THE DUCK'S BILL, ISSUE 1.75: PHANTOM ROGUE

Loyal readers, a fresh scoop has hit the Duck's Bills offices like wet bread against pondwater. As is our duty as the premier investigative reporters of our time, we gobbled it up, chewed it into mush, and are regurgitating it into your yelping, gaping mouths today. 

We cast no judgments or slander; these are simply the cold, hard facts. (cc: Viviana)

Made Man ReGen woke up this morning a loyal and faithful servant of Jimmy's Ligambi Crime Family in Downtown LA. He was a good earner. A good man, by all accounts. He'd worked hard and earned his button. It's an important distinction; one handed out thoughtfully and for good reason, not like press passes, which seem to be awarded to diaper-babies named Harold and sometimes robots, for papers that don't even exist yet. 

This all came to an end when, out of the blue, ReGen was shot dead. Just an hour later a colleague, Wise Guy Scooter of the Jimmy family, was also killed. The son of ReGen, grief-stricken, sought answers from his father's former crewleader.

ReGenerate: Wtf man, sucks

Jimmy: I’m trying to find out what happened, but we think we may have another rogue

ReGenerate: What's going on? The regime is shooting all it's own members now because of this one guy? 

Jimmy: Scooter was shot because we were given a bad WS report from someone, not sure on your death yet, possibly one of the Rogues Proers getting bored 

The news was dreadful: A second rogue on the loose? Could another failed Burgerhousing have hit the American mafia? It was too soon to tell. Details were scarce. Jimmy himself could not verify what was true and what was not; even suggesting Scooter had been killed for a wrongly-submitted WS report. 

This, of course, before a vital stone was unturned, flipped reality on its head...like a burger.

Mar 26, 09:02:18 You witnessed imm** WACK ReGen 

This was clearly the work of Jimmy himself. So why the cloak and dagger? The damage was already done. Scooter's son Carlo hit the Streets shortly after. His testimony rang a familiar bell. 

The full transcript of their conversation can be read below, with some language redacted for clarity:  

Carlo: What happened to Scooter? Why did I get shot?

Jimmy: Trying to find out, we think there is another rogue. Regen got hit also. I’m [busy] so I’m struggling to get information. 

Carlo: Scousepole pp'd me seconds before I was shot, so it definitely was not a rogue unless he is the rogue or he is working with them. 

Jimmy: I’ve just parked up for a break, I’ll message Pole now. 

Carlo: He said it was a random pp and it must have been the rogue but the rogue wasnt even [awake]. Ive done fuck all other than kick up what little i may earn and spend my days doing some [chatting on The Streets].

Jimmy: Someone sent us a WS that you’ve been proing the rogue Ranger. Turns out they lied, it was a fake WS. I shot you, which we now know was a mistake. These situations put everyone on edge, and the trolls come out. 

Carlo: That is the biggest load of shit that I've ever heard mate and from you personally, I expected so much better. You literally just said you think there is another rogue yet it was you that shot me?! You can't even keep your lies in check. You know and knew full well that I have never pro'd the rogue. That is absolutely pathetic. 

Jimmy: I said there may have been another rouge to see how you’d react, did know the WS was fake at that time. Like I said , the trolls come out at a time like this. 

Carlo: I really did think, for some reason, you would be honest.

Jimmy: See it from our point of view. This guys been killing people for over 24 hours now, and we’ve not been able to catch the WS of his proers. Then we get a WS from someone saying you proed him during the late hours. What am i supposed to do, ask you, and risk you alerting the Rogue if you are his proer. Hard times means hard decisions. 

Carlo: Show me the message then.

Jimmy: It’s a doctored [photograph]. That’s why we believed it. If it was just a copy and paste job, we would have ignored it, like all the others were getting sent. 

Carlo: Show me the message then. You're clearly lying again. You need a good memory to be a good liar. You are neither. 

Jimmy: Believe what you want, we got info, we acted on it, then we found out it was bogus. You want compensation? Is that it? 

Carlo: Well, I have lost out on a shittonne of VIP credits, hustle and lotto tickets now. Robbed for no fucking reason. But you found out it was bogus 10 minutes after I was shot. I dont believe it at all no.

The implication that Ligambi big boss Jimmy has been using the active rogue as an excuse to do some housecleaning wafted strongly off the dual testimonies, like FatGrin's breath, wheezing, visibly green, odorous beyond description. 

What purpose did Jimmy's feigned ignorance serve? Are Ligambi Made Man so disposable their deaths can be shuffled away behind the chaos of an active rogue? Why the lies, with the damage already done? If Scooter was shot for a faked witness statement, was ReGren killed for the same reason? Or just given the same runaround? Is The RoboReport ever coming out? 

In any scenario, rushing to execute your own button men for spurious reasons with an active rogue piling up bodies raises many questions, the likes of which The Harold could never hope to answer.

Find out more in the next DUCK'S BILL.   

If we're still on issue 1, should it have been released all together? If you're still trying to publish new information, wouldn't this be issue 2, 3, 4? I guess we can read a newspaper that publishes one page at a time as opposed to a completed product. This is why newspapers have a bad rap, because any schmo can write something incomplete and pass it on as journalism.

You had a decent start having a structure with different areas of the paper to read, but where did that go?

Dynamite_, please expand on these thoughts. You seem like someone who knows an awful lot about newspapers. 

I stick with just show business in LA and have no interest in being in your shoes. As an avid reader, I do read the newspapers, so you can put my experience level to that. But to see a fraction of an issue exposes that we are getting unfinished work. You should focus more on a broadcast if you are going to be reporting on things that you just can't wait to report, rather than a newspaper. And again, I'm not in the newspaper business, but it should be Issue 1, 2, 3, 4...you get it.

Though you won't find a studio to work at in LA, so don't bother trying.

Ok, so if it's Issue #1, it should be numbered #1? And a second issue would be numbered...#2? Am I doing it right? I think I'm learning. I could use any more tips you can give, Dynamite_, don't leave me hanging!

You're getting it now QuackersFeatherbeak!!! Congrats! 

Throws a piece of bread as a treat and claps.

QuackersFeatherbeak, don't allow yourself to be so easily led. I don't consider myself a fortune teller, but I can foresee a future where smaller, more rapid updates are separated using a decimal whilst larger, more sporadic updates lead to a change in the whole number. You're a trailblazer!

Uh, ok, pretty condescending. I'm a working journalist, I don't need your bread, dude. Unbelievably rude. Now I'm questioning whether I should be listening to you at all. Your whole numbers thing seemed far-fetched from the get go. 

Thank you Ennis. I was thrown off for a second until Dynamite_'s patronizing behavior broke the spell. It's almost as if sometimes new information breaks that requires smaller, more compartmentalized updates which do not qualify as an entirely subsequent edition. Is that crazy? Are we living in crazy-land?

QuackersFeatherBeak I may just have a real one for you today. We have all these talks of rogues and shadow rogues and witness statements gone wrong.. Understanable normal things in this line of work.. BUT.. and this is a real big BUT...

I keep hearing talks of rouges out there. Should we all be worried about shades of red?

If nothing else, the naming and numbering convention of the Duck's Bills' Issues vexes me. What is three quarters of an issue? And how many quarters does the paper cost? We are loyal readers, and you are the premier investigative reporter of our time, so I suppose it falls to you moreso than we to answer these troubling conundrums. I'm just glad someone's on the case.

In fact, what if we took it a step further? Perhaps every death merits such a probing investigation. Surely there are more culturally or socially significant corpses than our dearly departed ReGenerate in these trying times. What times are these when we are overcome with such volumes of mortality that it's trying to even document them all- much less investigate them.

It speaks to the diligence, commitment, and otherwise magnanimity of fearless QuackersFeatherbeak to engage in such a noble cause. However you choose to number your next opus, I hope it is nothing short of magnum.

I think we need to see where he is getting his funding from. I know they said news was biased.

Mashtag picks up a paper ang begins to read chuckling to himself as he goes through the article once he finishes he throws his change and wonders off on his next traveling adventure a very interesting read and with a splash of humor, he looks forward to tomorrow’s issue

New to the crime life, Shane picks up a copy of the newspaper from a local newsstand.

"Damn," he says to himself. "Looks like lots of shit went down."

He finishes reading and waits for the next issue to read.

I would run and take cover Shane_Stetson. The streets are the wild wild west. Outside there is a war full of blood and instincts. The war being fought here is different, and oh so much more dangerous. This is a war of ink. A war between the newspapers. I have never seen anything more brutal and competitive in my entire short life.

There's nothing more dangerous than a rogue news editor

Over here at the quackers publications, We do not call anyone rogues. I find that term to be overused and in all honestly used in the completely wrong way. We have changed the term we use now to free thinkers. The strong, smart, and brave.

It has been nearly 36 hours since the last edition of The Duck's Bill. I fear this newspaper is going to end up like the ill-fated RoboReport and never make it into production again. Have your sources gone silent, QuackersFeatherbeak? Has the verbal jousting with the late, great Viviana cut you so deep that you have nothing left to say (probably because you just repeated her words anyway)? Will we be left with only The Harold of The Underworld to sate our need for news, a publication without a single interim report to its name? I shouldn't be the one asking the hard hitting questions, especially now with you having scoured the pond for other feathered helpers. 

I am slightly concerned with the tension that is building up between QuackersFeatherbark, QuackersFeatherberk and QuackersFeatherbeak. 

Perhaps we could have a true Mexican standoff to settle this.

FatGrin, our (my two brothers and I) news outlet will resume publication shortly. I spent most of yesterday in the thralls of a dark identity crisis that threatened to tear my plump, feathery body asunder. I've recovered, however, and am happy to announce I no longer have the vapors. Learning of the existence of two incredibly similar brothers is nothing like eating a worm or a nest of larvae: it's a difficult thing to swallow. But it's times like these you just have to take a pop into Honesty's Funny Lounge Comments and pull yourself back together.