Sugar Shack 37: The Bag Lady: Not Quite What I Expected
This Exile is dressed quite well for a “bag lady”; perhaps the “bag” here is a Prada. She stands unobtrusively in an alley, in Moriah, at 1096, 7, -17, watching the world go by, occasionally glancing down at a copy of “Speed Power” discarded in the pavement. Ambition is not her middle name, I could see; she seemed happy to stand around like this. Soon I found that her preference was missions which served or frustrated others; no agenda of her own ever appeared. How petty! In fact, your average clan leader is far more creative and imaginative that the Bag Lady. But if you’re a new redpill, what you usually want is action, not Aeschylus, and from that point of view her missions are okay.
1. Odd Baubles
We learn that odd data packets have been discovered floating around the Matrix, and the dour Tick Tock from downtown seems to have a lock on them. Well, not for long! The Collector craves these as well, and the Bag Lady dispatches you to serve his interests. This involves a single entry, three fights, two disks, and one mainframe. Simply, really. The Bag Lady purrs at the end, “Oooh, Sugaree, you’re not bad. Very nice”.
2. A Killing Hold
This continues the frag arc. Tick Tock notes the break-in and the missing materials, and has dispatched the redoubtable “Downstream” to look into this. The Collector wants to discourage these inquiries, and the Bag Lady sends you off with, “On your way, Sugaree. There’s killing to be done.” It reminds me of the Weaver, and how she would also have some sarcastic observation, like “When there’s mindless killing to be done, you seem to be the one to call!” But I am sure she did not mean it that way.
This too is straightforward. Break into a single dumpy Richland venue, dispatch a couple of guards, and snuff Downstream. In the end I could sense the Bag Lady’s excitement as she whispered, “Well, Sugaree. You’ve done a good job. Very nice.” I knew she’d give me something special or the next one!
3. Good Garbage
In this most bizarre mission, we finally learn why Bag Lady is the right name for her! She wants me to divert Tick Tock’s garbage to her! OMG, is this what my life has come to? A trash hijacker? *cries*
Anyway, this miracle is accomplished by mainframing a virus to alter the workflow, and redirect the refuse. She is thrilled: “Oooo….very nice, Sugaree. Very nice, indeed.” I could sense her excitement. Maybe she was in bed with the Assassin. Figuratively, of course.
Curiously the immensely entertainment value of this situation is not explored at all. No jokes, no wit, no after-action reports on just what was found in the trash. Talk about missed opportunities!
4. Find a Mole
Back to the frag fracas. A mole has been inserted in Tick Tock’s labs in squalorous Richland, and needs to be extracted for a frag update meeting. (Why does every Exile have such a high-end support mechanism? And how would this look on one’s resume?) To cover the extraction, we need to kill all the guards while the mole protests noisily; after the last one, the clearly impressed agent says, “Okay, now you’re just showing off”. Then it becomes another escort mission. Like most, this is more difficult that you might think. The journey is only about a hundred meters. Two local thugs hung out near the target building nearby though, and a single shot was enough to hole the mole. Back to square one!
5. Grab the Bag
Tick Tock has come across one of the frags, and the Collector wants it. The suite ends as it started, with a blackbag job. Here, however, the defenders are tougher and better organized. This mish, however, has two locations. After killing everyone else, a single Crossbones Bumboo was left guarding the machine with the frag. I was so impressed I spared him. Bag Lady agreed, and gave me credit for a complete mission anyway. Her goodbye spiel sounded like she was talking to me: “Sometimes the tiniest, most insignificant objects can become valuable.” As I started to speak humbly, thinking she must mean me, she went on to say, “I like to find those little objects before anyone else. Thanks for helping me find this, Sugaree.” Oh, right. I sat on a bench near the hardline to think about life.
In summary, the Bag Lady hardly seems to qualify for Exile status at all. She basically does the bidding of the Collector, or works to frustrate Tick Tock. Oddly though, when you do Tick Tock’s missions downtown, he seems completely unaware of her; she seems to cast a shorter shadow than she thinks. And that’s it! She seems to have no agenda, ambition, or purpose of her own. Most of her missions are one-shot, one-location tasks, and are even conveniently clustered. She’s the kind of easy-going Exile suitable for Richland, where redpills are brushing up on new skills, and need a few easy departures from the standard grind. From that point of view, she’s okay. But she’ll never win the Nobel Prize for Missions.
This review may be found at manifoldmischief.blogspot.com, along with other reviews and writings relevant to MxO.
