Welcome to the Family (Sidekick Quest)

[x] What here is the biggest threat?
[x] What here can I use to bail Charlotte out without exposing her connection to the family?

Dissent takes a seat at a table and orders a whiskey neat.

"Seriously?" You ask, your voice carried to her by the commlink hidden deep within her ear. "You're drinking? Now? Do you think that's a good idea?"

Dissent tosses the drink back in one go and signals the waiter for another. You sigh and begin the process of scanning the bar and surrounding buildings. Your goggles automatically adjust for distance, highly sophisticated computers tracking minute changes in the lenses of your eye to determine where your focus is. "No weapons on your contact that I can see," you tell Dissent. "Could be hidden. Could be a meta."

The woman sitting across from her doesn't look like an international fugitive – though you suppose that's kind of the point. She's somewhere in her mid-twenties, with a face, hair, height, and fashion sense that can really only be called nondescript. You could pass her in the street and she'd be out of your mind before you looked away, just another one of the faceless millions drawn to the allure of the Big Apple. She takes a sip of her drink, a tall martini with too much coloring to be very alcoholic and a blackberry on a toothpick, and watches Dissent over the rim of her glass. "You're late."

A flash of metal near the bar catches your eye, and though it's gone in an instant you've marked it. "The two men in grey suits, at your three, have knives in their jackets."

"Amy, right?" Dissent asks. "I thought the meeting time was more of a window." There is no trace of the southern drawl in her words – only a flat affect that could be from any major English-speaking city from across the Free World. "What have you got there? It looks good." She knocks back her second whiskey, then a third, and covers a burp with the back of one hand, and signals the waiter again. "I'll have what she's having."

"Just have mine," Amy says, sliding the martini glass across the table.

Dissent beams and raises it in salute. "Cheers," she says before taking a sip. "Ooh, sour."

A shadow through glass. "Sniper in the window at your eight. Forty-second floor. Twelfth from the left."

Amy doesn't wait for Dissent to finish taking her sip. "My employers don't take very kindly to lateness-"

"Then just tell them that I showed up exactly on time, and we got along like a couple of old friends," Dissent says. "Come on, I'm not stupid. I know how this works. When I pan out, you take all the credit with your bosses. The least you could do is buy me a few drinks."

"You're very confident in yourself, for very little reason I can see," Amy says. She rests her chin on her fist, looking Dissent up and down. "Are you not worried at all about what you're doing?"

No weapons on the man and the woman in the corner booth, but for two people on a date they're sure throwing a lot of looks at Amy's table. You tell Dissent as much, then about the woman peeking out from behind the bathroom door. You frown. "They brought a lot of muscle for a meeting with a Family employee. Augur?" No response. You ping her, high priority. "Shit."

If Dissent shares your concern, she doesn't show it. "I don't exactly plan on getting caught," she says, taking another sip of the martini. "And if you guys are half as good as everyone says, I figure I don't have to worry about you either."

"But we worry about you," the woman says. "Especially when you show up to our meeting late, looking like Blackbird himself just worked you over."

"My boyfriend likes it rough," Dissent says, "and I just can't say no to the guy. Terrible for me...but you know how it is, obviously."

Amy blinks, clearly unsure of what to say. "Let's try to stay on topic."

If Dissent could smile without giving the game away, you're sure she'd be beaming from ear to ear. "I can't think of anything more relevant," she says. "Truth is, we're both in position to do this thing tonight and you know it. All that's left for us to do is figure out if we trust each other." She slides the blackberry off the toothpick and pops it in her mouth. "So why should I trust you, Amy?"

Amy clears her throat. "I'm not the one who has to prove my value here."

"Dissent, I see a gun at your five. Something is wrong. Lean forward if you need a distraction." Your eyes dart from one corner of the bar to the next, looking for anything you can use. "Do you see the fire extinguisher behind the bar? If you can impair visibility, I can help you out without blowing your cover." If it isn't blown already.

"Really?" Dissent leans back in her chair. "You realize I'm the one with access, right? I can go anywhere to get what you're offering. Where can you go to find another me?" She points to her pocket. "If I put my hand in my pocket, are your well dressed goons at the bar going to shank me?"

Amy taps her finger against the table several times before nodding assent.

"Like I was saying, I have access," Dissent says. She pulls the sapphire ring from her pocket and sliding it across the table. "I have the guts. And I have options. Your bosses aren't the only ones with a grudge, you know?"

"There's no grudge here," Amy says. "We're professionals. And we're the only ones to get inside their building since last century. You think you have options, but we're your only real chance at success." It takes her a moment to realize that she's pitching the KMA, and a scowl rolls across her face like a thundercloud.

Your eyes widen. As far as you were aware, the KMA hadn't made it inside the aerie since the eighties. "Augur, please tell me you're there."

"I'm here, Cardinal." Her voice is calm, precise, submerged in the rhythm of her work. "This is news to me too. I'm running Amy's face through Cavalry databases but not getting any hits. I'll try her voice next. Dissent, just keep her talking."

"What about the muscle?" You ask. "Another gun, Dissent. Far end of the bar. Fuck. This a trap."

"One she can't move without springing," Augur says. There is none of the anger you expected in her words, not even any satisfaction at being right. "Stay the course. Be ready to move."

"Eh," Dissent says, shrugging and swirling what remains of the martini in her glass. "Half the criminals in this city have their story about the time they got the better of the Family. What they don't talk about is all those other times they got their teeth kicked in."

Speaking of kicking, you notice that several of the girls in what looks like a bachelorette party are wearing steel-toed boots. "Dissent, the party girls."

"We're in public, the woman snaps. "Show some discretion."

Dissent only shrugs. "Fine then, Jesus," she says. "I'll be very discreet. Very low profile. I hear that's your modus operandi." She drains the last of the martini and sets it down on the table.

She's getting to the woman, you can tell. Dissent has a talent for pushing buttons, one that's far easier to admire when you're not on the receiving end of it, and it's obvious that the woman is not used to being on the back foot in these types of conversations. Every time she tries to assert control Dissent throws her off balance again. Conversational judo. You wish you could admire it more – you wish you didn't just spot another knife, masquerading as an avant-garde hairpin.

Amy takes a moment to gather herself. She checks her watch. "This is getting us nowhere,"she says. "Not one thing you've said since sitting down has given me any reason to think that you're serious about this."

"If you ignore the ring," Dissent says. "I think that demonstrates my dedication and my skills."

"The ring was cost of entry," Amy says. For the first time since the conversation started she seems to settle into herself, leaning forward. "You know, part of me was hoping that this you were actually legit. We're always looking for ways into the aerie. But...this is why God invented contingencies."

"I found her," Augur says. "It's not much, but we might be able to use it to track her down. Dissent, you need to get out of there if it's at all possible."

You shake your head. "I don't think she can. There isn't a single civilian in that bar."

"I just need another minute," Dissent says.

Amy stands up. You tense, ready to spring into action, but Dissent keeps her seat. "You don't have another minute," Amy says. "The tranquilizer will be kicking in any minute now. You didn't seriously think you had us fooled, did you?" She smiles wide. "Do you even know how big the bounty on your head is? Nearly as much as we'd be able to make on an aerie job. I don't know who's got it out for you but…" she trails off, frowning. "Seriously, how are you still conscious? You took enough of that stuff to put down a gorilla."

Dissent smiles. "I'll let you in on a secret, since you've been such a good talker," she says. "It's because I took enough to take down a gorilla." She gestures at herself. "My biology is incredibly good at withstanding massive trauma. You could say that it...kicks into overdrive. I'm actually more likely to bleed out from a single stab wound than I am to die from getting hit by a grenade. My biggest problem is usually triggering the reflex."

"You took three doses," Amy murmurs, so low you almost can't hear her through the commlink.

"Thanks for being so accommodating, by the way," Dissent says. She mimes wiping sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand.

"How is this possible?" Amy asks. "I know your stats, kid. You're smart, you're not-" she stops, sudden. "You're meta."

"Please," Dissent says, shaking her head. "Metas...they're all cosmic accident. Synapses firing at random in an evolutionary fever dream. I'm designer, bitch."

She explodes into motion.

"Dissent!" You shout. Your head swivels to the sniper, arm snapping out, activating the laser pointer built into your gauntlet. You had integrated it as a training tool, helping you to aim your grappling hook, but had quickly found other uses for it – particularly as an anti-sniper tool. You swipe the laser back and forth across the window, and are rewarded by seeing the man with the gun stumble back, clawing at his eyes.

You take a running leap and hurl yourself into the glass window, bursting out into the cool night air in a shower of broken glass.

"Dissent!" You shout her name again and see her on the rooftop bar, dancing a flurry of knives and gunfire. Is she slower than she is normally? Her footwork seems sloppy, her blows almost drunken. The tranquilizers might not have put her down, but she's clearly feeling the effects.

"Stop her!" Dissent's voice explodes in your ear, accompanied by crackling static. You see Amy sprinting for the edge of the rooftop, until all the sudden she leaps out into empty space, arms pinwheeling.

[] Defend Dissent

• Roll 2d6-2​
• On a hit, keep Dissent safe and choose one. On a 7-9, it costs you – expose yourself to danger or escalate the situation: (i) add a Team to the pool; (ii) take Influence over someone you protect; (iii) clear a conditions​

[] Unleash Your Powers to chase Amy

• Roll 2d6+0​
• On a hit, you do it. On a 7-9, mark a condition or Gally will tell you how the effect is unstable or temporary.​