In a clandestine meeting,
the Gruff Man delivers a copy of Ricky’s pamphlet and reports Hank’s Annex appearance to Subject, an Institutional officer with a keen interest in the horde.
Extras
TREATMENT
Subject, an older gentleman with an air of refined modesty, walks through the narrow alleys of Lowtown after dark. He comes to a blindfolded beggar sitting on the street and gives him a token inscribed with a musical half-rest symbol. The blindfolded man feels the coin, smiles, and raps a secret knock on the boarded-up window under which he sits. Around the corner, a door opens, spilling light into the dark alley.
Subject enters a dimly lit speakeasy and goes to the end of the bar where sits the Gruff Man who confronted Ricky in the Midtown alley. From their brief opening exchange, we can deduce several details: Subject is from Hightown, the colloquial name for Boomtown’s upper-class localities. He is closely watched there, so their meeting is necessarily in Lowtown despite the Hightown allowances afforded the Gruff Man. They both know a woman named Zoie who seems to possess but withhold information, so Subject must come to the Gruff Man for the information he seeks. They are also both familiar with the Hangman’s Horde and their modus operandi of sermonizing and slaughtering any who refuse to convert to their cause.
Gruff shares his firsthand account of the recent events in the Annex: how the Hangman’s Horde appeared in the Annex, and how Hank ordered the slummers slaughtered but uncharacteristically spared Ricky’s life when the printer’s apprentice give him a copy of a pamphlet - likely the very pamphlet Gruff got from Ricky, which he shares with Subject. The Horde then drove away, leaving Ricky behind, alone. This news surprises Subject, who agrees to pay Gruff in Hightown currency and access to a clandestine Midtown meeting if he will deliver Ricky to him. As Gruff leaves, Subject asks him about Hank’s brother, “the Demon.” Gruff apologetically relays that he didn’t see him, and from the chatter he picks up, he doesn’t get the impression that the brother is around much. Gruff leaves Subject to ponder the implications of the Hangman’s interest in Ricky’s pro-revolution pamphlet.