5punk

Dog Pants wrote:
Well upgrading Blocker is like souping up a Punto. The customisation becomes more cost effective the more expensive the armour is.

yeah that's what I figured. I just thought it was pretty funny.

just wondering what, if anything, happened saturday?

Dirk and Gerald started gathering information on a White. Nothing major happened, just visiting crime scenes, and the BPN is still local so people can join in next game.

sweet, I should be able to join then. This weekend has been pretty hellish, but it's over now and I can go back to sleeping in till noon on saturdays.

For those that weren't there, an update on the White BPN in progress.

Dirk receives a call from Haynes informing him of a White BPN that needs looking into. Only Gerald is available as the rest of the squad is absent (hopefully not all visiting Gerald's monther). They are told to contact Mr. Ferrell who apparently has details of a serial killer operating in Uptown.

Ferrell's details are sparse. There have been half a dozen reports from various Shiver squads in Uptown of murders that all have a similar M.O - the victims were all killed with SLA manufacture 10mm HESH rounds fired from a DarkNight assault rifle. Haynes calls later to explain that Ferrell will actually have very little information for the squad - he will have been notified of a potential serial killer by a computer that analyzes the details of murders and looks for common trends.

The victim details given to Gerald and Dirk are as follows:

Morris Demarco

Head of Food Control for the Dept of Sanitation, SCL 4c.4.
Killed whilst he slept, 20 rounds of HESH into his chest.

Jarod Crane

Support Manager of a Killcopter control, SCL 6
Signs of a struggle in his apartment - phone off hook, blood trails leading into the kitchen where his corpse was left riddled with bullets, victim was holding a kitchen knife.
Photographs had been left on top of the corpse and a concealed storage area was found by the Shivers.

Garth McMahon

SLA Operative, Death Squad package, SCL 8c.1
10mm HESH rounds found fired throughout his apartment
Victim appeared to have fired his FEN off a few times before dying

Eli Ortez

Sales Manager for a sports car firm (Jalapeno?)
Single HESH round to the head at point blank range, victim was awake when it happened
Corpse was covered in "paraphenalia"


Being low on manpower, Gerald and Dirk decide it's best that they collate as much information at each crime scene first before going off looking for witnesses and following up leads. Below is a list of what was discovered at each scene.

Crime scene 1 - Marco

A large apartment, well to do, located on the 25th floor. The door to the apartment was locked by a card lock - it showed no signs of tampering and the door didn't look to have been forced. None of the external windows appeared to have been tampered with either.

The victims torso is now practically non-existent due to the amount of HESH rounds pumped into it. The corpse is covered with taxi cab receipts - all made out to cash and all to various destinations (mainly just street names) around Uptown. Trying to look into the victims bank account unsurprisingly brings up a D-Notice. Using his forensics kit, Dirk manages to trace one set of fingerprints that don't belong to the victim. They are present all throughout the apartment and some of them are quite old.

Neither of Marco's neighbours are in, so the squad speak to John Valentine, the building supervisor. Valentine informs them that some work colleagues would sometimes visit Marco - maybe weekly or biweekly - but he didn't know who they were. Other than himself, Marco and Marco's maid (the other fingerprints?) - he wasn't aware of anyone else having a key card to the apartment (Dirk also notices that the main door into the building has a key card lock). The squad ask for copies of the CCTV footage from the lobby on the night of the murder and make a note to speak to the maid. They then proceed to the next crime scene.


Crime scene 2 - Jarod

Again this is a fairly well to do apartment in a nice part of the city - and again an apartment door locked by key card that shows no sign of tampering or forcing. Inside there is extensive bullet damage to the walls (caused by HESH rounds). Blood trails going into the kitchen make it appear that the victim either crawled or was dragged in there. In his hand is a kitchen knife that has been bent/mangled at the tip. The phone had been left off the hook.

Photographs have been placed on top of the corpse - the contents of them can only be described as "disturbing". They appear to feature young people that have tied up against their will, their bodies covered in lots of little cuts. At most they are about 16/17 but are clearly frightened and in pain. The background to these photographs appears to be some sort of industrial setting - electrical distribution boards for high powered machinery.

The pair then move over to investigate the concealed cupboard - it looks to have been blown open with some sort of demolition charge. Inside are more the disturbing pictures. Also found is a tailor made leather suit - it is covered with lots of little blades and spikes. The squad decide to issue censored version of the pictures to the "missing persons department" to see if anyone recognises the people in them. They also resolve to discover the whereabouts of where they were taken. [Note: I'm fairly sure we checked if the suit had any labels on it, but I can't remember the answer].

Finding no more forensic evidence, the squad decide to speak to the neighbours. Two things become apparent: firstly, no one really knew Jarod; secondly, even so they all thought he was a bit creepy and slimy. No one noticed that he had any visitors. On the plus side, Dirk was invited to a Club M later that evening by an attractive young lady who had opened the door after presumably just getting out of the shower.

Speaking to the people guarding the reception to the building was no more enlightening - people thought he was a bit slimy but not much more than that. Again, CCTV tapes were requested.

Crime scene 3 - Garth

Card lock door blah no signs of tampering blah blah no forced entry. There was extensive gun fire damage in this apartment. A FEN bullet found on the floor shows that it was stopped by "soft armour", such as a Death Suit. No items were found placed on the body.

Garth was part of the Mars Mallows slops squad that consisted of two Wraiths (one a scout one kick murder) and two humans (one scout, and the squad leader who is business package). The squad hadn't been on a BPN for a week, the last one being a Red - an armoured car was attacked by DarkNight and the squad were called in to help rescue the occupants.

Having spoken to the building superintendent and a grouchy BrainWaster neighbour, it would appear that Garth had always been an edgy character, but this had increased as of late. The super recalled an incident in which Garth went crazy at a plumber for messing the water up (Dirk almost convinced Gerald to rip out all the sinks etc in the hope it might reveal another hidden cache).

Once more the CCTV footage is requested and the squad make notes to contact the Mars Mallows for more information on Garth.

Crime scene 4 - Eli Ortez

I think you can guess what the story with the door is.

A canvas bag had been upended on to the corpse spilling out lots of romantic paraphenalia - candlesticks, incense etc. Inside the bag were lots of little white plastic shavings that looked to have been worked into the lining of a period of time.


That's more or less where things came to an end. Myself and Joose had several theories and ideas as to what was going on, but I'm tired and my hands hurt so I'll type that tomorrow.

Sounds like there might be a DarkNight espionage agent in Uptown. If so, we'll need to work together and try not to separate very much. I think DarkNight is definitely planning something and the dead op's squad probably stumbled onto something. Probably a good idea to interview the rest of the squad, and possibly stake them out.

deject wrote:Sounds like there might be a DarkNight espionage agent in Uptown. If so, we'll need to work together and try not to separate very much. I think DarkNight is definitely planning something and the dead op's squad probably stumbled onto something. Probably a good idea to interview the rest of the squad, and possibly stake them out.

I'm slightly unsure about that. Mainly due to the fact that the only "clean" kills where when people were asleep. The awake people managed to get shots off or run about a bit whilst the killer sprayed the place with automatic fire. I get the feeling that whoever is doing the killing is not used to using a gun.

I suppose it doesn't necessarily rule out DK, but it just seems a bit odd.

I'm not feeling the DarkNight agent thing myself. Three out of the four victims appear to have had some dark secret - the kinky torture fetishist being the most obvious.

We were also going to look into the destinations that Marco's cab journeys went to, and look into the personal life of Eli.

Regarding the ops guy, me and Joose wondered if he also had something left on his body but members of his squad removed them so as not to incriminate him in anything.

All the killings feel very "specific" - and as Joose said it looks like the killer wasn't used to firing a gun.

My personal feeling at the moment is that the killer is an Ebon. The bullet on the floor looks like it could possibly have hit a Death Suit (in fact if anyone wants to test it, someone could shoot Dirk with a FEN - in a controlled environment of course). Joose also suggested that the killer could have entered the properties via the Ebon fold ability (although we also pondered if the key cards could have been forged).

Roman Totale wrote:in fact if anyone wants to test it, someone could shoot Dirk with a FEN - in a controlled environment of course.

*Puts hand up*

Oh! Me me me!

I was going to send a snotty email to Cubicle 7 today over my missing SLA books and lack of any replies to several emails. But today they arrived, and then some.

As well as my copy of the new SLA rules, and the copy of Karma I ordered, they threw in a copy of Mort (now out of print I might add) by way of an apology. Even better, the copy of Mort is autographed by cover artist Clint Langley.

This makes me happy.

Well that's a win apology!

that's pretty cool indeed.

Demand moar!

Okies, results:

BPN complete, you all get credited with 200c and a .5 SCL increase.
Dirk and Gerald get 4 XP, Deject and Grim get 3 ('cos they missed the first half).
The report by Lloyd Langley is aired in the ten o'clock highlights. They show four seconds of combat footage (mostly Deject's, with Gerald's POV shot of the kill), and a ten second bulletin from Langley. This gives you, as a squad (credited to Gerald as squad leader), 200c payment for the footage, and a 100c flat fee for the material.
You get no extra public image, but you don't lose the point you have for this month.
The squad (again credited to Gerald) get 120c reward for recovering the DarkNight weapons cache. The bonus for the potential Skin Trade cell is pending the results of a White BPN issued to another squad.

Win.

Dirk would also like to attempt to start wooing Serulia.

+305 Credits (+200 BPN Payment, +105 Bonus stuff divided by 4)
+3 XP takes me to 13
+50 Uni from looting
-1 Credit for the bullet I fired at dirk takes me to 1,311

so thats 420c extra, right? 105c each, by my reckoning. I'm going to put the 200 into paying off my debt, and the 105 into my savings.

This leaves me with 13XP and 680c

I shall ponder what to do with them.

How far away from end of month billings are we?

A week.