Low-Down in Loveland, IC Thread Options

[Digital Heroin]

Wednesday, 17 February 2071, 2314
The Dive, Low-Down, Seattle Metroplex

Spring in Puyallup was once an idyllic time. The fields were verdant, and the skies would open up to a new year of blue horizons. This is no fairytale springtime, though, and a lot has happened to bring Puyallup screaming into the new world. The fields are largely gone, given over to half finished development and tar choked debris fields. The night sky is think with smog, and and a pallor hangs in the air, as if the world can sense the dark times that Low-Down has fallen upon. Three weeks have passed since Bruno was erased from the face of the Barrens, and though the winter's rain may be letting up, the mood in the air is still oppressive.

The evening pall, and the smell of decay that seems to permeate the Barrens, has The Dive unusually busy. It would seem no one wants to be outside, and few want to be alone just now. Drinks are flowing freely, and conversation is at a pitch which threatens to overwhelm the battered old jukebox, and you could almost swear this was somewhere more upscale, in a neighborhood where to walk unarmed was the norm. Everything comes to a stop, however, save the classic rock of a bygone era, when the door clatters open, and a wiry figure enters. Clutching a thin plastic poncho against his chest, the kind that anywhere else in Seattle would be considered disposable, but has obviously seem many weeks use. The squatter looks around, a fright in his eyes, and he stumbles over to the nearest group of Dozen members.

`Fire,` he gasps. `They set the whole place on fire.` The squatter shudders, and starts to viciously cough.

Anyone outside would need be blind to miss the fires the squatter speaks of. As if a pyre dedicated to some massive deity, the flames are visible even two blocks away, and viscous black smoke plumes up in a column that is inky dark against an already gloom filled night. Whatever they set on fire, and whoever they are, they have done a good job of it.