Witch Hunt: IC, The power of Magic corrupts completely. Options

[2bit]

Malleus and Orion:

You notice that your contact to the outside matrix has been cut off since you passed these glass double doors. You can detect other commlinks in the area, as well as the nodes Horizon and Emergent Cryonics Local Mesh. You have a few moments to peruse them while you wait. Check the spoiler if you choose to do so.
Horizon node:

[ Spoiler ]

Subscribing to the Horizon node opens a public web page about the building and the leasing company that owns it, Mayer-Klein Leasing. There's a lovely holopic of the building with the rising sun behind it (no doubt Edited heavily). Mostly it serves as a repository of links to educate users about the services offered, and publicly display its compliances with local municipal codes. There is a Starbucks cafe on site - first floor. Next Wednesday there's a cookout in the patio area out back (weather permitting), sponsored by M-K Leasing. There are links to report facility issues, such as HVAC malfunctions, network troubles, and burned out light bulbs; but it requires a login.

Emergent Cryonics Local Mesh:

[ Spoiler ]

Subscribing to this node opens a different version of the EC public web page. The information presented is geared toward investors and prospective employees. It talks about how great it is to work at EC and how bright the future of refrigeration technology is. There's an employee login link here as well.

** unless you have something else to do beforehand **

About a minute to minute and a half after Sasha walks off, out in the lobby you see a brown-skinned human man emerge from the guts of the office building, make eye contact with you, and walk toward the waiting room you're in. You realize from his picture earlier, of course, this is Jessie Reynolds, your prime point of contact in Emergent Cryonics. He picks up his pace a bit and a moment later he's extending his hand in warm greeting to you.
Jessie is a middle-aged man, probably pushing 50. Dark skin, dark eyes, graying black hair, and kind of short, only about 162cm.

"Good morning! Good morning. So glad you've arrived. So. . . how are things?" he asks, raising his eyebrow and lowering his head to indicate he's asking if everything's fine with Sasha and the IDs.

[Cakeman]

Orion rises from his seat a heartbeat after Malleus does and greets Jessie Reynolds with a handshake after Malleus has.

"Good morning Mr Reynolds, my name is Harry Smith. I hope you understand how much we value you as an employer in this very case considering what we just went through to make our meet go smoothly. However, we'd like you to take measures to erase your records of our visit. Now, let's go somewhere more private and discuss the matter at hand."

[2bit]

Malleus & Orion:

Reynolds pales and looks noticably more agitated when Orion mentions erasing records of their visit.
Through gritted teeth, he says quietly, "Yes - let's - talk. . . in private."

Just then, Sasha returns with ID badges and hands them to you. They're attached to a lanyard, worn around the neck, and bear the photo from your SIN along with your name and "Contractor - Oracle Consulting" on an orange background. "Here you go. Now, your clearance level is 3, which is Orange. You'll see three colored bars on the side of your badge - green, blue, and orange - those are the colors of the areas you have access to. Blue areas just need the RFID, green requires voiceprint authorization, and orange areas require handprint verification. Your badge also acts as a passkey for terminal operation and network access. Just keep an open subscription in your commlink for your badge, and you'll be able to connect your personal commlink to the Local Mesh. Okay? Okay. Call me if you have any questions. Mr. Reynolds, they're all yours!" Sasha smiles as the two of you leave Sasha, following Jessie Reynolds through the badge-reading turnstyles and into the guts of the office building.

"Please, let's just talk when we get to my office," he says, quietly.

Past the security desk is a bank of four elevators that respond to Jessie's call immediately. You note that further toward the back of the building on the first floor is a large conference room with glass doors, and two sets of double doors on the left and right which both require a badge to open. A sign indicates that the doors to the right lead toward the Starbucks.

Jessie takes you to the 5th floor. The Emergent Cryonics corporate logo is displayed prominently on the floor here. On either end of the elevator landing are frosted glass double doors with the EC logo. A camera in the corner keeps watch. Opening the doors requires Green level access, which Jessie handles. He leads you down a hallway which passes by a cubicle farm. The lighting isn't too bright, and it's rather quiet. The background noise of computers isn't too loud, either. You pass by four people on your way to his office, who all stop to look at the new faces. You also see that this cube farm area is pretty well covered by camera surveillance.

Jessie has a corner office on the 5th floor, on the east side of the building (the side not overlooking the Sound). The thick fog outside obscures all vision, but Jessie closes the blinds with a mental command as you all enter. Before he even reaches his desk, a commcall has been placed.

"Hello?" The voice on the other end is very nasally.
"Malcolm, this is Jessie. Please see me in my office."
"Ok. Be right over."

Jessie has a seat at his desk, breathing a long sigh and looking at Orion, trying to choose his words. "I'm sorry if either of you were forced to give out more information than you wanted. I'll do everything that I can to see that your records are 'lost'. But please, unless we're in this room or some other private place. . . and most areas in this building cannot be considered private. . . don't say anything to attract undue attention like erasing records. I really don't know whether or not Sasha overheard that. I know you were being discreet with your voice, but please, use more discretion."

[Cakeman]

Orion blushes slightly.

"Well, that means we've made one mistake each then due to poor communication. Let's make sure there are no more. Why don't you tell us everything from the beginning, including your position here at the company and if anyone is opposed to us working here."

[imperialus]

Orion seems to be doing an acceptable job managing the meeting so Malleus lets him do so. He turns on his eye recording unit and tapes the meeting into his Transys's memory while keeping the comlink on passive. He also ensures that his Sony is set to send the information direct to High Rise but other than the typical greetings and plesantries doesn't say much.

[yoippari]

As High Rise considers how to best get through the grate he decides to check the "new mail" icon thats been flashing.

<1 new message 3 minutes ago: ><This is Jake checking in. I have finished my security sweep of the parkade. Overall, no major security problems. A few blind corners, but they are well lit. My only minor concern is that the video sensors in the area might be vulnerable to hacking.><end of messages>

I should get back to him, let him know I don't know anything going on yet.

He opens a chat window while still in vr so there'll be a delay in response due to the different view of time while in vr.I wonder if wired sams have the same problem but without the helpful timing software, waiting for someone to respond and then talking as fast as they think.

Once the voice line is open he greets Null with a: "You called?"

[2bit]

Monday, March 10, 07:30 Emergent Cryonics, West Seattle.
Malleus & Orion

Jessie Reynolds nods, saying, "Yes, alright. Well, the beginning of. . ." he makes a head and hand gesture indicating annoyance, "this. . . really starts with Malcolm Jackson, one of our engineers. We're both Sons, as you know, and although we don't really socialize with each other outside of the office, I am his direct manager, so naturally I was the one to come to with his. . . " he raises an eyebrow to indicate something very interesting, "findings. . ."

"Before he arrives, I should tell you that Malcolm is a bit. . . " he rolls his eyes, "paranoid. . . a bit too paranoid for his own good. Do you follow? So, I was skeptical when he said he knew there was a mage hiding out in the engineering function pod. Now, we've had a few. . ." he looks off to the side and wrinkles his face, "incidents. . . lately; odd things, but explainable. There was a fire in the building, for instance. That's when Malcolm first came to me, saying the fire was the handiwork of a rogue spellcaster, masquerading as one of our engineers. It was, I admit, very suspicious. I mean, it happened in the men's room of all places. Just down the hall from here. It really rattled us."

"I had my hands full handling the logistics of managing a team while cooperating with the resulting Lone Star investigation. I told Malcolm he had to have proof to bring accusations like that to bear. He told me he would get it. A week later, one of our employees, a software guy, confesses to setting the fire! Word is, he was a diagnosed manic depressive with bipolar disorder, and kept it from the company. No one had any idea, and no one really knows why he just snapped. Maybe he stopped taking his meds; maybe the gloom finally got to him. Living under a gray blanket for five months can do that to a man, if you follow." Jessie lowers his head, indicating what he's just said is supposed to have some deep significance.

"So you'd think that was that, right? Neg. Malcolm comes to me the next day and puts a chip on my desk. 'Here's your proof', he says." Jessie leans over his desk conspiratorialy, like he's about to share a bit of juicy gossip. "It's a video of an invisible person!" He seems disappointed in your lack of surprise. "You've seen it then. . . ah. But what you don't know, and what's the most. . . " he wags his finger at you, "revealing. . . is whose cubicle was being rummaged through. Chuck's!" He smiles triumphantly, but realizes you don't know who that is. "The software guy, you follow?"

There is a knock at the door.
"Come in, Malcolm," says Jessie.

Malcolm steps in. He is a caucasian human of average height, but a bit pudgy. He wears a blue shirt and black tie, AR gloves, and glasses also obviously designed for AR. He closes the door behind him. He smiles politely and professionally to the two of you.

"Hi. Malcolm Jackson, engineering." He extends his hand. "You must be the, uh, consultants, right?"

[Glyph]

Null reflexively nods at High Rise's reply, before realizing that the gesture won't translate over the commlink, and subvocalizing again.

"Yes. As I said, my security concerns are minor, but perhaps you could examine them yourself - you have more experience in hacking counterintrusion measures. Ah... how are the other consultants doing? Have they checked back in yet?"

"I really wish this was a secure line. I feel so out of touch with the others - if anything goes wrong, there's no way I'll even know it," he broods, his thoughts growing more agitated. He massages his temples as he paces restlessly, feeling an excess of nervous energy.

The solitude of the now-deserted parkade does not bother him - in fact, he prefers it to the rush of incoming workers that just ebbed a few minutes ago. But he doesn't like being out of contact with the others. He can't protect them, or warn them. He knows about all of the tricks that mages and spirits can pull, from showy blasts of energy to more insidious attacks, and he wishes that he could be examining the scene first-hand, with his heightened senses and deep knowledge of magical threats.

[imperialus]

Malleus stands and offers his hand to Mr. Reynolds after he enters.

"Yes, Please call me Mr. Dawson. Sounds like you've had quite the past few weeks. Mr. Reynolds here was just filling us in. If you don't mind, I'd like to hear the rest of what he has to say and then get your input. Hopefully we'll be able to have this situation resolved within a few hours. It's my experience that unlicensed awakened tend to reveal themselves pretty soon after the heat gets turned on, figuratively of course!” Malleus chuckles slightly and smiles as if in a shared joke. “We don’t want the pundits screaming that we want to start a round of medieval style witch hunts. Anyhow as I was saying, mages tend to be quite cowardly at heart even if they can be ruthlessly conniving when they feel their secret is safe so it’s usually easy and painless to discover and remove unlicensed mages."

[2bit]

Jessie and Malcolm both chuckle along with Malleus. Malcolm takes a seat near Jessie.

Jessie then turns to Malleus and says, "Alright. I'm almost done anyhow. So, Malcolm brought this video to me. I checked it out; it was genuine. We put our heads together about what to do, and come up with an action procedure. No one can know about it, that's a prime criteria. No one inside or outside the company can know that we've been infiltrated by a rogue magician. I mean, we're trying to stay profitable, here!" He grins. "I'd heard rumors that the Sons of Apollo had vigilante members that handled problems like ours, if you follow. So, I sniffed aound a bit, and someone introduces me to Mr. Ancient. I think you know the rest."

[yoippari]

"I'm reluctant to hack our client's system while our guys are in there. I think I've found a way to get back in contact with The Others but it'll take another minute or two. Once that gets done I'll see if they can get me some kind of security access."

High Rise brings the fly-spy back to the van and gets a Kanmushi booted up. After closing out of VR to get back to the physical world where fly-spies can't open the window to a wired van he picks up where he left off with Null. "Until then I can send a fly-spy over there if an extra set of eyes would help."

[2bit]

Jessie finishes with, "You. . . you haven't mentioned anything about mages related to your visit to anyone, have you? That would. . ." he puts his hands together in a worried expression, "complicate. . . things. I've explained to the higher ups that your visit is a part of resizing the engineering function pod."

[imperialus]

"I belive I mentioned that Oricle Consulting helps companies ensure their compliance with the Registered Mages Act. That should be easally explained however as a proactive effort on your part to train your employees to keep their eyes peeled for magical activity as part of your restructuring."

[2bit]

Jessie replies, "Yes, yes that sounds good. Now, ah, Malcolm. . . I told them about the fire and about Chuck; why don't you tell them how you first came to suspect illegal magic at work here."

As soon as Malcolm opens his mouth, it's clear he's not the most socially well adjusted man. (One could say his manner was uncouth)

"Sure, uh, first I just wanna say I'm glad something's finally being done about this and I think it's shameful it's taken so long for any action to happen. I mean, it's not your fault, Mr. Reynolds, you're just doing your job, but uh, it's just that, um. . . y'know, society's uh. . ." He trails off. "Mmrphh... sorry, can I start over?"

"So, I was first suspicious last year when uh, things just kinda starting going well for me, yknow? Because things never go well for me. Not like, everything. -uh- But before that, things were not so good at work or at home or. . . or anything. Anyway. . . so, uh, the company was doing really well that year, they uh, gave out bonuses which they hadn't done before since I started working here, and uh, our engineering pod was getting all the uh, funding and stuff that we needed, which, heh, heh, yknow, never happens. Anyway, someone, I think, Tracy Stevens, said something like, uh, 'It's like we're charmed,' and uh, that was. . . I said to myself, that's it, that's exactly it. Someone's put a spell on us, or - or, someone's a mage or something. And that just opened my eyes. So I started looking, yknow? For signs. Suspicious behavior. . ."

The longer he talks, the more Malcolm begins to perspire.

"And it was there. I didn't have to look far, I mean. I heard noises, uh, like whispers or - or. . . in my cube, while I was working late and no one else was there. We've had power interruptions for ah, for no reason. Edmund's terminal got swiped, uh, and later they found it out in the dumpster, melted down. Awhile back, this is before the fire, the cabinet in Chuck's cube fell down for no reason at all. We also had false fire alarms go off, um, twice in one day. Weird stuff. Uh, and then that fire in the men's room. That's when I knew for sure. Mr. Reynolds, uh, said I had to get proof, so I started uh, setting up a little camera in my cube to uh, capture stuff, yknow? And then the day we found out about Chuck, my camera gets that invisible mage on video. I was like, 'Got you drekhead!' heh heh, uh, cause, uh. . . and Chuck, they got to him. They made him confess to a crime he didn't commit! Uh, the mage set that fire, and Chuck was just there to take the uh, the fall. It's like a fall guy, he. . . I showed Mr. Reynolds the video the next, the next day and now, " he grins, "here we are!"

[Cakeman]

Orion listens to Malcolm with a grave expression on his face and nods now and then to show he's listening attentivly. When Malcolm is finished he quickly glances at Malleus, who also seems to be pondering the situation, before looking at the two engineers again.

"Well well, with the video and all I understand why you suspect a mage hiding here. I'd guess Chuck was fired, but is his cubicle cleared out yet? The Star must have made a little investigation even after he confessed and rummaged through it, or did they just accept it and arrested him?"

"If it's not removed by now I'd like to have a look through Chuck's stuff to see what the invisible mage was after. Are personell already here or would a quick visit right now be less conspicious?"

While waiting for an answer, Orion mentally creates a short text message for Malleus:
<You think there was some significance to the timeframe with Chuck there before? I didn't really catch it. Can a mage do that to a person, warp his mind so he confesses? Otherwise: melted terminal, fire alarm, fire in men's room. A little out of control it seems, or just learning. Also, you think you can ask for acess to the personell files for our offsite computer department? So that High Rise can set up a list of suspects. They seem to like you, better you ask.>

[2bit]

Jessie replies, "Oh, no, his personal effects are long gone, sorry. Lone Star took anything that wasn't company property. They may have bounced back some of those things to his family or attorney, I don't know, but we haven't seen any of it. The cube's already been set up for a new occupant. Office space is kind of tight around here. His working files, emails, personal downloads, etc. are still on the network though. I could get you access to those."

[yoippari]

High Rise gets the drones situated and on their way to the roof, once again going off in some other direction before heading toward their actual destination, just to play it safe. When they actually get there the Fly-Spy sets the Kanmushi down near the HVAC exhaust and lands it somewhere somewhere that it can get a clear signal into the ducting. The Kanmushi is sent right into the ducting either a meter down or until it is forced to turn, which ever happens first.

Then, he tries pinging Malleus again.

[2bit]

Searching. . . Contact - Commlink identified.

Clear as a bell, High Rise. You're in.

[2bit]

Jessie continues, "So, is it just the two of you? Do we need to arrange for any more passes or network access?"

[imperialus]

"we should be ok. If we need to bring more personel in we'll let you know."

[yoippari]

High Rise sends a text to Malleus <This is High Rise, I finally got a signal into the building so we can all communicate. Anything you need from me now or just wait for instructions? Also, Null says there is some security dead zones in the parking garage, corners hidden away from cameras or something.>

He figures Null should know he can get through to the others and sends him a similar message.

[Cakeman]

Orion nods.

"We're eager to get to the bottom of this. Though it's fun what you say" (and here Orion nods at Malcolm) "about everything going so well with funding, bonuses etc. Just out of curiosity, if you run a datasearch for personell since everything started to go well, who or what group have gotten the most raises or bonuses?"

I hope Malleus is as sure of finding that mage as he seems.

"Oh, and once we start talking to people, can you monitor who's leaving and tell us immediately? If word get's out we're asking nosy questions people with things to hide might decide to leave early or something. As soon as someone checks out as sick or otherwise takes the rest of the day off, please send us a message asap."

[imperialus]

Malleus accepts the text message and compresses the comlink recordings from the time they entered the meeting and sends the file to High Rise

<<Glad to have you with us.>>

He then turns to their employers and says
"I'd also be interested in what kind of projects Chuck was working on before the fire and who he was working with. I think his immediate co-workers would be the most likely to have the reason or capability to frame him."

[2bit]

Jessie turns to Orion and replies, "Hmm... that's something to think about. The work group as a whole has definitey had a good year, though I'm extremely wary of chalking that up to the work of magic. Our prototype has passed every review it's needed to, but that's just because of the excellent pool of talent we have here. With regard to raises and bonuses, to be quite honest I'm not sure I like where that train of thought. . . " he crosses his arms, "ends up. I hope you're not suggesting I've been put under a spell and approved any undeserved compensation. Anyhow, our company personnel files are available at your clearance level, so you'll be able to see for yourselves. Once we're finished here I'll escort you to a temporary office we've set up for you with a terminal to access company files. Just about anything you want to know about the employees will be there."

"I'll be tied up in meetings most of the day, but I'll be able to check my messages pretty often and answer questions for you. If you want to know whether or not you're authorized to access something, just search for it. It'll say right there if your clearance is high enough to access it, and what type of permissions you have - personnel files, for instance, you'll have read-only access and won't be able to download anything to your commlinks. Generally speaking, it'll be that way for most sensitive material, if you follow."

"Also, your clearance will get you into building security. Accessing the badge tracker requires voice and fingerprint verification, and needs to be done at a terminal. With verification, though, you'll be able to subscribe your own commlink to a feed where you can track individual employees and set alerts for yourself. You'll also be able to receive feeds of security cameras for areas you have access to. It will provide you with a substantial amount of oversight."

"And, before I forget, Mr. Ancient left word with me that there would be four of you, and so far I've been ok with the fact that only two people showed up. But. . . and this is a bit. . ." he unfolds his arms, "awkward. . . erm, where are the other two then? Gentlemen, I am going to need to meet everyone to authorize four payouts. I'm not naive; I know your line of work can be. . . er. . . cutthroat, if you follow. I didn't mean to be deceitful when I asked if it would just be the two of you, but this job isn't exactly off the books. Do you follow?"

Malcolm just sits there, basically, letting his boss do the talking. His eyes glance back and forth between the two of you and Jessie.

[Glyph]

Null is pleased when he hears back from High Rise. He spends a few moments marshalling his thoughts before composing a terse text message to the crew in the building.


<[Null]-Good to have contact with you again. Won't distract you, but could you send any data you gather? That way I can analyze it, and we won't have to play catch-up after your meeting.>