Reaper
Around 8am, you receive a text message on your government-issued phone, asking you to come out to the Army base at the airport at some point today.
Gulerod
The first move is yours.
Tasha
I have nothing in particular for you. You would have an email from Dark asking why you haven’t gotten back to him, but you were very careful not to give him your contact info. ;-) You may continue to interact with him and do your Crow thing if you wish – I’m NPCing him. A minimal amount of investigation will find that the apartment explosion has not yet been entirely cleaned up, but is progressing rapidly and will no doubt be done before too long.
Jack
When you leave your house in the morning, you pass what must be the accident the officer dashed out last night to investigate: two cars sit on a street corner, encircled by caution tape and apparently moved there out of the way of traffic. A hole in the sidewalk where there should be a street lamp gives silent testimony to the destruction the accident must have caused. The two cars are wrapped around each other in almost artistic fashion. You can see where one must have run into the other from behind, but it was clearly no normal accident. The cars appear flattened and crushed, but far too smoothly, and the drivers’ seats are perfectly spared.
Oblivion
The Files
Spoiler
Show
The files Jen gave you are thin, and clearly stripped of identifying personal information – she’s not willing bend the rules that far.
The first file is on a rash of odd illnesses in the mutant wing. Every morning, one or two of the patients fail to wake up. They are found in a semi-responsive state not dissimilar to a coma, and usually have begun recovering by midday. Their reactions and vitals slowly but steadily improve until they are back to normal, which seems to be taking one or two days for each patient. The doctors have been able to find no consistent link between who comes down with this illness and who does not.
The second file contains details on a young man who was covered in purple and black boils when they first brought him in. He remains stable but not very responsive, seemingly in a state of shock. Every time he falls asleep, he wakes up screaming in a cold sweat several hours later, looking like a completely normal, completely different person. So far, no one has recognized or seen any resemblance to someone they know in the features he assumes.
An entire room has been devoted to an older woman who divides by what the doctors can only call mitosis, every 24 hours. She melts into a shapeless lump, which then splits in half and slowly reforms into two half-size versions of her. Starting at about three feet tall, each new version has grown exceedingly rapidly back towards full size. There are now eight of her, in varying sizes of midget, and they have taken to fighting amongst themselves. They are currently on sedation, after two of them were killed in the last fight. While coherent, it’s nearly impossible to talk to them without them contradicting each other and shouting each other down.
Also being kept in a separate room for his own safety is a man who projects a small spherical force field whenever he gets too excited, frightened, or angry. Staff psychologists have been making good progress with him, teaching him meditative techniques to avoid further slipups – he refused sedatives, which could not be forcibly prescribed, given the unique situation. Still, he’s destroyed two beds and carved several divots in the floor, since the force field appears to cut through nearly anything when it forms.
Pulse
Your portfolio is doing reasonably well. Living in the city (whose news is still driving the market, understandably enough) has allowed you to keep a finger on its pulse pretty effectively, anticipating the rises and falls in consumer expectation, and you’re riding the bow wave of these events with aplomb. Overall the market is slowly climbing back out of the huge fall it took Monday morning, as people slowly begin to decide that the end of the world may not be imminent.
You have a short message from Kellie Kellogg come in around 8:15 a.m. “Hey there, Inspector Gadget. Been seeing you on the news – any chance I could get that exclusive interview one of these days?”
Kid Zeus
In your inbox when you awake is an invitation to an impromptu class party that evening, being held at Shaun Jacob’s house. Despite the surprise of actually being invited to a party Shaun Jacobs is holding, it’s really not surprising that that arrogant jerk would throw a party and invite the whole class, just to remind them how rich his parents are.
There is also a memo at the address of the new black handle you received last night. It’s essentially a regurgitation of the news story about deputization above, with a line inserted above from one of the officers, personally encouraging you to take part. Probably one of the guys from last night.
Judy
Mixed in with your other dreams are flashes of a more compelling nightmare. Two or three times, you have flickers of images that could have been dreams, but are more recognizable as that odd and unique feeling of only one of your bodies waking up. Woozy and incoherent, you receive only a vague series of impressions. There are bright lights shining down on you from a few feet overhead, and you’re lying on something hard, but the vision fades away before you can grasp anything else. Several dreams later, it comes back. This time, there are shadowy figures standing over you, impossible to make out as more than silhouettes against the lights, talking in low voices. Spasmodically you attempt to sit up, producing only a feeble twitch in you limbs. It is noticed, and the shadowy figures turn their attention to you before moving out of your sight. You strain all the while to catch their words, but hear only “…increase to twenty-three or whatever will keep her…” a few moments before darkness sets in again. With your last glance, though, you finally clear the bleariness from your eyes just long enough to get a good look at the largest machine next to you, a stainless steel affair with far too many tubes and display screens of incomprehensible data. Just as the curtain of sleep falls back over you, you see the logo on the side: “Crompect Health Systems”, and under it in very small letters “recombinatorial analyzer”.
((Stupid nat 20’s on Spot checks, making me show my hand early. :P ))
Lore
If you have not already heard on the news by the end of breakfast that your bank (Rainport Central) has been robbed, you are made aware of it by the call from your manager telling you to be there in twenty minutes or else.
On the way in, you get a text message from your dealer, wanting to know how this affects the assets you’ve been managing for them.
Nos
Bidding is up to $354 on the spider fang on eBay.
Perspicacia
You have a memo in your inbox from your superior at the police department. They want you on the bank robbery case, as soon as you can get over there.
Alex
You have several emails, one from city hall and one from Marcus Salter. I suspect you’re gone for good, though, so I’ll bother with them if and when you come back.