Fang and her mentor. Picture posted on twitter by Shelley Low
Background[]
Lance Pendelton[1] is a middle-aged Ork who was Fang's former mentor at Lone Star. He now appears to work with Knight-Errant, although he still seems to have connections with Lone Star, in spite of their terminated contract with the Seattle Metroplex government. While once a strong detective, he has resigned his life to do paperwork and sitting behind his desk. In this position he occasionally will do a favor for Fang, though it has become increasingly difficult as she continues to break parole.
Lance will occasionally pick up the odd Shadow-Running job under his old Alias of Tonka truck if the law will not do what needs to be done. He loves to play golf and doesn't appreciate individuals who make waves. He tries hard to make the Metroplex a safe place for his husband and only son.
An eventful retirement party[]
What started for Fang's erstwhile mentor (played by guest and fellow Hyper RPG host Aljernon Bolden) as a goofy retirement party with It's a girl balloons on January 11th 2078 at 7:30 PM quickly (2 minutes later, to be precise) took a different turn as Fang decided to seize the last opportunity provided by the "+1" invitation to the premises of Lance's office to retrieve the cardboard evidence box she had mentioned in an earlier paragraph episode. Officially persona non grata, Cromwell would come through the front door as her boyfriend as Elsie and Mordecai would come through a backdoor.
Fang thought that box contained evidence pertaining to the death of her colleague in an explosion that took place just before a Knight-Errant raid against Tempo traffickers. This in turn had led to Fang being imprisoned on fabricated bribery charges. As she had already been exonerated, it only remained for Fang to track the real corrupt agent behind both tragic events.
Pendelton was not swayed by Fang's magnificent blue dress and, after seeing how she had convinced his very tipsy human partner, Simon, to let her place a surprise in his office, he eclipsed himself and met the not-too-adequate MFEC (sans Ma1nfram3) there.
Pendelton revealed the identity of the agent he suspected. Akshara Nundry[2], a brilliant student who was everything Fang was not, was the only agent who had been on every Tempo case since Fang's times. Such cases tended to end with raids that only uncovered destroyed premises, whence all evidence of large scale Tempo-related had been erased by purposeful explosions.
Pendelton helped MMFEC set up a trap that would catch Akshara red-handed. The operation had to be entirely legal to avoid making a hero of Akshara, a fact that Pendelton hammered on several times. Elsie first managed to acquire, then quickly ditch, a dose of Tempo from a suspicious and surprisingly philanthropic dealer at the vey shady[3] Lovely Arm[4]. Then PMFEC, guided by Cromwell and Mordecai, trailed him to the place in Kent where they had lured him to restock in case Elsie's rich Kaito "boyfriend" needed another dose as soon as the next day.
Pendelton managed to mark Akshara's deck[5] and plant a program that ended up being very obvious. It was therefore a suspicious Akshara that PMFEC led to the area of derelict office buildings in Kent they had previously reconnoitered. The episode ended as a car had just stopped near Van Helshark.[6]
The next episode started with Ma1nfram3 arriving on site. She approached Pendelton who was alone in Van Helshark at the time and got herself identified despite the temporary confusion caused by Mordecai's not-too-surprising misunderstanding of the situation.
MMFEC spent the episode being stealthy around the Cutters' building, approaching it from all sides under Elsie's sniper's watch. Mordecai engaged, then disposed of a hapless hired driver. Ma1nfram3, from the (relative, it turned out) safety of Cromwell's backpack, jacked into VR and hacked her way to Akshara's conversation with the Cutters inside until she could record incriminating evidence and Pendelton could call Knight-Errant. After that, all MMFEC had to do was prevent the Cutters, and most of all Akshara, from leaving the premises until Knight-Errant's arrival.
Mordecai prevented a car from leaving by levitating it with help from the Spirit of Man.
Cutters leaving through another exit triggered five grenades laid minutes before by Cromwell. Following their usual MO, the Cutters had rigged the building with their own explosives. The chain reaction of explosions caused the destruction of most of the building, the death of the Cutters trapped inside and the severe maiming of the crooked cop. As Fang was savoring her revenge justice, Lauren had MMFEC, with the exclusion of Elsie and honorary member Pendelton who were not in the area, burn one edge to avoid what could easily have been a gruesome death given the circumstances and their recklessness around a building they all but knew was rigged. MMFEC (minus Pendelton and Fang whom he had just deputized with a short speech), made a quick getaway before Knight-Errant's presumably hot arrival.
But, MMFEC's close brush with death notwithstanding, this episode[7], which literally ended with a Bang Bang and a Kiss, will be mostly remembered for the real birth of Mordefram3.
As a final goodbye[8], Akshara, who Lauren made clear was not going to haunt MMFEC again, whether or not she ultimately survived, retroactively got her eyes shredded (Something the Red God would do, Dan remarked, by Two Tempo needles, Tony ventured) in the "car wreck" caused by the multiple explosions around her.
Later, as he was packing his stuff in the make-believe Evidence Box, he detailed the shades of pleasure[9] it had been (and would continue to be) to have known Fang. He left her a picture of her first day on the job, wise words and a big hug as parting gifts.[10]
Fireworks at the Rapid Rabbit[]
Fang tapped into Pendelton's knowledge of local gangs, the Cutters in particular, to free Elsie from her captors, It made sense, therefore, when he reached out to Fang the following morning and called her to the Rapid Rabbit. Unfortunately, he had done so at the behest of Akshara Nundry, whom MMFEC had already guessed was behind Elsie's abduction. Nundry had abducted his son, Lance Travis to make him betray his erstwhile protegee, and put to good use the peculiar habit of the Cutters to rig buildings they used with explosives.[11]
- ↑ The spelling Pendleton has also been used, including here.
- ↑ That's the official spelling, but it is Aksharra Nandri according to YouTube.
- ↑ Where, among other indignities, drinks are served in uncleaned glasses. Ew.
- ↑ Probably the same location as the Lovely Arms in South Lake Union that Ma1nfram3 found under the Drugs section of Peter Winther's little black book. See the scene in Ep 6 where Ma1nfram3 helps Elsie find a dealer to get Naseam Deylan a fix of Bliss.
- ↑ Akshara's persona was a dignified black flamingo
- ↑ See Ep 46.
- ↑ Ep 47.
- ↑ And a funny one, to boot. See the beginning of Ep 48.
- ↑ My words. Too tired to retrieve Lauren's words right now.
- ↑ Let's remember that this run, which ultimately spanned 3 episodes, started as back-of-a-napkin idea by Claudia, to be improvised during a lull between runs at the end of 2016. The date of the party, January 11, was the way Claudia's metagaming became part of the game: Fang had misread it as November 1.
- ↑ See Ep 62 and Ep 63.