[IC] Behind the Shadows, First Iteration Options

[Mickle5125]

Dick had positioned himself so that his back was to the rest of the cafe and sits back, enjoying a soycaf and a blueberry pie. He takes a moment to fiddle in his bag before speaking up."As Cruze said, we should get an idea of what everyone does so that we have some idea of how we stack up against the mission."

He grins at Cruze as she explains the ID. "Clever idea, that. I'll have to remember it. I personally prefer my own..." Here, his ID shifts to identify him as Markus Shindler of Jiffy Klean Janitorial Services as his features begin to subtly shift. His ears round out completely, his skin darkens a couple shades, and his eyes turn brown for a moment before everything shifts back to his previous appearance.

"As you can probably tell, my specialization is fitting in. Mimicry, if you will. Give me a crowd to fit into or a person to replace, and I can do the job. Shadowing the Target's going to be my role in this endeavor, most likely."

[ Spoiler ]

Dick activated his white noise generator just before they started talking shop.

[bmcoomes]

Sitting in a position to view as much of the coffeshop Warrior gets confortable in the ergonomic chair while listening to Cruze and Dick then chimes in. Well as I'm sure that you all haven't figured out by now I'm you Samurai type but I'm rounded enough to help around too.

I hope the coffee is good here...

[pbangarth]

Professor mulls over what has been said, and adds his own self-assessment.

"I bring to the table a broad education in social and natural sciences and languages. I am very good at collecting data, whether it's buried in the ground, hiding on the astral plane or languishing in a library. I notice things. Whatever I experience, I remember. I have a knack for finding patterns and meaning in the most confusing rush of information. I pick up languages almost without effort now. I have some ability to fit in with exurban societies and am comfortable in the outdoors. I am physically more fit and resilient than most of my academic colleagues. Former colleagues. *wry grin*

"Having recently entered ... this new line of business ... I have begun to magically enhance my physical capabilities. In conflict I am capable of a support role, and am glad there are others here for whom that is a primary focus. I can patch up injured people. In an effort to be flexible according to the needs of the situation, I am able to sustain a magic spell cast on me. Fortunately, my training in concentration allows me to overcome even quite severe distractions."

"Unfortunately, unless I missed something," Professor opens up his mind to the astral to be sure, and what-the-heck, to check the crowd. "I don't think anyone present can cast spells. Hmph. 'Best laid plans of mice and men', indeed."

[ Spoiler ]

Man, if I had used Edge on this one! Astral Perception 5 hits. I don't know how you want to deal with scanning a crowd. Professor's Heightened Concentration should be able to easily overcome the distraction of keeping astrally aware for a while.

[Sir_Psycho]

Blackie observes the black car, his cybereyes solemnly recording the depressing moment. There's no screeching of tires, no sudden burst of acceleration, it's like a black cloud drifting across the intersection with a dark portent. He takes a long drag, and waits for the anonomizer to put him through to his old friend. There is a japanese baby wrapped in a slightly oversized kimono perched cross-legged on the pavement at his feet, with a katana laid carfully beside, stubby hands wrapped around a ball of light.

"Diagoru", Blackie extends the greeting with his thought voice, "I'm in trouble."
The baby rolls his eyes in a gesture too brutally sarcastic for a child.
"Don't give me that.", Blackie protests, "I didn't go looking for trouble. I was following a flimsy lead on DeeCee Veritas' death, and they found me. I don't want to talk about it on this line, but it's some serious drek. I've got feeds I need you to take a look at in offline storage, and I need to back them up on your servers, but I need your help keeping the transfer secure. You've been waiting for something this juicy for a long time."
As he finishes the thought, Blackie watches the Shadowrunners file out of the bookstore, making trails to the coffee shop, "Look, I've got to go exercise my consummate social skills.", before bidding the child farewell, he notes with a definite tone of disgust, "I'm working in a team. I better hear from you soon.

Moments later, Blackie's firewall is working dilligently against the flood of garbled matrix traffick and the garish liminal advertising, as well as the more insidious subliminal ones. He doesn't take his gloves off, and his hands work continuously, folding and straightening out his napkin. A tiny pool of black soykaf black soykaf lines his empty cup, and he runs his tongue across the filmy residue left in his mouth as he stares down his new team-mates, listening intently.

"Sports journalism," he spits with contempt, as he tries to tune out an obnoxiously upbeat game commentary in the background, "Bottom-feeder scum."
Realizing he's being stared at, Blackie clumsily commences his spiel.
"I specialise in B&E, surveillance and information warfare. Information is power, right? We sure as ghost learned today. I know if there was a war, and there is, mind, I know I'd want all the ammunition I could get. You could say I've got a shadow-doctorate in photojournalism from the school of hard knocks." Blackie stumbles clumsily over his feeble attempt at humour, failing not so much in concept, but in delivery, "heh... ah."

[Chrysalis]

The woman circles around the tables and professionally fills the soykaf cups. For those who do look and keep an eye out, the rest of the crowd ignores the group. Either caught up in their own world or then in the fanciful relationships that circle themselves with, whether virtual or real.

Professor

[ Spoiler ]

The crowd is non-magical. Most of them show the auras of people burned out from monotonous work, the spark of imagination so important for it to work seems to have ground down to be sharp little pencils with the power of corporate drudgery.

[Mickle5125]

Dick waits for the waitress to leave again before turning to Blackie. "Information warfare? Does that include matrix activities on both sides of the legality question? Feel free to speak plainly. Nobody will be able to hear us."

[pbangarth]

"As I thought, it's just Dick and I who have Magic, and we are both adepts. Better see if I can get some outside casting done. I'll message Zoltan, see if he can help."

"Hoi, Zoltan. When you were hooking me up with equipment, you mentioned it might be possible to have spells cast on me, for a fee. I could use a connection like that in the near future. Something like Improved Invisibility would be good for my current needs, or failing that, Increased Reflexes, maybe. You know the score. Can you give me a contact, maybe a reasonable price range? I can sustain a Force 6 spell. If I can afford it, I would consider paying the magician for pushing the spell to be more effective than the Force would normally allow. Thanks for any help you can provide. Professor."

[Sir_Psycho]

Dick waits for the waitress to leave again before turning to Blackie. "Information warfare? Does that include matrix activities on both sides of the legality question? Feel free to speak plainly. Nobody will be able to hear us."

Right. Speak plainly. No bullshit, just truth.
"Yes. I had been decking for a few years even before the crash. I have a practiced proficiency in the use and understanding of a range of programs across the spectrum of legality, and I have headware to enhance my abilities, in particular a math sub-processing unit and an older yet still high quality encephalon.", He taps his temple twice with a gloved finger to emphasize, " To be honest, illegal uses are my speciality, although I admit neither my hardware or software at my disposal in DeeCee are worthy of a military system or corporate core, I think they'll be sufficient. I'll explain this opinion."

The waitresses appearance shakes his confidence, and he loses the thought for a moment, taking a tentative sip and the scalding kaf. He double checks to see if he still has anyone's attention and continues, "Basically, I'm making an estimation that a block of apartments will have a fairly standard network, with levels of personal network security the perogative of the individual apartment inhabitants. With some planning and maybe some legwork, I'm cautiously confident I could crack it." he says, though he doesn't sound. "I'll add that I have loyal matrix specialist contacts who could easily make up for my short-comings if need be. My immediate thought was actually infiltrating the apartments, possibly using the tried and true hacked maintenance order and a disguise in an armoured workman's disguise I possess. I'm good enough with electronics to be able to place some taps and bugs, and I also have cybernetic visual and sonic replacements, and an attention co-processor to allow me a greater ability to split my focus and more completely analyze that data.

But now it seems that role may not be required. I don't have the necessary vehicle interfaces, but a command utility would allow us a better coverage of security and ability to counter-act an assassination attempt, unless the apartment security system maintains drones, then I could subvert them through that system, if I could get appropriate access, or even the program I use to give faked command codes with, assuming I can pilfer the access identification of the a security or admin level user. Me and my contacts can get started on that as soon as we all figure out our roles as relevant to the run, although it will probably preclude me assisting much with the matrix focused legwork, in particular investigating the other deaths, but I'm sure you have skills and contacts to take care of that particular aspect of legwork. Keep me updated with your findings, though, as I've found even seemingly irrelevant personal information can be relevant to a successful matrix run.

Keep in mind that I can be on call to assist physically if situation demands, as I have experience dodging bullets and firing a pistol, and my move-by-wire reflex enhancement and motor-efficiency expert system gives me an edge against unaugmented opposition. Unfortunately, the best firepower in my current arsenal is a modded praetor submachine gun, and I don't currently have the soft to operate it proficiently..." Blackie trails off, finally losing confidence and draining his soykaf before sinking back in his seat. During further conversation, he pours some salt onto the table and scrapes it about the table with an antique coin he produces from his pocket, neurotically separating the pile into lines and stirring it up again ad infinitum.



OOC:

[ Spoiler ]

Upon listening to his plans, the team may notice his negative quality, incompetency in Leadership, so his ideas might sound a little unconvincing, although your characters may or may not consider the value of his expertise upon re-analysis.

[Mickle5125]

"So," Dick points to Blackie, "We have infiltration and matrix covered, plus anything else we can provide 'softs for," points at the Professor, " first aid and brains," points at warrior, "hurting things," shifts the finger towards Cruze, "Infiltration and sexiness with a nice side of psychotic pain-dealing," and finally points to himself, "and infiltration, disguise, and personal interaction covered. Anything I'm missing?"

[pbangarth]

"We seem a little short on the magical end of things. Spellcasting, counterspelling, that sort of thing. The three other doctors who have been killed recently all died by fire. That would certainly be doable by magic, or spirits. If I could get a hold of police reports on their deaths, and even a look at where they died, I might have a better idea of what we might face."

"Yup. It looks more and more like I'm going to have to develop my Psychometry skills. I will be lucky to get anything out of the death scenes now."

[crizh]

Hey Doc, I was planning on keeping signal leakage under control using fibre and laser links. Would you be able to sense any Astral shenanigans using my endoscope if I can lay a proper fibre run from the apartment to somewhere convenient in the building? Perhaps the roof, basement or a vacant apartment?

I think if three of us are capable of pulling off some sort of utility worker scam then that is what we should go with for wiring the apartment. I think we should do proper counter-surveillance first though, including sending a real utility worker to the building on some sort of trumped up job.

I'd also like to look at getting access to a vacant apartment in the same building or one nearby. I definitely want to scout a vantage point I can safely snipe from, something secluded with decent sight-lines within a klick or so of the building.

[pbangarth]

"No. Astral perception doesn't work through fibre optics. You can use them to direct the casting of a spell, but in the astral plane the cable would just be a long tube of blackness. The walls would be just as impenetrable to that sense. I would have to be in the apartment to be able to see any astral entities appearing there.

"I've got workwear, but no fake insignia to match yours. I can drive the truck, though." *smile*

[Chrysalis]

November, 18th 2069, 22:30: The Korean War Veterans Memorial

The rain continued to pelt down on the ground. One of the nicer additions to the Washington D.C. and by extension Arlington was the inclusion of an automated taxi service. It was entirely drone operated. It meant that instead of having a to take many taxi for a party of four they could comfortably fit into one. It was though an invitation to every hacker to find ways to circumvent the paying part. Rumors also started circling of all sorts of transactions being offered in them. From drugs to call girls. Of course D.C. did not like that. Even if it power was greatly diminished as the new UCAS it still had that old U.S. pride.

The taxi did not reek of anything, only of a mild earthy pine scent. The leather creaked and crackled as if new. The only thing was the ubiquitous video camera discreetly tucked on the top of the canopy of the cab, its all-seeing-eye shrouded in an inky veil.

The cab left you off at the pre-arranged location. The path that winds its way to the memorial well illumined. The trees on one side large and thinck, and on the other the expanse of open ground. Showing the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. Above, the night sky was shrouded in dark clouds and in strong AR reminders that for at least tonight the skies around the area were a no-fly zone. Unlike in Seattle where this meant that anyone with proper money could move, this in D.C. meant exactly what it said. Those drones that were in the air were large, angry, heavily armed and had no moral predilections on not carrying out their task with ruthless efficiency.

The Korean War Veteran's Memorial area was partially darkened. The only sound was the pattering of the rain against steel helmets. The statues commemorating the Korean War seem to walk up the hill, their blowing ponchos giving motion to their column, if one strained one could almost hear them talking to one another. It is not possible to tell how many there, and could be there are legions emerging from the woods.

The ground was hilly, with little perch or place to hide. The lead scout gripped his M-1 Garand in his cold hand. Looking ahead and illuminated in the cold bath of white light displaying his features in profile. Water drips from his nose, waiting to be brushed aside. The basalt of the wall showing images of the war in high relief.

Reaching near the lead scouts eyes trace to rippling pool ahead. The goal of his night time patrol. Around the pool are inscribed different words: Dead, Wounded, Captured, and finally Missing.

The node demands almost standing on the engraving to see it. Perhaps not one of the first places to hide something, but also in a place very hard to find. There is a notice blinking in soft yellow. A transaction that has been frozen in place, the sum of 60,000 nuyen is seen the request is to which account should the money be deposited to.

The node displays a manila envelope. The manila envelope contains four files with the names: Dr. Edward Turner (MD), Dr. Charles Parnell (MD), Gen. David Miller (MD), Dr. Robert Karkoff (MD).

[pbangarth]

"It would appear we cannot split the payment directly. We must do so after the money is transferred out of here. Seeing as I am the least capable of effecting misdirection in this regard, and the least likely to survive an attempt to do so, I offer one of my accounts for the initial transfer.

Ah. Files on all four. Good. I wouldn't mind perusing the files of the three slain physicians for clues."

Once transactions and anything else that needs to be done here are finished, and we are in a -relatively- safe place, Professor would like to study the three files to see if there is any pattern or modus operandi. Perhaps Dr. Karkoff's file will help those who know such things to begin arranging the surveillance.

[ Spoiler ]

Once the chance arises, Perception Test to seek patterns in the three files: INT 5, Perception 6, Analytical Mind Quality 2, Analytical Mind adept power 2: 6 hits. [/spolier]

[crizh]

Jane Garrety passed a number of other die-hard joggers as she splashed her way down the South side of the Reflecting Pool. The hood of her jumpsuit concealed most of her nanite forged features but did not stop the rain dripping off the end of her nose.

As the others pulled up in the taxi she looped south ahead of them towards the Korean War Veterans Memorial. She didn't get as far as the full sized sculptures of GI's before she hooked left along the path that led along the North edge of the tree-line towards the District of Columbia War Memorial.

She paused at the apex of the curve, a mere 100ft from where she had turned off. She leaned her ass against the trunk of a tree, where she had some shelter from the rain, and leaned forward to catch her breath and take her pulse by pressing her silicon sheathed fingers to her wrist.

The reassuring weight of the Ingram clinging to her back slowed her heartbeat. She let her sensor packages reach out and scan the drop site for the tell-tale signs of an ambush, her eyes were closed as she leaned forward with her hands on her thighs, her diaphragm heaving, but her vision was cluttered with AR displays.

[ Spoiler ]

She scans the whole area with Ultra-wideband Radar, Thermographic and a Radio Signal scanner before methodically working through all the spots she would have used to cover the pick-up with the Sniper Rifle if only she could get to them.

The VA in Arlington, the Lincoln Memorial, The State Department, The Federal Reserve are all good examples. Any roof within LOS with clear sight-lines to the Memorial.


I have no idea what sort of tests you'll need.

[Chrysalis]

Gen. David Miller. Former Head of the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Born: 3 January 1989. Died 8 November 2069

David Miller according to the attached autopsy report died in his car. The body temperature across his body was in excess of 1500 Kelvin. It is of the medical examiners opinion that while staged to look like a car accident the body had to be have been covered in accelerant and set on fire to cause the body to become a secondary fuel source.

Dr. Edward Turner. Former Head of the Division of Emerging Infections and Surveillance Systems at the National Center for Preparedness, Detection, and Control of Infectious Diseases (NCPDCID). Born 5 January 1989. Died 15 November

The article attached said that he had been killed in O'Malleys a local bar in Norfolk, VA. According to patrons there had been an altercation with a young woman elf in the bar and Mr Turner, during the altercation the woman had caught flame and had in panic spread the fire. Mr. Turner heroicly tried to save the woman and prevent the fire from spreading. Three people died during the fire including, Mr Turner; seven people were treated for second degree burns and smoke inhalation. O'Malleys burned to the ground. The fire department has not issued a statement yet.

Dr. Charles Parnell. Former Dean of the Department of Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Born 3 January 1989. Died 16 November

The article is from University of Maryland Diamondback. It mentions a fire which spread through-out the house. Him, his daughter Lisa and two grandchildren, Jennifer (16) and Mark (12) were killed in the fire. By the time the fire department had arrived the fire was blazing out of control. It took three hours for the fire to be extinguished. The the burned out husk of the local gardener, Simon Erhardt, was found on the grounds the next morning as fire crews sorted through the rubble raising the death toll to five. Fire officials suspect that this fire can be linked to several other warehouse fires around Maryland.




Professor's evaluation

[ Spoiler ]

The evaluation based on the three files above indicate that the M.O. unsub as being as follows: The unsub started off with killing the general on a remote road. While indicating premeditation it also indicates a hesitancy. The fire in the bar indicates a level of boldness - maybe this was too much and caused the unsub to panic? The house fire indicates a further refinement of the process. The unsub is going from one singular target to multiple targets to targeting groups. The cycle of attacks while seeming to escalate may not be as the deaths are during the Friday or Saturday, possibly indicating that the unsub works a 9-5 job. This is further supported by the times of each death being in the evening.

The majority of arsonists are white, male, from mid - to high income families and work alone. Usually they have been arrested for starting fires before and would have a juvenile record. It is unusual for arsonists move to murder and the use of fire as the primary weapon is also highly unusual. Most professional arsonists do not work full-time and are usually part of a criminal fraternity. The use of fire in those case are often for the clearing of property, harming a rival's business, or insurance fraud.

It can supposed that the use of a highly flammable accelerant and the complete destruction of the two structures are an indicator that the arsonist gains sexual release with the size and scale of the fire. Most likely enjoying on viewing the fire unfold after being set. This would indicate a pathology whereby he needs a larger fire to gain a greater sexual release. Again this would further indicate the pathology of a serial-arsonist and less of an arsonist-for-hire.

It is highly possible that the unsub was in the bar during the fire. From the reports it is unknown what was being used as an accelerant. Most serial arsonists use a specific type of accelerant as well as a methodology, which would indicate other fires which have been set and describe in further detail the development of the pathology of the unsub.

The next fire will most likely be larger and will have a greater death-toll.

[Crizh: General perception test please. Roll big.]

[crizh]

[ Spoiler ]

Perception

Intuition (2) + Perception (4) + Vision Enhancement (3) + Attention Co-Processor (3) + Actively Searching (3) + Edge (5) = 20D6 = 5 Hits

Ha, that was a waste of Edge...

[pbangarth]

GM:

[ Spoiler ]

Chrysalis, I don't understand how the timeframe is accelerating. The first death was on 8 Nov.; the second on 10 Nov., so two days apart; and the third was on 17 Nov., so 7 days apart. This data would indicate a deceleration in timeframe, no? Is Professor picking up something I'm not?

[Chrysalis]

Professor:

[ Spoiler ]

Peter, yeah, the analysis was shoddy. So I re-wrote it. It should be loads better now. I also changed the dates of the deaths as well to fit better with the current analysis.

Jane:

[ Spoiler ]

The Korean War Veterans Memorial was empty. Above a three drone larger cousins of the Nimrod, Raptors, patrolled the D.C. night's sky. With a wing span of a one lane high-way it was huge for a drone. The weapons pods though are what were of more concern, having enough firepower each individually to devastate a city block or hold up a tank company. They flew past silently, veering left in a zig-zag pattern. The only method of noticing their passage was the mandatory UCAS identifiers blinking in and out of AR.

There was nothing going on at the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the areas around it were filled with a myriad of government AR displays. Nothing stood out.

[pbangarth]

Professor can't help a quick glance through the files of the three murdered doctors.

"Well, well. I can see some behavioural markers even at a glance. I have some preliminary ideas for further exploration by the team. I also think this weekend will be interesting."

A look of professorial confusion comes over him. "This is Monday, or early Tuesday morning, isn't it? We'll need some time to follow a couple of leads here."

EDIT: "Ah, Monday... of course. Good. we have time to set up."

[bmcoomes]

[ Spoiler ]

Perception test: Actively scaning the area visualy.

Intuition 4 + Perception 3 + Vision Enhacment 3 + Actively Searching 3 = 13d6 (7 hits)

I don't have anything else to add other then I'm there and keeping watch over the team. I have my Savalette Guardian in a conceable hoslter and one of my courage fine blades all concealed.

[Chrysalis]

The final file hung in the AR world. It said simply:

Dr. Robert Karkoff

[ Spoiler ]

DR. Robert Karkoff born: 2 January 1989.
Adopted by Helen and Vincent Karkoff 8 April 1989
Graduated Brown Medical School June 1997
Intern Christian Aid, Uganda 1997-2003
Post-graduate studies, virology, University of Capetown, South Africa 2003-2005
NorBAC - South Saharan liaison 2005-2020
World Health Organization - head of study of the VITAS outbreak. (2018-2055)
Establishes in place safety procedures which limit the number of deaths from VITAS II

Married to Lisa Katanga 2002-2063.
All of his immediate children goblinized, one adopted elf son Chester Karkoff born 2050.

Location: 2923 N Glebe Rd, Arlington, VA, 22207

[Commlink identifier]

Image of Robert Karkoff

Warrior

[ Spoiler ]

You feel the hairs prickle at the back of your neck, something moved in your peripheral vision. You turn your head to look and there is nothing there.

[Crizh: another perception test please]

[crizh]

[ Spoiler ]

No Edge this time.

7 Hits.

[Chrysalis]

Jane:

[ Spoiler ]

You see one of the statues move, it is slowly walking up among the statues towards the reflecting pool. He is wearing a poncho and carrying a rifle in his right hand. He is definitely keeping to the shadows.

[bmcoomes]

"Guys be on alert I think there is something here. Scan the area without giving your intention away." As Warrior scans the area again with ultrawideband radar scaner from his pocket this time. "I'm scaning our location now with ultrawideband radar now to see if we have anything."

[ Spoiler ]

Ultrawideband Radar Rating 4 100m range
Perception Test: Intuition 4 + Perception 3 + Vision Enhacment 3 + Actively Searching 3 + Sensor 4 = 17d6 (9 hits)