Beckett Moore

**Beckett Moore** is a character in The Smoke Room who appears on Nik's route. He works as a foreman for the CSCG mining operation. Porter is his twin brother.

## Appearance

Beckett is a sturdy-looking Gila lizard with green eyes and black and orange scales. He wears a tan work shirt and black pants, as well as a black canvas hat. Beckett has a prominent tail with black spikes near its base. His concept art shows that he has small orange and black ridges on top of his head.

## Personality

Gruff and straightforward, Beckett puts business first but is also personable, and believes that knowing the workers under him is part of his duty as their manager. He is very knowledgeable about the mines, takes safety seriously, and demonstrates level-headed leadership even in the face of a crisis, all traits that tend to win him the respect of his subordinates. He clearly values decency and honesty, having cut his brother Porter out of his life for underhanded behavior, and strives to be fair and deliberate in his judgments of those working under him.

Notably, despite his prominent position within CSCG, Beckett claims to have very little personal fealty to either of the mine's bosses. He appears uninterested in petty power dynamics and is not easily deceived or swayed from his convictions.

Beckett acknowledges that Echo has "a problem" that defies easy explanation, but does not seem to believe in the paranormal or those who claim to understand it.

## Story

### Prior to The Smoke Room

Porter Moore is Beckett's twin brother, and the two were once extremely close. Five years before the start of the story, however, Porter was in a municipal election against the brothers' cousin Amos and decided to gain an advantage over him by publicizing genealogical records from their family indicating that Amos was likely to soon develop an inherited degenerative condition. Amos was deemed unfit for the position, cinching Porter's victory, and then committed suicide once he began to develop symptoms of the disorder. Beckett holds Porter responsible for Amos' death and considers this willingness to sacrifice family and decency for self-advancement unforgivable. Porter seems to want to put an end to the estrangement between the two brothers, but Beckett clearly does not.

At some point, Beckett became one of the three foremen supervising the CSCG mining operations in Echo's Danicka Mine. Beckett seems to have been involved in some sort of incident that left Chang feeling angry and vengeful toward him, presumably while Chang was still an employee of the mine and possibly related to Chang's missing fingers, although this is unconfirmed. Beckett disapproves of the miners' union but claims not to be loyal to the bosses either, positioning himself as something of a neutral party in the mine's simmering labor disputes.

Beckett sometimes experiences what he calls hallucinations and has sought medical attention for them, given his family's medical history.

### Nikolai's Route

Samuel meets Beckett on his first day of work in the mine, although initially Beckett is too focused manning a large pneumatic mining pick to take notice of him. Beckett curtly points out that without any tools Sam is unsuited for work, and is skeptical of Sam's claim that the mine's co-owner James Hendricks has promised to pay for Sam's equipment personally.

Beckett then scolds Ben, who escorted Sam down into the mine, for not realizing that Sam cannot work without supplies. Ben's inattentive negligence also indirectly causes the pick that Beckett has been operating to dangerously malfunction, much to Beckett's frustration. Nikolai then arrives and Beckett reassigns Sam to his care. Afterward, Sam remarks that it seems like Beckett can already tell he does not belong in the mines.

Beckett reappears later in the day with Sam's supplies, furnished by James as promised, and warns Sam that some of the other miners would turn on him if they knew about such favoritism from the boss. He asks outright what Sam's relationship is with James, and seems satisfied when Sam is just as confused as he is. After setting Sam up with a locker, Beckett explains that he will store some of Sam's tools elsewhere and give them to him one by one, so no one notices Sam's sudden windfall and becomes suspicious.

When Beckett directs the miners to begin a horizontal expansion of the mine, both Ben and Dimitri speak up against the plan because of possible risks, but Beckett assures them the situation is safe. He also directs Ben to help Nate with the explosives required for the expansion.

Beckett shows Sam how to use a heavy sledgehammer to drive a pickaxe into the rock, a potentially dangerous process that requires deft cooperation between two miners and risks crushing the hand of the one holding the pick if the strike goes awry. After allowing Sam to strike once while he holds the pickaxe, Beckett gives Ben the hammer and makes Sam hold the pick. Sam narrowly dodges an errant swing from Ben, and upon realizing that Ben is acting recklessly and may not have been aiming for the pick at all, Beckett directs both men towards separate tasks.

After this incident Sam, Nik, and Yao make a covert plan to be put on the same team in the mines so they can protect each other, but Yao rules out asking Beckett directly for the shift change since it would be too risky to let the mine's supervisors know the three are associated. Instead, Yao sends Sam to enlist the help of Chang, who expresses bitter resentment toward Beckett for unknown reasons. Seemingly in order to get back at the foreman in some way, Chang tells Sam to meet with Beckett's brother Porter and to tell him that Beckett can never admit that he was wrong, but misses and cares about him. According to Chang, this is something that Porter has wanted to hear from Beckett for a long time. When Sam delivers the message, Porter seems stunned and becomes more cooperative, but does not elaborate on his side of the relationship between the two brothers.

The next day, a faulty stick of dynamite causes a cave-in, injuring Dimitri. Ben had just borrowed and returned Dimitri's dynamite pack on Beckett's behalf, and so Beckett tries to reconstruct what went wrong and determine whether the incident was malicious. Paul insists that Ben is to blame, but Beckett withholds judgment. Beckett tests every other stick of dynamite from Dimitri's bag and no others are defective, which seems to be evidence against any tampering, but he stops short of either exonerating or condemning Ben. He decides the accident is still most likely someone's fault, and promises an inquisition. The next day, Beckett forbids anyone other than himself from working with explosives.

Later on, if Sam remembers the locker combination that Beckett gave him, he finds a wallet belonging to Beckett on the floor of the mine after it falls out of the locker. Inside is a photograph depicting Beckett, Porter, and their cousin Amos, although Porter's head has been torn out of the image.

Beckett next finds Nik, Paul, Felipe, and Sam at the miners' strike that breaks out in the wake of Dimitri's injury, and Sam notes that he looks as if he hasn't been sleeping. Paul confronts him again about the possibility that Ben orchestrated Dimitri's accident, but Beckett is terse and simply asks to speak with Nik and Sam in private. Nik declines, asserting his right to speak with Dimitri before having any meetings with mine management, but Sam agrees.

As they walk together, Beckett disparages the union to Sam but also admits that he doesn't especially care about the bosses, preferring that Hendricks and Briggs stick to running the business while he is left to oversee the technical aspects of the mine. He claims to stand for 'fair work for fair pay,' and warns Sam to be wary of miners who don't want to do their fair share. He then leads Sam into a private office and asks if he was paid to plant the explosives that hurt Dimitri. Sam incredulously denies this, insisting that it must have been Ben, but Beckett explains that Ben, who is loyal to the mine's bosses and desperate for a promotion, had nothing to gain from such a risky plot that has mostly resulted in a disruption to the mine's productivity. He also remarks that the union has more to gain from such a 'stunt' than the management, and seems to have sought Sam out partly due to a suspicion that rigging the explosion was a drastic tactic by the union miners to justify their strike.

When Sam says that Ben is obviously suspicious because he has "the look of a killer," Beckett asks how Sam would know such a thing. Sam is vague, but Beckett seems understanding, and even reveals without going into specifics that he knows what it is like to be in a desperate, fearful situation. Sam then inquires about the Moore family's reputation for knowing things about the supernatural. This appears to remind Beckett of his brother Porter, who may be involved in such matters, but he expresses deep disdain for all those who believe in the occult and for Porter in particular.

However, once Sam asks outright if there is anything otherworldly in the mines, Beckett confesses that there is a 'buzzing' that gets worse as the tunnels go deeper, and that it can cause strange sounds and dreams that he used to think were his own imagination until others started experiencing them as well. He concentrates, then takes another look at Sam and suddenly stumbles away from his chair in terror before frantically backing away, only to then recompose himself just as quickly with a "dull, cold look" and calmly walk out of the room.

That night, Nik is summoned to Briggs' office and Sam follows him, then eavesdrops through the door to their conversation. As Nik and Briggs exit the office, Miranda the CSCG secretary, urges Sam to hide in the conference room, where he finds Beckett working in the dark. If Sam failed to open the locker and never found Beckett's wallet, then Beckett explains that he discovered it there himself and accuses Sam of stealing it. Sam insists that he could not have stashed the wallet because he immediately forgot the combination and never even opened the locker, which Beckett accepts on the grounds that Sam is 'thick as tar,' and their subsequent conversation is brief.

If Sam got into the locker and does have the wallet, however, he returns it unprompted and Beckett is understanding, remarking that new hires are sometimes subject to pranks by the other miners. He also admits that he already searched Sam's belongings, since 'most people steal when they're desperate.' Sam notices the defaced family photo inside the wallet and asks Beckett more about his relationship with Porter, which leads Beckett to recount Amos' fate.

Sam may then further press Beckett about his terrified reaction during their earlier meeting. Beckett admits his history of hallucinations and recounts that he saw something right behind Sam that looked like a warped reflection of him, but with eyes too small and far apart and a mouth and teeth too large, all in an intensely uncanny face that shifted like gas. Beckett remarks that it was not his worst vision, but was bad enough to leave him shaken.

## Relationships

### Porter

Porter and Beckett are twin brothers and once shared a close bond, but Porter's ruthless treatment of their cousin Amos has led Beckett to disown him. Beckett openly detests his brother, referring to him as a 'thing' and 'spawn from hell' and seeming to barely even consider him a person. Beckett prefers openness, which he contrasts with Porter's fixation on keeping secrets. Beckett also appears to dislike occult matters, which Porter may be involved in trying to understand.

Porter, however, seems to want to make amends; he wishes for Beckett to apologize and acknowledge being wrong about something, which Beckett apparently refuses to do.

### Samuel

Beckett is a pragmatic supervisor who values good workers, and despite his curtness he appears supportive of Sam. He helps cover up James' favoritism so the other miners aren't resentful, and despite Sam's inexperience Beckett is willing to risk his own hand in order to hold a pickaxe steady for Sam to hit with a sledgehammer on his first day. Beckett considers Sam a possible culprit for both the theft of his wallet and Dimitri's injury, but in both cases seems convinced of his innocence after confronting him about it.

Notably, at one point Beckett has a vision of a horrifying face looming behind Sam that elicits an intense momentary terror in him.

### James

James Hendricks never comes down to the mines where Beckett and the other miners work, and Beckett appears to have a low opinion of him partly because of this, referring to him as a fastidious 'dandy.' He is quite content that the bosses stick to their business aboveground however, and enjoys being left to do his work.

Beckett is apparently aware of James' often frivolous behavior, and initially suspects that Sam is a rich friend of James who has come to play at being a miner.

### Briggs

Beckett seems to share Briggs' dedication to keeping the mine running as efficiently as possible, and says he can understand why Briggs is upset that productivity is lagging. He claims to have no particular fondness for the mine's bosses, however, and does not espouse any specific personal loyalty to Briggs.

### Ben

Beckett is Ben's direct superior in the mine. He is shown repeatedly chastising Ben for his dangerous carelessness, but nonetheless does not immediately accept that Ben could be responsible for Dimitri's injury and struggles to understand what Ben could stand to gain from such a plot. Despite Ben's frequent efforts to suck up to him, Beckett seems to treat him the same as he does any other worker, albeit slightly more harshly because of his erratic behavior. Beckett recognizes that Ben wants his job, but does not seem worried about this fact.

### Chang

Little is currently known about Beckett's relationship with Chang; Chang appears to feel that Beckett wronged him in some way, to the point that he seeks revenge against him. This may be related in some way to the injury that Chang received on the job, but this is not yet confirmed. Chang is also clearly aware of Beckett's complex history with Porter.

## Trivia

* Beckett and Porter are ancestors of the Echo characters Flynn Moore and Mayor Moore.
* The text boxes for Beckett and Porter are the exact same color, befitting their status as seemingly identical twins.

## Gallery

DefaultGrumpyAngryHappySurprisedArtwork of Beckett and Porter arguing posted alongside the August 10, 2021 build of The Smoke Room.Concept art for Beckett and Porter featuring Flynn drawn by Shtarfish.Concept art of Beckett and Porter drawn by Shtarfish.