Charm City [IC] Options

[pbangarth]

Well, here's an opportunity to blow the investigation. Tell the potential bad guy we are on to him. Bongo is not the best at sussing out logical consequences (Hey, his cerebral cortex won't be fully developed for years yet.) but alarms do ring in his head. Hmmm. The best lies have some truth in them.

"No, no," he tells the student, "We're looking into someone else, but there was a moment a few days ago when Frank and that person were in the same place at the same time, and we are just checking off all the leads, including unimportant ones, which," he sighs, "are usually almost all of them."

"By the look of you, I figured you might be in the Journalism program at Baltimore City College. So I took a stab to see if you were doing something similar. If I had been totally off base, you would have just blown me off. But you didn't. "

With a segue like that, this is when the uninitiated might give out information.

[sunnyside]

Selina and Tubesnake are able to watch the action on Bongo's feed. Mike's well soundproofed room is silent except for his light breathing and the light hum of the HVAC. With no recent rain, the stormdrains are pretty free from distraction as well. Not even any signs of ghouls living in the area.

A sad look comes over her face for a moment, but then she regains her composure and her posture.

"Baltimore City College is my Alma Mater, but I'm not here for any investigation. I was simply invited to a party. "

She starts to turn towards the elevators again but pauses. "Is there something about Frank you want to tell me?"

She pauses again. "I haven't exactly met him in person yet. It's....... always nice to know who you're visiting."

After another moment she adds, looking a bit more suspicious "And how did you know I had anything to do with Frank at all?"

[pbangarth]

How much can be told with a single look? Here is Bongo's take, running in the back of his mind as she speaks: A young woman, graduated from college with high hopes, soon to be dashed; at loose ends, money running short, difficult decisions arise; risks are considered.

<< Oh, oh. I think I see another fly buzzing close to the spider's web. Team, you have a few seconds to pipe in to keep me from trying to divert the fly, or maybe enlist her. >>

Bongo answers her, giving the team time to opine. " You know the right questions to ask. Maybe journalism is your path. I'll answer the last question first. I saw you looking at his building, and it looked to me like it was his window you checked out. I took a chance, and it looks like I got lucky. Yeah, information is power. Safety. "

He strokes his chin, in the universal gesture of 'thinking what to say next'. Which of course is exactly what he is doing. He looks at the window. He looks at the woman.

[Thanee]

<< She already knows you/we are looking into Frank. Don't see any harm in trying... >>

[sunnyside]

(OOC: Mostly waiting for Koekepan, but a little reply shouldn't hurt)

She gives a somewhat apprehensive glance at the window as well, and a somewhat longer one at Bongo.

"So you're staking out his window, and staring at people underneath? What is this all about? Have you been to one of his parties or something?"

[Koekepan]

Tubesnake has a few minutes, between checking (and verifying) utility maps and navigating plumbing to keep half an eye on Bongo's feed.

He thinks for a bit - and considers two avenues of inquiry, each of which might take a bit of a Matrix search. The first would be to run off her appearance, and try to look her up on that basis. The second would be to try to run a search on the college's alumni and courses.

Perhaps there's a list of students and alumni that he could use to cross-reference for this search. That's the smart place to start.

[pbangarth]

Bongo just knows that Tubesnake and Angel will be doing Matrix stuff, so he circumlocutes, including a few morsels of the truth. He keeps the video feed going.

"My coworkers and I are looking for someone. A few days ago this person was seen in the company of Frank, so I thought it might be an idea to do some legwork. No, I've never been to one of his parties. Do you know anything about them? How one gets invited to one?"

[sunnyside]

(OOC: Since I bothered to think about it I'll take it that Tubesnake actually does the searching. Normally searching the Matrix is an extended test that takes minutes. So still fast, but not so useful in a conversation. But finding the schools webpage shouldn't take more than a complex action. Figuring out they don't have a public list of students a second (they of course must have the records somewhere, but that's hacking rolls). However image searching linked socials narrows the focus to where complex actions seems reasonable again. With tubesnakes 7 dice (I'm assuming he doesn't go into VR) it takes 3 rolls to get six hits to find her in some images of her around campus with some friends and in a bar so she was actually at the school just a year ago. Tubesnake figures he'll have names for some of these people and other info soon (getting up to 12 hits). )

She seems unsure how to proceed with Bongo and generally looks nervous and uncomfortable with everything.

She then looks down from the window at a minor disturbance in the park. The female Ork with the fresh black eye from earlier is shouting at a human female on a bench and then manages to land a square kick on her, sending the smaller human onto the patchy grass. The Ork sits down and, while the human says something under her breath, that seems to be the end of it. Everybody else around pretends not to have noticed, if they even looked in the first place.

The Fox girls seems to screw up her courage again and she lifts her nose just a little in the air and says "Well, you just have to be cool enough to be invited. Now unless you've got something important to say I need to get going."

(OOC: I think Bongo gets 12 dice even on scent. With an impressive 6 hits) On the note of noses and air, Bongo catches her scent in the breeze as she turns to leave. Not the scent of deodorant or perfume, but the BO of someone who hasn't been able to get a proper shower in a while, though she's somehow managed to keep her face clean and her hair at least brushed.

She starts to move, but Bongo can tell she's still listening.

[pbangarth]

Having heard no opinion to the contrary, Bongo decides to share.

"Well, actually, yes, I think there is something you need to know. The person my colleagues and I are trying to find is a young woman, missing for about a year. She would be eighteen years old now. We were hired by her parents to find her. The first lead we got was an image of her at a bar in Baltimore five days ago, accompanied by a much older man with his arm around her. That man turns out to be Frank.

"Some digging led us to here where he lives. We're planning how to proceed. It's possible that Frank has some kind of control over the young woman, and may be using her for, well, you know what men use young women for. So here I am now, talking to another young woman who has some kind of special invitation to a party at Frank's place. If Frank is up to something nefarious, then I fear you too might be a target.

"So, yeah, I think it is important you know what kind of situation might be getting set up for you. I get a sense of people I meet, and about you I have a feeling you might not have a lot of secure options right now. On your own, looking for a way to make ends meet. If that is true, you would be just the kind woman a predator would find ideal.

"Does any of this ring true for you?"

[sunnyside]

She seems shocked for a little bit on hearing Bongo's words.

Eventually she chooses to run a short distance down the street. But, once sufficiently out of view of the park and the window, she stops leans back against one of the supports girding the downtown rowhome, and then slides down it so she's sitting with her legs up against her chest and her arms wrapped around those, and she starts crying and slightly rocking back and forth.

On looking around there aren't a lot of people on the sidewalk at this time, and they're doing a pretty good job of not sparing more than a glance.

Bongo notices an exception is one old lady with grey hair in curls and a nice purple dress walking from a car to the elevator. She gives Bongo quite the stink eye as she goes. The guard looks briefly to see what she's staring at, but gets back to business a moment later.

She eventually manages to choke out. "It sounded like so much fuuuuun. I could really use a fun party. They really liked my clothes and accessories. They weren't just asking everyone down there. I could tell. They were only messaging and inviting meeeee. And then who knows? You know? "

She sits with a deep frown for a while. Then gets a slightly suspicious look. "Wait. Wait. Let's see that picture quick."

All this takes some time. Enough for the fifteen seconds (5 combat turns) it takes Tubesnake to run down the socials. What he gets in that time is a name, Nari Ramos, some links to her socials, which are relatively public, and some basic metadata. Notably that about a year ago she changed her status from student to influencer, and that it appears she unfriended a great many of her friends and family during the run up to the presidential election a couple years ago. Her feed in those times was updated extensively, with multiple posts and pictures most days. Things have mostly dried up, at least in terms of her posting about herself publically.

[Koekepan]

Seems like a harmless little trove of data to share. Tubesnake does so without a qualm, letting the team know.

<<Hey there, folks. Looks as if we might be on the way to pinning some of this down. Here, have a look at this little datatrove. Angel, maybe you can cross-reference apparent locations based on metadata and backgrounds to establish a pattern of movement.>>

With that, Tubesnake returns to finagling a way from a latrine bowl into a ventilation shaft so that team slithery can stretch to a broader array of destinations.

[pbangarth]

Bongo shares the picture of Frank with Sophie with Nari, thought he doesn't use her name just yet.

<<While you folks are scouring the matrix, could you check on the face of the old woman in the purple dress who seemed a little too interested in me? Maybe she is with Frank. Maybe she is involved in ensnaring young women.>>

[sunnyside]

Nari curls up a bit tighter. She eventually says. "Yeah that's frank. He sent me some pictures. I don't recognize her. Mostly I was just hoping I'd catch you making stuff up, so I could go up, have a bunch of fun, and everything would be OK."

She doesn't seem to know what to say after that and things go silent for a bit. After a few moments she goes alert for a second and mumbles "He's checking if I'm Ok. He sent a message that says he saw some man bothering with me, and to let him know if I'm Ok and still coming because he says he's worried and is about to contact the guards."

--------------------

(OOC: Well, to keep things moving I think we've sorted out what Tubesnake wanted to do and sorted out how to read his character sheet, where he has navigation and some particularly relevant knowledge skills. Also the electronic group could be useful. He'd have been messing with this while Paul was still moving around, and could use that signal to triangulate positions to confirm being in the right apartment. He's got time to just buy some successes and get it sorted. Things get a bit less leisurely once out and about. )

Having figured out the right location, and battled against what seems like an entirely inordinate amount of flushing Tubesnake manages to get a little while of dark in the bathroom to get his wireless drone out while the wired one ducks back down through the trap, taking the plastic that can been coating everything but the other drone's feet. There's a bucket with a plunger and some cleaning products cluttering the area behind the toilet, making a pretty ideal hiding spot for a little soft drone. Looking up, the vent cover is the type you can just pull down to clean the fan. Being able to climb on walls, it should be able to get in if it opens easily enough the trick would be if anybody came in at just the wrong time and noticed.

On audio Tubesnake can hear the thump of electronic music, and darklight and flashes of light come around the gaps in the closed door into the dark bathroom. There are voices and laughter too. Hard to make out, but it seems a number of people are here.

-----------------------------

First to Tubesnake and then Bongo, Angel gives an overly enthusiastic "OK!" to their search requests.

[Thanee]

Following the interaction down in the park as much as she can, Selina wonders whether they are going to pay Frank a visit tonight, already. They do not really have anything solid, just yet. Mostly suspicions. The ward certainly complicates things. It will be more of a risk to get any information from the astral side. Maybe Tubesnake's approach will give them some better idea what is going on there, apart from the obvious.

She is quite distracted, though, as Mike certainly is fun company.

[pbangarth]

Bongo fills in the crew. << I've been made. I suspect the woman is with Frank somehow. I'm going to move away and be less interesting to them. >>

To the young woman curled up in a foetal position, " I think I will wander away now, seeing as Frank et al are concerned about me. The choice is yours, but I wouldn't have anything to do with him if I were a young woman.

"With our sharing of that image, you and I have contact info. If you want to talk later, let me know."

Bongo starts to walk back towards his first place in the park.

[Thanee]

<< Would be interesting to know, how the invitations are handled. Is it more open, like people can bring friends or tell others about the party, or is it invitation only. >>

[sunnyside]

Nari stays where she is and says, quietly, but loud enough for Bongo's hearing. "I'll just say you were some guy creeping on me, and I sent you away. " She doesn't seem to have decided what else to do.


On the Matrix Angel chirps back in trying to reply to everyone after a little time passes.

<<So Mr. Snake. Uh. Well. I could look up data, but I'm not really sure what to look for. One thing is I think she used to want everybody to know everything she did. And now it seems like she doesn't want anybody to know she's here. If we didn't know she was here. I'd have to dig around to find the trail of data she'd left being here. She only posts other stuff in public spaces. Not sure if that helps. Oooh, I could probably get data off of her comlink if you'd like! Bongo has her current comcode and everything right? >>

she then shifts gears and responds to Bongo

<< The lady had an open node, so I found her socials. Nothing linking her to Frank so far. Other than being in the same building. She doesn't seem the party type. Maybe she just thought you were doing something bad to Nari. You know, in the trids I've been trying to watch, people do stuff when a girl is crying in the street. >>

Last she shifts back to Selina, though she has the line open to everybody in the group.

<< Maybe it's the same as however you got in. I could look and see what might be on your comlink...or Mike's logs? >>

She has a surprising amount of emotion over VR. She seems quite eager to hack something, but seems nervous about doing it without somebody asking. Maybe the bit of trouble with Tourmalines security system earlier .

[Thanee]

<< @Angel: There would be some temporary building access code on my phone, yeah. Seems likely. Mike will have something more permanent, but I would appreciate, if you leave his 'link be. If he notices any tampering at some point, it would just reflect back on me. But I also meant how Frank is doing the invitations and what he tells the girls. Nari should know that, obviously. >>

[Koekepan]

Aha! A payoff!

<<OK friends, I have tactically valuable information. There's a lot of flushing in the local commodes, which suggests either titanic episodes of diarrhoea, or quite a few people. The presence of thumping boom-boom electromuzak tells me that it's a party. I have a drone infiltrated, and I'll be working on opening a vent so that I can get a Fly-Spy in there despite their best efforts at screening them out. Teamwork makes the dream work isn't just for metas, it works for drones too. I'll get you eyes on the party (because it sounds like one, too) ASAP and relay my stream for anybody who cares.>>

This done, he reaches back and to his left, and picks up the FlySpy to activate it once the exhaust fan's screening systems, inner and outer, are nicely popped out.

[sunnyside]

Inside the bathroom Tubesnake maneuvers the drone around to open the vent, which would be routine except for the door suddenly swinging open. (OOC: presuming AR for this as Tubesnake doesn't much care for VR infiltration is 5 dice (at least Tubesnake doesn't default, unlike the pilot) no hits, but not a glitch and no hits for the person coming in on perception with some penalties, so I think that works out in the drones favor).

Tubesnakes feed shows a large bear in a leather jacket charge into the room. At least it sort of looks like a bear. However a moment later the head to the costume is removed, showing it to be a troll. He seems to have some real commitment to the costume as his horns and dendrites have been mostly taken off and the surfaces smoothed. He has a flap on the front of his costume, but not the back, so he has to go through a whole affair of taking off the jacket, taking off the shoulder harness and sidearm, and taking off the whole rest of the costume to do his business, quite the distracting hassle.

He grumbles a lot fiddling with everything, but pumps himself up before leaving and burst out of the door with a loud "Woooo!!!" , which draws some cheers and laughs from people down the hall, and closes the door.

Once he's done nobody else enters the bathroom for a while, giving Tubesnake plenty of time to pull down the vent, get in, and pull the vent back up while the fan is off.

The good news about the vent system is they aren't using metal ducts, which require a strong signal to get through. Looks to be glass ceramic blends that won't burn. The ducts as such are narrow but wide, fitting in the sound insulated spaces between the floors. The tricks is that in order to get that nice gemlike smooth surfance the HVAC vents are some distance away from the rooms. It'll take the drone a while to get to the end, and probably some time hunting for an external vent with a weakness or some damage to the grill so the I spy could get in. Ideally without any very strong fans in the way. It'd be pretty easy to get around to the vents to the other rooms, though Tubesnake expects those to have a couple screws.

----------------------------------


Angel gives a digital pout about not hacking Mike's comlink but doesn't argue. After a little bit she asks. <<What about Nari's comlink? Bongo should have the address. She maybe already doesn't like him? I'm....a little unsure about that. But they were talking and now she's just crying soooooooo>>

[sunnyside]

(OOC: I wonder if folks are feeling stuck, but I think mostly you're able to give each other what you need. With the smooth glass surface the large vents are on the underside of the building, near the top of the pylons and between the uptown/downtown structures. Bongo can get eyes on those for Tubesnake to make that go fast. And Tubesnake already has a drone with eyes on the bathroom at least, which could let him work with Serina to get Fiona in through the ward where nobody is looking, or just scout the other rooms from the limited views from the grates on it's own.
Note that it's in the system for air going out of the apartment. But due to how sealed the apartment is there are such vents in each room. The drone hasn't checked, but tubesnake is confident that the dryer vent and most likely the kitchen vent would be easier access grates versus ones with screws inside the room. And of course it's easy for the annelid to open and close the bathroom vent.

And of course Angel really is just looking for anybody to give them an OK for hacking something like Nari's comlink, or anything really

Since Bongo already went back to the inner street, I could advance time a little and let him look at the vents since that's pretty automatic.)

-----------------------------------------------------------

As Bongo heads heads back into the park, the situation is much like it was. Some tension about who gets what spot, but as the night starts getting on people are starting to settle down a little. Sleep might not come easy, but a little AR distraction from a spot to sit that's yours. Well, at least it's as nice as they've figured out how to manage things. It isn't much of a fun park otherwise, and littler is everywhere, mostly the nutrition packs Bongo would remember from earlier.

At the mention of vents Bongo can see that there are a lot of them down there. That fancy facade must cost them a lot in forced air. His zoom and memory almost do the work automatically (OOC: can buy the hits, this is the kind of thing Bongo excels at) of scanning his memory for a good entry point. He can see the all the vents have gratings, but they're more concerned with birds or large objects versus large insects, it's more the whirring exhaust blowers. They seem fairly reliable. Ninety percent or more are going just fine. But there must be hundreds down here, so it's more the simple matter of picking out the one that's closest to Franks apartment it's up the street a little ways, but hopefully ten meters off is close enough.

As he he situates himself he gets a ping on his com. It's a message from Nari

<<So it's a nice uptown place. and there are guards the things. He couldn't get away with anything really right? Plus I've got my comlink and at least you know where I'm going.

I'm sure I'll have a great time!

But, maybe just check in later and I can tell you about it? >> She ends the message with a cute animated smiling fox that jumps around in Bongo's AR.

[pbangarth]

Bongo relays imagery of the vents to Tubesnake. <<Does this info help, Tubesnake?>>

He responds to Nari, <<You are the Captain of your own ship, Nari.>> He wonders if she will be surprised he knows her name. Maybe that will give her pause.

<<Let's keep in touch tonight.>>

[Koekepan]

Paul looks at the pictures as they come in, and do some location and angle correlation.

<<Yup, figure it does. Kind of what I see from here, too. Just making sure I'm not about to run Mizz Buzzy into any fans or anything first. You got any special requests for anything or just sneak, peek and relay?>>

[pbangarth]

Bongo chimes in. <<It would be a stroke of luck if we were to find Sophie here at the party tonight. >>

[sunnyside]

(Ooc: There might be some rolls if there were a particular rush or you were under fire. But Tubesnake can just buy the successes to get a fly spy to the large exhaust fan that's down that Bongo sighted, get in between the bars of the vent, and generally follow the angles and signals from the Annilid to get them together. Then it's just a matter of whether the Annilid wants to open the vent for it into the bathroom or dryer. You might do infiltration rolls if you want to try and avoid being spotted or on camera getting to the vents.

Which is fairly easy, and maybe nobody would care anyway..

And then also and especially in the apartment where a large bug might get a reaction if the party goers are anything like my wife.)