Ironsworn: Starforged - Session 3 - talking to Lancer

"Are you gonna get that gun out of my fucking face?" Lancer snarls.

Marcus is too cautious to have gotten too close and risk an attack, and he can see no gun on Lancer's person - but he double checks anyway, once more casting his eyes over the worn green fatigues and noting the handcuffs once more.

Lancer shuffles a step and Marcus repoints with his revolver. "No. Stay." Marcus cocks his head slightly off the gun sights so he can make eye contact. "The hell is a bounty hunter doing on Hecate?"

"Lower that fucking gun and we'll talk," Lancer growls, dragging out the curse word.

This sort of stalemate is all too familiar. Marcus doubts he'd be much different were their positions reversed. Pride is importent to the sort of men they both are.

"Recognise these tattoos?" Marcus asks, shifting a little to offer a decent view of his face.

Lancer blinks, then scowls. "Ebon Wrights." He spits on the floor. "What are you doing on Hecate?"

Marcus ignores this. "Then you know I'll put you down," he says, and jerks the gun to aim at Lancer's leg.

Lancer scoffs. "Saw you talking to the doc. She didn't look worried. I think that means you're not that sort of pirate. Do it or put it away."

Marcus lowers his revolver, cursing himself inwardly. He always did prefer it when the fight was on, not this sort of dance.

Lancer eyes him. Marcus tenses, recognising the look in Lancer's eyes, but the bounty hunter seems to see something in return and doesn't move.

"Alright. Better. Since you've got the gun I'll go first, then you, right?" He doesn't wait for answer but carries on. "Lancer. Bounty hunter."

"I put someone away once. Put a lot of people away in my time. This one, I couldn't stop thinking about him later. I wasn't sure why, at first. Conscience doesn't really fit the job, right?" 

Marcus isn't sure if the irony in the last sentence is deliberate or his own conscience speaking.

"One of the rules is don't look too deep. Client pays, mark goes... away. Well, I looked. This lad, he wasn't even 16 I think. Not unusual mind - sure you'd know that. But he didn't look like a target, not my sort of target anyway. Killers, thieves, pushers, that sort. The lad looked soft. You might even say pretty. So, it was weeks later, I'd been paid and handed him over and all, and I dug up his name and looked him up." Lancer is staring at the floor, but flicking his eyes back up at Marcus and the gun now and then. "Fucking son of a fucking House noble. Record I'd been given was fabricated, and not even well."

Marcus shifts his weight uncomfortably, unsure whether he believes this story. Not the first time someone has made something up to get out of a bind. "So you gave a shit about this one target because he was a noble, or what? Felt sorry for him?" 

"Nah. No. Not at first anyway, I was more pissed off that I'd been sold a false target. Scared, too. I had to go under for a while, you know? Taking a noble's son, well, that's the sort of thing I'd normally be hired to fix, not to actually do. But nothing happened. Truth told, I was too good at it to have been caught and the lad was... let's say not where his parents would've expected him to be, so disappearing him from there didn't leave much of a trace. It was two more things that got me. First, the lad was funny. Like, amusing. I don't normally listen to marks - not safe or sensible - but this guy had such a sense of humour about everything that, hell, I liked him."

"And he didn't, you know, tell you he wasn't the criminal you'd been told he was?"

"Of course he did, but they all do that. OK, in this case he didn't really sound it either but that's not all that rare either. And he seemed to be expecting something like this to happen. Crossed wires? Whatever. Don't get me wrong, I didn't care about handing him over, didn't miss him or any shit like that. If I hadn't thought back to him and found out the ruse, I'd never have thought about him again. Some marks are interesting, some are the same as all the rest, right?"

"The second thing?"

Lancer looks sombre, and breaks eye contact for a moment, rubbing one wrist with his other hand. "Yeah. So, months later right, months after I learned who he was, I'd just done another job, same client - I know, I know - and they ship me back aboard some private liner. Normally outside my pay grade. Sort of thing you lot would raid, I bet, but this one was - I dunno, the people on board were about as nasty as I've ever seen, but not like you or me, the suit-wearing sort of nasty. Most of them had a cyber-slave or two..."

"Shit."

"Yeah. Well, yeah. The lad was one of them. Half his head missing and some metal bolted on instead. Still a bit pretty but... I don't think they'd done the best job on him, right?"

There was a silence. Marcus couldn't meet Lancer's eyes for a while.

"So, he's here now?" Marcus asks, unsure what else to say.

Lancer shakes his head ruefully. "Nah, mate. Not that sort of story. Never saw him again. That was a few years ago. Well I mean, he might be here, but I haven't found him yet if so, and what are the odds..."

Marcus takes a deep breath. "It's a great story, but it doesn't explain why you were listening in." He's wary again, keeping a good grip on his gun. "Why tell me all this?"

"'cause you've got a gun, and you caught me listening in," Lancer says simply. 

"And why -"

"Because they don't trust me here and I need to work out how I can help."

Marcus scowls. "Weak. You ran as soon as we heard you."

"Man looking like you, in this town, of course I did. And rightly too, I'm not armed, you sure are."

"Why not just ask how to help, like a normal person?"

Lancer laughs. "Do I look like a normal person? They don't let anyone in the hospital. I barely know what they do here. It's... it's a fucking shambles to be honest. Seems to run itself, somehow, no-one in charge. The doc maybe, to an extent."

Marcus nods. He's been thinking the same, all the way since Boreas and a bit before, even. "They hide well, the Pact..." Marcus says.

"Yeah, and they've clearly got some good ops, but...professional it ain't. Good, I guess? Slowly succeeding? But slick, no."

"And what are you going to do with what you heard?"

"Me? I don't know. It's new info. I just want to find a way to help."

"Because now you feel bad that one of the people you sold got cyber-slaved?" Marcus doesn't keep the derision from his voice.

"Fuck you. Yes. I do."

They stare at each for a few long moments.

Marcus sighs. "I don't think you're lying, really. But I think you're here on a job as well." He indicates the handcuffs at Lancer's belt.

"Old habit. I thought... look, there's no law here either, and they're mostly calm and sensible and like... bright-eyed do-gooders, right? But there's still drink and things kick off sometimes and some of the 'saved' well, they're really not OK in the head..."

"Policemen don't lurk eavesdropping in hospitals."

"No, well, like I say they don't trust me."

Marcus laughs. "A self-appointed ex-bounty hunter cop the village doesn't want?"

"I swear, I just want to make up for what happened to the lad. I'm old now anyway, and I got a nice place a few sectors away, for when I've done something to help."

"Alright, alright. Whatever. We're gonna go back down, we'll park you somewhere, I'll check your story with the locals, and then...we'll see."

Marcus thinks he sees some hesitation and a touch of what might be anger in Lancer's eyes, but the bounty hunter nods slowly.

"I guess I don't see how you can do anything else."

"Or shoot you."

"Or yeah, but you won't."

"Not yet, anyway."

"So... your turn."

Marcus backs off a couple of paces, just to ease his weight really. "You heard it all downstairs."

Lancer inclines his head in acknowledgement. "A bit, yeah. But you two know each other and I don't have context and-"

"And you're not getting any. I need Lux's help. She needs mine first. Simple." Marcus gestures with his gun. "Let's go."