PUNKTOBER PLOT: Multiple Murder Mystery & Highway 666 (forward dated)

[pillz]

WHO: Any number of clones, Shepard, some NPCs
WHERE: Various ImPort cities
WHEN: October 7 onward!
WHAT: After the discovery of several corpses who unmistakably resemble the Porter-produced clones, ImPorts both law enforcement and otherwise start to ask the hard questions. This log is for NPCing! More information and signups on the mini-event is here. Please let me know there or via PM if you need me to NPC something.
WARNINGS: Death, crime, medical evidence, probably language cuz Sarah Manning real mad, etc.

Comments

closed to sarah manning & cmdr shep;

[pillz]

[sometimes, after one has been elbow-deep in corpse in the tabloid-crazy crime of the week, it really helps to have a drink.

it also really helps to have something good-looking to take a good look at, even if shepard does happen to be an import, and all of that that entails. there's no real point in getting hung up about it. amy chopra has been doing csi work for two years with the heropa pd now; she's well-aware that bizarre circumstances such as these result in imports having access to the corpse sometimes even before she's done.

tonight, she is hanging out at the bar about two streets down from the main forensic center, nodding at the handsome space commander (former space commander) from across her beer.] Feels like every month, a new ImPort comes in with powers we don't know how to deal with, [she tells him.] No offense. But I think it's gonna get worse before it gets better.

[sassguard]

[ Generally, the only crimes Shepard's involved in dealing with is anything involving wheels or chasing after people. Murder investigations are an entirely different beast, especially once imPorts get thrown into the mix. ]

No offense taken. [ Besides, despite being an imPort himself, he can relate to the sentiment. Shepard didn't see the scene, but word got around, and he was at least partly involved in keeping traffic out of the area. ]

At least some of them are using those powers to help out. Any luck getting someone to identify her? Or figure out where she was before she ended up there?

[pillz]

Not yet, [chopra shakes her head.] See, that's the weird thing. She looks just like some of the ImPorts. I know you don't all 'know each other,' but these girls are pretty well-known because of their schtick. They all look the same. [she gathers her beer in closer in one hand, the condensation weeping against her fingers. she leans forward, a little conspiratorial, but not trying all that hard to be quiet.

(she should probably be trying harder.)] There are at least four of them. One of them's a scientist, and there's a lot of talk about their activity in Maurtia Falls. Who knows what powers they have. [she picks up her pint.] Far as I know, all of the ImPort girls are accounted for. To be honest, I'm beginning to wonder if they're just playing a sick joke for Halloween.

[sassguard]

It's one hell of a joke if it's leaving bodies. [ Shepard responds dryly, bringing up his own mug to take a deep gulp of beer -- it's nothing particularly fancy, but the conversation seems to warrant it.

The explanation does provide some context, though it also makes him feel out of touch -- he really hasn't been paying other imPorts as much attention as he ought to be. Then again, considering most of the native population seems taken enough with stalking their activities on social media, maybe everyone's getting more than enough attention already. ]

If there was a real imPort involved, the nanites would bring her back. [ He says, mostly thinking out loud. ]

Got any pet theories? I'm all ears.

[coppelganger]

[ Sarah just wanted a drink. She approaches the bar and only catches the tail end of the conversation, but it's still enough to make her blood boil. Before she can think about what to do, how to react, her body's doing it for her, pushing roughly in between Chopra and Shepard and snapping, ]

My sisters have got nothing to do with this. [ Well. She has no idea about Rachel, but details, details. She soldiers on. ] Do you hear me? Do you get that?

closed to the corinthian;

[pillz]

[the woman is laughing in the woods. exasperated, but not unkind.] All right, mate, [she says. accent. australian. twigs break under her boots, and she joins the boy in the strange gloom of deep forest.

there are thorns everywhere. garlanded around the trees, snarled in the undergrowth. it shouldn't mean anything— plants will be plants will be plants. the strongest, brightest, most powerful of god's green earth will sport verdance that cuts and poisons. when something wants so badly to stay alive that it'll fight for it, that means it's thriving.

but there's a hostility to it here. and the woman senses it. she looks up and around. ordinarily, the corinthian sees life, but this is something else— debatably, something more intimately familiar. there's that feel to it, the persuasive exaggeration of unreality.] Don't think it wants us here, Kav, [she says.]

No shit, baby. [the boy's face is narrow, half lost to the dark. he looks at her covetously, and holds her hand.] Come on.

[he disappears first. something within the woman begins to pull, and just as quickly to fray. it's not pain; it's nothing.




and then

it's just the stench of garbage in an alleyway of maurtia falls. a skinny native kid is coming down the way, waving at him.] Hey man! You don't mind if I grab a pic for the tablo— --'ooly shit. [the teenager had been about to say, 'tabloid.' but he just saw it, not far from the corinthian's feet; he saw that she doesn't have eyes.]

OPEN SETTING; Maurtia Falls Crime Scene; Afternoon of October 7th

[notsheepish]

[Thanks to the combined efforts of the Maurtia Falls Police Department and one very emotional werewolf, the crowd of gawkers, reporters, and paparazzi that filled this area a very short time ago have been pushed back and mostly discouraged into leaving, though a few stragglers still mill about nearby, hoping for a good look at the show.

(Unfortunately for them, the most exciting thing they're currently seeing is Ruby pacing back and forth at the entrance of the alleyway, taking deep breaths and occasionally closing her eyes and tilting her head to the side in concentration.)

Ever since the body was found here this morning, this usually empty alley has been a flurry of activity, as must also be true for the locations of the other two bodies found today. You know, the ones that look exactly like this one? ...well, except that those two still have their eyes. That's one little thing to make our girl stand out.

But the detectives currently investigating that and any imPort presence they may have allowed in to compare notes are too far away to provide any good fodder for gossip at the moment. Don't worry though, the rumor mill has gotten plenty enough already today to keep itself going for quite a while.]

[coppelganger]

[ Sarah comes jogging up to the alleyway about half an hour after she last spoke to Ruby. She looks pale, and scared, and exhausted. ]

Hey. Is it—have you heard anything else? Seen anything?

[ Part of her knows she needs to see the... corpse, but an equally big part of her really, really doesn't want to. ]

[notsheepish]

[Ruby stops her pacing with a start, so caught up in what she was doing that she hadn't noticed Sarah's approach until she spoke.]

Oh, um... no, not yet. I was just trying to-- [She waves a hand. Sarah already knows what she was trying to do.]

I think they might be about to... take her away. I'm not sure.

[coppelganger]

They won't let me see her, will they.

[ Of course they won't. It doesn't matter if she looks like the victim, there are rules and protocols, and she pretended to be a cop long enough to know that unless you've got an in, there's no way. Sarah stands in the mouth of the alley, looking at the cops and frowning. She knows what she needs to do, but going through with it is another thing entirely. She half-turns and gives Ruby a weak smile. ]

Wait for me a minute, yeah?

[notsheepish]

I don't know. ImPorts and police... [She shrugs, not sure what the rule is on this sort thing, though she supposes they must work together sometimes, right?]

What am I waiting for?

shows up weeks late and doesn't even bring starbucks

[doubleblind]

[Cosima comes rushing down the alleyway nearly an hour after she ended her call with Ruby. She has a bulging messenger bag slung over her shoulder and looks more frazzled than Ruby has ever seen her.]

Ruby! Ruby, hey. Any news?

[Cosima can't help but peer down the alley, eyes searching for answers and clues to what happened.]

not even like a snack or something??

[notsheepish]

[To her credit, Ruby manages not to be startled into jumping this time, despite being so concentrated on what she's been doing. Catching herself, she closes the distance as Cosima approaches and tries for a sympathetic smile.]

Hey. Not that I've heard, sorry.

[doubleblind]

[Cosima reaches for Ruby's hand, needing that contact. There's not much she's able to see from their, but she has a feeling she won't be able to get much closer to the body.]

Hey, not your fault. You think there's a chance I can get a word with the police?

[She asks the question, knowing it's a long shot.]

[notsheepish]

[Oh, hopefully a little squeeze will help with some reassurance that her words probably can't provide.]

Maybe? I mean, the police in the porter towns must work with imPorts pretty often, but... neither of us is exactly here as an official investigator or anything.

closed to the only and only stan;

[pillz]

[on the horizon, the city of maurtia falls glints in the night. it's been fine and clear. good driving weather, if you have some place fun to get to tonight, or better yet if you're on your way home after having concluded business with your ill-gotten goods earlier this evening.

the strip of highway loops over some low hills, but it's mostly flat. no carpool bullshit to worry about, the shadows of trees hemming in on either side. there are a couple of gigantic assholes driving around too fast, of course, but it's one of those nice things about this corner of pennsylvania. the closer you get to maurtia falls, the more selective the cops are about pulling you over, and stan doesn't really have anything to worry about besides which radio programming's going to stop him from nodding off tonight.

and he has coffee for that anyway. the girl in the fast food drivethru had told him he reminded her of her father. it'd started out pleasant, but his reception of her loud comments regarding college tuition-- and poor tip afterward-- had soured her pretty much immediately after. no matter. the burger is delicious, and though cheap, the caffeine is good and hot as the wind blusters by just outside the windows.]

Re: closed to the only and only stan;

[oldstandard]

[the closer Stan got to home, the heavier his lead foot tended to become. Even more so on a night like tonight, with good food and good coffee bolstering his recklessness. he tuned the radio dial occasionally, trying to find something that matched his pace and that he didn't hate. so far, it didn't seem that the venn diagram was going to intersect.

but the drive wasn't much longer now.]

Alright, almost done. Once you get home, you hide the first bag, and put the second by the door. Then you call Ace and give him the heads up to let Spider know it's all done, and call in that other favor since you've got him on the line already. Simple. Then you can just put your feet up and watch the Tiger Fist marathon until-- until whenever you want, you're an adult.

[he'd somehow gotten into the habit of just saying these things out loud, he wasn't sure when. he was even less sure on how that had never been the thing to screw him whenever things did go sour.]

[pillz]

[talking out loud certainly isn't the thing about to screw him now.

it's quite innocuous, the way that the headlights intensify behind him. there's no immediate threat. after all, people drive fast sometimes. then they put on their blinker, change lanes, past, and roll back in in front of you, chasing the horizon, possibly overcompensating for something. it's not a big deal.

but then there are people who get too close. and all of a sudden, with a deep-throated roar of engine power that's audible even through the closed doors and windows, the vehicle behind him shoves right up. the brights go on-- flooding stan's car with smarting, too-intense light, the white-blue of frostbite.

it interrupts his diatribe with a: hooOOOOOOOOOOOONK.]

[oldstandard]

[fortunately, Stan's immediate reaction wasn't to swerve. unfortunately it was to do nothing but lean onto the horn for a short eternity, and to brace himself for... something. when he didn't hear a or feel a crash right away, he punctuated his message with two more aggressive honks.

he squinted as he looked into his mirrors, determining it probably worth trying to figure out exactly what was happening. for about two seconds.]

Wait. What am I doing? I can't see anything even if this clown wasn't powering his headlights with the sun.

[he kept his gaze forward, with every intent to stay in that lane, but weighed the options between keeping the same speed out of stubbornness or unexpectedly hitting the brakes.]

[pillz]

[stan is entirely correct. and his course of action turns out to be pretty smart. the car behind him isn't large enough to make it through playing battering ram, and apparently the driver isn't interested in risking the paint job. it hugs the ass of stan's vehicle for a long half-mile, flashing its headlights twice, a little irritable about his lack of panic, maybe.

then, abruptly, it switches lanes. the lights cut away, and the car slides into the slower lane beside him. rather than decelerate, however, the mitsubishi speeds up, climbing up effortlessly alongside stan. it's then that he might notice that the windows within are not merely dark but also empty. absurdly, there seems to be no driver at all. maybe the motherfucker's invisible though, who knows in this world.

it keeps speeding up. outpacing stan's car easily, roaring off ahead. a window creaks down, just long enough to blast an iconic strain of the chorus from cee lo green's fuck you.

maybe that's it. maybe it's just going to fuck off and stay away. (no.)]

closed to mitchell and saya;

[pillz]

[funny thing about the business centers of most major cities. the bostons and the jersey cities and the houstons. the most heavily crowded areas during the day are some of the least at night. and as the darkness deepens, the contrast is a little eerie. no lights, no briefcases, no stampede of shiny shoes. empty stretch of pavement, some nice gingko trees below the austere cut of skyscrapers.

at best, there are a couple of bars still open punctuating the district every few streets, a few pedestrians and street cleaners weaving their way through. taxi-cabs slow to check if mitchell wants to get in, recognizing a politician (or close enough) beating feet after happy hour when they see one. only one of the drivers roll down a window, though. brick red face, white teeth.]

You need a ride to the Porter, man? [he asks, optimistically.] It's a long, boring walk.

[viced]

[ Mitchell hadn't really even planned to leave this early, but his assistant, Kara, was insistent that he actually start sleeping more than three hours a night. He didn't know how he was supposed to get work done when he couldn't work through the night, but... Well, one or two sleeping wouldn't be too bad, right?

Which was where the taxi came in.

Sure, most people would've left hours ago, and so the taxis had left to go where they were -- the bars, the clubs -- De Chima had always played hard. That wasn't likely to change. Mitchell looked up from his phone, listening to the siren-song of a million different things that required his attention -- statements and requests for more opinions, more popular support, more signings and speeches --

Always more. ]

Er -- Just my apartment, would be fine, actually. First and Madison.

[ One of the wealthier districts, but not exorbitant. About what one would expect from a politician. ]

[pillz]

C'mon in, [the driver says, delighted to have a fare. even better: a fare that isn't twelve sheets to the wind and on the verge of projectile vomiting all over his backseat. in light of his good fortune, the man is wont to be a bit chatty! as soon as mitchell's in, he pulls smoothly away from the curb.] That's a nice area.

They have ImPort housing over there, or you work out something for yourself? [there isn't too much anti-import sentiment in de chima, and the cab man is eager to align himself with that aspect of the city. he glances up in momentary distraction when there's a flash of light across the rearview mirror, and reaches up to adjust it. but it's nothing. some idiot with their high-beams on, going around the corner, probably.] You can make a good living in De Chima.

[viced]

[ Mitchell looks right at the rearview mirror, as well. It's with an eerie cant to his head, the way he tipped it, as if he was listening to something distant. And it's hard to hear, with the sounds of the car, each individual machine humming its own song. Automatic locks chirping that they're locked, the car's computer chirping each modulation, speed, power, temperature, gas. The lights outside sang their function, their power allocation -- the stoplights the same, timing out their silent, hidden internal timers to when they'd change. His blackberry, chirping every update, every alert, every change to his social media -- and there was plenty of that.

It was hard to pay attention to humans, when you were swimming in a literal symphony of mechanical sound, every moment of every day. ]

It's... private. I'm -- running for senate, actually. I don't know too many of us that slum it -- at least after the first year.

[ His fingers fiddled with the items in his pocket, a phone and a small bag. ]

Hopefully we treat you well here. [ He focused on the man -- tried to focus on him, establish that personal connection that was always so difficult for him to do. ]

pls lmk if im doing anything wrong powerswise \@____@/

[pillz]

[the cab driver is a little alarmed by the man's distant demeanor. is it him? is it import snobbery, or senate snobbery, or some other form of snobbery at all? is it the kind of snobbery that means that mitchell isn't going to be tipping at all, because some cultures are like that, he knows. it's an alarming thought.]

Never had a problem yet. Not like Maurtia Falls, eh? [he says, with careful good cheer. it's too early to freak out.] Good luck with the politics, sir. Did you say what your name was?

[in the corner of mitchell's perception, there's a flutter. signal to noise, activity that would be meaningless and lost to the finest agents the nsa have to offer. it's merely the electrical movement of a radio flipping through the fm frequencies— faster by far than any human finger on a dial possibly could. speedster-quick. the speed of thought, maybe. as the cab passes through an intersection, mitchell might glimpse a white car driving parallel to them, two blocks down. bizarrely, the headlights are off.]