Dark*Matter: Discovery, The Chicago Ripper

[industrygothica]

"Are my ears deceiving me?" Cliff said, over the phone, which hadn't been hung up yet. "Or is that the voice my old friend Doctor Nicholas Wells? How the devil are you, man? Sorry about the pun, terrible of me. I take it you're working for the Hoffmann Institute now. I should have known you'd fall in with that group of bleeding heart investigators."

"Cliff," Nick says. "Where are you, what's happened to you?" He starts to visibly shake, and he holsters his gun. "I never believed what they said about you, Cliff. Tell me what's going on. Tell me they were wrong."

 

[Falkus]

"Do you really have to get into that?" Cliff said, talking in his usual, smooth tone. "I don't want to start a shouting match right now about abstract concepts of morality, ethics and why it's wrong to sacrifice people to demons. Can't we have one of those intellectual discussions we used to have about history and society and the like? I do so miss those. Most of the people I now have to deal with on a daily basis are the trash of society, idiots and losers, with IQs smaller than my shoe size. The few who are intelligent and who do associate with me in my current organization are generally too dangerous to me to be allowed to live, so I have to have them quietly killed. It makes having intelligent conversations difficult."

"It's just one of the disadvantages of having to deal with the Final Church and its associate organizations. I really do envy you your company in the Hoffmann Institute. But, of course, not your goals."

 

[Friadoc]

"Gotcha," is Cade's only reply to Larry.

While the conversation is going on, Cade will do his best to get a trace, both through his own PC in the SUV and by putting Hoffmann resources on the task as well.

Basically, Cade figures the best way to pull this off is multi-vector trace attempts, which should hopefully increase the odds of getting a solid lock, be it a landline or via cell towers.

oO Well, hopefully this sicko will finally give the Doc a clue Oo thinks Cade, however the idea of the Doc realising that his friend is an evil bastard doesn't warm his heart any.

OOC
I'll drop an AP, so as to increase my skill in attempting the trace via computer.

 

[Falkus]

Cade's trace indicates that the call is coming from somewhere in Hong Kong.

 

[Friadoc]

"Cliffie's in Hong Kong, folks," says Cade to the others over the comm ear-pieces. "Or, I should said, that's the best trace I can pull off at the moment."

"Doc, I'm sorry to ask, but if you can, verbally spare a location out of him on 'Z', okay?" Cade says as he works things up. "Dikaro might not be enough."

 

[industrygothica]

"It's just one of the disadvantages of having to deal with the Final Church and its associate organizations. I really do envy you your company in the Hoffmann Institute. But, of course, not your goals."

"Their goals," Nick corrects. "My goal has been to find you. I've been looking for you ever since you disappeared, but I'm sure you know that now. Cops said you took off to sell everything on the black market. I knew better."

Nick looks around at the others, an apologetic look on his face. In the ancient Egyptian language he's sure that Cliff knows he speaks again:

[sblock]"Tell me, brother. How is it? I mean the power. Is it what we thought? You know I'd follow you anywhere. Always have. I want to see it. I want to watch."[/sblock]

[sblock=ooc]Bluff, diplomacy, whatever. Both +2 untrained. I'm trying to get him to tell me where Z's sacrifice will be.[/sblock]

 

[Shayuri]

(Er...still waiting on resolution of action to grab the case? Did you see that? A few...posts back? )

 

[Falkus]

OOC: Sorry, with Dikaro disabled, I didn't follow up on that.

Meredith had the case secured and closed. It didn't weigh much, whatever it was containing couldn't weight more than a pound or two.

Cliff laughed. A regular laugh, not a maniacal one however. "Honestly, Nick. Do you really think I'd buy that? I can guess what you're up to. But if you want your precious little computer programmer back, you'll have to work for her. You're a clever fellow, you might figure it out. You've got forty-eight hours. On the off chance that you do figure out where to go, do give Xeria my regards before you kill her."

 

[iwatt]

The Doc's bluff had been apparent to Larry. It takes a liar to know a liar. Maybe Larry could do something to help him. "Really Master, we don't need this Cliff. We'll soon have access to all the knowledege from the Institute. Anything he can give us will be useless." Speaking in a subservient voice, Larry put's all his skill into trying to convinve the man that Nick wasn't really an altruist.


OOC: Hopefully a +11 in bluff will be enough

 

[Shayuri]

Meredith shakes her head and navigates the house, looking for a back door. She pitches the briefcase out into the backyard on finding it, then runs to rejoin the others.