1. Shooting, Beating, Stabbing

[tibbius]

"Meet me for lunch at Iggy's Coffee," Tatev swiftly answers. "I'll wear my raspberry beret and an olive scarf."

Iggy's coffee is marked by the circled I on the map: it's a large glass-and-brass-fronted room at the corner of the base of a twenty-story residential tower. Louis knows it from when he studied at Unixty Urbane - did he graduate? (By the way, the campus of Unixty Urbane is in Ward 5, just off the map to the east.)

ward3-iggys.png (1.18 MiB) Viewed 669 times

[thenewflesh]

"Great," Louis replies. "See you soon."

He goes home, codes a little, and then meets her at Iggy's. He often worked here as a student, before he graduated from his masters' degree a couple years ago.

[tibbius]

The coffeeshop is crowded, but Louis quickly picks out the woman wearing the raspberry beret and olive scarf. She has wavy white hair framing a cheerfully wrinkled face, the lines show a lot of laughter in her past. Probably in her late 60s, early 70s. As she sits watching people pass along the sidewalk outside the front window of the shop, she cradles her big mug of coffee in both hands, inhaling the steam with a satisfied expression.

[thenewflesh]

Louis raises his eyebrows infinitesimally - hard to imagine this wholesome-looking woman at a 247 orgy. Well, good for her.

He orders a coffee, then sits down in front of her. "Hey, Trigger. Nice to meet you at last." and he offers his right hand.

[tibbius]

"Louis," she says with a grandmother smile that crinkles the corners of her eyes. "I like real names in real life. I also like to transfer some information offline. Can you remember an address and a time?"

[thenewflesh]

Louis grins. Lo-tek for the old guard. Very good. "You bet, Tatev. I've fried my memory on neurotransmitters and MDMA, but I've got a paper and pencil on me. " And, of course, a neural-link, but the idea of plugging in right now seems vaguely out of place, like checking your texts at a church. So he pulls out a postit and a pencil stub. "Shoot."

[tibbius]

"Don't put this into a search bar. And don't write it down. 758 Needlick Street. It's between G and H a few blocks from here. You go four or five blocks that way, take a left, three and a half blocks up. 7 p.m. Be a few minutes early. Dress warmly. It's a meat locker."

[thenewflesh]

Louis drops the pencil stub, and places fingertips to temple in an effort to will the info into his skull. "758 Needlick street, between G and H, 7PM. Got it. Thanks, Tatev. What can I expect from these people?"

[tibbius]

She smiles and shrugs. "Assistance and requests for assistance. Companionship." She drains her mug, rises, "Be seeing you, dear," moves toward the tub for dirty cups.

Anything else Louis wants to do here?

Shift notices the tread patterns match within 90%. Same OEM.

A couple of human youths pass unnecessarily close around him, jostling him between them.

[shaidar]

Shift makes no outward reaction to the youths, but stores away what information he can about them into his visual processing units so his pattern matching algorithms might be able to match them if he comes across them again

He starts following the new tracks.

Slightly concerned for his safety, he sends the others a map of the area with the blood trails marked and starts sending them his location every 5 minutes.


What direction are the youths going, the same as Shift or the other way?

I've assumed that all androids have some kind of visual/audio recognition algorithm referenced to a database containing data on all people they have met (or even seen/heard in the media). This might include assessments on height/weight/gait as well as face and voice. He might not have full information on the youths, particularly if they came from behind so he didn't see there faces, but he might have enough to provide a partial match? Did they say anything as they went by?

[Lance]

Slightly concerned for his safety, he sends the others a map of the area with the blood trails marked and starts sending them his location every 5 minutes.

Clark is having a coffee when the map arrives. Slightly concerned, he starts following Shift's updates eagerly. While he waits, he starts doodling the blood marks on a napkin.
Do the patterns form any kind of symbol, text or number?

Did they say anything as they went by?

They're kicking a trash can basically, not a premeditated racist attack.

[shaidar]

Did they say anything as they went by?

They're kicking a trash can basically, not a premeditated racist attack.

I realise that, it was more a case of trying to gather more biometric info on them. I also realise it's probably just some random event for flavour

[tibbius]

Due to storage limitations, Shift has only about 15 hours of perfect recall. Beyond that, things are compressed to higher-level features. He can identify the youths as youths, humans, male, about fifteen years old, impoverished. He has seen plenty of people who fit that description. They came from behind so he doesn't get a good look at their faces, but in the past 15 hours (not counting his neutrino-counting downtime) he has seen a few dozen people who fit the high-level descriptors.

The tracks lead north and fade. It's hard to tell how old they are. Chronologically the next murder is two blocks north and three blocks east, but the closest next one is just two blocks north.

[shaidar]

Shift takes the opportunity to do a 360 degree look around at the current murder spot. With the fading trail providing no hints it decides that the next location might as well be the closest murder site.

On the way to the next site it decides to run a visual comparison between the areas around two murder sites to flag up any commonalities:

Perception: [1d6]=4

Apologies if my explanation was poor. Shift was planning to use the info to check for meeting the youths again in the future. I did think the biometric information would likely be limited

[BackworldTraveller]

Angus
By Text: Lunch Break today 12-2...Where shall I meet you all?

[thenewflesh]

"Thanks, Tatev." Louis replies. He sits, finishes his coffee, and thinks.

His neurolink pings with Angus' message. "Crown and G. Rally there at 2, so show up early if you don't want to get caught up in it.." he replies.

And he walks over to the Crown and G.

[tibbius]

Louis and Angus meet at Crown and G.

Meanwhile, Shift reaches the third murder scene, at the corner of two ill-maintained streets between dilapidated sheet metal buildings. A light rain begins to fall.

ward3-murders1-3.png (1.18 MiB) Viewed 548 times

What is Clark doing?

[shaidar]

Shift does another 360 degree visual scan, storing the data for analysis later. He then turns his attention to the pavement around the site, looking for more blood trails or anything unusual:

Perception: [1d6]=4

[tibbius]

What is Angus doing?

[BackworldTraveller]

Angus
After leaving the police station, Angus heads into work and does his usual daily Admin, Teach, Admin, Teach, Yawn cycle until 12:00 when, dismissing class he heads out for Crown & G to meet Louis. And on arrival, he waits for Louis, looking to see who might be there and (much more importantly (1) is there a good café nearby and (2) is the electronics wholesalers near the corner doing any decent deals this week.