Eclipse Phase: Glory

[Dog Pants]

This is about to escalate pretty rapidly. I don't think an intimidate roll will be required if I have him lifted by his throat, but I really don't want to do that.

[Joose]

So apparently Javanese is a bit dodgy to translate at times. The word for "Suicide" is the same as the word for "Princess". It made Nameless' threat rather...odd sounding at first.

I'm actually going to give you a +10 for that roll, Fab. Partly because there is a mechanism for helping people with a task action they are doing, which doesn't *exactly* map to this but kinda does a bit. Partly because having a beat up combat synth on one side and a tough looking Olympian morph muttering difficult to follow Javanese threats on the other side is threatening enough to warrant a bit of a boost.

Aaaah, fuck. Fuck. This is about Yu isnt it? OK, right, chill. You don't need to get in my face, I'll talk.

He takes a breath. He doesnt actually appear all that "threatened", but he has dropped the slick bravado attitude.

OK, so, a few weeks back Yu approached me with some work. We go back a ways, I knew her from TAU. We were pretty tight back then, but drifted a bit when I moved out here, you know how it goes. So anyway, she shows up, needs some work doing on the quiet, you know? Custom flexbot build with two custom pre-sentient AIs. First one, Achilles, he drives the shell. Way less advanced than a true synthmorph, we are talking just a thin built humanoid body with a covert ops expert system AI. Like, crazy thin, like a whip. It'll just follow you around, mimic your movements to stay hidden. Easy stuff. All Achilles was really for was to move Tortoise around the place. Tortoise is the other AI, and is a much sweeter build. Its a programmer-archaeologist expert system in a box, designed to scan exotic hardware and data structures, copy the output, do a threat assessment and even do an air-gap quarantine of itself in an emergency. Point Tortoise at some computer gear you are not sure about, he makes a copy and if its bad he shuts himself off from the outside world, letting Achilles bring him home with you so you can study it in safety. I don't know what she was gonna use it for. Last I heard she took the bot and herself off to Casa Arturo. Not seen her since. Thats all I know man.

Because you got a critical success from your last kinesics roll, ill carry it through to this bit too (but no further!). He appears to be telling the truth, but not the whole truth. Nothing he has said is a lie, but he is holding back.

[Dog Pants]

I'm sorry for the thug routine Mr Wang, I hope you understand. We didn't know if you were going to be hostile. We're looking for Yu because we think she's in trouble. Her employers hired us to find her. Nothing sinister. She seems very resourceful, I think we'll have almost as hard time finding her as her pursuers have, although we might have a head start. You might want to prepare yourself in case they find you, although I think corporate services may find it more difficult to get cooperation here. We'll leave you to your work, but thank you for your help, and thank you for talking to me about your art, I found it genuinely interesting.

DCOM looks over at Nameless to check he's done and gets up to leave, then pauses.

Mr Wang, do you know if Yu visited anyone else while she was here? Is there anything else you can tell us which may help?

[fabyak]

Nameless Unlabelled simply turns around and strides off without another word

[fabyak]

So apparently Javanese is a bit dodgy to translate at times. The word for "Suicide" is the same as the word for "Princess". It made Nameless' threat rather...odd sounding at first.

Totally what I meant

[Joose]

Anyone else? No, sorry. I mean, I'm sure she did. She was here for a while, travelled about a bit. No idea who though.

He pauses for just a second, squints a little in thought.

Hey. Hey, you aren't just friends are you? You are from that group she works for. That secret club or whatever...Who are you guys?

In case you dont know: Firewall is super secret. Average Joe Public doesn't have a clue, not even that something *like* Firewall *might* exist. There's probably a few groups outside Firewall that know about it (Inner system intelligence agencies and the like), but its uncommon enough information that your characters wouldn't be able to identify who, outside of Firewall, knows anything about Firewall. Hell, at your level you probably know less than a dozen members of Firewall yourself.

[Dog Pants]

As I said, we have been hired by her employers. Did she say something?

[Joose]

She hinted. A group that is interested in TITAN relics, she...implied that someone with my skills might be useful to you.

He is looking at you like a teenager asking a girl to the prom.

[Dog Pants]

DCOM stops and walks back into the room a few steps.

I think you could. You have some exceptional skills and an unusual outlook, and you have been helpful. It is not my place to say though, and I have little influence myself. I will pass your name on.

Which I will after I've left. I'll compose a quick (encrypted if I can) message to Prof Ming to tell him how Wang helped Yu.

I didn't manage to translate what you said back there Nameless, but I appreciate your assistance. You do realise you make a rather enigmatic wingman, don't you?

I've just realised, I called myself Yu didn't I? I need to keep better track of my alter-egos.

Okay, so we have a few more pieces for the puzzle. She got herself a weird spindly morph with a weird hacker AI. Could mean she's found the kit and she's after having a poke about herself, or maybe it wasn't there and she's got the morph to hack her into wherever she's tracked it down to. Any thoughts?

[fabyak]

Unlabelled

Apa durung aku kanggo mungkasi munggah karo iki imbecile

[Joose]

You realise you called yourself Nameless just a few posts ago, right?

[fabyak]

Really? Shit

Errr.... He's so self absorbed that it's fine for him to do it?

[Joose]

Hehe, fair enough. So what are you all doing next?

[Dog Pants]

You've also never told us your name in character, I later realised.

Lets go and find Usagi and have a chat about it. I'll pick up my guns from the locker. Lets amend my timeline:

Sends forks to Vishnukam (Earth orbit)
Forks talk to government people and look into White Khanh gang.
Arrives in Locus (Jovian Trojans) by Egocast, into a Ghost Morph
Commissions a bespoke hacker AI for a custom synth.
Catches a shuttle to Casa Arturo (Jovian Greeks)
Borrows the Kesyrah and flies off into the sunset

I'm starting to think time might be more important than research if she's gone rogue. If those forks were looking for buyers then things could turn nasty. I vote we head to Casa Arturo and speak to whoever owns that ship. If he thinks we might be able to hasten its return he might be cooperative.

[fabyak]

I'm with Doggers on this, let's go speak to the owner of the ship although how Unlabelled will communicate this through a mixture of uncaring and withering stares I'm not quite sure yet

[Dog Pants]

He's such a delight to work with. Joose, can we get onto a shuttle?

[Joose]

He's such a delight to work with. Joose, can we get onto a shuttle?

Certainly can. To Casa Arturo, right?

Transport to CA is pretty regular, with a lot of people involved in space-racing going back and forth. There's enough that I wont make you make a roll, you can pretty much head to a docking area and shout "Can I get a free lift to Casa Arturo!?" and the only problem would be choosing who to go with.

Everyone ready to go, or is there anything further you want to do in Locus before you head off?

[Dog Pants]

I'm thinking we need to make haste just in case something bad is happening. We could fuck about in Locus for ages if we wanted, but if the trail goes dead at Casa Arturo at least we can come back and carry on here.

[FatherJack]

Usagi will listen and agree to the "let's get a shuttle pronts" plan and run it past Unlabelled, whose lack of any overt reaction to the contrary she will take as enthusiastic agreement.

See? He thinks so too.

[fabyak]

Unlabelled goes along, in his silent and scowly inimitable way (with a barely audible sigh of disdain at Usagi)