Play@YSDC

Since first encountering Delta Green, the lives of FBI agents Vanessa Marchand and Nikolas Siilasvuo have changed dramatically. They now know they exist in a world where the Unnatural is real. Where an alien parasite can possess a man and have him commit the most depraved actions. Where a dead Agent's wife can be brought back to life, only to have to be put down once again once her true nature becomes apparent. Where a teenage boy adolescent desires can lead him to unknowingly murder several people.

Delta Green exists to fight against these things, and so the pair of agents joined willingly, and have embarked on several operations in their short time with the group. In turn they have encountered other factions that know something of the hidden world in which they now find themselves; Majestic-12, another shadowy organization within the US Government that seeks to understand and exploit the Unnatural; The Karotechia, the remnants of Nazi Germany's occult wing, striving to regain their lost power and rise from the ashes; and The Fate, a criminal cartel that runs the New York underground and uses the occult for its own purposes. Led by Stephen Alzis, a man Delta Green has killed several times. During their last op, Nik performed a favor in his service in exchange for some information.

After saving a busload of children from a monstrous inhuman species that laired underneath New York, the agents were sent back home to Arizona. Of course, none of their work colleagues knew of their heroics. All their superiors knew was that they had conducted a rookie training exercise into a hate group. They try to get back to their normal lives. Vanessa however grows a bit distant from her brother, perhaps due to the stress of her job, or the horrors she had witnessed. He seems to notice, but seems unwilling to pry at present. On the bright side, her relationship with her boyfriend is going well. More than once he seems to understand something is gnawing at her; but working in law he does not press her on it, and their relationship continue to work.

Nik was truly shaken by the monsters he encountered underneath the subway, and perhaps he also is waiting for the other show to drop. After all, he performed a service for a crime boss, which is bad enough. The fact that said crime boss is apparently immortal and the agents were specifically warned not to contact only makes the matter worse. His relationship with his girlfriend suffers, and they go through a rough patch that almost leads to a break up. Nik pulls himself back from the bring however, and really steps up to the plate with romantic gestures and heartfelt displays of affection. It does not completely heal their bond, but it goes a long way, and their relationship is salvaged. For now, at least.

It's two months before they receive news. They are both offered jobs in the New York office, along with a significant pay increase. It's a lot better for their careers than Phoenix, but it also means they have to leave their families behind. Unless perhaps they can convince their significant others to move?

OOC,Go ahead and decide if your boyfriend/girlfriend are coming with you. Even if they don't, keep the bond ratings the same for now; we'll assume for now you're giving long distance a try, and if your characters decide to break up with them after this mission I'm fine with removing them from play and granting you a new bond with the same characteristics.

Both agents realize Delta Green likely has something to do with pulling the strings to advance their career, but for whatever reason both accept the offer. They find themselves working under Curtis McRay, their DG case officer from the last assignment, and the only Delta Green agent they know by name( code names are typically preferred) McRay however only offers them mundane assignments related to their day jobs for the moment; if asked any questions about Delta Green he only offers that they'll be in touch when something comes up. Attempts to bond with him are firmly rebuffed.

OOC,If you want to try to butter McRay up and get some information about the organization, roll persuade. You will need a crit success( two doubles in a successful roll) to get anything of value. He keeps his cards close to his chest.

Nik also receives a surprise. Waking up the first day in his New York apartment, he finds someone has placed a very expensive bottle of wine on his dining room table. A small card is attached.

Welcome to New York. Stop by anytime.

-A.

The doors are all locked.

**


It's not until six months later that Delta Green gets in touch with them again. Arriving for work on an ordinary day, both agents are called into McRay's office at around noon. Something in the man's pose instantly tells them this is not FBI business.

“Before we begin, I have to ask. Do either of you have any interest in Theoretical Physics?” Once they
answer, he continues. “On a scale of 1 to 10, how well would you say you understand the subject?”

OOC,Nik brings Debbie to New York, deciding it would be better for his sanity to have her around. She has some distant family there, and is able to settle in after getting a job at the NY County Court House.

“Do I look like a fucking scientist?” thinks Nik irritably, after hearing McRay's questions. Despite his gloom at realizing where this may be going though, he’s curious.

“No, boss. Sorry" he replies.

"That would be a one, sir," says Vanessa. "I'm more of an practical physics kind of gal, in that I can hit what I'm shooting at most of the time. As they say: in theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they're not."

OOC,[b]Malcolm[/b] has gone with [b]Vanessa[/b] to New York, taking a job with New York City's DA's office, which is a step up in his career as well. Persuade roll (71% skill) to get [b]McRay[/b] to open up to her: [dice]0[/dice]

McRay nods,seeming to expect these answers.

"That's actually exactly what we want to hear. Word came down from A-Cell direct, I'm to get a team together who has no understanding of advanced mathematics.

"A little over four hours ago, a Mathematics student from Colombia University by the name of Michael Wei made the hour and a half drive to Alliance, New Jersey. There he made his way to the home of Malcolm and Dinah Ridgeway, murdering them and their six children with a shotgun. Wei then spray painted a series of numbers on the pavement outside the Ridgeway's home and blew his own head off. What attracted our group's interest is the series of numbers Ridgeway spraypainted just before he died. According to A-Cell, this series of numbers are known to possess dangerous and paranormal properties. I don't know the exact details and suspect I'm not cleared to; in any case, we're not interested in understanding here. What we need to do is contain this. If these numbers do have some sort of self destructive effect on those able to comprehend them, it's crucial as few people see them as possible. You're the closest team, so you're being sent in. "Strings have been pulled to get the FBI on the case, this along with Wei transporting firearms interstate to commit a murder, means the case falls within our jurisdiction.

"Your mission objectives are as follows. First, examine the crime scene and covertly erase all traces the local authorities possess of the number sequence. We have a man on the inside who is successful in stomewalling the scene from the media, but no doubt crime photos have been taken and submitted into evidence, and he won't be able to delay them forever. Use whatever methods are necessary to deal with them; editing them to show a different set of numbers if necessary, destroying them as a last resort otherwise.

"Second, determine if Wei transmitted the numbers in any other way prior to committing the murders. Locate any notes or work he has related to the subject and destroy, do not remove, destroy them.

"Third, locate any other individuals exposed to the number and report them to me. A-Cell reports only those with advanced mathematical knowledge are really affected by whatever this is, so most of the cops on the scene should not be an issue. But if anyone has a background in mathematics and seems to have fallen under their spell, we need to know.

"Lastly, it's important we establish a clear motive for Wei's actions. We don't even know at present if he knew the Ridgeways. If possible, use whatever means possible to establish a connection between him and Dinah Ridgeway, If we can play this off as a romance gone wrong, we'll do a lot to prevent investigators from looking too closely at the real reason for his actions.

"As a last note, our friendly will identify himself with a code phrase: This scene is not something Green agents would appreciate. You should reply with: It sure beats the Delta, though. The old guard loves their cold war tradecraft." McRay's expression showed he was considerably less fond of it.

"If there are no more questions, I'll leave you to it,Agents. You've both been officially assigned to the case, but as always take care not to be caghut breaking any laws or doing anything that would bring down suspicion on either of you. Good hunting."

"We'll need to access Wei's email account at Columbia," says Vanessa, "as well as any outside personal email account he may have. Not only do we need to check to see to whom he may have sent the number sequence, or who may have sent it to him, and alter or destroy the numbers, but we can also plant false emails between him and Dinah Ridgeway. If she doesn't have a real account of her own, we can set up a fake one for her. Nik's better with computers than I am, but that's not saying much. Do we have an asset who could get us access?"

“Shit” thinks Nik. He’s never been a homicide investigator and has no desire to see the crime scene, especially one like this.

“We’ll need to shut down Ridgeway, and deal with things from the Columbia end” he says out loud. “I don’t like to split up but maybe we have to to save time. I can go to the university and clear up his personals, and find out what the hell happened to him there. Is that okay with you two?”

OOC,It does seem like we'll have to do both scenes. Are you guys okay to split? We don't have to if it makes things too complicated.

"Yes, that's a good idea," agrees Vanessa. "Time is critical in containing this thing - we have to treat it like a contagion - and there shouldn't be much personal risk to us to split up."

"That would all be useful information to have. Unfortunately we don't have any of it. Wei's name only popped up a few hours ago. If you want to get any of that information, you'll have to go to Colombia yourself. You're both FBI though, so it should be no problem to get the administration to let you access Wei's room. A case like this, my guess is they'll want to be very cooperative and help you paint Wei as a lone nut.

McRay takes a sip of coffee and shrugs at Nik's question. "That's up to the both of you. Just keep in mind that a job on one end may very well take longer than the other. And if things get complicated, you may not receive immediate backup. But if we're fortunate it might help us contain all of this faster, and time is admittingly of the essence here."

“I’ll leave for Columbia now” says Nik. “McRay, why don’t you call ahead to the campus police, explain the situation and tell them I’m coming? It should help smooth the way.”

McRay Agrees. "I'll make some calls.In the meantime, keep me informed. Best of luck to you both."

Vanessa

It takes over an hour for Vanessa to drive to the scene of the crime. Thankfully traffic is light enough that she makes good time considering the distance.

Her immediate impression of Alliance is that it is a rural community that is trying to become less so, with limited success. Alliance, New Jersey, is nothing more than two strips of restaurants, gas stations and some large shops, surrounded by sparse lots that once were farms. Two large motels sit on the east
and west of town and a hotel stands in the center of the strip. Currently the Motel 6 at the west edge of town seemed packed with law enforcement personal, suggesting it is the center of the police investigation at present. But she also spots several news vans.

The Ridgeway house is three stories tall plus a basement, built on a quarter acre just on the edge of New Jersey Highway 6.By the time Vanessa gets there she sees the scene swarming with police and news reporters, everything from local to national and even a few internationals from Canada. There seems to be no way to avoid them, and as soon as she gets out of her car and begins heading to the crime scene, they rush towards her, a thousand microphones and cameras flashing in her face. Questions are shouted as to the FBI's relation to the case and if Wei worked alone.

OOC:   Assuming you want to ignore them for now, but let me know if you try and engage.

Eventually, with great effort, Vanessa makes it onto the crime scene, the police posted deterring the reporters from moving along any further past the yellow police tape. The first thing she sees is a chalk outline of a body on the very edge of the road. A placard next to it lists the victim as Michael Ridgeway. A little ways away is the house itself. Another chalked form is outlined here, most likely Michael Wei himself. There are still traces of what looks to be blood by both outlines,suggesting the cleanup is still ongoing.

Next to this body a set of numbers are erratically scrawled into the sidewalk. 9 9 2 0 .2 2 9 9 8 9 2 1 2 .3 3 3. A few police officers stand over the body and numbers, sipping from cups of coffee as their cold breath blows though the air. A short, dumpy looking woman kneels down in front of the numbers, carefully taking notes. Dressed in a suit that looks rented, everything about her screams FBI.

One of the two men drinking looks at Vanessa and gives her a curt nod. "You the calvary? Agent Canor inside told me to expect you." McRay had warned Vanessa that her team would be piggybacking onto an existing FBI investigation, Agent Canor was the legitimate head of the taskforce, and expected both her and Nik as additional assistance on the case, given their "assistance on past cases of this nature". He knew nothing of Delta Green and it should be kept that way.

The man holds out his hand. "Upton Weeks. I'm the police chief here in Alliance. Less than a year at the post, and this happens. Biggest crime of the century, here in this f*cking town." He smiles, bitter. "Needless to say, we're all glad you're here." The chief is tall and thin, with a strangely protruding gut and looking to be in his late 30's. He's balding and his toupee does a poor job of hiding it.

The other man gives a nod. He's stocky but in good shape, looking to be a bit older than Weeks. He does not introduce himself. Nor does the woman examining the numbers, though she gives a week smile of acknowledgment to her fellow agent.

"Anyway, thanks for coming out. I'm guessing you want to see the inside of the crime scene? Agents Cantor and uh, Gant, was it? They're looking over things, and I've got my guys combing the scene with a fine toothed pen."

"Be careful though," the other man speaks up. "This scene is not something Green Agents would appreciate."

"Heh," Weeks laughs. "Or anyone, really. More than one guy looked close to vomiting."

ooc,Sorry for the long post. Feel free to give me any rolls you think Vanessa would make at the moment, if any. I'm placing a lot of empathis on you guys investigating the scene, though if you ever need help Idea rolls are available.

Nik,

Nik arrives at Colombia within half an hour, only to find someone already waiting for him. An attractive, sharpy dressed blonde woman in her 40's greets him.

"Agent Siilasvuo?" Hi, Sandy Beema. I handle public relations for the university. Thanks so much for coming out."

"Before we begin, let me express Colombia deepest sympathies to the Ridgeway family. We are happy to assist in anyway. In fact, I've put together a little tour for you of the campus, along with a briefing on what we know of the assaulent in this case. If you'd please follow me."

Sandy first shows Nik to the university's counseling services. She makes sure to tell him of their award winning staff, and introduces him to several therapists whose names all blend together. None of them claim they knew Wei. Then she takes him to a staff meeting room, where she spends the next hour talking about what they knew of the student, and bringing in some of Wei's professors to testify.

Wei was a very quiet and studious young man. His professors had only nice things to say about him. But add that he seemed strikingly anti social. Sandy adds that it's not uncommon for troubled individuals to suddenly snap, and adds her theory that that's exactly what Wei did. Colombia of course had nothing to do with it.

OOC:   Feel free to make a HUMINT here.

"The resources were there for Mr. Wei to take advantage of, but unfortunately he did not. There was nothing Colombia could have done, tragic as this story was. Is."

Tour concluded, and once Nik had asked as many questions as he wanted, Sandy asks him if he'd like to see where Wei had lived, or any other part of the campus.

HUMINT,HUMINT 72: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/681216]HUMINT[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]94[/b]

Nik wants to know which faculty and students Wei was working with, and what he was working on.

"It sure beats the Delta, though," Vanessa replies to the other man, who is obviously the friendly. "I'm Special Agent Vanessa Marchand. Thanks for the welcome, and I'm glad I can help. Crime scene examinations are my specialty." She begins her initial examination of the crime scene, trying to determine exactly what happened and in what order.

OOC,Forensics roll (80% skill) examining the crime scene: [dice]0[/dice]

Nik

Beema reports that Wei was a graduate student working for Professor Nigel Turner. If tracked down, Turner has little but praise for the young man, but does report that he kept to himself. Apparently his work was, if not everything, most things. Nigel also reports that Wei was undertaking his thesis on Unbreakable Ciphers and their use in Intelligence and Cryptography. It was a bit of a niche field, even among the Mathematical department at Colombia, and the professor could not say precisely what Wei was working on specifically.

"He did seem more excited these past few weeks," he adds as a bit of an afterthought. "But I thought he had just gotten a girlfriend or some such. Now I don't know what to think."

There are two other Grad students Turner employs; Nika Cruz and Dan Applegate. But Turner insists that neither worked closely with Wei and both pursued their own research projects.

After the interview, Sandy offers to show Nik Wei's dorm room.

Vanessa

Vanessa instantly sees the officer's face relax as she says the code phrase.

"Indeed. I've visited the outskirts but never taken a full trip. Thomas Blanet, New Jersey State Police." Vanessa knows that given the ending of the crime technically took place on an intersection, the state police would be involved. It was just one more layer of law enforcement. "If I can help, let me know."

Vanessa's initial impressions match what McRay laid out: Wei shot the one survival in his rampage in the back as he was fleeing onto the interstate. Then he spraypainted a series of numbers and blew his own head off. She heads inside the home. It's a mess. Though the bodies are removed, bloodstains and the general carnage of a home invasion hint at the carnage that had occurred here just a few hours ago. Inside the living room she comes face to face with two more FBI agents. Both are in the midst of a deep discussion, but seeing Chief Weeks, they stop to address the newcomer.

"Special Agent Aiden Cannor, I'm in charge of this investigation." A man holds out his arm. He's African American and speaks with a soft voice, and is clad in a dark black suit. "This is Will Gant, my second in command." Gant's a short, boyish looking agent in his early 30's. His eyes are deep green and seem a bit too close together, making him look a bit dim.

"Now that you're here, let's walk you through what we have." Cannor continues. He directs Vanessa over to sofa by the TV.

"Right, so here's our suspected timeline so far. Wei enters the house at just before 9:00 this morning. No sign of forced entry, so we're assuming the door was unlocked; this is the kind of community where that still happens. He sees Dean and Clare Ridgeway watching TV on the sofa here, and shoots them both, starting with Dean. Then he goes towards the kitchen. Along the way, he sees Mary coming out of the bathroom here to investigate the noise, and shots her too.

He gets into the kitchen and shoots the rest of the family, starting with Malcolm. Judging by the placement of her body in front here, we think Dinah tried to plead with him or protect her kids, he shoots her too. Then he finishes off the kids. Clark and Alice both tried to run and were shot in the back; Clark took two shots and managed to make it a bit further then Alice, for all the good it does him.

We're thinking Michael Ridgeway wasn't in the kitchen. There's no other exit out. We think he was upstairs and fled when he heard the gunshots. Wei hears him and follows; Michael has a good lead but Wei has a shotgun; you can figure out how that ends. He shoots him just as he gets at the interstate in front of horrified onlookers. Then he writes down whatever message he was trying to leave here and removes his own head. The whole thing takes less then six minutes."

"All told, Wei shot each victim except Clark once for a total of nine shots, plus 6 missed ones. Then he shot himself, for a total of 16 shots. The gun was a Remington 870 shotgun, serial number 2022998. It was stolen but never reported; oddly enough, it's legal owner is reported to be the New York Police 24th precinct. Records indicate it should still be there, so we're not sure how or when he got it."

Working through the case, Vanessa finds Cannor's reasoning to be sound, though her trained investigative skills pick up on something the rest of the officers may have missed. In the midst of all the general buckshot and carnage she notices that the stove has apparently been shot. It's an old model, yellow and sickly green and seeming to come out of the 1970's. The clock on it has been shattered, stopping at precisely 9:02:33. The damage done indicated Wei had to stand pretty close to the stove; all of the other missed shots seem to be simple misfires in the midst of slaughter, but this one almost seems planned.

OOC:   In the future I may not bold every name, but I'll try to do the pertinent ones.

Cryptography? Nik wonders to himself if Wei was doing research on behalf of the government, specifically the NSA. Or perhaps that group which pretends to be the NSA?

He insists on speaking to the grad students and looking at any facilities and computers which Wei used on campus before looking at his room.

Vanessa shakes the hands of everyone to whom she's been introduced. "Take a look at the stove's clock," she says. "It's been shot, and it stopped at the time that it happened. Looks like Wei may have shot the stove on purpose rather than hit it with a missed shot. He was standing right near it when he fired. Now we know the exact time when this happened." Vanessa is no mathematician, but she has also noticed that the shotgun's serial number, 2022998, appears as part of the number that Wei had spraypainted. The odds of a random sequence of 8 digits forming an exact match like that are one in a hundred million, so it is probably not a coincidence. That leaves 99 before the serial number and 9212333 after. Might the last be a phone number? The numbers in the clock's time could be significant too. She keeps this information to herself for now, not wanting to draw attention to the numbers. She'll share what she's found with the friendly if she gets the opportunity to speak to him alone. She tries to think what else she could do here.

OOC,Idea roll (55% stat) at the crime scene: [dice]0[/dice]

Nik

Nik gets meetings with both of Turner's other grad students. Both back up what the professor was saying; Wei was a loner, aloof but more self absorbed than truly unfriendly. He largely kept to himself, or at least, neither of his fellow grad students ever hung out or saw him hanging out with anyone. Nika mentions that a few times he did bring up his project.

“He talked about it a few times. He was focused on interesting and esoteric encryption and compression methods. I think he wanted to see what the famous examples had in common in making an uncrackable code, and use that to make one of his own. He never told me the full details. To some extent I think he was a bit paranoid I would steal his work.”

Dan backs this up, and adds, “Once he seems really frustrated with his thesis, and he didn't admit it but I think he hit some sort of impasse. This was a few months ago, November or so? Somewhere around then. But starting like a month ago he had this nervous energy to him, and it sort of intensified. I never asked, but maybe it had something to do with his work? I know I've been like that when I was close to a breakthrough.”

Wei spent considerable time in a computer lab located a floor underneath his dorm room in John Jay hall. Talking to people here indicate he was a constant sight in the lab until a few weeks ago, when his visits tapered off considerably. There are records of Wei's activities here; However Nik finds them all to be advanced mathematics and cannot make much out of them unless he wants to involve someone else in trying to decipher them. In large part, these files seem to be grading papers and doing work for Turner, and there are very few of them for the last month or so.

Vanessa

“Good eye,” says Cannor, clearly impressed. “Not sure it means anything, but I'll have Comax take a look at it". He looks to Vanessa. “Sarah Comox. She's assisting us with the numerical aspect of the case. See if there's any pattern to Wei's madness.”

OOC:   You're supposed to make a luck roll here, but Vanessa solved it on her. Good(?) for her.

It occurs to Vanessa that parts of the number appeared elsewhere in the crimescene. The stopped numbers on the clock include numbers found within the one Wei had spraypainted. In addition, Wei had fired 16 times. There were 16 numbers in the sequence.

Having a hunch, Vanessa tries the number she thinks may be a phone number. It turns out to be the Ridgeway's.

OOC:   Vanessa can make a san roll here. 0/1d4 Unnatural. There are way too many coincidences here for this to be a coincidence.

If Vanessa chooses to speak with the friendly, he shares with her why he called it in. “I've been to my share of crime scenes over the years, but I've seen nothing like this. Well, nothing except the other things I saw working for you guys. I've never seen anything like with the numbers, but there's a weirdness here that I can't quite explain.

If she shares with him some of the examples of the numbers, he looks visibly troubled and nods. “Right, guess this is your department. We'll need to figure out how to erase the traces of the numbers then both here and wherever they've been recorded. I know the Alliance PD took photos of them and have likely written up reports containing them. One of us will need to go there and see if we can't access them and try to get them erased or edited. It might be tough though. Plus, I don't want to lose the pension I've worked so hard for.” Blanet runs a hand through his hand and sighs. He seems a bit indecisive about how far he's willing to cross the line, and Vanessa gets the sense he may need some persuasion.

As for what else she can do, Vanessa can think of little. The police and FBI are going over this scene with a fine toothed comb, and she's already getting the sense that they see this as nothing more than the violent outburst of a troubled mind, a random occurrence. Something she could do was investigate the shotgun and why it was never reported missing. Or maybe she could call Nik and check in on his investigation.

"This is beyond weird," says Vanessa to Blanet in private. "Maybe Wei in his madness deliberately chose those numbers for their relevance, but I think there's something more at play here. I don't understand it, and I'm not sure I want to. We can't erase the numbers, but I think we can edit them. It won't be that hard. We just have to alter a couple of digits consistently wherever they appear. A 1 becomes a 4 and a 3 turns into an 8 so easily. Nobody's going to remember what the numbers originally were, and with these minor changes the numbers will just be gibberish, the ravings of a madman. Anyone who tries to understand the wrong numbers will just come up empty. Anyone who tries to understand the right ones...well, that could cause untold damage. We have to prevent the spread of this. It's like a virus, and we have to contain it." She also gives Nik a call to fill him in on what she's found so far and to see how his part of the investigation is going.

OOC,Sanity roll (current level 70) for finding the pattern in the numbers: [dice]0[/dice] Persuade roll (71% skill) to convince [b]Blanet[/b] to help change the numbers: [dice]1[/dice]

Nik excuses himself from Sandy and listens to Vanessa’s report in silence. “No, there’s no way this is a coincidence. Somehow the way in which those numbers aligned compelled him to commit the murders. We need to find out how he got that shotgun.”

“I haven’t found anything here yet. He was a fine student by all accounts, but a loner with no friends and nothing it seemed outside his research. Which was into cryptography, no less. He was looking for an unbreakable code. So I’m wondering if he might have been working on behalf of the military, or the NSA. We should get McRay to look into that angle.”

“I’m going to seize all his hard drives and files and bring them back. Maybe the answer is there. I’m going to look at his room now.”

He communicates his intentions to Sandy.

"Yeah, finding out how he got that shotgun is key," says Vanessa. "That means a visit to the 24th precinct in New York, and you're already up there. If I finish up here soon enough, I can meet you there. I can bring our friendly too. He may need a little more convincing."

Nik

Sandy leads Nik to Wei's dorm room. It's small and messy, almost every surface filled to the brim with books, notes and empty containers of food and drink. There's not even a full bed; instead a modest futon sits in the middle of the floor admist the mess. It's definitely a college student's dorm room.

A rickety desk holds a gray computer and monitor; notes are spread out along the rest of the table, piled on top of one another. It's going to take some time to go through all of them.

Before Nik can settle in, two more people poke their heads in. They're a young man and woman, both looking to be students themselves.

“We heard about Michael,” the man says. He's a heavyset guy with goatee. “It can't be true!”

Sandy looks irritated for a second before plastering on her smile. Nik can tell it's well rehearsed. “I'm sorry, but this is an active investigation. I'm going to have to ask you both to leave and not disturb it.”

The other woman,a brunette with freckles, ignores her and shakes her head, looking right at Nik. “ Are you police? Mike was set up, I'm sure of it!Me and Anthony have known him for over a year. He couldn't have done something like this!”

Vanessa,

Something about the scene allows Vanessa to keep a shred of doubt about the numbers leading to madness, at least at the moment. It's probably a good thing for her mental state, though even she knows it's something of a delusion.

Blanet appears torn by her words, but he finally frowns. “Look, I've been on the force for decades. I'm willing to help you people. I've always cooperated. But I'm risking my pension here. I'm willing to help... to a point. But I need to know you're risking something as well. And chances are your badge can do more than mine.

“I can either access and change the computer records or try and access the handwritten ones and either change them myself or convince someone on the inside to do it, but I can't do both. You'll have to pick up the slack.”

OOC:   If Vanessa wants to leave the scene now, she can. There's no particular need to immediately change the numbers. Just something to keep in mind.

"Fair enough," Vanessa tells Blanet. "I'm not skilled with computers. My partner is somewhat, but you're probably better at it than he is. If you can change the computer records, we can change the written ones. We'll just have to make sure all the changes are consistent. The 9 right before the 8 in the middle becomes another 8. The 1 becomes a 4. The middle 3 at the end becomes an 8. That should be subtle enough. We can take some time to do this, as they're not likely to get out any time soon. It's best to make sure we do it undetected." She then lets Nik know that she'll meet him at Columbia. After giving her cell phone number to the rest of the team and letting them know she's going to join up with her partner to follow the leads in New York, she drives out to Columbia.

Nik is intrigued. "It’s okay Sandy" he says. Taking the call from Vanessa, he asks Sandy to meet her and bring her here when she arrives.

After Sandy has left, Nik asks the students to sit down where they can. “Okay, firstly, tell me who you are” he says.

Vanessa

Blanet agrees to deal with the computer records, and the rest of the FBI team promise to keep in touch. With their own findings. Vanessa knows she'll be expected to as well, but hopefully she can think of something that does not expose the rest of the team to the Unnatural or get them suspicious of her true mission.

Arriving at Colombia, Vanessa finds an attractive and sharply dressed woman waiting for her.

“Agent Marchand? Hi, Sandy Beema, PR department. Agent Siilasvuo told me you were coming. He's waiting for you in Mr. Wei's dorm room. If you would follow me.” She leads Vanessa inside, making polite small talk.

Nik,

Sandy clearly does not want to leave and allow Nik to poke around on his own, but she also does not want to disobey an FBI agent. She smiles once again and complies.

Aside from a chair at the computer table, There's really nowhere for anyone to sit, but the students clear a space and Nik can sit on the futon.

“I'm Molly. Molly Frank. This is my boyfriend Anthony DesJarden.We're both also graduate students, though for different professors than Michael was.

“We're his friends,” says Anthony. “Look, I don't know what you've heard, but I can tell you without a doubt that Micheal couldn't have done this. The dude has severe anxiety issues, he takes pills for it! And he hates to drive! Hell, he's never even been to New Jersey, he's from California! And he does not own a gun, and knowing him, he'd freak out just touching one. I'm telling you, someone is setting him up.”

Molly nods vigorously. “We both met Mike about a year ago. Before that he almost never left his room or had any friends to speak of. It was a struggle to get him to interact at all. But eventually he warmed up to us. We'd go out to eat, get some drinks now and then. But he was a quiet person. Sharp, but... he couldn't hurt a fly!”

Questioning the two students furthers leads to repetitive answers of the same, and both confirm Wei's thesis had to do with encryption and 'unbreakable codes'. Neither of them saw it, and both report that Wei's project was slow and uneven. It was really proving an enigma for him. But Anthony eventually mentions something interesting.

“We've not really seen Mike for a few weeks. This is not unusual; he'd get in his moods and want to work on his projects, but he'd always snap out of it and become more social. Well, for him. But about a month ago we were all smoking in my dorm room. Uh, I mean...” Presuming Nik does not immediately put the cuffs on him, he continues. “Mike was pretty happy. He was saying something about how David was steering him in the right direction, and how they were going to make history. At the time I tuned him out. The last thing I wanted to talk about then was school. But I had never heard Mike mention this David before. I thought it might have been another friend, or maybe a boyfriend, he was gay but closeted. I was going to ask hi, but right after that he barely said two words to me.” And Nik can see the guilt. The what ifs crossing the faces of Wei's friends. The ymay not have believed him a killer, but he was still dead, and they were wondering what they could have done to prevent it.

The talk is interrupted with the return of Sandy, Vanessa in tow.

OOC:   You guys are back together now. It's about 5 in the afternoon, and getting dark.

Nik introduces Vanessa and tells Sandy politely but firmly that they will contact her later when they require assistance.

When she is gone, he fills in Vanessa on what was said and continues his questioning.

“Thank you for telling about this, every piece of information helps. Can you tell me if Michael had a favourite spot he would go to, such as a café or the library, anything like that?”

“Not really. He'd go the cafeteria sometime, or out with us, but as far as I know he never went out alone. Oh, uh, He spent a lot of time in the lab downstairs. I don't think he read much, actually." .

Seeing the new agent, Molly pipes up “We'd really like to help. I don't know what's going on, but I do know Mike wouldn't have hurt anyone. If you need help going through his files or anything, we could dig through them for you. I'm positive something is in here that proves his innocence!”

"Thank you for the offer," says Vanessa. "We'll let you know if you can help us with the files, but first we have some questions. Do you know if Michael Wei knew the Ridgeways at all? Did either of you know them?"

Both shake their heads.

"[b]Michael[/b] would not have known of them either. Like I said, he kept to himself. Unless one of them was like a student here or something? But how would he have known where they lived? It makes no sense."

Both agents are aware that none of the Ridgeway family have any readily apparent connection to Colombia, or indeed New York.

Nik gives the couple his card.

"Look" he says, "you've both been really helpful, but we need to take it from here. If you think of anything else, no matter how small, call me anytime. I'm sorry about your friend" he adds, sincerely. It’s quite possible that Michael Wei had no control over his actions, Nik thinks. He stands and begins to usher the students from the room.

"We'll let you know if we need further help," adds Vanessa.

The pair take the card and leave, leaving the agents alone in the packed room. There's quite a bit to search through, and it very well could take late into the night.

OOC:   What's your guys next step? If you want to search make a roll and specify if you're looking at anything in particular. Or are you planning something else?

"We're going to need to pay a visit to the 24th precinct at some point too," says Vanessa to Nik. "We need to trace that shotgun and find out how it got into his hands. There's definitely something hinky about that. There's a lot to look through here too."

“I think we should finish here first” says Nik. “We should also get this stuff out of here – the notes and hard drives. Let’s get onto McRay – if he’s right about the contagion thing, we shouldn’t leave all this here. “

He thinks for a moment. “But this David is obviously someone we need to talk to. He must know what Wei was working on. We need to see if there is anything here that can tell us more about him. And you never know, he might try and claim this stuff – he might show up here. Shall we see what we can find now?”

He moves to the computer but soon sees that he lacks the skills to access it.

Computer Science,Computer Science 32: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/683125]Computer Science[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]78[/b]

Nik finds the computer itself not locked, but sparse of any documents that seem interesting; apparently Wei did most of his work the old fashioned way. The internet browser brings up Wei's home page, which is also his email. Unfortunately this is password locked, and whomever or whatever messages he sent in the days before his killings are for now a mystery. Nik figures he can get some of his contacts in the FBI to crack it without putting too much risk on Delta Green. These guys were professionals and would do their job without getting curious. But it would take time for them to access Wei's account.

Nik turns his attention to the notes, starting with the desk, looking for any references to David, the sequence of numbers, or the Ridgeways. Unfortunately he has no luck.

Search,Search 42: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/683196]Search[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]84[/b]

Vanessa also looks through the notes, but she has no better luck.

OOC,Search roll (54% skill) looking through [b]Wei[/b]'s notes and papers: [dice]0[/dice]

The pair of agents look through the entire room, but it's tough going, tedious and takes well into the night. For most of the search they find little useful. Wei has a ton of textbooks and scattered papers, but most of it is either mundane or indecipherable to the FBI agents. Something might be important here but at in their present condition they cannot separate the wheat from the chafe.

They're just about to finish up for the night, exhaustion and hunger both clawing at them, when they encounter a stapled set of papers. Most of them also look mundane, but the last page has a series of numbers.

2.21, 621, 40.796901, –73.968158

What is notable about these numbers is they are both circled and underlined three times, the first numbers Wei has placed such emphasis on.

OOC:   It's about ten now. You guys are getting tired. You can do more, but I'm going to rule if you do you'll have to roll and risk exhaustion penalties unless you decide to go to bed. I would allow you to drop off the computer at the FBI offices as a final act for the night, but if you wanted to interview someone or go to the police station you'll start fighting fatigue.

Vanessa stifles a yawn. "I think we'd better drop off the computer at the FBI field office and call it a night," she says. "We'll take the papers with the numbers with us so nobody else sees them. I don't know what the first two are yet, but the last two look like latitude and longitude - GPS coordinates. Maybe that second one's elevation. We'll have to check it out tomorrow."

Nik rubs his eyes. Yes, you’re right. Okay, let’s collect this crap together and get out of here. We can check on that shotgun in the morning “

Job done for the night, the team pack up all of Wei's books and notes,(a process that takes several boxes) and his computer and head out. They drop it off at the FBI's labs, and the techs say they'll crack it as soon as they can.

February 22nd, 2000

FBI Computer Use,[dice]0[/dice]

The next morning sees Nik and Vanessa awake by 8. Soon after, Nik receives a phone call from one of his contacts. They've cracked Wei's email password and the computer is now available for perusal.

Their is also the matter of Wei's notes. The team were unable to find anything useful last night, but perhaps looking at them in the light of day might help?

There was also investigating the strange sequence of numbers Wei underlined, and the police station he had stolen the shotgun from.

"It could take all day to keep going through these notes," says Vanessa. "We will want to get back to them, but I think we should follow up on what's on Wei's computer and the 24th precinct first. Do you want to handle the computer stuff while I talk to the cops?"

"Sure" says Nik. "I'll get on it, and then back to the notes. There must be something there."

Vanessa,

Vanessa heads to the 24th precinct. It's an older building, well worn but functional. She heads inside and flashes a badge to the sergeant on duty.

At first the cops are dismissive, insisting there is no way they lost a shotgun. Their records indicate it's in a storage box in the back along with four other models of the same gun. But Vanessa persists, and the sergeant sends someone to check. He quickly returns, and reports one gun is indeed missing; the one just used in Wei's massacre.

The next few minutes can charitably be described as chaotic. Calls are made, threats are yelled, but eventually the person who was last responsible for the guns is tracked down and led into an interrogation room. It's of course not an interrogation, not publicly, and it's that reason Vanessa is invited along. Normally the police would have closed ranks around one another and investigated the matter themselves, not wanting the feds to stick their noses in it, but a story this big could not avoid their involvement.

In the end it's Vanessa and another sergeant interviewing Sergeant Martin Herrera. Vanessa had gotten a look at his personal file. Herrera was a 19 year veteran of the department, and in that time had not been written up once. His record was competent if not exceptional,and there were no hints of malfeasance.

Sergeant Herrera begins to explain. “We keep the weapons boxed up here in the storage in back unless and until they're needed by the on duty guys. Yesterday we had to replace a few pipes in the basement, so a few boxes were removed out of storage and I kept watch of them in the parking lot. Whole thing took about an hour and a half?”

The other cop speaks up. “And did you leave your post at any point during your shift?”

“Of course not. C'mon, Frank, you know me better than that. I'm not going to leave weapons lying around in public, boxed up or no. I sat there the entire time. They never left my sight.”

OOC:   Vanessa can make a HUMINT roll.

Nik,

Picking up the computer, Nik takes it to a safe place and begins to shift through it without the prying eyes of his colleagues.

Most of Wei's emails are mundane, largely going to his professors, but Nik quickly finds a series of emails from someone called David Farmer. He scrolls back and sees the first one was sent about a month ago.

David, who apparently initiated contact, introduces himself as a professor of mathematics from John Hopkins University. He compliments Michael on a recent paper he published, and mentions how much the young man's work impressed him.

You remind me of my son, Adam. He's unfortunately passed for some years now, but I've not had the privilege of reading such a skilled line of reasoning in quite some time.

It goes on in this vein, filled with compliments. Wei writes back, clearly seeming overjoyed someone found value in his work. The first few messages are polite conversation. Then David begins to ask questions about Wei's work.

Wei expands on it. His school work and dissertation involves research into Mersenne prime numbers: huge prime numbers buried in values so large that they encompass millions of digits each. Wei was working on fast distributed math models to generate extremely large Mersenne primes, numbers somewhere in the range of fourteen million digits. He hoped to achieve this through studying cryptography and ciphers; he speculated something in a “clean” or uncrackable cipher could help him better understand how to pack so much information into a small frame of reference. The subject largely goes over Nik's head, but David seems to understand it. The next few emails see the pair discuss Wei's current frustrations with his work and various cipher examples and methods.

David eventually narrows the subject:

Have you looked into Clauden's Laqueus Equation? If you could crack it I think it may be what you are looking for.

Wei responded:

I have heard of it, but the general theory is that it's impossible gibberish. And it's near impossible to find a copy, for whatever reason.

David:

I've been conducting some research into it myself recently. Let me send you my copy of Laqueus' Libri Plures Admiratio. It's his last book, and contains the Laqueus Equation. Working together I'm quite sure we could make a breakthrough.

Wei seems interested. An email a few days later thanks Farmer for the package. The few emails after this detail Wei's attempts to crack the equation, which has apparently never been solved. He is thankful David sent it, as it has given him some fresh perspective on his work. But he also seems unable to crack it.

Farmer's replies offer suggestions. His last email to Wei, dated three days ago, speculates there may be some kind of hidden message in Laqueus words that provide some sort of solution to the cipher.

Yesterday at 3 am, Wei sent one final email to Farmer;

David, you were right! I solved the Equation. It explains everything!!

Nik notes that despite the rest of Farmer's responses coming hours after Wei sent him a message, he's yet to respond to this one.

OOC:   Nik should make a HUMINT roll as well as a SIGNIT.

Nik's about to close out of his email when he sees Wei had had another site open. He clicks on it, and discovers it's some kind of mailing list called MathGeeks.

Nik checks the recent posts. There's only been one topic posted in the last week, posted by Wei.

I've solved the Laqueus Equation!(solution enclosed)

It's posted just minutes after Wei sent his final email to David Farmer, and only a few hours before he began his murderous rampage.

“Shit” Nik thinks. “Whatever mystery he solved sent him nuts, and now he’s shared it with everyone else.”

He calls McRay – they need to get the message board shut down immediately.

Rolls,HUMINT 72: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/683917]HUMINT[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]33[/b] SIGINT 0: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/683920]SIGINT[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]58[/b]

"Did you see anyone nosing around?" asks Vanessa, looking Herrera in the eyes. "Are there any video cameras in the area that might have recorded something?"

OOC,HUMINT roll (54% skill) about [b]Sergeant Herrera[/b]: [dice]0[/dice]

Nik,

Crit success on HUMINT!,[b]Nik[/b] has a strong feeling that [b]David Farmer[/b] specifically sought Wei out, but was already well informed on his psychological profile. The compliments and conversations seemed designed to please him, and it seems clear he intended to introduce him to the Laqueus Equation from the beginning. He then deliberately planted hints and helped Wei solve the equation. The general impression [b]Nik[/b] gets is that Farmer was using Wei as a guinea pig. And it seems likely that this is the effect he wanted from the very start.

McRay answers immediately. He sounds tired.

“Report.”

Assuming Nik leaves nothing out, he is silent for a moment before letting out a sigh.

“I'll run a trace on the members of the site, get you their information and names. You need to remove the vectors. Your first objective needs to be to take that post down. See if you can't remove it. Failing that; contact the administrator and pull rank.

"I'll also look into Wei's contact with the NSA and other agencies. I'll call you back as soon as I have some more information. Is there anything else?

He'll answer what ever questions Nik has before hanging up.

OOC:   Nik can make a computer use roll. Success indicates he can figure out how to remove the post on his own.

Vanessa,

Vanessa carefully observes Sergeant Herrera and ascertains that the man is legitimately angry that his competency is being questioned. But she also gets a sense as the interview progresses that he has a slight sense of apprehension. Not so much that he's purposely lying, more that he may not be as certain as he'd like to admit.

“No, no one,” says Herrera. And he seems sincere about that. “And actually, I did step away, but only briefly. A ah, dog got struck by a car outside the parking lot entrance. I briefly went over to check what the commotion was. But I was gone 90 seconds. Tops.” This seems to be his source of anxiety, but Vanessa also feels like he really does think no one touched the guns.

“There are cameras all around the station,” says the other officer. “Good idea, let's check them.”

A few moments later they're all looking at the feed. Things look normal for awhile, Herrera is sitting by himself next to a few boxes.

Vanessa sees him first, and points him out to the others. At 6:01 AM A man is standing across the street from Herrera. He's dressed in a hoodie and jeans and looks college aged. He walks around the block but returns a few minutes later, and does this a few times. He's carrying a gym bag and seems to check his watch every few seconds. Suddenly he crosses the street to the west parking lot entrance, 15 seconds before a small dog appears on the other camera and is struck by a police cruiser entering into the lot. Herrera stands and heads towards the commotion. Less than five seconds later, the man in the hoodie walks to the tarps covering the weapon boxes, uncovers them, produces a claw hammer from his bag, pries open a box, removes a Remington 870, and replaces the lid in less than a minute. He restores the tarp before stepping off camera with the shotgun in his gym bag. This took place at 6:21 A.M.

A minute later Herrara returns to his chair, seemingly unaware that the man was ever there.

***

“I want my union lawyer.” Herrara responds immediately after the scene plays out. “I'm not going down for this.”

OOC:   Vanessa can make an int*5 roll if she likes.

OOC,Nik will have informed McRay about his ideas on Farmer, but his priority for now will be getting the website taken down. They’ll need to find out if that is his true identity or not.

“If he’s real, try and get eyes on this Farmer guy until I get to him. If he’s not on the move he will be soon – taking down the message board could give things away. I’ll call you when it’s done.”

OOC,Computer Science 32: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/684311]Computer Science[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]81[/b] But can Nik's computer contacts help again?

He knew exactly what would happen, and when! thinks Vanessa. Could whatever knowledge he gained have allowed him to predict the future with perfect accuracy? Could he have killed the Ridgeways in order to prevent them from doing something terrible in the future? But if that were the case, then he'd have changed it, and his prediction would not have come true.

OOC,INT x 5 roll (55% stat) about the video: [dice]0[/dice]

Nik

"See if you can't dig up more about this David Farmer guy. I'll put in a request with A-Cell, but I can only do so much here. i need to focus on my day job, and there are individuals on the lookout for those from our particular agency. Field agents have a certain degree of freedom that I lack."

ooc,In game terms, Nik can make another computer use roll if he wants to investigate Farmer. Feel free to specify if you're doing anything in particular (calling his university, sending him an email, putting his name into the newfangaled google) Depending on the path you take you may get different information, and some jobs provide more info than others.

Try as he might, Nik can't seem to get the specific post taken down, and knocking the whole site offline seems to be beyond his capabilities. He could talk to his contacts at the bureau, but this would be a trickier request. It was one thing to break into a murder suspect's email, but knocking an entire site offline crossed over into illegality. He could make a case for it, but there was a risk that this would get him the wrong kind of attention, from either the FBI or other entities.

An alternative could be to contact the administrator of the group. Nik finds an email address. Apparently they're the only one who can remove posts from the group. But that was assuming they were not infected by whatever had caused Wei to snap.

ooc,In essence if you want to appeal to Nik's friends for help, he'll need to make a bureaucracy roll as well as a persuade. Failing either may or may not have consequences, since even if you fail people have to notice the attempt and decide to report it. I'll let you have a +20% bonus to bureaucracy since you can tie this to an active murder investigation. If you'd like to contact the admin for the group you can just roll persuade, though please state exactly what you say in your email. There's nothing stopping you from doing both actions. Up to you how many avenues Nik wants to open up. And how much risk.

Vanessa

Indeed, the full extent of the terrible events she just witnessed triggers something in Vanessa's memory, and her mind goes back to the odd writings she had found in Wei's notebook yesterday. He had written a series of numbers down. 2.21, 621, 40.796901, –73.968158

Vanessa realizes yesterday's date was February 21st. And the time of the theft of the gun had been 6:21 AM. She had suspected the last two numbers were the longitude and latitude of some location, and the FBI agent suddenly realizes that these numbers were very likely the location of the 24th precinct. They predicted Wei's theft of the gun. But he had written the numbers down at some point before he had stolen the shotgun. They had in essence given him the power to tell the future.

OOC:   roll for Unnatural san loss 1/1d4. Passing the idea roll gifted you with it, though I suspect she'd have gotten there soon anyway.

"But how could he have known?" Herrara asks. "We only made plans to move them the night before? And the cat..."

The two officers meanwhile both look shaken, and it's clear that even though they're not partial to the full knowledge of what is going on the coincidences deeply trouble them. Did Vanessa want to try to lie and offer them a mundane explanation for what they just saw?

Rolls,Bureaucracy 13 +20 33: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/684533]Bureaucracy[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]29[/b] Persuade 72: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/684534]Persuade[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]62[/b]

Nik decides that it would be safer to get the entire message board taken down. He manages to persuade his colleagues that the messages posted by the murder suspect are believed to be instructions for carrying out more killings by possible accomplices, and so it is a matter of urgency that they be made inaccessible.

That accomplished, he turns to trying to find out more about David Farmer, although in this he is less fortunate, drawing a blank.

Computer Science,Computer Science 33: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/684532]Computer Science[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]85[/b]

OOC:   He should be able to find out at least if there is in fact a David Farmer at John Hopkins though?

"There's no realistic way he could have known," says Vanessa. "It has to be a coincidence that he was there at that particular time. It's like Tom Clancy said: 'The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense.' Now the dog, he might have engineered that as a distraction. Dogs can be trained, and he could have sent it out to get hit by the police car." She isn't sure if she's trying harder to convince them or herself.

OOC,Sanity roll (current level 70) for realizing that [b]Wei[/b] could predict the future: [dice]0[/dice]

random rolls,[dice]0[/dice] [dice]1[/dice]

Keeper only,Tia moderator, Jamie, Emile, Lawrence, Julius

Nik,

ooc,Yeah, Nik can do that. The computer roll was for other information.

Nik makes some calls. His colleagues are a bit reluctant, but he is able to calmly explain his case and pull the necessary strings to get it taken care of. He manages to convince someone he's worked with before to help him, and he's confident the man's not the slightest bit suspicious. He does badger Nik into buying him lunch later, though.

FBI computer use,[dice]2[/dice]

Unfortunately the site takes some time to take down, though the hacker believes it will be taken down by the end of the work day, so in 5 or so hours.

Nik calls the university and quickly is able to get to the bottom of things; there is no record of a David Farmer ever working at Johns Hopkins. Either the man does not exist, or he was lying about his record. Nik does some hacking and attempts to trace the message, but comes up short. Indeed, the email address seems to have already been deleted,and it's proving impossible for him to trace where it was sent from.

It takes about an hour for him to do this research, and then McRay calls back.

"Wei has no contact with the NSA that we can determine. As for the site, I was able to get the identities of the various other posters." He instructs Nik to write them down.

Lawrence Badek, 42, a math and chess enthusiast
in Wiesbaden, Germany

Kelly Casselman, 29, a math teacher in a high
school in Brinkman, Montana

Jamie Izzi, 19, a biochemistry student in
Paris, France

Noreen Kuder, 22, a math student in Manila,
Philippines

Tia Markell, 29, a math dabbler in New York City

Eve Mehaffey, Ph.D., 39, a physicist in
Brighton, England

Ben Philbeck, 44, a computer scientist at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory, California

Kelly Pletcher, 21, a physics student at the University
of Columbia, Missouri

Julius Sward, 31, a house-husband in
Modesto, California

Emile Tumlinson, 51, a chemist for Tyson Foods
in Miami, Florida

"We have no idea how many of them may potently be infected by this, but we have to assume the worst. The site must go down. Then we need to get to work on removing the vectors and preventing the spread of this."

Vanessa,

Her words seem to be able to convince both officers, though Vanessa does a poorer job of completely convincing herself. Still, she is able to avoid becoming too shaken by the news.

The officers are happy to let her leave unless she has more questions. As for Herrara, his fate is iffy. He may face some sort of citation,especially when the media tracked down this lead and came to collect some scalps. He was probably fortunate that she had given him a warning.

Just as she leaves the precinct her phone rings. It's Blanet.

"Computer Files at the local office are altered. I'm pretty sure I got away with it. Your team will have to alter the psychical evidence within the next few days. I can provide a distraction to try and give you the time you need, but that's as far as I feel comfortable stepping out. I've already risked my badge once now, I hope you can understand why I want to avoid doing so again."

OOC:   It's about noon now for both agents.

Nik groans in dismay when he sees the list. “Shit” he thinks. “I need to take it down now. I can't wait five hours.”

He writes an email to the administrator of the message board, stating who he is and that he is working on an active murder investigation in which the suspect is believed to have been infecting his victims’ computers with viruses through message boards. It is a matter of urgency that Wei’s post be deleted immediately.

Persuade,Persuade 72: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/684797]Persuade[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]66[/b]

"Thank you," Vanessa tells Blanet. "I appreciate the risk you're taking, and my partner and I will be taking one ourselves. I'll need to confer with him to determine when we're ready. I'll let you know when we are." She then gives Nik a call to fill him in on her discoveries, find out what he's learned, and decide on the next steps. "Do you want to go take a look at the physical evidence now? It's best if there's not much time between when our friendly did his thing and when we do ours, just to ensure nobody notices any discrepancies."

OOC,The 1d12 roll was a ten, and there are ten names on the list. I see another numerical pattern. ;)

Nik thinks.

“Sure, but I’m also wondering if any of the names on the list could be the one pretending to be David Farmer. I’ll need to run them. We also need to find out about this book Laqueus' Libri Plures Admiratio. Farmer said that he sent a copy to Wei, it must be in his things. Perhaps Jensen Wu can tell us about the history of it. Can you handle the evidence thing by yourself? If it’s too risky, of course I’ll go with and do this other stuff later.”

Nik,

The administrator turns out to be Tia Markall , who happened to live in New York City. It was difficult to tell if that was a coincidence. Nik sends her a message and is reasonably confident it would be one that would get the message deleted, and the virus threat would prevent her from opening it up to check. Of course it may also take some time for her to read the message.

OOC:   Just a quick post to confirm Nik's action. I'll pop in when you both decide on your next moves. I will say if you're searching for something specific I'm probably willing to grant some sort of bonus to the search roll for it. Also if you both ever get stuck roll int*5 and I'll offer some hints. But I think you're both doing great so far.

"We'd better handle the evidence together, when we have time" says Vanessa. "It can wait a little, but no more than a few days. Looking up Jensen Wu is an excellent idea. Shall I keep looking through Wei's stuff while you handle that? Now that we know about the book, I should be able to find it, and maybe his notes on it too."

”Okay” Nik replies. ”I’ll call Wu and start running the names. Depending on what we turn up, we can get the evidence after.”

Vanessa,

"I'm willing to wait," Blanet says, "so long as you don't flake out and leave me with the job. I'm likely going to be doing pressers with the chief and your FBI buddies the rest of the day. The press are still hungry for more details."

As she heads back to Colombia, Vanessa gets a call from Agent Cannor. "Checking in. Were you able to find any leads looking around Wei's dorm?"

ooc,You can tell him whatever you want, but please roll persuade. Unless you have other plans feel free to go ahead and post arriving back with Nik.

Nik,

Nik remembers Wu's number, and he answers. Once Nik reintroduces himself and alludes to his organization the doctor seems cooperative.

"Hello, Agent Siilasvuo. How may I be of service?"

“It’s nice to talk to you again Doctor” Nik says, “despite everything. Listen, I wanted to pick your brain. Have you ever heard of Clauden's Laqueus Equation, and his book Libri Plures Admiratio? At least I’m guessing it’s a book. They’ve come up in a case we’re working.”

"My partner and I started going through his stuff last night," says Vanessa, "but we didn't find anything yet there. None of it's well organized, but with Wei's obvious mental issues, that shouldn't be a surprise. I'm actually on my way back there to try some more. I'm just leaving the 24th precinct, where I found out how he got hold of that shotgun." She fills Agent Cannor in on the interview with Sergeant Herrera and the video footage of the theft, leaving out the part about Wei being able to predict the future.

Vanessa

“I see. That's disappointing. Nothing here, either. We've reached out to his family, and according to them there were no hints of trouble. I think the kid may have just snapped somehow. Let me know if you find anything else.”

OOC:   Please roll persuade to see how well you sell it to Agent Cannor. Just something I am keeping track of.

Nik

Vanessa makes it back to Nik at the college, who quickly explains he's on hold with Dr. Wu.

“I'm no mathematician, but the name sound vaguely familiar. Give me a moment.”

It takes Wu sometime, but he comes back a few minutes after Vanessa arrives . “Sorry for the wait, I believed I had heard his name before,and one of my books in the archive confirmed it.Fascius Claudan, A Belgian inventor from the 16th century. He had some success with astronomy and inventing a simple pulley machine that saw widespread use throughout Europe before it was overshadowed by better models. He had a promising career that was cut short by an apparent descent into eccentricity after a trip to the Orient in 1560,a year before his apparent death. Details are scarce, but his last work was this Libri Plures Admiratio. It's rough translation is the Book of Many Wonders.

"I have never read it, and copies of it seem incredibly rare, but from second sources it was widely derided as nonsensical ramblings and pseudo occult nonsense. It's only claim to fame, as it were, is the Laqueus Equation, a short code that Claudani insisted reveals everything their is to know about the universe. But he left no solution for it, and attempts to crack the code and reveal its solution proved fruitless. The general impression, based off the rest of the book, is that there is no solution, it's just the ramblings of a madman. As for the equation itself, it's occasionally mentioned for its use as a clean cypher and one of the few cryptograms that have avoided modern attempts at being deciphered, but is mostly known as a simple curiosity and nothing more."

OOC:   I assume Nik put Wu on speaker, so Vanessa can hear all of this as well.

"I'll keep you informed," Vanessa replies to Agent Cannor. "I think you're right about him snapping." However, she gets the impression that Agent Cannor is no more convinced of that than she herself is.

"Going by what we've discovered so far," Vanessa tells Dr. Wu, "it seems that Wei did find a solution to the equation. It was probably impossible in times past, but with the advent of computers, an expert on the subject such as him may have found a way to break the code. If he did indeed discover everything there is to know about the universe, that alone could have driven him mad. What little I've learned has already shaken me."

OOC,Persuade roll (71% skill) to convince [b]Agent Cannor[/b]: [dice]0[/dice]

“It seems that way, doesn’t it?” agrees Nik. “Thanks Doctor.”

He has no further questions. Unless Vanessa does, he will start to run the names of mailing list members through VICAP and any other databases.

"Fascinating!" Wu says, clearly intrigued. "It's very likely Wei has a copy of Libri Plures Admiratio. I suggest your first priority to be finding the book. And then bring it to me, so we can prevent it from falling into others hands. It sounds better to prevent others from laying eyes upon it.."

ooc,Make a HUMINT roll. Success indicates that Wu is interested in examining the book. There seems nothing nefarious here, but given how it effected Wei it may not be a good idea. Then again, Wu has no mathematical background, so it may have no effect. It's up to the Agents.

Nik runs all the names through the FBI databases. None of them seem to have a record.

OOC,HUMINT 72: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/686129]HUMINT[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]65[/b] I’ll deal with the rest of the phone call before the checks.

Although Nik trusts the doctor, he thinks that if the equation really does hold such power, it would probably be better destroyed.

“We’ll see what we can do, Doctor” he says. “Be in touch.”

After drawing a blank on the names, he talks to Vanessa.

“I’m not making any real progress here right now” he says. “Maybe we should go and get this evidence squared away.”

"Yes, we must find the book - and any of Wei's notes on it - as soon as possible," says Vanessa. "After that we can deal with the crime scene evidence."

OOC,HUMINT roll (54% skill) about [b]Jensen Wu[/b]: [dice]0[/dice]

HoneyDog wrote:“I think we should finish here first” says Nik. “We should also get this stuff out of here – the notes and hard drives. Let’s get onto McRay – if he’s right about the contagion thing, we shouldn’t leave all this here. “

OOC:   This is from the scene in Wei's room - I should have followed this up earlier but Nik intended to get all of Wei's notes removed and brought back for safekeeping. Can we proceed in the assumption that this was done, or would it interfere with game play?

OOC:   If you want to try and find the book, give me a search roll with a +20. Unless you fumble you'll find it (if it's here) but the roll will determine how long it takes. The clock is always ticking...

OOC:   Edit: Sure, you can have moved everything to somewhere else, but you've not gone through it all yet.

OOC:   The NY field office would be the obvious place to move it to.

Nik goes to locate Wei"s things and try and search for Libri Plures Admiratio and any related notes.

Search,Search 43 +20: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/686637]Search[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]58[/b]

OOC:   Will Vanessa be going with Nik, or is she heading off to do her own thing?

Nik heads back to the FBI field office. McRay's pulled some strings and left Wei's things in an evidence room and given the rest of the agents strict orders not to examine it. Once the DG agents have gone through the evidence and removed any sensitive materials, Wei's mundane possessions will be submitted to the rest of the FBI team working the case to catalog.

Nik's able to find Libri Plures Admiratio fairly easy now that he knows to look for it. It's a photocopy of the entire text, still in the box it was sent to Wei in. The copyright information states it was translated into English by the Maurice Ester publishing house and first published in 1944. This seems to be a photocopy of the original 1944 text.

ooc,How closely do the agents want to read the text? Are they just flipping through it, half skimming it, or sitting down to read the entire thing? It totals 192 pages. If you flip through it will take only a few minutes, but you'll need to make a luck roll and a hard INT*5 check to "get" anything from the book. Skimming it will take 1d3 hours. You can make a INT*5 at the end to see if you get the gist. Reading the entire thing takes 1d6 hours of intense concentration. No check is needed to understand the contents in this case. If you fail any of the rolls you'll need to start from scratch, and I'm going to rule that you can only try to flip through the book once before you need to either skim or read it whole. It's about 1:30 now in the afternoon.

Nik looks at the book and then at his watch.

"Fuck it" he thinks. He gets a coffee then sits down to read.

While Nik looks into the book, Vanessa goes through Wei's notes looking for any that refer to the book and its contents, particularly for anything resembling a solution to an equation. Those would be even more dangerous than the book itself.

OOC,Search roll (54% skill) looking for [b]Wei[/b]'s notes on the book: [dice]0[/dice]

It's tedious work to go through the rest of Wei's works, but Vanessa does so, painstakingly looking for anything involving the Laqueus Equation or its solution. Fortunately, she finds little, and by the end of her search she's about ready to declare everything else mundane.

However, her trained eyes then catch onto the package the Libri Plures Admiratio had been shipped i. By all accounts it's a normal box, and nothing stands out on it. But it still contains an address label Wei neglected to remove; according to the box this package was shipped from Baltimore, Maryland.

Nik meanwhile continues to read. It takes more than one coffee; Fascius Claudan or whomever translated his words has a tendency to ramble, and the language is slightly archaic which means he has to reread several sections of the work again to fully comprehend them. The mathematician spends many pages outlining his early career, and as far as Nik can tell nothing here seems strange in the least. Of course, unless he is truly fascinated by the intimate details of 16th century watermill construction, it's not exactly compelling reading. The only thing that catches the FBI agent's eye is that Claudan makes many asides as to how blind he was, how uneducated.

As he gets deeper into the book things become odder. Claudan discusses a trip he took to the Orient in 1650 which opened his eyes to the wonders of the universe. He describes in detail how he met a very old Arab who had glimpsed the heavens and even seen "the grand library of Nakotic, wherein lay the secrets of the ancient architects of the world." According to him this Arab, whom he never name,s had lived for over 500 years, and it was he who taught him the puzzle of the Laqueus Equation. According to Claudan, it opened his mind to new dimensions and allowed him to glimpse the will of "The Eternal and fulfill their duty." He never describes what either The Eternal are or what duties they have given him. The rest of the book seems largely nonsensical, and the text becomes more and more difficult to comprehend as Nik continues on. References are made to things that Nik has no understanding of, and no frame of reference to even begun to understand. But he thinks he notices prophesy's in here as well; allusions to historical events that Claudan did not live to see.

ooc,These references are disturbing, but not to a san loss troubling. There's nothing spot on; more general allusions to future wars, plagues, and conflicts. None of the events are uplifting ones.

The last section of the book contains The Laqueus Equation. Though he had taken notes throughout the book, here Wei's scribbles fill every bit of the pages, aside from the equation itself. Most of these are not coherent, but the ones that are are scrawled in big black letters and unsteady handwriting that suggests an unhealthy mind.

ITSHOWSTHEWAY
RIDGEWAYSUBTRACT24
DON'TGETCAUGHT

Nik's just finishing up the rest of the book when Vanessa finishes sorting the last book in her pile. As she finishes going through a notebook that contained nothing but mundane math problems, she finds large letters starring back at her.

GOLOOKATTHEBOOK

If Vanessa does so, she arrives just in time to watch Nik turn to the last page.

There on the book is scrawled more text. It's hard to read, but when Nik deciphers it he sees a new equation Wei has written. It's the time on the clock now, 6:32, his and Vanessa's ages, social security numbers, and two sets of longitude and latitude coordinates that if looked up would correspond to both of their home addresses. Below all that is one word, and sprawled next to that is a smiley face in what looks to be blood.

HELLO! : )

Important OOC,This sight costs 1/1d4 Unnatural to see. It's worth knowing that if Vanessa for whatever reason does not obey the note and go examine the book a tthat very moment, only Nik's information is located on the last page. The Laqueus Equation knows what she will do, even if I don't yet. :) In that event, she would not suffer the san loss. I'll elave it up to you Mr.Handy as to what Vanessa would do here.

Nik

SAN,SAN 64: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/687129]Unnatural[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]92[/b] SAN loos 1d4: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/687134]SAN loss[/url]: [u]1d4[/u] [b]3[/b] 61

At sight of the message Nik reels back from the table as if scalded.

“Fuck!” he shouts. “He knew! He fucking knew!”

This obvious proof of Wei’s foresight is almost too much. Nik shivers and feels himself beginning to sweat.

“How much did he know about what we’re going to do?” he asks aloud. “He could do it! He could read the future! And he's fucking playing us!”

He is on the verge of hysteria.

Vanessa is shocked when she sees the message Wei had left from beyond the grave, but she isn't really surprised by this sort of thing any more. Still, it is extremely disturbing, and she has to take several deep breaths. "I guess he knew all along that he was going to die, too," she says. "Look, maybe he did know the future, but that doesn't mean we can't succeed. We haven't seen anything from him one way or the other in that respect, so the future is still unwritten as far as we're concerned. The real threat isn't Wei. He can't do anything he hasn't already done ahead of time. It's whoever sent him the book. I found the package it came in, and there's a shipping label from Baltimore." She shows Nik the label. "Was anyone on that list of names from Baltimore?"

OOC,Sanity roll (current level 69) for seeing [b]Wei[/b]'s message: [dice]0[/dice] Sanity loss: [dice]1[/dice]

OOC:   Taking a few assumptions here, poke me if I overstep and I'll happily retcon

The agents recheck the list of names, but find none near Baltimore. The closest would be Tia Markell in New York City, with Emile Tumlinson the only other member even on the East Coast.

Speaking of Tia Markell, Nik checks his email, and is able to see that it's marked as unread. Apparently she has not seen it yet. But trying to pull up the site, he sees his friend managed to pull it down. The Equation has been thwarted from spreading further in one environment, at least.

OOC:   What next? Trying to give you guys considerable leeway with what leads to pursuse, but I realize that can be overwhelming; just roll int*5 at anytime if you need some help. But I have faith in you both.

Nik regains control of himself as he focuses on searching through the names.

“Baltimore is where Johns Hopkins is located. Where the supposed David Farmer works, the guy who sent the book to Wei. What if the name is fake, but the position is real? Maybe our guy does actually work there.”

He looks at the note in the book. “What does Wei mean – ‘subtract 24’? Is he referring to taking out the Ridgeway family? Or is ‘sub tract’ a reference to the local zoning code?” He holds his head in his hands. “This thing is screwing with my head. Look, why don’t we go and solve the evidence problem why we try and figure this thing out? It'll be one less thing to worry about.”

"Yeah, I think you're right about Johns Hopkins and 'Farmer,'" says Vanessa. "The first thing we'll need to do is call the shipping company and find out what we can about the package's sender. We can play the FBI agents investigating a murder card to get them to cooperate. We can also provide that list of names to McRay. He can use his connections to have people interview them and find out if they've been contaminated. Tia Markell's right here in New York. It's disturbing that she hasn't read your email. Maybe we should pay her a visit just in case she's been infected by the equation too. I'm not sure what Wei means by subtract 24, but I think it's a math thing. Subtract it from what, though? The address number? From the 99 in the sequence he sprayed, the only numbers in there we don't the purpose of yet? That would yield 75, but I don't know what significance that would have. After we take care of those immediate concerns, then we should take care of the evidence tonight if Blanet is available."

OOC,INT x 5 roll (55% stat) to try to figure out what "subtract 24" means: [dice]0[/dice]

Vanessa can't discern what Wei could have meant by the note. But he had left a lot of them in his unhinged state, and it was possible this one may have been one as well.

The agents can call the post office, though they're unlikely to get through to anyone at the office the box was sent from until tomorrow.

As Vanessa mentions altering the evidence, both agents recall that McRay had asked them to construct a link between Wei and Dinah Ridgeway implying there was an affair between them. If they wished to do this, it should be a fairly easy matter to write a brief letter implying a love affair gone wrong, and submit it to evidence when they head to the Alliance PD. It would even provide them with an excuse to visit local law enforcement. But did they want to go forward with it?

ooc,It takes no time at all to construct a forgery if that's what you guys want to do. In this case, I would roll int*5 for you, as your agents could not realistically know how good a job at constructing a forgery they've done. You'd only really risk detection on a fumble however. So the next move is going to see Tia Markell, then?

"Okay" Nik sighs. "Let's go see Markell, and then deal with our evidence problem. Maybe we'll turn something up."

"All right," says Vanessa. "We can also fabricate something that purports to show a relationship gone wrong between Wei and Mrs. Ridgeway, to explain things away and give us something to show to the cops. That will give us a reason to go see them and keep them from thinking we've been wasting our time. Let's go."

OOC,It should be [b]Nik[/b] who puts together the forgery, as his INT is a little better than mine.

OOC:   Okay, I'll roll for Nik to forge the documents now for later use. HoneyDog, if for whatever reason you don't want to do this we can retcon:

Don't look,Pass.

The agents finish up with the evidence they found in Wei's room, and head for Tia Markell's residence.A small apartment in a gentrifying part of Brooklyn, the neighborhood largely seems to be made up of young professionals. According to the information McRay had been able to find out, Markell's home is one of four units on the forth floor. There are two units on each side of the hallway. Tia's should be the far left from the stairs. If the agents try the door, they discover it is locked.

Nik unsnaps his holster and with his hand on his sidearm, he knocks on the door.

“Tia Markell, this is the FBI. Open the door please.”

OOC:   For some reason I messed up my spoiler block, but I remember the original roll. So long as you both trust me we'll go with that.

There's no response or sound from within the apartment,. Across the hall, a door opens,and a woman looks out curiously for a second. She closes it if either agent looks in her direction.

OOC:   No problem.

Nik crosses the hall and knocks on the door. “Excuse me madam, can you help us?” he calls out.

The door opens again, though only halfway, and the same woman appears. She's pretty and looks to be college aged. She looks at the agents with caution.

"I don't really know anything, I'm sorry." She starts to close the door, clearly not wanting to speak.

OOC:   both of you can roll persuade or bureaucracy( with a -20 penalty) to convince her to talk.

Persuade,Persuade 72 -20 52: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/687888]Persuade[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]25[/b]

"Please" says Nik urgently, putting his hand on the door. "We think she may be in danger. If you know anything, you can help us help her."

OOC:   Sorry, only bureaucracy was at a -20 penalty. Not that it matters in this case.

The woman deliberates, but Nik's words are evidently enough for her. "Alright then. I know Tia and Brian, her boyfriend. We go running together sometimes. I have a key for their unit." She returns with it a moment later and hands it over.

"Here you go. Actually, I am slightly worried. I rang Tia to ask if she wanted to go grab some drinks and no one answered. She should be home. Is she sick?." It's clear the woman is concerned about her friend.

“We’ll find out” Nik replies. “I’ll come back and return the key. Please stay here until then.”

“That should be enough for probable cause” Nik mutters to Vanessa when they are back at Markell’s door. He unlocks it with the key and with his hand on his weapon, opens the door.

The door opens with a loud squeak.

The apartment itself opens into the living room and kitchen. A half eaten bowl of cereal sits on the counter near the refrigerator. A television blares at a slightly high column, a commercial for life insurance. Pictures dot the place, presumably of the couple who live here. They're smiling in each one and look very much in love.

A few feet from the entrance a body is sprawled out. It's male and looks to be in its late 20's or early 30's. There's very little remaining of his head. A bloodied hammer lays next to him on the floor and would seem to be the murder weapon.

The television switches to an old episode of Friends. Canned laughter fills the apartment.

ooc,Both agents get to make San checks for violence, 0/1. As Nik is adapted he auto succeeds and takes nothing. Lucky him. If you want to examine the body in more depth, please make criminology rolls.

A side door is half opened and leads into a bathroom. Directly across from the entrance is another door. Only slightly opened, it likely leads into the unit's bedroom. At present, the agents see no other signs of life.

Nik pulls his sidearm and cocks it, ignoring the body on the floor for now. Raising the gun before him, he pushes open the bedroom door, nerves taut.

Vanessa also has her pistol drawn, gripping it with both hands and keeping it pointed downward at an angle for now. When she sees the body, something dies within her. "That must be Brian," she says. "So it goes." She keeps Nik covered, and once the apartment is clear she will give the corpse a cold and thorough examination.

OOC,Actually, there's a glitch on boards like these with the spoiler-buttons. They won't open if you have an apostrophe in the button text, though it's fine if it's in the hidden spoiler text. You can still see the contents of the button by editing or quoting the post, though dice rolls won't show. You could fix this by editing the spoiler button to remove the apostrophe if you want, though there's no reason not to leave it the way it is if you remember the roll. Sanity roll (current level 66) for seeing the body: [dice]0[/dice] Criminology roll (50% skill) examining the body: [dice]1[/dice] That's my third violence check that's cost me Sanity without hitting the Breaking Point (actually the sixth, though I chose not to become adapted after the first three). This time I will become adapted to violence. CHA loss: [dice]2[/dice]

OOC:   Yikes! That is nasty for Vanessa.

From what Vanessa can tell, the corpse does appear to resemble Brian. And something about seeing how happy he and Tia look in the pictures all around the room bothers her immensely. They had clearly been in love, until the unnatural equation had invaded their lives. Would that happen to her and Malcolm? It seemed as though it could very easily. Love, friendship, devotion... none of that seemed to matter at all when things like this happened. Was it better to just not be close to others, to push them away for their own safety? Or was it better to not even bother at all?

She tries to shake away these thoughts and numbly does her job. Based off the state of the body, Brian did not put up the slightest bit of a struggle. He was either attacked from behind or utterly surprised to be be attacked to begin with. Judging by the wounds he had been attacked by someone in absolute fury who wanted him dead. He was hit at least a few dozen times with the hammer, and the assailant may not have stopped until they were unable to lift it anymore.

Nik meanwhile ignores the body and cautiously opens the bedroom door. It too creaks, and he flinches inwardly as the door opens and reveals a small bedroom. There on the bed sits a cross legged young woman. She is young, perhaps 30, and blood covers her clothing. She does not look up as the door opens, but instead continues to type feverishly on her laptop. A sharp kitchen knife lays next to her on the bed, on Nik's side.

Vanessa quietly moves into position so that she can see through the door, aiming her pistol at the woman, who is presumably Tia. She lets Nik take the lead, as he is in a better position.

OOC,Yeah, I knew I was going to roll a 6 for that. I didn't solve the Laqueus Equation or anything, I just knew it. Fortunately I had built up my bonds high enough that I haven't lost any yet.

”Shit” Nik says, realizing what she might be doing.

”FBI!” he shouts. ”Put down the computer!” His gun is aimed at her chest, ready to fire.

Nik's shouts are enough to stop the woman. She stops typing and looks up at him, not seeming surprised in the least. She smiles,and it's a pretty and genuine, as if she had not apparently just bashed her boyfriend's brains in and was covered in his blood.

"What's the answer?" she asks him.

"I want to say 42," whispers Vanessa to Nik, "but that couldn't really be it? Could it?"

”Put the computer down and we’ll tell you the answer. Put it down now” Nik tells Tia.

For just a moment, Tia's smile fades.

"No. That's not it." she says, disappointed.

Then with a primal scream she leaps to her feet, her computer being pushed away by the sudden movement. Grabbing the knife next to her, she lunges at Nik, her face contorted in a look of absolute rage.

"9 9 2 0-" she begins, screaming a series of numbers.

ooc,Tia is going to try to stab Nik with the knife. Her dex is lower than both of yours, and you have guns while she has a knife, so you both get to act first.

Firearms,Firearms 71:[url=http://orokos.com/roll/688284]Firearms[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]49[/b] Damage 9mm 1d10:[url=http://orokos.com/roll/688289]Firearms damage[/url]: [u]1d10[/u] [b]1[/b]

Nik doesn’t hesitate and fires.

Vanessa also fires, wounding Tia.

OOC,Firearms roll (71% skill) shooting at [b]Tia[/b]: [dice]0[/dice] Damage to [b]Tia[/b] from 9mm bullet: [dice]1[/dice]

Nik's bullet barely grazes Tia's arm, but Vanessa manages to score a decent hit against the woman's shoulder. But neither blow seems to bother Tia all that much. Continuing to scream a series of numbers, she attempts to plunge the knife into Nik.

knife attack 30%,[dice]0[/dice] [dice]1[/dice] damage

The blow just misses,as Vanessa's bullet throws off Tia's aim. Good thing too; Nik estimates it would have been a nasty one.

OOC:   Theirs your Christmas present HoneyDog.

OOC:   Edit: Actually that's a fumble. So let's make this a bit nastier.

Her erratic movements lead the knife to goes flying out of Tia's hand. It winds up sliding under the bed, though she seems not to notice or care. The venom in her eyes is unabated.

Seeing Markell disarmed, Nik tries to knock the fight out of her with the butt of his gun.

Unarmed Combat,Unarmed combat 61: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/688403]Unarmed combat[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]7[/b]

Vanessa wrestles with Tia, barely managing to pin her down and restrain her.

OOC,Unarmed Combat roll (60% skill) to restrain [b]Tia[/b]: [dice]0[/dice]

OOC:   Nik's attack can do 1d4, I'll say. I'll roll for you this once.

[dice]0[/dice]

Nik hits Tia with the butt of his gun. It's a solid blow, and for just a moment Tia stops screaming and sways on her feet. But only for a moment, and then she's back to screaming again, now with blood pouring from her temple.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Vanessa wrestles her to the ground and attempts to restrain her. Tia fights back with ferocity.

str*5 45,[dice]1[/dice]

But despite her wild strength, her injuries are catching up to her and she's unable to get free. She is still screaming, spittle flying freely from her mouth, and it is likely that either that or the gunshots will soon attract attention.

"Cuff her arms behind her back while she's held," Vanessa tells Nik. "Then we need to call this in to McRay. He needs to know. Fortunately, we have jurisdiction. She assaulted a federal agent - you, which makes this a federal matter."

Nik handcuffs Markell and gets on his phone to call McRay.

Nik manages to handcuff Tia with little trouble, though the girl continues to scream the same series of numbers again and again. Both agents recognize it as the solution to the Laqueus Equation. Unless they stuff something in her mouth she continues to scream.

McRay gets on the line, listens to Nik give his status report, and responds. "She's become a vector for prenatural phenomenon. Neutralize her." His words and tone makes it very clear what he's implying.

Steeling himself, Nik hangs up.

”Quickly Marchand” he says. ”Get her face up on the bed”.

He moves the computer to the floor and helps Vanessa.

Vanessa does as instructed, not having heard the other end of the conversation - though even if she had, she would still have done it. She is beyond caring at this point.

Holding up Markell with one hand Nik tells Vanessa to leave and go to the front door, to make sure no-one is coming. Taking out his pistol, he shoots Markell in the heart at point-blank range, and goes to remove his handcuffs.

OOC,I hope I’m not taking too many liberties here.

OOC:   Vanessa can go ahead and make a luck roll.

Nik coldly performs the action and executes Tia Markell. It may in fact be the first person he's killed. But with all the horrors he's seen, he gets the feeling this murder would have bothered him far more a year ago. Now, he just feels little.

ooc,Killing an enemy in cold blood is a 0/1d6 san roll. Since Nik is hardened to violence he does not even need to make the roll and takes min san loss.

After he removes his handcuffs from the now dead woman, thoughts turn to their next move. He and Vanessa were clearly in the right here; they were attacked, and evidence would quickly prove Tia had murdered her boyfriend. But reporting this and being interviewed would take hours, and they may not have hours to spare on something so mundane when this infection could still be spreading. In addition, they'd need to find a way to link Tia to Wei or somehow explain why they were here, or even more questions would be raised.

Fleeing may be the safer option, but that neighbor across the hall had gotten a good look at Nik, and he had identified himself as being with the FBI. If she decided to talk, they might have problems.

While he's thinking about what to do, Nik spares a brief glance at Markell's laptop. She had been writing an email to a John Howard, at a New York University email address. In the email she has written out the Laqueus Equation and provided a step by step walkthrough on how to solve it, along with the answer; the same series of numbers Wei had left at his crime scene. Thankfully the email had yet to be sent, but was near complete; apparently, they had stopped her just in time.

Fortunately, Vanessa is able to keep watch undisturbed while Nik does what needs to be done.

OOC,Luck roll (75% stat) at the door: [dice]0[/dice] We can always use part of the truth and say that [b]Wei[/b] knew [b]Tia[/b] from the online board she ran and that we went to interview her because they had been in communication. We might even fabricate an affair between the two of them, in addition to [b]Dinah Ridgeway[/b], spinning the theory that the two of them decided together to kill their previous lovers and run off together. We'll have to drop the "working alone" angle, but I can't see that being credible after this. Nobody has seen me, apparently, so I could possibly slip out while [b]Nik[/b] goes through all the interviews and paperwork, pretending I was never there, as long as there are no cameras that might have seen me. Did we notice any when we entered the building?

"Nobody's seen me here," Vanessa tells Nik, "and there were no cameras. As far as anyone knows, you came here alone. I can slip out with the laptop and keep working on the investigation while you deal with the aftermath and the paperwork. One of the bullets is from my gun, not yours, but if you claim they're all yours I doubt anyone will check. Just say you had a bullet in the chamber to account for the number remaining. Unless you did actually have one in the chamber, in which case you'll need to remove one from your magazine and give it to me. I'll check the laptop to see if she's sent the solution to anyone else. We'll have to delete all traces of it from the hard drive, but that will require someone with more computer skills than me. Maybe I should take care of the physical evidence if our friendly is available for a distraction. She was spouting the same number, so it has to be altered soon before it has a chance to spread. I could also try to discover who sent the package, though it may have to wait until morning if the right people are not available."

OOC,We probably won't be able to find out who sent the package until the morning, but yes, that's the most important thing. In the meantime, I could try to take care of the physical evidence without [b]Nik[/b]'s help. Since that number is the solution to the Laqueus Equation, the sooner we alter it, the better.

“Okay Marchand” Nik says quietly. “Good plan. You’d better get out of here. I’ll call it in and try to get McRay to deal with it, rather than NYPD”.

He looks at the body on the bed. “I wanted to capture her. I thought that she might be able to tell us something. We’d better stop this thing spreading. It’s like a computer virus that infects people.”

He takes put his phone to call McRay.

Vanessa takes the laptop and manages to slip out of the building undetected. Nik meanwhile calls his boss, who listens to him before responding.

OOC:   I assume Nik is telling him their whole plan.

"Good thinking tying Tia to Wei. We want to be careful that too much scrutiny does not fall on the math list. Two individuals living in the same city can have some sort of twisted love pack, but if any more of the members snap and someone finds out, we're in for a lot of attention. I've put in calls though, and the rest of the vectors should be taken care of soon. The Americans, anyway.

"The NYPD will probably get there before FBI reinforcements, but stick to the story you told me and you should be fine. You'll probably get a few calls from Canor and his boys. I doubt they'll be able you pursued this lead without telling them, but they can't do much other than grumble. And if we can minimize further outbreaks of the equation, this should work in our interests to close the case. Good work." Nik gets the feeling he wants to say something more, but he instead terminates the call. It's not long after that the cops show up, and Nik gets to work explaining what happened. Or what he wants them to know happened.

Vanessa meanwhile a few brief edits to the letter Nik had constructed to forge a connection between Wei and Ridgeway, and then calls their friendly. Luckily he's available to meet, and so she heads to the Alliance PD station, pretending to drop off some evidence that was found at the Ridgeway crime scene. While Blanet distracts the cop in the evidence lockup, Vanessa carefully changes or removes any traces she can find of the Laqueus Equation in evidence. Once she's satisfied she's found everything, she slips out, having dropped off mundane evidence to explain her reason for being at the scene. She's fairly certain she gets away with it, but this gives their team even more reason to close the case as soon as possible.

This task done, she heads back to New York and gives a brief glimpse over Tia's laptop, looking for anything suspicious.

OOC:   Please make a computer use check, with a +20 bonus.

Nik spends the next several hours being questioned, but the officers seem to harbor little suspicion to him or his story. Nik thinks it's probably fortunate that his requests to his FBI buddy to hack into Wei's account and then take down a website did not raise suspicion of him earlier, or making his case now may have proven a good deal more difficult. By 11:30 he is free to leave, though the cops do say they expect to need to follow up interview him at some point, and he knows the FBI will be reviewing the circumstances of the shooting. But he does not expect trouble from either.

ooc for both,If Nik wants he can go join Vanessa and help her look through the computer, making the same roll with a+20. It will probably be the last thing either of them do tonight however. Any actions after that will start to bring in exhaustion penalties. Just a question of curiosity here; where are Nik and Vanessa planning to sleep? They could go back to their homes, of course. Failing that, they could find a couch in FBI headquarters and crash their for the night. Or they could rent a hotel room.

After the days events Nik is exhausted and too tired to make any sense of Markell’s computer. After trying to unsuccessfully puzzle it out with Vanessa, Nik decides to crash at the office.

Computer Science,Computer Science 32 +20: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/689113]Computer Science[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]90[/b]

Amazingly, Vanessa is able to scour every nook and cranny of the computer's hard drive, which is probably more due to her understanding of how Tia's mind works than familiarity with computers, of which she has none.

"Let's call it a night," she says, stifling a yawn. "I'm going home. Rex needs his mommy, and he's better than any pillow or blanket. In the morning we can check with the post office and try to trace the package back to its origin in Baltimore."

OOC,Computer Science roll (0% +20 = 20% skill) to see what's on the laptop: [dice]0[/dice] I accidentally edited the previous post instead of my own, but I think I fixed it.

Nik can't provide much help when it comes to searching Tia's computer. But Vanessa has a moment of inspiration, and she quickly decides that like with Wei they should trace her internet history. The first thing that pops out to her is that she had last visited the MathGeeks site a little over a day ago. That had been after Wei had posted the equation, so she had almost certainly seen it then. She used her computer sparingly until later the next day, when she had made a few search queries that stand out:

How to stop numbers from appearing

Seeing numbers everywhere diagnosis

What to do when being told to kill

All told, her queries seem to point to the rapid breakdown of a formally healthy person. Something seems to shift in her afterwards, as the next thing she searches for is the contact for the head of NYU's Mathematics department. John Howard's name pops up in response, suggesting she was under the thrall of the Equation by this point and looking for its next victim. Then she had apparently started to compose the email, intending to send it to him. It's difficult to get a timeframe on this, and of course others may be different, but upon seeing the equation she seemed to have lasted less than a day before being driven homicidely insane. Vanessa recalled that her boyfriend's body had only been dead for an hour or two, suggesting her break had been somewhat recent.

After learning all this, the FBI agent wipes the history and is confident there are no further traces of the Laqueus Equation on Tia's computer. It is then that both agents decide to retire for the night.

Nik is either too tired or simply unwilling to return home, and he retires to a sofa. As far as Debbie knew he was still working an important case, so his absence should not be noticed.

OOC:   How does he sleep? Do thoughts of Tia fill his head and his cold execution of her? Or, since he is adapted to violence, does it not really bother him and he sleeps easy?

Vanessa returns to her home. Rex greets her with his usual level of affection, and he is a sight for sore eyes. But she finds it harder than usual to muster up the same affection for her loving pet that she did before. Even after other Delta Green operations, coming home to Rex had always been a relief, and scratching and playing with him had been immensely soothing and reassured her that there was something to fight for. But now she finds it more difficult to find that same level of comfort.

"Oh hey, you're home."

Malcolm enters the room, shirtless and drying off after a shower. "I thought you'd be working. Had I known you were coming I'd have picked up some pizza. How was your day?"

And looking at her boyfriend, Vanessa finds it difficult to muster as much affection for him, either. Everytime she looks at him she sees Brian's dead body back in Tia's home, and part of her may wonder if he's doomed to end up the same way. If she went insane, would he be safe? Would Rex? And how much of this was showing on her face?

ooc,Vanessa can roll [b]persuade[/b] to try and lie to Malcolm, if she wants. Or she can be honest and tell him it was a rough day, though he'll likely want to talk about it. I should stress that Vanessa still loves her bonds, but they've all suffered a big loss. She may be suffering from PTSD, or she may want to keep a bit of distance between others and her due to fear of them being endangered.She may even just be angry at her bonds for not suffering the same horrors she did and being able to enjoy a normal life. I'll let you play it out however you like, but the basic gist is that some part of her finds it difficult to play with Rex or snuggle with her boyfriend on the coach, watch TV and eat pizza. Also, is Malcolm her boyfriend or fiance? I believe it's boyfriend but may have missed that development.

"I had a really rough day," says Vanessa with a sigh. "It's this case I'm working on, it's really getting to me. I can't really talk about it...I don't particularly want to talk about it. I hope your day was better. All I really want right now is to go to sleep. Then coffee in the morning. Then more coffee."

OOC,Neither of us has proposed yet, and [b]Vanessa[/b] isn't likely to do so any time soon after what just happened.

Malcolm eyes grow concerned. He seems to want to say more, but something in Vanessa's stare prevents him from doing so.

"I understand. I'm here if you want to talk, babe. I hope you know that." He offers her a hug is she's willing to take it, then leaves to finish his grooming.

The pair go to sleep that night oddly awkward, though Malcolm puts his hand around her if she lets him. Like with Nik, Sleep does eventually find her, though it is difficult. Every time she closes her eyes it's hard not to see her boyfriend laying there in place of Tia's.

But she is awoken before dawn by the shrill ringing of her cell phone. Malcolm moans next to her, only half awake. "Is that work?"

If she answers it, she hears a familiar voice on the other line. "Agent Marchand? This is Agent Canor." The legitimate head of the Wei investigation. He sounded stressed.

"Listen, I need to ask you something. It's very important." He pauses for a moment.

"What's the answer?"

"Probably, at this hour," says Vanessa to Malcolm. "I'll take it in the bathroom." Once she's in there with the door closed, she answers the phone.

When Vanessa hears Agent Canor's question, she knows he must be infected. Saying the wrong thing will just set him off as it did Tia Markell, and she has to keep him from going berserk until she and Nik can deal with him - which she knows means kill him. However, giving him the correct sequence of numbers could be dangerous too, so she uses the altered sequence that they had substituted in the evidence: "9 9 2 0. 2 2 9 8 8 9 2 4 2. 3 8 3."

Agent Canor repeats the equation.

"9 9 2 0. 2 2 9 8 8 9 2 4 2. 3 8 3."

There is a pause, then he says "Oh God, No!" Followed by a gunshot. Then more screams and several more gun shots. A moment later another voice comes onto the phone. It sounds female.

" 9 9 2 0 .2 2 9 9 8 9 2 1 2 .3 3 3. 9 9 2 0 .2 2 9 9 8 9 2 1 2 .3 3 3. 9 9 2 0...!"

OOC:   Vanessa can make a INT*5 roll to see if she has any idea who the spaker is. Though if you know, feel free to just post and I'll let her figure it out without a roll.

"Sarah Comax," says Vanessa, remembering the name of the woman Agent Canor had said was being brought in to examine the numerical aspects of the case. She must have solved the equation and become infected too. "Listen, it's very important. 9 9 2 0. 2 2 9 8 8 9 2 4 2. 3 8 3." She hopes to get her to repeat the wrong number and forget the right one.

OOC:   Very good memory

As soon as Vanessa says one of the wrong numbers, Sarah cuts her off. "No! That's WRONG!" It seems she is already a lost cause. But then her voice grows calmer.

"You don't understand, but the Laqueus Equation, it explains everything. It took me a few days to fully understand it, but now everything is all so clear. It reveals the patterns of the universe, the purpose we must serve. You only have to listen; to listen, and comprehend! Agent Canor couldn't, but The Numbers said you would. We've been granted a purpose that few can begin to grasp. Do you know what mine is?" She answers immediately, manic.

"Go to Agent Canor's house. Demand he call you and learn the answer, The Numbers said you'd know. If he refuses, or if you don't know it, murder his entire family Then tell you your efforts are fruitless; we will spread the knowledge of the Divine." Sound of a liquid could be heard spreading on the ground.

"Repeat the number sequence as you burn the home and yourself alive. 9 9 2 0 .2 2 9 9 8 9 2 1 2 .3 3 3. 9 9 2 0 .2 2 9 9 8 9 2 1 2 .3 3 3...." Her voice grows high pitched again and soon dissolves into nothing so much as a shriek as she lights the flames. Yet it is not solely one of pain. It almost sounds as though she's laughing, even as she burns.

The call abruptly ends.

ooc,Vanessa should make a 0/1d4 Helplessness check. She knows deep down she could have stopped Comax's descent into madness. Remmeber you only check Helplessness off if you take san damage.

Vanessa quickly calls Nik and lets him know what happened. "We have to get over there fast," she says, wishing that she had prevented this.

OOC,Thanks. Actually, I had recently been looking back at that section to get the sequence of numbers so that I could alter it, and I saw her name then. Sanity roll (current level 65) for failing to save [b]Sarah Comax[/b]: [dice]0[/dice] Sanity loss: [dice]1[/dice]

OOC,Sorry if you were waiting for me - I thought we would just move the action along.

Nik comes alert very quickly at Vanessa's call, and leaves immediately.

"I'll meet you in Alliance," says Vanessa. "Look for the house that's on fire, I guess. Listen to the police scanner, that might give us a clue." She exits the bathroom and throws some clothes on. "Sorry, Malcolm, I have to go. There's been a development in the case." She gives him a quick kiss, grabs her gear, and heads for her car.

OOC:   Sorry about that! I'll try to be clearer later on.

Malcolm frowns. "They're making you work again? I swear, this case is going to be the death of you." He returns her kiss but can't help but seem concerned.

Vanessa does not get far before McRay calls her.

"I just got the call about the latest... incident. Canor's whole home is in flames. I'm scrambling some other assets amongst the first responders to ensure there's no trace of the equation left behind. But unless you're thinking to find anything specific there, I strongly suggest you continue tot rack down the lead of who sent the package. Call your partner and get to work." He abruptly hangs up.

Assuming Vanessa calls Nik, the two can quickly find the number for the post office the package was sent to. Even with their badges however, it may prove difficult to get the name of whoever sent the package.

ooc,Both of you please make a bureaucracy roll. I'll give a +10 bonus for this. If both of you fail, don't despair; there are other ways to get the information you want, but they require time and risk.

Nik gets on the phone in search of the post office number, and for a change has some luck.

Bureaucracy,Bureaucracy 13 +10: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/690700]Bureaucracy[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]22[/b]

February 23rd, 2000

Nik is able to find the phone number and get in touch with the post office. The clerk he speaks with grows very helpful when Nik lets him know he's with the FBI and conducting an investigation into a potential terrorist incident. It takes almost no persuasion for him to dig into his records.

"Right, the person who sent that particular package is a Martin Gossel. I hope that helps, Sir."

"Better let McRay know," says Vanessa when Nik fills her in on the call. "He may have assets in the Baltimore area who can get there faster than us. It'll take hours to drive there."

McRay is briefed.

"Good work, we finally have a name. I'll pull in a few favors, get you both a ticket to Baltimore from JFK. You should both arrive there within an hour and a half. As for Mr. Gossel..." He pauses, as if looking something up. Well, this is very interesting. Says here Martin Gossel is a doctor working at Johns Hopkins. Head of their Psychiatric Department.I'd say he's a good first name to lead to look up.

"But be careful.Your main orders are to determine if he's the source of this threat, determine how he was infected himself, and ensure that there won't be any more outbreaks of this in the future. If he's infected and you get even a whiff of wrongness, terminate him immediately. ."

Vanessa drives to JFK Airport once she gets the message.

Nik also diverts to catch a flight to Baltimore.

OOC,I assume that a call to the hospital will see if Gossel is there or not. If he isn't, we should head to his home address.

A call quickly determines Gossel will be working until the late afternoon today. The agents should be able to land and still have time to catch him at work, if they feel that's the best option.

”What do you think, Marchand?” Nik asks when he meets Vanessa. ”Shall we get him at work? We’ll need to be discreet though, he can’t see us coming, so we shouldn’t announce ourselves.”

"Yeah, time is critical here," says Vanessa. "We can't risk letting him spread it to anyone else."

The Delta Green agents arrive in Baltimore around noon. Traffic is light, and they soon make it to the vast Johns Hopkins building. Or series of buildings; the hospital consists of a parking lot, several large buildings, and a walkway connecting them all together.

picture,[img]https://i.postimg.cc/J7g2G712/chilcenter-2.jpg[/img]

Clearly they have a lot of ground to cover. Entering the main building, they find a well furnished lobby with a harried but professional front desk staff. No one's paying either of them much attention, and it should be possible to sneak past them and explore other parts of the building if they so wished. Alternatively, they could ask someone where the psychiatric department was or for Dr. Gossel specifically.

"Let's ask where the psychiatric department is and start our search there," suggests Vanessa. "Better if nobody knows who we're looking for, so that nobody can alert him. Although I have a sinking feeling that he already knows we're coming...along with the exact time we'll arrive."

Nik nods grimly. "Yeah, I wonder about that."

He stops a passing hospital worker and asks for directions to the department of psychiatry.

The agents are pointed to the building and floor where Gossel's office is located. After a fairly long walk (and more than one elevator ride) they arrive at the psychiatric offices floor. There are quite a few offices for the various doctors in this department, and more than a few of them are filled with doctors either looking over reports or conversing with colleagues or patients. There's security and maintenance staff as well,and Vanessa and Nik get more than one quizzical stare shot their way. But for the moment no one questions them.

Dr. Gossel's office is larger and more impressive than that of many of his colleagues, but it makes sense, given he is head of the department. The door is only opened a hair, but enough is shown that they can spy Dr. Gossel. He's an older man, with distinguished gray hair and expensive bifocals. Presently he is writing something down at his desk, and he does not seem to notice the agents.

OOC:   There's no one else in the hallway, though an office door down at the other end of the corridor is open, meaning that if there was a loud confrontation someone would likely hear it.

Nik makes sure his pistol is ready to be drawn quickly.

"Okay?" he asks Vanessa in a whisper. "Shall we do this now? It might be too late if we wait."

Vanessa nods, her own pistol close at hand in her holster.

The doctor continues to write, still not looking at the visitors at his door.

The hallway is mostly quiet, but a voice can be heard down the corridor via the open door. It sounds like someone is on the phone.

The agents have some time, but there's no telling when someone is going to turn the corner and see them standing there...

"Let's slip inside and quietly close the door behind us," Vanessa whispers to Nik.

Nik nods.

"Close the door behind us" he whispers, and slips into the room.

The agents enter the room and close the door. This makes only a bit of noise, but it's enough for the Gossel to look up at them.

"Who the hell are both of you?" he demands, already reaching for the phone on his desk.

OOC:   Roll HUMINT.

Nik draws his pistol and points it at Gossel’s head.

“Don’t touch the phone, Doctor” he says. “You’re going to tell us about the Laqueus Equation”.

HUMINT,HUMINT 73: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/691727]HUMINT[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]83[/b]

Vanessa draws her own pistol, but she says nothing yet.

OOC,HUMINT roll (54% skill) about [b]Gossel[/b]: [dice]0[/dice]

"The Laq... I don't know what you're talking about." The doctor begins, but it's obvious to both agents that he's lying, and not very well. Vanessa also can tell Gossell is extremely nervous and twitchy, and not just from their presence. He's sweating profusely, his clothes look like they were just thrown on, and he had deep circles under his eyes that suggest he's not been getting enough sleep.

"You should leave. I've done everything you wanted, and with the discretion you asked for. Just put the guns down, please." His tone is level until the end, when it breaks down into pleading.

"Somewhere along the way, you made a mistake," says Vanessa. "Tell us exactly what you did, one step at a time. We'll see if you've really done everything and with how much discretion."

Gossel looks like he wants to argue, but he's also aware of who here has the guns.

"You people knew that I was deeply in debt. You sent your friend Mr. L to me. He promised me enough money to pay off my debts and still retire comfortably. All I had to do was run a psychological expierment. As instructed, I contacted Michael Wei and formed a relationship with him, feigning interest into his work and providing the answers I was asked to give. Then I sent him that equation you gave me and assisted him in helping to solve it. Your people never told me how it was going to end; I saw it on the evening news!" He complains. "What was Wei, CIA? FBI? NSA? I thought he was a normal university student, but then he goes and murders 8 people the day after he deciphers your little code? It was a hell of a convoluted way to transfer assassination orders."

"To make matters worse, you send L to meet with me again and instruct me never to tell anyone about the services I provided. I'm no fool; I know what will happen if I do. So far as I'm concerned our business is concluded. But I want to make it very clear; I want nothing more to do with you OUTLOOK people. I don't care how much money you dangle in front of me. I don't care about wiping out a terrorist or whomever the target was, but there was no reason to do the children."

OOC:   both of you can try HUMINT again if you like.

HUMINT,HUMINT 73: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/691972]HUMINT[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]14[/b]

"We'll decide if our business is included if we're satisfied" says Nik. "What means do you use to contact Mr L?"

Nik can see that Gossel is apparently being honest; at the very least, he gets no tells that the man is being deceptive. Also there's no sign of the sort of psychosis that seemed to infect Tia Markell. Gossel seems antsy, and it seems to be a combination of both guilt and fear.

At Nik's question he cocks his head and regards him anew,a flicker of suspicion present on his face.

OOC:   This seems like a good time for a persuade roll.

Persuade,Persuade 73,[url=http://orokos.com/roll/692027]Persuade[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]76[/b] It's up to Vanessa!

Nik realises that he's making a gamble, but after listening to Gossel's story about how he used Wei he's not afraid to use violence against this man. He walks around the side of the desk so that it isn't between them any more.

"Don't start getting ideas, Doctor" he warns, still pointing his gun at the man's face. "You'll answer the question".

"You left out the most important part," Vanessa says to Gossel. "The package you sent to Wei? That's where you screwed up, big time. You used your real name, when you should have used your David Farmer alias. I understand you're an amateur and are not familiar with tradecraft, but this should have been obvious. You're just lucky we found out before anyone else twigged to it. We're going to have to bring you in, for your own good." He doesn't seem to be infected by the equation, and bringing him in alive is the smart move. They need to know everything he does about the people who hired him, and it's better to question him in an environment they control.

OOC,HUMINT roll (54% skill) about [b]Gossel[/b]: [dice]0[/dice] Persuade roll (71% skill) to convince [b]Gossel[/b] we're who he thinks we are: [dice]1[/dice] Oops! :oops: I just hope my knowledge of exactly what he did is good for a bonus.

ooc,You know what, I'll give that to you. You made a good argument. ;)

Gossel groans in frustration, his doubts forgotten, for now. "I suppose I did get a little too cute there. Given everything I felt it prudent to mask myself with a bit of deniability. Of course, I never expected one to investigate the package. Can't your people take care of it? You have as much to lose as me if this all gets out."

"And you can put the gun away," he tells Nik, looking rattled by it. "We're in the middle of one of the busiest hospitals in the country. Shooting me here attracts attention, and I'm cognizant enough of that fact. So forgive me if I'm not eager to head off with the both of you to who knows where. If your men want to debrief me, tell them I insist on doing it in public. After what I've seen of your organization, I have ample reason to be paranoid.

"To answer your question, I only met with L twice, and each time he showed up here. I sent email reports on my interactions with Wei to an email address, but it's been deleted since his killings made the news. It's one of the things that led me to conclude my part in this all was finished. You are more than welcome to go through the emails I do have, however; most of them are rather mundane. I was instructed to gain his confidence and once I did so I received the package with that coded equation and was told to mail it. I didn't ask questions. I was being paid enough not to."

"All right," says Vanessa. "Let's see those emails."

"By all means," Gossel says, pulling them up on his computer.

The emails are to something that is obviously a throwaway address of random numbers and letters. On Gossel's part, most of them are just forwards of that day's correspondences with Wei. The replies the doctor is sent are filled with instructions. Probe him on his work Or Suggest using the Laqueus Equation would be good evidence for his thesis.

Gossel points at that one. "They sent me the package the next day, and told me to send it to Wei."

It seems clear from a quick scan that the doctor's replies were carefully fed to him every step of the way.

Nik holsters his weapon.

"Okay, Doctor, we want to debrief you. Let's get to somewhere where we can discuss this more comfortably. Come with us now please. If you're worried about your safety, you can choose the location, within reason."

Gossel nods. "Fine. There's a cafe a few blocks down, its popular with people who work here. It should be busy this time of day, but the conversations are loud enough to give us some cover." He starts to rise.

"I'm on my lunch break, as it happens, so I can go now. But this is the last time I'll see you Outlook people, correct? After this: we're done."

“That’s correct”says Nik. “You two go on ahead, I just need to make a call and confirm our whereabouts. Okay Vanessa?” he asks. “I’ll catch you up at the car.”

"Sure," says Vanessa, holstering her own weapon. She had just been about to call McRay herself. "Let's go, Professor."

After Vanessa and Gossel have left in the elevator, Nik looks around the corridor to make sure he is alone and calls McRay.

“Gossel is David Palmer, but he’s not infected. He was paid to set Wei up on the instructions of something called the Outlook group, if that means anything to you. Gossel seems to think that the equation was a means to send assassination orders to Wei, who he believed was a government agent. I think he’s been fed a line of bullshit. He doesn’t seem to have any means of contacting Outlook; they come to him. He thinks me and Marchand work for them, and now we’re going to take him to a café for a debriefing. He’s wary but I think he trusts us. What shall we do with him?”

Fortunately for Nik, McRay happens to be able to answer. He listens to the report.

"You think the doctor's a patsy, then? Sounds as though he's convinced that this is all some sort of psyop and has nothing to do with the unnatural. If you think he can keep his mouth shut and bolster that impression, do so. Otherwise, other lines are authorized. Be careful before you make a decision; if he goes to the press or attempts blackmail, this becomes a much bigger problem. But making such a prominent figure disappear could prove difficult. .

"Outlook Group?" He pauses for a moment.

know roll,[dice]0[/dice]

"The name rings a bell. They're a foreign policy think tank, based in the Maryland suburbs of DC. Fairly secretive, even for a think tank. I'm unsure why they'd be involved in all of this. Unless..." He does not finish his thought, instead abruptly changing the subject.

"Be careful. Deal with the doctor however you deem necessary, and wait for further instructions."

Nik calls Vanessa and relates to her what he has just learned. “Why don’t we just play this out with Gossel?” he suggests. “We might learn something else.”

"Yes," replies Vanessa on her cell phone, not wanting to give Gossel any indication of what they're discussing. She checks to make sure they're not being followed by anyone but Nik.

OOC,Alertness roll (50% skill) to spot any potential tail: [dice]0[/dice]

Nik joins the others, intent on thinking about what the next step needs to be. He is too engrossed in his thoughts to be able to efficiently read his surroundings.

Alertness,Alertness 51: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/693146]Alertness[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]97[/b]

Neither of the agents think they see a tail, at least. They make it out of the hospital without trouble, and Gossel offers to drive them to the cafe. If the agents express wariness, he will acquiesce and go in their rental.

OOC:   Assuming you both got a rental. Also assuming you continue to the cafe. If you've any other plans I will happily retcon.

The cafe itself is busy. It's filled with the lunch crowd, and loud conversations mix with country-western music as the trio enter. Gossel leads them to a table nestled in the corner that offers some slight seclusion from the other diners. He orders a beer, and looks very much like he needs it.

"Say what you need to say, please. And then get out of my life.I don't care to know more than I have to; I'm intelligent enough to want to avoid becoming a liability, and asking questions seems an excellent way to become one."

Nik is regretting that they didn’t get an assassination order for this man. He eyes the beer Gossel is drinking.

“No need to be unfriendly, Doctor” he says. “You’ve performed a valuable service. We appreciate that. You have nothing to fear, we’re not going to abuse an asset such as yourself. Part of the reason we’re here is to assess your ability for more work, should you wish it.”

It's a popular light beer. The man is scum.

Gossel's eyes narrow. "Do you listen to a word I say? I've made it abundantly clear I want nothing more to do with you people. I don't care how well your 'work' pays; I'm not having any more deaths on my conscience, especially of kids. And you needn't worry about me saying anything. L made it clear that if I value I and my wife's lives I'll practice discretion."

"I'm glad you understand that," says Vanessa. "As long as you do, you won't see either of us again after today. Tell me, what is your opinion of L? Professionally, as a psychiatrist, I mean."

At this the doctor lights up, clearly more back in his element.

"He's undoubtedly a man who has ordered several deaths, and the chances are good he's killed himself. It does not seem to weigh heavily on him. He's either a sociopath or very good at shutting that part of himself off as he does his job. He's also very effective at manipulating people. He does his homework; he knew all about my gambling debts and knew exactly how to phrase things to make me believe he was doing me a favor. The first time he was all smiles, polite and professional.

His sandwich arrives, and he takes a bite before continuing. "The second meeting was different, of course. I told him I did not appreciate being misled into helping with an assassination. He made it very clear he did not care for my feelings. Then he placed pictures of my wife on my desk and recited her entire daily routine. He never mentioned why he had this information, but I'm not a fool. I knew very well what he was implying. He's also used to being intimidating, it's probably why he has that set of gold teeth in his mouth.

"Have either of you met him?" he asks. "My professional advice is you keep your time spent with him to a minimum. I strongly suspect he'd have no problem killing anyone who got in his way. And that includes those who work under him."

OOC:   Did either of your agents order anything?

Vanessa ordered a coffee, which she sips before replying. "I've never met him myself," says Vanessa. "I've managed to avoid attracting his attention so far, and I intend to keep it that way. Has L been your only point of contact?"

"You should keep it that way. And yes, aside from the emails he's the only one from Outlook I've met in person."

Nik just sips water, thinking about how they could track down this L figure. This Outlook group must have an address.

Nik's certain he can find out more. McRay had said Outlook was a think tank. So they surely had an address and list of clients they consulted with. Some digging should find out some more about the group.

"Jane! There you are!"

The agents turn their heads to find three figures approaching them. The lead figure is a man dressed in a very nicely pressed suit. He's African American, with movie star good looks and a wide smile on his face, and he's looking directly at Vanessa. It seems to be him who has spoken. The other two are an older man with a stocky build and a severe looking young woman. Neither of them are smiling, and both of them are a few steps back.

The first man grabs a seat and sits down at the table, leaving his companions to stand just behind him. "I'm so glad we caught up with you guys before you left. We have so much to discuss, after all!" He's still smiling.

A glance at the woman with him shows she's carrying a pistol in her pants pocket. She makes no effort to pull it out, but it seems as though she wanted to be sure the agents knew she had it.

"I hope we're not making lunch uncomfortable for all of you. None of us want to make things uncomfortable. That wouldn't be good for anyone."

Gossel looks puzzled. It's clear he has no idea who these people are either.

“It looks like lunch is on you, then” Nik says to the sitting man calmly, although his adrenaline is beginning to kick in. “Maybe I will have a sandwich after all.”

Vanessa smiles back at the man who addressed her. "Why would I be uncomfortable?" she says. "This is just a friendly chat." She mentally kicks herself for having not noticed these people who obviously followed them here.

OOC:   Indeed, some unfortunate luck with the rolls there!

"I'm so glad you get it!" The man replies with an easy laugh. "Friendly chat, right. None of us want things to get unpleasant. Especially here."

To Nik he responds "I really recommend the pastrami on rye. This place is famous for them." The man and women flanking him take seats at the next table, and both face the agents as they eat.

"I'll get right down to business," the man says. "I regret to inform you that you have been misled, Dr. Gossel. These two are not with us."

The color drains out of Gossel's face. "You have to believe me, I didn't know! They came and acted like they were in on everything. I, I promise, I had no intention of divulging__"

"We know, Doc. We know. Don't worry, so long as you don't do anything foolish, you might make it out of this in one piece. Now shut up and eat your lunch. The adults are talking." He turns to face Nik and Vanessa.

"Let me be blunt. We know who you both are with. And you know who we are with. Moreover, you might even know who we are really with, if you catch my drift. Professional courtesy keeps us from gunning the both of you down. You people have your uses, and believe it or not, nobody wants a war.

"Of course, I can't just let you both walk out of here, not just yet. The people I work for want a meeting with you both, to set some things straight about all this. I would strongly encourage you to come. The alternative would be ruining the lunch of all these fine folks, and I don't think you want that."

“What steps have you taken to set this straight?” Nik asks, looking directly at the speaker. “You’ve put into effect a chain of events and it looks like it’s beyond your control. Or did you plan it like this? I want to know what you're doing about it before I go anywhere with you.”

"I never actually said that we were with your group," Vanessa says. "The good doctor merely assumed we were, and I didn't correct his misconception. Of course, you must know all this already, seeing as you've been watching him -and listening to him. He didn't tell us much we didn't already know anyway." It's reasonable to assume that Outlook has planted a listening device in Gossel's office, considering what they already know.

The man shrugs. "That's not my department. The very smart men upstairs are the ones who planned this all out. We're just the clean up crew. If it makes you feel any better, we've not been ordered to kill anyone yet, so I don't think they're particularly concerned about the situation at present. Generally more aggressive countermeasures are taken when they are..

"Clever," he admits to Vanessa. "You're good at this line of work. I'd offer you a job, but I don't have that authority. And yes, our orders were to watch the good doctor and see if anyone came for him. It's why we left him as a dangling bit of bait, just waiting to see what little fishies he could attract. So you see, it really does not matter what he gave you. The purpose of all of this was to bring a few of your men out of the woodwork.

"So finish your meal and come with us. I can again promise you, so long as you cooperate you won't be killed. You may even get a few answers to your questions, and the opportunity to make your bosses very happy."

ooc,You can roll HUMINT on the smiling man to see if he's telling the truth. Also, don't feel like you need to go with him. I'm prepared for this to go violent if it does. But it is reasonable to assume all three are armed, and it does carry risk.

"Thanks, I'm glad we understand each other," says Vanessa. "That's why we took the bait. It seemed the best way of meeting the fisherman."

OOC,HUMINT roll (54% skill) about the Outlook man: [dice]0[/dice]

“Smart men!” Nik sneers. “How many people are dead due to your bullshit? Of course, you don't care, do you?”

He takes a good look at the man, trying to get a read on him. If necessary, Nik will kill him first.

HUMINT,HUMINT 72: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/693844]HUMINT[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]13[/b]

"I'm not being paid to care." Smiley says. "But look, the folks behind all of this aren't doing it for fun. There's real important research being conducted here. I won't pretend it's always 100 percent ethical. But I firmly believe it's all in the name of national security. And my men and I are patriots."

Nik can see right though that. Smiley feels some shred of guilt over this; it's probably why he is so quick to justify his actions to them. But it's also highly unlikely either of them could get through to him. Money and the work they were doing seems to let him sleep soundly at night.

As for the rest of his words, Nik feels reasonably confident he's being honest when he says Outlook won't kill them. But whatever other plans they have for him and Vanessa, Nik can't get a good read on.

The doctor gets up. "I think it's best if I go__"

" Sit down, Dr. Gossel." Smiley says calmly, still not looking at the man. "Your debriefing is not finished yet."

He slinks back in his seat, and morosely picks at his half eaten sandwich.

Nik sighs.

“Alright then.” He looks at Vanessa. “If you want to go, we’ll go.”

He looks back at the man.

“But we don’t give up our weapons, so don’t bother asking. I hope you can understand that.”

"Yes, we should go," says Vanessa to Nik.

"That's fine," Smiley says. "I trust both of you are smart enough not to start a firefight in public."

Once the agents have finished eating, the group gets up. Smiley throws a few twenties down on the table to cover the bill, and motions for the three hostages to walk in front of him. "No sudden movements, and no tricks." The woman and man with him flank the group on the left and right,and the group begins to make its way out of the still crowded cafe.

They are marched to a nearby parking garage,about half filled. A wide black sedan awaits them there. The windows are tinted and reveal nothing on the interior, and they might very well be bullet proof. There's no one near them at present; the only one in sight is a lone parking garage attendant who is situated in a booth and presently reading the morning paper at the other end of the lot. He seems to be paying no attention to the group.

"Just a few more steps. Nobody try and be John Rambo."

It occurs to the agents that if they want to make a break for it, this may be their last chance before they're inside the vehicle.

ooc,You're flanked by the three goons and near the sedan. Planning to continue to cooperate or going to try a last minute escape attempt?

Nik's hands are in his pockets, one of them with the finger on the release of his automatic knife. If there are any surprises in the sedan, hopefully he can put it to work. But he's taking the agents at their word - if they wanted to kill him and Vanessa, there would probably be a less obvious way of doing it.

“Hey, why don’t you fucking relax?” he tells the smiley man, irritably. “We agreed to come with you, didn’t we?”

Vanessa is ready for anything, but she's willing to go along with them. "Don't worry, we won't try to be Rambo," she says. "We had a run-in with a guy like that once. It didn't end well for him." The memory of their first case that introduced them to this hidden world returns, reminding her again of the stakes.

"Can't blame me for being cautious in our line of work," He says. "Would you be any different if you were in our situation?"

One of the goons opens the car door and gestures for the agents to get in. It's the typical backseat of a sedan, nothing special or anything that rings the agents of something being amiss. Smiley gets in after they both have, forcing them to bunch together. From the other side, the car door opens and the woman gets in, so they're both once again surrounded. In the front, Doctor Gosselgets in the passanger's seat and the final guard gets in to drive. Then the doors are shut and they are off.

"Thank you very much for coming without a fuss. It makes things easier for all of us." Says Smiley, and he sounds genuinely appreciative.

Then he reaches over and plunges a needle into the agent sitting next to him. In unison, the female agent plunges hers into the other.

Both Nik and Vanessa instantly feel their limbs freeze up. Things begin to grow dark. Within a few seconds, they go completely black.

OOC:   Last thoughts? You can't really act, but you can get out a final few words or a gesture, perhaps obscene.

"That wasn't necessary..." is all Vanessa can manage before the paralysis takes hold.

Both agents wake up with a start.

They are inside a room, some sort of study by the looks of it. It's nicely decorated and the left side of the room contains shelves lined with bookcases. The few titles that can be made out are all psychological or medical texts. The right side of the room is blanketed by a series of dozens of monitors,though none are currently on.

Both remember everything they just experienced, and Nik in particular remembers his time in the retirement home and his time as Vanessa's lawyer. He does not recall why he believed in that particular illusion; now it just seems ridiculous. In addition, both of them have their hands and cuffs and their legs shackled, preventing much movement. At least the chairs are comfortable. Cushioned, too.

"Subjects 1501 and 4852, I see you have regained consciousness."

At a desk across from them sits a man. Short of stature and wide of girth, he resembles nothing so much as a twisted mole. He is on the later side of his 60's, perhaps older, and his skin is covered with wrinkles and liver spots. What remains of his hair is a wispy white, and he wears a doctor's uniform.

Picture,[img]https://i.postimg.cc/wBTm7B2v/tumblr-inline-pm8fh0-ACq-M1uxzqji-540.png[/img]

"Ah, forgive me. You both retain enough of a sense of self to still respond to your names. Vanessa Marchand, Nikolas Siilasvuo. Both agents of the federal government, firs tin the Phoenix office and presently in New York City. Quite a promotion. I am sure your other employer helped you with that advancement." It's the same man that had spoken over the intercom, they both realize.

"Not to downplay either of your skills, of course. Indeed, you both did rather exceptional work in maintaining your senses during our recent experimentation. Quite a willful pair. I would like very much to document how long it would take for the both of you to lose that connection to reality, but unfortunately I do not have that luxury.

He picks up a saucer and takes a sip from it.

ooc,Both of you can make an alertness roll. If it passes, you notice a slight shake to his hand as he drinks. Come to think of it, he seems to have a slight tremor even sitting still.

"Tea, herbal specifically. Good for my throat. I find it quite relaxing. I would offer the both of you some, but the last subject I offered it to attempted to attack me with it. As such, precautions have been undertaken."

He sets the tea aside and places both hands in front of him, clasping them together as he regards the pair.

"You've had enough pleasantries, I suppose. My name is Dr. Albert Yrjo. I am a Behavioral Scientist, and run what you know as the OUTLOOK Program. It is my understanding that the two of you were investigating a recent simulation we've been running, and you were promised answers. Well I am a man of my word, so ask away. You have satisfied my curiosity, so I shall return the favor."

OOC:   If there are any other rolls you'd like to make, feel free.

Alertness,Alertness 50: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/699674]Alertness[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]13[/b]

Nik’s head is spinning as he tries to comprehend what has just happened. But knowing he was right and it was just a hallucination allows him to keep a grip. It was so real though! And the two different situations seemingly occurring at once have disoriented him.

He looks at the man opposite him. “Classic sociopath” he thinks. He shakes his head. He notices the man's tremor and hopes it might be something they can use.

“Get me some water” he snarls.

"For starters," says Vanessa, "what was the purpose of the simulation we were investigating?" She notices the twitching hand. Parkinson's, unless I miss my guess, she thinks.

OOC,Alertness roll (50% skill) to notice the shaking hand: [dice]0[/dice] HUMINT roll (54% skill) about [b]Dr. Yrjo[/b]: [dice]1[/dice] Medicine roll (60% skill) to diagnose [b]Dr. Yrjo[/b]: [dice]2[/dice]

Dr. Yrjo looks at Nik and smiles indulgently.

"Of course. Or would you prefer tea?" He rises to his feet with some effort and shuffles his way over to a small wetbar. "I also have various spirits, but if my assessment of you is correct, you would prefer to stay alert." Once Nik gives him his preference he pours him a glass and calls a guard over to deliver it to the restrained agent. The man is dressed in fatigues and openly carries a rifle on his back. Wordlessly he puts the drink to Nik (And Vanessa, if she requests ones) lips, and allows him to sip.

"Of course we're not alone in here. I have three guards here with me, and two more just outside. If either of you make a move that can be interpreted as hostile you will both be eliminated. It's one reason you are both restrained; I understand the situations you have just experienced can be quite traumatizing, and this helps to prevent either of you from doing anything rash. Despite what you may think there is a purpose to all of it, and having to eliminate the both of you now would be a waste of time for all involved.

He sits down once again and turns to Vanessa. "A very understandable question, and one I am happy to answer. The Laqueus Equation has been known to Majestic for some time. It is truly an enigma, and was only recently solved by some of our scientist. You can imagine what happened to them. But Majestic has the support, financial and otherwise, of the US government. For some time Majestic has been throwing the most brilliant minds at it in an attempt to understand, only rendering them homicidal wrecks. Eventually self preservation kicked in, and Majestic-12 does what it always does when it encounters something along these lines; it classified the files and shifted them around in the hopes that they would be able to achieve some sort of breakthrough with it later. I confess that the Equation itself is a rather interesting little puzzle. I don't understand it, and that is very likely a good thing.

"But some of my superiors understood the usefulness of such a tool, and sent it to my department to weaponize. Are either of you familiar with MKULTRA? They are a form of techniques one may crudely refer to as mind control or brainwashing. I pioneered that, you know. It's what I used on Agent Siilasvuo here. A simple injection of a certain drug to place you in a mentally moldable state, and it was quite easy to program a new identity into you. Such a thing is quite effective in any number of things my paymasters need to carry out. We also have created drugs to silently induce a heart attack in someone or lead them into a form of homicidal rage or suicidal despair. But the central flaw with all of these techniques is that they required some sort of delivery to the target. In many covert operations, that is impossible.

His eyes light up and he grows excited. "Do you see now the usefulness of the Laqueus Equation? With this, all one needs is to email or mail it to a target, and they do the work for us! It really is a magic bullet. And the only ones intelligent enough to comprehend it are precisely the sort of high value targets that we want targeted. With this tool, we can ensure American scientific supremacy over all of our foreign adversaries. Imagine sending this to the head of the mathematics department at the university of Beijing. We could cripple them. Both of you are surely patriots, I think you can understand that this is for the good of the nation. It's a new kind of espionage.

"The initial subject, that young college student, was a test. We needed to ensure the Equation would work in an uncontrolled environment. A regrettable loss, but it provided us with valuable data that we could not have garnered otherwise. Namely his attempt to spread the equation to others that could comprehend it. This only serves to increase its usefulness.

"As for Dr. Gossel, his role in this expierment was to be an easily discoverable link. My superiors believed your organization would piggyback onto this investigation and wanted to know what you knew. The simulations I just ran on the both of you were designed to test your abilities to handle stress and determine what is real and what isin't."

Vanessa can tell that Parkinson's is a good guess. Yrjo is probably an advanced sufferer of it. He looks rather unhealthy in general, and every now and then he wheezes. He probably only has a few good years left in him, though that's not affected him mentally.

For all his talk of patriotism, they can also tell that it means nothing to him. He very much seems to be a sociopath, and seems to view others as his lab rats.

"I hope it makes sense to you now," Yrjo continues. "I'm given to understand your group is used to hunting monsters with no discernible goal but chaos and death. The things we are doing here could not be further from that. We are expanding the understanding of what it means to be human, the triggers that effect the human mind. I firmly believe our research here will have momentous impacts on the future of humanity." He speaks with the self assurance of a zealot.

Nik listens to this lecture silently, disgusted by this man’s absence of empathy. “No doubt he just sees everything as a scientific problem to be solved” Nik thinks. “He couldn’t care less about ‘Humanity’”. He hopes that one day he might be able to do something about Yrjo.

“Is your… experiment with the equation finished now, Doctor? Can you confirm and guarantee that you won’t cause any more innocent deaths? I’m afraid some of us take that kind of thing quite seriously”.

"It was lucky we were there to clean up your mess," says Vanessa. "The Laqueus Equation is like a virus. Once that spread on the Internet, there would have been no containing it. That's what would have happened if we hadn't stepped in quickly and stopped it. You could have brought this country you profess to care about so much to its knees. It's not useful as a weapon. It will come back and bite us, and it could ultimately cause the collapse of civilization. It's not the scalpel you imagine it to be. It's a deadly disease that, once it's unleashed and reaches critical mass, cannot be stopped."

OOC,Persuade roll (71% skill) to convince [b]Dr. Yrjo[/b] that the Laqueus Equation is too dangerous to use: [dice]0[/dice]

"Yes, I believe it to be finished. We received useful results that will help us target the equation more effectively. I don't anticipate further testing to be necessary."

He listens to Vanessa before responding. "Your concerns are noted Agent Marchand, but rest assured the matter was well in hand. Had you not intervened when you did we had teams on standby ready to eliminate any incursions when the order was given. This is not to discount your own work, however; indeed had you not acted when you did it is likely casualties would have been higher. In any event, the fear of a widespread outbreak is unnecessary. The beauty of the Laqueus Equation is that it can only be understood by those with a brilliant underpinning of mathematics, less than one percent of the population. Rest assured however that future uses of it shall be carefully monitored to prevent an out of control situation from developing."

"As for the matter of the simulations in general, they are the bread and butter of OUTLOOK. My goal is to expose many different individuals to a variety of simulations and catalog how they respond to them. In so doing, we learn much about the human mind, and one day, I believe I will be able to ascertain certain triggers that will allow one to direct an individual, or even a society, in the direction one wishes them. Oh do not think my goals monstrous,; the end goal would be to create a type of human immune to trauma or mental illness,a boon for all of humanity. As for what it takes to get there... well, no one wishes to see how the sausage gets made."

"Most of the individuals you saw in your simulations were fellow subjects. Your brother, Agent Marchand, was a subject we fed a script based off all the information we could find on you. That, along with a combination of drugs and the assistance of retired Hollywood makeup artists, ensured a realistic portrayal. As for you Agent Siilasvuo, your daughter was created the same way. It's one reason I believe neither of you could detect the illusion, despite your analytical personalities. They would have sworn on their lives they were who they said they were, and that makes the story so much easier to sell. And they will continue to believe it until their next simulation, when they are given new roles. Most of the subjects here sooner or later become Marionettes. Their initial selfs are wiped away, and they are made easily programmable to whatever role we require. Do not feel sympathy for them; most of them are criminals or various other forms of retrogrades. They offered nothing to the world. But now they are fortunate enough to live not just one life, but a thousand. And it is not as though we torture them; they are offered many joyous moments and tender episodes. All data is import--." He pauses, interrupted by a coughing fit which only a large swig of tea stops. "You may understand why I view them with envy."

"On one final note, you may be interested in the fast of Dr. Gossel. Like the both of you, he was placed into a simulation. Permit me to show you." Yrjo presses a button on his desk, and one of the monitors on the wall comes to life. It shows a full covered picture of Gossel in a coffin. He is lying prone and it is difficult to tell if he is still breathing.

"Oh he's not dead. We injected him with a strong paralyzing agent. Dr. Gossel won't even be able to tell that he is breathing, but he remains fully aware, but trapped in a shell. Then we woke him up to a mock funeral we set up for him, before burying him in a coffin. Would that we could hear what was going through his head now. But alas, such things are beyond my power. I've run the simulation enough to have a good idea, however. By now the doctor is very likely either convinced he is dead or breaking down his last barriers to the idea. He may very well wonder if he is trapped in some sort of hell. In an hour or so he will be dug up, revived, and thoroughly debriefed so we can learn what he experienced internally.

"Most of those who undergo this particular simulation end up either religious zealots or fall into a suicidal apathy. The doctor is fortunate, though; he will be led to believe this was all a dream, and his memories of OUTLOOK and the assistance he has rendered it wiped from his memory. As I have stated I am no monster, murdering others with no cause." He calmly finishes.

"Yeah, right" thinks Nik.

"And what exactly do you have in mind for us, Doctor?" he asks.

Yrjo smiles. "That, Agent, is for me to know and you to find out. I did promise you would both survive. And I am a man of my word. My superiors tend to discourage open friction between our groups.

"Have you any further questions for me, or shall we bring this meeting to an end? "

“Survive?” Nik says. “The people you’ve just described are also surviving, Doctor. I don’t trust your choice of words. We came here in good faith, and you’ve abused that. So if you want to avoid open friction, I suggest you let us go. Now. Without any more experiments.”

"I'd also like to point out that we did not come here unprepared," says Vanessa. "I'm guessing you didn't find the tracking devices. Even if you find them now, it's too late. Our agency has already pinpointed this facility's location by now, and it is no doubt already preparing a raid in the event that we do not emerge in a timely manner. If that raid happens, there will be plenty of open friction between our groups that your superiors so discourage. And ballistics. They won't be too happy with you in that event. I have one more question: how did you come to obtain the Laqueus Equation in the first place?"

"Oh, but I could give you so much. Your work is so traumatic. Wouldn't you prefer staying here, living out your ideal existences? Most of my subjects eventually find delusion more comforting than reality."

He laughs at Vanessa's ultimatum. "Please, agent Marchund, spare me the threats. Your position is not as strong as you may think. No, I'm quite confident even if Delta Green had the power they'd not be so foolish as to risk an assault for the two of you. As to your question, I honestly don't know. The Equation itself is documented as being several hundred years old, but was classified as unsolvable until a few years ago when someone from Majestic deciphered it. I don't know how or why it came to their attention. Perhaps from The Cookbook. That would fit in with it being a sort of trap as well. Our so called 'benefactors' do delight in leaving those little trinkets behind for us."

He smiles at seeing their reaction. "Ah, neither of you know what I am talking about. Forgive me, I am just a silly old man. Now, I believe this meeting is concluded." Rising to his feet once again, he goes to besides the wetbar and grabs a siringe, carefully filling it to the brim with a strange cloudy yellow liquid.

"You may feel some small degree of discomfort. Please don't struggle. The only other way this could go would be far more painful for you both."

Of course, neither agent could struggle even if they wanted to. Dr. Yrjo walks towards them and calmly sticks the syringe in the sides of both of their necks. He had lied; the pain was excruciating, and it only abated after a moment when they black out. The last sight either of them see is the elderly man, his head cocked as he watches them succumb to unconsciousness.

***

Both wake up at the same exact time.

They're back in the clothes they were wearing when they were first abducted, and Nik can feel none of the fatigue he had experienced earlier as an 80 year old man. Both of them are on the top of two separate beds, the covers laying smugly under them. A TV is on in front of them, giving the local news and announcing the date as February 26th, 2000, three days after they had been abducted.. A smiling woman is delivering the weather for the local area, which seems to be northern New Jersey.

They seem to be in some sort of grimy motel room. All their belongings are on them, with something extra; in each of their pockets is a small grape lollypop, the kind one might give very young children after a doctor's appointment.

Nik looks at Vanessa. “Well, that was freaky, wasn’t it? I don’t think I want to do that again.”

He takes out his phone.

“We’d better call in”.

He dials McRay.

"Agreed," says Vanessa. "Orange is not my color. Let's make sure we're not in another simulation."

McRay answers. He's cagey at first, and it's only once he's sure of the identity of the agents that he loosens up.

"I was about to write you both off as dead, or worse. You dropped out of contact just as the cleanup was occurring. What happened?"

OOC:   A short post from me. Will wonders never cease?

Nik fills McRay in with a summary of the most important details, starting from encountering the Outlook goons in the cafe, and the experiments conducted on himself and Vanessa and the machinations of Yrjo, up to the point where they found themselves in the motel room.

"Is the virus under control?" he asks.

"Damn it, you were in OUTLOOK? Okay, find the name of the motel and do not leave. I have to send a team to debrief you. Make sure you're not a threat to the organization. For all we know you could still be mindcontroled, or implanted with a trigger. We need to rule those things out before we can send either of you out on active duty again."

"The threat from the Equation seems to have stooped. We tracked down and dealt with everyone who had contact with it, and there have been no further outbreaks. Once we determine that you're not compromized you'll both be free to head home. If anyone asks, you were both on an important assignment. ."

Nik relays this information to Vanessa. “It looks like we’re in the clear then, as far as the equation goes.”

He sits down on the bed. “I’d sure like to get my hands on those OUTLOOK creeps some time. Especially that psycho Yrjo.”

"Yeah," says Vanessa. "Even if we don't, his Parkinson's will get him sooner or later. The problem is the damage he can cause in the meantime. At least we learned a lot of information. We'll share it when we're debriefed, and McRay sounds like he's already heard of them, so he may know some things about them too. Then we'll see what we can do next." She looks around the room for stationery or anything else that may have the motel's name, perhaps a towel.

OOC,Search roll (54% skill) searching the motel room: [dice]0[/dice]

"I'll go find the reception" Nik says. He checks his gun before he leaves the room.

Vanessa does not find much in the motel that looks out of place. There is a rather suspicious stain on her mattress that she cannot identify. She's not sure she wants to.

The motel name is discovered, and the agents figure out they're only fifteen minutes from Alliance, the town Michael Wei had first committed his killing spree. A few hours later there's a knock on their door, and three people enter. All of them are sharply dressed and give off the impressions of being government. The first is a middle aged man with a slight limp. He is followed by a younger man who is strikingly attractive, but whose eyes seem off somehow. The last of the group is a 30 something woman. She is plain and petite, but something about her movements suggests she is not accustomed to wasting even a single one. She stand silently in the corner and observes as the first man begins to speak.

"My team and I are with the group. We're sort of internal affairs, you could say. All we need to know is exactly what happened and if you are still under the effects of OUTLOOK conditioning. Let's begin."

The next few hours are intense interrogation. Both Nik and Vanessa have been in interrogations before, but being on the other side it becomes apparent it is stressful. At times the interrogation feels more like they are captives and enemies than fellow agents. Both agents are also separated and questioned individually, and made to answer the same questions more than once. The lead questioner grows more and more hostile as he continues as well.

Finally, just when it seems like things may not end well for them, the man nods, as if satisfied.

"Okay, you're both clear. I'll make the report. If you experience missing time or loss of control in the future, contact your cell leader immediately. You're free to go." Without another word he leaves. The younger man gives a mean smile before heading out as well. The woman continue to stare at them both. Then she shakes her head, mutters something under her breath, and leaves as well.

Both are free to go. This mission it would seem was finally over.

***

The agents are able to integrate themselves back into their private lives with only a minimum amount of friction. Amazingly, both of their partners seemed to accept their sudden absence rather quickly. It soon becomes clear why; apparently both agents had called their significant other and reported that work was taking them out of town for a few days. Neither Nik or Vanessa can tell if it was another actor or actually them under the mental conditioning of OUTLOOK, but it gave them cover, while McRay took care of their absence at work.

Speaking of work, the news was still reporting on the Wei case, and specifically the connection he had with FBI agent Sarah Comox, the woman who had murdered chief investigator Canor and his family. Apparently letters had been discovered linking them together in some love affair, and they were already being referred to as a new Bonnie and Clyde. For the next few months the tabloids would go wild with stories about their relationship, and the popular conspiracy show Phenomen-X would declare their crimes as having a masonic connection. There would be a few stories refuting the theory that the two had been lovers, but no one really paid attention to them. And while the numbers were shown, both agents were relieved to see that they were the edited version.

As for everyone else on the math geeks list, simple research would find that everyone on the list died within the next week. None of the cases seemed connected or to have garnered much suspicion. Vanessa does discover that the Tumlinsons, the family she had been accused of killing while in OUTLOOK custody did in fact end up dead in a home invasion. And no suspect had been arrested as of yet. Even more interestingly, the killings had taken place during her time in OUTLOOK...

ooc,Feel free to post any final thoughts or actions. I'll try to get up an ooc debriefing along with san rewards later tonight.

Nik wants vengeance for himself and the victims of the equation. He tries to find out from McRay more about what DG knows about OUTLOOK, and what if anything can be done about them.

Vanessa also wants to find out everything DG knows about OUTLOOK with a view to doing something about them, though she gathers that there's a sort of informal truce between the two organizations. However, their recent abduction may put that truce in question. She is just as certain now that she didn't kill the Tumlinsons as she was during the simulation.

McRay explains that little can be done about OUTLOOK or Majestic as a whole. "We need to pick our battles,and waging a civil war inside the US government only serves the things we really fight against. Our resources are already stretched. But your mission was useful. We have Majestic figures admitting to testing a virus on American citizens. From what we know, not everyone within the organization is in favor of such policies. Hopefully a time can come where we can swing enough of the leadership against the current agenda."

"But rest assured, if that day comes and Yrjo is hung out to dry? I'll let you take first crack at him."

Nik sighs. He thought it might be a situation like this.

"Appreciate it, boss" he tells McRay.

"Thanks," says Vanessa. "Maybe one of these days he can be our 'guest.'"