The following is all stream-of-consciousness background information designed to set the context of the adventure.

Militant Black Civil Rights movement in the melting pot of the Seventies. Young, white liberals and hippies flock into the brownstones. Police intervention and raids have unsettled the populace. Half a dozen groups vie for political power, while a stretched Police force keeps the peace on even days and breaks heads on the off. One of the local drug warlords is killed in suspicious circumstances; blame falls on another. Tensions are escalating to a tipping point and mercenaries have flooded into town looking to take advantage. Occupying seedy motels and backstreet dives, they plot and gamble and fight and whore.

It’s hot – a long dry heat that keeps everyone on edge. No one sleeps for long and the funk of hundreds of thousands of sweaty bodies, car exhausts, cooking oil and melting asphalt sits heavy over the streets. Hookers travel in pairs and carry snub-nose revolvers. Business is good, or at least it was up until the murder – public enough to get the holier-than-thou District Attorney and the Mayor up in arms – it being an election year and all. Pledges have been made involving ‘cleaning up Jokertown and its miscreant population’ – easy targets swaying in the political breeze – the only wind in town.

Putting on a show of strength and commitment is what is required. Mayor Dallas is a Republican hardliner – not one to be taken lightly. There are rumours of ‘family ties’ to the district – nothing proven but apples don’t drop far from the tree if you catch the drift. Word on the street is that local law enforcement is about to get a Federal boost as the Mayor calls in some favours – you can smell the Franklins.

Rursus Aquam Ltd – a private security agency with serious Government contracts and an even more serious history involving ‘political reassignment’ in Panama and Bolivia are setting up an office not a block from the 26th Precinct. Black vans sans plate numbers have been rolling in and out of its underground carpark. All the windows in the building have been painted black, but the lights stay on 24/7 as do the guards and their pet canines. Locals are happy to give them plenty of real estate to breath and as wide a berth as possible in general.

Signs have started appearing around corners and 7 and Dimes – graffiti proclaiming ‘The Sleeper Awakes’. Down near Marcus Garvey Park, all the cats die in a single night and the nightly news reports fires burning without a single utility to stop them while the garbage strike climbs into its third month and the rat population outnumbers the human one by a factor of five to one.

Some of the ‘Denizens’ – Jokers almost indescribably deformed, have made court in the old subway system – permanently closed for repairs, while the only boats that dock at the West Harlem Piers are garbage scows with a smell beyond imagining. To top this, an unexplained illness has swept through the Joker community resulting in overflowing hospital clinics and hyperbolic television, radio and newspaper coverage. Word is there might have to be quarantine restrictions although no one really believes it will come to that – it goes in the ‘too hard basket’ alongside voluntary registration cards.

The only bit of good news buoying vox populis is the intimation a local Black DJ has managed to secure Muhammed Ali for a fight with a ‘Mystery Opponent’ – will he ‘Fly like a butterfly…’ against a Joker or maybe even an Ace – only time will tell…