The Rotten Plug was quiet. Ever since Die Glücklich had started pushing into the streets nearby the clientele had shrunk dramatically, much to Niklas' chagrin.

The bar's owner shook his head, as he polished shot glasses, and then surveyed the few folks still left in the establishment. Over in the corner were the Dustin Brothers, a couple street rats who were good enough folk. They always paid their tabs and sometimes tipped Niklas when the district was getting too dangerous, so that he could close up shop and usher out his customers. The Brothers also served as bouncers if anyone in the Plug got a bit too rambunctious, and as payment Niklas usually let them drink for free, or at least for a lot cheaper than anyone else.

In one of the booths on the south side of the restaurant sat one of the odder folk Niklas had met in the Gutter. The man went by Dr. Quackshot (clearly not his real name) and worked as a street surgeon for those in need. He usually didn't accept payment, and simply asked for gossip or information, which made Niklas inherently uncomfortable. Information was a dangerous commodity these days, and anyone who was searching for it had to be more than Gutter slime. However, Quackshot also kept Niklas' customers in good health, and had even worked on the barkeep himself once or twice. Having Quackshot around made the bar look like a more quality establishment, even if the man made Niklas himself a tad uncomfortable.

There were only two people sitting at the bar itself. One, a regular, sat sipping Drain Juice quietly. He tended to keep to himself, and left his face covered by a carnival mask. Niklas had been quite uncomfortable when the man had first come to the bar, but he made no trouble, simply buying three Drain Juice shots and then leaving every third night. The other bar patron was a young woman with neon hair, who seemed to be fidgeting more than she wanted anyone to be aware of. Niklas was pretty sure he'd seen her around the bar once or twice, but had never paid much attention. She seemed like an interesting enough character, and if Niklas had owned a bar anywhere else in the city he was sure that he would have asked for her life's story, or something similar, but he owned a bar in the Gutter, and interesting people were a great way to get killed.

That left the only other patrons in the bar, a group of Bubble Gangers sitting at one of the tables and being generally rambunctious. While the Plug was technically in Squid territory, it was close enough to Mr. Pinky's borders that some gang members sometimes ventured over. The Squids were obviously not too fond of it, and as such neither was Niklas. The Squids let him keep his bar running as long as he stocked some of their chems every now and again, and he was pretty sure Pinky's group would just turn it into some sort of brothel.

Niklas stepped out from behind the bar and sauntered over to the Bubble Gangers.

"Alright sad asses, time to pack it in and haul it out, you're being too rowdy tonight."

One of the Gangers, who seemed to be slightly more authoritative than the others, turned to Niklas with a grin.

"Oi gramps, all we doing is chuggin' and druggin'. 'Ent no pushers or roaches floatin' in these flows no more, 'en I 'ent rearin to catch no teethers 'en me ass. Ye 'ent got no flexers wit' ye', so we stayin', 'less ye got 'em hid 'en the splinters."

Niklas didn't much appreciate her tone, or the fact that he only understood about a third of what she had just said. The street slang had evolved from his younger days, and he could barely keep up with it anymore. The Bubblers clearly weren't planning on going anywhere though, so Niklas nodded at Dustin Brothers, who started making their way towards him. The Bubblers noticed the brothers a bit too late, and two of them were lifted and tossed out of the Plug before they could even say a word. The other two Bubblers jumped out of their seats, and pulled small chuggers from their belts, pointing them at Niklas and the brothers.

Niklas stood his ground. The Bubblers knew that if they shot him the Squids would be all over their asses almost immediately. The brothers he wasn't so sure about though, so he motioned for them to stand down.

"Look, this is my bar, and I just want a little peace and quiet in here. Now get out."

The Bubbler who seemed to be in charge stared at him for a while, finger twitching on her trigger. Finally, she lowered the gun, and turned to storm out of the bar. As she was almost through the door, she turned her head back, glared at Niklas, and said "Pinky's apt t' filter in 'bout this old man. 'N when 'e turns up ye'll be flushed and gutted, y'hear? I'd wash out and go play wit' the Teethers, they do things fast-like."

With that the Bubblers turned and left the bar.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I don't care Alfred, keep him in the house. I'll be gone for about four hours, and when I get back we're packing up the study. I can't have anyone digging around my notes again, not after what happened last week."

Hemingway Robington turned from his butler and walked towards the door of his home. Alfred took care of things around the house well enough, but he spent too much time coddling the boy and not enough actually tidying up the place. Alfred had been a part of the family far too long to get a new butler, however, and Hemingway supposed that he brought a certain levelheadedness to the home.

As Hemingway stepped into the alley he reflected on how much quieter the district had become since the last of the original residents had be relocated. He was sure they weren't particular appreciative, but he was truly enjoying the uniformity of the tall, pyramidic buildings surrounding him. Many of ThysenKrüpp's executives chose to live in the Garden district, because they enjoyed the larger estates, but Hemingway had always prefered the industrial atmosphere of the Development District. Hemingway began making his way to the ThysenKrüpp Think Tank, which was located on the east side of the district. When he was a couple blocks away from the building, he noticed an odd noise coming from the street to his right.

Before Hemingway could turn, he heard a scream, and frantic footsteps running towards him. Assuming that the district enforcers had found another former resident hiding out in the district, he paid the commotion no mind. It wasn't until he saw his neighbor, and fellow ThysenKrüpp executive, Matricia Weber, running past him with blood streaked down her arm that he realized his mistake. Too late, Hemingway turned to see the figure charging towards him, and too late he noticed the knife in the figure's hand.

Dr. Quackshot sat reclined in his booth, a stein of Sparkling Swamp Water (a mixture of soda, malt liquor, and whiskey) sitting before him with a curly straw standing resolute within. How else is he supposed to drink his alcohol without removing his bird mask and hood? Granted, it was an oddly named drink and tasted funny, but Quackshot liked the clashing flavors. They kept him awake and on his toes.

He kept to himself and watched the other patrons like a hawk. Almost all of the other patrons had been patients of his at one time or another. He noticed Lyra at the bar fidgeting, though about what he wasn't sure. She should try a tonic for the nerves, he thought. He was quite fond of Lyra and the work she was doing in the Gutter and she made a great ally with ThysenKrüpp running around... but that was not a huge, pressing concern at that very moment. He shook his head once, tossing the thoughts that dared to follow away.

The Bubblers started to raise their voices, which caught Quackshot's attention. His eyes followed slowly as Niklas approached the rowdy table, and then watched as the Dustin Brothers also approached. As much as he wanted to help Niklas throw out rowdy patrons, Quackshot knew he shouldn't get involved unless someone got injured. Despite the unease he knew Niklas felt towards him, Quackshot did admire the man. Ssideways glances and general hesitance are always signs of unease, Quackshot thought, but he's a nice man, respectable, and probably much stronger than me and I would not like to be on his bad side if I can help it. He listened in on the discussion and watched the Bubblers leave in a huff. As a doctor, as Dr. Newton Cuttle, he was not supposed to turn away patients, but as Dr. Quackshot, there were some patients he was always nervous about treating or getting involved with. Mr. Pinky and the Bubble Gum Gang worried him because of their human trafficking. He didn't know the conditions of their victims and could only imagine how poor in health they all were. He shook his head once, again, to toss the thoughts away.

He took a long drag on his curly straw, feeling the crawling, sweetly spicy beverage roll around his tongue. He winced as he swallowed, but no one else saw it behind his mask.

He waited for Niklas to go back behind the bar before taking his stein in hand and approaching the bar next to Lyra. He nodded politely to those present and asked aloud, "Is everything alright, Niklas?" He took a seat next to Lyra and took a sip from his straw again.

Lyra sat at the bar, fidgeting nervously as she nursed her drink--a mixture of cinnamon whiskey, spiced rum, and ginger beer (the concoction didn't have a name, but she liked to refer to it as "Dragonfire Draught," given that it tasted more or less like burning). She had just returned from the Plug's back room, and was disappointed with what she found. No new bounties, she thought, her face twisting ever so slightly into a frown, that's two weeks without a hit. I should be able to go another month with the creds I have, but after that...

Her train of thought was cut off suddenly, as a commotion erupted at the other end of the bar. Lyra turned her head just in time to see two Bubblers hauled out by the Dustin brothers, and watched as the remaining gangers tried (and failed) to act tough on their way out. Serves them right, she thought. She never did like the Bubblers--human trafficking was a very shitty thing to do on its own, and more than enough reason for Lyra to hate the Bubblers, but add the cheery and rambunctious attitude that they approached it with, and you had yourself a recipe for grade-A creepy.

As the bar settled down, she took a moment to look around at the others. She saw Niklas and the Dustins first, returning to their business after dealing with the... undesirables. Nice enough folks, she thought, especially for the Gutter. Not saints by any stretch of the imagination, but trustworthy, and a hell of a lot kinder than the likes of the Bubblers or Die Glücklich at any rate. Then, she noticed Dr. Quackshot sauntering up to the bar and nodding politely before asking Niklas a question and taking a seat next to her. Quacky, though, she thought, might just be a saint. The guy's a bit strange, sure, but he's borderline selfless. Medical care in exchange for rumors is a rate that few in the Gutter were able to pass up, and Lyra had sent many of her boarders to Quackshot in the past (he had even operated on her once or twice, after some of her... spottier bounties). Plus, even if he does seem to take great pains to conceal his identity... well, so do I, so I can't really fault him too much for being suspicious there.

"I'm sure everything's fine, Quacky," she said, with a reassuring grin replacing the slight frown on her countenance. "If Pinky offed every bartender that turned his lackeys out for getting too rough, there wouldn't be a bar left in the entire goddamn Gutter," and then, with a chuckle, "and then it'd really be hell."

Quackshot raised his stein. "That's for sure." He lowered his voice and added, "Are you alright? You seem to be having a gaggle of geese walking your grave. Here, take this tonic lozenge. It'll ease your nerves a bit and it taste like honey. Well, that's because it pretty much is just a lump of honey, but it works just the same as a tonic beverage!" He chuckled and pulled a small, tin box from his satchel. The lid was embossed with a flock of birds flying in a "V" formation to the upper left corner. Inside was a collection of hard candies in colorful wrappers of crimson, tangerine, gold, pine, teal, and violet. He plucked out a gold candy and handed it to Lyra before closing the tin and stowing it away in his bag again.

He sipped from the straw again as he placed the lozenge on the bar near Lyra's drink.

Lyra looked down at the candy next to her drink, then quickly removed it from its golden wrapper and placed it in her mouth. It did taste like honey--a fairly welcome change of pace from the burning taste of her drink. "Thanks, Quacky," she said. "I appreciate your concern, but it's nothing big. Just..." she sighed. "Money troubles. Just another part of living in the Gutter--well, unless you're Mr. Pinky, but that's beside the point. I'm sure I'll get the money somehow."

After all, she thought, there's always some sick fuck in this district that needs a bullet in their head, bounty or no, and plenty of them aren't terribly short on credits.

"Just gonna have to wait for opportunity to come knocking, right?"

Dr. Quackshot uttered a nervous chuckle. He didn't want the opportunity to come knocking while he was around. He was not a fight; he never had been. Fighting was the exact opposite of what he did for a living.

"Right," he took another long drag from his straw. "Let's hope that that opportunity knocks in a beneficial way for you." He lowered his voice again. "Please don't speak too ill of Mr. Pinky and his gang right now. We don't know when or if those Bubblers will return and I'd rather not have them open fire because they heard us talking like that."

He shook his head again, tossing more thoughts away. After years to collecting rumors and gossip as forms of payment, Quackshot knew too much and could possibly barter for his life should he need to. He hoped he would never have to, but he decided not to worry about that now. There was no reason to worry about having extra chickens before he ever had the eggs that would hatch into said chickens. He shook his head, again, but this time it was to refocus his thoughts.

"Never mind," he whispered, cocking his head to look quickly around the establishment. He wanted to take one of his honey lozenges, but he couldn't without removing his mask. He drank again from his stein. Nothing he thought was making any sense to him. It was jumbling up.

A glint of light caught on another patron's glass and attracted Quackshot's attention. He stared off into space, slowly sipping from his straw.

As Niklas repositioned himself back behind the bar he heard Quackshot's question. Before he could answer though, the neon-haired woman interjected.
Odd, she speaks with a gutter accent, but doesn't act like a local.
As the two finished up their conversation, or it at least reached a lull, Niklas turned back towards Quackshot.
"Everything's alright enough my friend. The usual scum causing the usual ruckus. You feeling well? You seem skittish. If there's someone bothering you, let me or the Dustin Brothers know, we'll deal with it. You've helped us all enough to warrant that."

"Oh?" Quackshot looked back at Niklas. "No, no one is bothering me as far as I know. Thank you for the offer, though. You are a very kind man, as are the Dustin Brothers, very kind men. Things are always battling me for my attention, it seems."

He drained his stein.

"It's a habit I picked up when I was just a fledgling doctor. The old crones and condors always harped about being hyper-alert to one's surroundings. Something about being ready to swoop in to help a patient, but they used a lot of old-timey slang from long before any of us in this bar were born."

He set the stein before him and asked, "Could I get another, please? Thank you."

Ronnie was going to kill him. Soon. She was going to bash his head in and take immense pleasure from it and no one was going to question why or for what reason because if they did they would end up with a caved-in head too. Ronnie was going to do it soon too. But, of course, she wasn't actually going to do it, especially if she wouldn't get paid for it. Besides, it's not like it was his fault that he got shot in the abdomen like a complete dumb-fuck on purpose. Even Ronnie had missed that third thug. But the man better appreciate that Ronnie was taking the time and effort to haul his heavy ass around the district and not kill him or leave him to get killed. And she didn't have to drag him much farther anyways.

Ronnie kicked the door to Niklas' bar open. Her hands were full carrying the dead weight of her temporary partner half on her back and half being dragged behind her. Her partner, who she still didn't know the name of despite running a job just earlier that day, was bleeding from some cuts in his arms and, maybe a little bit more importantly, a gunshot in his side. Ronnie had thought about just leaving the guy after he collapsed but she didn't want to have to deal with the hassle of telling the Rats' boss that she had let her partner die...again. So here Ronnie was, hauling the man's ass all over the Gutter district.

Ronnie spotted Dr. Quackshot with a neon-colored woman and Niklas at the bar. Ronnie dragged her nameless partner to the doctor and then dropped the load from her shoulders onto a chair closest to the doctor. Ronnie didn't have it in her to bother explaining the situation to anyone so she just took a seat next to the Dustin brothers, waved them hello and signaled Niklas for a drink before throwing her arms over the bar and thumping her head down in between, tired as shit.

Just as he had finished asking Niklas for another drink, Quackshot turned to see a familiar face barge in with a bleeding man slumped over her shoulders like a sorry sack of potatoes.

"Ronnie?" he asked as she slammed the dying man onto the chair next to Quackshot and went off to sit by the Dustin Brothers and collapse onto the bar in apparent exhaustion. He flew into action and slid the man onto the floor next to his satchel. "Sorry, Niklas! Dying men call! I'll clean it all up once I'm done."

Dr. Quackshot set to work checking the man's pulse in various places and inspecting his wounds. The cuts on his arms looked like stitches would suffice, but the gunshot to the abdomen looked less promising. There was no exit wound for the bullet, meaning it was still lodged in his body somewhere. Judging by the odd shape of the entry wound and the amount of blood gushing from that area, the bullet probably hit something vital, though Quackshot wouldn't know what for sure without an actual hospital with proper equipment.

Quackshot tore off the man's shirt and used it to soak up some of his blood around the wound, but it was not very effective. Casting the now bloody rags aside, Quackshot pulled out a tiny medical scope and light to inspect the wound. With a free hand, he gently probed around the wound to determine the path of the bullet. He guessed it was lodged in the man's stomach and likely passed through his intestines. He cocked his head and leaned close to the wound, wiping the blood away as best he could and focusing on his sight. The wound seemed to enlarge and clear itself out for Quackshot to gaze into the unwelcome hole in this man's side. The bullet had ruptured his intestines, poisoning him with his own digestive juices. Quackshot doubted this man would survive any attempt at surgery in a real opperating room, let alone a surgery on the fly in a Gutter bar.

He took a scalpel and a pair of forceps from his bag and prepared to cut into the man. Quackshot poured some of his emergency whiskey in the man's throat and massaged his neck to make him swallow it. Then he gave a shot of morphine, too, just for good measure. Satisfied with the shoddy anesthesia, Quackshot began to cut into the man to retrieve the bullet.

He enlarged the entry wound and plunged the forceps in, clamping them together like the hunger mouth of a newborn chick awaiting its mother to return with food. It was easy to find and pull out the bullet, the the geyser of blood that followed was much more difficult. The bullet was lodged in a main blood vessel in the outer lining of the stomach, plugging some of the bleeding. Once it was removed, the blood could flow more freely.

The man bled out and died before Quackshot could plug him up again. It was a wonder to him that such a wound did not kill this man sooner, even that he lasted through who knows what to get to the bar.

Quackshot got up and collected a mob bucket from the closet at the far end of the establishment and started cleaning the blood.

"Sorry about this mess, Niklas." He turned to face Ronnie, the mob slowly sliding in figure-eights on the bloody tile floors. "Ronnie, why did you throw a dying man into a chair? You could have at least left him on the floor. That jostling about might have cost him his life and, I assume, your payment from whatever job you two were doing."

Niklas stared at the body for a few moments. Where did he recognize that face from?

"Don't worry about the mess" he muttered. Something felt off, but he just couldn't place it.

It was relatively often that of the various mercs or gang members in the area came in with an injured or dead friend, and it was relatively often that one of the two was Ronnie. Ronnie, however, usually ran pretty straight jobs, and this felt...wrong. The dead man was clearly a Rat, but the Rats were usually non-violent, and he was carrying a pretty high caliber revolver under his jacket, something that no Rat should ever have on him.

"Hey Ronnie, where did you pick up this scab?"

Ronnie's head jerked up from the bar after hearing her name. She looked around confused for a moment before focusing in on Dr. Quackshot and her now dead ex-temporary partner. Well shit. Boss man can't say she didn't try to keep him alive at least. Ronnie just shrugged off the Doc's words about throwing the dead guy onto a chair instead of placing him on the floor. Hey, she was tired, her arms hurt, and she had just wanted to get a load off. Besides, with his injuries she doubted whatever she did could have done much worse.

Peering through one eye half-open at Niklas, Ronnie had to think over his question for a few seconds. The dead guy was pretty popular for being dead seeing as how he was apparently the subject of conversation at the moment. Ronnie straightened a little on her stool as she peered at the dead man's body, formulating her response to Niklas.

"Rats' job n' a Rat to go with," she replied.

Ronnie never much questioned whenever the Rats' boss wanted someone else to go with her on a job. Usually it was just some other merc, street kid, or Rat looking to make a little extra cash like Ronnie. But she could see where Niklas was coming from with his question, the dead guy had a good gun, better than most Rats. And the boss had wanted Ronnie on this job and the dead guy, who hadn't been dead then, with her specifically. It had struck Ronnie as odd, but she hadn't cared enough to question so long as it didn't get her killed. And it didn't. Just the other guy.

Ronnie's terse explanation didn't really clear much up, but that was par for the course with her. But Niklas knew most of the Rats in this area, he had to. Because he was technically in Squid territory there were only a select few Rats that came by. Just because the two gangs were usually on decent terms didn't mean that they traveled between each other's turf freely. He needed to know if a particular Rat was supposed to be on the turf, and he didn't think this one was suppo-
Wait a minute, look at the face closer
Niklas stopped polishing glasses at the bar and shifted closer to the corpse.
You've seen that face before
Something was very wrong. The sense of discomfort that Niklas had felt before shifted into a full-scale internal alarm. He needed to figure this out.
"Everyone except Ronnie and Quackshot, I need you to leave the bar. There's something up with this stiff, and I don't want anyone getting roped into something they don't want."
After saying this Niklas turned back to the body. He stared at the face for a minute or so when it finally hit him.
This Rat was in your bar three weeks ago. He was laughing and drinking with a few other rats, plus some strange looking fella in a hoodie and leather leggings (you didn't get a good look at him).
Why was that setting off alarms though? Just because this guy was a former patron, Niklas shouldn't be this uncomfortable.
He's dead
Clearly he was dead, why was that an issue?
No, he was dead three weeks ago. They found his body two days after he was at your bar
Shit, there it was. Maybe he had a twin? Twins were rare in the Gutter, but it could be possible. But the resemblance was uncanny, even the scar on the nose was the same.
"Quackshot, I need you to help me look at this corpse, closely. Tell me if anything at all seems wrong with it, other than the obvious."

"Alright," Quackshot said, cautiously kneeling back down to the body. How Niklas spoke made him nervous. Was he seeing something that I'm not?

"I don't recognize this man," Quackshot began examining the corpse aloud once the rest of the patrons had exited, save Ronnie and Niklas. "I'm pretty good at remembering my patients, so he was either healthy enough to not need me, sought help elsewhere for his wounds, got into a hospital or clinic, or I never paid him any mind if our paths did cross." Quackshot shrugged. "He could also be new to the Gutter, I don't know.

"His complexion and heartrate were standard for any dying man of about his age that I have dealt with. Aside from his fresh wounds, he seemed pretty tough in terms of health. His old scars healed nicely, though I don't know what exactly caused them, of course. His blood looks to be a good, healthy consistency and color."

Quackshot cocked his head at Niklas questioningly. His mask made facial expressions pointless, so body language had to take over.

"The only things wrong I can see with this corpse are the lattices of new cuts on his arms and the trajectory of the bullet that killed him. My guess is that he was shot by someone who was either on the ground or on a lower level." He paused, his eye catching on the glint of the gun in the man's jacket. In his haste to play doctor with a dying patient, Quackshot had overlooked the weapon. He gestured to the gun and added, "I don't believe the Rats usually carry these, right?"

"No," Lyra said slowly, as she cautiously approached the body, "they sure as bloody Hell don't." She shook her head. "I mean, back in their heyday maybe five, ten years ago, sure, they'd have had the kinda cash for that, even if they weren't the types to need big guns too often. But now?"

As she said this, she turned to Niklas.
"Sorry I didn't clear out, Nick, but Quacky here"--she motioned to the masked doctor--"has saved my ass more than once, and he's saved countless other poor sods as well. I can't very well turn my back on him if he's in danger. And I've got a sinking feeling that this whole situation," she said as she pointed at the corpse, "seems like it's gonna be dangerous."

Besides, she thought, staring at the revolver, I kinda wanna know how the Hell a Rat, in this day and age, can afford one of those. Sure, I got my rifle as a Rat, but that was back when they made a helluva lot more money. Something isn't right here.

Something is very wrong

"I don't know if there's really anything wrong. Lyra, right? Look, Lyra, Quack, Ronnie, I might be completely off my rocker, but I swear this man was in my bar a few weeks ago, and then turned up dead a couple days later. Every fiber of my being is telling me that this man shouldn't have been alive at any point today, but here he is. Just based on the state of the corpse we can all clearly tell that he didn't die three weeks ago. Maybe I'm wrong, but this worries me."

"Quackshot, you looked over the body. Did you see any mods? Cyber or genetic? Ronnie, you don't know anything else at all about this Rat?"

Ronnie squinted at the dead body, her green eyes blazing against their artificial black back-drop. She huffed before picking up one of the bar stools and dragging it closer to the others. If she had to watch as shit hit the fan, she may as well do it sitting and well rested. Glancing between Niklas, Quackers, and neon lady named 'Lyra,' Ronnie thought back to the day she got the job and all the little details that happened then. The Rat in particular hadn't seemed interesting or especially good at anything, but the Rats' boss had wanted Ronnie to work with that one and if Ronnie had refused she wouldn't have gotten the job. The man hadn't smelled funny, he looked normal - actually he had been pretty plain and ordinary in the looks department - and he hadn't had any weird hobbies or habits. Well, that's no true. The man did have this twitch that irked Ronnie whenever she had to look at him and pay him mind.

"Twitch?" Ronnie said, unsure if something so small mattered. "Rats' had job n' I took it. Had to take 'im too or no job," she said pointing at the dead man briefly. "Was okay, but he twitched. A lot."

After looking over the body once more, Quackshot said, "No, I don't see any cybernetic mods, though some organ could have been replaced for machinery. I doubt it though as they would have acted up upon the body dying. As for genetic mods, I can't determine that here. I have no way to test for it quickly without a genetics hospital's equipment. And there is no telling what exactly the genetic mod was for in some cases."

He looked to Ronnie. "What kind of a twitch did he have? was he acting a particular way? Skittish, paranoid, or aggressive. Or was he aloof or apathetic? Ronnie, we need clearer answers from you and possibly a more in-depth explanation of what you two were doing and how he got shot. If what Niklas said is true, then we need to figure out why or how it all happened. Since I am not a geneticist, I don't know if any gene mods can raise the dead."

He paused, mulling over all possibilities. Twins? No, the chances are unlikely. But what about a clone? Or a plastic surgery? Science has progressed a lot, so it could be possible. Or there is necromancy, but I really doubt anyone could wield that kind of power.

Ronnie mulled over how she could accurately explain a dead man's peculiar twitch to others so that they understood the scope and unusual-ness of said physical habit. Eventually she came to a conclusion that she didn't particularly care for but reasoned was the best way to get everyone in the room to understand without having to go through the whole mess that is trying to decipher Ronnie's words, or lack thereof. And yes, Ronnie knew exactly how she sounded whenever she spoke to others and while it was her way of talking she also got a slight kick out of the slightly dazed and fairly confused expressions people would get after listening to her.

Nodding in encouragement to herself, Ronnie hopped off of her bar stool and strode closer to the dead body. Grabbing one of the arms, she hefted the man slightly up so she could act as a rest for the upper body of the corpse. Grabbing onto both arms she maneuvered the body in the way that she remembered it twitching when the man was alive.

"Arm, arm, head, eye, arm, arm, head, eye," Ronnie said as she waggled said body parts. Ronnie made the left arm twitch, then the right arm, leading up to the head where Ronnie would cock the corpse's head slightly for a millisecond, and then she made the left eye wink for the room.

Ronnie repeated those movements a few times, setting up a pattern that occurred every two to five minutes or so. After she was satisfied with her demonstration she dropped the body completely and went back to her bar stool, satisfied in the knowledge that she had helped explain something properly without any further confusion on her part. If her actions had grossed anyone out or seemed disrespectful to the dead...well then maybe they shouldn't ask questions they didn't want to know the answer to, especially if they were asking Ronnie.

If Quackshot could cock his head any more in confusion, he would have. He certainly tried, though. The grotesque display of Ronnie and the corpse was baffling and oddly amusing.

"None of my medical experience can explain such an odd pattern of twitches and movements. It looks mechanical in nature, but the man had no cybernetic mods that I could find. And I trust Ronnie is accurately trying her best to reproduce how he moved, so this is no fault of her's. It is possible he had a brain or neurological condition that could cause these twitches, but I can't test for it now with my limited equipment. Or he could have been faking the twitches all along. Niklas, when you saw this man, do you recall him twitching as Ronnie showed us? Lyra, do you know if any of your tenants might know who he is?"