Sairen moves to the door, taking care to tread softly, and produces a pair of small metal rods from somewhere inside his clothing.  He crouches by the lock and probes the keyhole carefully, then nods to Stanley.  "Your call."

Trav hears the name as a Time Lord would hear them, as both the Chinese syllables and the root meaning underneath them.  The gender of the name is somewhat muddled, but it renders to something like Bandit Prince or perhaps Pirate Queen.

The phone looks like it is not quite your garden variety, 21st Century mobile -- perhaps it started its life that way, but if so it has been upgraded with technology that could be Level 7 or higher; Trav recognizes how it has been refitted with an etheric network transceiver.  (Not surprising, if it is functional in a world more than a century before the advent of widespread wireless networks and global satellite communications.)  The operating circuitry of the phone has been quite efficiently ruined, but the memory appears as if it should be readable.

OOC: What'cha trying to read from it?

Into her own phone Trav copies the contents into a secure space. She then cuts her own phone off from Sweet Boy's network - security conscious - and then gets to work decrypting the contents. Further, if she can, she's mapping this phone's frequency and home network, so that after she is done, she can reach out and touch someone.

"Hm, etheric transceiver. This has a least interplanetary range. Now, who in 19th century China would want to talk to anyone in outer space? Great work, Smoke! Blue Kangs are best."

She hums as she sonics her own phone, playing back the data.

Intellect+Technology+Sonic - 15:58, Today: The Traveller rolled 25 using 2d6+16 with rolls of 6,3.  Ingenuity 8+Technology 6+Sonic 2 - Phone Decoding.

With that trigger, Smoke Alarm chanted triumphantly 'Blue Kangs, Blue Kangs, Blue Kangs are best!'

With that taken care of, she reflected on Traveller's question, concluding 'Who wouldn't want to talk to someone in outer space?' It was a fair point.

She eyespied the bits of the talkiphone, turning them over as if she could work something else out from them, or mayhaps recycle them into something useful. 'I couldn't get the batry out, so I smashed it to stopsign the wipeout. Coz I'm a clever-clogs! Is there still texts in there?'


OOC: Can Smoke tell who made the phone or when, such as from a company stamp or design? She's seen a bit of junk, I'm sure.
10:06, Today: Smoke Alarm rolled 14 using 2d6+7 with rolls of 5,2.  awareness(4) + technology(1) + Keen Senses(2).

"You have a point, sweet. But people in this time aren't quite ready for that. In a few years, they will be. I think there are, and maybe even phone numbers. Here, see what you can do with it while I work with the data."

Stanley is impressed by how easily Sairen managed to pick the lock (and that he still had some tools hidden away somewhere). "Yeah, I say we go. Sitting here, waiting for the bad guys to come back, doesn't sound like the best plan now that the door is open."

Sairen shrugs and manipulates the picks for a moment, and there's a soft click -- telling Stanley that the door wasn't actually unlocked before he responded.  But it is now, so the die seems to be cast.

Sairen opens the door carefully.  There are doors up and down the hallway outside; the left-hand way leads down toward looks like an open space, perhaps a foyer, and light coming in from outdoors.  Yen Huang's office and the rear courtyard, Stanley recalls, would be to the right.

OOC: For sneaking around, you'll want to make a Coordination + Subterfuge and likely an Awareness + Ingenuity.

Trav's work with the innards of the phone suggests to her that a lot of the data storage is probably wiped despite Smoke Alarm's efforts, but data used by the lower-level functions may be intact.  This would include things like positioning data and telemetry for remote phones this one was used to contact, and possibly some buffered conversation data.

Meanwhile, Smoke Alarm notices a sigil stamped into the inside of the case, with the image of a somewhat inane robotic face formed inside the shape of a capital S.  She actually does remember that from her time with Doctor Sam, who said it was the logo of something called the "Serious Cyber-Net-Ticks Corporation."  But despite that being from Smoke Alarm's personal past, that had to be a future thing as far as here-and-now went, wasn't it?

OOC: There was a really likely Whoniverse corporation I thought about putting here to serve much the same purpose.  But I fear it would have been too large of a red herring.  So I went for a Hitchhiker's Guide mash-up instead.  Oolon Colluphid is common to both universes, so they're the same, right? ;p
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:25, Sun 22 Apr 2018.

'Serious Cyber-Net-Ticks Corporation.' Smoke Alarm had read out. Cyber...? The funny cleaner face didn't outlook like a Cyberman, but mayhaps they were related, like Blue Kangs and Red Kangs. She rememorised Doctor Sam show-and-telling new tetchnology to the Kangs, including talkiphones like these. 'But this is from my space... time... tick-tocks.' she exclaimed, before floundering on trying to link a history and universe between the random, wonderful places she found outside the talkiphone box doors. 'My start in the carrydoors of time and space.' she decided. In the end, the Kang wasn't far off.

"Hm. That's important. Well, most of the data was wiped, but your action seems to have saved some of the conversation and text buffers and the telemetry data, which is what I was looking for anyway. All in all, lucky."

She absently reaches for her I pad, and then realizes she doesn't have it - she left her trusty old I pad on Khestartes Delta. She sighs - she had that since she had a fat butt. But that it was going to help rebuild a civilization is a good kind of melancholy. She sure hopes that the Khestartes librarians like Futurefunk and Vaporwave music as well as bands like Jam Project (https://www.youtube.com/watch?...4Q8OOG7aXXYAwp9kUzfT) So, she digs into her bag. Maybe one of her beat up laptops was in there.

Spending a story point for Resourceful Pockets to have a reliable computing device besides a phone. Probably not that not important, but I feel that it's only fair to spend an SP for a device like the Ipad which Trav had since the beginning of her PBP adventures.

Trying to sneak as quietly as he can, Stanley makes his way out of the room. The fact that a guard could walk around the corner or come out of one of the doors at any time makes the escape a bit nerve-wracking.

OOC: Here are the rolls: Coord + Subterfuge + SP
20:54, Today: Stanley Newton rolled 23 using 4d6+4 with rolls of 6,5,2,6.  Coordination (3) +
Subterfuge (1) + SP(2d6). Sneaking around.

And Awareness + Ingenuity:
21:05, Today: Stanley Newton rolled 12 using 2d6+8 with rolls of 3,1.  Awareness (4) + Ingenuity (4).
 

OOC: I should have asked for which way you were heading.

So if you like, you can go ahead and narrate a bit on where you get to and what you see there.
 With your results, you are going to make safe progress to a point where you can see an exit.  It will not get you all the way out of the building, but with your story point and roll you can assume that you can create some tactical or narrative advantage.  And your Awareness roll is enough that you will have advance warning of anyone who is not trying to sneak up on you, of which there are none.

I would have come up with that myself, except I'm not positive where you're headed and didn't want to come back with just asking that question.

Trav's hand comes back out of the bag clutching one of the many items she's forgotten ever stuffing into it: a Drexellan HoverComp^TM.  The softball-sized and -shaped device, ringed all over with an assortment of I/O ports, whirrs to life and floats up into the air at about shoulder level.  Then its projector flickers on, projecting a virtual touchscreen in front of her.

OOC: Ordinary computers are boring.

Getting out of the building was the top priority for now and Stanley thinks they have a better chance of doing so without being spotted by going left towards the light. Stanley makes sure to close the door behind him. It wouldn't buy them any time if Huang sent someone to fetch Sairen and him, but in case a guards decides to walk past he wouldn't immediately notice an open door.

The hallway was currently empty and Stanley hopes that is also the case for the other rooms. Stan hopes Huang isn't holding any other prisoners here. Quietly, the two make their way through the hallway keeping an eye out for guards.

Arriving at the large, open foyer, Stanley can't help but admire the furnishing of the room. Yen Huang wants to show that business is good and this room is meant for showing guests. There are a couple of chairs and a table, all looking like they were made from the same expensive wood as Huang's desk. The tapestry hanging on the wall also looked expensive, but slightly out of place. Maybe it had been a gift from someone important. More relevant were the large windows on the other side of the foyer. They looked like they might be able to open or broken. Your typical foyer in typical hotel was bigger, but there was a lot of open space to cross, before they would be at the window.

OOC: I should have specified, but given the options of going left towards the light or right towards Huang, I thought it would be obvious Stanley and Sairen would be going left. But I should have specified.

Re: Foyer. I don't know if this is what you expected, but feel free to change whatever you want. (I am also not sure what a 19th century crime boss from Hong Kong would have in his house/office?? )
This message was last edited by the player at 23:03, Mon 23 Apr 2018.

Stanley notices Sairen do a bit of a double-take when he spots the same tapestry that Stanley noted.

But Sairen quickly shakes his head when he sees Stanley's reaction, as if to warn him from saying anything out loud.  He takes out what Stanley has to imagine is his own sort of phone or personal comm, and aims it carefully at the tapestry to capture a picture.  Then he nods toward the windows.

Stanley wonders exactly what Sairen is on about, but then notices that, in addition to the normal play of light and reflection from motion in the street beyond, there is some more subtle motion of shadow closer to the building.  There's a good chance that someone is waiting outside -- not waiting for Stanley and Sairen in particular, most likely, but perhaps more of Huang's henchmen placed on guard to dissuade attention from passersby.

"Oh goodness. This was back during my hardcore gamer phase. Al hated these things." She connects a wireless USB tab to the sphere, and moves what she was able to recover from the phone to the HoverComp. Then, she crunches the data through decryption, mapping where the other network points are and playing back any audio or video data.

Curious as a Kang, Smoke Alarm eyespied closely as the Drexellan HoverComp^TM came out and levitated into the air. While Traveller worked, Smoke try to poke it, but it evaded anyhow she tried. Somehow, she 'wared the funny round, ball-like... ball! 'No ball-games, no fly-posts, no ball-games!' Smoke warned Traveller urgently, trying to catch the flying ball.

Trav's analysis of the location data to be had from the phone seems to indicate that the originating coordinates have all been terrestrial.  They do span the globe -- the northern Mediterranean, various points around Indonesia and the South China Sea, even a scattering in Europe and North America -- but by far the greatest concentrations appear around several loci between the equator and 5° north, and about 95° and 100° east.

There isn't any visual data remaining in the buffer.  But when Trav manages to extract a scrap of audio from the data, she recognized the contralto of the Corsair.

Which Corsair?   The Corsair was male in most of his incarnations but was a woman in her 5th and 7th faces (http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/...didnt-know-about-the) If someone was impersonating the Corsair, they would get thrashed very hard. If Trav was taking part in some crazy self resurrection scheme, she'd e delighted. This did seem just like a lovely Corsair scheme and heist.

She projects out a globe that shows all of the points on the globe. She bets to herself that they are all on the high seas.

And speaking of Corsairs...

She dials up Stan and Sairen. "Hello boys. How goes your leg of the investigation?"

"Interesting. Lots of phone conversations coming from the Bay of Bengal, near Malaysia and Singapore.  Hm."

Smoke Alarm had catched the flying puter ball, but now it was trying its darnedest to fly away with her! Tugging it back and trying to force it down to a table where it could sit still and not be a ball game, she suggested 'Mayhaps it's their brainquarters!'

Stanley briefly considers starting a fire to distract the guard outside, but decides against it. A very risky and dangerous plan. Not only would it endanger the lives of everyone in the building, but for all Stanley knows it would spread to the other buildings.

It would be reasonable to assume, that the guard outside would report it if he noticed anything unusual. But to report it he would need to leave his post. Maybe they could throw something through the window, hide and wait for the guard to walk to the nearest entrance and then they could Or at the very least it would cause a distraction.

Sairen was worried that the guard could hear them, so Stanley tries to communicate his plan with gestures. He mimics picking up a rock from the ground and throwing it at the window. He hopes Sairen gets what he is trying to say and that there is actually something small and solid enough nearby.

OOC: Leaving the timing of Trav's call to Gary.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:46, Sat 28 Apr 2018.

Sairen's eyebrows go up at Stanley's miming of his proposed plan.

Carefully, he sidles over to an occasional table where there is a small carved figurine of some translucent stone, of what looks like some mythological animal.  Briefly, he looks at it, until Stanley starts to wonder if he is considering just stuffing the thing in his pocket, but then he shakes his head.  He points at Stanley, points to an alcove where there is space for a person to crouch out of sight of the doorway.  Then Sairen shifts back so he is screened from the door by a tall freestanding cabinet, and hefts the small statue meaningfully.