earth knock off. A classic tale of short fat people destroying jewelry that doesn’t belong to them, and in the process murdering a dead guy.
Review: What to say? You should obviously read all these books. I think it's funny to tag spoilers for LotR. I wonder if there is a single person on this sub who hasn't at least seen the movies. (If you are such a person dear reader, stop reading this and go watch the movies). But rules are rules! Also, Vader is Luke's dad, and the Titanic hits an iceberg and sinks.
So first: the Rob Inglis narration is amazing -- if you like these books and have not heard his reading of them you absolutely absolutely owe it to yourself to seek them out, if for no other reason than the singing. Not all of that is excellent, but none of it is terrible and when it's good, it's amazing. Also it's kind of fun to listen to an audio book this old, there are like… noises in the background sometimes, like this book wasn’t recorded or produced in a real studio, but really I think that added to the charm.
I hadn’t read LotRs since the late 90s, although I’ve obviously watched the movies a number of times. Re-reading them I was struck by how strange they are. The sections with Aragon, from when he joins the hobbits in Bree, until the ring is destroyed, are the ‘normal’ epic fantasy blueprint. The rest of the story is just totally weird in an awesome way. Sam and Frodo killing and cooking a rabbit (I know that's technically two towers), 100 pages of diversions into history and lore that truly go nowhere. The structure of Return of the King especially is strange… like… the ring is destroyed maybe 2/3s of the way into the book!Which, okay, nowadays when a fantasy epic spans a minimum of 5,000 pages, maybe having 100 pages of post climax material is ‘normal’ but like almost 1/5th of the Lord of the Rings is wind down. This is all the more shocking when you realize that another, at least 1/3rd of the Fellowship of the ring is just wind up. Regardless, I truly loved it, so many authors borrow so much from LoTR but I feel like what writers imitate is the Aragon arc. I wish someone would copy the 30% of the series that can be summarized as: hobbits go on a long walk and sing some songs. Sometimes the walk is nice, sometimes it's not nice. Regardless, they do their best.
p.s. I think I never read the appendix when I was a kid. Man there is some good stuff in there.
The Legacy - R. A. Salvatore (Book 1 of the Legacy of the Drow)
BINGO: Not picked for Bingo. I guess this satisfies the Magical Pet Square.
Rating 1 out of 5
Summary: Sword and Sorcery set in the DnD forgotten realms. Five friends who constantly talk about how much they value friendship suddenly forget to talk to each other and get attacked by some Drow or whatever.
Review: So, I never read any of these as a kid. I started reading them in 2018, and I’ve gotten this far. This is the 7th? book in the series. I read the first trilogy in 2018, the second in 2019, and was planning on knocking out the third trilogy in 2020. But honestly, I’m not sure I’ll go further.
I enjoyed the first three books pretty well, and the Icewind Dale was so classic sword and sorcery it was hard not to like. But this book… MAN, everyone is just so earnest it's impossible, even like the drow mercenary guy, and the assassin guy. I sort of liked Drizt’s brother in the first three books so I was sad to see him done so dirty in this one. I also love Regius, who is also done dirty in this book. Also also, I don’t approve of what happened to the barbarian guy. He’s like a quasi complex character in as far as these books go… at least he has real flaws.
Anyway, the writing, the plotting and everything, is pretty basic, the book tries… maybe... to take on a darker tone than its predecessors, and I didn’t really like that, or think it worked. I was hoping for fun and light popcorn reading, and it was, but it was not nearly as fun and popcorny as for example, the Dresden files, or Murderbot. I’m a big DnD fan, so I wished I liked these better, and really wished I read them 20 years ago. I dunno, maybe I’ll slog on. Sometimes when I’m listening to an audiobook and I’m wavering about whether to finish it or not, I’ll increase the replay speed. (I did that a bunch during Licanius—turns out you can understand someone saying ‘inclined their head’ at a high rate of speed) and I found myself doing that with Legacy, I think at one point I caught myself listening at x3. Coupling that with the fact that these books are pretty short, it's just a REALLY bad use of an audible credit.
The Thousand Names - Django Wexler (Book 1 of the Shadow Campaign)
BINGO: Not picked for Bingo, but is a book with a number in the Title.
Rating 3 out of 5
Summary: Military FlintLock Fantasy. A bunch of army guys (and a few secret army gals) wage a campaign against long odds to reinstall a puppet king, but that's a cover for trying to steal indigenous religious relics.
Review: I loved the first 3/4s of this book, and liked the last 25% much less. I’m in a real mood for low key magic these days, and this book does a great job of that for most of it. Both PoV’s are good. Side note, I always think its… an interesting choice… when a male writer has one female PoV character and decides to make her a lesbian, it makes me wonder: Is this how you decided to make it easier to write a lady character? Make her like other ladies so you can relate to that?
Regardless! I like military fantasy with training arcs and I liked that none of our protagonists are anything special when it comes to actually killing people, even though both are obviously exceptional in other ways. I’ve seen this criticism before, but for a book that is so much about colonialism, and is literally about trying to steal another cultures artifacts, that stuff is not dealt with by the book at all. I mean I don't think a book HAS to address that kind of thing, but it is surprising that it is essentially ignored. Nevertheless, I liked the show don’t tell world building here, with some totally reasonable fill me in exposition much later in the story.
Now once the magic leaps to the forefront I liked this less. There was a ‘superhero’ feel to this magic, which I have developed a real personal distaste for in my fantasy reading (A criticism I have of Licanius as well). Also one of our POVs: Marcus is annoyingly ‘nice guy’-ish, but at least he gets what's coming to him in that department.
City of Miracles - Robert Jackson Bennett (Book 3 of Divine Cities)
BINGO: Not picked for Bingo… Can’t reuse an author, might count as Ghost square if you STRETCH IT, otherwise I think this book is BINGO USELESS!
Rating 3 out of 5
Summary: Fantasy Noir, set in an age of steam world dominated by an Indian themed stand-in for the British Empire. A retired spy comes out of hiding to solve a crime.
Review: I think this is the weakest entry in the series. The villain gets a lot of screen time and he’s just not interesting. His main lieutenant is not interesting either. I kinda liked the assassin guy… but he’s not in it THAT much. I loved Sigurid, everyone does, I think, so having him as the central character was gonna be good I thought, but maybe too much of a good thing, as he’s not the most dynamic of guys. Without descending into spoilers, again I thought the ‘twists’ here were predictable, but not in a way that was necessarily bad.
Having said that, I liked all three of these books, seeing the world change and develop over the time period of the series was great. The ending (last chapter) was a really good conclusion for Sigruid’s arc, and I think this book featured some great action sequences. Sigrud fighting on the cable car was truly memorable. I didn’t like the ‘arc’ of the gods story all that much. Honestly, I kinda wish the last book had !>featured another god or two from the series pantheon as the antagonist, then we could nicely summarize this series: Sigurd and friends kill saints and gods with guns and bombs. Three Parts Dead - Max Gladstone (Book 1 Craft Sequence)
BINGO: This book marks the beginning of where I decided to do Bingo this year. Picked for the necromancer square. Also would work as a book with a number in the title or maybe a book featuring ghosts? Are dead gods ghosts?
Rating 2 of 5
Summary: Urban Fantasy, not modern: lawyer necromancers work towards a good restructuring of a bankrupt god, other not so nice necromancer lawyers want a bad restructuring of said god.
Review: Definitely would have DNF’d this if not for Bingo. Maybe It's because I’m a lawyer for a living that this book annoyed me? I don’t know -- although it's not like anyone is trying to actually imitate the actual practice of law in this book. I didn’t like our main character, I didn’t understand her motivations, or whether she had any. She doesn’t really have an ‘arc.’ She is a really skilled necromancer at the beginning, and she is just ‘skilled necromancers about’ throughout the book. I also didn’t like our supporting cast, except for the junior fire priest, he was pretty okay. There was a ‘superhero’ feel to the magic and mythical creatures in this book, which again I’m ‘off’ presently. I can’t imagine I’ll continue with this series. If I do it will be for world building which is pretty novel. I will also say that I profoundly disliked the first half of this book, and liked the second half more… so even without Bingo if I’d somehow pushed my way through the first half I totally would have finished it. There is an almost YA feel to this book even though it definitely isn't. Is there a genre name for books that are somewhere between YA and adult?
As a final note, I didn’t really like the narration on the audible version, she just made all the characters seem so --- flippant? -- but maybe that is just how they are written?
Ninth House - Leigh Bardugo
BINGO: Picked for Bingo, specifically, University setting (Hard Mode) would also work as story featuring a ghost (And I’d argue Hard Mode) AND Chapter Chapter Epigraphs.
Rating: 4 of 5
Summary: Fantasy Noir, Yale student from the wrong side of the tracks who can see ghosts poorly investigates a disappearance and two murders.
Review: This book is obviously trying to be a bit more ‘literary’ than the rest of the stuff on this list. Alex Stern is a very refreshing protagonist. Damaged in ways that are believable and interesting, with motivations and limitations that make sense. She makes bad choices often for reasons that are very understandable. And although she verges on the annoyingly incompetent she doesn’t cross that line. The setting is super fun and I personally really liked the non-linear story. This book does that Rivers of London thing except with New Haven instead of London, which even as someone with 0 connection to New Haven, and no desire to ever go there, was still very interesting. The supporting cast is excellent, the author has such care for her three protagonists. Although this book is obviously setting itself up for a sequel, I kind of wish it hadn’t done that. Exploring the world and this magical Yale is what makes this book so fun, and now that it's ‘done’ I’d be very worried a squeal won’t be as interesting. Also, this book has a good mystery, not like Agatha Christie good, but still very good.
This is also true Noir. The brash outsider protagonist who doesn’t play by the rules, the not evil but definitely not good authority figures who are ultimately incapable of providing justice. Not all the bad guys get punished etc etc. I like Noir so that's a plus. Honestly if I was doing half stars I’d give this 4.5
The Unspoken Name - A. K. Larkwood (Book 1 of Serpents Gates)
BINGO: Picked for Book Club Bingo Square. Also qualifies as a 2020 book (Hard Mode). Would have also counted as a necromancer book.
Rating: 2 of 5
Summary: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, a young orc girl is brought up by an aloof and power hungry wizard over the course of three, only somewhat related short stories.
Review: I’m glad I read this book, even though I didn’t love it. The setting is interesting. There are a bunch of ‘worlds’ some of which are dying, and main characters pilot spaceships sail ships between them. There is also strong characterization in this book, except maybe from our main character, Csorwe. She reminded me a bit of Shadow from American Gods—just kind of there. Now what I’m going to say next is going to seem like a non-sequitur: she has a super believable romance subplot in the book which I do think was handled extremely well. I loved the supporting character of Tal. He’s a truly unique protagonist. Selfish, rude, sullen, petty, shallow, a boot licker. He’s like… Jezal from the beginning of “The Blade Itself,” mixed with…. Ricewind from Disc World? mixed with Rimmer from Red Dwarf? Something like that? Anyway, I like him. I wish he was in it more. His ending is my favorite part of this whole book.
I think the problems with this book lies with the plot. There is too much going on, and too little happening at the same time. There are so many places and settings visited, and none are properly fleshed out, the action is kind of dull, and the writing can be too. Too many characters are thrust on you that genuinely don't matter. This feels like 3 books in one, none of which are interesting enough to be their own short story crammed together. I could see this series, if that is what it's going to be, getting better now that the setting has been crammed down our throats, so even though I only gave this a 2/5 I’ll probably read the second one.
Prince of Thorns - Mark Lawrence (Book 1 of the Broken Empire)
BINGO: An Unsuccessful Break from Bingo, Bingo useless, although maybe necromancer?
Rating: 2 of 5
Summary: Grimdark, Your angsty teenage brother’s idol wants to be emperor.
Review: My first crack at Mark Lawrence. I liked First Law a lot (although I DNF’d ‘Best Served Cold’), and have not done any of the other standalones, or started the new one. I like Black Company tons. So I’m fine with grimdark. That first chapter was unique, not in a bad way, made but in a way that was quickly undermined by the rest of the story. I think it's fine to have hate-able protagonists— see my discussion of Tal above— but that’s not really what Jorge is. I think he’s more or less presented as a plain old hero, almost right from the beginning. The book just info dumps on you what a morally bankrupt person this guy is right up front, and then basically he’s fine the rest of the book. There is something like the beginnings of a redemptive arc in his story, but really not. And I want to be clear about what I mean by that, the book is setting everything up for such an arc, but at least in Book 1, there is no pay off. The guy is ‘getting better’ but as close as he gets to thinking, gee rape is bad, is concluding, paying a prostitute is more fun. Then he wonders…. Maybe it would be even more fun to have actual consensual sex. That’s Jorge growth. I guess if Lawrence is writing from an unredeemed teenage perspective, that's probably the level of insight such a person would have, so credit where credit is due.
Having said all that, I think Lawrence is great writer. The story is fun, and has some great moments. I think the Jorge dueling his dad's champion is as good (maybe better) than Brom dueling Ser Vardis in ASOIF. The Post-Apocalyptic setting is well done (something I tend to like— fantasy set in this is our earth, but we really messed it up). The action is great, and the plot moves at a blazing pace. I might get around to the rest of this series, or I might just try something else by Lawrence. Honestly, this is more like a 2.5 than a straight 2.
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
BINGO: Bingo useless. Do the Eagles count as Magic pets who talk -- hard no!
Rating: 5 of 5
Summary: Young Adult? The one and only OG Hobbit, Bilbo M-Fer Baggins goes on a questionable holiday.
Review: Gotta five star this thing. Can’t really say much about it other than echo what I said above about RotK. I’ll say I’d forgotten how much less fleshed out Tolkien’s world building is in this one. Also I think it's funny how dwarves, who are basically badasses in LotRs are totally feckless in the Hobbit until the end. I mean seriously, 13 dwarves go to kill a dragon and they start out with 0 swords/axes between the lot of them? what was the plan— politely ask him to leave?
Also there is a dramatic tone change in the book. The Hobbit goes from children’s story all the way through when they get to Laketown, and then shifts to being like an extra part of the Lord of the Rings during the battle of the five armies and its surrounding events and aftermath. Anyway, this is just a darling story, and a great contrast to Price of Thorns. Anyone know of YA books like the hobbit? (other than, I guess Narnia) -- let me know in the commentssss!
MurderBot Short Stories (all 4 of them) - Martha Wells
Bingo: picked for ACE/ARO (Hard Mode) I guess this is also five short stories (Hard Mode?)
Rating: 5 out of 5
Summary: SCI-FI: Security cyborg hacks his way to freedom, ends up doing… basically what he’d been programmed to do before freeing himself afterwards.
This was great. Just great. Last year I read Ready Player One (1 of 5 stars). Martha Wells could give a class on how to integrate pop culture into your setting in a way that is interesting and refreshing, and she did it without using a single actual pop culture reference. Murder Bot is darling, the stories are light hearted and fun with enough depth to be interesting without massive exposition on the relationship between man and machine. There is a kind of upstairs/downstairs dynamic to the way the robots and constructs interact with each other in this book, and super interesting dynamics between human → augmented human → construct → robot → dumb robot. On one level these stories are about the prejudice that Murderbot faces, but Murderbot is prejudiced too, not just against humans, which is like the funny joke, but also against robots he views as ‘lower level’ than himself. Anyway, binge reading these might not have been the best way to do it, but it was amazing. I managed to stop myself from diving right into the full length novel, but I promise you I’ll get to it before Bingo 2021.
If I was going to criticize these stories, they are all sorta similar in terms of structure and pacing—after the first one that is. I am concerned the novel might drag if it's more of the same, that's partly why I’m waiting, give me three months and even if it is the same I’ll love it.
Eric - Terry Pratchett (Book 9 of the Discworld)
Bingo: Bingo break! but a book to make me laugh, easy mode.
Rating 4 of 5
Summary: Satirical Fantasy, wizard is accidentally summoned instead of demon, hijinks throughout time and space ensue. Also there is a parrot.
Review: When I was maybe fifteen I read Small Gods. Had somehow never heard of Pratchett or the Discworld, and even though I liked it, I never read any more Pratchett until maybe two years ago? Now I’m slowly working my way through all of them in publication order (although I accidentally read witches abroad out of order somehow)... anyway, I’ve reached Eric, a (I think) less well liked Pratchett short(er) story featuring Rincewind, who is probably a less well liked Discworld protagonist. But I really liked this one. My favorite Rincewind story to date. I loved the character of Eric, our teenage demonologist. Many it was reading Eric so close to reading Prince of Thorns, but I mean…. Isn’t Jorge basically Eric? They’ve each got the same number of letters in their name, they both want power eternal and pretty girls. They both are getting jacked with by powers both seen and unseen and are none too pleased about it, they both have bad relationships with their fathers, and are obsessed with their moms. And before anyone in the comments says something smart about how Faust obviously influenced Prince of Thorns, and Eric is a straight up parody of Faust so of course they share something in common, to that I would say… Mephistopheles never eats half an egg and cress sandwich.
Eric is a bit on the nose, even for Pratchett, but the demons re-doing hell as corporate culture is really funny, and it's just so charmingly Discworld to think that the demon overseeing Sisyphus is encouraging him while he pushed the rock up the hill. Also, while I’ve always disliked the luggage, there is so little story to Eric that the luggages’s general antics didn’t annoy me like they sometimes do.
Malice - John Gwynne (Book 1: Faithful and the Fallen)
BINGO: Not picked for Bingo, but I guess this is Magical pet (hard mode)
Rating: 4 of 5
Summary: Epic Fantasy, stand-in AngloSaxons and stand-in Vikings set the stage for three more books, in a well executed trope and trope subversion fest.
Review: I need to stop taking Bingo breaks if I’m ever going to get to blackout! So I picked this up after reading a review on fantasy, and I liked it, well enough that plunged into Book 2 right afterwards -- although I probably should not have, I'm slowing down in Valor even though it might be objectively better than Malice. This is as typical modern-esque epic fantasy as you can get, Wheel of Time, Malazan (not really), The Farseer Trilogy (is series from 25 years ago modern?) etc etc....
This book features so many fantasy tropes, it should be terrible, but it's not. It is actually pretty darn good. One thing I liked about ASOIAF is that you get POV chapters from people who are maybe villains and certainly on the wrong side. Here we get a smorgasbord of POVs showing us all sides of the coming conflict, generally from pretty sympathetic characters, even when they are on the wrong side. People praise John Gwynne for his action scenes are they are very strong (even if they do get a bit repetitive after a while).
But like MY GOODNESS the tropes, (1) chosen one who is the blacksmith’s son (2) mean old lady witch who is actually nice with a talking bird; (3) upcoming battle between good god and evil god; (4) magic pet wolf (5) mysterious older sword master trains hero. I mean… you can tell things are not going to well for the village in which this kid grows up! Honestly, the most predictable thing about this books is thinking: oh, I bet really bad stuff is going to happen to all these reasonable authority figures.
But each of these tropes is either really well executed or twisted just enough to make it truly unique. I mean these books have TWO Gandalfs in them, but there is an evil one and good one, and no one knows which is which! Which actually is kind of like Lord of the Rings… a lot… but it's different and well done I promise!
Conclusion: I need to read the Murderbot Novel and a novel with color in the title to get to my first ever BINGO, and I've got a lot of work left for Blackout. (or wait... is Eric not a short story? do I need one more for 5?) Also I cannot fathom how people are already done with Bingo.

ACCESS: RESTRICTED DECRYPTION KEY: 83VT2P4AN0$AUN-326 > REMOTE DATABASE TEXT-ONLY ACCESS INITIALIZED. > WELCOME, USER "PRAXICTEMPLAR". > PLEASE ENTER COMMAND. > open private directory "ohr case" > DIRECTORY LOCKED. > PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD. > **************** > DIRECTORY UNLOCKED. > PLEASE ENTER COMMAND. > open transc "parlour-backroom03-0247" 

----------------
TYPE: Transcription
DESCRIPTION: Conversation between various parties in a back room of The Parlour (Magpie District, Last City)
PARTIES: Six [6]. One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate Sleight-3 [S3]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate "Lady" Olu Alderdice [OA] (POI#0195); One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate Rega-7 [R7]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Warlock, designate Wahei Ohr [WO] (POI#0247); One [1] human, designate Charlie Tango [CT] (POI#0320); One [1] human, designate Paul Kent [PK]
ASSOCIATIONS: Alderdice, "Lady" Olu; Dusk Tarot; Kent, Paul; Ohr, Wahei; Parlour; Rega-7; Sleight-3; Tango, Charlie
//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS...//
[PK] And I believe that hand goes to me. Trips treys, plus two trumps, Glory and Valor.
[S3] [EXPLETIVE DELETED]
[OA] On the contrary, my dear Mister Kent. Ten-high four-flush, with a Tyrant trump.
[S3] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] How the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] did you get that flush?
[CT] Ha! Olu, you complete [EXPLETIVE DELETED]. You've the Devil's own luck.
[OA] LADY Olu, if you please, Mister Tango.
[CT] Only judges and magistrates call me "Mister Tango." I've told you, your ladyship, you can just call me Charlie.
[OA] Of course.
[door opens]
[PK] Rega! So good to see you.
[R7] Back at you, Paul. Like I'd turn down a chance to see you for an evening.
[CT] Rega-7, glad you could join us.
[OA] Quite. I was almost getting bored with taking glimmer off these three.
[S3] [EXPLETIVE DELETED]
[OA] Language, Mister Three. Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?
[CT] 'Course he don't. Exos don't have lips.
[R7] Charlie, Sleight... Lady Alderdice.
[S3] Rega. Who's your friend?
[R7] Well, Paul's met her. Wahei, this is Sleight-3--
[S3] [grunts]
[R7] The infamous Lady Alderdice, and that's Charlie Tango. Everyone, this is my teammate, Wahei Ohr.
[S3] Or what?
[WO] Just 'Ohr.'
[S3] Or what?
[WO] Just 'Ohr.'
[S3] [pause] Or what?
[WO] Just 'Ohr.'
[pause]
[WO] I have all day. How long do you have?
[CT] Heard that one a few times, have you?
[WO] Just a bit. And would you be THE Charlie Tango?
[CT] I object to the "THE." Tells me I'm not keepin' as low a profile as I'd like.
[WO] When the Corsairs found out you'd gotten into their vaults and stolen armaments and sold them off in the black market, it didn't take them long to figure out who did it. You could count the number of people who could get away with it on one hand, and of those, there's only one not presently in the Prison of Elders, and actually, that's not accurate, since it occurs to me there's been reports that someone managed to break into Vanguard vaults and then there was all the chaos that the Kell's Scourge managed to wreak before they were stomped out after they got into Botza District--
[R7] Not the time, Wahei.
[beat]
[R7] Anyway, care to deal me in, boys and lady?
[WO] Me, too, please.
[CT] Pull up a chair.
[sounds of chairs scraping, glimmer and silver clinking, chips clattering]
[OA] The game is Dusk Tarot Poker with a double box. Are you familiar, Miss Ohr?
[WO] Indeed I am, at least in theory. I spent a few years studying cartomancy purely for the novelty, though I was never able to specifically confirm the efficacy of the practice as a means of determining the pattern of Fate, but then that could just be due to the nature of paracausality upon such things, after all, the saying is that 'Guardians make their own Fate,' so having a Lightbearer attempt a card reading would probably skew the results, but without further evidence to confirm this, I can't really determine anything--
[R7] Not the time, Wahei.
[WO] Right. Dusk Tarot Poker. Same hands as in standard 52-card poker, played with the Dusk Tarot deck. Suits are staves, motes, chalices, swords, and 'trumps,' the last of which is comprised of the major arcana. Modified rules allow for four-card flushes and straights, if the fifth card is a trump--
[PK] I think that covers the basics--
[WO] --depending on the place, some rules explicitly place the trumps as the first-among-equals in the suits, while others only play the first fourteen major arcana and discard the rest and the Fool, and others will include the others and treat them as 'lesser trumps' which are out-ranked by the 'greater trumps'--
[R7] Not the time, Wahei.
[WO] Right. Anyway, Tarot Poker with a double box. Five-card draw. Rules as stated, but two 'boxed cards' will be dealt, one each after each round of betting.
[R7] Deal the cards, please. Not you, Lady Alderdice. No offense, but I don't trust the inventor of the Tricksleeves with the deal.
[OA] I choose to take that as a compliment, Miss Seven. For our game tonight, Miss Ohr, we're playing with the first-among-equals with the greater trumps. Fixed-limit bets.
[S3] Ante up.
[ANNOTATION: TRUNCATING TRANSCRIPT. SUMMARY BELOW.]
[S3 takes 3 cards. R7 takes 2. PK, WO, OA, and CT all take 1.]
[Opening ante of 200g. Fixed-limit of 100g per raise.]
[R7 and WO both raise. All stay.]
[First box card is Page of Wands.]
[WO raises. All stay.]
[Second box is Captain of Chalices.]
[R7 and WO both raise. PK and CT both fold.]
[Per Dusk Tarot Poker rules, players who fold must reveal their hand.]
[CT had a high card of Eight of Swords with no trumps.]
[PK had a pair of fives with one trump (VIII Glory).]
[TRANSCRIPT RESUMES.]
[S3] Lads, you know the rules. Turn your cards over or pay the penalty to keep 'em down.
[CT] Right.
[sound of cards overturning]
[R7] I see why you folded, Charlie. Fat lot of nothing in that hand.
[OA] And it was wise to fold, Mister Kent. A pair of nines with no trumps won't get you a win this round.
[S3] Rega, you in?
[R7] Yeah, see that thirty.
[WO] I'll see it.
[OA] All right then. Call.
[sound of cards overturning]
[S3] I have a pair of fives, plus two trumps. Queen and Lovers.
[R7] Damn. If it weren't for that second trump, I'd have you, Sleight. Pair of tens and the Scribe.
[OA] Ah, but I have you beat, Mister Three. Although I only have a pair of threes, I believe Tyrant and Valor beats your pair of trumps.
[S3] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] How do you [EXPLETIVE DELETED] keep doing it?
[WO] Sorry to disappoint, everyone, but I believe I have you both beat.
[sound of cards overturning]
[OA] Oh, I say!
[WO] Flooded house, sevens over trumps. Ketch, Glory, Hermit.
[sound of chips clattering]
[S3] [EXPLETIVE DELETED]
[R7] Ha ha! Atta girl, Wahei!
[S3] Beginner's luck!
[CT] Or she does some Light-born trickery with the odds.
[sounds of protest]
[CT] Hey, hey, don't tell me it ain't possible. "Guardians make their own Fate" and all that--
[R7] That's not how it works, and you know it, Charlie--
[WO] Actually, the paracausal nature of the Light means that it's entirely possible. Theoretically, we could easily change the order of the cards, or make the skies open up with thunder and lightning or clear the weather, or make crops grow stronger--
[R7] Not the time, Wahei. And besides, we all know that it's not that simple. Every card-playing Guardian would negate everyone else's efforts, people would start shouting, and then they'd take it to the Crucible to settle their differences.
[OA] Spoken like someone with experience to it, Miss Seven.
[R7] Maybe.
[WO] Charlie, if you think Guardians are using their powers to cheat you in poker, then why do you play with us?
[CT] Maybe I like to live dangerously.
[WO] From what I've heard, that does track.
[CT] Again, I don't like the notion people've heard of me.
[WO] Then you'd hardly be getting work, would you?
[CT] What do you know about my work?
[WO] As I hear it, you managed to hijack a treasure skiff belonging to the Spider, and not only got away with it, but were able to sell it back to him.
[beat]
[CT] That's true.
[WO] Not only that, but you impressed him well enough that he'll still do business with you, in spite of all that.
[CT] Spider likes knowing there's someone who can pull off jobs like that.
[WO] I might want to talk more about your work, Charlie.
[beat]
[CT] Why?
[WO] Not now. Let's play another hand! I like this game.
[sound of chips clattering, cards shuffling, being dealt]
[ANNOTATION: TRUNCATING TRANSCRIPT. SUMMARY BELOW.]
[S3 takes 3. PK and R7 takes 2. WO and CT take 1. OA takes no cards.]
[Same ante and rate as before.]
[R7 and WO both raise. S3 folds.]
[S3 had a high card of Nine of Motes, with two trumps (IV The Tyrant and IX The Hermit).]
[First box card is Six of Chalices.]
[WO raises by two. All stay.]
[Second box is Three of Swords.]
[R7 and WO both raise. CT raises by two. OA folds.]
[OA had a high card of Ten of Chalices and two trumps (III The Queen and VII The Ketch).]
[TRANSCRIPT RESUMES.]
[PK] So where's that leave us?
[S3] We're at a thousand to call.
[CT] You still wanna stay in, girls?
[R7] You know I do, Charlie.
[CT] What about you, Warlock? You still in?
[WO] Of course. In fact, I raise again.
[R7] I'll see that.
[CT] You're not gonna bluff me, Warlock. I'll see you and raise you.
[WO] I'll raise you again.
[R7] Oof. Ah... I'll... fold.
[sound of cards overturning]
[S3] Looks like you had a pair of aces, and the Techeun trump. Huh.
[PK] You folded with that?
[R7] Gettin' a bit too high for my tastes.
[CT] You can't bluff me out! I raise you again.
[WO] Call.
[S3] You don't have enough on the table to match him.
[WO] Huh. So I don't. Tell you what. If I lose to you, Charlie, then I'll owe you a favor.
[CT] Oh yeah? I might need some access into some of the restricted areas of the Tower...
[R7] Wahei...
[WO] I know, Rega. I know. That's fair, Charlie.
[CT] All right--
[WO] But, if I beat you, then you owe ME a favor. Fair's fair.
[CT] I'm not the one who needs to--
[OA] Come on, Charlie. Fair's fair. If you're not confident, then we can just--
[CT] Nah, nah, you're not bluffing me out. Fine. Favor on the table for the winner.
[WO] Shake on it.
[CT] Fine.
[beat]
[sound of cards overturning]
[WO] Two pair. Fives and Queens.
[CT] [EXPLETIVE DELETED]
[S3] High card, Kell of Wands. Even with two trumps, that's not gonna beat two pair.
[R7] Banking on getting the four-straight and a trump, were you, Charlie?
[CT] You got the Devil's own luck, Warlock.
[WO] Maybe so!
[PK] Congratulations, Miss Ohr.
[S3] Another roun~XXX
----------------

> open transc "parlour-alley-0247" 

----------------
TYPE: Transcription
DESCRIPTION: Conversation recorded in alley behind The Parlour (Magpie District, Last City)
PARTIES: Two [2]. One [1] Guardian-type, Class Warlock, designate Wahei Ohr [WO] (POI#0247); One [1] human, designate Charlie Tango [CT] (POI#0320)
ASSOCIATIONS: Mahal, Aunor; Ohr, Wahei; Parlour; Praxic Archives; Praxic Order; Rega-7; Tango, Charlie; Toland; Traitor's Die; Umbranomicon
//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS...//
[CT] --the hell did you get a full trump flush?
[WO] Just luck.
[CT] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] No one's that lucky. You cheated.
[WO] The only cards I touched were my own.
[CT] That's nothing to a Lightbearer.
[WO] Oh? Do you have experience with that sort of thing, Charlie?
[beat]
[CT] What do you mean by that?
[WO] I think you know exactly what I mean, Charlie.
[beat]
[CT] I keep that kind of thing secret.
[WO] So I've noticed. And I'm not in the habit of telling secrets.
[CT] Really. From what I saw in there, you tend to run your mouth a lot.
[WO] I do talk a lot. But I never tell secrets.
[beat]
[CT] Right. What do you want?
[WO] I have a job for you. I need you to get me two things.
[CT] I'm waiting for the catch.
[WO] Why do you assume there's a catch?
[CT] One, it's me you're having do this. People don't come to Charlie Tango for jobs that are above board.
[WO] True enough.
[CT] Second, you got a reputation, Warlock. If this were something you could do yourself, you wouldn't be coming to me.
[WO] Ah, well, I could easily get what I need by myself.
[beat]
[CT] Still waiting on the catch.
[WO] If I walk in and take out what I want, then it draws attention I'd rather avoid right now.
[CT] Still waiting.
[WO] They're in the Praxic Archives.
[beat]
[CT] [EXPLETIVE DELETED]
[WO] Yes.
[CT] So if you were to walk in, the Praxic Order would be asking questions.
[WO] Yes. Same as if I were to send someone like Rega in to do it. And then I've got one of my friends in trouble with the Praxic Order.
[CT] And yet you have no problem dropping me in the cack?
[WO] You're not a friend of mine.
[beat]
[CT] Harsh. But true.
[WO] And also, you're already on their radar.
[CT] Also true.
[beat]
[CT] This counts as your favor, you know.
[WO] Of course.
[CT] What is it you need?
[WO] There's an artifact the Praxic Order has kept in their archives since the end of the Taken War. It's called the Traitor's Die. A divination object, a waxen avian skull inscribed with runes.
[CT] Think I've heard of it. What's your interest in it?
[WO] That's not germane to the job, is it?
[beat]
[CT] Fine. What's the other thing?
[WO] A book. It'll be in the proscribed tomes section, because it was written by Toland.
[CT] That doesn't narrow it down.
[WO] It was mostly unfinished by the time of his disappearance beneath Luna. But it had been compiled from other proscribed studies by other exiled scholars. It was going to be about his discoveries on the nature of the Darkness itself.
[beat]
[CT] You're talking about the Umbra--
[WO] Yes. I'm surprised you've heard about it.
[CT] If it's illegal, chances are high I've heard of it.
[WO] Then you can get it for me.
[CT] What's your interest in it?
[WO] Again, not germane.
[CT] [EXPLETIVE DELETED] to that. You're talking about a book that killed its writer.
[WO] It didn't kill him. Ir Yût did that. And to be technical, she didn't completely kill him--
[CT] I didn't ask. And it doesn't matter. Anyone who knows about that book believes it's cursed.
[WO] You don't honestly believe that, Charlie.
[CT] Even if I don't, the Praxics find out I've even been in the same building as it, I'm gonna have that Mahal whackjob after me. You know? That Light-blinded lunatic what burned down a city block 'cuz those Yor-simps took a hostage--
[WO] I am familiar with Aunor Mahal. She's already investigating me.
[beat]
[CT] What for?
[WO] The usual reasons she investigates people.
[pause]
[CT] All right. I'll get your trinket and the damned book for you.
[WO] I'll leave a message with Sleight on where to leave them.
[CT] Good. Using a dead drop.
[WO] I will leave additional payment for you.
[CT] I thought this was a favor? [WO] That was just to get the conversation going. When it comes to making enemies of the Praxic Order, I feel additional compensation is necessary.
[CT] I'll leave a message with Kent on when the job's been done.
[WO] Pleasure doing business with you, Charlie.
----------------

> append last transc to "ct case" 

lock directory
DIRECTORY LOCKED.

> logout > THANK YOU FOR USING THE PRAXIC ORDER TEXT-ONLY DATABASE, USER "PRAXICTEMPLAR". BE BRAVE. 

Seventh graders are always, well, let’s say unique, but Scary Sherri was a different breed entirely.
She came into our class in early November, a particularly strange time to enroll, which was the first strike against her. The teacher nodded at her politely, but even she seemed to avert her eyes as Sherri was led in front of the class by the flighty old school counselor.
“Everyone, we have a new student today,” the counselor said in her perpetually candy-coated tone of voice. “Please say hello to Miss Sharon Smith.”
“Sherri,” the girl mumbled, offering a shy wave without lifting her gaze from the ground.
The class droned a monotonous greeting at Sherri took her seat, the eyes of twenty five students following her all the way across the room. I don’t like to admit it, but I definitely joined in on the staring and silently judging: strike two was against her the second she’d taken off her jacket, and we all wanted a closer look.
Like many middle schoolers, Sherri’s hands were scribbled with different colored pens and markers, little doodles that she must’ve drawn in a nervous rush on the bus. But the farther up her arms we looked, the drawings got much more precise and, dare I say, intricate. They were all etched into her skin with black ink, carefully prodded beyond the point of erasing: Sherri was a thirteen-year-old with at least five visible stick and poke tattoos.
We all watched as she sat down and tucked a ribbon of black hair behind her ears, dutifully removing a pen and notebook from her backpack.
For a while, Sherri was simply another member of the class, albeit with two social strikes poised and waiting for the third. She didn’t stir up any trouble, staying mostly silent during class unless she was called on, sketching with a blue pen up and down her arm. Sherri was definitely pretty in a weirdly gaunt sort of way, but surprisingly, she wasn’t recruited to any cliques. No one seemed to want to talk to her at all.
“I think her whole goth look is pretty cool,” my friend Jessie said at lunch one day, eyeing Sherri from across the cafeteria.
“Then go talk to her,” Bethany urged.
Jessie shook her head, her eyes shifting anxiously in Sherri’s direction. “No way,” she said. “Something feels weird about her.”
“She’s new, not poisonous,” I said dryly.
Bethany smirked. “Then you go.”
I looked toward Sherri, watching as she pleasantly and wordlessly ate through her packed lunch, and shook my own head.
“Nah,” I said.
Sherri was reminiscent of a magnet turned the wrong way: nobody seemed to want to grow near her, and it seemed like the closer you got, the more she pushed away. She wasn’t mean or anything, and no one said much of anything about her. She was simply there.
And then Doug talked to her.
Inexplicably, one day, Doug walked right up to Sherri between homeroom and first period, waving at her and offering her the school’s most precious contraband--a can of soda. Sherri had laughed and accepted, and the two became friends quite rapidly.
No one thought much of it. Doug had taken the leap that no one else had been able to, and now Sherri had a friend. It was incredibly mundane news, especially in the world of middle school drama ripe with boys talking to multiple girls and two girls having a crush on the same guy.
Doug passed away two weeks before winter break.
Our teacher informed us of this during homeroom, and tears were shed by all, myself included. Doug had been in the backseat of his parents’ car, coming home from the grocery store, when a drunk driver had struck the side of the car and killed him instantly.
Thirteen is far, far too young to die, and we were all faced with our mortality without preparation. Denial came and went, and unfortunately for Sherri, the anger of two hundred grieving, hormonal students was pinned on her alone.
Strike three had struck.
Since Doug had been Sherri’s first and only friend, it didn’t take long for the rumors about Sherri to start flying: by the end of the day, I could hardly tell what was true and what was a myth. According to my classmates, Sherri was an adopted weirdo who’d killed both her biological and adoptive parents, and her tattoos were trophies for every murder she’d committed. Someone else said that she was cursed, and that everyone she talked to would drop dead, leading to many, many lunchroom dares during that last week before break. Another student theorized that beneath her thick black bangs were demon eyes that would turn you to stone.
“She’s a witch,” someone said, waggling his fingers menacingly and glaring at Sherri from across the room. “She picks a victim, ensnares them, and wham! Next thing you know, you’re in front of a bus.”
“I heard she ate her real parents,” someone else said wisely. “And her adopted parents gave her up because she kept demanding human meat!”
Scary Sherri either didn’t know about the rumors or simply didn’t care. She was the same as always, sitting at her desk and testing new stick and poke designs with a blue pen, poring over her big, wordy mythology books. I pitied her, I really did, but seventh grade politics are no joke. As much as I wanted to talk to her and comfort her, telling her that everyone was just upset about Doug, I knew it would be social suicide to even express my compassion. That and her strange reverse magnetism was more than enough to keep me away.
She made no more friends in the next two weeks, and once winter break was over, she was gone. Transferred, our teacher had told us. And so began the legend of Scary Sherri, the witch, the demon, the murderer, who had come to our school simply to kill our classmate and vanished on the wind without a trace.
~
For a long time, that’s all Scary Sherri was: a legend. Throughout the rest of middle school and all of high school, Scary Sherri was the mystical deterrer of bad behavior, a threat that us kids would yell at each other when emotions boiled too hot. “I hope Scary Sherri gets you!” a girl would shout after her boyfriend cheated on her, and “watch out or Scary Sherri will find you and eat your soul!” was a frequent warning amongst students skipping class. Even when we all parted ways and left our small town for college, Scary Sherri lived on, her story being told over shared cigarettes and green.
I was certainly guilty of joining in on the storytelling--who wouldn’t be? Scary Sherri was a great spooky story, and since it was all bullshit anyway, I could dress up the tale however I wanted. Sometimes she pushed Doug in front of the car, and other times she’d been sacrificing a bunny the night before he’d died. It was all in good fun, and since I had no idea where Scary Sherri was, nor did I even remember her real name.
By the time I graduated college, I had almost completely forgotten about Scary Sherri. Other things occupied my mind--getting a stable job, decorating my new studio apartment, maybe even adopting a pet if my landlord would allow it. Much as I loved my new place, I was still broke as hell and swimming in student loans, and my budget for furniture and interview clothes was strictly limited to what I could find in thrift stores.
Not that I minded all that much: I’d been thrifting since I was in high school, and I knew how to find a good deal. New York City was sure to be overflowing with awesome secondhand gear. Bursting with the excited energy that only a recent grad in the big city could have, I set off for East Village, feeling ready to take on the world with my $54.
The first store was a bust--way overpriced, even for secondhand--but I struck gold in the next store.
“Sweet,” I whispered, practically fawning over the elaborately carved set of antique armchairs. Five dollars each. I was over the moon, taking a moment to simply bask in the glory of my luck. These things were just my style, and even though I hadn’t yet considered transporting multiple pieces of furniture to my apartment in Chelsea, I was ecstatic.
My eyes darted wildly around the thrift store, intent on buying these chairs before someone else snapped them up, and that’s when I saw her: Scary Sherri, perusing her way slowly through the assortment of sweaters in the men’s section.
I wouldn’t have recognized her if she hadn’t been wearing short sleeves, and even then, her arms were far from what I remembered. From a distance, I couldn’t make out the specifics of her collection of stick and poke tattoos, but even the blurred, distant shape was a sight to behold. The ink swelled and danced effortlessly around her arms and shoulders, each bone in her arm drawn to scale against the skin and decorated to the nines. Even her fingers were tattooed, all in black, contrasting sharply with her pale skin.
I stared in awe for a few moments, my eyes locked on the strange shape etched into her wrist, one of the relics from middle school. It hadn’t aged a day, only woven more intricately into the tapestry surrounding it.
More than anything, I wanted to walk up to her and say hello. I couldn’t pinpoint why, exactly--maybe it was guilt about how I’d ignored her in middle school, or maybe it was to get a closer look at those incredible tattoos. Whatever the reason, before I even realized I was doing it, I had abandoned my chairs and was drifting toward Scary Sherri, as though her magnetism had somehow switched directions in the past decade.
Once I reached her, I completely blanked on what I was supposed to say to someone who was basically a stranger, and all of my tact was abruptly abandoned. I leaned toward her and tapped her shoulder, blurting before I could stop myself.
“Scary Sherri?”
She turned rather abruptly, looking quite surprised, and for the first time, I noticed that her eyes were hazel--a vibrant, golden hazel. I slapped my hands over my mouth, embarrassed, my cheeks growing red-hot under my fingertips.
“Oh, my God, I am so sorry,” I said hurriedly. “I just--I’m sorry, that completely slipped out, it’s just--we went to middle school together. Is that weird for me to say?”
Scary Sherri regarded me with remarkable calm, cocking her head to the side like a curious dog, her long black hair sliding gracefully over her shoulders. “Which middle school?” she asked, her voice soft, slightly raspy.
“Um--Dalewood?”
Scary Sherri’s eyes cleared, and a thin smile lit up her face. “Oh, right! Seventh grade!” she said, her eyes swirling with an odd mix of sorrow and relief. “I’m so sorry about what happened to Doug. I take it that’s where ‘Scary Sherri’ came from?”
I flushed more violently, amazed at how much more beautiful Scary Sherri had gotten over the years. She was beautiful in an unconventional, gaunt sort of way, her skin taut over her slender features. Her tattoos snaked up her neck and, from what I could see, covered everything but her face--her legs, the tiny bit of exposed midriff, everything was painted with endless black dots, clustered just the right way to form images that seemed to move where she did.
“Uh, yeah,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck anxiously. “Yeah, we all sort of got it in our heads that you were a witch or a demon or cannibal or something.”
Surprisingly, Scary Sherri laughed. “Witch and demon I’ve heard before, but cannibal is new,” she said, her shoulders trembling as she tried to swallow giggles.
“We were pretty awful to you back in the day,” I admitted. “I’m really sorry about--”
“Oh, please, Diana,” Scary Sherri said, playfully swatting at my shoulder. “That was years ago. Don’t even worry about it. Trust me, if you think of the world’s meanest nickname, I’ve still heard ten times worse. Never been a lucky girl, and that shit leaves a reputation.”
I was about to pry, incredibly curious, but Scary Sherri’s yellowish gaze shifted over my shoulder, her eyebrows crinkling.
“Uh, you were looking at those chairs, right?” she said, pointing. “You might wanna grab them before Grandma over there gets to them first.”
I whirled around, immediately ready to cut the throat of any old woman who tried to take my chairs. “Shit,” I hissed. “Thanks!”
I took two steps toward the chairs before pausing, turning back to look at Scary Sherri. “Wait right here,” I said.
Her head cocked once again, ever so slightly. “Okay. Why?”
“Because I need your number,” I said. “If you wanna join me for coffee sometime, that is.”
Scary Sherri’s eyes softened, and she nodded, a small smile lifting her lips. “Yeah,” she said. “I’ll wait here. Go get your chairs, girl.”
I returned to smile and rushed to claim my chairs, completely oblivious to the fact that I’d never, not even in middle school, told Scary Sherri my name.
~
Three hours into our coffee date, I was finally beginning to pinpoint why Scary Sherri’s eyes held so much woe.
The middle school rumor about her parents had been partially true--her biological parents had both passed away in a tragic accident just months after her birth, and her adoptive mother had died of heart failure, leading to her adoptive father committing suicide a few days later. Scary Sherri assured me, with a surprising amount of lightheartedness, that she had not killed them.
“If I did,” she said with a smirk, “I would’ve kept up their old house a lot better. Place was a dump when I finally got to move in.”
Scary Sherri also promised me that she was not a witch nor a demon--tragedy just seemed to follow her. Almost all of her friends, her girlfriends, her family members, even her pets had met untimely and unfortunate ends, which is why she tended to keep to herself.
“That must get lonely,” I said sympathetically.
“Sometimes,” she admitted. “But the people I do meet are wonderful, and they’re always worth the heartache. Especially the dogs. Those might be my fault, since I always adopt them out of hospice and spoil them to death. Literally.”
She was very casual about death, and strangely, I was charmed by it. It was beautiful. The universe seemed to take joy in stealing loved ones away from her, and she still found the strength to smile.
I told Scary Sherri about my dreams of being a social worker, even if my current job was nonexistent. She assured me that I would find one soon, especially with the growing acceptance of getting help for mental health issues. I asked her what she did, and she told me that she was a kayaking instructor on the Hudson. She loved being on the water.
I asked if she’d teach me how to kayak sometime. She regarded me with that calm, sad smile for a moment before nodding. She’d love to, she said.
~
My assumption had been correct--Scary Sherri was covered head-to-toe in tattoos, a fact that was immediately confirmed when she walked out of the kayak storage garage in nothing but a bikini. I asked what some of them meant, and she simply laughed, saying we would need a third date just to explain the meanings behind them all.
She dragged one kayak in each arm as we approached the water, beaming, her hair tied back into a long ponytail that swayed side to side with each step. I couldn’t stop staring at her, watching as her tattoos seemed to move in the fading sunlight, vines and flowers and snakes and symbols weaving in and out of her anatomically flawless inked ribs.
I was incredibly clumsy in the water, which was only amplified by the incredible grace with which Scary Sherri moved. She handled the paddle with unmatched deftness, laughing as she tried to show me the right way to effectively steer.
“Use your hips!” Scary Sherri called, standing up in her kayak and sticking the paddle vertically into the water. “Point your body toward the direction you want to go!”
“I want to go forward!” I laughed. “Why do I keep turning?!”
“The hips, Diana, the hips!” Scary Sherri yelled, swinging her own hips from side to side--how her kayak stayed afloat was an absolute mystery. “And you’re favoring your right arm! Put more juice into the left!”
I rotated in a complete circle without moving forward at all. I must’ve looked like an idiot, but it was worth it to see Scary Sherri laugh as hard as she did. She jumped into my kayak and grabbed my hands, twisting the paddle using my grip, successfully moving us forward a few feet.
“See?” she said, her words just shy of my ear. “It’s all in the hips.”
I turned my head and kissed her. She kissed me back, and the kayak capsized. We laughed, and I suggested we go to my apartment to get dried off--it wasn’t far from here, and I had just bought a bottle of white wine the other day. Scary Sherri said she preferred red, so we went to the liquor store first.
Back at my apartment, we drank it all and fell over each other, laughing. We kissed in my new chairs, we kissed against the wall, we kissed on my mattress, and I made sure to kiss every single one of her tattoos.
~
When I awoke in the middle of the night, Scary Sherri wasn’t next to me.
I sat upright, gathering the sheets over myself and looking wildly around the studio apartment for any sign of her, my eyes landing on a note pinned to the refrigerator. I shuffled toward it, rubbing sleep out of my eyes.
Had to go to work, it read. I’ll be back with wine tonight. Wait right here.
I smiled and clutched the note to my chest, falling back into the bed, too tired to wonder why anyone would sign up for kayaking lessons held at two in the morning.
~
Scary Sherri’s schedule was incredibly irregular, but as I was still unemployed, it didn’t bother me one bit. She slept at my place at least three times a week since it was so much closer to work than her own apartment, and I had no complaints. We spent many evenings in calm, blissful quiet, Scary Sherri’s head resting in my lap and pointing at my laptop screen as I scrolled through job openings.
It was a month before I finally got an interview, and when I did, Scary Sherri was even more excited than I was.
“You are going to do amazing,” she said as we settled into bed, stroking my hair as I checked my alarms again and again. “If they don’t hire you, they’re idiots.”
“If they don’t hire me, you’re going to have to chip in for rent, because I’m fresh out of cash,” I joked.
Scary Sherri smiled warmly. “If you need me to, sure.”
I tilted her chin up and kissed her. She smiled underneath my lips, soothing me into a fretful sleep.
~
Scary Sherri wasn’t there when I jolted awake at midnight, but she was there when my alarm went off, smiling and perfectly well rested.
“Interview time, babe,” she said brightly. “Come on, get up! Big day!”
“Five more minutes,” I groaned, throwing a pillow over my head.
“No more minutes!” Scary Sherri said, whapping her hands against the blankets noisily. “If you don’t get up, you don’t get breakfast!”
“Bagel and butter?” I mumbled.
Scary Sherri nodded, her golden-hazel eyes shimmering with an emotion I couldn’t quite place. “And cinnamon sugar,” she tempted.
~
As I adjusted the collar of my blouse, Scary Sherri walked up behind me, plucking at the flowing fabric.
“I have something for you,” she said, resting her chin on my shoulder.
I grinned, nudging my head against hers. “I only have a few minutes before I leave,” I teased.
Scary Sherri snorted. “No,” she said with a roll of the eyes. “Here.”
She placed her hand in mine, leaving behind something cold and round as her fingers slowly withdrew. “Hold onto this no matter what,” she said mysteriously.
I looked down at my hand, puzzled at the sight: a heavy golden coin sat heavily in my palm, slightly tarnished yet still glowing with warmth. I lifted it to my face, rotating it gently between my fingers, surprised at the heft that such a small coin could have.
“A gold dollar?” I said, giving Scary Sherri a dry grin. “What’s it for? Special vending machines?”
“For good luck,” she said, closing my fist around the coin. “Promise me you’ll keep it with you.”
“I mean, sure,” I said, still incredibly confused--I’d never heard of golden dollars being a good luck charm, but I supposed anything was possible. “I’ll keep it right here.”
I lifted my leg and dropped the gold coin into my shoe, safely tucking it under my toes for safe keeping. Scary Sherri smiled, her eyes slightly forlorn.
“I love you,” she said, catching me off guard.
I blinked and met her eyes, my face melting into a surprised smile. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I love you, Diana,” Scary Sherri said, rolling her eyes amusedly. “Now shush and go get a job.”
She smacked me from behind, jolting me toward the door, and I smirked over my shoulder as my hand met the doorknob.
“I love you too, Sherri,” I said. “Be back in an hour or so, okay?”
Scary Sherri nodded, waving as the door closed behind me.
~
The coin initially felt very strange in my shoe, but after a few blocks, I barely noticed it anymore. My heart was too busy glowing, constantly replaying Scary Sherri’s voice in my head. If Scary Sherri could love me, then dammit, I could do anything. I was going to ace this interview and no one was going to stop me.
I debated getting a taxi since my GPS was trying to steer me in all kinds of strange directions, but the sun felt so wonderful against my shoulders that I opted to walk instead. The NYC smog seemed to fade away, the skies clearing, the skyscrapers glistening, cars honking a beautiful song of love and new beginnings.
I wiped a joyful tear from my eye as I turned down a street I wasn’t familiar with, listening to the sounds of people chatting and shouting. My heart thrummed a tune as I passed a row of brownstone buildings, the jagged architecture a treat for my eyes to behold.
One of the doors whipped open as I passed by, and a woman came stumbling out, cowering and shrieking. I froze, turning toward her with wide eyes, only catching a glimpse of the man that had pushed her.
I didn’t even see the gun in his hand--I only saw the brownstone buildings vanish from view, replaced by an empty blue sky and an endless, penetrating darkness.
~
When I awoke, I immediately became aware of only one thing--this was not New York City.
I bolted upright, grasping at my chest, wheezing wildly as though I hadn’t tasted air in years. Nothing hurt, but nothing felt good, either. I gripped at my blouse, something coarse slipping down the fabric, my fingers like icicles against my clothes.
It was so dark. Maybe I had passed out on the street? I blinked rapidly, trying to clear my fuzzy vision, hoping to make sense of my surroundings and only growing more confused.
The crystal New York City was gone, replaced with a haze of murky grey like nothing I’d ever seen before. The sky was tinged with red and orange, though with no apparent source--there were no clouds, no sunlight, nothing. Just smudges of grey and crimson like a painter’s failed abstract piece, higher than anything I’d ever seen, higher even than the sky itself.
It was so dark. I struggled to get to my feet, my heels slipping against a ground that was grainy and damp, the coldest silt I’d ever felt seeping between my toes and scraping the undersides of my feet. I rubbed my eyes, clearing the sediment from my face, jostling it out of my hair and sending it cascading down my blouse.
The mist that surrounded me was of no color I’d ever seen before, caught somewhere between grey and blue and green and a deep, unending black. I held my hands forward, skimming my fingers through the fog, part of me expecting to cut through it like putty, but my touch did nothing.
“Hello?” I called, cupping my hands around my mouth and turning in confused circles. “Anyone out there?”
The response I received was as immediate as it was unexpected: “Shh.”
I nearly jumped out of my skin, spinning around wildly. I appeared to be entirely alone, but the whisper had been so close to me, right behind me. I clasped instinctively at my chest, searching for the reassuring pounding of my heart and feeling nothing.
“Hello?” I called again, panic rising in my voice. “Can anyone hear me?”
“Shh.” Once again, I heard it, but the disembodied voice was at least kind enough to elaborate. “Follow. Do not disturb the waiting.”
“Follow?”
And just like that, out of the darkness, I was able to make out shapes. Strange, translucent shapes, but shapes nonetheless. They were moving strangely, their dark forms twisting and curling in a manner unlike anything I’d ever seen, but they were also getting smaller.
Whatever they were, they were moving away.
“Follow,” the whisper urged me once again.
I was too confused and too terrified to ask for clarification. Still seeking my heartbeat, I stumbled across the silty ground, clumsily making my way toward the shadowy figures as they curled and contorted deeper into the colorless mist.
It may have been seconds that I was walking, or it may have been hours, but at some point, I became acutely aware of sounds that were finally penetrating the air and making my breath catch in fresh panic. Moans, cries, gentle sobs, and confused whispers resonated through the dreary landscape, growing louder as my footsteps grew longer. My teeth chattered, and I joined them for a moment, a miserably confused choking sound bubbling from my throat before I could stop it.
“Please,” someone murmured, just to my left. “Please, do you have a spare?”
I kept my eyes forward, not wanting to look at whoever was speaking. Whatever these shadows were, I doubted I wanted to see one up close.
“Please,” someone else whimpered sorrowfully. “I can’t wait anymore. They won’t let me cross.”
I kept walking, swallowing down tears as they stung the backs of my eyes.
“I beg of you!” A voice shrieked just ahead, the sudden increase in volume setting off a chorus of groans and sighs from all directions. “Please! I deserve to cross!”
“I already told you, no,” a strangely familiar voice responded. “Either you pay or you wait. Those are the rules.”
“But I need to cross,” the crying voice wailed. “My wife!”
“And I need you to stop bothering me,” the familiar voice said exasperatedly.
My breath caught in my throat as realization struck me, and I let out a strangled cry, pushing through the shapeless crowd of silhouettes. “Sherri?” I called, my voice cracking.
I pushed directly through one of the dark masses, earning myself an indignant grunt of disapproval, but I no longer had the capacity to care. Finally, this confusing dream had something that made sense: Sherri was here.
“Sherri!” I said again, tripping over a plank of clammy wood and nearly losing my footing. “Sher--”
I stopped dead, my eyes growing wide at the sight of her before me.
It was undoubtedly my beloved Scary Sherri, but only someone with my knowledge of her could have possibly discerned such a fact. Her long black hair was swirling around her head slowly, purposefully, as though she were suspended underwater. Her clothes did the same, an unfamiliar black robe billowing outwards in plumes of black velvet and silk. Every tattoo was in place across her body, but instead of simply looking like they moved, they were moving--endless designs danced across her transparent skin, flowing and rippling around her visible white skeleton.
When Scary Sherri turned to face me, though her smile was the same one I knew, her eyes were not--two solid orbs of gold lay within her sockets, the skin on her face entirely transparent, showing every detail of her skull underneath. If I’d cared to, I could have counted every tooth in her jaw, picked out each minor imperfection in the bone beneath her flesh. I wasn’t even sure if I was looking at her or through her, but I could still easily make out of the softness of her expression, the sadness and relief blurring together in her eyes like they always had.
“Diana,” she said soothingly, her voice so wonderfully familiar in a world that no longer made sense. “Do you have your coin?”
“Sherri,” I gasped, staggering forward and grabbing onto her shoulders, relishing in the familiar feeling of her cool skin. “Where am I?”
Scary Sherri chuckled, and from this close, I could hear that her voice was not entirely her own--a thousand other voices mingled with hers, deep and high, smooth and gruff, gentle and stern. “Down here, it’s ‘Sharon,’” she corrected gently. “Give me your coin, babe--I’ll explain on the way.”
I looked up into her golden eyes, tears falling from my own, but I obliged despite my complete and utter confusion. Slowly, I leaned down and extracted the single gold coin from my shoe, holding it toward Scary Sherri with trembling fingers.
“Here,” I said. “Why do you--”
Behind me was suddenly a raucous uproar of miserable wailing and begging, shaking the unstable ground beneath my feet.
“Let me come with you!” a woman’s voice shrieked.
“I’ll trade anything for that coin!” a man bellowed, his voice cracking. “Please, young lady, I’ve been here for--”
“I told you all to shut up!” Scary Sherri snapped, procuring a massive and ostentatiously carved pole from the mist that surrounded us. She slammed the pole down, and a loud splash both silenced the herd of shadows and rocked the ground beneath my feet. I stumbled, but Scary Sherri tightened a slender hand around my arm, keeping me upright. “Unless any of you have payment, I will now be departing.”
A few more of the misty silhouettes moaned in disapproval, but none stepped forward. I stared down at my feet dumbly, finally able to make sense of at least one thing.
“We’re on a boat,” I said.
Scary Sherri smiled at me, unbothered by the horde of faceless masses that had just pleaded with her. “Shall we, then?” she said warmly.
Without waiting for me to answer, she lowered her pole into the water, pushing the mysterious shore and its wailing crowd away and engulfing us in silence.
~
“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner,” was the first thing Scary Sherri said as soon as the tenebrous coastline was out of sight.
For a long moment, I didn’t know what to say, and I simply stared at the water as it foamed beneath our boat.
“Tell me what, exactly?” I said, my voice thin and rusty. “You haven’t told me anything. At all.”
Scary Sherri sighed. “You never did like when I sugarcoated things,” she said. “You’re dead, Diana. And so are all of those souls on the shores.”
I wished that I could have been surprised, but instead, I felt as though a large weight had been lifted from my chest. “Bummer,” I said, reaching toward the water, wondering what it felt like.
Scary Sherri swooped down and grabbed my wrist before my fingertips made contact, shaking her head. “Don’t touch it,” she said harshly.
I frowned. “Why?”
“It’ll claim you.”
I rolled my eyes, growing more and more frustrated by Scary Sherri’s non-answers. “Sherri--or Sharon, I guess--where am I? Is this hell? You said you weren’t a demon.”
Scary Sherri, much to my surprise, giggled quite amusedly. “I’m not,” she said. “I’m a ferryman.”
My brow furrowed as I looked up at her. “Sharon… you mean like…”
“Yes,” she said with a nod, pleased with my understanding.
I looked back down at the water, realization beginning to wash over me. “So you knew that I…?”
“I’m sorry,” Scary Sherri murmured, pushing her pole gracefully through the water once again. “I told you, I’m not lucky in the mortal realm. Souls only approach me when their time is close. They know that their current cycle is ending, and they remember to come to me when the time comes. I give them coins so they can pass… it’s not much, since I can only help so many of them, but He doesn’t want me handing out coins all willy nilly. The Underworld has been at capacity for centuries, and it’s better to keep some souls waiting on the shores. Even if it pains me to hear them cry, day in and day out.”
A heavy silence fell between us. I dragged my fingers along the soft wood below me, biting my lip.
“Your parents?” I inquired, lowering my head. “And your adoptive parents? Doug?”
“I was born to my parents because their time was nearest,” Scary Sherri sighed. “My adoptive parents came to me because they were so close as well. Same with Doug. With all of them.”
“You just follow them around,” I mumbled, my motionless heart somehow still managing to sink. “With me, you just…?”
Scary Sherri chuckled quietly. “I’ve explained this to you a dozen times, and I’ll explain it again,” she said, sounding almost entertained. “I have always found your soul. And I will always find it, over and over again. Until your cycles have run their course, I will be waiting for you with a coin in my pocket.”
I lifted my head, looking into Scary Sherri’s skeletal face, the gold orbs deep in her eye sockets. “You--?”
“This is the ninth time I’ve had you on my ferry,” she said wistfully. “Stop being a little shit in the mortal realm, and maybe you’ll finally get your second entrance into Elysium. I’ve got my fingers crossed this time--your last cycle got you into Elysium, and since you wanted to be a social worker in this cycle, I bet They’ll vote favorably. You were even blessed with Diana’s name--that’s gotta show for something. Just one more cycle, babe. Just one more.”
I met Scary Sherri’s eyes, bursting with questions, but she simply shook her head and lowered her pole into the water once again. The hushed sound of water lapping against silt had filled my ears once again, and she leaned down to kiss my forehead, a smile on her lips.
“Go,” she breathed. “Be cleansed. I’ll be waiting for you no matter what They vote.”
As the sound of tired voices and barking dogs filled my ears, a sense of familiarity washed over me, and I nodded all of my uncertainty away. “Okay,” I whispered. “I love you.”
Sharon’s smile widened, and she put my gold coin between her teeth, winking at me. “Good luck.”
~
The new girl came into our class in early October, a particularly strange time to enroll, which was the first strike against her. The teacher bounced up from her seat the greet the new student, but the nervous young girl shrank away from her, rumpling her hair into her face.
“Everyone, we have a new student today,” the counselor said, grouchy and dry as ever. “Say hello to Miss Zoe McAdams.”
“Hi,” the girl whispered without lifting her gaze from the ground.
The class droned a monotonous greeting at Zoe slipped toward her desk, the eyes of fourteen students following her all the way across the room. I watched her carefully, my heart pounding as she sat in the chair next to mine.
"Zoe?" I whispered, nudging her shoe with my own. "We're seat buddies now."
Zoe glanced in my direction, tucking her hair farther into her face. "Okay," she said uncertainly. "What's on your arm?"
I looked down at my wrist, prodding the pomegranate I'd tattooed on myself a few weeks prior. "A tattoo," I said. "Did it all by myself."
"Cool," Zoe murmured. "I love pomegranates."
"Really? Me too!" I said, ignoring the way the teacher glared at me. "Wanna come over after school? I can read you my super secret story, if you wanna hear it, since we're seat buddies."
Zoe nodded. "Okay. That sounds neat. Thanks, um... what's your name?"
"Sherri," I said, a smile splitting my face in half. "My name's Sherri. And you're totally gonna love this story. I just know it."

DC Next presents:

DETECTIVE STORIES

Issue Two: Tomorrow Knight, Part One
Written by AdamantAce
Edited by Dwright5252
 
<< First Issue | Next Issue > Coming in November
 
Recommended Reading:

• Make sure you’ve read Wonder Woman Annual 1 for the thrilling conclusion to Detective Stories #1!
  
• This issue is also set immediately following Gotham Knights #16 - To Catch a Spider!
  

 
 
Dick Grayson stirred in his bed, cold and stressed. He had tried his best to roll out the red carpet to welcome Stephanie into Wayne Manor - bringing her in much as Bruce had once done with him - in order to honour the promise Dick had made to her father Arthur Brown *, the henchman Dick had gotten killed while trying to take down the Penguin. However, Stephanie seemed determined to make things difficult. She was suspicious of the family, of why a young billionaire bachelor like himself would take in a working class orphan, to the point of accusing them of adopting her as a publicity stunt. Dick wanted nothing more than to set her straight, to tell her who really lived in Wayne Manor, but he knew he couldn’t. Not unless he wanted her to put on a mask and swear her revenge on Penguin.
After enough discomfort, Dick gave up trying to sleep and sat upright in his bed. His back panged with a stiffness he had never felt before as his eyes adjusted to the darkness ahead of him. The sun must have been up by now, and Dick was more than used to the early morning sunbeams piercing his blinds and rousing him from sleep, the joys of sleeping in a room facing the sunrise. But, curiously, there was no such disturbance.
Seconds later, Dick’s eyes scanned through the blue-grey darkness, and he realised something was wrong. He sat in bed in the far end of an unfamiliar room, a modern, low-ceiling bedroom; a far cry from the ancestral home of the Waynes. This was not his bed, this was not Wayne Manor. Dick pulled himself to his feet, his knees clicking as he dropped his weight onto the wood panel flooring. He searched for his cell phone and found nothing. He looked down at himself and searched for puncture marks across his body in the dark, wondering if he had been drugged, but other than a killer headache and a sore back, he was entirely healthy and unharmed, dressed only in a pair of loose boxer shorts. He furrowed his brow. What was going on?
Slowly, Dick emerged through the bedroom door and crept into an open plan apartment. Large, lavish. In fact, the more Dick searched the place, the more he realised he recognised it. Though heavily renovated, it was Bruce’s old penthouse in Wayne Tower, where he’d lived for a while after Dick left for college. But who would bring Dick here?
Dick searched some more, pushing through the kitchenette and into the lounge area, still with all the lights off. He couldn’t risk tipping off that he was awake and sneaking around if someone was here holding him captive. There, Dick found a cell phone resting on the coffee table, though he was certain it wasn’t his, along with a plain gold band. He picked up the phone, but before he could look at it closer, he was struck by the sunlit vista pouring in through the floor-to-ceiling window, dully lighting the blue hued room. The sun shimmered off of the lakes of Grant Park, visible below, and peered around the corner of the GCPD building. Except… it wasn’t the GCPD building. Not the one Dick knew. Gone was the limestone municipal building. In its place… a fortress with searchlights and spires, looking more like Blackgate Penitentiary than what Dick was expecting, behind it a towering white wall stretching far across the width of Old Gotham. In that moment, a fear crept into Dick’s mind just as a sharp chill crept down his spine. How long had he been asleep?
Dick held the unfamiliar cell phone in his hand. It was smooth and black, nothing unsurprising there, but as thin as a sheet of glass to the point where he was afraid he’d crush it if he gripped it too hard. He pressed the screen, and the phone lit up. The time, 0600, glowed in white, but behind it shone a photo that only gave Dick more questions: a young boy with raven black hair and the cracked, 50-something-year-old face of a smiling Barbara Gordon. Solemnly, he looked back down to the coffee table and took the gold ring in his hands, realising what it was. Quickly, Dick put the fear of his potential kidnapper out of his mind, more fearful of his grip on reality slipping, and searched the apartment from head to toe. He was alone, though photographs of Babs and this boy, along with ones of an old and infirm Jim Gordon and an elderly woman Dick didn’t recognise littered the place, without a single image of Bruce, Jason, Helena, Tim, Kate or even Alfred to be seen. That was when he found the mirror hanging in the bathroom.
Though Dick looked down at himself and saw the scar-littered body he was used to, in the mirror he found the visage of a Dick Grayson many years his senior, with tanned, leathery skin, a scraggly black goatee and ashy, greying hair. It was as if one minute he was in bed at Wayne Manor, and the next he was in an apartment on the other side of Gotham filled with photos of his wife and son, thirty years in the future. In his shock, his mouth fell agape as he spoke two words. “Oh, boy…”
He swiped across the phone screen and was prompted for a four digit PIN. Easy, the month and day Bruce took him in. No. The date he first became Robin. No. When he first formed the Titans? No. The date Bruce died? No.
Dick hung his head in his hands. If he couldn’t get in contact with someone fast, he was going to fall to pieces. His heart was racing, his every hair raised. He looked back at the phone and read the passcode hint printed in thin black letters.
‘clark’s birthday’
Dick shook his head. Why would his phone’s passcode be Superman’s birthday? Clark Kent’s death affected Dick greatly, but presumably decades had passed since then.
The penny dropped. Clark had always been an inspiration to Dick: an uncle, a mentor, a friend. The Blue to Dick’s Red, back in his days as Robin. ‘Clark’ was the name of his and Barbara’s son. Suddenly he had a name, and suddenly he became infinitely more real. Dick had always dreamed of being a father: starting a family, passing on his wisdoms, teaching them acrobatics and then watching them fly. In the burgeoning sun, Dick searched the eyes of the raven-haired Clark Grayson and choked back tears. This was their home, so where was he?
Then, as Dick pawed helplessly at the locked cell phone, it began to blare. Clark and Babs’ picture was gone, replaced with the text “Incoming Call”. Dick pressed the green button and threw the phone up to his ear.
“Hello? Who is this?” Dick spoke hurriedly, swallowing the frog in his throat.
The voice of a younger man replied, one Dick didn’t recognise. “Sorry to bother you, Commissioner, but we’ve tracked Dent to a location in Chinatown. The sarge thought you’d want to be there for the arrest.”
Commissioner? What more had Dick missed?
He wanted to shout back down the phone, begging for an explanation, for answers, for any kind of help, but Dick didn’t know what his relationship with this officer was, whether he could trust him. Instead, he played along. “Thank you, I’ll see you at the GCPD.”
“GCPD?” the voice replied. “You still call it that?”
Dick said nothing, lost for a response. He’d seen a lot growing up in the Age of Heroes, but this situation was new.
But, as it happened, he didn’t need to speak. Instead, the officer on the phone bleated nervously. “Forgive me, Commissioner. Your daughter’s waiting with a car outside Fort Gotham.”
 
♦ ♦ 🦇 ♦ ♦
 
Dick fastened his necktie as he crossed the street, the trench coat he had found in his wardrobe pulled tight over his shoulders to beat the chill. He knew the streets of Gotham - especially Old Gotham - to be crowded, hectic and loud, but today, in whatever year it was, that couldn’t have been further from the case. As he made his way to what used to be the GCPD headquarters, now apparently known as Fort Gotham, Dick saw that the streets of Old Gotham were basically empty, with only the odd car passing through, and mostly police cruisers at that.
After barely a minute’s walk, Dick reached the foot of Fort Gotham, and there saw a black and silver car parked waiting for him, and a woman in a white blouse and a violet leather jacket waiting beside it. His daughter? No, she only looked about ten years younger than the Dick Grayson he had found in the mirror. Then, as Dick approached, two things happened. First, the woman’s eyes lit up in recognition and she flagged Dick down. Second, Dick realised who she was. Her golden blonde hair, her firm stance, her blue eyes.
“S-Stephanie?” said Dick as he reached her side of the street.
“Oh no, am I in trouble?” she laughed. A golden police badge hung around her neck, suspended by a silver bead chain.
Dick cocked his head, which still throbbed. “Sorry?”
“You haven’t called me Stephanie since way back when you first adopted me.”
Dick laughed, playing it off. “What would you rather I call you?”
She shook her head. “‘Steph’?” she shrugged, “Or, in front of the men, ‘Sergeant’?”
“Ha!” Dick nodded, “Right.” Clearly this Stephanie, or Steph, had already spent decades warming up to Dick and his choice to take her in. She was so much more at ease with him, so much happier. And the cop on the phone had described her as Dick’s daughter. Was that their relationship here? If it was, Dick thought, he couldn’t help but think it was incredibly unearned.
“Now come on, old man,” Steph pulled the passenger door of the car open. “We got a villain to take in.”
From this close, Dick had a much better look at Steph’s black and silver vehicle. It was streamlined, low to the ground, but well armoured, with silver panels strategically placed. If Dick didn’t know better, he’d say it was the Batmobile. For all he knew, it was.
Moments later, Steph bolted the car along the wide, open streets of Old Gotham, Dick at her side, on their way to apprehend Harvey Dent, Two Face. All the while, Dick shuffled restlessly in his seat, desperate to figure out what was going on. But, yet again, regardless of how she was with him, Dick didn’t know if he could trust the younger woman beside him. Instead, Dick silently weighed up his options. Option one: he was dreaming. The human mind could play terrible tricks in the right circumstances, Dick learned that after Bruce told him of fearfully vivid hallucinations he had suffered while participating in a study into the effects of isolation, of an alien world, of living statues, and of failing to save Dick’s life. Option two: he had been drugged. Dick had seen substances like Crane’s fear toxin warp the minds of the most sane men - hell - he’d suffered the effects of fear toxin himself enough times. But no, this was nothing like what he had suffered then.
Then, Dick considered option three: he was being manipulated by some metahuman or alien creature, like the Black Mercy plant Superman had been subjected to years ago, the one that had him trapped in a world of his wildest desires. Was something similar happening here? As they moved through the streets of Old Gotham, Dick couldn’t help but notice how still the city was, how peaceful it had become. He and Babs had a son, Stephanie trusted him, and Gotham was peaceful? As terrified and lost as Dick was, he had to admit things were looking up in this time period.
Then there was option four: time travel. He knew it was possible, if not risky, Max Crandall - the Flash - had pulled it off when he really needed to. But Dick definitely didn’t have super speed, or a time machine. So how would he have gotten here? And how was Dick walking around in the body of his older self?
Finally, Dick considered the most terrifying possibility of them all. Five: what if this was all real? What if Dick had lived this life, raised this family, worked his way up to Commissioner, and then lost his memory? Then what? What could he trust if not his own mind?
“Dick?” Steph looked across to him from the driver’s seat. “Everything okay?”
Dick shook his head, breaking out of his descending fear. “Y-Yeah. Just an off day.”
“A big day,” Steph looked ahead to the road. “We helped Dent. Shut down Arkham, got him real help, rehabilitated him. Even gave him a seat of power in the city hall district. That took a lot. And now here we are.”
“Two-Face,” Dick grumbled. Back when Dick could recall, Two-Face was still firmly behind bars, resisting all forms of treatment. Yet he’d apparently missed Harvey’s recovery, redemption, and subsequent return to villainy.
The car turned a corner, and they turned onto Broome Street, the bridge across to the Somerset borough dead ahead of them. It was then that Dick realised Gotham was more different than he realised. He recalled the towering white wall he had seen erected behind the GCPD building and saw an identical wall lining the riverfront. They came to the foot of the bridge, the edge of the wall, and stopped at a highly militarised checkpoint. Men wielding rifles and clad in armour reminiscent of Luke Fox’s Batwing gear approached the vehicle and quickly waved them through, and as they traversed the Broome Street bridge, Dick saw yet another wall on the other side of the river, stretching along the length of it. Then, they came to another checkpoint. Though this checkpoint wasn’t staffed by men in suits of armour. Instead, two figures in waistcoats with dark tribal masks pulled over their faces approached the car.
“What do you want, pigs?” one of them groaned dismissively.
Steph didn’t even turn her head, keeping her eyes forward. “We’re passing through to Chinatown. Roman’s more than aware.”
The masked man paused, inching back a step, and looked sheepishly to his masked colleague.
“The boss?” the other figure asked.
Steph said nothing. A beat later and the two masked guards ushered them through into the East End.
Dick was dumbfounded. “What was that?” he asked.
“Roman’s men aren’t happy about it, but they know better than to try and turn away the cops,” Steph replied coldly.
The car took a corner around the perimeter of Robinson Park and into the East End proper, and it became quickly apparent that not all of Gotham was afforded the same tranquility Dick found on the other side of the river. The roads were packed tight with cars, old cars that blustered black fumes. Windows along the streets were shattered and boarded up, and men and women going about their daily business clutched at firearms slung and their hips.
“Where are the police?” Dick asked.
“On every street corner,” Steph replied, the car continuing along. “It was my idea to have them all plainclothes. That way they can keep Roman’s thugs in check without seeming too intrusive.”
Along Oldman Avenue, they then came to another checkpoint at another towering wall. Two bald men, one with a heart tattooed on his cheek, and the other with a diamond, approached the car and waved them through with little resistance. It was like Gotham had been carved up piecemeal, and if Black Mask loomed over the East End, Dick supposed they were now entering Mad Hatter’s domain. Steph picked up in speed as they did, blitzing across four blocks. All the while, Dick could count all the people he saw on one hand. Then, along Cooke Avenue, they passed a final wall and arrived at Chinatown. And instantly Dick was grateful he wore his coat, as an icy chill swept over him.
“Freeze,” Dick chattered his teeth.
“We told her it’s not appropriate,” Steph replied. “That people can’t live like this. But Nora likes it cold.”
“Gotham’s in pieces,” Dick hung his head. This was no paradise.
“Blame old Commissioner Forbes,” Steph replied. “He thought dividing Gotham would stop the riots. And it did. He thought giving the villains domains to roam free would give them an outlet… and keep the people in line, and it did. But…”
“But it’s chaos,” Dick interjected.
“Of a different breed, yes.” Steph nodded.
“It can’t stay like this,” Dick spat.
“It won’t. Not with your plan. The people depend on the police to protect them from the villains, but that doesn’t mean they appreciate us,” Steph explained. “You’re right: we have to earn their trust before we can free them, otherwise we’re back to the mass anarchy Forbes tried to get rid of.”
“So, Dent,” Dick replied, remembering why they were here.
“We’ve got Dent. Once we’ve made an example of him for all of Gotham to see, we can put our plan in motion to free it.”
The car came to stop by a warehouse on Grant Street. Outside was parked a dozen other cars like Steph’s. She and Dick stepped out of the car, and moments later the warehouse door swung open. Two men emerged and threw an aged Harvey Dent onto the pavement. His face - or rather his faces - were bloodied and bruised. Then, as Dent attempted to scurry away, a dozen more police officers piled out of the doors and surrounded him. Steph approached and dragged him back onto his feet, ready for the first two officers to cuff him. Dick moved closer, getting a good look at Harvey’s visage. His scars, they were different. Gone was the half-melted face, purple and raw, the bulging, exposed eye. In fact, Harvey looked better than ever, the right side of his face reconstructed with skin grafts far beyond what was commonplace back when Dick could remember. However, he was indeed still a man of two faces. Intent on returning to his old ways, Harvey had clearly taken a knife to his fixed face and carved it to pieces, allowing infection to set in to hue it a sickly green. There was no going back.
“Heh,” Two-Face spluttered and spoke with a voice as if he had been gargling glass. “Took you long enough. We had a bet going that you weren’t coming.”
Steph ignored him and turned to face Dick, beckoning him closer. “You want to do the honours?”
Dick hesitated then stepped forward and began to read him his rights. “Harvey Dent, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do say--”
“Is this a joke?” Harvey cut him off, speaking a deep and smooth voice. “Are you the Joker all of a sudden?”
Dick stopped and looked to Steph, then ahead once more. In a brief look, he caught several of the other officers present staring at him. “What are you gawking at?” he coughed.
One of the other officers shook her head and wiped the look of surprise off of her face. “Sorry, Commissioner.”
Steph interjected, ending the awkward silence. “Get him out of here,” she spoke to the two officers binding Dent.
“Yes, Sarge,” the first nodded. The pair then walked Two-Face two dozen paces along the street and then tossed him onto the road. A handful of the other officers on the scene then leapt up to him and began kicking him while he was down, making an example for the many onlooking civilians wrapped up tight in fur-lined coats.
Dick was bewildered, and pushed past Steph to shoot to Dent’s side. “Get off of him!” he barked with an unfound confidence. And, instantly, the officers leapt back as if God himself had decreed it, terrified, and falling into line. So this was justice in Gotham these days? And from the look of utter surprise on all of their faces, it was clear that Commissioner Dick Grayson was party to it.
Dick stood there, his fear turned to rage, and Steph slowly approached him from behind, laying a tender hand on his shoulder.
“Come on, Commish,” she spoke. “Let’s drive somewhere nicer.”
Reluctantly, Dick stepped away, confident the officers wouldn’t be stupid enough to defy the Commissioner and continue to brutalise Dent. He threw himself back into the passenger seat of Steph’s car, to be joined by her moments later. But then, as they set off back towards Old Gotham, the police district, Dick’s paper-thin cell phone rang once more. Steph quietened down, and Dick held the phone to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Dick,” spoke the panicked voice of Barbara Gordon, his wife.
“Babs?” he replied.
“Dick, it’s Clark. He’s run away, left a note saying he has business in Gotham.” She spoke with absolute fear in her voice.
Dick was lost, but had to stay calm for her. “Okay, take a deep breath. Do you know where he is?”
“He left Metropolis in the night,” Barbara explained, trying her best to wrestle against her rapid breaths, “Took the car. He should already be in Gotham. Please, Dick, tell me your men found him when he tried to get into the city. Tell me our son is safe.”
They lived in Metropolis. Dick quickly surmised why his apartment was so empty, why he was alone, why his wedding band wasn’t on his finger when he woke up there. “I’ve heard nothing,” Dick replied.
Barbara took a sharp breath in. “If the police didn’t pick him up when he crossed the border, it could only mean one thing.”
“What is it?” Dick looked to his left as he spoke. Steph had begun to show concern, having no idea what was happening. “Babs?”
“Dick, promise me. You can’t tell anyone else in the police. Not even Steph,” Barbara warned. Dick looked to Steph and then back to the road ahead. “If they knew, they’d put him away for a long time.”
“Babs, what is it?”
Barbara lost her temper and snapped down the phone. “You know damn well, goddamn it!” she cried. “People don’t get in or out of Gotham without the police knowing unless they’re working with the Bat-Mob.”
Click.
The line was dead.
“Dick, what’s wrong?” Steph asked.
A million thoughts were swirling in Dick’s mind. He had a son, and now his son was in danger. Working with the Bat-Mob? Who was the Bat-Mob? And why was it so important the police didn’t find out? This was terrible. This was awful. This was hell.
“I have something to see to,” Dick replied. He looked to Steph, who looked back in genuine concern. This was a Stephanie he had lived to grow to trust, one who trusted him deeply, and now once again he had to keep the truth from her. “I have to go back to the station.”
“What?” she replied.
“Just take me to Fort Gotham!” Dick snapped.
 
♦ ♦ 🕰️ ♦ ♦
 
Dick pushed through the doors atop the steps of Fort Gotham, the maximum security fortress that stood at the site of the old GCPD building. Quickly, he passed through three, five, ten security checks and measures and into a wide open office space with ebony black walls, illuminated with white and blue light. If Dick had woken up here, he would have assumed he was back in Steppenwolf’s Fathership, not some future police station. He didn’t like that he had snapped at Steph, but he knew he didn’t have much time if his son was in danger, and he didn’t have the knowledge of this timeline to navigate an intimate conversation and still conceal the truth.
From what he had gathered, Gotham City had been divided into several territories, each separated by giant, looming walls. Each territory had been ‘entrusted’ to one of Gotham’s worst and most iconic criminals, giving them illusions of power while the police - massive in number - kept everyone safe and pulled all the real strings. This was to keep the Gotham public dependent on the police, keeping the ever present threat of costumed crime stoked and burning and keeping the police as the only force saving them from total destruction. It was disgusting, and something Dick’s future self clearly had plans in motion to correct. But, of course, to have the police as the sole protectors of the city, there was no role for Batman, or any of the Gotham Knights. Dick supposed that that was why the ‘Bat-Mob’ were so maligned, why the police could never find out that Clark was working with them. Dick cursed that he couldn’t get into his cell phone and use it to track down Tim, Jason, Kate or Helena directly, or even use it to research this Bat-Mob. Instead, Dick had to use the Fort Gotham library.
He paced back and forth through the aisles of bookshelves, surprised that books still had a place in this time period, but the majority of the books were outdated, historical accounts and textbooks. To research newer information, Dick had to use one of the many computer terminals littered about the floor. He approached one, which quickly prompted him for his police ID. Dick reached into his coat and retrieved his wallet, catching a glimpse of yet another photograph of young Clark, as well as a photo of Tim, himself and Luke Fox. No Jason? He pulled out a thin plastic ID card and swiped it across the computer terminal screen, but immediately after, Dick drove his fist into the desk in frustration. He read the screen:
’Enter Passcode.’
“Oh frakk!” a voice chimed up behind him. Dick turned around, taking a second to search for the source of the voice before following the angered gazes of the rest of the library’s patrons to a blond man in an amber coat. Dick recognised the voice but couldn’t quite place the face.
Dick joined in shooting a glare at the man, searching his face intensely to try and identify him, all the more so as the man began quickly dancing past tables to reach to Dick’s side.
“Oh man, you have really gone off the rails,” the man continued in a more hushed tone as he arrived by Dick. “You are not making this easy.”
Already, Dick knew this man was different. He spoke with an insubordination Commissioner Dick Grayson hadn’t seen since he woke up this morning. He may have been in the police library, but he was clearly no cop, which begged the question: How did he make it past all of the security checks?
“Who are you?” Dick grabbed the man by the forearm and pulled him close, speaking in a harsh whisper. “What are you talking about?”
The man rolled his eyes and pulled his arm free. “World’s Greatest Detective?” he sighed, “Not yet, you aren’t.” He moved back, rolled his hands up and put them together like binoculars, or perhaps goggles. He raised his hands and placed them over his eyes, miming a mask. Then, Dick recognised him. They met briefly during the Incursion, and he hadn’t aged a day since.
“Booster Gold?” Dick called out.
“Hey!” Booster shushed him. “Not so loud! There might be guys here that know that name… maybe.”
Dick took him by the arm and marched him out of the library and out onto the street. “Did you do this to me?”
“Yes,” Booster nodded, able to speak more at volume now. “Well, Rip did, my… associate.”
“Well, put me back,” Dick barked.
“Sure, and abandon your kid?”
“This is just a possible future, right?” Dick replied. “It isn’t real.”
“It’s real as long as it is, and until it isn’t,” Booster replied back with a furrowed brow.
Dick took a deep breath, deeply frustrated with the man’s babblings. “What is this? Why am I here?”
Booster sighed. “Rip’s looking to do some recruiting. Looking for new Time Masters,” he explained. “And with your ‘highly variable effect on the timeline’, he thought you were a good candidate. Judging by how you’re doing so far, I’d say he’s pretty off the mark.”
“Highly variable?” Dick shook his head. “Well, count me out. I don’t want to be a Time Master, whatever that is.”
“Yet,” Booster continued. “Look, I’m just doing as I’m told. Rip thinks you’d up to the job specs, so we used experimental time tech to drop your consciousness into the body of your future self in a possible future.”
Dick hung his head, taking it all in. So was Clark, his family, this Gotham real? Did Clark’s fate matter? Did this Gotham City even need saving? How likely was this future to even come to pass?
“It’s… basically Quantum Leap,” Booster added. “If you’ve seen that.”
“Yes, I’ve seen Quantum Leap,” Dick snapped. “Look, just tell me what I need to do to get home.”
“Well...” Booster rolled up his sleeve to expose the golden gauntlet underneath. He began poking around at it’s interface, reviewing his data. “It’s not a precise science, but you should be put back exactly where and when we nabbed you once you--” Booster squinted as he read off of the hard light display, “-- fulfill your purpose here.”
“And what is my purpose?” Dick asked, steadying his breath.
“I don’t know. You tell me, Circus Boy.”
Dick grumbled and looked off across the city. If he were Bruce, it would be saving this fractured Gotham, liberating it from it’s awful circumstances. But he wasn’t Bruce. Clark Grayson was in danger, and regardless of if this future was going to come to pass at all, Dick had a duty to find him and protect him.
Dick turned to Booster Gold. “Do you have any information on the ‘Bat-Mob’? Who are they and where can I find them?”
Booster smiled and a small airborne drone appeared beside him, emerging from being cloaked. The floating metal ball bobbed up and down, the red line of its visor shifting back and forth . “Greetings Richard Grayson,” spoke Skeets, Booster’s robot companion, “Your reputation precedes you. It is always a pleasure to work with competent heroes for a change.”
“I had my boy Skeets gather what info he could from the library while I was busy causing a scene,” Booster explained, ignoring the robot’s implied insult. “So, come on, Skeets, what’s the Bat-Mob, and where can we find them?”
“The Bat-Mob is an organisation recognised by the GCPD as a terrorist group born out of the now-defunct Bat Family,” Skeets replied. “Though vigilantism was outlawed in Gotham City following the historic Joker-Batman conflict in 2021, the Bat-Mob was assembled from the remains of the Gotham Knights and anti-GCPD resistance fighters and was subsequently driven underground. Their base of operations is known to be in the catacombs below the condemned Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane.”
“Easy,” Booster grinned. “So we go underground, take your boy back from your old family and save the day. Then you get to be a Time Master and I get to find someplace a bit sunnier than Orwell’s Gotham City.”
“I have no interest in being a Time Master, Booster,” Dick stayed firm. “Just help me set things right, then we can all go home.”
 
♦ ♦ 🦇 ♦ ♦
 
Dick had learned that many in the GCPD had tried to penetrate the well stocked and fortified catacombs the Bat-Mob called home, all having failed. Many attempted to storm the asylum, which itself was defended by the Mob’s fiercest resistance fighters. Others, such as former-Commissioner Forbes attacked by the sewers. But, with limited paths in and out of the decrepit tombs and tunnels, the Bat-Mob could focus their limited manpower to best thwart even the best the police could throw at them. Instead, the police had elected to allow the Mob to remain bunkered down in their headquarters, instead preparing to snuff them out should they ever make a move outside its safety.
However, one thing puzzled Dick. All of Bruce’s past acolytes had an exhaustive knowledge of the city’s history and geography, including the well kept secrets of the other hidden entrances. Once such was via the cave systems beneath Gotham that Bruce used as his city-side Batcaves. As Commissioner, Dick would have been more than able to provide his police colleagues this information, and use it to root out the Bat-Mob. Perhaps, Dick supposed, his future self was turning a blind eye intentionally. But not anymore.
Dick led Booster Gold and his robot Skeets along the dry and shadowy tunnels, each wall lined with the bones of those that died within Arkham’s custody ages ago. So far, they had met no resistance at all.
“Any idea why your kid would run all the way from Metropolis to hang out here?” Booster jested. “From what Skeets downloaded, Metropolis is a utopia in this future.They don’t even need a Superman anymore.”
“What’s the Joker-Batman conflict?” Dick stopped and turned to Booster, the phrase having bugged him their entire journey this far. “The one in 2021.”
“Um,” Booster twitched nervously. Ahead of them, Skeets came to a slow halt, a beam of light from its front face lighting the path ahead. Booster continued, “Depending on your choices, it may very well be part of your future after we get you home. Maybe it’s best I don’t tell you too much about your own future.”
“Depending on my choices this future might end up happening,” Dick replied indignantly. “If something awful might happen, I deserve a chance to at least try and change things.”
Skeets turned to face the pair, blinding both as it neglected to deactivate its flashlight. “It is unwise to give you further information on future proceedings. I overstepped earlier by mentioning the conflict at all, for which I apologise.”
“Joker’s dead,” Dick spat back. “Batman’s dead.”
“So everyone thought,” Booster replied.
“Booster, I really think--”
“Some kid Joker showed up and caused chaos, turned Gotham against itself,” Booster cut Skeets off. “And, sure enough, Batman rose to fight him. A meaner Batman, one determined to make sure Gotham was never brave enough to revolt again.”
“Fascism,” Dick grumbled.
“Until the real Joker showed up,” Booster hung his head. “And this new Batman? He was no match. KIA.”
“Who?” Dick asked plainly.
“I think you know,” Booster replied grimly, thinking back to the relentless methods of the young vigilante he had fought alongside against Steppenwolf’s terraformer. Jason. “That’s why Forbes and the police came down as hard as they did. Gotham relied on a Batman that was unjust and corrupt. Then, when he died, they were defenseless. They had to make sure they never needed Batman ever again.”
Dick took a deep breath, the air catching along his through as a chill cut through him. He couldn’t allow any of this to come to pass. For Gotham’s sake. For Jason’s.
“Hands up!!” a voice boomed along the tunnel. Instantly, Skeets leapt back and Booster threw his hands in the air, but Dick barely flinched.
Nameless, faceless figures in jet black armour, much like that of the police, like Luke Fox’s Batwing gear, led Dick, Booster and Skeets further along the tunnel, their rifles levelled at them. Silently, they marched them into an opening, a large round chamber joining four adjacent tunnels.
Free standing work lights illuminated the chamber, with long shadows framing the central stone floor. Crates of ammunition littered the ground, along with numerous camping cots. In this chamber alone, twenty figures stood, all in black Batwing-esque gear. All wore sleek, bat-eared helmets. All except three.
“Yeah, take a long look,” snapped Luke Fox, his hair thinning and now with a thick beard, having caught Dick staring at the geared out soldiers. “You blue bastards stole my tech, we stole it back. I even made some improvements.”
“I really hoped you’d stay away, Dick,” spoke Tim Drake, with a shaved head, a five o’clock shadow, and his face wrought with exhaustion, “This is our turf.”
“I’m glad he’s here,” added Kate Kane. Her short red hair was scraped back, her skin as pale as snow and her eyes sunken and bruised, burning with rage. “It’s long overdue we made you pay.”
“I’m just here for Clark,” Dick replied. It pained him to see the people he cared about harbour such resentment for him. He had to remind himself it wasn’t him for whom it was for.
“Clark?” Tim cocked his head. Dick watched him looking at him with such disdain… Dick knew he hadn’t been a good brother to his Tim since Tim’s father dragged him away from Gotham. Dick had to change that if he got out of this alive.
“My son,” Dick added.
“We know who Clark is,” Kate spat. “He’s family. Unlike you, you traitor.”
“Where is he?” Dick persisted.
Booster looked around the room, they were completely surrounded by Bat-Mobbers. ”Hey, Grayson, you might want to try some more diplomacy,” he laughed nervously. “These guys aren’t the henchmen you beat up for info on the street.”
But Dick ignored him. “Where is my son!?”
Kate moved to scream back, but caught herself. Instead, she smothered that energy and pulled back. He wasn’t worth it.
The older Tim sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “He’s up in Otisburg. Running recon.”
“Oh frakk,” Booster came to an awful realisation.
“What?” Dick turned to him. “What’s ‘oh frakk’?”
Booster said nothing.
“Who has Otisburg?” Dick cried, “Which one of them is it?”
Solemnly, it was Skeets that replied. “Otisburg, much like the vast majority of the Burnley island, was conquered by the one known as the Joker.”
Dick’s face went stone white. “He’s only just joined up… and you sent him into Joker territory...?”
“It’s a routine job,” Kate explained. “We sent a squad with him, they know those streets, how to navigate them.”
“You fed my son right to the Joker!” Dick roared.
“He’s not yours, Dick,” Luke shook his head. “Not anymore. He’s Bat-Mob.”
“I’m going after him,” Dick turned over his shoulder. “Booster, come on.”
But Booster looked once again at the many figures surrounding then. “I, uh…”
“You won’t make it,” Luke continued. “There are no cops in Joker territory. They’ll hunt you like animals.”
“They can try.”
The Bat-Mobbers levelled their guns once more, and Kate cried “Well, you’ll have to escape us first.”
 
 
Next: Things go south in Booster Gold #15 - Coming September 16th