Log:ACRO - Jacobs, Scene 4

ACRO - Jacobs 2017/06/23 	 Night Marshal|Detective Jack Carpenter Griffin Tap Mechanica Chen

4

This area is part of Colonial Bay City, but you wouldn't know it. Woodsy homes, set back away from the roads, are barely noticeable when passing by. Many of the driveways are still gravel or packed dirt. The rural feel of the area has been preserved with simple 2-lane roads cutting through the forested countryside. Various evergreens, birch and even some large oaks grow unfettered in this designated "green acres" section of town. The scattered houses blend into the natural setting, the muted wood tones and angular architecture hidden behind wooded lots. It's peaceful and serene, and wildlife appears to have taken refuge in this natural landscape.

Dr. Derrick Jacobs, formerly of both ACRO and SG, has gone missing. His old colleage, Dr. Roland Hammer, has referred Detective Jack Carpenter to a workshop that he knew Derrick owned up in the Green Acres area. A few heroes have offered to head along to aid in the investigation.

Tap enters from MagLev System.

Carpenter stands in front of the house in question, which looks like it was built in the early 20th century. "This looks like the place. No cars in the drive, though." The building looks pretty well kept, and Jacobs likely has a gardener or landscaper come out to deal with the grounds.

Chen grins, "How about I scout ahead in the guise of a young cat. Even better if there's a cat-flap access. And if anyone is there and kicks the cute little kitty... we'll know they a bad guy."

Tap thinks. o O (I miss being able to be a cat....)

Carpenter smiles. "I'm not sure that's necessary, in this case. My guess is..there's likely no one here. So, we're going to be looking for clues more than anything." He heads up to the front door.

Mechanica gets dragged, well, carried, to the location by Griffin at superhuman speeds. Griffin was eager to volunteer in the investigation to help the boys in blue. And even more eager to drag Mechanica into it for a chance to work with a new potential teammate. She just needs a little practice working with Zero Division.

Mechanica...was not too pleased. She had grand plans, oh yes. When Grififn stops them by the good Detective, she slips off his back, feeling mildly ill. "Okay, estoy aqui, happy?" she says to Griffin as she rolls up the sleeves of her jacket. "Let's get this over with," she says as she studies the house everyone's looking towards. With a shrug to herself, she activates her cloaking device and starts marching forward while her shift drive starts to spool up.

Tap walks alongside the detective, in silence.

Chen extends an arm, literally, to tap Carpenter on the shoulder. "Excuse me, Detective, but when you have metas around leading the procession is just a little too courageous. Let us go first. I promise we would mess up your crime scene, if there is one."

Carpenter sees Mechanica disappear, and he says, "Please be careful about any evidence we might find." He knocks on the door and waits for a moment. And there's no answer.

Tap reaches out and taps on the door with two fingers.

Carpenter looks to Chen, "I didn't realize we were dealing with a meta fight here. Are you always so protective? This...is my job. Fighting robots and stuff...that's yours." He chuckles.

Mechanica's holoprojectors transmit her voice at Carpenter's opposite side, thanks to acoustics and soundwave reflection. "No te preocupes. I won't touch nothing." Literally she can't at the moment as she just walks on through the front door and Carpenter's knocking fist.

Chen grins, "Keeping people I like /alive/ is also part of my job."

Chen sniffs, analyzing the smells of the residence.

Carpenter nods and then says loudly, "CBPD! We have a warrant!" Because he does in fact have a warrant. He tries the door, and it's unlocked. "Well, that's interesting."

He steps inside cautiously and looks around. There's a small pile of mail on the mat in front of the door. The furniture in the front room looks like it's from the same era as the house proper. Early 1900s.

Tap steps over the pile of mail. "So what kind of junk are we looking for?"

Mechanica is already in the room, stepping past the mail without a trace of her passing. The place is so...so retro. She hopes it has fiber optics installed. She activates her radar as she searches further into the house for a home office or computer.

Chen stays close to Carpenter. Both to be ready if she needs to protect him, but also to observe his activities. She may want to impersonate a detective some time. Why not learn how to act from the genuine article?

Carpenter shrugs, "The man's missing. So a clue as to where he is?" He looks around. "What's with the old house? I thought the guy was a cybernetics expert?" He nudges the mail a little bit, seeing what kind of mail arrives at the house.

Tap says, "Strange house for the guy, huh?"

Tap heads inward with that bit of information, keeping an eye out for places interesting things might be hidden.

"Good cover." says Chen, to whom duplicity is natural. "Who would look for a cyber guy here. What's the betting there's a sub-basement hidden away or something?"

Mechanica peeks her head into the home office in the back, but then her radar pings a deadzone. Intersante! She radios discretely to Griffin <>

Tap pulls aside a painting to reveal a safe. Combination lock. Huh. Let's see if she can tap this one open or will have to try the old fashioned way. Or just smash it.

Tap strikes the safe's lock with her two outstretched fingers.

Mechanica walks through the basement door, careful to put her hand out first in case there are any countermeasures. This man worked for ACRO, after all. An organization she keeps tabs on. She tries to get through the door and check out what's downstairs.

Mechanica manages to find the entrance to the basement. There's a wooden door and rickety stairs...which leads around a corner to...a steel door with a retina scanner.

The tumblers make a couple of clicks, and the safe opens. Inside are a few documents.

Chen looks at Tap. "You are going to have to teach me that!" she says admiringly.

Tap comments, "Easy enough to open," cheerfully, for the detective's sake, as she starts browsing the papers.

[To Chen] Tap says, "No one ever seemed to snag the knack. Not even my brother."

<< Ah, now this is what I'm talking about. Secret workshop! >> Mechanica radios excitedly to Griffin. The semi-retired cat burglar does a little prancing step of excitement towards the steel door and moves to walk through that as well.

The documents include what looks like a copy of his will, as well as the title to his car, and mortgage documents for the house. There's one as well of blueprints of some kind of facility. When you look more closely, it looks like it's the basement of the house.

Tap says, "Huh, what's this? Looks like he built something in the basement..."

Chen grins, "Told you!" she crows triumphantly.

Tap goes to find the basement door.

Mechanica takes a step back as she bumps her hand against the door, making sure she's out of solid material before she becomes solid and looks around. "Strange..." she mutters as she starts to consider the retina scanner. Maybe she can hack her way around it and trick it into thinking it's received the correct input.

The group finds the door to the basement just as Mechanica is finishing with the security system. The retina scanner makes a buzzing noise and the door unlocks. A voice says, "Containment breached. You have sixty seconds to secure the workshop, Dr. Jacobs."

Chen thinks .oO(Nice going.)Oo.

Tap mutters to herself, "Containment? What's treating here?"

Mechanica grins in invisible delight. "Ohhh, what wonderful dark secrets are you hiding in there, Dr. Jacobs," she says aloud as she reappears. Curiosity might get this cat killed. Especially because she's thrilled at the moment.

Carpenter has headed to the second floor, so he doesn't hear the commotion in the basement.

Mechanica has little regard for her own safety. "You all may want to start running," she warns cheerfully as she opens the door to see what's inside.

Mechanica does notice some basic hardware sitting on a workbench, but what really draws the eye is the full suit of Armament power armor. It looks like it's been upgraded, as it doesn't quite look the same as it did on the news years ago.

Chen spends a few, possibly valuable, moments setting a 40 second alarm on her PDA. That's when she gets Detective Carpenter clear, whether he likes it or not, of the house and grounds.

Tap too goes in and casts her eye about for anything interesting.

Tap shrugs her shoulder. Just a bunch of tech junk as far as she can see.

The good thing about being part of a team is that there is someone there to watch your back. After Mechanica radios him a quick update he makes his way for her location.

No sooner than Mechanica reappears you see Griffin rounding a corner his way to her side. "Nice going." He says encouragingly to her as he spots her and follows her into the basement.

Griffin looks around her to see what dangers might be within.

Mechanica shrugs a shoulder. "Not quite what we were looking for. But if there's something dangerous here, maybe it's part of why Dr. Jacobs disappeared." As she strides over to the power suit and looks for the system warning about containment breaches, she says to Griffin, "So...you're, como...the medical officer, si? What sort of biological dangers do you think there could be in here? Was he making bioweapons? We've got only a bit of time to investigate." She starts checking the battlesuit for any audio/visual inputs for recorded clues.

Mechanica finds a bag next to the workbench which has a small personal computer in it. Best guess is that it's used for diagnostics and coding the hardware.

Having set up a alarm on a timer, Chen also enters the basement. In her case what's she's looking, and sniffing, for is explosives, detonators, etc. Where would she set charges to blow the heck out of anyone breaking in?

Tap joins in the search of the room, just looking for anything of interest, really. Starting with the obvious battle suit.

Tap notices there's definitely a security system on the suit. It's open at least partially, though...and the system is off. Or at least dormant. The helmet has a pretty obvious neural interface. It's a fair bet that Jacobs has some kind of implant allowing for the interface.

The female computer voice speaks again, with a soothing but also a reminding tone, "Dr. Jacobs, Deus Ex Machina will be able to detect this workshop if it is not secured in 56 seconds."

Griffin looks around the room. "Yeah- my goal is that we all make it back. Hopefully in less than 2 pieces." He grins at her. Considering Rick Mason is on the team, two pieces isn't really a big deal.

"I'm not so sure- this looks like more of a mechanical workshop than a bioweapons factory floor." He says, though considering the great leaps in science how the hell would he know?

"But that's just my first guess. Bioweapons is just a bit out of range for Field Medic." He chuckles, pats her on the shoulder before stepping aside to let the much more investigative Mechanica do her thing while he watches everyone's backs.

He looks back to Mechanica after the robotic voice speaks again. His expression seems to imply he thinks she activated something.

Tap says, "Dais ex machiner? Is that something bad?"

Chen shrugs, "No idea."

Mechanica looks up and around for the speakers. "Deux Ex Machina?" She curses something in spanish and looks to Griffin. "Time to get out. There's no bioweapon here. It's a faraday cage. The whole room. Out, out," she says as if shooing kids out of the kitchen. She starts to make for the door as she tries to herd people out.

Chen assumes that Mechanica knows what she's talking about. She leaves the basement but takes a position where she can see inside, standing ready to drag others out of there if it seems needed. "Okay. Mind telling me what's going on since you seem to have some idea and I don't." she says to Mechanica.

Mechanica is still trying to move quickly. "Well, one, it's a dead end. This isn't where the doctor went missing. And while I'd love to take a closer look at some of his work, this won't help us find him any faster," she begins and takes a breath. "But that warning means there's something in that vault that Deus Ex Machina would find very interesting. Like that power suit, maybe. If we don't reseal the room to shield it, Deus Ex Machina will find this place. And probably transfer itself into that nice shiny powersuit."

Mechanica doesn't want to admit she's actually curious to see that happen. What a chance to see one of the more infamous AIs up close!

Tap shrugs and heads out, not quite sure of why the urgency but having found little reason to stay anyway.

Chen tries to hide the little urge she has to see how the powersuit would be to fight against if it was controlled by this AI entity.

Her shooing may coax the others out, but Griffin will be the last one to leave- just in case she gets any bright ideas like not following her own advice, which he's noticed she has a nack for.

Once he's certain she's leavign he follows along/.

Carpenter comes back down to the first floor, and he calls out, "I think I found something!"

Chen chuckles, "I guess that's why you're the detective and I'm the muscle."

[To Chen] Tap says, "I thought *I* was the muscle...."

The disembodied voice says, "Workshop secured."

Chen looks at Tap. "You are?"

Griffin jogs by and says, "No I'm the muscle." He chuckles as he reappears next to Carpenter in an instant.

Carpenter furrows his brow as all of the heroes come upstairs from below, "Was there something interesting in the basement?"

Mechanica wipes her brow with the back of her hand. "Madre de dios...that was exciting. I'm a little disappointed I won't get to study Deus Ex Machina up close, but...maybe it's for the best." As all the muscle-bound contestants get ready to verbally and maybe physically flex, the noncombatant starts to walk up the stairs. "Glad to know I'm in safe company."

Tap shrugs. "A workshop and a battle suit. But we had to leave before this Dais X Machiner found out."

Carpenter blinks, "Uh...what?" He chuckles.

"The room was a faraday cage. Leaving the door open broke the closed system." Griffin says with an unusually scientific answer to Carpenter's question.

Carpenter blinks, and pulls out his PDA to make some notes, "I...have some reading to do later."

Griffin looks to Mechanica and before she can say anything about it he says, "What? I watched a LOT of Bill Frye the Science Guye when I was a kid." He wouldn't want anyone to think he wasn't actually the muscle on hand.!Oh for sure. I just was setting up for a Bill Nye the Science Guy reference. ;)

Tap asks the detective, "So what did you find?"

Carpenter nods, "The window upstairs had been broken into. There were some scorch marks, presumably a plasma burn. But no sign of a struggle. And the front and back doors were locked from the inside. So...I suspect he left willingly. Or at least he didn't fight."

Tap points out, "He didn't have his armour."

Carpenter adds, "I also found a picture of his car, which is missing. He had it registered under someone else's name. So, hopefully a search will find its location."

Chen nods, "I knew I could smell that something was burnt."

Carpenter nods, "Most ACRO tech uses a plasma power source. So, there would be a similar smell in this workshop, most likely.

Tap scowls at the mention of ACRO plasma weapons again. Not that it's very visible under her hood.

Carpenter rubs his chin, "It might help to look up the person who the car was registered to. But I can do that on my own time."

Tap asks the detective, "Any sign when this was?"

Hearing there is a car missing & suspecting that Mechanica is working on anew school solution to the problem he goes old school and rushes towards the garage hoping to pick up tire tracks to see if there are any worth following. He's not jus tthe muscle or the medic. He's a great tracker too.

Carpenter shakes his head, "Hard to tell. In the last week, I'm guessing?"

Griffin returns a few seconds later, having found nothing helpful.

Tap nods, and starts checking out the walls of the building, low to the floor.

Mechanica rubs her chin and sighs as she mentally reviews the results her systems gave her from her query. "Well, I got a hit on that car. It was heading into the western suburbs of the city, and then traffic cameras lost it. Anything specific out there?"

Tap shakes her head to herself and returns to the others.

[To Mechanica] Tap says, "To the west? Like - most of the country?"