The Found Arcana - Chapter 11 [IC] Options

[Beta]

'Hurry up and wait' has been Tamarind's life for ages. In the army, while supporting orichalcum prospectors, while supporting smugglers, and as she has rapidly confirmed while doing detective work.

But this is different. Usually it is a matter of either being on stand-by or of waiting for a planned event to happen. Here she knows that Bobby has to come out eventually, but she doesn't know in what way, or when, or if he'll need help on the exfill. She'd like to prepare to help him, but drawing more attention isn't advisable at the moment. She settles for having one flying eye work its way in towards the inner perimeter of observers, but having it not push the boundaries too much.

[Tecumseh]

Outside, the spirit of man seems to be quarantining the drone that was dusted with reagents. The property manager still cowers behind her desk, peeking over to see if it's still there or not. The spirit appears to be waiting for someone to come impound the drone. Tamarind hears sirens in the distance that may be related.

~~~

Inside, Bobby manages to open the dryer door with only a small thump from the door's latch. Then he slips out into the laundry room.

Looking around the laundry room with his adept-boosted vision, his primary reaction is that things are neat and tidy to a perhaps unrealistic degree. Everything is lined up just so. One might take Ms. Potter for an OCD sufferer, but that would be rather at odds with her rather frazzled and rumpled public image. It's possible that there's a cleaning drone, like a Renraku Manservent, that orders everything precisely. Or, combined with the sawdust in the dryer, perhaps the conclusion is that this room doesn't get used at all.

Peeking out of the laundry room, the kitchen and living room (and front door) are down the hall to the left. Near the front door Bobby's low-light vision sees a Lone Star Castle Guard, a home-security drone that's armed with a pistol of some sort. It doesn't seem to be patrolling but rather standing guard by the front door and living room windows. The flashlight beam suggests that the drone on patrol is checking out the kitchen.

Directly across the hallway, two meters away, Bobby sees a bathroom. From here it also looks neat and orderly.

Down the hallway to the right, there is a closed door. As Bobby does not see any other rooms, the logical conclusion is that it must be the bedroom. The door knob is round and smooth, which could make it difficult to manipulate without an opposable thumb. Being an internal door, there is a gap beneath it that might be big enough for small form, like a gerbil.

[Jack_Spade]

Bobby decided that the closed door was likely his best option - just as keeping to the ceiling was likely his best way to avoid detection from the drones.

So he turned into a Deserta Grande wolf spider, securing his fetish with a bit of silk to his back and began climing up the wall and along the ceiling towards the bedroom door.

Sneaking through the gap was a question of timing, so he waited patiently for the drone to be away, before he made his way through.

[ Spoiler ]

Changing into a spider, using Body Boost

Body Boost: 10d6t5 3
Shapechange F3: 17d6t5 5

Putting 1 point in body and 2 in agility
Drain Resist: 11d6t5 2
No drain

Sneaking: 10d6t5 4

[Tecumseh]

Timing it for when the patrol drone is in the living room, Bobby comes around the corner, runs down the wall, and tries to slip under the bedroom door.

In the process, he slams into a monstrously strong mana barrier (F12) that stops him cold. This appears to be a separate, stronger barrier that's within the warding the covers the rest of the unit. On the astral, the barrier seems to crackle with energy. Bobby recognizes it as the type of barrier that's designed to zap spirits and dual-natured entities.

In the physical world, Bobby's spider eyes can see a little bit of the room. From what he can tell, it's not arranged like a traditional bedroom. There's no quee-sized bed taking up most of the floor space. In fact, there is minimal furniture, and what little furniture there is has been pushed up against the walls. There are lots of candles on the floor around the cleared space in the middle of the room.

Bobby hears the wheels of the patrol drone heading his direction.

[Jack_Spade]

Bobby didn't even try to slip through the barrier. This looked very much like a lodge, a very expensive one to boot.
Instead he quickly scrambled back up to the ceiling, trying to memorize the aura of the barrier and trying to find out which tradition it came from. This was a job for a drone to infiltrate. Luckily, he now had paved the way for a Kanmushi to get into the flat.
Instead he headed for the kitchen. Looking around what food items where used - if at all, might tell him something. Also, he could use a little snack by now.

[ Spoiler ]

Assensing to learn which tradition I'm dealing with
Assensing: 10d6t5 2

[Tecumseh]

Bobby gets the sense that he's looking at something from the hermetic tradition. That said, the aura resembled a spell rather than a lodge. (Of course, it's possible that the spell was obscuring additional astral activity behind the barrier. Maybe the bedroom really is a lodge.)

Bobby makes his way back to the kitchen.

Things are neat and orderly, almost to an obsessive degree. Perhaps there is food in the fridge or in the cupboards, but there's nothing sitting out on the counter. He does spy a fruit basket and gets excited for a second until he realizes it's plastic fruit, just a decoration.

If Bobby wants to investigate the fridge or cupboards he'll need a form that can open them.

[Jack_Spade]

Bobby decided to first go for the bathroom. Specifically, he wanted to look for some hair - a good way to get some DNA for some testing.

[ Spoiler ]

Sneaking: 10d6t5 3

[Tecumseh]

Bobby slips by the drones unnoticed.

He makes his way down to the bathroom. Like the other rooms, it is exceedingly tidy. It has soap and shampoo and toilet paper and the other things you would expect of a bathroom, but it is so clean that one might wonder whether it is ever used, or if it was just cleaned earlier in the day.

If there are combs or hairbrushes, they are inside cabinets or otherwise out-of-sight. Bobby can't access them without changing forms. The sink is squeaky clean, as is the tub. Bobby takes a chance and decides to check the drains. The shower drain is unproductive, but fishing one of his spider legs down the sink drain produces a stroke of luck: within a black sludge of soap scum and toothpaste grit is a single eyelash. (It's possible that there might be some skin cells trapped within the gunk as well, but Bobby doesn't know for sure.)

Bobby hears a sharp beep, followed by an electronic chirp. It's coming from the laundry room. Skittering over to get a view, Bobby sees that the flashlight beam of the patrol drone pointed at the open door of the dryer. The drone seems to have detected a change from the previous state of the laundry room.

[Jack_Spade]

Bobby wrapped his jackpot in silk and added the packet to his back. It seemed as if it was time for him to make an exit.

He went for the bathroom ventilation, expecting a fan on low rpm extracting the humid air and out to the roof. Checking again to securely bind his packages to himself, he went under the cover, looking for the telltale heat signature of wires powering the fan.

Next he called again electricity to himself and attacked the device with a series of sharp strikes.

Once the fan stopped, he slipped through and began weaving a particularly long silk thread to aid his ascend with the updraft.

[ Spoiler ]

Half of electricity damage is dealt as matrix damage.

I don't know what setup you envision here, but either I'll just burn another hole through the wires or it's a wireless charged fan and I destroy its electronics.

making holes: 14d6t5 4 4 P(e) AP -5

Might take a bit until there is enough matrix damage, but Bobby can make at least 3 attacks per round, so it likely won't take longer than six seconds if I buy hits

Alternatively just a hardware test: Hardware: 5d6t5 3

[Tecumseh]

There is a bathroom fan on the ceiling. It is not currently running, so Bobby doesn't have to short it out.

However, it is covered by a tight plastic grill. Bobby needs to do burn through a thick layer of plastic before he can form a hole large enough for his current form. The acrid smoke is intense and unpleasant. Under normal circumstances it might be expected to set off the smoke alarm, but luckily most of the smoke goes straight up the vent for the bathroom fan. Perhaps there will be enough ambient smoke to trigger an alarm, but there's no smoke detector in the bathroom so it may take a minute to reach a sensor. That's time Bobby can use to escape.

As Bobby's finishing up the melting, the spirit of man that intercepted the drone outside materializes in the laundry room to inspect what the patrol drone has found. The spirit seems to be reading the astral signatures. Bobby decides it's time to go NOW and squeezes through the rather tight hole just as the spirit whips around.

Bobby races through the vent. For a Deserta Grande wolf spider, it's a long run to the exterior wall. Bobby knows that time is short, as the spirit will begin tracking astral signatures and may soon find him.

Bobby gets to the end of the vent and finds yet another exhaust vent cover, this time aluminum. It is attached to the exterior wall with four screws, one on each corner.

[Jack_Spade]

Bobby didn't waste any time: Once again he burned his way through the cover with continuous discharges of electricity, creating a hole large enough to squeeze through with his cargo. After that it was just an exercise of trusting his silk line parachute and drifting away from the building.

[Thanee]

<< So, what are you guys up to? Anything interesting so far? AM is still looking for usable data around here, and I mostly keep my eyes open. >>

[Tecumseh]

Bobby's power is a double-edged sword: his electricity makes short work of the aluminum vent cover, but all that electricity has to go somewhere. Namely it follows the screws and is delivered directly into the building's vinyl siding, which quickly melts and then something - the siding or the underlying wood framing - promptly catches fire.

Bobby's now outside the building with his precious cargo but has some important decisions to make about how to proceed from here.

~~~

Tamarind is keeping watch over the apartment building. She notices the spirit of man suddenly dematerializing. A few moments later, there's a puff of smoke on the south side of the building. Something is up!

[Beta]

Replying to Raven, Tamarind says <<I'm just hanging out, waiting for a friend. He's doing some shopping, pottery I think. He should be out soon, hopefully hasn't bugged them so much that he gets tossed out or anything.>

<<Hunh, looks like there is something happening down the way, at >> and she adds the address << I don't have eyes for all that is happening, I think a spirit is doing something. Times like this it would be great to send in a spirit, you know?>>

She doesn't think that she has been hacked, or that Raven has been, but just at the moment she's feeling paranoid enough not to say anything too openly, even on what should be private comms. Hopefully Raven gets the hint, but whether or not she'll risk sending a spirit that could possibly get traced back to her, she doesn't know.

Then she repositions one delivery drone up high with a view towards the smoke, to get some basic eyes on the scene, and sends the other traveling slower down the street, not as high, ready to scoop up Bobby if necessary. Or even to clumsily block a physical pursuer, or even briefly block line of sight.

[Jack_Spade]

Bobby ran - down the side of the building and from there across the street and into cover of a parked car. One change later, he took the form of a crow and headed back to the car. This time he made sure, to erase his astral signature after the change.

Once he reached Tamarind, he made his report:
"Dicy situation. Permanent drone patrol in the flat, special magic security for the bedroom - looks like a lodge, but was protected with an active spell. Got some DNA from the drain, otherwise it's obsessively clean in there. I'll ask Razak if he can recommend a good lab for us to make a full test. Gene sequencing should tell us something about her."

[Jack_Spade]

Bobby did just that:
<<Captain, we are deeply involved now in the mayorial race - now we need to run some genetic analysis. Can you recommend a discreet lab that will give us quick results?>>

[Tecumseh]

Razak responds relatively quickly.

<<Ha. That didn't take long.>>

<<What's your definition of fast? That turnaround is usually half a week to a week. Faster might be possible if you incentivize correctly.>>

<<There's a DocWagon clinic not far from your place in Bellevue. Fairly close to the Redmond border; I think they use it as a forward operating base for when they need to medevac a client out of the Barrens.>>

<<Anyway, go around back. Be discrete about it. At the back door, ask for Nebula. I'll let him know that you are coming.>>

[Jack_Spade]

<<Thanks. We'll report back if we find something juicy.>>

Bobby relayed the information to the team.

<<Do you all want to come with? We'll also need a sample directly from her when one of us meets her at the volunteer job. So the question is do we want to hand the samples over as one package or have one analysis started early?>>

[Beta]

<<Not much value in having one run before the other, I'd think, in terms of data. Whether it makes more sense to ask someone to do one and later another, or to do two together, sounds like a negotiation thing that I'll leave to the negotiating type of people. One tiny advantage I could see to starting with one is if we can set up a protocol for dropping off future samples by drone, but then again I doubt we have the budget for getting a lot of DNA tests run.>>

Tamarind gathers in her various drones, and leaves the area with relief. It wasn't pleasant operating in such a heavily monitored area. She might send one back to keep an eye on things as evening approaches, but it doesn't seem like there is a lot of point in running through battery power for the rest of the afternoon.

[Jack_Spade]

<<Checking out beforehand might still be a good idea. No idea how long they need to run the analysis. So partial jobs it is.>>

Bobby replied and indicated for Tamarind to drive to the clinic.

[Beta]

The drive was a bit of a distance, and grid guide made sure there was no easy way to beat traffic, so Tamarind relaxed and let the machines do their job for most of the trip.

Killing time, she asks Bobby how hard it is to fly, as a bird? Some day she'll work up the nerve to actually ask him to change her into something, but for now educating herself will do

When they get close to being close to the clinic she spends a bit of time double checking them for marks, unexplained silent running devices that seem to be traveling with them, or drones that seem to be pacing them.

[ Spoiler ]

I don't have her character sheet up on my phone at them moment but i think she can buy three successes with matrix perception

Then once they are closer she takes over driving and loops around the site first, checking for possible issues, before pulling up near the back door. "Figure we wait to get noticed, or knock on the door?"

[Tecumseh]

<<Saturday Mid Afternoon - 15:00 - April 8, 2079 - Doc Wagon Clinic, Bellevue>>

Tamarind and Bobby can hear approaching sirens as they prepare to leave. Fire engines, ambulances, and Knight-Errant officers all screech up to the apartment building. Luckily the arterial right in front of the building makes it easy to merge into traffic and slip away unnoticed.

It's Saturday afternoon. There's a bit of traffic, but nothing like there would be on a weekday morning. It's not hard for either GridGuide or an experience driver to pilot the vehicle safely. It isn't the most direct route, as it needs to sidestep around the Barrens, but about 45 minutes later you arrive at the clinic.

DocWagon clinics are both emergency hospitals as well as health centers where people can go for doctor's visits and various procedures. The weekends are quieter than weekdays, but there is still a steady stream of patients who are coming in for medical attention or visits with their primary care providers. Naturally, they use the front door.

The back of the clinic is strangely similar to the back of the animal hospital. There are large dumpsters and other containers for refuse and recycling. There's also a service entrance and a delivery bay. The delivery bay door - a large garage door - is open even though there's no delivery in progress.

Looking inside you see someone in a lab technician's white coat working in AR. Their hands wave in the air as they work on AROs you can't see. It's unclear why they're doing it in the delivery bay as opposed to somewhere else. Looking at them, you decide that it's an intensely skinny, intensely androgenous Caucasian human. Their haircut is an asymmetric bob with a pronounced undercut. They're wearing tight black slacks with bright teal ballet flats. Everything about them is skinny and narrow, as if they had been flattened in a hydraulic press. Their lips are pinched and their nose is sharp.

[Jack_Spade]

Bobby told Tamarind:
"Flying is incredible - total freedom in any direction. Maybe you should invest in a rigger control - you could jack into a flying drone to perceive something similar."

At the clinic, Bobby got out and walked towards the technician:
"Hey, how's it going? Razak recommend your place for genetic testing. Are you in charge of that?"

[Gilga]

The way home is quiet. My mind is running from a few angles, and I am eager to get to the print house tomorrow; I am not entirely sure what to expect...
>> So Tam, did you sign me up for that shelter, or are you going yourself? I then write a friendly email to Potter's campaign manager (I hope), saying there is much support and plenty of debate and asking for a visit.

"Anything out of the ordinary on your side?" I ask Raven while driving manually but quite automatically.

[Tecumseh]

The man turns to Bobby with a pinched expression of extreme distaste. Bobby can feel the man's eyes moving up and down Bobby's cheap vendor automat clothing.

"Are you an escaped mental patient?" the man asks, his voice dripping with derision.

He huffs an exasperated sigh.

"Why can't they ever send elegant people? A noble patron?"

His aura shows a high degree of frustration coupled with extreme condescension. He's not awakened but he does have a fair degree of headware, both cyber and bio.

He reluctantly holds his hand out for whatever you're going to give him.

"The things I do to debase myself for my art," he moans dramatically.