Changeling: Session 13

When we last met, the Goom-lair came under attack, everyone started hallucinating, and Morgan started dreaming…

Morgan is on the ferry, and the Hand Made Man, possessing the Statue of Liberty, has waded into the Hudson River with its mouth agape, water rushing in, pulling the boat swiftly inward.  As it collides, Morgan awakens with a start, tangled in her blanket on the floor of her apartment.  She texts the group, “Statue of Liberty.  Hand Made Man.”  Looking out her window, she sees two figures in a car parked outside of her apartment.  One figure is taking pictures of her flat.  Morgan opts to carry on normally and not give them anything to use… against her?

Back at the Waldorf, Alia has been raking in the cash, having scored some work off of stranded businessmen at the hotel.  She visits Drake briefly and talks to him about laundering  some of the extra cash she’s been squirreling away, out of sight and mind of her pimp.  She gives him $3000 to start with, not much by Drake’s standards, but definitely something she’d rather keep away from Smoky’s notice.

Wally has gone back to his old apartment complex, where he finds a group of professional movers boxing up his belongings and loading them into a moving van.  When one of them pauses to speak with him, he is promised that they’ll have everything to the new apartment by the end of the day.  Considering he doesn’t have very much to begin with, they’re out in about half an hour.  At a loss, he starts back to his new place, alerting Alex and Goom that there will be movers coming.

Back at Wally’s, Alex and Goom are watching TV and knitting (Goom), when Alex’s burner phone rings.  It is Debbie, his daughter.

“OK, I’m curious.  Who are you?”

“Alex Constant”

“That’s…”

“Messed up, I know.”  As he says this, Alex’s main phone starts ringing, but he lets it go to voice mail.

“Listen, can we meet?”

“Yeah, we can do that.”  His other phone starts ringing again, and again he ignores it.  He and his daughter decide to meet the next day at a Starbucks off of Times Square, around 11:00 in the morning.  As they hang up, his phone rings a third time, and Alex answers it.  It is Debbie again.  She sounds distressed, in tears, says it is dark and cold where she is, and she can hear trains.  She screams, the sound fading as though being pulled away from the phone, to be replaced by heavy breathing.

“Who is this?”  Alex asks.

“You have… our attention,” comes the reply, and the line goes dead.

Alex turns to Goom, who acknowledges that he could hear it on the phone as well, so Alex knows that he isn’t hallucinating things.  He messages the group to let them know, and Morgan chimes in that she has suspicious visitors at her apartment as well.

Gareth has been running around the city, pilfering iron scraps from construction sites and the like.  He’s towing it all home with him in a wagon.  When he gets the messages from Alex and Morgan, he scans the area carefully, but does not notice anyone – or anything – untoward.  When he gets off the freight elevator across from his flat, he notices that his door is ajar.  Carefully stepping into the room, he confronts a youngish guy who is wearing a blue polo bearing an embroidered “Acer Acquisitions” logo.  When questioned, the guy informs Gareth that Acer just bought his building, and as the new owners they are conducting surveys of the residences, and does Gareth have anything to report – leaky pipes, bad heater, loose flooring?  Gareth, highly suspicious and well put off, tells him everything is fine and watches him until he leaves.  Wanting to make sure Kali’s place is not molested, he bounds up the two flights of stairs that separate them.  Not wanting to worry her while she’s still in hospital, he opts to lockpick his way into her flat.

The Acer guy isn’t there, and so Gareth takes the opportunity to clean up the vomit still lingering from Kali’s suicide attempt some days prior.  Without heat, the sick has frozen solid to the floor and toilet, although with plenty of cleaning products and some chiseling, Gareth has it spotless by the time Mr. Acer enters the apartment.  The guy is, unsurprisingly, confused to see Gareth in there, but Gareth just claims he is house sitting, and the guy proceeds with his inspection.  At this point, Gareth does text Kali, although doesn’t let on that he broke in.  Once the guy is gone, Gareth, against what he is sure is his better judgment, messages Drake to ask him to look into Acer Acquisitions.

Drake does some digging and finds that Acer is a brand new company recently formed by one Luthor Grant, and they have recently acquired many buildings in lower-income areas of New York City.  From the looks of it, Luthor is not grouping these buildings together, which would suggest tearing down to gentrify, but rather is seeding the area.  He replies back to Gareth some time later that it, “Looks legit.  Not owned by anyone we hate.  Yet.”  “Yet?” comes the reply.  “Day is young.”

Alex decides that he is going to scope out the Starbucks ahead of time.  Knowing that he (or, Konstantyne) is currently one of the most wanted men in the city, he disguises himself, using a combination of mundane effects as well as his new abilities to alter his appearance.  He leaves, warning Goom of the impending movers and saying he’ll be back.  He finds that the café is not ideal – it only has entrances off the street and no way out the back.  While wandering about the store, he becomes aware that he is being watched by a black van, which is idling with its side door open.  He walks purposefully down the street, and the van creeps along behind him.  Finally, Alex dips into a subway station and loses his pursuers.

A little later that evening, Goom and Morgan are each watching television and catch a TMZ report sensationalizing that Konstantyne has been spotted in Times Square sporting a really terrible disguise.  The NYPD are nowstaking out the Starbucks.  Morgan alerts Alex.

That night, Alia leaves the Waldorf and returns to her regular apartment.  Goom stays at Wally’s, watching the door and cleaning his M16.  Alexis calls Wally and asks if she could come over to his new place because, among other things, he actually has heat.  She’s obviously been informed of some of his new situation (Wally recalls Hank saying that Alexis would be taken care of).  Wally concedes and calls a cab to pick her up.  Shortly after she arrives, meeting Goom, they retire.

Wally dreams.  He is sitting on the couch in his new living room.  There is a knock at the door, quick and reverberating, although a look out of the peep hole does not reveal the visitor.  He does note, however, that the hall is not his apartment hall, but an unknown place with bright red walls, green doors, and dark maple floors.  The knocking comes again, and Wally opens the door to see a kid who he has seen on his floor, although the child is dressed in knickerbockers and other early-century garb.  He is freaking out, babbling about the Hand Made Man, and Wally allows him in.  Just as the kid enters, everything slows to a crawl.  Wally, somewhat lucid in his dreaming, has willed a gun into his hand as he forces the door closed.  Something is pushing back and a figure storms in.

The thing is made of Erector Sets, with a face of bolts and gears.  The kid runs, the erectorman giving chase, paying no mind to Wally, who fires at the Hand Made Man.  One hits, and the thing yells.  Another shot shatters the window, and it bursts into a vacuum, sucking out all three figures.  Wally hangs onto the window ledge as he watches the kid and the Hand Made Man running down the face of the building.  Wally tries to pull himself back into the apartment, but he is fighting gravity, and finally plants his feet on the side of the building, standing upright, and his gun is floating beside him.  He grabs it and shoots again.  Suddenly, Alia is beside him, sitting astride an enormous black horse.  She wears a long feather boa that pools on the building at her steed’s feet.  “Why are you, like, the coolest person I know?”  Wally asks her as he fires another shot, squarely hitting the Hand Made Man, sending it tumbling down the building. 

Admiring his marksmanship, Alia declares, "Giddyup," and gestures with her head for Wally to climb aboard, which he does, coolly leaping onto the horse, sitting behind Alia, as she spurs the beast to gallop after the Hand Made Man.  As they ride, they hear the horse’s hooves breaking windows as it speeds down the building, but there is another noise scraping along with them.  It is the stallion’s enormous phallus, dragging on the ground.

Wally fires again at the monster, sending it flying off the building to crash upward through another structure across the street.  The boy stops running and turns to Wally and Alia.

“You all right, kid?”  Wally asks.

“Why am I here?”

“Are you dreaming?”

“I think so.  Why are you in my dream?  This can’t be all of our dreams.”

Wally and Alia aren’t sure how to answer him.  The kid seems weirded out by the giant horse dick anyway, and says he has to go as he fades out and disappears. 

What I get for searching "comically large horse cock"...

Wally and Alia take a moment to discuss the concept of shared dreams.  Alia decides, what with this being a dream and all, that she will ask the horse his name.  Gareth suddenly realises that someone is talking to him, and replies with the only thing that seems immediately relevant. 

“Oh dear god, I’m a horse.”