Pizza Pizza

Its not so hard to imagine. Indeed, to put yourself in the same position isn't that hard at all because you've been there plenty of times. You've spent all day at work, turning loose chunks of material into beautiful pieces of furniture (ok, that part more than likely doesn't apply) when the pangs of hunger strike. With the marvels of today's technology being what they are, your food is already ordered moments after you feel the hunger.

But lets back up a bit first.

As I said in the first couple of posts, I'm organizing A Friendy Game of Assassin II: Team Challenge starting June 20th and with the date approaching, it has me a wee bit nostalgic for the last game. This post concerns a certain player named Tyrone, who was my third target.

My second target, Ben from Jericho who I mentoined yesterday will be co-hosting the next Tactical Ops with me was taken out after a Humans vs. Zombies game I hosted in Dolores Park. The assassination itself wasn't noteworthy: I was behind him when he was looking for a fellow player named Skylar (who will be featured in the next Assassin story I do) when I shot him with my Strongarm. It was nothing fancy and we we're both kinda bummed by the process. Ben was bummed because he was dead (naturally) and because he had a really cool plan for his target that he wouldn't get  to execute, as he had been waiting to make his move later on. (I was bummed because assassinating someone after a game I hosted didn't feel right. I want people to feel comfortable and welcome at games, especially after games when we all hang out. I didn't like the prospect of people in the game either not wanting to hang with me or constantly on edge, waiting for the final, fatal darts. On top of that, the actual Assassination wasn't that cool. Id rather have a semi-epic to epic moment and die then get a regular old kill any day of the week. Gotta have stuff to blog about right?)

It was too bad he didn't get a chance to make it happen, because it really was a good plan. Tyrone originally had designated work a safe area from attacks (like most players, though a few of us opened up work for attacks), but after spending a couple of days fairly on edge about being ambushed (including almost shooting a couple of innocent people on the first day),  Tyrone hopped on Facebook and emphatically said screw it, come and get some at my job. He said that shooting through the fence, shooting him in the lobby or shooting him in the parking lot were OK now, just to try not to shoot him while he was welding. He gave his work hours and even a description of his vehicle. Ben's plan was to dress up in a delivery man's uniform, saying that he had an iPad for Tyrone that he needed to sign for. When Tyrone came to get it, it was kablamo, end of story.

Instead, the kablamo at hand was not to be Tyrone's, but Ben's. I learned two things from the experience: that if i'm possibly going to screw up good feelings people have, mine included, after a game by assassinating them,  then it better be pretty cool. Also, if I have a pretty cool way to do it in mind, I shouldn't wait any longer than I have to.  With Ben's passing, I inherited Tyrone as a target.

Originally, when I saw that he had signed up for the game I was happy and hoped to draw him as either a target or my Assassin. Tyrone is a very energetic guy and at the time I had played a few games with him. Tyrone definitely gets immersed in the experience, is surprising agile for being a pretty big dude and isn't a bad shot on top of it. I felt that when the game started, he was going to get similarly immersed and live the game. As an organizer, more than anything else I love to have people who get so excited about playing any game I do, that they forget its a game to an extent and just move through that alternate reality. Tyrone had clearly demonstrated such a level of excitement even before he became my target.

I swung by his house a few days later, searching around for his car in vain before pulling up a seat with my girlfriend Courtney across the street from his place. With a quick scan of the environment, I decided that where I sat was where I would wait for him any time I came looking. Given the placement of his house somewhat to the center of the block, from where I sat I could see him walk up from either direction with time to react and cover to shield to me (there were a series of bushes and a couple of big trees). He lives on a one way street, so if he drove by he would likely miss me but I would have even more time to react. We sat around talking and waiting, and while a dude in a passing car randomly yelled that we were a "beautiful couple" (???!), Tyrone didn't make an appearance during the time we were there.

A couple days later, I came back around, approaching his house from a the side streets, once again looking for his car. Once again, as in the fateful case of Ajesh in the first post, Tyrone had given away exactly the information I needed and this time I spotted his car. He lives near a very populated area, so after finding his car I went around looking for discarded parking tickets on the street or at worst really long receipts  After walking for 6 or 7 blocks I found what I was looking for and took out a pen from my  bag. I wrote poison about that big in the center of the receipt and headed back towards Tyrone's ride. When I got there I placed it under his driver side windshield wiper, just as DPT would. Then it was back to camping.

I didn't hold out too much hope for Tyrone coming back outside once home from work. I know I don't.  I was OK with it, because at 6 in the morning when he had to leave for work, in that dark, foggy mind state, who wouldn't say "Holy crap! How did I get a ticket?" and grab at the offending piece of paper. But since I was in the neighborhood, I figured why not wait it out for a second? As I was sitting across the street reading a book, or even before that when I was poisoning his windshield, Tyrone made the fateful decision alluded to the opening paragraph.

The decision to order a pizza.

Perfectly understandable. I ordered a pizza a couple of days ago. Pesto with garlic and other stuff, pretty damn good. As I was reading, I saw a delivery car pull up and a guy in a green uniform jumped out with the Pizza in question. I started freaking out a little bit as he got closer to Tyrone's place, ultimately stopping at his front door. I had a Stryfe with a 6 round clip in my backpack, placed off to the side of me to go along with a Triad in my jacket pocket. I stood up and inched towards the curb, anxious to see who came out.

It was Tyrone. He stepped outside and said hi to the pizza man while taking out his wallet. I forgot about the Stryfe in my bag and bolted.

Everything seemed to be moving really slow as I ran across the street, pulling out the Triad when I was about 10 feet away from his front door. I raised the Triad at about 5 feet and Tyrone didn't notice me until after I shot him in the gut.

The Pizza Man on the other hand saw me as soon as I pulled out what looked like a pistol, handed Tyrone the pizza without taking payment and bolted in the opposite direction. After shooting Tyrone, I called back to him, showing him the Triad wasn't a real pistol, that I knew Tyrone and that he wasn't dead. After seeing that something completely awful hadn't just happened, he started laughing and said it was pretty funny. He gave me a thumbs up and told me it was a pretty good shot before leaving.

In a way Ben's delivery man plan for Tyrone came to fruition: I just didn't know it was going to happen or involve an actual, unwitting delivery man.  The next day, Tyrone posted on the Facebook page that even if I hadn't shot him the day previous, the ghastly early morning poison ticket scenario I envisioned happened, thus he was now double dead.

Check back tomorrow as I will be blogging after Ben's Jericho game at 1pm in Hayes Valley with a write up of the games happening, and who knows, I might actually take pictures at this game like I keep planning to do.  Until next time!