Finding his Americar sadly intact, Jack gets on in, and drives ten blocks to the nearest diner. No, not some hyped up restaurant or food emporium, a good old fashion diner. An antiquity just like him. He parks, and gets out of the car without bothering to lock it, heading on inside.

Jack selects a booth by the front window, in good view of the car. He's not as worried about theft here, but he's not walking back to the office from here. There's no better place to make a good quiet couple of calls than a diner where no one much cares who you are. Sure, he's a regular, and the waitress knows him by name, but no one cares much more than that.

Jack pulls an old, beat up adress book out of one of the inner pockets of his suit jacket, and flips it open to the 'S' section. 'S' for Sixfingers, Jimmy Sixfingers. He looks over the LTG number, and slots a certified credstick into the booth's telecom, dialing up the mafia soldier's cellphone. When the wise guy answers, Jack keeps his voice low.

`Jimmy, you feel like a coffee on me? Got some business I need to talk.`

Jimmy'd know the place. They'd met here before. He also knew it was neutral grounds.

Jack
Jimmy picks up in just a few short rings.
"You found Jimmy. Hey Jack, long time pal. What can I do you's for? Coffee? That sounds like it'd hit the spot, I'll be by in a few short."

Jack orders a coffee, and a cheese danish. How the place manages to get the real deal and keep it affordable is beyond him. Still, he's not going to complain about the luxury. He makes a mental note to buy a disposable cellphone for use for the duration of the case. Can't always be at the diner.

Shortly after your Danish arrives, Jimmy sit's down and orders a coffee from a passing server.
"So, you got something on yer mind, or you just getting lonely in your old age?"

Jack grunts, but does chuckle a bit at the jab. Youth these day, just like back in his day. None of them respect their elders.

`Lets wait until the coffee gets here before we get down to it.`

He doesn't want the waitress evesdropping, not that she's prone to. Soon enough though, she's come and gone, leaving Jack's coffee topped off. The old ex-cop watches her head off, then looks to Jimmy.

`So Jimmy, how's University been treating young William O'Malley?`

Right to the meat of things. Jack was that way. The inference was that he knew about William, at least had some handle on his comings and goings, and that he was in University.

`I hear he's got himself in a little bit of trouble.`

"He was doing okay, but, he took his break up pretty hard. You'll have to talk to him if you want more."

He sips his coffee, waiting for you reply.

Jack considers a long moment, must be the Star didn't get ahold of him. That or he paid them off. Likely the later.

`Think you could arange for me to meet with him?`

He breaks the danish in half, offers part to the mafioso.

Nat drives to the Uni, before leaving the car she casts a Force 4 Physical Mask on herself to give her dark hair and less pale skin.

"Think the place to go would be to ask security where we're going. I'll let you do the talking though, I've got my mind to wrapped up on this spell for now to be concerned with the finer points of negotiation."

With that she heads inside behind Gil.

Gil reaches into his Industrious jumpsuit for his goggles and perching them on his forehead, looking for all the world like a maintenance man. He walks to the rear of Nat's car and opens the boot to bring out his forensics gear. The forensics gear completes his disguise.

Passing on the proffered danish half, "That stuff will be the death of you, you know. As for speaking to the kid, As far as the public knows, he's a normal citizen, so there isn't a heavy detail on him. His cousin didn't want him getting the idea he was, ya know, untouchable. She protective, but also very smart. I'll let him know to be polite, but you gotta work it out with him for a visit. Take care of yourself, I don't wanna tell my sister anything happened to you."

He stands, gulps down the remainder of his coffee and pinches the waitress on the way out.

Gil and Nat
The short trip passes without incedint, gas, brake, honk, gas, brake, finger, honk, gas, gas, brake, honk, etc.
You arrive at the University, the signs direct all visitors to the main administration building to the right, you know the dorms are on the left.

`Life's gonna be the death of me Jimmy, you take care yourself.`

When the mobster's gone, he writes a few notes out for himself, and takes a bit of time finishing off his danish and coffee. He leaves a nice tip for the waitress, and heads on out to his car again.

Next stop, the Downtown Lone Star precinct.

Jack
The drive to the Downtown Lone Star building is the usual lousy traffic. After a short period you find yourself pulling in to the parking lot.

Some people would leave their weapon behind in the car when heading into a police precinct. This would be especially true given the weapon in question. Those people weren't Jack Marshall, however. They weren't around before this building was constructed, they hadn't outlasted a near enough a dozen administrations, and they didn't have a conceal and carry permit.

Still, the boys ain't gonna be happy with what you're packing...

Fuck the boys, this was his town, not theirs. To a number they're snot nosed punks. Even the guy who Jack's here to see, the Cheif himself, is young for his position. That'll always be the way.

He walks on up those familiar steps, and into the processing center. Tipping a nod to the secretary he just keeps walking on by, headed for Randall's office.

Jack
As you walk past the secretary and head for the elevators to go up, two guards stop you. One is holding a small plastic basket, the other is holding a Pocket Secretary. The one with the PS speaks to you,
"Mr. uh, um, Marshall, yes, I realise you have the necessary permits for that wepaon you are carrying, but I'm afraid the regulations stipulate a civilian can't carry weapons inside the building. If I make an exception for you, I gotta make one for everybody, and I just can't do that."

Jack looked to the pair of guards, both of them young enough to be his sons. Hell, he'd seen the one with the Pocket Secretary through his training.

`Greenly, you're forgetting something pretty basic here. I'm about as far from a civillian as you'll find in this sprawl. Hell, I sat on the committie which drafted the security measures for this facility. If it weren't for my reccomendations, you wouldn't be at that post right now, because there wouldn't be guards at the elevators, or MAD detectors and chem sniffers at the door to let you even know I was packing. Instead you'd be out walking gangland right now. I've been around the block, and my loyalty is pretty clear Greenly. How about you cut this old man some slack, and I won't tell a soul.`

After a quick perusal of Seasource, Greg headed to the Merciless Ming's Pizzeria host to look up the deliverywoman who had met with Jenna's drug dealer friend. He was able to log on, download the personel file, and log back off without major incident. He headed back to Seasource to look for the addresses of the two orc deliverywomen on the list of pizzeria employees.

Jack
" Jack, I don't want to have to say this again. Everyone disarms, even the Chief. You know you'll get it back."

He looks rather uncomfortable, he's a good kid, but like everyone else, he's got bills to pay and your aren't worth getting fired over.

Greg
You find their addresses rather quickly. The looker lives in the seedier side of Anne Hill, the other lives in Touristville, in Redmond.

Gil to Nat: "Why don't you go on to the dorm and have a look see first? I'll handle the campus security people. "Sides we might not want campus sec to know you are under cover."

Gil walks up to the Administration receptionist and smiles,"Hi, can you please direct me to the Campus Security office?"

`Can't blame a guy for not wanting to leave his piece out of his sight, now can you kid?`

Jack opens the suit jacket, draws the Thunderbolt, reverses it in his hand, and offers it to the kid. He doesn't check the safety, it's always on.

Disrespectful, downright disrespectful...

Once he's cleared, Jack heads on up the elevator, and heads to the Cheif's office. No doubt he's been announced by now.

Nat to Gil. "It's a fair point, but I have yet to develop a 'walk through walls' spell. I'll wait for you by the dorms though, if you can't talk them out of escorting you, then it shouldn't be too big a deal so long as they don't see through the illusion."

Nat heads off to the left towards the dorms, and waits on a bench outside for Gil to come back.

Gil
As you walk into the reception area, the hustle and bustle that is unique to student workers not being paid nearly enough but still needing the job to pay for their books and pizza assault your senses. Some nice passerby hears your plea and points you down a hall.
Once there you find a small, unobtrusive door, with hand stenciled lettering calmly denoting Campus Security.

You knock and let yourself in, mainly to get out of everyones way and also because you're pretty sure if someone responded, you wouldn't hear them over the din. Once inside, you see a few uniformed officers looking at you, one is sipping soycaf, another is smearing soy-cream on his bagel and the third is read a scream-sheet, there is powdered sugar on his cheek.
The one sipping soycaf pipes up, "Can I help you Sir?"

Nat
You walk your way to the dorms, students are walking briskly from place to place, some lost in books, others catching up on meals, and still more engaged in various political endeavors.
The campus is mostly quiet, the day to day violence of the outside world seems a distant land while you are here, it's peaceful.

Jack
Once upstairs on the 45th floor of the building, you walk down the hall and find the Chief's door. It's ajar and your hear the click-clack of typing inside.

Gil smiles easily and replies,"Hello, I'm with Oracle Investigations. I am working with Mr Shultz concerning a missing student of yours. A Miss Jennifer Mendelson?"

After getting back to the office, Greg spends five hours combing the matrix for information about William O'Malley. He manages to find O'Malley's journal, which the fool kept online. What kind of dumbass mobster keeps a blog? Greg decides to sleep on the information, and think about it with a clear head in a few hours.

Gil
The officers snap to and set down their various refreshments.
"Of course Sir, we were expecting someone concerning that. Pardon me, but do you have identification, and the authorization form from Mr. Mendelson?"
The other officers begin to try and look busy.

Nat
Looking around and taking in the serenity of the campus, you realise that you no longer hear the din of student life around you. Then you spot her, a young lady, perhaps 19, her pale skin grey and lifeless, her clothes torn and ratty like a sex crime victim left in the Barrens. She is walking straight towards the dorm entrance. As she reaches it, she vanishes. Given the gasps from those around you, this was no vision.

Jack stops to listen to the familiar clacking of the keys. Old memories and nostalgia hitting him in a small wave.

Coulda been your office...

Sure, if he'd been willing to undermine his own ethics. No, this wasn't ever to be his office.

Jack knocks on the door, and steps on inside.

Jack
The Chief looks up from his computer.
"How ya been Jack? Long time no see. Hope the boys downstairs didn't give you too hard a time. With all the crazies coming out for the Comet this year, the Brass decide to make some changes for the sake of insurance cost cutting."
He sits back, waiting for your reason to be here. His arms placed behind his head, reaxed and the master of his domain. You can see his shoulder holster empty as a missing tooth and just as sore a point.

Gil reaches into his jumpsuit and brings out both his SIN and the chip with the authorisation. "There you go..." (I know that I didn't specify bringing the chip along, but I kind of assumed I had it.)

"Time is precious, I need to see Miss Mendelson's room as soon as possible. Could you bring me there now?"

Nat immediately drops the illusion as soon as she realises what she's seeing, and looks into the astral tro try to pick out a signiture.

Tom sees the rest of the group out, and takes a moment to peer down on the little people out of the window.

"Another missing persons case." he says to himself as a car splashes through a puddle, soaking a pedestrian. "What is it this time? Kidnapping? Runaway? A well covered-up overdose?" he paused "Murder?" he pauses again "Poor kid. Your father might realise what he's doing wrong from almost losing you."

Tom shivers at the nieve-ness of his last statement and makes a mental note to look-up who the kid's mother is. Perhaps she wasn't as bad?

Moving back to his desk, he sits down, tidys himself up, and punches-up B89E-IU32-O78H on the telecom.

"Hello? Mr Shultz? Tom from Oracle Investigations here. I'd like to arrange a meeting so we can talk a little more about Jennifer's disappearance."

Tom
"O-o-o-of course. I can clear some time, where would you like to meet?"

"The Oracle Investigations office would seem ideal. If you would like to choose a more convenient establishment, with suitable protection against prying eyes, then feel-free to. The meeting would also ideally be as soon as possible, perhaps over an early dinner?"

Tom
"Dinner would be fine. Kau Kau's is not too far from you office if I recall. I will arrange for reservations, say 6 o'clock then?"

The office telecomm hearing the keyphrases dinner, reservations, 6 and Kau Kau pulls the day's schedule up for you. that time frame is wide open.

`Kids, all of 'em, still they're just doing their jobs.`

Jack takes a seat, taking a long moment to study his old friend. It'd been a while, hadn't been a case this big since he signed on with Oracle. Felt a little odd coming here, after these years.

`Got a little something nagging at my mind lately, a case that crossed my desk. Seems the investigation on it from your boys was silenced. The name Jennifer Mendelson ring a bell?`

Jack
The Chief stiffens visibly, he looks at his watch.
"Yeah, I know the name. You feel like taking a walk in the arboretum?"
The Cheif stands up, picking up his pocket secretary.

Gil
You hear a phone ringing, one of the officers pick up a receiver and immiediately looks concerned. He looks directly at you,
"Come on, there's something going on there now. I'll ddrive."
Looking to the desk jockey,
"Have Harry meet me there, some sort of mystical mumbo-jumbo going on at Kindstrom Hall."

Jack notes the reaction to the name, and nods.

`Sure, after the drive up my legs could use a stretch.`

He stands, and steps towards the door, waiting for the Cheif to take the lead.

Gil nods and follows the officer, noting the words "Harry", "mystical mumbo jumbo" and "Kindstrom Hall".

Nat settles down, realising this aparition probably has little to do with this case. Even if she did, aparitions seldom talk - and if she was willing to, she's gone now anyway. Besides, if she's tied here, she'll be back...

For now she tries to listen out amongst the chatter to see if she can pick up a name

Gil
The officer that that is driving over towards Kindstrom Hall leads you to an elevator, using his access card to call it up the door quickly opens and the two of you step in. He presses 'G', a ride later and you find yourself in the staff parking deck.
"C'mon, he car is over there."
He walks over to a Kia Justice, you both get in and you here the converted electric motor whine as you drive out of teh garage and into the sun. Quickly you find yourself in front of Jennifer Mendelson's dorm, there is a large crowd of students standing about, talking amongst themselves. You see Nat staring intenetly at the clearing at the main entrance.

There goes the undercover work... Nat thinks to herself.

Nat gets up and heads over to the person talking about the cult.

"Hey... I'm a PI sent by Jenna's father to find her. I need you to tell me what you can about this cult. Even if it's just a name, a meeting place... anything."

"What's the big hoorah about? Damien Knight making a campus visit?" jokes Gil. He is scanning the clearing for physical clues, all physical senses are wide open and maxed out sensitivity.

Gil
Chuckling as he responds,
"Some kids saw something down by the dorm. Happens all the time, but we still gotta check it out."
You see as you drive past various poles, posts and tack boards the time honored fliers of college students involved in their various activities. You several fliers for various youth policlubs, some judeo christian, some moslem, some pagan, some NAN related. There are seveal band fliers, study groups, etc. Each has contact LTG's on little tear off strips.
You also spot various missing fliers, each has one or two fliers over it, but it's hard to mistake the layout. You see probably 10 or so that haven't yellowed.

Natalya
The student looks at you,
"What cult lady? Just because some folks don't adhere to whatever you believe or what their parents believe doesn't mean they are some cult to be dismissed as unstable."

"Hey, no I didn't mean it that way... it's just not something we had any information on... if you could point us in the direction of this group, someone there might be able to help us find her."

"6 it is. I'll make reservations for us." confirms Tom, smiling. "I hear the Aromatic Crispy Duck there is superb."

As the feed klicks-out tom breathes heavily and leans back. A meal at Kau-Kau's means soyfood for the rest of the month, but the duck is good... Tom jacks-in and takes the short trip over to Kau Kau's for a quick perusal of the menu prices, looking for something cheap mains-wise. Making a reservation from the matrix, he slips back to reality and gives the info in the chip another once-over before calling the rest of the team to see how things are going.

Natalya
She points over at a bulliten board, where several dozen various fliers have been stapled.
"I think it was one of those."

Tom
The prices range from 150 to 250 total. The business account balance shows as though you've been paid 2 days in advance.

Gil says,"Mind if I take a look at those?" pointing at the flyers. He pauses long enough to see if anyone around is taking any interest in him, since he came with the sec guard. He subtly gestures that he'll handle the flyers on the notice board to Nat, pointing to the notice board then tapping his chest as if scratching an itch.

He stares hard at the girl Nat is talking to, indicating that Nat should try to pump the girl for more info if she feels up to the task.

Tom confirms the transaction, splitting the first 5 of 10k into 1k each and makes a mental note to discuss with the others what portion of the funds should go towards expences.

Grabbing a tie and preparing to look presentable, Tom whittles away the remaining time by going over the accounts, the data in the chip, planning the interview, grooming himself, and making his mind up about what he'll have for dinner.

Some time around 5:45, he grabs his fedora and long coat before heading-out into the rain, his jacket collar turned-up to protect his suit.

Greg slept restlessly, dreaming of corrupt politicians, insect shamans, blood spirits, government coverups, and brilliant private investigators making lots of money of of it all.

Arriving with around 5 minutes to spare, Tom removes his long coat and hat and deposits his coat using whatever facilities are provided. Keeping his hat in-hand, he scans Kau-Kau's for Mr Jonus Shultz, waiting to be seen to the table.

One tom has been lead to the cubicle, he places his hat on the table beside him. Tom declines to order from the wine list yet, instead ordering a jug of water. He pours himself a glass and sips from it until Mr Shultz arrives.