The sights of BEAVER FALLS, PA
THE COLLIDE-O-SCOPE
The Collide-O-Scope is one of the hottest clubs on the edge of the Corporate/Combat Zone. This is one of the few places where both Edgerunners and your more "respectable" folk can mix and mingle without constantly watching their backs. The club is owned by three fixers who conduct business out of the club. The three also "liscense" other fixers to use the club as a base, and even rent office space to a few. The Collide-O-Scope offers Wednesday - Sunday night dancing, is closed on Monday, and has a Mosh pit which is able to accomodate challanged duels. The duels are scheduled to take place during the band breaks. There are video monitors set up around the club to display odds, give a little information about the combatants, and show the fight - otherwise they are showing the band that is currently playing, or may be changed to any channel by asking one of the serving staff.
The club itself takes up the ground floor and basement of an old five story tenement - it has no windows. The second floor houses six offices, and each of the floors above is home to one of the three fixers who operate the joint. Walking in to the club one finds a large room with a long bar to the right along the front wall. (There are stools present only on Tuesday night.) The opposite wall is made of chain link fence which over looks the Mosh Pit in the basement. Across the pit is a small stage where the musical entertainment plays. In the middle of the far right wall is a set of sound dampening doors which open when touched with bare flesh (heat). This second room is rather vastly different from the raucous hall outside. It contains four private booths, almost always taken by some fixer looking to set up a score. (Be sure you are aware of this week's hand signals which indicate who's buying and who's selling and what, etc. Holding your drink from the opposite side, and smacking your lips when finished is not just a simple gesture in here.) The stairs to the basement - where the really heavy partying is goping on - are here, but those passing through know to keep quiet. Disturbing the wrong person could get you thrown out - or worse yet, get you challenged!!! The door next to the stairwell leads inot the main office - which doubles as a greenroom and a private meeting room. It has a door to the stage and access to the upper floors of the building.
The stage is rather small. It juts out above the mosh pit only slightly, and either a chainlink fence or a set of steel shutters can be drawn across the rounded procenium. Across from the office doors a set of loading dock doors with a serious meat-locker bolt system allows access to the alley out back. These locks are not electronic, and the doors can not be opened from the outside. The only real entrance or exit from the club is through the front door. (Suffice it to say that the owners have a rather high "tax" to pay the city officials with regard to fire and occupance laws, illegeal substances and trafficking, etc.)
The basement is almost entirely open, houses a smaller bar, two bathrooms, and the mosh pit. The stairs come down right into the middle of what is usually a shoulder to shoulder dance fest. The rectangle of the Mosh Pit is concrete block wall on its short sides (the stairs and the building foundation) and chainlink fence on the other - with a door in the center of each. The general rule here is, if you're not willing to bleed, stay out of the Mosh Pit. Lastly, the back wall of the basement is painted white every other week, and patrons are able to scrawl messages and what not all over it. (The phrase "check the basement" is used to inform an Edgerunner that there is a message for hir.) The streetslang codes here can be pretty clever, and some prestige can be gained by using wording that will deliver one message to the Edgerunners and another to the Corps - this is usually at the expense of the more traditional members of society. It is a thing to be remembered if whoever repaints the wall (and it is kept a mystery) decides not to cover over your message at the end of the week.
OWNERS OF COLLIDE-O-SCOPE
Black Bonnet / T-Rex / Cindy
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