Yeah, somewhat concerned with that. Probably makes the Street Cam host look skimpy by comparison.

In theory, if we find out someone who is supposed to be going there, I can make a disguise test and an impersonation test, and try to get through that way. Hits on my disguise test increase the threshold to detect my impersonation (although I'll ask for a little clarification from Lobo as to how the specifics of all that works).

Thanks,
-DrZ

EDIT: Let's not forget we have Ramirez. He can probably get us in if we really needed it. He's keeping his nose pretty darn clean on this so far.

Ok - after a brief Matrix search (somebody do this in character - doesn't matter who) - you find out that in order to visit him, you need:

1) His SIN number
2) A valid SIN
3) You must be on his visitor list

Visiting hours are Wednesday through Friday, 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM, and Saturday and Sunday, 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM

ETA - also bear in mind, he is not forced to see you.

I will throw it out.

Before I make my post regarding getting into the Jail, two questions:

1) How hard is it to track down someone's SIN
2) How do you get your name on the visitor's list through standard practices?

1) Finding someone's SIN would be difficult - it would be like trying to find out someone's social security number. Probably not something you could do without hacking Lone Star, but that might be something Ramirez could assist you with.

2) The usual way is that he puts you on the visitor list himself (when you are processed into the prison, they have you fill one out, so you can put your friends and family on it) - apart from that, if you aren't on the list, but want to be, then you either basically have to contact someone who is already on the list, and have them communicate with the prisoner and ask him to add your name to it. (You could ask to speak to his lawyer, if you didn't know anyone who was on the list, and the lawyer could ask the prisoner.)

Ok - so I am off with my son to go to a convention - I will have only a very limited ability to post from now until Sunday night.

I have my phone with me - which is fine for answers to OOC posts, but posting IC will be a pain in the ass.

Please feel free to take this time to hash out what you want to do next, both OOC and IC, I'll answer questions as I can in the OOC thread - and we can start with moving to the next scene Sunday night/Monday morning.

That sounds like fun. Y'all have a good time.

I guess we can take the time to OC go over the remaining leads we have and hashing out a plan to address what we have so far.

Sounds good. Have fun at the con!
-DrZ

What kind of con is it?

You know I have been a gamer/scifi/fantasy nut for decades and I have never went to a single con.

I was thinking it was something school related for some reason. Even more fun if it is geek/gamer related!

It is a miniatures convention - the website is here:

Convention Page

Will be doing some World War 2 gaming, some Star Wars, board games, may some Napoleonic - haven't decided all the games I am playing yet.

I will be running a simulation of a fictional American Invasion of Iran set in 2014.

The Oil Fields of Abadan
With the breakdown of talks over the Iranian nuclear arms program, the United States is forced to take other action. While the occupation of the entire country of Iran was a non-starter, the invasion and occupation of the oil rich province of Khuzestan was much more palatable. The Marines launch an amphibious landing from the Persian Gulf, intent on securing the oil facilities near Abadan.

I've been going for about 15 years now - my son is 10, he's been going for the last 2 years - we get gamers from all over the country (and from Europe and Australia) who show up. Half of the convention is playing, the other half is catching up with people you only see a couple times a year.

Ok -I'm hitting the road as of right now - (stopping off at my FLGS for a short game, then to pick up my son from school, and then on the road).

Have a great weekend to you all

OK, so while the cat's away... here's what I have on the leads/investigation front. If any of you have the chance, feel free to look through and add any items that I may have missed. It would be a good time to pour through and review the threads for information over the next few days.

Broken Star Investigation Status & Leads

Wright Murder* - Stingray's Revenge
- Speak to shop owners
- Hack Camera (Aborted)
- Investigate gravesite in Sagebrush Park.

Thomas Murder - Magical Assault on Apartment 16F
- Interview Twoman
- Crimson Fire/Pills Confirmation

Taylor Murder - Traffic Stop Takedown in BFE

Jackson Murder* - Stuffer Shack Head Shot
- Speak to employees
- Access Cameras
- Check with Jill @ Schaefer's to determine connection to Newton murder

Manuel Murder* - Murder in the Living Room
- Talk to Family/Search House
- Develop information on Case #5247
- Develop information on LT Calvin Bradshere

Hawthorne Murder* - Tasty Burger Massacre
- Speak to employees
- Investigate Van
- Investigate Lynx's Tattoo

Newton Murder* - The Schafer's Diner Drive-By
- Talk to Diner Staff
- Hack Cameras
- Interview Apartment Residents
- Investigate Van
- Find Mary Jane Kelly

Mitchell Murder* - Ambush at the QXT
- Talk to Paul Candle
- Hack Cameras
- Talk to Argent
- Track down Emily Sanders

* indicates we have been to the crime scene

I may take the time this weekend to set things up chronologically. I think we may see things we might have missed before. Especially as new items are added; such as finding out about Bradshere and Manuel's disagreement.

Additionally, all the names are blending together for me. I may come up with some nicknames so I can tell them apart at first glance.
-DrZ

That list is very useful, now we have to decide in what order to do things. Here's how I see it.

High priority
- Message Ramirez to set up a meet, probably over audio or VR, not in the meat. (Info on Bradshere, info on case, maybe ask about how to be on Twoman's list or help on hacking LS systems)
- Go dig up the commlinks from the Wright murderers
- Investigate the last two murder sites however we can

High priority but no good plan to do it
- Lynx (we mostly don't know how we want to proceed, a spirit could try to search for him if we have a general idea of where to look; i.e. within a few kilometers radius ideally; but then what do we do when (if) we know where he is?)
- Twoman (we know where he is, we don't know how to get to him and we don't know how to get him to talk)

Low priority
- Crimson Fire stuff (we don't have confirmation on this yet)

Low priority and no good plan either
- Mary Jane Kelly (probably gone anyway)
- Emily Sanders (maybe not worth the trouble)

What do you guys see as high priority? Am I missing something?

ETA:

We could refer to the murders by their location or date instead of by victim.

Could be. Currently, the murders are listed in chronological order. But it might help to put a timeline together with the details from Manuel's case as well as the news stories on the drug and Sioux-UCAS incidents.

I'm pretty familiar with the cases, I'll throw up some nicknames if it helps (DONE)


This looks pretty accurate. A few notes:

- I think it's important to emphasize in our conversation with Ramirez that we really want to get a look at Case File #5247. I figure he will be more resistant to that request than he would providing info on Bradshere. If he can't get it to us directly, he may be able to get us an "in" into the Lone Star Host. If Overkill could somehow get access to the building to perform a direct conncet to a device slaved to the Host, he would have a much easier time of getting in and getting what we need.

- We have several image files of Lynx. I'm not sure if the camera footage Overkill pulled from the Tasty Burger Host showed off his tattoo. That could be a start if we have an image of it. It might help us zero in on his location, at least enough for a spirit to try and use its search power. We could also try to contact Argent again, although I would note that our funder are starting to dry up.

Great nicknames.

Ok, whoa; Stingray's revenge was first? How long have these guys been in the ground? They're probably pretty ripe by now...

-DrZ

Yeah, like a month and a half ago, I think. I wonder if the ghould have found them yet...

Yeah and who knows if they're still there, along with their commlink... At least the touching will be done by a spirit, so no worries.

Oh, I would point out one other possible lead. Probably Low Priority.

So Jill, the waitress at Shaefer's, only appeared to have a view of the driver's side of the van. I think we should check with her and show her the video from the Jackson hit (Stuffer Shack One Shot) to see if the driver she saw was the same person as the shooter in the video (other than height, the descriptions sounded fairly similar). While we're there, we might want to see if any of the residents of the apartment complex across the street from Shaefer's may have seen the hit. Lobo described some of the apartments as having good vantage points from which to have witnessed the Newton drive-by. We know the video was doctored, so we're pretty sure the individuals depicted were not actually the ones who performed the hit.

Isn't that one of the murders for which we've confirmed it is Lynx' crew?

Damnit, the board ate my post.

Short version:
- We only have Lynx confirmed for two killings: Ambush at the QXT & the Tasty Burger Massacre. Lynx got out of a van at the Tasty Burger.
- A gray van was used to conduct the Schaefer's Diner Drive-By. The only reliable witness report we have from that murder was Jill who described the driver. The driver sounds similar to the murderer in the Stuffer Shack One-Shot murder (OFC Jackson).
- If Jill confirms that the guy in the video from the Stuffer Shack is the same guy who was driving the van during the Schaefer's Diner Drive-By, that ties those two murders together (as well, through ballistics, to the Taylor murder we haven't yet investigated).
- If we can find another eye-witness from the Shaefer's Diner Drive-By who had a view of the passenger side of the vehicle, they may be able to describe the shooter and other passenger.

Thanks for putting all this info together Jack. Its a great help

Need a little help though. I know it must be there, but I can't seem to find the part of the file where Twoman is even mentioned.

If he isn't in the Lone Star files, he was mentioned in the original discussion with Ramirez. I'll have to add that info. I believe I added it to the map entry for that murder.

So I'll post IC with a message to Ramirez. What specifically do we want to ask him about?

-DrZ

Oops. I'll edit my IC post.

OK, post edited.

Stuff We Need To Ask About:
1) LT Bradshere & Case #5247
2) Twoman. We asked Ramirez about it at the initial meet and he didn't sound like he could do much or have much more information, by my reading.
3) ???

From Jack's perspective, he thinks a physical meet might be best considering the sensitivity of the questions. Grease has a tailor-made method for conducting clandestine meets: the taxi. Do a pick-up or two, then pick Ramirez up, have a folder in the backseat for him to flip through, ask a few questions, drop him off, pcik up another fare or two, call it a day. You can even run a reasonable surveillance detection route at the same time. Granted, putting Grease and Ramirez in a taxi together alone may not be a stellar idea, LOL.

That sounds like a pretty good plan.

We can always ask him if anything has changed at work, if he himself has new information that may help us, or if anything has changed regarding the cases we are working, stuff like that.

Otherwise, I don't recall anything else that we want to ask.

Ok;

I like the "moving meet" idea; if you make that suggestion IC I can post a request to meet with Ramirez tonight. In person sounds better to me.
-DrZ

Unless someone else has posted since my last IC, I'll just edit that ( so don't look for a new notification).

P.S. I just consolidated all of the information from the map into a Powerpoint Presentation and uploaded it to the DB.

OK, I edited my post. Does anyone have a Radio Signal Scanner? I guess Overkill could scan the taxi for hidden icons before Grease leaves to pick up Ramirez, but not sure how we make sure Ramirez isn't bugged without a Radio Signal Scanner or someone with a good matrix perception. Assuming we get that locked down, I think the biggest threat would be a drone with a laser microphone.

ETA: Looks like Overkill has a bug scanner and an area jammer.

We could have Overkill ride in the trail car and watch for surveillance from there.

5 people piled into a single Taxi? Gonna be like a clown car in there... I would offer to stay back but I need to do Overwatch for the meet so.

Perhaps just Grease and Overkill should go on the meet with our Johnson? Seems like all of us crammed in there asking him questions may make Ramirez uncomfortable, not to mention looking very suspicious.

If Grease doesn't want to use his BMW for a trail car, perhaps Jack and Amy can take my Falke and stay in the area in case we need backup (They don't actually need to trail us, just stay in the vicinity of our Taxi's route)

Honestly, I don't think we really need a trail car, I was just trying to not split the party again. If it is a choice between everyone squeezing into a taxi or only one person going, I would take the latter.

ETA: I assume Grease is going to use the burner commlink that Ramirez gave us? I think it is the only one we have at the moment.

I don't really see the big deal, just have Grease be at the meet, and all of us will be part of the conversation over commlink, from a nearby spot.

I think I need to be pretty close to use my bug scanner and jammers.

Is there any way for me to check if someone is monitoring the commcode Ramirez is having us message?

It's a full sized automobile!


Sorry; *I* have no issue with the team driving the BMW, but I feel like it's something Grease would balk at. I think what makes the most sense is to have Grease and Overkill in the front seat of the Taxi, picking up Ramirez, with Amy and Jack on a secure commlink (protected on overwatch by Overkill) phoning in.

This solves a number of issues:
1) Grease isn't alone in the car with Ramirez
2) Overkill's bug scanner and jammer are close enough to work
3) We have a backup team to follow us and check for tails if there's an issue
4) We can flee in separate directions if things get hairy.
5) Since I can tint the windows of the cab, having an extra person in the front seat probably would go unnoticed by casual passersby, but if we had 4 people already inside it'd probably be more obvious.

At this point, I'm inclined to just leave it be, and see how Lobo responds; it's entirely possible Ramirez won't meet on our terms and will insist on picking the location.

-DrZ

That makes total sense to me. Grease only met us two or three days ago. My idea was to have Grease in a trail vehicle in VR remote controlling his vehicle and the taxi in VR. Jack would be the "taxi driver" but wouldn't really do anything other than talk to Ramirez. I think Jack has a slightly better relationship with the Johnson at the moment. I kind of think that Amy and Overkill need to be as far from Ramirez as possible for the time being.


This is a very good point. We probably should table the discussion until we hear back from him.


Well, his commcode is programmed into the burner commlink he gave us, so you should be able to use that bit of information to spot the icon in the Matrix using Matrix Perception (depending on the Running Silently rules). Then you could just alternately make Matrix Perception checks on each commlink icon and check for any unexpected MARKs.

As long as Overkill gets into the Taxi at Nic's and doesn't get out; there shouldn't be any problem with him going along. If they already know we are here at the shop and are monitoring it, that means they know Jack's identity and probably Grease's too. In that case we are already humped, and having Amy and Overkill hole up will do us little good other than impeding our progress.

Thanks for the tip on checking out Ramirez's commcode; I will do that as soon as Lobo checks in again.

You are probably right on size, I just have too many memories of jamming people into smaller cars for long car rides.

Don't worry about the driving thing, I knew it was an in-character thing with nothing personal attached.

I think it's poor OPSEC, but I am happy to go along with whatever the group decides. Plus, Jack wouldn't really have all that much of an idea about the matter.

Which part? The secured link or the team not being together?

The part where we don't exactly know how burned you and Amy are but are still going to put our Johnson in close proximity.

It's probably not a massive risk, but considering Honeypot is only on the periphery of our investigation (she has connections to smugglers) but knows two elves are digging into murdered Lone Star officers, there's no telling how much someone closer to the conspiracy knows. There are a lot of video cameras at the places we've visited. The conspirators could be doing the exact same thing that we've been doing as far as hacking cameras.

While I would prefer a face to face meet, I think our safest bet is just to call him on the phone and have Overkill check for unexpected MARKs. Probably the safest method.

Also, if Overkill and I are both in the Taxi, that's still two elves...

So for now should we just operate on the assumption that they are probably monitoring us already here at the shop?

I could do a quick scan of the area for any hackers who may be lurking about.

Couldn't hurt, I would think. I am not particularly worried at the moment, but if Overkill is concerned it may be a way to set Amy's mind at ease that her family is safe.

-DrZ

Back from the convention - lots to read - which is a great thing

Will have some posts up tonight.

Yeah, my main concern is how much they know about you two. They may know Overkill's Matrix Icon, they may know Amy's signature (I don't think that is necessarily a possibility as I believe she erased her signature everywhere she went), etc. I'm mainly worried that Jack's contact has heard at least limited details on the personalities involved and knows that we're looking into Lone Star deaths. Probably more of the latter than the former.

Looking forward to the updates.

I agree that the threat is there, and that the possibility of leading whoever is after us to the Johnson is a serious concern. The question remains on how we proceed under that threat. We can't very well leave half the team shelved just because they are on to us investigating; but it should make us watch every step we take from here on out even more carefully.

@Lobo: Going to be making a Matrix perception check of the area to see if there any hackers lurking in the vicinity.

I also wanted to check out Ramirez's commcode; (the method suggested by Jack) and see if there any unexpected MARKs on it, that could mean it is being monitored.

Lobo- since this is your game/town, I'd like you to suggest a location that Grease would know, but I obviously wouldn't

Here's what I'm looking for; once I have a place that meets these criteria, I can respond IC.

• UCAS Sector
• A place someone would grab a taxi, but not from a taxi stand (so maybe a corner downtown, but not at the airport)
• Someplace Ramirez would probably take a taxi from in his day to day life (maybe outside a restaurant)
• Someplace with wide boulevards and lots of room to maneuever; not a main thoroughfare jammed up with traffic.

As a reminder, Grease has Denver Area Knowledge 2, as well as the "Home Ground" quality.

I don't think y'all need to be shelved, but I don't think it is a good idea to have either one of you anywhere close to the Johnson until we know more about the threat, particularly given the Johnson is very concerned about his safety.

I'll wait for Lobo's response to DrZ's question before responding IC.

@Overkill,

A matrix perception test viewing any icons that seem suspicious in the area: (By the way, both of these tests assume you slip into VR to gain the +2 VR bonus - just for IC purposes.

10d6.hits(5)=5

You are fairly certain that no one is watching you.

As for finding his commlink's icon:

8d6.hits(5)=5 WOW - Invisible Castle seems to love you today - quick, hack something important

You are able to find his commlink icon, and the extra hits allow you to determine that there are no marks on the icon.

@Grease,

I would say Commerce City is the place to go - not the Hub, so you don't have to get your taxi through the border security, and it is a mostly business district. Any of the main roads will do - East 58th, 60th, 62nd, 64th, or even all the way up at East 72nd. Lots of places to pick up a taxi on any of those roads, (pick a cross street, any cross street - if it doesn't matter to you, we can assume East 60th and Newport). The Quebec Parkway is fairly wide, and given that the meet is for almost 9:00 PM, should not have too much traffic on it. You could drop him off at Mccormicks.

Any other info you need?