Jack Abner

**Jack Abner** is a character in The Smoke Room. A miner and a client of Samuel's, he entices Sam into leaving Echo with him so they can start a new life, while secretly planning to rob him blind. The robbery goes wrong and Samuel kills Jack in self-defense, setting the events of the story in motion.

## Appearance

Jack is an older man, and is described as short, scruffy, and bony. His species is unknown, but descriptions allude to him having fur and a tail long enough to drag on the ground.

## Personality

Jack presents himself as cheerful, witty, and effusive, to the point of overfamiliarity in some cases. He later reveals a more ruthless side, and shows no remorse for hurting those he dupes into trusting him.

According to Yao, who nearly became another of his victims, Jack was "an unethical drunk who substituted earnesty for wit." Yao further reveals that Jack often boasted of his grand aspirations, but disdained the planning and procedure that could have actually made his schemes feasible. From what can be gleaned from his fellow miners, Jack's tendency to use false compassion and camaraderie to disguise his true conniving nature was part of a long pattern of manipulative behavior.

## Story

### Early Life

Not much is known about Jack's life. He alludes to living as a drifter and freight-hopping many times before. Upon arriving in Echo, he found work in the mines and came to live in a bunkhouse with Nikolai and Yao. At some point, Yao stumbled upon some flakes of gold leaf in the walls of a cavern deep in the mine and jokingly showed Jack his discovery. Using this story as a basis, Jack then began claiming that he had found a valuable gold deposit and attempted to persuade some of his fellow miners to bring their possessions and follow him into the cave, likely intending to rob them blind. Jack eventually even targeted Yao with this con, though he was by then accustomed to Jack's schemes and refused to accompany him.

A few weeks later, Jack had his first appointment with Samuel. Sam later recalls that Jack shared more personal information than any of his other clients, although it is unclear how much of this was sincere, and that he was very sexually experienced. The two grew close over the course of a week, and when Jack proposed that they pool their money and start over on the West Coast, Samuel took him up on the offer.

### Prologue

One Sunday evening, Jack arranges a rendezvous with Samuel on the outskirts of Echo. Sam expects that they will be catching a train out of town together and brings his life savings at Jack's instruction. Jack then claims to have found forgotten bags of gold deep in the mines and spins a tale for Sam of using the money to vastly enrich their new lives on the West Coast. He leads Sam through a back entrance into the mines and down into the cavern with the bags, but when Sam bends down to discover that they are actually filled with rocks, Jack bashes him over the head with a shovel and tries to rob him. To his surprise, Sam retaliates and a fight ensues. Jack attempts to kill Samuel with a pickaxe but it catches on the ceiling of the cavern as he swings it, giving Sam an opening to get ahold of it. After another brief struggle, Sam kills Jack by driving the pick into his forehead.

Jack's body is discovered several days later by a group of miners, including Nikolai and Yao, which sparks unrest among the workforce. The longer the murder goes unsolved the more desperately the miners, and the townspeople at large, clamor for the culprit, and Sam is left to reckon with the fallout.

### Nikolai's Route

Nik's route partly explores how Jack's murder leads to increased tensions between the miners and their managers, in addition to elaborating on the relationships that Jack had with those who knew him in life. When the miners eventually go on strike, Sam sees picket signs demanding justice for both Jack and Dimitri.

At one point, Nik and Sam are in the basement of James Hendricks, one of the owners of the mine, when they find a box containing photographs of several miners, including a shot of Jack, Nik, and Yao together.

## Relationships

### Samuel

Jack only met Samuel twice, but he managed to charm him over the course of a week. While he put on a cheerful and affable façade, he actually cared little for Samuel and likely saw him as an easy mark.

### Nikolai

Nikolai and Jack worked together in the mine, and the two were somewhat familiar with each other. Nikolai was aware of Jack's true nature through Yao and thus disliked and distrusted him. Nikolai was a member of the party that discovered Jack's body.

### Yao

Jack and Yao both worked as miners. The two seem to have known each other somewhat well, as Yao was willing to joke with Jack about gold flakes within the cavern. When Jack later attempted to deceive Yao in the same manner as Samuel, Yao saw through his lies and began to distrust him. Yao considered Jack to be an unethical and untrustworthy man whose fate was inevitable, leaving him unsurprised when he and a group of his fellow miners discovered Jack's body.

## Gallery

Several of the photos that Nik and Sam find, possibly including the only depiction of Jack currently shown in the game.Jack's body is shown in the games' prologue; this is possibly the first time Jack has been revealed after Samuel kills him.