What now?

When I said I am not a writer, I kind of had this vain hope that Fracture would take the hint, remove me from his blog, and let me just get my work done in peace. I'm going to let everyone who reads this thing take a moment to bet on it: did Fracture do anything of the sort?

No dice.

Instead, I'm going to do a write up about where Ralph and I stand on the Black Lake operation. I'm not entirely sure it's a good idea to post this thing in public right now, but, well, fuck it. Gives me something to do while we chart our next move I suppose.

So, as Fracture pointed out in his last post, I'm travelling with Mama Ralph. A Fire Cultist. Which is kind of surprising. I'm not too clear on the politics I'm caught in between right now on that, but it seems to me that the Fire Cult wouldn't have left behind one of their own unless they had a damn good reason. I've tried and fucking failed to wrap my head around it, but other than his apparent lack of control over his own, well...fire...I can't see why Ralph has stuck around.

I had to ask Fracture if he was trying to send this fucker to die. Cutting the strings off a Doll is not easy, it's hard, it's mean, it's very likely to kill you. But do you know what Fracture tells me?

"Life is precious, Cerberus. If all goes well, you will both be coming back to me."

Some sappy bullshit, right?

Still, in hindsight, I'm kind of glad. Ralph has a pretty good sense of humor, for a guy who only speaks in emotionless monotone. At least I think it's humor. Hard to tell with the guy.

Arriving in Black Lake was almost nostalgic. Almost. This place is doing a lot better than the last time I was here. As bad as it was the first time, I half expected the whole place to just be on fire. But reconstruction, whatever that means exactly, seems to be going alright. Ralph and I briefly discussed the fact that the cops in this town don't know that we're here on Fracture's orders, or that we're even proxies at all. Wish I had fucking known that before going in, but what do you expect? Fracture is many things, but not talented in mission briefings.

The original plan was to head to Black Lake's primary hotel, the only one that existed before the incident of old. A number of scummy motels have opened up on the outskirts of town, apparently, in the wake of reconstruction. But we figured, no one knows we're here, why not enjoy the luxury of a nice hotel room?

Yeah, fucking no.

As soon as we hit the lobby, Ralph flips a bitch, turns and walks right back out. I'm thinking we've been spotted, so I duck out behind him and light a cigarette so it looks like we're not just standing there like the suspicious assholes he's just made us into. I ask him what the fuck is up. He tells me 'Vallus is in the lobby.'

Fanfuckingtastic. We have an X factor.

So we chat a bit about why she might be there, try not to draw any attention, and then head to one of the crappier motels in this town. Not before Ralph calls me both over-dramatic and indecisive, however, because I think it's stupid to have him path his way into a hotel room with me. Proxies always have to do shit all convoluted, you know that?

The room's not great, but it'll do. I've honestly had worse. But this Vallus shit is a bit of a curveball, so we're dealing with that.

Not much more to be said at the moment. If and when we figure out whether Vallus is a threat of any kind, we'll deal with her, and in the meantime we're going to keep looking out for the Doll. Personally, I don't think that oughta be hard. Dolls have always seemed pretty obvious to me. Guess we'll find out if this one is similar.

-Cerberus