IC-Chapter 1-The Cygnet Committee(Richard/Christopher)

[CrackheadC.]

Richard took the bulletin notice with him as he went upstairs. He almost left to find a phone when he saw the notice on Dr. Anderson's door, but when he saw the light under the door he knocked instead. "Dr. Anderson? My name is Richard Cane. I work in the Science and Math library in the Rittenhouse Lab. I need to talk to you for a moment."

[Mr. Handy]

The door was opened by a tall, confident man in his upper forties, his brown hair streaked with hints of gray. A full beard covered his chin, and he wore glasses. "Ah, good," he said. "Our mutual friend told me to expect you. Come on in." He stood aside to allow Richard to enter. The office looked standard, with sunlight streaming in through the window at the back. A desk occupied the center of the room, with a leather chair behind it and another, less expensive chair in front of the desk and facing it. The desktop contained a blotter, a typewriter, a telephone, a lamp, and baskets labeled "IN" and "OUT." The baskets contained various papers. A short filing cabinet stood at the rear of the room beneath the window, and the sides of the office were lined with bookshelves filled with numerous books.

[CrackheadC.]

"It's nice to meet you Dr. Anderson." Richard extends his hand to shake before he takes a seat. "So it seems like your current research project is hitting quite a number of hiccups and I was asked to help sort them out and keep things smooth until you finish up."

Richard watches the Doctor carefully, trying to get a handle on his current disposition and general attitude as he talks. "So lets start simple, is there anything you can tell me about your project that our friend might not have told me? And after that, we can talk about your security problems."

[Mr. Handy]

Dr. Anderson shook Richard's hand firmly, then sat behind his desk, steepling his fingers. "Yes, there is plenty that I know about my project that our friend wouldn't," he said, "as I've designed and organized it from the beginning. i could go on for hours about it, so you might want to ask me specific questions to which you want to know the answers. Our security problems are my main concern right now. I only got back to the office about ten minutes ago, and I've already discovered an alarming security breach. I keep my research notes here, and I've just discovered that some of them are missing: most notably the accounts of the test subjects' dreams, but also some of the technical data and other important information. Now, I do have another copy of all of that stored in a safe place, but the fact that someone has been in my office and gotten their hands on my notes at all is disturbing. There was no sign of forced entry, either. This may be connected to that prowler that was spotted by campus security in the building last night."

OOC,[b]Richard[/b], please roll Psychology.

[CrackheadC.]

Richard couldn't get much of a read on Dr. Anderson other than he thought the guy was a bit of a jerk.

"Well since you seem to be a man short on time I'll combine my questions. What are the side effects of the drug? Specifically have you seen anything that would suggest addiction, cravings, or violence - in your human or animal testings?" Richard takes out a notebook to jot down his questions and answers, "Secondly, have you used Morpheus yourself?"

"Moving on to the other security issues, what use would that data be to an outsider? Was the technical data something that would help synthesize the drug elsewhere?" Richard turned to a new page and continued, "Who would have access to this office? Yourself, the department head, cleaning personnel, and I assume someone from the company? What about your kid?"

"I'm sure by now you know that your kid was picked up selling drugs last night and that he was carrying Morpheus. Before you worry about the sample getting out, some idiot cop 'drank' it. What are the odds that the prowler was your son stealing the drug?"

[Mr. Handy]

"Morpheus is not physically addictive and does not produce cravings," said Anderson. "It is possible that a user will enjoy the experience and desire it again, however. It does not cause people to become violent. If anything, it produces a calming effect that will quickly put the drinker to sleep for several hours. There is the possibility of hallucinatory aftereffects, though I'll need more data to determine this. One of the test subjects from the first round of the experiment recently crashed her car into a store, though luckily nobody was hurt. She claimed that she was being pursued by monsters. Still, this happened over a week after she had last taken Morpheus. I have never taken Morpheus myself.

"An outsider could conceivably use the data to recreate the formula for Morpheus, though not all of the data were taken. I'm still not sure why some notes were taken and others were left behind. The formula for Morpheus is very complex, and it has a number of rare ingredients, but it could be manufactured by others with the right knowledge at great effort and expense. Other than myself, Assistant Professor Nancy Remington also has a key to the office. She is my assistant on this project, though she is unaware of our backers' true identities. All she knows is that we have a government grant. The head of the department has a key yes, as do the cleaners and our friend Mr. Farrell. Brian had access to my lab until yesterday, which is how he obtained a sample of Morpheus - and I was informed of what happened to it in the end - but not to my office. I had changed the locks on the lab yesterday, and the keys were delivered to my office. I found them here when I arrived this morning, undisturbed.

"I know what you're thinking, but it's quite impossible for Brian to have broken in here last night. He has the perfect alibi - he was in jail at the time of the break-in. He only got out on bail a little over an hour ago. Also, the security guard said that the burglar was short, while Brian is tall. Still, I don't know who Brian might have told."

[CrackheadC.]

"At this time though, what Morpheus does and doesn't do in terms of side-effects is just guessing though. I doubt you did a study on side-effects with the lab rats. It is a little disturbing that one of the students was having hallucinogenic flashbacks though."

When they were talking about his son and the lab, Richard asked, "Have you noticed any of the supply missing before, and could anyone have access to the rest of the notes that weren't taken? Perhaps the assistant?"

[Mr. Handy]

"We did actually look for side effects during the animal experimentation phase," said Anderson, "but it was more difficult as the subjects could not describe their symptoms. The only side effect that's been confirmed during animal or human testing is drowsiness. I'm not sure that the girl's hallucinations were due to the Morpheus at this point, or if there was some other cause. Granted, she does not seem the type to use hallucinogens recreationally, but there may be some factor at work here besides the Morpheus of which we're unaware. That's why I need more data. I never said they were flashbacks either, though in one of her Morpheus-induced dreams she had reported seeing similar monsters.

"I have never noticed any of the supply missing before Brian stole a dose yesterday morning. I haven't had a chance to check the lab today yet, though. That's the next step. It is possible that whoever was in my office borrowed one of the keys that had been delivered here and used it to access the lab, so I'll want to check to make sure the Morpheus is still there. You should come with me when I do. Nancy has her own copy of our notes on the experiment already, at least the stuff that isn't secret. I don't think she'd steal something she already has, and I can't see her doing something like this regardless. In any event, she doesn't have a key to this office, only to her own. She does have a key to the lab, but she didn't pick up her key for the new lock until I returned, shortly before you arrived. Her office is Room 325, just down the hall, and she's there now."

[CrackheadC.]

Richard nodded, he knew that the Doctor didn't say the girl was having flashbacks, but it is just too convenient that she would use monsters as an excuse for crashing her car so shortly after this strange experiment. Some of Richard's own friends were in Veteren hospitals for this sort of thing. Call it shell shock, battle fatigue, or PTSD - it seemed to Richard that anyone who has been in a terrible situation mentally could suffer from it.

"I don't think I need to talk to Nancy. You seem to trust her yourself. And you are right, if she already has access to most of the notes, there is no reason for her to steal more. Now if there was secret information - chemical formulas, thesis, or ingredients missing, then we might have to check her out. But you would tell me if that was the case right?" Richard was about to close his notebook before he stopped. "Which girl was in the accident? After we check your lab, I would like to go an talk to her. I'll say I am following up on the experiment if you are afraid of confidentiality issues."

After getting the information, if Dr. Anderson is willing to go and check on his lab, that is the next stop for Richard.

[CrackheadC.]

OOC,If you haven't already completed the update, I would also like to know if any of the former or future student test subjects match the description of the person lurking outside of the lab last night.

[Mr. Handy]

"Yes, I'd tell you if that were the case," said Anderson. "The formula for Morpheus is a carefully guarded secret, and I don't have it written down anywhere on campus or in my home. I just have it up here." He tapped his forehead. "Someone would really have to know what he was doing to be able to reverse engineer it from my notes. There are probably only a few hundred people in the world with the necessary expertise. The girl who crashed her car is named Emily Simmons, a freshman who lives in the girls' dormitory on campus. Normally that would be condifential, but in this case you need to know it, and technically you're part of the project team now. Talking to her sounds like a good idea. Is there anything else you'd like to know before I show you the lab?"

[CrackheadC.]

"Yeah," Richard said, "last question. Does the school or the company have any CCTV cameras watching your office, this building, or the lab?"

OOC,If yes, Richard will want to collect the office and building tapes before they go to the lab. If no, than I am ready to head over to the lab.

[Mr. Handy]

"No, there's nothing like that here," said Anderson. "Security cameras are expensive, and the university doesn't have them. We didn't want to bring them in, because the heightened security would make it too obvious that something important was going on here. We were relying on nobody even suspecting the nature of our research, but that seems to have gone out the window. Well, let's go."

Anderson stood up and gathered his remaining research notes, placing them inside a briefcase that he carried with him. He then led Richard out of the office and into the hall, locking the door behind them. He showed Richard the way downstairs and down a hall leading further into the building. They soon came to the door to Room 110, which differed from the others in that there was a shiny new padlock securing it. Anderson took out a small key from his pocket, unlocked the padlock, and opened the door.

The two men entered the lab, and the professor flicked on the lights. "Nothing appears to be disturbed," he said, "but we'd better take a look around just in case." The windowless area beyond the door looked like a standard science lab, with various lab tables and cabinets, but it also had a Westinghouse refrigerator that was locked with another padlock, several cots in the back, and a television set.

[CrackheadC.]

Richard wandered around the lab looking for anything that might have struck him as out of place in a laboratory - not being a scientist though he could only go off of information from sci-fi books he had read in the library. "The cots are for the sleep study?" Richard looks over the cots to see if any of the students left something from the previous tests. "What's with the television though?"

After giving the room a good looking though Richard stopped at the refrigerator, "This is where you keep the Morpheus stock I assume? Think I can take a look? Worst case scenario, I want to be able to recognize the stuff if some is taken out of the lab again."

"Do you notice anything out of place in here?"

[Mr. Handy]

"Yes, the cots are for the subjects to sleep on," said Anderson. "The TV is for their entertainment. They'll be here for a few hours before they take their drinks while we observe them, as well as for a little while in the morning after they awaken, so it's good for them to have something to do, and it'll help them fall asleep. Those who take the Morpheus won't need any help in that regard, but those in the control group might. There are six students in all in each round of testing, three in each group. I don't notice anything out of place yet. Let me show you the fridge."

Anderson took out a different key, unlocked the refrigerator, and opened it. On the top shelf were nine stoppered flasks, each one containing about eight ounces of a brown liquid. On the lower shelves, he saw chocolate milk, juice, soft drinks, and breakfast and snack foods. There were also two bins at the bottom for fruits and vegetables. "As you can see," he said, "we have food and drinks so that the participants can have snacks as well as breakfast in the morning. The flasks each contain a dose of Morpheus. The experiment runs three nights, so we need nine doses, and they're all here. I'll make additional doses today, just in case. I'll also prepare the drinks in similar flasks for the control group. That's why we have the chocolate milk. Since Morpheus looks like it, nobody can tell the difference. I'll label each flask with a number from one to six so that we know which student gets each one and can tell them apart."

OOC,[b]Richard[/b], please roll Spot Hidden to see if you noticed anything during your search of the lab.

[CrackheadC.]

"I see. I'll try to avoid any brown liquids." When Dr. Anderson mentioned that the students with Morpheus wouldn't need help sleeping he asked, "Won't the control group catch on to the fact that they aren't the ones getting the Morpheus if the other three students fall asleep quickly and easily? Have you done any pre-testing for the group getting the drug to see their regular sleeping patterns, or are you relying on the control group to establish the base?"

Richard kept looking around the lab, "I am not scientist, but it seems to me like you should consider doing check ups with the students that got the Morpheus in the future... to much experimentation going on without any regards to human health these days." Richard stopped talking when something in the lab caught his attention.

[CrackheadC.]

OOC,I'm not sure what I should be doing. Am I giving you enough to work with? Am I ahead of the other players and just need to wait for them to catch up? Or are you just busy - if that is the case, I'll keep waiting and take your time. I know you run a lot of games.

[Mr. Handy]

OOC,I hadn't had time to update lately, combined with continuous sleep deprivation making it hard for me to think. I need to let you know what you noticed before you proceed. I actually started you off several hours before the other PCs, knowing that you were by yourself and expecting that you would catch up to them eventually, especially if you take time to do research in a library or something.

"The drinks aren't given out until midnight," said Dr. Anderson. "By that time, all of them will be tired. The TV will help lull those in the control group to sleep as well. Maybe they'd notice that others are falling asleep quickly and they're not, but we put curtains up between the cots at night so that the students don't see each other. They may still hear snoring, however. We don't pretest the volunteers, but we do interview them about their sleeping habits and patterns prior to admitting them to the experiment. The control groups do help establish a baseline, though. Following up with the students after the experiment is a good idea. In fact, you can use that as your pretext when you speak to Miss Simmons."

Richard was poking through the cabinets, some of which contained flasks of various sizes, and one of which contained a few thermoses. He noticed that that one had two circles roughly the same size as the base of a thermos that were free of dust, while there was a small coating on the rest of the shelves in the cabinet.

[CrackheadC.]

"I understand. Yes, that would be a good reason to talk to Ms. Simmons." Richard kept poking around the lab until he noticed the cabinet with what appeared to be missing thermoses. "Dr. Anderson? Do you have to keep your samples of Morpheus refrigerated, or is it possible that they would still be effective if they were kept at room temperature for an extended period of time?"

[Mr. Handy]

"Yes, Morpheus does need to be kept cold," said Dr. Anderson. "Why do you ask?"