Torn

 "I ride the dirt, I ride the tide for you..."

Metallica's "The Outlaw Torn" plays quietly on the radio, accompanied in bouts by the sound of strong winds rocking the car. She doesn't stop to consider the irony in that, given what she's here to do. Of course, the term "outlaw" implies some criminal element. If one's target isn't alive, but not dead either, is changing that detente really a crime? Not a murder, at least. The cans of gas in the trunk might argue for arson. To fall back upon a popular internet meme, one does not simply plead "purification by fire" as a court defense.

She hasn't really thought that far ahead, when there is no guarantee that she'll survive the night. Legal quandaries aside, if she were to stop and debate the situation with herself, she'd claim the high ground. If a coyote is in your yard, eating your cat, you don't wrestle with the morality of the situation, you pull the trigger. That doesn't change if the coyote passes for human.

She watches the generic neon "bar" sign flicker, the dying light of a flame that has drawn more than its fair share of moths, from two buildings over. Midtown hasn't seen much in the way of popularity, with the continued westward expansion of Union City, but even for those with low standards, Philly's is a last resort, hole-in-the-wall kind of place. Her "coyote" tends bar here several nights a week, and preys on the drunks in their spare time. Police have been contacted to investigate the bar numerous times, but it never goes anywhere. Why would it? How can you arrest a corpse? So she sits, and she waits, and she stares intently, letting her mind drift.

++++

Philly's was a favorite of her ex girlfriend. That's what started bringing her here. Dive bars had never really been her thing, but Jamie had a way of convincing her to do pretty much whatever. Plus, it wasn't a cliche "gay bar." Dive or not, it was just a bar. Two people going out for drinks, without needing any type of special place, where no one bothered them. Not at first, anyway.

They had been regulars for a couple of months when the new girl was hired on. She seemed an okay sort. Learned the names of regulars fairly quickly, always knew what you liked to order, personable if a little cold, somehow brought in increased business. Even invited people to keep drinking after hours in her apartment above the bar. But it was during one of those invites that she noticed something wasn't quite right with the bartender. They were all smoking, just cigarettes, and when she offered Jamie a light too close to the bartender, the new girl hissed at her and jumped back. Of course no one else had noticed, thanks to their drinking, but she was sober enough that her jaw dropped open in amazement.

Things fell apart from there. She started paying more attention to everything at Philly's, nursing any booze she ordered rather than getting drunk like before. She observed how certain regulars had stopped coming in, while others looked even more washed out and unhealthy. And the new girl never took a drink, regardless of how many patrons ordered one for her, not even water. The observing didn't go unnoticed by the bartender, who began making passive aggressive statements and veiled threats. She ignored them, until the new girl made a play for Jamie. Worse than the action itself was the response: Jamie actually went for it. True, they weren't married, but two years of dating wasn't a lightly-discarded commitment for most people. And not only was she tossed aside easily, but cruelly as well, subjected to insults and physical force from someone that she had loved, as if she were suddenly, and passionately, hated.

Moving on would have been the smart play. Were it just the relationship failing, she probably would have. It was the wrongness of the new girl that kept her calling and texting, trying to pull Jamie back, even going so far as to get law enforcement involved. But when confronted, the bartender did... something... to the police officers each time until finally, they arrested her instead, leaving Jamie and the new girl to their own devices. She was released, and resolved to just walk away.

Then she found out through former mutual friends that Jamie had died. Suicide, they said. Cremation, no funeral, no cemetery plot, no closure or place to even say goodbye.

++++

She inhales slowly, deeply, to choke back the tears. She focuses on the anger, not the sadness, to give her the strength to do what she came to do. The others that she had met in the past few months told her what the new girl was, what she needed to do to put it to rest. She pats the borrowed Taurus .40 caliber pistol sitting on her lap for reassurance. They warned that the gun would only slow it down, that she needed the fire. She hopes she brought enough gasoline, but reasons that a bar full of liquor will go up in flames without too much of a starter.

The last customer car leaves the parking lot, and she knows that she doesn't have much time to prepare her assault. Leaving the keys in the ignition, she pops her trunk and retrieves her cans. Sprinting as best she is able with the load, she runs to the back side employee entrance of Philly's, and splashes half a gallon of petrochemical goodness all over the door, trailing the remainder of the container to the apartment stairs. She covers them, as well as an old rag, as much as she is able with a second can, before striking several matches and throwing them into the liquid. With time running out, she takes her last can, stuffs the rag into the opening, and bounds for the front of the bar, and its large-paned windows. She can vaguely make out movement inside as she sparks the rag, twists her body backwards, and heaves the gasoline molotov through the glass. The shattering sound of bottles and yelling following is like music to her ears and she pulls the Taurus, waiting for her predator to run from the front entrance.

Her target isn't behind the bar this evening, however. Instead, someone she has never seen before frantically tries to put out the flames as they grow rapidly out of control. She screams as she realizes what she has done, as she knows she can't save the innocent and all her moral posturing won't change the fact that she is a killer. She only has moments to spend hating herself before she hears the tearing crash of someone breaking through the upstairs apartment's door.

Dashing around the building heedless of the smoke and flames, she sees the new girl on the ground, rolling to extinguish embers in its clothing, pieces of wood from the door stuck in its smoldering flesh. With a shout of rage, she aims the gun and squeezes the trigger multiple times in quick succession. Unused to recoil, she misses half of the shots, but the rounds that do hit cause the bartender to flinch and spasm. That isn't enough, as it staggers to its feet, equal parts fear and anger, fight or flight warring across its smoke-streaked face.

"What? You? You bitch!" It shrieks through a fang-filled mouth, charging her like a wild animal.

She is hit like a three hundred pound linebacker sacking a one hundred pound quarterback, driven back and down onto the unyielding, flaming-debris covered concrete. Dazed, she lay almost entirely helpless as it rakes razor claws across her chest, shredding clothes and flesh like paper. Guttural curses, more a cacophony of sound than actual words, escape its throat as it thrashes wildly. Through the pain, she tries to push it off of her with one hand, bucking her hips for leverage as her other hand feels around for her gun. Her fingertips find a solid portion of the upstairs door. She grips the wood as tightly as she can, feeling the tell-tale heat of fire upon it, and thrusts it towards the bartender. It screeches and pushes itself off and away from her, moving as swiftly away from the fire as it can given their relative positions. Her fingers blistering from the temperature, she throws the fiery piece at it, and dives for her gun.

The parking lot takes its toll in flesh from her as she skids across the cement, but she manages to come up with the Taurus. No hesitation as she empties the remainder of the magazine into the bartender's torso. The impact of the rounds and the flaming board are too much for it to continue fighting against her. Injured and spent, it gives up any pretense to humanity and flees from her with an inhuman speed. She tries to give chase but her own wounds bring her to her knees.

Pressing her burned hand to her chest to staunch as much of her bleeding as she can, she half runs, half stumbles back to her car, with the sounds of sirens coming closer. A small grace that the area is otherwise deserted at this time of night, she struggles to start the vehicle and put it into drive, knowing she only needs to get a few blocks away to be clear of the carnage. She hopes, more than anything, that the bartender won't survive the attack, that it will be worth the death of the innocent, and of Jamie, if it can be stopped permanently, taking at least some small comfort in knowing that there won't be any more victims at Philly's.

It never occurs to her that she left so much of herself in the parking lot, and that the past encounters with law enforcement will be remembered...

Lay of the Land: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

"And the road becomes my bride..."

Ya see, the thing ya need to understand about Union City, the absolute first thing, is how to get around this place. Don't let the population size fool ya. The City is BIG. It's not big like New York or LA big, doesn't have the density, but it's spread out to Hell and back. That's important if ya have to get from point A to point B in a hurry, like if UCPD is crawling up your ass, or if ya have to blow town with the quickness.

Quirks of the Road
Guess the best place to start is with the surface streets and the interstates. Look, ya gotta understand, this is a town built by the railroad, so yeah, the rails are the priority. So some of the streets aren't in what ya'd call "prime condition," yanno? That's mostly surface streets. The Feds pay a large chunk of interstate maintenance, which means ya probably won't lose a tire on them. Something that always confuses newbies in the City is that numbered streets and avenues run parallel to each other. Now, don't ask what genius thought this was a good idea, or if there's some significance to it. Could be there is, could be there isn't. No clue. But make sure ya have a spare tire or four, because the potholes and road debris are enough to make ya think this is some poor, podunk berg. Mayor's office has been bleeding funds from road maintenance for decades so things only get fixed when they're too big to ignore. What's the wheel tax money go on then? Damn good question. Highway 6, or Durant Road, is the closest thing the City has to a "main street." Oh, and it's referred to as West Durant once ya get past 90th or so, like most of the bigger streets, so don't get confused if ya hear that.

The interstate is gonna be the bet if ya gotta get somewhere in a hurry. There're three that form a circuit around Union City, and any place ya can't get to directly from one of them is gonna take ya a good bit longer. Up on North Side, and looping around to the west, ya have I-680. If, and I hope ya never do, but if ya ever need to head out to Grand Meadow, 680 will get you most of the way there. Lot of stories about the 680 bridge crossing the state line over the river, mostly from the numerous suicides and accidents over the years. Ya take them with a grain of salt, it's just that there are enough otherwise sane people that talk about a person stepping in front of their car causing crashes in the middle of the night, with no body ever found, that ya try to avoid being up there after dark, yanno?

Down South Side, ya got the "big dog," I-80. No matter the time of day or night, 80 never stops. It's a straight line from Union City to either coast if ya just stick to 80, so outside of the rails, that's how the majority of commerce comes in and out of town. Downside to that, and this isn't something that everyone needs to know, so don't go repeating it, there's a lot of sex trafficking, and worse, that gets conducted. UCPD and the Feds tried a few years ago to shut down the illicit stuff, but the money always ends up elsewhere, and they don't consider a few kids being trucked cross country to be worth the time when there's the War on Terror. Anyway, unless ya enjoy being stuck in bumper to bumper, avoid 80 at the end of the work day. If ya gotta cross the river at night, trust me, stick with 80.

Now, more or less connecting the two, well, after you take a small detour to get back to 680, you have I-480 running parallel to Downtown. All the major streets have their own exits, and ya can get pretty much anywhere down there from 480, including the University campuses. It can take ya over the river, too, but try to avoid any detours into Downtown too far east. Place gets a little rough and a car can get stripped if left alone.

Still the Fastest Way to Travel
Up to the north east of North Side, easily reachable by 680 or 480, Durant Airfield is the main airport in this part of the country. Ya probably came in this way, but here's the rundown in case ya missed anything. Originally built back in the 20s, the airport covers several hundred acres of land and is able to accommodate anything from privately owned Cessna-types on the backfield, to 777 jumbo jets. All the major American airlines, including American Airlines, have a hub up there. If ya gotta get to Denver or Chicago, and can't make the eight hour drive, this is how ya do it.

Probably unrelated to anything ya need to know, but Durant is also how most the mail gets to town. Postal, major package handlers, and what have ya, all fly their cargo planes in this way, unload, and truck it out. Anything terribly large still comes in by rail car, but if ya need to order something online, it'll be up there.

Sure, sure, there hasn't been a major accident since at least the 70s. Unlike the streets, the airport is kept in good condition. Like anywhere else, Durant has had its fair share of minor issues, especially worker strikes. When the economy started tanking, and no one could afford to fly, layoffs across the board caused a lot of friction, and even the people that kept their jobs had to fight for any sort of fair compensation package. But yeah, nothing that caused anyone to die, not since that 747 smashed into the tarmac back in '78 and killed a couple hundred. That was a rough time for this town.

Ridin' the Rails
Obviously ya can't talk about Union City without mentioning the railroads. They're half the reason for the town being what it is today. Now, most people know about Union Pacific, and all the contributions Dr. Thomas Clark Durant, and by extension the Durant family, have made to Union City. But ya need to know, the Durants have a bit of a reputation in the City, and it ain't just for their vast fortune. Dr. Durant came from old money, and he used that to fund the early construction of a Transcontinental railway after the Civil War. Like any rich guy, he made some enemies, and a pair of them, the Ames brothers, tried to ruin him and his family for control of Union Pacific. Now, no one really knows the particulars of the whole thing, outside of the family ya can imagine, but in the end, Durant retained control and the Ames brothers died in the poor house. That's why Durant Road is the main street, and Ames Avenue is one of the seedier parts of North Side. Richer, and more powerful a family is, the more rumors swirl, and the Durants are the most powerful Union City family. Don't worry, ya come to town for a visit, ya probably don't need to know anything else about them.

So the railroad comes and goes in every direction in town. Biggest concentration is Downtown. That's where the train station for passenger cars is located. If ya can't drive out of town, and flyin' don't suit ya, trains are a cheap, if slow, way to go for it. Ya do hear of people going missing from the train station, or not arriving at their destinations, but there's no proof that anything unseemly is happening there. If uh, if ya have an interest, there are some ladies and fellas that hang out at the station, lookin' to welcome a traveler. Oh? Wasn't tryin' to offend, just letting ya know.

A good bit of freight gets handled Downtown, but the majority of the train yards are South Side. Part of that is so tourists see a cleaner Downtown, where Union Pacific has its offices, and part of it is to have boxcars loaded with livestock be closer to the stockyards. Yeah, ya can't miss when ya get close to the stockyards. The smell will hit ya a couple miles away. Freight trains bring in millions of tons of coal and millions of gallons of natural gas & oil every year, which gets sent everywhere else in the country. Cars get shipped from dealerships around the country on the rails as well, with semis supplementing that if the demand gets high enough.

Fair driving warning; ya will get stuck waiting for a train at some point. Most major streets have elevated rail bridges or have their own bridges going over the tracks, but a lot of side streets don't. Especially Downtown and South Side tracks. Just keep that in mind, if ya head that way in a rush.

----Jon De Luca, $5 tour guide

Out of Narrative - Disclaimers, Explanations, and the Like

"There's whiskey in the jar, oh..."

Before I get too far into things, I wanted to take at least one post to sort of lay stuff out so that I don't have to at a point when I'm working on evoking a certain mood or using a certain "voice."

Union City Confidential is going to act as a repository for an idea I had way, way back when. Basically, I wanted to create an entire website around a World of Darkness version of Omaha, NE. Some of my favorite books from the older White Wolf lines have been city books, especially San Francisco by Night, which gave readers a look at a commonly known city with a heavy supernatural slant. With sourcebooks on a diverse range, such as Berlin, Hong Kong, Tokyo, etc, I really dug how one could look at a historical event with a new viewpoint knowing that vampires, werewolves, and whatnot could have had an influence on them. Sadly, I never really found the time to do World of Darkness: Omaha back then and the old World of Darkness lines wrapped themselves up (until recently, with the 20th anniversary and 5th edition stuff, but that is outside the topic). Then White Wolf & Onyx Path Publishing created a new line of World of Darkness books (which have now been rebranded Chronicles of Darkness) of which you can find a listing of published materials and "child lines" if you're so inclined on the internet.

Flash forward to now. I've been looking at returning to some of my original ideas with a couple of new twists.

What is Union City?
So, Union City is the Chronicles of Darkness reflection of Omaha. The name was suggested by my sister-in-law's awesome husband, because of how big the railroad is/was in this town, and that actually gave me a whole flood of other ideas to darken the town up appropriately (ignore what you've heard about all the corruption - that's only the mayor's office).

Why not just call it Omaha?
THAT'S A FUCKING GOOD QUESTION! Serious answer though - the city books have been a huge favorite for me because, with only a couple exceptions, they've all been cities that I've never been to, or that any potential local players I might find probably haven't been to/aren't intimately aware of.

Why does that matter?
Well, let's say I'm running a game set in Omaha and a player wants to go to a gun range and I say, "okay, there's one nearby at blah blah blah streets" and then the player, who may or may not know Omaha as well as I do goes "wait, there isn't a range in that neighborhood!" That's an extreme example, but the big point of calling it Union City, versus just using Omaha, is that allows me to have a familiar setting where I can use things in broad terms that my readers and/or potential players will understand, without worrying about a detail not matching up in the real world. Also, there are plot points in Omaha that won't match up with things that I want from Union City, such as our lack of an asylum (I'll be using some stuff from WoD: Asylum at a later point for some fiction, just fyi) and the relative youth of our city versus the East Coast. Plus, the supernatural is -probably- not real and I'll be making some shit up as I go. I actually call this the "Supernatural Effect" after an episode where the boys were supposed to go to the intersection of "Wabash and Lake" in Lincoln NE - there is no intersection of Wabash and Lake, it's a Matrix reference, not a real world location.

What is Union City Confidential?
Here you'll find a variety of things related to the Chronicles of Darkness in Union City, most of which will be short stories that feature a recurring cast of characters and locations. In addition, I'll be throwing together brief "lay of the lands" to roughly map out the town, especially with the addition of things that don't have real world analogs.

What is "Out of Narrative"?
I'll abbreviate this as OON for any post that is in a different "voice" than Union City. Basically, if I'm throwing up fiction from older World of Darkness games (like the couple Hunter: the Reckoning pieces I have, or Blood & Silk: Breath of Fire IV), I'll use that as a warning that I'm slightly off topic. Same for posts like this one, and also if I want to do "out of universe" stuff, like character sheets/backgrounds for the aforementioned recurring cast. If there is no OON at the start of a post title, just assume that you're reading an "in-universe/in-character/in-setting" piece.

Game Lines?
Oh, so you don't want to look them up yourself. I get it. Alright, to start with, I'm mostly concerned with "blue book" or main line Chronicles of Darkness mortal characters. Hunter: the Vigil adds to that, in some instances, whether I actually look at a mortal character in the "cell system" of H:tV. As I'm doing "lay of the land" posts, you'll see stuff from all current CoD lines (core, Beast, Changeling, Demon, Hunter, Mage, Promethean, Vampire, Werewolf) BUT not Mummy: the Curse. The reason for that is Mummy doesn't really fit the narrative of the town, and they're a pretty small group, but there may be a reference to one passing through in the late 90s...

Books that I have DTF copies of:

Disclaimers?
Yes. I do not own any White Wolf or Onyx Path Publishing title. This blog is not a challenge or an infringement of their intellectual properties, nor do I benefit with any remuneration for having this. It's actually a bit of therapy for me. In that same vein, any real world corporation or entity that I do mention, such as stores or gas stations or manufacturers of product, I'm utilizing as a familiar brand to readers and not in any way to challenge their IPs, either.

Will you quote Metallica lyrics at the start of every post or nah?
You know what? Just for asking, fuck yeah I will. And also because my wife hates Metallica.

2019 Edit;
What is Fallout Wasteland Warfare and how does it relate?
Fallout Wasteland Warfare (posts marked FWW) is a table top miniatures and roleplaying game following along with characters and ideas from Bethesda's wildly popular video game franchise. It has absolutely nothing to do with Union City at all, but it made more sense putting the posts here than with my BattleTech blog, since I have far fewer normal posts thanks to my constant writer's block hah.. Also, anything marked FWW will NOT have Metallica lyrics added, so enjoy.

In The Beginning

"Like gas and oil on a mad man's face..."

"Who are you?" It's one of the most basic questions humans ask. You might even say it's the most basic, more than "who am I?" in the greater scheme of things, as an amnesiac rarely asks about themselves before asking about others. The search for an identity in relation to the identities of those around them. "Who are you?" as a question is fundamentally flawed. It's not the "who" that is important. It's the "what."

Now, "what are you?" is an interesting inquiry. If you were to turn to the individual beside you right now, it's not an inquiry that you would normally make. They're just a fellow human, after all. Right? They eat and drink and breathe, piss and shit, just like everyone else. Watch closely. That breathing isn't like everyone's. It lacks a certain natural rhythm to it, almost as if that person is thinking about inhaling and exhaling, lest they forget to. Keep watching. See the absence of nuanced motions, a life full of ticks and twitches that humans naturally accrue as the years pass by? Ignore the conversation they make. It's the interaction that is important. When they move, it's precise, no effort wasted, like a mechanical wind up toy. They listen intently and respond as expected, but the inflection is cold and empty, devoid of empathy. And yet, their audience thrives on the conversation. Enraptured by the words. Immediately put at ease by the tone. It's almost hypnotic.


No, ignore the words. They aren't important. What's being said isn't what is being spoken. Instead, keep looking around. See the unkempt gent in the corner, disheveled but still somehow presentable? It's alright, he won't look in your direction. Note his facial features, an almost lupine or vulpine quality to his bone structure, that feral glint in his eyes that keeps them from meeting yours. No absence of nuanced motions there. In fact, he seems to be a barely contained frenetic ball as he twitches in his seat. His fingers tap staccato against his leg, though in anticipation or irritation is impossible to say.


Don't stop now. You're starting to understand. What about the couple by the window? He looks completely in love, entirely smitten. She doesn't stand out like someone who would inspire such slavish devotion, but who's to say what is enchanting for someone else? Or could be enchanting for you, if you were to give her but a moment of your time. Hunger comes in many, many forms, and food isn't always enough to satisfy.


There's a logic to it now, isn't there? Of why the "what" can be even more important than the "who" of a thing? That fellow human may not be exactly that. But then, perhaps the term "fellow human" isn't entirely accurate either, is it? Oh? You have no idea why you caught my attention in the first place, do you?


"What are you?" Ah, now you're learning to ask the correct questions...