<> (Yes, we're using a new naming scheme, since calling things that aren't sessions "Sessions" is confusing.) ( And I picked up the condensed "Outlaws of the Marsh," because I haven't heard of it before and their full version is more than one book anyway. ) <> <> <> * Demetreia drips up to Kat's apartment. Drip drip drip. Her plasticky green cloak-thing is draped over her head, and she seems a little out of sorts. * Rochelle is lounging on the couch, idly surfing the 'net and not wet at all. She gives Deme a little wave when she enters. Hello. * Vera trudges to Kat's apartment wearing her usual getup. She's not soaked thanks to her nice white umbrella with sunflowers across the surface. * Fitzroy is not there yet. (...sunflowers? o_o) ( What? :P ) ( So now I got a hat and a cute umbrella. Yay! ) (It is cute. ^^) * Ian walks in. Today he's wearing a plaid shirt and charcoal gray plaid trousers, and a plaid umbrella, and has been cheerfully ignoring all the staring bystanders. * Katherine is sitting in her chair with her cat Echidna on her lap, reading from a binder marked with "Cybernetics Resources" in big bold letters on the front. Except for buzzing random people in, she's really focused. Sometimes to the point where she doesn't notice you for a bit. * Rochelle lets out a slight sigh and flicks the 'net off. She actually looks at Deme this time. "Maybe you should take off the cloak thing." * Leopoldo walks in. He's wearing his usual getup including a light raincoat. Strangely enough, he doesn't wear the hood that's on the raincoat. He smiles as he walks in. "Good day to you all." * Ian waves. "'morning!" * Demetreia blinks at Rochelle. "Why?" * Vera closes her umbrella and nods at Ian. "Yeah, deffinately morning." * Rochelle blinks back at Demetreia. "Because if you do, you'll be drier, but you won't be taking off so much stuff that you're givin' people a show?" * Demetreia blinks slowly at Rochelle. Unless you want to be wet and drip all over the place. 'S not my apartment. * Rochelle waves back at Ian. ( All these umbrellas....ANIMAL CROSSING! @.@ ) * Leopoldo hangs up his jacket on a rack/hanger that's probably provided. He munches on a Dunnought that he got earlier today and hadn't eaten yet, making sure no crumbs fall. "And how is everyone doing today?" (Plaid!) (Open closet with hangars by the door.) (I use those then!) Miserable. I hate the rain. * Katherine sets her binder down on the edge of her chair and takes a deep breath, before looking around to see who's here. * Demetreia nods. "I too am not partial to rain in a personal sense." * Ian shrugs, and then smiles. "Pretty well. Exhilarated, after yesterday. And you?" <> * Leopoldo shrugs. "I don't mind the water at all myself. Yesterday was interesting... I wonder if we will get anything out of these artifacts." So what's on the agenda for today? (The meaning of life.) Contact Ander on what to do with these and... not much else, actually. * Katherine pets Echidna. "Always a good idea to look for more crap, I guess." I wanna know what that thing we got from the guy's datapad is, but Roy isn't here yet. Really? We don't have to steal an artifact from a wheelchair-bound man in a nursing home or anything? * Ian nods. "I'm sure Roy has an eye out for leads, too." You got something from a datapad? * Leopoldo nods. "We got some chip from the guard of the artifact we recovered." Ah, interesting... Huh. I still don't get why the hell they brought another artifact back there. * Rochelle shrugs. <> * Vera looks over that way. * Katherine says harshly, "Who is it?" * Leopoldo shurgs. "I'm not them. Neither do I." * Fitzroy through the speaker: "Hey, it's Roy. Lemme up." He sounds hurried. * Katherine says again, "Buzz in," and goes back to petting Eck. * Fitzroy is at the door, soon enough. * Ian waves. "'morning! Thanks for your help yesterday." * Leopoldo waves to Roy and waves. "Good day, Roy." * Vera tips her hat at Roy You guys aren't gonna believe this! * Fitzroy nods at Ian and waves at the others. * Rochelle smiles a little. "Hey Roy. What?" Believe what? Y'know that file we got the other day? * Demetreia looks at Roy curiously. * Fitzroy glances at Leo/Roch/Vera and goes back to talking. * Rochelle nods. I suspected it had something to do with that. I spent most of the morning on cracking it.. * Fitzroy walks over to Kat's TV-thing and begins connecting wires. He doesn't ask.. just does. Yeah, what about it? * Ian nods... * Fitzroy soon has a list up on Kat's TV.. "This is what we got!" * Rochelle turns her attention to the 'net. * Fitzroy points, proudly.. It's a list of artifacts, actually. Well, wouldja look at that. Well, well...I wonder why ATC has that? * Katherine eyes Fitz with a look of annoyance, then pets her cat, yawning. Mid-yawn, her eyes widen as she sees the list. Well, that's convenient. * Vera leans forwards. "Now that IS useful. Good job, Fitz." They had some SERIOUS encryption on it too. They didn't want it found. Hey, if you were looking for them, you wouldn't want it found either. * Katherine snorts. "The real damn question is why the fuck that middle-of-nowhere place had shit like this." Well, if they have a list of artifacts, and are obtaining them...where better? Guess it's as good a place to keep 'em as any. Better, maybe. Nobody looks in the middle of nowhere. <> They're just storing them there. Draws less attention to them. * Demetreia nods. "That would make sense..." * Demetreia studies the list. "I wonder how they came by such a detailed index." <> I suppose... But then they only had two there. Either they just started collecting, or... They made it. * Katherine frowns. "Nobody just stores things. Not when they have that sort of money." * Rochelle folds her arms. "Huh, Concordat." Yeah, there's quite a few that are listed like that. * Katherine shakes her head and stands, shooing Eck off her lap. "Yeah, but where's the 'Anders' group marking? How'd he slip under the radar?" <> * Leopoldo shrugs. "If he's got them, do you think he's going to let the Concordat know that?" ( What's the listing for the ones we have? ) It's probably the Concordat's personal listing. <> <> * Katherine looks at Fitzroy with a frown. "And ATC has a somewhat well updated list of the Concordat's main list why? It's more likely ATC's damn list." You think they're grabbin' them for the Concordat, Roy? * Ian frowns. "With ATC involved that much..." That town or that particular guard could be connected to the Concordat. I'm not sure ATC is so involved, though it's possible. Wouldn't be surprised. * Katherine snorts. "I'd bet money ATC's involved." She points at the 'Main Storage' line. "That ain't Concordat." * Vera points at the ones marked Main Storage. "Hmmm... Wonder where these are?" * Katherine glances at Vera, and chuckles slightly. Anywhere. If it *is* ATC, which I actually doubt, it'd be in Atlanta. Hmm... Maybe we should look into it, then. I haven't sent this to Anders yet. I rushed over here when I got it decoded. * Katherine starts looking annoyed. "ATC is obviously involved. I'm not sure why this is such a hard thing to see." Nobody said they weren't. Jeez. Well, 'cept Leo Yeah, but Leo's weird. * Leopoldo shrugs. "I just don't know if the orginazation as a whole is involved when the actions of a few employees are involved. It's like trying to say a company's trying to destroy the city when one of their employees commits a mass murder with a chaingun. Think about it." How would only a few employees be able to amass this amount of information? We should definitely check with Anders, in any case. * Fitzroy nods. People can belong to more orginazation than one. If there's another one of reasonable size, and they've been looking for these for over fifty years, it's likely they've got a list of this size. I just don't want to go pointing fingers without actual proof. * Fitzroy brings up an email to Anders, (while still connected to the tv) and types in a message "Jackpot.. take a look".. attaches the file.. and send! <> * Katherine shakes her head. "It's easy. ATC employee has heavily encrypted data, ATC city collects artifacts, ATC is involved. Simple and easy and absolutely plausible. As opposed to a random guard happening to have secret data from a different faction we don't know about." (Yeah! Occam sez I'm right!) (So NYAH.) (^-~) Unless it's the Concordat's data. ( Bah, Occam was dirty anyway. Shoulda shaved more. ;P ) ( *hides* ) * Leopoldo sighs. "Always looking to point fingers." I'm saying this is simply Concordat's data. Not ATC's, as much as I'd like to think so. * Ian shrugs, and sits back. * Katherine frowns. "And if it's the Concordat, then they're lunatics who refer to themselves in the third person and have two different ways of marking the fact they have things." Well, right now it doesn't really matter anyhow. <> * Fitzroy checks his email! * Fitzroy 's computer displays a message from Anders on Kat's TV: "Fantastic, locations and proof they don't know we exist. If you need me to I can come pick up the artifacts you've collected. -Anders " * Katherine looks over at the items. "We should figure out what these can do before we hand 'em over, at least." You got a magic wand that'll make us know what they do? I won't reply just yet then. Maybe the list says what they do.. * Fitzroy scans the list looking for the doodads we have. * Katherine smirks. "It's worth looking, at least. Maybe we'll look for the magic wand when the list doesn't have anything on it." * Leopoldo chuckles. * Vera shrugs. "Fair enough. Considering we don't know what Anders wants with the artifacts anyhow, may as well try to figure out what they do." * Ian nods. "Sounds good to me." Despite the sarcasm, I'm game. I know that the one we got changes color randomly...that's about it. * Leopoldo laughs. "Kinda like me." * Rochelle idly brushes cat hair from one. * Ian grins. * Katherine looks over at Roch, and chuckles. "Eck really loves those damn things. Can't figure out why." <> * Leopoldo shrugs. "They're 'allpowerful artifacts'. Nobody said their powers couldn't be stupid." <> ...very well put. Just what we need, color changing fruit. I think she likes them 'cause they're shiny. * Rochelle peers at the list, then down at the pyramid. "Psychic/Psychological what?" * Leopoldo changes colors to the same hue of blue the watermelon is. "There something wrong with changing colors?" * Katherine says dryly, "Crossbreed Recall Inhibitor." Only for fruit, I suppose. * Ian nods sagely. "It must inhibit crossbreed recalls." * Vera turns to Leo. "Funny, I didn't take you for a watermellon." What the hell's that s'posed to mean? ( Leo's a ninjamelon. ) Well, they must know...either that, or they're making things up. * Leopoldo blinks at Vera, then changes back to his peachish-grey colors. "I'm not a watermelon." * Katherine looks like she's thinking hard. "Stops recall... psychological recall? Psychic recall? Technobabble to the extreme." * Ian nods. Sounds like. Still.. * Rochelle shrugs and keeps brushing the cat hair off. It's gotta mean *something*. * Vera shrugs. "Maybe it's used to execute shrinks." I can almost begin to guess at what the watermelon does, but... Cool. What's it do? * Katherine laughs a little. "Nah. I think it stops Crossbreed Recalls. Although what crossbreeds someone'd need to inhibit..." I think he means he doesn't know. <> * Rochelle snickers. I assume it has something to do with the theory that, when there's a chance that one thing or another thing will happen, one thing will happen in this universe, and there will then be a different universe which was identical up to the point where it "branched" off this one and the other thing happened instead. Which is all very interesting and unhelpful. <> (Pratchett, actually.) * Vera stares at Ian. "...... Huh?" <> * Ian nods. "It doesn't make much sense, no." So the reason it would change color might be that it senses these "branches"? I guess. I've no idea why it's called a "sink", though, unless it's picking them up somehow. Which makes no sense. * Katherine frowns, sits back in her chair, and picks up her datapad, which she proceeds to plug in to her TSM jack and type stuff into. <> What he's saying is when something is left to chance, two realities are made with the unknown going in one way in one of the realities, and in the other one the opposite happens. Right? That's what I gather, yes. * Fitzroy scratches his head and smiles. "What other colors can it do?" Oh. Yeah, I think I saw that on an old TVnet show once. Just blue, so far... * Rochelle blinks and stops the brushing. She pulls her hand back, looking at the watermelon. But that's odd; if it is attuned to such phenomena, then it should be changing colors much more often, considering the number of choices possible. Unless it's only attuned to a particular sort of multiple-outcome occasion. * Ian nods. "Good point." * Katherine blinks, and rubs her head. "What the hell...?" It's "distributed," so maybe this is just one of a large number of them. * Leopoldo hmmms... And what makes you think it's not just a color changing mantel piece or something? * Demetreia nods. Could be it only is affected by the person closest to it? Surely not...that theory does not converge with evidence gathered regarding the times and situations in which the artifact has been changing colors. * Fitzroy moves over to where the artifacts are and takes a closer look at the statuette one. Hidden on switch? Ah, who cares? * Leopoldo snickers. "We do, apparently." <> * Rochelle rubs at the back of her head, still watching the watermelon. <> * Katherine unplugs her datapad, and leans back in her chair again. <> * Fitzroy shakes the thing a little. * Rochelle lowers her hand. "So, if it's a sink... does that mean you can change the future? Limit the choices, or something." * Ian raises an eyebrow. "Interesting..." Could be. * Fitzroy also knocks on it, to see if it's hollow. * Vera pokes the statuette. <> * Fitzroy hands it to Vera, since she seems interested, "I can't see anything odd with it." * Vera looks it over. She checks the bottom. Maybe there's a "Made in Red Japan" sign. <> * Katherine stands up, and starts pacing up and down the aisle between her bookcases. Every once and a while, she'll look at a book, and put it back. ( Rub the faded markings! ) (Genie of the Statue!) (There's no place like home! *clicks two artifacts together*) ( *snickers* ) * Vera runs her finger over it. "Hmm... Maybe this race was the first to discover international trade or something." (Have to do it three times.) ( "I will grant you 3 wishes!" "Cool. I want a pack of cigs, some really strong whiskey, and a hat." ) ( Hat! ) (No kirby plushy?) ( Clove cigs. Blacks. Adds mad levels of Cool. ) (But you already got a hat. It's not good enough for you?) (All Kirbies were burned in the Great Kirby Purge of 2043.) ( Also of Lung Death, but that's okay. ) (And thank god.) ( I need more hats. ) (But Ian still has a Kirby costume.) * Katherine mutters angrily and walks over to the artifacts. "I don't know. I got really close to figuring out exactly what ITT meant, but not quite. And the Crossbreed thing's just too weird." ( ITT Tech! ) * Fitzroy starts unhooking his comp, so Kat can have her TV back. So, now that we've got all that fun stuff out of the way, what do we do next? * Rochelle shrugs. * Fitzroy plugs himself in after he's cleared the TV. ( Fitz is a robot! ) (Half you are. <.<) Well, if we can leave this here, I guess we could go looking for more. (Err, half of you are.) (Just because we have TSM jacks doesn't make us not people! ;_;) (Er, these.) ( ...yes it does! Damn cyborgs!....<.< ) Good enough for me It's something to do, I guess. Bring up the list and pick one. * Katherine frowns. "Yeah, sure. The closer the better." ( Let's pick Elecman first. You can use his weapon with the cheesey pause trick ) * Fitzroy pops up the holo-display since it's not on the TV, and holds it out to the others. It displays the list. "Who wants to pick?" Oooo! Ooo! Me! Me! Should we start with the nearby ones, or those further away? * Ian grins. "Go for it, Vera." Closer is better. * Vera peers at the screen and waits for it to load (or for the GMs to say something) <> (Fer sure, dude.) * Vera picks one that's relatively nearby, not likely to be heavily guarded, and has a cool name. <> (Damn loading times! Even in 2089 it's as bad as a PS2!) ( Aw man. We're gonna have to do this every time we find an artifact ;_; ) ( Ha ha! ) <<... the Dimensional Sliptunnel Wormhole AutoRelocatable Moderate Ordnance Device. It's in RNYC, actually, at the house of a researcher in one of the local Tform firms. It's also listed as Concordat-owned.>> * Vera picks that one. *pick* * Rochelle peers. "Who comes up with these names?" Geeks, nerds, take your pick. Perhaps one of the artifacts is an artifact name generator. (He's right either way. ^_____^) * Vera laughs aloud at that. * Ian snickers. "That would figure." Everyone needs their jargon, or else other people would have a chance of understanding it. <> <> How do you propose we get it? (It might have to wait till tomorrow. I could run longer, but I really need my sleep.) (Er next session.) Well, if it's Concordat-owned, this guy's probably going to be careful. Well, the guy's Concordat already, so... * Katherine grins faintly. "Which means it's going to involve taking it from him." * Ian nods. "Hmm..." * Demetreia looks a little worried. "Oh, dear." Beats the hell out of stealing. * Rochelle folds her fingers behind her head. "Isn't taking something from someone stealing anyhow?" Sounds like it to me. Not if they stole it first. (Not if they're bad people! Didn't your parents read you fairy tales?) (Seriously. Kids these days.) (Tell that to the ATCops.) * Rochelle shrugs easily. "Didn't say all stealing's wrong." Yeah, well, it's different. (The ATCops that don't exist in RNYC?) Oh. I did not know that. * Ian leans back, pondering. "Hm, how to get at it..." * Vera sighs and turns back to the screen. "Tell you what, I'll find one that we don't have to take from anyone and solve the issue that way. Oh, but I was looking forward to impersonating a pizza delivery driver. Hey, I just said not all stealing's wrong, didn't I? But if it's stealing, we'd might as well call it that. * Rochelle snorts faintly. "In a penguin suit?" I thought he'd go in a chicken suit. * Ian laughs. "That would be interesting. Perhaps a marketing gimmick." Gotta keep some variety in your sheer fucking insanity. (Wrap up. x_X) ("Wak! Someone order a large herring and krill?") (>.>) (Also are we doing this the same day or leaving time? Make sure you answer that.) * Katherine walks away from the artifacts, and over to the TV area. "So, got a new name, then?" ( Doing whichwha? ) * Vera rubs her head. "No. I get the feeling it'll end up the same way no matter what." (Deme: I need you guys to decide whether you're going to go get it right now or waiting a day or two.) ( Same day. ) (Same day.) ( Ohh. Yeah, that. ) (We could wait for him to be at work. Case the joint? Yanno, what a normal break and enterer would do? >.>) Okay. Guess this is where Roy digs up dirt and I take a nap. ( No way :P ) * Ian nods. "If we just show up while he's at work, it should be fairly simple." * Katherine yawns. "Well, that might be a while. Who knows, with the kind of hours people keep in this city." How do we know that he works? For all we know, he might sit in his appartment most of the time plotting with his friends on how to gain more artifacts. Hmm...we could sit and observe. Bah. Observation is boring. * Fitzroy shrugs, "I can probably find out too." * Ian shrugs. "That, or I deliver a sleeping gas pizza." That might take up excessive time. Go with the pizza idea. <>