A Devil of a Job

Completed one-shot storylines are archived here after their completion.
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Karl the Mad
 

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Re: A Devil of a Job

Post by Karl the Mad »

Preston looked offended when Drake asked about Holden's reach, instead of his. "Hmph," he muttered, giving Three a sour glare as he stood up and walked by, "bumping" into him on the way with more force than was necessary. Obviously Winters noticed this, and shrugged for the moment.

Elsewhere in the Inn, Harry paused and stretched briefly, wincing at the crackles in his bones. "Ugh. Whoever bugged this place sure wasn't fuckin' around," he groused, unearthing yet another makeshift dampener. "You findin' your way alright, uh, Tam?" That was what those guys had called her, right?

--------------------------

Katherine followed Travis' directions to the letter, sliding on by and evading notice, even managing to make it to the chair and plug in with an extra second on the clock. "Go go go," she muttered urgently, watching the display on her phone.
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IamLEAM1983
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Re: A Devil of a Job

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Three looked fairly apologetic following Preston's bump, but turned away with a hardening look on his face. He had to stand by his decision; Preston was a traceable mortal, someone who could pay for the old Wallachian warlord's retaliation in prospectively costly means. As soon as they'd all have more muscle or more general clout, he'd feel better with throwing Hauser into the fire. Until then, vampire against vampire seemed like a much more prudent approach.

After all, Holden Hall's team worked together. Preston, however, had long moments of solitude with nothing but an Internet connection. Maybe Drake would feel confident enough to ask Hauser to shoulder potential contact with a supernatural entity on his own in the near future, but he couldn't think so far ahead, as of now.

"Go for Holden," he said. "I'll deal with this later," he said, looking out the door.

In the meantime, the Krampus gave the ex-soldier a leer. "You sure know how to treat your coworkers, don't you, kid?
- Someone has to call the shots," replied Three. "I don't doubt of Preston's abilities, I doubt his ability to survive unfair odds."

The Christmas Devil nodded. "Uh-huh. How 'bout Katana Princess, over there?"

Three resumed his work, but spared the former demon a sharp look. "She's an external consultant for now - and she's right here. I wouldn't tolerate anyone calling me names, and I doubt miss Jameson would, too."

Kramp nodded slowly. "Right... So Aidan Drake's the self-proclaimed sacrificial lamb and team diplomat. Swell!"

In the response, Drake yanked the stool from under the demon's hide, the horned fellow standing in the exact same instant. Three shot him an angry look. "Get a bag and start combing this place over. We aren't here for peanuts and ale. Focus, or I'll do it for you."

* * *

A few tense seconds passed. Traynor's screen and mouse pointer both began to flit about as Connor enslaved the terminal remotely, windows opening and closing at a pace that stood as testament to the rat's fairly impressive skill at speed-reading and assessment-taking. A pop-up appeared, notifying Starr that an external drive had been connected - ostensibly one of Wyvern's own secure servers. In only a few seconds, an extensive copying routine took place. A fairly standard hack, all things considered. If anything, Connor didn't leave behind the usual flag files he usually kept for mandated intrusion tests, in case the client decided to try and subpoena Aldergard's handiwork out of existence.

A White Hat since working for the company, it was very rare for the rat to switch back to black. If and when he did, as was the case here, it was usually on very sensitive investigation efforts that could endanger their entire team if they were ever discovered.

Her phone's screen then flashed with a new SMS: Disconnect me, plz. Instead of ringing, which would have endangered their plan, her phone then vibrated.

"I've got the blueprints," said the rat, his tone clipped and hurried. "Bringing them up now - get out of here now, camera feed's on Traynor. Ten seconds away. Head for the door, wait exactly three seconds, then bolt across the corridor. We have one minute to get you to the elevator that goes to the basement. Take your pumps off, stick to carpeting and do exactly as I tell you, when I tell you to. I'll keep you in camera range at all times."
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Weirdlet
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Re: A Devil of a Job

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Tam nodded, hoisting a bag over one shoulder and following Harry back to the utilities closet. It wasn't unusual to see her hauling a bag of tools around in lieu of a purse, and that did well enough to hold the box that Gammell had presented her with. It was a beautifully nasty little piece, but anything that couldn't survive a few hours of walking around was highly unlikely to leave Gammell's shop for delivery.

Once she got in among the pipes and wires, she paused, taking a quick glance around before reaching to fiddle with one earring.

"Harry, right? I gotta ask for you to be quiet a few- using a hearing enhancer to check for some stuff, and when it's up, I get *everything* until I've worked the filters."
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IamLEAM1983
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Re: A Devil of a Job

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For a while, it would've seemed as though there wasn't much for Aislinn to find, but then she'd spot an oddly creaky spot in the floorboards. A few slats were dangerously loose, to the point where she was able to pry one off without damaging her fingernails.

Scrawled against the exposed underside of the thermal insulation was a single Elder Futhark rune, thrumming with the power to perceive - to hear. Aislinn wasn't too far into her own studies and still needed help from Francis or Zebediah on some days, but she'd know enough to recognize the impressions the rune left on her. In an odd and slightly nauseating way, it felt like knowing you're being listened to without being able to find attentive eyes or a focused face that could have caused that impression.
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TennyoCeres84
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Re: A Devil of a Job

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So instead of the walls having ears, you have to worry about the floors having them, Aislinn thought, leaving the area. She found her way back to Aidan. "I got something. There's an Elder Futhark rune on some floor insulation. Can't literally translate it, but I'm getting "creepy eavesdropper" vibes coming from it. There's your bug," she told him and the others in the tavern.
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IamLEAM1983
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Re: A Devil of a Job

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Three nodded to Aislinn. "Great work - let's get it out of here."

He returned to where she'd come from in the tavern and pulled out a small penknife, cutting around the sigil in a square pattern. He briefly returned to the group before heading back outside, however.

"Just FYI - I'm heading out to the parking lot to burn this thing. I know it's admissible as evidence, but it's still active if you've had vibes from it," he told Aislinn. "Archie can heckle me about procedure if he wants to, I don't like the idea of taking this back to HPD or the Hall. The last thing we need is a motivated, financially backed and armed serial killer trying to pick us off."
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TennyoCeres84
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Re: A Devil of a Job

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Aislinn frowned and eyed the rune. "I agree," she replied, then snorting. "Too bad we can't use an airhorn on it and bust the asshole's eardrum." The twentysomething shrugged. "I'm not sure if taking a photo of it would transfer the properties of the spell, but that might be a way retaining some form of evidence."
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Karl the Mad
 

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Re: A Devil of a Job

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Preston, apparently, had bailed entirely. They'd likely not find him for days. Jimmy didn't care, though; at the mention of a rune he was up like a shot, rounding the bar and hurrying over. "The nerve," he snarled, seeing the scribed symbol. "In my tavern!" Angrily he snatched it from Aidan's hand and stormed to the back, clearly intending to deal with it himself. Technical barriers, no big deal; he could just go somewhere else. But magic? Eavesdropping on him and his customers? That was too far.

Slightly amused by the outburst, Mary stepped forward with her bag of bugs. "Here ya go," she said brightly, handing the sack to Three. "Whoever they were, they were thorough."

---------------------------------

Katherine aligned her mental clock with Travis' schedule, pulled her shoes off as she went for the door, and waited the proper time before slipping out and lunging across the hall, just as instructed. "Ready," she murmured, alert for anyone approaching.
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IamLEAM1983
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Re: A Devil of a Job

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Three took the bag and let out a bit of a thoughtful sigh. "Which lends more weight to the idea of an interested enabler or financier. This isn't serial killer work; it's beyond being thorough. It feels like a deception more than anything else, like a misdirection attempt. Serial killers plan things out and can be exacting to the point of pathology, that's true, but - "

He shrugged. "I don't know. None of this feels pathological to me. These things have variable lifespans depending on the amount of via that's in circulation and the Harp is a public place. I don't see Winters gathering mojo here, not when, say, an aging customer with a pacemaker or some sort of pre-normalization medical tech rolls in. All the more reason to look at his residence."

Kramp spun around to face them while still on his stool. "Why all that misdirection, then?
- You've faced serial killers before, haven't you? Granted, I'm not an fully trained cop and my father's the one with the Criminology background, but I've asked him about his days often enough to know serial killers want to get caught. On some level, somewhere, they know that what they're doing is wrong. They can't stop the urge and can't fight their survival instincts - but they can fool themselves. It can start as a conscious effort to goad the cops along, but there's always a point where the game has to end.

Assuming this is really a serial murder case, our perp wants to be found and his purveyor wants the game to keep going, presumably long enough until these end up in front of the media," he said, looking down at the bag, "and GrifSec stock takes a nosedive. The brain wants one thing, the hands are doing another to derail it all.
- So it's intentional," mused Krampus. "Ya figure the guy wants me to catch him?"

Three shrugged and gave Mary a bit of a diplomat's glance, as if to nonverbally remind everyone he wasn't a criminal psychiatrist or a traditional cop. In anyone that was present in the room, Jameson fit the bill most of all.

"I'm saying it's possible," moderated the former soldier. "I'm saying whatever's motivating me to kill immature Changelings would conflict with my morals toward quote-unquote normal children, and that this push-and-pull routine would drive me nuts over time. I'd extend a perch, call for help - even if it means tripping on my own sword. Even if I'm not aware I've actually called for help."

In some ways, this would echo fairly well with some of Mary's former assignments as a SWAT cop. Not every supernatural she'd have taken down happened to be a rich and spoiled death-deprived asshole determined to rub the Little Man's face in the mud - there'd been times in which she'd responded to sudden rampages that had all the makings of wordless cries for help, wanton violence as a sort of instigator for needed assistance.

After all, if mundanes could "death-by-cop" by shooting a convenience store clerk and letting the fuzz gun them down after a painstaking chase, vampires could very well do the same thing. The scale of their display would simply be larger.

* * *

"Go," said the rat, sending Starr into a hurtling and somewhat furtive chase along the office's corridors. It was a bit strange, in a sense, to be told when to duck, when to run or walk, when to quickly slip your shoes back on and act like you were an office worker - but the end result apparently was Katherine's complete disappearance from Griffin Securities' grid. The rat spoofed employee servers and fed erroneous data to retina recognition sensors in the hallways' cameras, forcing them to see Starr as a clearance-designated employee. Quick enough, one last dash towards an elevator cabin saw her to the locked access lift to the micro-factory.

"Not too tired?" asked Travis, playful sarcasm lightly coloring his words. "Next up on the Office Olympics: Hacked Retina Scans. Hope you've brought some Visine."

Connor didn't really need to tell Starr much more than this, as the sensor's fairly HAL 9000-worthy red globe seemed to be giving her a fittingly machine-like stare.

"If this thing stops at the parking garage's level, you'll have to head out and go two floors down without being spotted," he explained. "I'd recommend putting your shoes back on and getting your car's alarm control out. Act like you're heading back home and getting into your remote's signal range until you're out of sight, the ramps to the lower levels aren't guarded or under camera surveillance."
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Karl the Mad
 

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Re: A Devil of a Job

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"You've got a good head for this stuff, Drake," Mary replied, giving the man a slight grin. It faded though as she considered the string of events. "He wants someone to catch him, I'd say. Whoever's pulling his strings either doesn't know what they're playing with, or they know exactly what's going to happen ahead of time. If it's the first scenario, when we catch the killer or he burns himself out, the controller might panic or do something short-sighted, and we can nab them too."

She couldn't keep a grimace off her face. "If it's the second, they'll just cut him loose and activate another asset. Or they'd be far enough in their plots against Griffin that more killing won't be necessary in the immediate. Either way we need to work fast before he moves on to another city." She turned to the Krampus. "How many potential victims are left in Hope, Kramps? Has anyone put them under protection yet?"

---------------------------

Call me Sam Fisher, Katherine thought at one point, feeling marginally like the character in a stealth game with Travis acting as her player. When she reached the final elevator she leaned against the wall, catching her breath briefly. "I'll make it," she replied in a whisper, reaching into her bag. She indeed had some eye drops, and took a moment to apply some to her eyes. "Is it just the ramps that aren't under surveillance?" she asked as she stepped up to the scanner, blinking rapidly, to spread the drops out.
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