[ IP ] The Rundowns

Rudy, W'yess and Quiet Shakes were buskers. They played music out of the corner between Tomb Sides district and the Grindery. Close to the morticians and the original bunkers where the colony's first residents dwelled. Rudy had a fiddle and the good fingers. He'd sometimes sing if he did n't feel like sawing on the ancient thing. He was usually the group's voice when dealing with station police. 
 
 W'yess' species' fingers were n't as dexterous as Rudy's, but they had by far the largest lung capacity of the three, she had a woodwind instrument peculiar to her kind; instead of pushing plungers to work valves, she'd pull combinations of strings. The results were often pleasing until W'yess' peculiar notions of tempo and pitch overtook her common sense. 
 
 Quiet Shakes had no fingers at all, but its three tongues could knock out a particularly binding percussion on the small drum kit it owned. The other two did n't exactly know just what gender Quiet Shakes was, or if he knew half of what they were saying, but they knew he'd shake once for yes and twice for no and that worked out somehow. 
 
 They made their own way by staying just close enough to the mining district to catch credits, but not the ire of those who think a few nights out on the asteroids would be beneficial to their lazy dispositions. They'd play music as the shifts change for the beleaguered miners and ore processing crews trying to bring in the materials that kept the station both expanding and operational in one form or another. 
 
 More than once they got the kind suggestion that their music would probably be better appreciated in the tech or residential sectors. Just as often Rudy would reply that while the techies and the townies might want it more, their currect clientele needed it more. Of course all that was a relatively convenient lie. All the best places were filled by either established acts or less savory and more heavily muscled concerns. So for better or worse it was here they plied their trade. Near the dead and those gladly working themselves in that direction. 
 
 So in this way, the trio would play what they knew. Rudy would occasionally grab new songs he'd hear in other parts of the station, W'yess would pick them apart and arrange them for their 3-piece band and Quiet Shakes would beat the drums and exist. They'd play, the workers would grunt or grin as befit their tastes and would slide them credits as goodwill would allow. In their own way, they made life more tolerable on the station than many would care to admit. 
 
 Which made it particularly hard for some to take when Rudy's dead body was brought to me for inspection. As Head Factor of the Rundowns, I was the Defacto chief of security, coroner and occasional head of Bake Sales for the Mining Widow's Auxiliary. I nearly choked on my breakfast rations when Pater, my assistant and deputy dogsbody wheeled him into my office without any warning whatsoever. 
 
 `` Shattered bulkheads, Pater, what the hell is wrong with you!?'' 
 
 `` Sorry boss, but you asked me to bring any real important stuff right to your desk.'' 
 
 `` Yeah, like reports of dead bodies, not the bodies themselves! Wait is that Rudy? What in Regorak's sacred third ball happened to him?'' 
 
 `` Dunno, his other band-mates found him out in front of the Grindery security gate looking like cherry cobbler.'' 
 
 `` Thank you, Pater, for putting me off cherry cobbler for good. Get him to the exam room... I'm going to try and eat the rest of my damn meal and I'll see you there.'' 
 

