The Thing Mafia [Concluded]

[TinCow]

Prologue 2: Prologueier

The next day, Kage and CR assembled the henchpersons for a further organizational meeting. The big flag was gone, and in its place was only a bare brick wall.

Kage glared at the assembled crew of Frontroom misfits.

“All right, let's get to know one another. With the exception of CR and myself, who you already know, you'll be using aliases. Under no circumstances are you to tell one another your real name or anything else about yourself. That includes where you're from, your wife's name, who you lynched last, or about a game you totally pwned as scum. You guys don't say about who you are, where you been or what you've done. Only thing you guys can talk about is what you're going to do. This way the only ones who know who the members of the team are CR and myself. And that's the way I like it. Because in the unlikely event of one of you getting eaten by an alien that’s been trapped in ice for 10 million years, not that I expect that to happen - it most definitely should not happen – it hasn't happened, you don't have anything to deal with. You don't know any names. You know my name, you know CR's name. That we don't care about. You gotta prove it. We ain't worried. Besides, this way you gotta trust us. We like that. We set this up and picked the men we wanted for it. None of you came to us, we approached all of you.”

CR whispered in Kage’s ear. Kage’s eyes widened. “Are you serious? People volunteered for this? What kind of a crew of idiots do we have here?” He shook his head and turned back to the henchpeople.

“Alright, we don’t know any of you. But you’re OK. If you weren't OK, you wouldn't be here. Okay, let me introduce everybody to everybody. But once again, at the risk of being redundant, if I even think I hear somebody telling or referring to somebody by their forum name...” Kage stared intently at the henchman who had asked so many questions the day before. “...you won't want to be you.”

“Okay, quickly.” Kage started pointing at the henchpeople, one at a time. “Luciano, Vito, Johnny, Emilio, Salvatore, Fat Tony, Frank, Bobby, Bugsy, Sonny, Rocco, Silvio, Nick, Vinny, Paulie, Luigi, and Bertha.”

The last henchman to be named frowned. “Why am I Bertha?”

“Cause you're a fat woman in a stupid outfit,” sneered Kage. The rest of the henchmen laughed.

Bertha was not amused. “Why can't we pick out our own names?”

Kage shook his head. “We tried that once, it don't work. You get four guys fighting over who's gonna be Fat Tony. Since nobody knows anybody else, nobody wants to back down. So forget it, we pick. Be thankful you're not Chickenman.”

The henchman dubbed Luigi spoke up, “Yeah, but Luigi? Everyone’s going to make Mario jokes every day.” Someone made a Mario joke, the other henchpersons laughed.

“Yeah, and Bertha is a woman’s name,” said Bertha. “I’m not even a woman! Tell you what, let me be Scarface. That sounds good to me, I'm Scarface.”

Kage sighed, “You're not Scarface, somebody at another evil lair is Scarface. You're Bertha.”

The henchperson dubbed Vito was getting tired of the whole exchange. “Who cares what your name is? Who cares if you're Bertha, Scarface, Askthepizzaguy, Hamsandwichoracle…”

“Oh that's really easy for you to say,” complained Bertha, “you're Vito. You gotta cool-sounding name. So tell me, Vito, if you think ‘Bertha’ is no big deal, you wanna trade?”

Kage pulled out his croquet mallet and gestured with it, menacingly. There was something incredibly disturbing about the yellow smiley face he had painted on one of the flat heads. “Nobody's trading with anybody! Look, this ain't a goddamn city counsel meeting! Listen up Bertha. We got two ways here, our way or the highway. And you can go down either of 'em. So what's it gonna be, Bertha?”

Bertha scowled, “Jesus Christ, Kage. forget it. This is beneath me. I'm Bertha, let's move on.”

Kage patted his mallet. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Any more questions?” Three of the henchpersons raised their hands. Kage ignored them. “Alright, let’s get out of here. Say goodbye to the Frontroom, you little cry babies. Next stop, Antarctica.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All anonymous accounts have been assigned and distributed. All player accounts are now linked to these anonymous accounts. You can flip between them using the method listed here.

From this point on, no more posts will be allowed in this thread by non-anonymous accounts. You can post whatever you want, but you must do so with the anonymous account. Contrary to what the story says above, I do not care whether you name yourself or not. Anyone can claim anything they want about their identity, whether it’s true or a lie. I will not reveal the real identity of any player account until after the game is over; until then it’s all just speculation.

The Thing has not been assigned yet, nor will it be assigned until the game officially starts. Until then, every single one of you is a townie. If you have not yet volunteered as a candidate for the role of The Thing, you still have almost three days left to do so.