Session Start: Sat Oct 21 13:09:30 2006 (H-1) [Monday, April 18, 2039 - 1340 local time] [H-2 Emergency Situation Room] There wasn't a whole lot the team could do on-scene at the Majestic Tiara Arcology (and shopping mall) - there was just too much to do, and the structure was not designed to help organize after a flood, so they caught a ride back to H-2. Lots of H-2 agents are being pulled in on this, and the investigation soon commandeered the giant sitroom in the second basement. Assistant Director Neko seems to be in charge of this case, which has put H-1 in the slightly awkward position of being in the lead of the investigation while not having any personal authority over it. [session start] H-1 has commandeered a large table at the back of the room, where they are looking over the flood of information that the other agents here and in the field are gathering. * LadyKiss is slowly looking over all the information they know, starting to do her little thing of connecting it all together. * LadySnow looks around at all the assembled people, seeing if she recognizes anyone. * Eliza is acting as secretary, trying to screen and organize as well as she can all the info as it is sent back to them. * PrincessRoyal checks and crosschecks reports like it's her jo--oh wait. * LadyNeko is fretting, peering over everyone's shoulders, and occasionally barking out orders through her PDA. * LadyDestiny scans information in her PDA. * LadyBobOmb is having Glitch do some secondary sorting and analysis of the stuff that gets to her, tweaking the code there while going over it manually as well. Snow spots a number of Ladies she recognizes, but there are more people in this room than H-2 has Ladies, so it's a largely normal crowd. Okay, we're starting to get the video feeds from witnesses. That's in volume one. Interviews are in volume two, live autopsy of the Fish is in three, suppression efforts on the ANL protests at the mall in four... * LadySnow checks up on her various searches to see how they're doing. * LadyDestiny whistles. She's not used to doing cleanup. Leave the video searches to the EI's - they can do it faster than we can. * LadySnow puts in a request to the EI to search for anyone matching Boadicea's description anywhere in the videos. * LadyKiss nods, taking a few notes, definitely trying to organize what information she is seeing in her own style. * LadyNeko pales at something, then erupts. "NO, YOU CAN'T SEAL OFF NINGYO CITY! STUPID H-4 MALLETHEADS! GAAAAAAH!" * LadyBobOmb BLINKS. * LadyDestiny looks up at the sudden exclamation. Get Shihei-san on the line. She'll set you straight. They want to *what*? * LadyBobOmb frowns, and has Glitch look into possibilities of the ANL setting up the Ningyo incident, as she looks into it herself. Can I look at the autopsy? And does the ANL know of the Fish? Channel three, my Lady. And I think they do. ...wait. What does the School know about what happened? Have they just been getting rumors, or do we have anyone liaising with them about it? * LadyBobOmb also does some cross-checking of dates, especially regarding the vote about NC, the incident in the arcology, and ANL activities. * LadyKiss nods and starts watching the Autopsy. Snow gets snippy emails back from H-3 and H-4 - they aren't doing anything at the MT Arcology, except going shopping sometimes. * LadySnow writes back quick thank yous for their time so there's hopefully no hard feelings. I'm sure the Fish know about this, but I haven't heard of any official contacts with them yet. We're going to need to - if nothing else, to figure out who the corpse was. * LadyDestiny researches into the Ningyo City breakaway vote (for lack of better words), just for kicks and grins. * PrincessRoyal taps the table absentmindedly. "Well, our job isn't really to do the political smoothing over, but we should send them a brief at least." * LadySnow is curious what the results of the autopsy are but doesn't really want to watch it happen. If nothing else to get the ID, and to let 'em know we're on it. We don't need *two* groups of fanatics running around screaming. * LadySnow instead combs through the interviews, looking for anyone stating they actually saw the fish alive and moving around. The autopsy is already underway - at this point they're doing surgical examination of the gunshot wound. The bullet is already extracted and on the way to the labs. * LadyKiss watches closely, seeming intrigued by it. Notes on the display indicate that the Ningyo has bruises on her hands and a ligature mark on the narrow point of her fluke. The bullet was fired from less than ten centimeters away, and was a subsonic round. * PrincessRoyal frowns as she scans the notes. Details on the ANL are somewhat scarce, but H-4 and H-5 have arrested more than three thousand people identifying themselves as ANL at the mall in the aftermath of the attack. ...oh, shit. I am so glad I've never had to be the PR side of business. Many of them were not residents of the arcology, which is making everyone wonder a little about their reaction time to the incident. I don't understand why they have to be so hateful. *frowns* This is one, big mess. * LadyBobOmb frowns, entering another search for ANL communications, checking to see who/if/when the ANL were told about this. Lady Snow begins to get a storm of identification matches to her search. Many of them are obvious false positives, but others are harder to be sure of one way or the other. * LadyBobOmb skims the ANL arrest records while the search is going. * LadyDestiny seems kinda bored with all this research since she's a more hands-on person. * LadySnow starts making a list of all those that seem to be true, copying down their contact information. * LadySnow idly checks the list against those members of the ANL who were arrested. Destiny finds a good deal of recent ANL propaganda opposing the Ningyo self-rule proposal, laced with the usual threats. There's also a consistent idea that the Ningyo are still dangerous. * PrincessRoyal taps her fingers on the table for a bit, then shakes her head and stands up. "I'm getting overload anyway. Might as well give the f-School a head's-up. Eliza, can you get them on the phone for me?" * PrincessRoyal walks over. The... Matriarchy?! Uh... give me a minute. Yes, them. Damage control. * LadyKiss starts to take notes on the Autopsy, trying to keep up with it. Snow is not finding any of the matches she is getting among the ANL arrestees. As she looks at the images the EI's are digging out for her, she realizes that they are showing women who have strikingly similar faces to that shown in their brief screencaps of Boadicea... but who are not the same woman. She's also noticing that most of them are wearing delivery-company uniforms. The autopsy is moving on to the standard examination of the rest of the Ningyo woman. Nothing interesting is showing up on the data sidebar. * LadySnow tries to get the company name from their outfits and searches for it. Your Highness? I have a Matriarch Seree on channel P21. Excellent. Thank you. * PrincessRoyal switches in. "Matriarch Seree? This is Princess Royal. We've met." Tokyo Parcels Unlimited is a specialized heavy commercial-delivery organization, with dozens of trucks. * LadySnow also checks for the name of the delivery company that supposedly delivered something to the tanning salon. Funny how it's the same company. Ah, yes, General Royal. I hadn't realized you were going to be full- time in Security now. * LadySnow looks up and sees Royal is busy with something and continues looking for info on them. Mmm. For a stint, at least. You've heard about the mess at the Majestic Tiara Arcology, yes? * Seree hisses. "Yes. Those ANL terrorists are trying to mess with us. Are you going to do something about that, General, or will we need to?" * LadyBobOmb continues trying to find out how the ANL found out and responded so quickly. We're looking into the matter. We have upwards of 3K ANL people under arrest. You...we would like to request that you wait until we get more solid information before undertaking any...punitive action. Something needs to be done, Royal. The mermaid-in-the-canal is not happy with the current state of things. I assure you, something will be done about this. Our Majesty is probably none too pleased with the situation, either. But to get to the bottom of things, we require information. Have you managed to make any inquiries as to Ningyo who might have been at the arcology for whatever reason? Or any outstanding missing person reports, perhaps? Bob is finding that there were a large number of calls placed from ANL headquarters this morning, almost precisely as the event happened. There's no suspicious traffic to them, though. What are you talking about? This was NOT done by our people! I'm not accusing your people of it, Matriarch. * LadySnow tries to find out who owns the company, where it's located, how many branches (if any) it has, etc. She also checks to see if anyone else at the arcology was expecting a delivery, from the number of delivery people that were apparently at the Arcology. But--oh. You haven't heard? There was a dead Ningyo onsite. The reason I'm asking all of this is because we're trying to get a positive ID on the...poor thing. * LadySnow also has her EI check for all the people who were spotted in the uniform at the mall and has it try and ID those people. ...I will look into that. Can you hold? Yes. * LadyBobOmb has Glitch dig a bit further, trying to get access to the call logs for the ANL HQ, as to what the calls were about. Fortunately, this isn't a police state, and actual traffic content was not recorded. * LadyBobOmb frowns, and tries a different way, trying to check both ends of the conversation, and see if either phone/PDA recorded anything, starting with the higher ranks. Snow comes up with exactly what she had heard about before - a tanning bed delivery, which was supposed to be performed by three men. No other deliveries by TPU to the mall that morning. * LadyNeko stops pacing to look at Snow's terminal. "What is this?" Um. Well, I was checking to see if our suspect from the previous case was spotted at the location on any of the videos. * PrincessRoyal cracks her neck...and glances up. "--mm?" She glances over Snow's shoulder too. * LadyBobOmb lets Glitch go at it, and glances over at Snow. I hadn't heard that there was a suspect, as such. And I found these 4 women that sorta match but not exactly. But that's not the interesting part. They all work for the same company. And that company delivered something to that tanning salon this morning. Um. Oh, dear. Or well, at least they were wearing the uniforms. DO you know how big the package was? ....how interesting. It was a tanning bed, I guess and supposed to be delivered by 3 men. I count at least 4 in the videos. And there were no other deliveries scheduled. * LadyDestiny looks up from her PDA to listen to the new revelation. ...supposedly a tanning bed. Did you check the pickup point for that package? But that's a big box, I imagine. They could've brought in just about anything... Or anyone.... * LadySnow checks that. There's no trace of the box - but then there's no trace of much of anything that was in the tanning salon. Can you get the shipping trace on that? * LadyNeko taps on her PDA, and her voice echoes from all the terminals in the room. "We may have a slight break - focus on the TPU delivery to the tanning salon, and track the people involved with that." * LadyBobOmb frowns, and plugs in a search for TPU+ANL. Nothing is returned on a link between them. * LadySnow checks where the box was first supposed to be picked up and has the techs see if they can get into the company records to get information on the employees that were there today. * Seree waves from Royal's PDA. "Hello?" * PrincessRoyal looks up and picks up her PDA. "Matriarch. Progress?" * LadyBobOmb then does a more general search through the videos, having Glitch focus on the shipping agents relations to other. Looking at other people, each other, positioning, totally alone, etc. There are a couple of reports of missing Ningyo... but only one new one in the last few days. Could you please send us the information on that? As well as the other reports, just in case. * Seree sends a photo of a young fish-woman posing with a dolphin. It will be invaluable to speeding the progress of this investigation--ah, hmm. * PrincessRoyal divides screens to put that shot side-by-side with what's reconstructible from the autopsy, if anything. Basic dimensions if nothing else. Her name was Turquoise - her parents reported her missing yesterday. ...was she powered, do you know? The two images appear to be of the same girl, though the facial trauma makes it hard to be certain. No. Absolutely not. ...I see. Thank you. * Seree looks impatient. "Is it her?" * PrincessRoyal glances aside and back, though she doesn't really need to. "Preliminary visual evidence suggests so, Matriarch. I'm sorry." Can you tell us what the circumstances of the MP report were? * LadyBobOmb checks on Glitches status of the video relationship search, seeing if it's come up with anyone else possibly linked to them yet. Only that she had gone missing. ...we'll send a liaison over with the whole package, okay? But we need results on this investigation or there's going to be a lot of angry fish. Thanks for that. We'll give you...what we can. And Matriarch? If there aren't results on this, there's going to be a lot more trouble than that, no offense. * Seree looks grave as she cuts the channel. * LadySnow pulls up the public records and the main site of the company to see if she can get a number to call to request information. * PrincessRoyal shakes her head and sends a notice of the impending arrival of the NC liaison before turning back. Lots of contact information on the TPU site - front and center is the customer support line. Below and in fine print is the corporate offices number. * LadySnow hmms for a moment, and has H-4 check traffic cameras around the arcology for their delivery truck. * LadyDestiny continues to flip through information, hoping to glean something useful out of it. Destiny digs into the bank records of the tanning salon that one of the other agents obtained, and comes up with no record of their paying for a tanning bed. A minute or so passes before the video search coughs up the image of a TPU delivery van, still running, waiting in one of the MT Arcologies service/delivery entrances. * PrincessRoyal pauses, and crosschecks salon employees with ANL members or connections. And TPU ones, too, just in case. ... The van is still there? Can we have our people search it? You'd think that if a tanning bed were being delivered, someone would have paid for it. ...what now? I can call Lady Zero. Please do. Tell her to be careful though. Right! It could be trapped or something... * PrincessRoyal looks over at Destiny's search. A few TPU employees crosscheck as ANL members, but only a couple, and scattered through the company. Royal-sama, ma'am? Yes? Um, I'm gonna put in a call to the TPU office to see if we can get the delivery and employee records. Anything else you think I should ask them? * PrincessRoyal brings up a list of employees of the tanning salon, and runs a crosscheck, and a connection crosscheck too, for good measure, as she turns towards Snow. Hmmm. Sounds fine for now. If you pick up on something, or think of anything else, go ahead and ask. And Snow? Good work with that search. * LadySnow nods. "Thank you, your highness." * PrincessRoyal nods back, smiling slightly. * LadyZero waves at the camera as her team approaches the delivery truck. * LadySnow punches in the number to the corporate office. Tokyo Parcel Unlimited corporate offices! How can I help you? Good afternoon. This is Lady Snow with H-2. I have some questions I need answered as part of an investigation. Would it be possible to speak with your superior? * LadyZero directs her team as it approaches the truck with a half-open van of their own. * PrincessRoyal lets the crosscheck run and watches the feed from Zero, frowning worriedly. She's tapping the table arrhythmically as she does so. Oh, my. I'll get the office manager for you. Hold on. There's a sudden flood of H-4 troopers out of the van, running away from the truck. * LadySnow looks up at the screen. * LadyBobOmb switches to the H-4 feed. What happened? * PrincessRoyal sucks in a breath and stands up, almost unconsciously, watching. * LadyZero punches at her PDA, and a couple of seconds later she's appearing on one of the main monitors in the situation room. This is Lady Zero, H-4. Our chemical sensors have picked up an incendiary device in this delivery truck under the Arcology. ...oh, fuck. * LadyBobOmb frowns. "Then they took another way out." Any further analysis? Components? Range? I don't know why I had a feeling that was going to be the case... We're doing more scans... it can't be very big, though, as the truck is mostly empty to our sonic and thermal scans. Can you disarm it? * LadyBobOmb hooks into the traffic monitoring, trying to find the TPU people exiting the building, and where/what/when they left in. Anyone left in that area of the arcology other than you guys? We're evacuating the segment. It'll take ten minutes or so, then we'll try to disarm it. Lady Snow? How can I assist H-2? * LadyBobOmb sends some pictures of the TPU Bo-clones to Zero. "If you see anyone looking similar to that, or anyone in a TPU uniform, notify us immediately and take them in for questioning." Roger that. Um, Hello. *looks up the number of the truck* Your company had a delivery today to the Majestic Tiara Arcology. I'd like a copy of the records and all the information you have on the employees that made the delivery. * PrincessRoyal nods at Bob-Omb. "Good thinking." * Manager clicketies at a keyboard. "I'm sending it to you now. ...the GPS trackers in the delivery crew's phones show them still at the arcology. They should have been done there at least three hours ago." Can we have those tracker numbers too please? And how many employees did you send, exactly? * LadyBobOmb frowns, noting the GPS mention. "They may have abandoned their phones. Ask him how long they've been stationary." Three men. Those tanning beds are very heavy and delicate. Men, so they were all male? Uh, yes. * PrincessRoyal zips a message to Snow's PDA. [And please ask about the pickup location, as well as who paid for the delivery. Destiny didn't pick up a payment match from the salon, if I read over her shoulder right.] Hmm. The records your sending also contain the location where the bed was picked up and who paid and signed for it, right? ...I'm not seeing anyone having signed for it this morning at the delivery. The pickup was from the factory. * LadySnow forwards the tracking numbers and whatever else he sent over to Royal and everyone on the team. * LadySnow types a note. [Have Zero locate their phones. They probably abandoned them, I imagine.] What time was the delivery supposed to be? * PrincessRoyal frowns, nods, and sends a note to that effect to Zero's team. Nine this morning? Give or take a little for traffic. * LadySnow checks that against the time of the attack. It's close. * LadySnow pulls up the images from the videos of the spotted delivery people and forwards them over to him. "Do any of these people look familiar to you?" * LadyBobOmb frowns, and passes a note to Snow to ask if the truck itself has any tracking. Uh... let me do a comparison with our database, but most of our delivery crews are male. * LadyBobOmb is already forming a new query for the traffic monitoring system to backtrack the vans route from the Arcology to the garage it came from. * PrincessRoyal checks how many of the ANL protesters were in TPU uniforms. None were. I'm sorry, Lady Snow. None of those women work for our company. I see. Do your trucks carry spare uniforms? BobOmb navigates her way through the complex H-4 traffic backtracking system. There's a LOT of boxes to check and uncheck! Uh, not unless the crew keeps some with them. So then how do you suppose these 4 women obtained uniforms? * LadyZero 's team is approaching the truck again, with several robotic drones in the lead. I don't know, my lady. It wouldn't be too hard to fake one, though. Um, guys? Our thermal scans are showing three cooling shapes in the truck - they could be bodies. I see. Would you mind if we had some of our techs come over and check your records to see if anything was tampered with? It's very likely someone accessed your database without your knowledge. * PrincessRoyal hisses. Keep us updated. I - uh - well, we want to cooperate. * LadySnow types a message to Zero. [Do the phone trackers indicate they're in the truck?] And we appreciate your cooperation. Have you been watching the news today? * LadyBobOmb boxes. * LadyZero messages back. [Maybe. They're extremely close, if they're not inside.] No, I've been- oh, no. [That could be our ex-employees then. The uniformed persons the videos picked up were female. The employees the company sent were male.] Oh no? ...this is the arcology attack investigation? BobOmb finally gets all the selections set to her liking, and punches the big blue SCAN NOW button. Yes. You company had a delivery scheduled at the ground zero of the attack very near the time it took place. So you can see why we'd appreciate you helping us in every way possible. Of course, ma'am. * LadySnow still has that chipper smiling sound to her voice in spite of what she's implying. So can our techs come and check your database? Yes, of course. Thank you very much. They'll be over as soon as they're available. * LadySnow puts in a request to have them do just that. * LadySnow checks the records for when and where and from who the tanning bed was picked up before she asks anything else. * LadyBobOmb does the scan thing. All the human H-4 crew has backed off from the truck now, and the robots are attempting to open the rear door. * LadyBobOmb shunts anything interesting regarding the van back-track to one of the Big Screens. We're going to try it now. We poked a hole and put a fiber optic cam in there, and it's showing some suspicious devices that we're not going to be able to reach. [It's not a tanning bed, is it?] We've tried a localized EMP field, and hopefull- * PrincessRoyal continues frowning at the H-4 van scene. The truck doesn't exactly explode as the rear door is pulled open - it's more like it melts down as jellied incendiary goo is sprayed over the interior and immediately ignited. ....shit! -aw, shit. FIRE CREW! Gosh dang it! Save some of that stuff! It may be the same as what hit the brewery! This fire might take some time to extinguish. * LadyZero cancels her open connection so she can concentrate. * PrincessRoyal does a search for any tappable security cams to get a view of the surrounding area. Bob's monitor starts sketching in the truck's ill-fated course, a couple of blocks at a time. Royal finds lots of scurrying orange-shirts from H-4, and a big chunk of Arcology fire crews. ...damn. * PrincessRoyal tries to focus in on the truck itself, and puts the feed on a quadrant of one of the big screens. Um, if there's nothing else you can think of to tell me that would relate to the current situation, I'll have to hang up. That's an effective way of erasing DNA tracing. I'm sorry, ma'am. We'll be waiting. We'll call you back if there's anything else we need. Can I get your name and number? * Manager sends more info. And all manner of other evidence, too...not that it was entirely unexpected. * LadyBobOmb frown. "They're more worried about being traced or identified than destroying everything." * LadySnow saves it, and scans over all the data. I'm just glad they didn't decide to cover their tracks by blowing up *everything* over there. Still, what was that stuff that came out? It wasn't exactly a bomb. The truck's gas tank made an impressive fireball as it went up, and the vehicles in nearby spaces are starting to burn too, but the fire crews are putting those out quickly. Probably something that ignites on contact with oxygen. It looked about the same as that stuff that took out the brewery. I'm not sure - sort of napalm-like, but maybe a little more explosive. Except that was fired from a range. ...wasn't the brewery stuff more like lava? .... It's similar enough in theme. Still, the delivery method suggests *something* different about it. I hope we can get still get forensic evidence from it. Hmm, yeah I guess so. Um, I sent you guys all the info I got from the shipping company. The employees they sent out were 3 males. ...now, that's interesting. And these 4 females don't match up with anyone that works for them. I've been tracing the van's route from the garage to the arcology through the traffic system. Lady BobOmb's terminal beeps, and displays almost the entire route the truck took today. It went straight from its depot to the tanning bed factory, then straight to the arcology... except there is a three-block stretch missing in that path. So even if they did steal the van they'd have had to have gotten an extra uniform from somewhere. That suggests they planned this ahead of time. Well, it would have had to be planned ahead of time. Well yeah, but it's good to be sure of that. There's nothing about this that doesn't smack of preplanning. * PrincessRoyal opens her hand noncommittally. I requested a tech crew be sent to the shipping company to check their records to see if anyone accessed them. If they were hacked then we know they found out about the delivery from that. Otherwise it might have been someone from the tanning salon itself. Has anyone looked into the owners and who was working there? * LadyBobOmb frowns, investigating a bit. I had a check on the salon employees going, but... * PrincessRoyal checks for results. They neutralized the traffic system when they did... whatever they did. So they knew the truck was going to be driving that way that day. It's a relatively normal little cancer studio - nothing abnormal about the employees or finances. Did they place the order? Did they--yes, what Bob-Omb said. What would it take to do that to the cameras? Someone inside H-4? We'll need to check with the bed manufacturer... * LadyBobOmb frowns. "We should sent a tech out to examine them." * LadyNeko snaps her fingers at a passing agent and assigns the poor man some more work. ... though I suspect it will be electrical overload. Depends on what exactly did happen to 'em. I doubt they're *that* secure. * LadySnow nods at Neko. Well if it's the same thing that took out the cameras at the parking garage then we have a connection. I can get an H-5 car to go look, quick. Gather witnesses and records from the area, as well. See if anyone there saw what happened. Any ATMs in the area or businesses that'd have cameras that might have been overlooked? I'll get that search started. ...gawd, Shihei-sama is going to be freaking out. * LadyNeko shudders. ... if it is the same group.... why instigate this? * PrincessRoyal leans back, rubbing her temples. "I don't know if I'm glad we're able to get information so quickly nowadays or not. Talk about overload..." * LadyNeko eyes Royal jealously. "It's not fair that you're a Princess - she probably can't scream at you and get away with it." * PrincessRoyal snorts. "Maybe not, but I bet she would anyway, if she were pissed enough." Shihei-san is scary, but she's also so cool... Well, I hope this is enough to appease her. * LadySnow claps her hands together. "We're going to get them, I can feel it." [end session] Session Close: Sat Oct 21 16:17:51 2006