Across the plaza, Bosun was further annoyed at her boss. Capt. Wolf had sent her to babysit Capt. Jack and his new White Russian bodyguard. Despite the decade since the revolution, it was impressive how easy it was to find cheap Czarist labor. Jack had his hands on a scroll he swore would make up for the disaster two months ago that ended in fire and lots of hush money. She couldn’t wait until the idiot found this treasure for her and Cricket to swindle it out from under him.
“The librarian here is probably our best bet,” he said with a gesture towards the art deco public library. The island’s architectural heritage reflected both unchanging tradition and new public and private investments, especially downtown in Chuo.
Just then, Svetlana spied the familiar figures of two dirty peasants and their bobcut friend across the plaza. The glasses peasant also had a scroll. She reached into a pocket for her Baby Browning when Bosun grabbed her wrist and nodded toward the nearby police box.
“What are they made of?” Jack said in surprise. They were pretty full of lead when he left them.
“Stupid.” Svetlana shot back. “Bosun, let’s say hello and keep them away from the library.”
“Captain Jackson I presume,” said the mousy librarian. He’d called ahead to confirm that she could help verify his scroll and she seemed eager to assist. For his part, Jack had worn his best shirt and lightly bathed in Bay Rum.
Being that she is
The Brain, this conversation would take more finesse than Jack could muster in a single turn.
Tsubaki had an easier time with her old acquaintance, Neko.
Tsubaki started with small talk. “How’s the
Strong-Arm?”
Neko revealed her scar covered left forearm; her body was her personal chemistry laboratory.
“No new cures, but no new unpleasantness,” she replied.
Neko looked over her scroll and said that
Without A Doubt it was real.
“That’s wonderful to hear,” Tsubaki thanked her.
“Bear in mind, I’m a doctor, not an appraiser.”
“I didn’t know that, sensei.”
“Please don’t call me that.”
While scrolls were appraised, the others squared off in the square near the Russo-Japanese War Memorial. Yuri smiled and gave a slight bow to Bosun with Natsuko awkwardly following her lead.
“You need better friends,” she told Bosun. “This one can’t aim or fight. She’s as big a liability as my mouth.”
“Tough-talking twig,” Svetlana said. She took Yuri’s goad into a test of might but neither could move the other.
“Even ironwood has twigs, you know.”
The quartet went full into a rather passive aggressive game of “I’m not touching you” resulting in bloody noses and Svetlana sent packing as Yuri shouted, “That’s why you lost the revolution!”
“What are you talking about?” Tsubaki asked.
“As usual, I have no idea.”
Natsuko begged, “Can you please not make life so… interesting?”
Tsubaki shook her head. “I can’t take you anywhere.”
Marion consulted with half a dozen tomes and after three more phone calls concluded the scroll was real! “This information,
you may rely on it!”
Jack now had the real scroll.
Exiting the library, he saw the aftermath of “not fighting.” Tsubaki had disappeared, Natsuko was apologizing and there was an angry Yuri, clutching where she’d been poked in her bullet wounds –twice- and accusations of puppy kicking. Svetlana and Bosun had tried to bully back Natsuko with cunning, for which they were under-prepared. A little known fact is that while Natsuko’s cunning is 4d8, it’s only because “dumb luck” isn’t a stat in Pulp Alley.
Watching the comedy of errors as his two sidekicks took bumbling damage Jack decided that “this is strange and I’m not confronting that dork.”
Tsubaki blocked off Suzugamori-san the appraiser before she could enter the station. She pleaded for a few minute of her time and the promise of an interesting site. Suzugamori asked how exactly she planned to stop her if she said no.
“I’m a
menacing brute?”
Tsubaki is incapable of menacing. At all. Switching tactics, she convinced Suzugamori helping her was the
lost key to proving her worth as successor to her grandfather.
“
Most likely, this is the real scroll. I’d bet my reputation on it!”
“Do you really have a reputation?”
“You came to me didn’t you?”
“In my defense, I can’t afford an official appraisal.”
Tsubaki has the real scroll! Having the upper hand, the girls fell back around her.
Capt. Jack approached Durant, a
familiar face.
“I heard you were the shadiest appraiser on Abunakajima,” he said.
“All of Dai Nippon actually, to include Manchukuo,” Durant corrected.
They trade smiles and strongly clasped hands with a meaty slap.
“Jack!”
“Durand!”
“You son of a bitch!”
After a cursory glance at the scroll, a frown crossed Durant’s face.
“Is it the real deal?” Jack asked.
“
Better not tell you now,” he said apologetically. “I’d need to cross reference a few things.”
Successfully achieving this bit of bad news, Jack went to try his luck with Neko who is not a poisoner. Warily, the Hanamura girls and Natsuko approached Durant’s nemesis, Prof. Tanaka, just in case…
“We’re not done yet,” Bosun said as she and Svetlana got in their way.
Yuri tried to play a game against Bosun, a test of might, which she failed again. Luckily she has a lot of pride to wound. Tsubaki joined in the contest of cunning and broke Bosun’s winning streak. Svetlana attempted to regain the director’s chair by besting Natsuko in the one area they were evenly matched: might. It was like two kids in a slap fight; Natsuko won and Svetlana’s pride was also wounded.
Capt. Jack met with the legitimate medical practitioner, Neko. She was able to
connect the pieces…
“
Ask me again later.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so,” she told him sternly.
“I’m beginning to think the famously neutral Neko is taking sides.”
“Only against those who oppose me. Do you… oppose me?” She asked. A window opened at the apothecary, inside several large, muscular men who were not hired for people skills watched him with intent.
He tipped his hat. “I’ll be going.”
“I bet you will.”
The pointless “not a fight” continued across the plaza resulting poor Natsuko bonking her head against a light pole 8” away.
As there is no way for Jack to get his scroll appraised in the next turn, the game draws to an early end.
EPILOGUEYuri, nonchalant as ever, met her old “friend,” Capt. Jack in the middle of the plaza.
“Where did they find enough blood to put you back together?” He asked.
“With money the impossible becomes possible,” she explained. “You should know. You paid for it.”
Jack smirked. “I owe you a few more bullet holes but give me your scroll and we’ll call it even.”
Yuri beamed with a rabbit-toothed smile. “So yours is a fake then! Good! I hate witty wordplay and trying to trick information out of people. Gokigenyo!” She said with a mock bow before scampering off.
This is the opposite of our last fight, in which Jack and Svetlana’s brawling and shooting overmatched the trio. This kind of underhanded fight is where Tsubaki and Natsuko excel, while Yuri is the brawler. Jack and Bosun share stats, with Svetlana’s also being the same except for swapping brawl and shoot, finesse and cunning.
Poor Jack couldn’t catch a break, passing three minor plot points only for the latter two to confirm his scroll wasn’t the real deal.
ERRATA“Chuo” means “central”
For dapper Jack, I had to look up what cologne would be appropriate for him. Old Spice wasn’t introduced until 1938 and the colognes of the era looked like they would have been out of his price range so went with the classic.
“Sensei” is an honorific applied to teachers, doctors, certain working professionals, and artists.
24 March 2025, 08:15:32 AM