1. Shooting, Beating, Stabbing

[thenewflesh]

Huh, Louis thinks. It really does act like a real boy.

Reflexively and irrationally looking over his shoulder, he opens the email.

[tibbius]

It's flashing text: [flash=10]AlL Y0uR B4seZ r B3l0nG 2 US![/flash]

[thenewflesh]

He stares at it in irritation. Trolls.

Right?

What's with the email title, though? He jacks back in, digitally approaches the email header, reaches ethereal fingertips towards it with the calm and precision of a weathered surgeon.

Using Exploit here; the aim is to break past whatever shields the email sender has put up, find out who really sent it. I rolled 5 on my desk; it seems I've permanently lost access to one of my emails unless I give gmail one of my phone numbers, and I refuse to do that. At some point maybe I'll set up another die roller account on the US.

[tibbius]

The header is surprisingly poorly obfuscated. True, the original sending address was spoofed; but the track of intermediate IPs suggests the same residential tower at the center of the coffee shops pentacle. It seems like the real boy might be playing another game.

[thenewflesh]

"The net closes on XK7." Louis messages the group, along with the list of IP addresses associated with it - or, as is increasingly apparent, him or her. "I think their base of operations is in the residential tower. And I think they're not a bot after all."

[thenewflesh]

Louis stares at the computer screen for a while, spins his swivel chair around, then sighs audibly. "Into the brink we go, then," he says out loud. The fungus in the fridge (he imagines) nods its approval.

Then he jacks in, slips on his best cryptoprotection subroutine, and approaches the Telus database for this city, vigorously guarded by cute panda avatars disguising walls of ICE.

A little bit of the glitch-and-run, some cyberhacking chacha, and Louis is in, fetching packets of IPs associated with the building via carefully-chosen NeoSQL haikus.

Glitch 1d8 to get access to the database; Exploit 1d10 to fetch information. I rolled 4 and 5 respectively.

[tibbius]

XK7 8JR traces back to the wireless router owned by subscriber Andy Berry.

You got a 4. That's success with a complication, or partial success. Pick one:
- Complication: you get tagged a little bit by ICE.
- Partial success: you miss a piece of the database that would otherwise alert you to something I'd like to tell you.

[tibbius]

As Louis withdraws from the server, he notices a flashing message about the router in question. A zero-day patch has not been installed, and the router is not a trusted endpoint.

[thenewflesh]

"Our guy is Andy Berry," Louis messages the group. "Have at him, offline."

[Lance]

Clark thinks for a moment. The proof is circumstantial, even in the unlikely case that we got it legally. We can't exactly walk up to his apartment and ask him nicely to stop his hate crimes. Clark looks him up on whatever social networks he can thik of, to get a visual ID, then sends it to the others. "This is our lovely little sociopath. I say we tail him, set a trap and call the cops so they catch him red handed. Hopefully not literally, as I volunteer as unsuspecting pedestrian."

[BackworldTraveller]

As a college receiving govcorps subsidies, we routinely check our students for known agitators. Perhaps I could sneak "Andy Berry" onto the list of those to be checked? Do we have an exact address now? Are we certain he hasn't been cuckoo'd and all we have is a cutout or relay?

[Lance]

Do we have an exact address now? Are we certain he hasn't been cuckoo'd and all we have is a cutout or relay?

I'm going to trust Louis's skills in this regard. I'm sure we have the address since we have the subscriber info.

[BackworldTraveller]

OK - I'll add the details into the college's list of checks. It may take a few days.

[Lance]

Louis
It's Tuesday.

Thursday is next.

Someone on the younger side.

Near an abandoned factory. Most of the others also were near abandoned factories, each one a different address. One was right at Crown and G, in the middle of the commercial district. Another was a few blocks east, also in a commercial area.

The addresses form four corners and four midpoints between the corners. A rectangle around several blocks of mostly industrial architecture, southwest corner at Crown and G. Where would the next one be? Louis can't decide or feel an answer.

Just looked it up, might be useful to see when and where the next attack was forecast.

[BackworldTraveller]

Is it possible to find a list of cameras in the area? I mean I know that there are none overlooking the actual crime scenes - but the areas aren't over-run with people and a camera that covers and entrance or exit might let us rule people out.

[tibbius]

Should be possible. Why are you thinking there's no cameras on the crime scenes?

[shaidar]

Shift

Before his videos of the crime scene's are compressed, Shift uploads the data to online storage and sends everyone a link:

"Perhaps we each take a video and look for anything of use, such as nearby businesses with external surveillance systems"

[Lance]

Should be possible. Why are you thinking there's no cameras on the crime scenes?

Are you implying that the police have footage of the serial killer still on the loose?

[BackworldTraveller]

yep

[shaidar]

Shift starts searching through his recording of his walk today, looking for anything that seems common between locations and also if any nearby buildings would have security systems that over look the crime scene's.