<hr/><div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/8/8b/Maxbaine_2.png)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Max Baine<br/><strong>Faction:</strong>Sweetrock (Vice President)<br/><strong>Date:</strong>May 11th, 1876.<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Early evening<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Private offices<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Closed, Walter<br/><hr/>Max Baine gave a gruesome echo of a smile - tiny holes in his burned cheek exposed white teeth sat back in his mouth, and he raised his glass himself.  “I haven’t been feeling terribly sociable myself.  I don’t suspect the Business Council will look forward to my attendance at any of their social events any time soon.”  But he gave a salute with the glass, and watched as Walter struggled for a moment with the absurd idea that had been presented to him.<br/><br/>The gruesome smile spread a little when Sinnett said that he was in, and as Walter finished the whiskey, he reached for the bottle and began to tip the contents within, filling til it once again sloshed at the rim.  His own drinking was more measured - he lacked the tolerance Walter had, and even a small amount in combination with the laudanum could make him… loopy.<br/><br/>His smile spread a bit wider as protests mounted, as the reasons Walter didn’t think he was the man for the title being offered continued.  His eyebrows shot up as the arguments continued to mount, and he leaned back in his chair, sipping at his own whiskey, his mind forming natural bullet points of counterargument.  It wasn’t a debate he was interested in, though, and so he set those arguments aside, listening as Walter made his points and laid out his concerns.  His smile curled a little wider, and a small laugh finally slipped out at the end.<br/><br/>“Well as to the first point, Mr. Sinnett.  I was a citizen of the Union my entire life, and I couldn’t honestly tell you what the Vice President did.  Largely it seemed his job was to stand around and look officious.”  His lip curled with ghastly bemusement.  “But that isn’t your job.  That’s what we’ve got the mayor in our pocket for.  As for an office like this…”<br/><br/>He spread his hands.  “I would say that ninety five percent of what I did in this office was fuck Mabel rotten.  Occasionally I’d meet with Sweetrock employees, but my job?  My real job?  That was to make things happen that needed to happen.  Your not going to count beans or read legal documents.  We’ve got bean-counters and lawyers for that.  The only signature I’m worried about it is the one you leave in someone’s cheek.”<br/><br/>He opened a drawer with his good hand, and pulled out a simple iron signet ring - one embossed with ‘SMC.’  “That should leave an impression, if you’re concerned about legibility.”  The curl of a smile became absolutely wicked.<br/><br/>“But these aren’t glass beads, Walter.  I don’t need you to become a clean-cut businessman who can talk about profits and loss.  You talked about gangs before - and while Sweetrock would never admit it, and Findley would be horrified at the idea, we’re a gang.  We’re just a gang.  Kang and the entire Union government?  Just a gang.  I’m looking to have you be my second.  I’m looking to have you recruit, I’m looking to have you scare the wits out of the other gangs, and I’m looking to make sure that any gang that screws with us, knows that they’d better pull down their breeches and be ready to get a hard one up their ass for doing it.”<br/><br/>His voice was cold, but sober.  “And to me, you look like<em>exactly</em>the man for that job.  You leave the papers and the veil of goodwill to me.  When the time comes to make our deal with whichever rail makes it first, we’ll put so much dynamite down every mine in Gomorra that if they don’t take our offer we’ll blow the entire thing to the next life.  And all the money and time and blood they’ve poured into getting here will be worthless.  Buy it, or we burn it down.”  His lip twitched at the irony of that - an idea that had seized him while ghost-rock had burned him half to death.  “You know, the South had a research facility down in… Fort 51, I think they were calling it.  Union troops hit it with some fresh off the line jetpacks, and in the fighting the ghostrock reserves they’d stored down there caught a spark.  Whole thing blew - most of the scientists and researchers died, most of the troops did too.  But the damnable thing - the damnable thing is, its fifteen years later and Fort 51 is<em>still on fire.</em>.”<br/><br/>He leaned back in his chair, draining his glass.  “So they can buy our mines, or they can buy the largest barbecue in North America.  But between now and then?  We knock over every other gang.  We take over the town.  Unquestionable authority.  Your job will be to tell me what you need to make it happen.  I expect it’ll be a damn sight more than a donkey and a knife and a mean disposition.”<br/><br/>His eyes glittered.  “But you’ve gotten pretty damn far with a donkey and a knife and a mean disposition, then, haven’t you?”  He extended his burned hand, an offer to clasp Walter’s in his own.  “Welcome to management, Mr. Sinnett.”<br/><br/>He rose, painfully.  There was a small grunt of pain, but he accomplished it anyway, heading around his desk.  There was a table in the middle of the room, a table with a picture of Gomorra and the surrounding canals and waterways.<br/><br/>“We designate mines by the amount of ghostrock they bring in.  Class one, class two, class three.  Bigger the number, the bigger the operation.”  He swept a hand over the map - there were pins of myriad colors scattered across it.  Black pins, white pins, a few red and green and blue pins.  “White is Sweetrock.  Half the mines you see - they belong to us.”  The pins were segregated by different sizes as well - the little colored tips were quickly distinguishable at a glance.  “Black is our good friends in the Jacks.  They take a cut from the mines under their protection.  It keeps the Jacks in bullets and guns, and keeps their little boat afloat.  That thing - from what one of our spotters heard, they’ve fitted it gatling guns and depth charges.  It’s going to take an army to take it down.  The Sioux don’t have any mines - but the Maze Rats are rabid about killing anyone who takes an interest in a mine they’ve emptied.  We’re assuming Kang’s just getting discount ghost rock through them.  Taking mines and holding them by force of reputation, largely.”  He tapped on the tops of the red pins, most of which lined the periphery of the map.<br/><br/>“The yellow pins belong to the Collegium.  They’ve been buying up dead mines.  Tapped out mines.  And a few mines that collapsed or filled with water.  Mines that shouldn’t be producing - and they’re making them produce.  Findley fucked that relationship right up the tail.  He only saw the bottom line - getting a bunch of scientists to hand him a new toy now and then, and costing him five thousand in ghost rock a day.  He cut off the supply, and now it looks like the Collegium is more industrious than we ever gave them credit for.  Necessity truly is the mother of invention, it seems.”<br/><br/>The third largest group of color, the yellow pins, made his eyes narrow.  “These mines belong to the Whateleys.”  They were the farthest from Gomorra, squeezed between the ring of Maze Rat red and the black pins of Black Jack’s protected mines.  “Operating unimpeded since the buyout from Walters years ago.  God only knows how they get their ghostrock down river to Lost Angels under our nose, but they do.  They’ve made their fortune the same way we have.  Blood and brutality.”<br/><br/>His jaw worked, popping a he considered the board.  There were dozens of pins with no coloring at all.  The simple mines of independent miners, with little influence on the board.  Banes noted them - they would affect the balance of power, but without serious organization they would never amount to power to change the scope of the board.<br/><br/>“To terrorize half of London means you were a strategist, Mr. Sinnett.  Whether you believed it or not.  Look at the map.  Think of these as… shops, or fronts for whorehouses or moneymaking operations of some kind.  Look at it and tell me what you see.”  He looked up from the pins, the board of potential conquests.