7-205: Bronze-Stepping’s Apartment

This is the apartment’s living room.

There is a worn couch and a couple of worn chairs.  Some small tables, a bureau under the windows, a televid on the wall between them. There are no other doors to this room. 

A thin old man is sitting in one chair facing the televid.  He is wearing a mask with a tube running to a large tank of oxygen next to the chair.  Next to him is a small table with a few bits and pieces:  a glass of water, a dirty bowl, the televid remote, an ashtray containing a few coins, a pen, a bottle opener and a rubber ball.  A walking stick is leaning against the chair.

He looks at least 27 kCY, probably older.

With a wheezing voice from behind the mask he says, “Oliver Starr,” he looks deliberately at Oliver’s vest, “a Vizierate contractor.”

He turns his head and takes in Chris and Fromm, who are standing near the doorway, “and his cronies.  What do you want with an old man, Mers?”