Session 03 – Giselle Callista

The unlikely five, Domingo Flores, Janus Alkers, Owen Dunda, Kenny Bourbon and Hundo McLeary, have helped the air elementalist cult, lead by Forrest Zerrick, who still floats serenely in lotus position, defeat the rival fire elemental sect. The five wanted to get closer to Zerrick and his followers after the cult's attack on Genesis Toroid's police station in which Kenny was held under suspicion for murder and in which Janus was interrogated by the CIA. Hundo has the delirious fire cult leader in a deadly headlock and holds his prosthetic blade arm at the defeated man's throat. As proof of worth to Zerrick's sect, the five could not offer better.

Zerrick's followers' refuge is well-hidden and accessed by a ramshackle entrance. Within, it is expansive and home to many more acolytes trying to harness their prophet's mastery of the air. These cultists greet the fire cult's leader's presence with open hostility, but the five themselves are cautiously welcomed when Zerrick tells his people how the quintet came to their aid in the fight with the captive and his followers.

Janus roots around in the fire leader's pockets, in the moments before he comes to his senses. She finds another SD card to add to her growing collection. Within moments of taking in his surroundings, the fire cultist is shouting all manner of accusations at his captors. Domingo realises the crimes the captive is describing fit those he saw on the SD card taken from the cultist killed in The Concourse and the journalist says as much. When the prisoner boasts he can prove his claims with an SD card of his own, Janus recognises that must be the one just taken by her. Courtesy of one of Domingo's portable devices, the five and the cultists see that the atrocities shown in both cards' videos are identical; only the faces of the perpetrators change. They've been deepfaked, so that one card shows the fire cultists committing the horrific acts depicted whilst the other shows people who could be Zerrick's followers.

Zerrick and his captive, Scott 'Ignatius' Urban abandon their hostility to one another and start puzzling: who stands to gain by playing the two sects against one another?

Zerrick's followers have much for which to be grateful to the unlikely five: help during the fight with Ignatius' cult and also resolving the underlying conflict after. One such acolyte is Arthur Callista. He approaches Kenny, saying he knows the wheel-footed man is in serious trouble with the law. Arthur's technically talented sister, Giselle, may be able to access police records and make the video evidence of Kenny's slaying of the three 'Spunks' by the slushy stand on the more well-to-do layer of the station go away. Who knows, maybe Giselle could would out who was behind the deepfakes, too. There's only one catch: Giselle leads a very different life to her brother and is likely to be found in the nefarious Club Anti-Matter.

Club Anti-Matter

The five find the club and pay for entry. They buy drinks at the central bar, but cannot see anyone fitting Giselle's description in the surrounding, neon-drenched arena. Club Anti-Matter employs an impressive team of impressively-built bouncers. Janus notices two such hulks guarding a door at the far end of the arena. Just then, a group of Spunks, all mohicans and drug-fuelled aggression, emerge from a booth and spot Kenny Bourbon. Some of the Spunks are survivors of the skirmish with Kenny. They take right now as a damn good time to settle the score. As Kenny gives thanks that there are enough bouncers to tame and contain the Spunks, Janus cranks the bewildered female routine to the max to persuade the two hulks at the mystery door that their help is probably needed, too. The bouncers take the bait and Janus, with two of her companions slip through the door.

In the back of the club, yet more bouncers are busy hauling dazed clubbers into a lift. The victims have taken too much void – a synthetic opiate – to put up much of a resistance. A man who looks like his formal wear is how he dresses for his everyday work oversees the bouncers. He follows the doormen and their addled charges into the lift without paying Janus and her companions much attention.

Aside from the lift, which can't be accessed without a key-card and the turned over 'mong-room' from which the clubbers were dragged, Janus finds an electronically-locked door flanked by a small screen. She takes the screen to be some complex means to open or lock the door, but when she places a hand to it, the display lights up, showing a young woman matching Giselle Callista's description, lying in a stark white room. The screen doubles as an intercom, although when Janus calls the young woman, the Giselle-candidate is dozy and unfocused. Another void-head. Janus dangles the carrot of a substantial amount of money for computer infiltration work and sure enough, the five have found their woman. Giselle comes back to life, unlocks the door and emerges.

Back in the club's main arena, Hundo buys a garish row of jelly shots and has them waiting for the return of his companions, who bring Giselle with them. Fired up by the new challenge and the risk it entails, Giselle's head clears enough that she notices Kenny Bourbon's feet-wheels and to ID him as the guy from all the police videos. Luckily for the five, this makes her want to taken on the task even more.

The unlikely five and their hacker-for-hire work on their plan, confident the club's banging techno and otherwise disinterested bouncers will keep prying ears at bay· The hard part will be getting access to the server on which the police keep their evidence. Luckily, the cops don't upload such sensitive stuff to the internet. Although Kenny is the chief (and only) suspect in the killing of the Spunks, Hundo and Janus consider themselves to have left the cop station on respectable terms with the law. Maybe they could walk right in? Giselle counters that there is another way. The police server is in the same room as the airlock used for court-ordered executions. She could also put her coding know-how to good use getting the gallows-airlock open from the outside. Sure, this would necessitate a short space-walk from a second, nearby and highly illegal airlock, but Owen Dunda shrugs: a walk in space is a walk in the park for this seasoned asteroid rigger.

The five decide upon a two-pronged approach: whilst Owen suits up and braves the void beyond the safety of the station's walls, others will keep the cops busy, front of house. Giselle will guide Owen through the hacking work as long as they stay in radio contact. Giselle also tells the group the illegal airlock is run by The Lock Syndicate, headed by one Johan Barleycorn. He was horribly disfigured and lost both eyes when a judge handed down a death sentence and the executioner flushed him out of the gallows airlock. Barleycorn's men rescued him moments later by dragging him back into the station via a hole in the hull that would later become the syndicate's airlock. Barleycorn won't want paying in cash, says Giselle, but in something much more precious to a criminal whose operations extend into the vacuum of hard space: oxygen. Again, Owen has the solution. One trip to the Crimson Midget, the ship which was home to him during his multi-month rotation mining the asteroids and which is moored in the zero-G conditions near the Steering Wheel's hub, and he returns with enough canisters of sweet O2 to appease Barleycorn, with plenty to spare for the jaunt outside the station hull.

Johan Barleycorn

Before the five put their plan into action, Domingo sends out feelers to the internet. What can his media resources tell him about the deepfakes which set the cultists at each others' throats?

Giselle introduces Owen and co. to Barleycorn in the space-ravaged rogue's lair. The cadaverous, blind syndicate boss had decked his den out in wind chimes and a crunchy, gritty floor covering, so likely enemies would have a hard time exploiting his lack of eyes. Barleycorn samples Owen's oh-two. It's good, commercial-grade stuff, the best Union Dynamo, the owners of the Crimson Midget, have to offer.