Log:Crosstime Apocalypse, Scene 5

Crosstime Apocalypse 2014/01/30 	 Vanguard Pleiades Sasha

6

Champions Mush - Thursday, January 30, 2014, 9:50 AM

Locke Industrial Park'

''Once this was a site of heavy industry, when the nearby shoreline was endless wharves; then it was all but abandoned when that industry failed and the industrialist Locke was all but forgotten. Now Locke Business Park has come to be known as the technology center of town. With its manufacturing companies, as well as retail businesses, it draws people from all over Colonial Bay to purchase the latest in high tech. And unlike in the old days, the streets are clean and bright.

When Pleiades arrives at the site of the "laboratory" the official crime scene people are just finishing up. A police cordon keeps back gawkers, but two people stand with the gawkers just inside the tape: waiting with interest but not participating.

Pleiades looks at the two non-gawkers as she rolls up.

The man is older (in his sixties or seventies) and with a thin build. He is dressed in a bluish-grey suit built for a stockier/average built man with a military-style overcoat gloves and a hat with flaps. The woman is younger (in her thirties) in a white blouse, black pencil skirt and patent heels tailored to her thin frame. Her coat is also long, but leather and she is without hat or gloves. Her hair is black and worn in a bun.

Pleiades ignores the man and woman for now. . o O (Better to play dumb until I know more.) She lets herself in under the tape and looks for an authority.

Pleiades 

''Pleiades is about 170cm tall, with an athletic build, a heart-shaped face, big expressive green eyes, and neck length somewhat unkempt black hair. She wears a long strip of white cloth tied around her head knotted in a bow at the back. ''

''She wears a long sleeved white half-jacket with blue piping, and with blue and gold bars on the cuffs, over a midriff baring tight black crop top with white piping zipped up the front with a large hoop zipper tab at the top. ''

''Around her waist she wears an open front white knee-length skirt with white piping, with gray steel armor plates over her hips, over plain light blue shorts. She wears black knee braces with gray steel armor plates on the front. ''

''On her left hand she wears a fingerless black glove with steel reinforcement over the knuckles. On her right hand, she wears Panzerfaust, a heavy gray steel technomagic gauntlet with a pair of heavy counter-rotating bands around the wrist portion. On her feet, she wears Blitzraeder, a pair of technomagic heavy steel reinforced inline skates ''

(Or see: http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Subaru_9167.jpg)

A detective outside hold up a hand, finishes a few words with the head of the forensic team and then walks toward Pleiades. "Good afternoon," he says. "I hope you have more answers than my people."

Pleiades smiles sheepishly, "Um, probably not, but I won't know until I take a look."

Evan Hampton (the older man) pulls himself away from where he has been waiting patiently and says, "May we join you?" His secretary follows quietly.

Pleiades looks over guilelessly, "Um, I'm sorry, who are you?"

Liam holds out his hand for a shake, his manner friendly. "I'm Evan Hampton. My associate is Phillis Itselph. We are with the government, but not an official part of this investigation yet -"

"Waste of time," Phyllis interrupts.

" - so we are waiting until the official bodies are through," Even continues as if Phyllis had not spoken.

Pleiades shakes his hand with her left hand, "Um, what government, Sir? And what agency?"

Liam switches hands without comment. "Vanguard One," he says. "I doubt you would have heard of it: we mainly do what-if think-tank type stuff.

Pleiades nods, "And which government?"

Liam grins. "The United States, of course. What other gov- oh. I'm sorry. How rude of me to not think of that."

Pleiades grins as well, "I'm technically a foreign agent, after all. If the detective here can verify your ID, I don't mind you joining me."

Evan nods and walks, assuming both the detective's accent and that Pleiades will follow.

Pleiades follows along, assuming the detective doesn't stop Evan and Phyllis.

The laboratory looks pretty bare after the forensic team has removed anything they want to investigate further. Chairs, tables, cots (with the mattresses removed), some food and a few bits of furniture remain (including a table with straps).

Evan says to Phillis, "Your thoughts dear?"

Phyllis replies, "Same as I said outside: these aren't the people we are looking for."

Evan says, "Elaborate."

Phillis glances at Pleiades, shrugs, then says, "Fearmongers are all about maximum psychological impact with minimum effort. This is the exact opposite. Lots of work was done here, and they tried to be secret about it: they lived here."

"Tell me something I don't know," Evan says.

Phillis starts to head for the door, but stops and sighs loudly at Evan's question, then gives up and says, "There were three of them, and they don't like each other very much."

Pleiades hmmms, "Fearmongers are just the symptom. We need to find the cause."

Both Phillis and Evan start in surprise at Pleiades comment.

"Elaborate," Evan says. "What *causes* a fearmonger?"

Phyllis smirks at Evan's question, but doesn't comment.

Phyllis thinks .oO (Sometimes when a boy fearmonger and a girl fearmonger love each other very much...)

Pleiades says, "Um, I'm not really sure, but they're basically a natural phenomenon. They're, um, spirits, sort of. They're drawn to fear and panic and that sort of thing, because they feed off those emotions. If they're coming here, they're finding something to feed on."

Evan nods and says, "But they are intelligent. They can create fear as much as any person can."

Pleiades nods as well, "Yes, they have to be able to do that when there aren't enough natural sources to feed on." She hesitates for a moment. "In this case, my government has been tracking a series of trans-spacial and dimensional world extinction events. In each case, fearmongers appeared to feed."

Phyllis frowns, "News like that would terrify any normal person. You are either very courageous or lying."

Evan's eyebrows shoot up at Phyllis' comment and turns to Pleiades, "So which is it?"

Pleiades grins nervously, "I'm not sure I'm all that courageous, but I've known about this for a while now, so I guess I'm past being terrified. And I have to believe that we'll be able to protect the Earth!"

Evan nods slowly. He is quiet for several long seconds, then says, "How can we help?"

Phyllis frowns, "Evan, we already have out own assignmen-" then shuts up at a dark glance from Evan. With another sigh, she says to Pleiades, "Of course we will help however we can."

Pleiades nods, "OK then. There are a few factors that connect this incident to the past disasters. We know that the past disasters were preceded by a temporal discontinuity. We know that such an event occurred here on Earth a few weeks ago. We know that the woman imprisoned here was a probability manipulator, and was imprisoned several weeks ago, and might be the source of the temporal discontinuity. We know that each disaster, while unique, was caused by an intelligent, active agent, that used local materials to create the disaster."

Phyllis points at a cot. "If your 'active agent' was here, I would guess it was that one, with the cot positioned by all the equipment."

Evan nods and says to Pleiades, "Anything else?"

Pleiades frowns, "There's a possible wildcard in all this. A man named Wayne, and a woman named Guy. Wayne claims to have the power to undo disasters, retroactively, and claims to have done so for the previous disasters my government is aware of. But, unlike what Walter claims, we believe he's actually escaping the disasters, moving to a parallel continuity, rather than resetting the world as he believes."

Pleiades looks over the layout. "So one guard, and one other person, probably..."

Phyllis shakes her head. "Guards protect others. That one (indicating a second cot) may be helping the other two, but is protecting only themselves."

Pleiades hmmms, "Either way, it's the best placed for someone to be on alert."

Phyllis indicates the food. Two half-eaten servings of Chinese and one unopened. "So which one was missing?"

Pleiades says, "It may have been for their prisoner."

Phyllis nods slowly and a bit doubtfully.

Evan says, "Regardless, we need to talk to the prisoner - or the detectives who have already interviewed the prisoner - and see both if her captors include this Wayne and Guy person, plus find out if they took anything when they fled. I think that the ape was a delaying tactic, which speaks of a lot of effort for a simple door alarm."

Pleiades nods, "The one thing we don't know, is the motive. Why would someone want to kill worlds? Fearmongers get food out of it, but how do the people causing the disasters benefit?"

Both Evan and Phyllis shake their heads.

"I've rarely understood slash-and-burn tactics," Evan says.

Pleiades nods slowly, "I'll need to contact my superior to see if there was evidence of post-disaster looting on the previous worlds."

Evan says, "The point of slash and burn is to not leave anything that can be looted. That, I'm told, is the point."

"Scorched earth, dear," Phillis says. "Slash and burn is a farming technique."

"Very well, 'scorched earth'." Evan replies. "I still don't get it."

Pleiades hmmms, "The last two disasters were a zombie outbreak, and a plague of flesh-eating roaches. Bad for any living thing, but not something that would stop looters."

Evan shrugs, "That's my only guess. I don't have enough info to make further guesses." He looks around the room and says, "I think we have done all we can here. Lets go see if we can get those Hardcase interview tapes.

On their way out the door, Phyllis asks Evan, "Why are you ignoring your own assignment to help her?" Then adds a bit jealously, "She's not *that* pretty."

"Mathew 16:26," Evan replies. "Look it up." He then pauses and says to Pleiades, "You may want to talk to the police instead of me, since you are already on good terms with them."

He pulls a card out of his jacket and hands it to Pleiades. "Just keep me informed if I can help."

Outside, Pleiades meets Sasha and explains what she has learned.

Sasha listens to Pleiades explain the encounter with the Vanguard agents. "What is with one man and one woman together in pairs popping up through all this?" He shrugs. "Oh well. I suppose the device holding the young lady was a Vanguard device?"

Pleiades blinks, "Um, I don't think so? I didn't ask."

Sasha smiles slightly. "Did, um," snaps his fingers, "Evan and Phyllis say why they were here?"

Pleiades says, "Not really, other than to investigate the scene." She smiles ruefully, "I guess I should have asked more questions.""