Half the crew went into the dark below a townhouse most people don't know exists.
First, where Randall had been. A break-in at his place, an ambulance, a police explanation that didn't quite hold, and an escape through a window that ended in a broken arm and a fresh cast. He drifted from the hospital to the Belenko townhouse and walked up at exactly five o'clock — right when you needed a wildcard and the universe, as ever, handed him over.
Below, in the dark, the other three were feeling their way through cold stone corridors lit a sick blue, footprints running off in every direction. Johnson called on Papa Legba, who answered with a question of his own — why has it been so long, why so much time with that family — before he'd point the way: find the stairway, once you get past all the dead.
And there were dead. Ordinary-looking people, carrying vials and boxes, not hostile, just working. Johnson got one talking — Gerald, an accountant type, paying off a debt to the Belenkos with his hands. He told you where you were and what they make down there: Ambrosia, drawn out of the dead in secret. You watched it happen — a barber's chair, a helmet wired to vats, a man in a rubber apron pulling glowing fluid out of someone who used to be someone. You filed it away and kept moving.
Up on the cellar level, two Belenko guards — Milenko and Yuri — caught you. Billie's incense fogged their judgment enough that they agreed to walk you upstairs as “contractors.” On the way Paulie slipped into Milenko and had him announce, loudly, that it was past quitting time; while Yuri stood there baffled, Johnson put him down with the butt of the ritual knife. Paulie palmed an intact vial of Ambrosia. The apron man, with a glowing blade an inch from his face, gave up the way out.
Meanwhile, above: Susan and Lil Sherm in the truck, and Randall arriving cast-and-all. Getting to the townhouse meant Sherm steering while a one-armed statistician worked the pedals of a 1950s manual through rush hour — which went exactly as badly as it sounds and somehow got them there anyway. Randall was grabbed the moment he arrived and tied to a chair. Susan slipped in behind Lil Sherm, conjured the kid a magical, glittering pink shotgun, and went to cut Randall loose — got spotted, got dragged toward a back room, and called over her shoulder as she went: “Make your people proud.”
Sherm fired at the ceiling. It rained glittering pink dildos. In the chaos Randall got free, and Susan's animated cart came crashing through to help haul everyone out.
Both halves of the crew converged. Billie went into the unconscious Milenko's head and pulled the townhouse layout straight out of his dreams — and found, sharing that head, a recurring nightmare of an old woman skittering across the walls and ceiling, opening his skin. Baba Yaga, you guessed.
Running for the door, you passed an old woman who beckoned you into her room — quickly, all of you, come in. You didn't. She watched you go without a fuss. And then the exit gave you Dmitro “Wolfhound” Pasternak, half-changed already, gold chains and a hairy chest and a wolf coming up through the man. He introduced himself. Johnson introduced himself as “Boom Boom,” dropped a hallway between you and him, and ran you all out through the dust.
Out on the street, peeling away, you passed the old woman one more time, standing calm on the curb. Billie threw a glitter-dildo at her. She caught it out of the air, one-handed, without a flicker — and gave you the finger as you went.
Back at the bar you agreed to go quiet for three or four weeks. Susan into the archives — the knot, the Ambrosia, the Belenkos. Billie home with family, closer to Morpheus. Paulie into Pete's old computer, matching it against the stolen files. Randall preparing for whatever came next. And Johnson on the payphone to a couple of old contacts — Rico and Johnny — asking for hardware. You know the spot.
You came away with a vial of Ambrosia, a fresh crop of enemies, and the certainty that the Belenkos have your faces now.