<div align="center"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 24pt;">Prologue</span></strong></span></div><br/>(https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4244/35228916021_df2df7732d_b.jpg)<br/><hr/><br/>Nights for the Kindred of Gary rarely involve the high-level politicking of a major Camarilla metropolis such as Chicago. Vampire existence is subsistence living, draining vessels from one night to the next, hoping for the rare taste of exotic blood from a tourist or traveling businessman stepping into the wrong part of town, and craving a nugget of intriguing information from the world beyond. Feuds between Gary’s Kindred are often petty, but quickly escalate to bloodshed.  The smallest of disagreements are settled with violent finality, neonates using abandoned factories, houses, and mills as battlegrounds. Anarchs put enemies out to pasture in a hail of bullets before tearing away into the night.<br/><br/>The greatest feud — in scope, if not importance— exists between the longstanding rivals Modius and Juggler. Modius is the Toreador “Prince” of Gary, though that title is debated. How can you be a Prince, when few subjects fear you, fewer still respect you, and your domain is an urbanruin? That said, Modius is a power in his own right. He has age, experience, and despite his delusions, the resources and pull to make any troublesome fledgling disappear without much fuss.<br/><br/>Juggler styles himself as the Anarch “Baron” of Gary, but his connection to the Chicago Anarchs is tempestuous at best. While Gary befits the Anarch style of law and order — there is none — better than operating under Camarilla Traditions, Gary’s Kindred see Juggler as too old, too self-serving, and too caught up in his grudge against Modius to care for Anarch interests.<br/><br/><br/>Beneath the big two, a rabble of anywhere between 10 and 20 Kindred populate Gary. There may be more, but nobody’s counting. Just like the kine of this domain, the lifespan of a Kindred inhabitant depends entirely on which of the city districts a vampire frequents, the businesses they influence, and the friends and enemies they make. Of the Kindred Embraced since Gary’s economic collapse, the number to survive or remain in Gary for longer than five years is in single digits. Of the protagonist coterie, only Padre has been a vampire for longer than a few decades.  Tonight, this coterie held together loosely through a mixture of ideals, family connections, desperation, and a realization that anyone who goes it alone in Gary ends up dead, make their way to a drug deal in the dangerous industrial wasteland on the northern banks of the city. Few of these Kindred handle drugs as a vocation, but Zion<br/>runs his own crew of dealers, and has come into the stewardship of 30Gs worth of H just tonight.  Under the instruction of his boss, he’s to deal this<br/>H away for a couple of bags full of cash, and then call the boss for further instruction. Specifically, Zion’s employer told him he would want a coterie watching his back, and not a mortal crew. Details beyond this are vague, other than the deal is to go down inside a closed Endron automobile manufacturing plant, with a bunch of Glen Park 45ers.  Why they’d come to Zion for H is their business, but this is an unusual transaction.<br/><br/>The coterie make their way to the Endron plant, just on the northern banks on the Grand Calumet River, east of the still operating Gary Steel Works, via separate methods, Zion to be visible with at least one bodyguard, while the other Kindred maintain distant positions to ensure no third party gets the drop on the deal.