IC: The Alicia Marks Affair Options

[Glyph]

Rent pauses only slightly before taking the steps down. He decides that it's probably better to search the basement first, before hitting the larger area of the upper floors.

[TinkerGnome]

The stairs leading into the basement end in slimy water about three steps from the floor, looking at the stuff and remembering the neighborhood, Rent decides that down probably isn't livable. Unless slightly irradiated water up to your knees is a selling point in this area.

[Glyph]

Rent smiles, shrugs, and turns back upstairs. He is ready to retake the lead again at the landing, but won't if Chip and the others stay in front. It's all good to him.

[snowRaven]

Chip stands aside, comfortable in letting the troll take the point. From what he hears, trolls have superior vision in the dark, rivalled only by dwarves — at least that's what his dwarven friend says — and in all the matrix games people always shoot the trolls first, so it feels safer, somehow.

[TinkerGnome]

Some doors hang on the hinges of the rooms on the first floor, though it is clear that they have seen better days. A few rooms show signs of habitation, tough none of the rooms without doors look to have been recently inhabited. The closed doors block any view into the room beyond.

Toward the end of the hallway, one door has a peeling paper label stuck to it that reads "JC".

[Glyph]

"Hmm... 'J' for Johnny? Could very well be," thinks Rent. Cautiously, he tries the doornob, ready to put some muscle into it if the door turns out to be stuck or locked. For a normal apartment, he would knock like any civilized visitor, but he imagines such social amenities are pretty much nonexistent in this part of town. He would only be alerting their prey, and right now this is their only solid lead to Ms. Marks whereabouts.

[snowRaven]

Chip has a bad feeling about this...

He carefully pulls his sawed-off shotgun out of the coat pocket, holding it close to his side instead so he can either hide ot or aim it as needed, then he moves up right next to Rent, applying some of the combat tactics he's never really paid much attention to during matrix games.

[TinkerGnome]

The door swings open reluctantly at first, but then of its own weight. The room gaping beyond is relatively dark, even with sunlight still streaming down outside. In the front, Rent can make out more of the dim interior than the rest of the group and immediately realizes that the places is unoccupied. The air is cool, without the faintest trace of body heat.

As eyes adjust to the dim light and normal vision comes into play, and the wrongness of the room becomes apparent. The smell wafting from the closed room is also a good indication that whatever is going on is long over.

A short investigation later, and the source of the smell is obvious. Someone appears to have very messily, and quite slowly, killed a man and hung their body on the wall of the room. The place is covered in blood that is dry and old by this point.

The only sound is the buzzing of flies.

[Glyph]

Rent wrinkles his nose in disgust at the scene. He doesn't speak until he is back in the hall, away from the grisly sight and sickening smells. He lets out an explosive breath.

"Well, there went our best lead. This doesn't bode well at all for Ms. Marks, but I was afraid this story wouldn't have a happy ending as soon as I heard that there was no ransom demand. I was going to head to that coffee place, and maybe I will later, but at this point I think we need to talk to the Golden Skulls."

[snowRaven]

Chip hesitantly steps into the room, holding his breath and fighting back the urge to throw up his breakfast. He takes a moment to make sure he isn't stepping in any bloodstains - dried or not, he doesn't want it on his shoes - and takes a look around to see if he can spot anything useful.

"Damn, I knew I should've chosen that forensics soft instead of medicine," he mutters.

[TinkerGnome]

The room is a complete wreck. Aside from the body, it looks like the rest of the room was given a very thorough treatment. Furniture is smashed trash and debris are scattered everywhere.

[snowRaven]

Chip moves out of the room, one hand pressed against his mouth, the other holding a credstick. He leans against the wall, taking a moment to calm himself, but in the end his stomach wins the battle and he throws up.

"I need to get out of here. Get some air," he says to the others and walks past them.

Once outside, he shows the credstick to the group.

"I found this under the mattress. The guy in there was a human man, in his late twenties, so I think it's likely it was our man Johnny."

[Glyph]

Rent frowns, pondering the information. Actually, doing so helps to distract him from the disturbing images that he has just seen.

"Yeah... I guess we can check out the ID on it to be sure. But what would someone with a Silver Credstick, even if it's just fake ID, be doing in a hellhole like Glow City? The only explanation I can think of, is that he was hiding from someone. Maybe Ms. Marks got caught up in his troubles."

[Fu-Man Chu]

Syl

Following the others to Glow City, the derelict buildings began to bring back memories of her youth to Syl - yet the conditions in this part of the Barrens were even worse than what she knew. Even the gangers didn't claim territory like this for the only things that lived there were worse than they. But this was a job, and so she forced the emotions down, letting her artificial eyes adjust to the gloom.

Upon reaching the room, the familiar scent of death told the AfroInd what she confirm as the door was opened - that someone had found their target before them. Someone was was not just interested in information. As difficult as it was, Syl took in the images and directed them to the storage memory of her deck.

[snowRaven]

Chip hands the credstick over to Syl.

"Can you check this and see what you find out? Maybe we'll get something more to go on..."

[Fu-Man Chu]

Syl

Taking the Credstick from Chip, Syl examines it visually before surveying it's contents.

[TinkerGnome]

The credstick's funds don't display because of the silver status of the stick, but the name attached to the account does. Alicia Anne Marks.

[Fu-Man Chu]

Syl

Syl hands the credstick back to Chip, [COLOR=orange]"I can't access the funds on the chip, but the account belongs to our target. Unfortunately, we won't be able to question our friend here as to how he came to be in its possession."

[snowRaven]

Chip pockets the credstick, and paces back and forth in the hallway.

"At least we know she was in contact with him after she disappeared. Maybe she was here when Johnny got killed - though I hope not. We should do some more digging on Johnny boy here - see if it's his enemies we should start looking for..."

He stops and looks at the rest.

"Let's go."

[Fu-Man Chu]

Syl

"''fore we take off, any of you think you can get some info out of whatever neighbors Johnny has?"

[Glyph]

Rent looks back at the dilapitated building with a rueful expression and sighs. "Yeah... I guess we could check a few other doors, at that. If anyone else is in this hellhole." Resigned to a bit more unpleasant poking around, Rent heads back inside, this time heading to one of the doors on the side of the hallway to check it.

[TinkerGnome]

Most of the rooms with doors are abandoned, though they show signs of habitation in the recent past. The few which aren't hold the bodies of their former residents. Most of them appear to have been shot execution-style, though a few apparently went down fighting.

They've been dead for several days, at least as long as Johnny.

As the group moves back toward the front of the building, and down to the landing and the front door, Rent tries the door to the apartment at ground level which opens into the stairway. The door doesn't open, appearing to have a functional lock.

[snowRaven]

Chip steps up beside Rent, unslinging his backpack.

"Lemme take a look at that, I might have some tools and stuff to open it."

He takes a closer look at the lock, to see what type it is.

[Fu-Man Chu]

Syl

"May I suggest we try knocking first?" Syl says as the men appear to be deciding on bypassing the lock.

[Glyph]

Rent smiles. "That's real polite and all, but do you really want to alert someone who is likely to be either a dangerous fugitive or someone so scared they might do anything?" He shrugs. "On the other hand, we've probably made enough noise already that it's a moot point. But before we knock, let's get clear of the door, in case whoever's in there takes a more ballistic approach to 'open up'."

Standing to one side of the door (and making sure the others are out from in front of the door, too), Rent raps sharply on the door a few times.