The intelligence gathered by Finch, Anya, and Mickey painted a clear picture: Lou Scarelli was feeling the heat from Desmond Fitzpatrick's organized resurgence. Scarelli's operations were becoming more reactive, his enforcers jumpier, and a paranoid air was settling over his organization. Fitzpatrick, meanwhile, was methodically consolidating his alliances, his movements discreet but deliberate, like a master chess player arranging his pieces.
Elias saw an opportunity to subtly exacerbate this tension, to be the proverbial stone that alters the stream's course without revealing the hand that dropped it. He wasn't ready for a direct confrontation with either faction, but he could make them bleed each other.
His plan focused on one of Scarelli's more lucrative, and thus heavily guarded, ventures: a string of illegal gambling dens hidden behind legitimate storefronts in the working-class districts. These dens were a steady source of cash for Scarelli, funding his muscle and his reach. Disrupting them would hit him where it hurt.
Elias summoned Anya and Mickey to a rarely used storage room above his bookstore. The scent of old paper and dust was thick in the air.
"Scarelli has three primary gambling dens east of Saint Laurent Boulevard," Elias began, tapping locations on a meticulously drawn map of the city that Dr. Finch had annotated with his findings. "Here, behind 'La Belle Fortune Blanchisserie'; here, above 'Le Cochon Qui Rit Tavern'; and this one, the largest, in the basement of a supposedly defunct import-export company called 'Trans-Global Shipping'."
Anya, her Archer eyes absorbing every detail, nodded. "I've observed them. The Trans-Global location is heavily guarded. At least four men outside, more within, I suspect."
"Precisely," Elias said. "A frontal assault is out of the question. But we can introduce… chaos."
He turned to Mickey, whose Goblin features twitched with a mixture of fear and greedy anticipation. "Mickey, your task is infiltration, but not theft, not this time. I need you to plant these." He produced three small, identical metal cylinders, no bigger than a thumb. "One in each location. Discreetly. Somewhere they won't be immediately found, but where their… effect… will be noticeable."
"Effect, Mr. Thorne?" Mickey eyed the cylinders warily. "They ain't… gonna blow up, are they?"
Elias almost smiled. "No explosions, Mickey. Nothing so crude. These contain a highly concentrated, intensely noxious chemical, developed by a… former acquaintance with a talent for such things." (A polite euphemism for a discreet, under-the-table chemist he'd cultivated a relationship with prior to the System, one of his many small, useful pre-System assets). "When activated by a small internal timer – which I will set – they will release an odor so foul, so persistent, it will render those premises uninhabitable for days. Imagine the smell of a thousand rotten eggs mixed with burning sulfur and an ancient blocked sewer. No one will be able to stay inside, much less gamble."
Mickey's nose wrinkled in empathetic disgust. "Sounds… potent, sir."
"It is. Your Goblin agility and stealth will be paramount. The Trans-Global location will be the riskiest. You'll need to be a ghost." Elias handed him a more generous upfront payment than usual. "Success will be handsomely rewarded."
To Anya, Elias gave a different, but equally crucial, role. "While Mickey is making his deliveries, I want you watching the watchers. Scarelli will undoubtedly react when his dens are simultaneously shut down. He'll be furious. He'll send his men, including Silas and Benny, to investigate. I want you to observe their response, their confusion, their anger. More importantly, I want you to see if Fitzpatrick's people take notice. This disruption will send ripples. Fitzpatrick might see it as Scarelli losing his grip, an opportunity perhaps. Or he might see it as the work of a third party – us."
"You want to see how both fish react when the water is muddied," Anya surmised, her eyes bright with understanding.
"Exactly. We observe, we learn. And perhaps, we guide their assumptions."
The operation was set for two nights later, a Tuesday, typically a slower night for the dens, meaning slightly reduced security but still enough activity to cause maximum disruption when the stench hit.
Mickey, despite his nervousness, performed flawlessly. His Goblin-enhanced agility allowed him to slip through shadowy back entrances, past bored guards, and into the smoky, crowded interiors of the laundromat and the tavern's back room. He planted the first two cylinders in ventilation ducts, setting their simple timers as Elias had instructed.
The Trans-Global Shipping location was, as predicted, the most challenging. Anya, perched on a rooftop several blocks away with a pair of powerful, Elias-supplied binoculars (further augmenting her Archer sight), watched as Mickey, a fleeting shadow, exploited a moment of distraction – a noisy argument down the street – to bypass the outer sentries. He was inside for less than five minutes. When he re-emerged, melting back into the night, he gave a pre-arranged subtle signal (a specific pattern of tapping his pockets) that Anya relayed to Elias via a coded message passed through a pre-arranged dead drop.
The following morning, all three locations were scenes of utter chaos. Employees and gamblers alike had fled, clutching their noses, vomiting in the streets. The stench, by all accounts, was apocalyptic. Scarelli's men were swarming the areas, confused, angry, and trying fruitlessly to air out the premises with large fans, which only seemed to spread the horrific odor further into the neighborhood. Local constables were present, more out of morbid curiosity and public complaint than any real investigative capacity for such an unusual 'crime'.
Anya, from her various vantage points, meticulously documented the fallout. She saw Silas and Benny arrive at each location, their faces grim, their frustration palpable as they failed to find any obvious cause like a bomb or a fire. They questioned witnesses, who could only describe the sudden, overwhelming olfactory assault.
Crucially, Anya also observed a sleek black car, one she recognized as belonging to Fitzpatrick's chief lieutenant, cruising slowly past the Trans-Global Shipping building later that afternoon. The occupants didn't stop, didn't interact, but they watched. They saw Scarelli's flagship den in disarray, his men looking incompetent.
Dr. Finch, when presented with the reports, analyzed the likely repercussions. "Scarelli will suspect Fitzpatrick, of course," he posited. "This kind of disruptive, non-violent sabotage has a certain… elegance that Scarelli himself lacks. It undermines his image of control, makes him look foolish. Fitzpatrick, on the other hand, will likely see this as confirmation that Scarelli is vulnerable, perhaps being targeted by internal rivals or another, unknown player. It will sow mistrust on both sides."
Elias felt a cold surge of satisfaction. His Host Power was now [3.51] from minor residual gains, his Energy at [78.50/100], unchanged by this operation as no new empowerments were made. But his influence metrics had shifted again. [Influence (City-Wide): +0.5% (Significant disruption of major rival operations; attribution unclear)]. Reputation (Underworld): [Calculated Disrupter (Feared/Respected; Methods Unknown)].
The "attribution unclear" was key. He was a ghost in the machine, a stone dropped into the stream, and the ripples were spreading. Scarelli and Fitzpatrick were now looking at each other with renewed suspicion, and also over their shoulders for the invisible hand that had so effectively and bizarrely crippled a significant income source.
He had made them react, made them uneasy. And in their unease, they might make mistakes. Mistakes Elias Thorne would be patiently waiting to exploit.