The Metal shows you into the quiet room, and then gently closes the door. You feel the weight of his feet as he steadily marches down the stairs to the Saviors' briefing station. The room itself is quite dark, and all you can pick up on is the heavy stink of cigarette smoke and the nauseating stench of someone who's been sitting in a bar for forty hours straight.
Which makes sense when you see a lighter flash up ahead, revealing a small row of stools and a little mechanical server arm moving up and down the length of a carved cabinet, moving bottle after bottle onto the counter. Vodka, whiskey, Irish cream, tequila, amaretto, rum, and several other liquors you couldn't identify. Like clockwork, a hand reached out, grabbed each bottle and flipped it sideways, allowing for the cap to be placed in between two teeth, snapped off, and stuck right down the stranger's throat. The contents were swallowed in under two minutes, and finally the empty vessel was allowed to come loose and shatter on the floor. Based on the sizable pile of glass shards, you guessed the stranger had already drunk several trucks' worth of booze.
Upon closer inspection, you realized that the stranger was female; slender, with shiny dirty blonde hair and dressed in tight jeans, a leather jacket, heeled boots, and a scarf soaked in so much spilled alcohol it was a wonder the thing didn't immediately catch fire when the woman pulled a fresh pack of smokes from her pocket, stuck one in-between her lips, and shoved the lighter right under her chin; it took her seventeen seconds to realize that she was burning her skin before she bothered to move it.
In a high-pitched yet gruff voice, she said: "Sit next to me. Right now."
The words came with an implicit understanding that physical harm might be caused to your person if you did not comply. So, you did.
The stranger blew smoke out of the corner of her mouth before suddenly spitting the cigarette out with such force that it put a hole in the wall. She then turned her attention to the two manila folders lying in front of you, which contained photographs, handwritten notes, detailed ledgers, and printed sheets of computerized information. From what you could make out, they covered a private investigation into the "Duke", a vicious faceless crime lord who ruled over the underworld but whom no one had been able to positively identify or even meet in person. In the corner of one of the files, you noticed two tiny initials: "J.J."
It all became clear. The drinking, the leather jacket, the files. You were sitting next to Jane Jamison of the Protectors, one of several smaller teams that worked with the Saviors on occasion but mostly stuck to their own affairs. Jane Jamison had once been the heroine Ruby, with her beautiful long hair, spandex bodysuit, luscious curves, and dazzling smile. But then an encounter with the Red-Faced Man had changed everything. Suddenly, all that was left of Ruby was her smile. The rest was replaced with Jane Jamison; short-tempered, foul-mouthed, dressed in dirty unwashed clothes, always with a drink in her hand and tobacco between her gums, and the best PI the superhero community had ever known.
Yet as Jane slowly turned to meet your gaze, it was clear something was wrong. She seemed tired and fatigued. Her eyes were so bloodshot, the pupils were nearly invisible. Her skin was starting to turn a pale shade of yellow, and as her head swiveled, she suddenly stopped, started to cough loudly, and hacked up several lumps of black tar, which she followed up by then vomiting the entire contents of her stomach onto the bar. You had to reach out and shake her before she passed out.
"Kid, if it isn't clear yet, I'm dying. That fucking Duke gave me something - burned out my powers. Right now, I have Stage 4 lung cancer and my liver's turned into jelly. I don't have a whole lot of time, so shut the fuck up and listen. I need you to help."
You shook your head. This-this was too much of her to ask you. You weren't a detective or a superhero. And the Duke - you'd heard enough stories about him...
Jane grabbed you by the neck, letting you feel what the breath of a twelve-pack-a-day smoker tasted like. "I don't give a shit if you're scared. This bastard's going down. He killed Lawrence Steel, killed my sister, and now he thinks he's fucking killed me. I'm not giving him the goddamn satisfaction! Now, this is what's going to happen. I'm putting my soul into your scrawny little teenage boy body, and your ass stays in mine until it's over. Understand?"