Emerald Star @ Emerald City University


Being green, Emerald Star stood out.  there was no hiding her identity when she went out so she became accustomed to the stared and whispers.  More often than not, it was positive, awe, admiration even envy.   And the university campus had that in spades.

Because she'd had the foresight to have Eva ROsales arrange for the point-contact,
Dr. Akane Fujitsu, genetics professor at ECU met her outside the Watts-Windover building, where her team had been developing one of the five components.


Dr Fujitsu is a slim woman of average height and hair that is shot through with strands of steel.  She takes a brisk, efficient approach to everything she does and gave Jenni the brief run-down of the project, from her point of view, as she led Jenni to her office.

Fujitsu was a tenured professor, but also a researcher with  Paragon Labs.  They partnered with  Mars Tech when the initial prototype proved promising.

Her office is large but messy, covered with scores of journals and books on cancer, radiation, and cell regeneration that have a lot of bookmarks sticking from them. The smell of coffee is strong, and the doctor offers Jenni a cup... from her personal coffee-machine...

Dr. Fujitsu has been working for the last six years on a cell airradiator/repairer that can reverse and cure the effects of some cancers, several of which are often impossible to remove with surgery due to their location in the body. The prototype of the machine takes up two rooms and is a mad tangle of wires and circuitry.  The scanner that her team was perfecting was the size a small bookcase, which was a vast improvement--but still not quite as far as she wanted it to go.

The five labs involves had a sort of running gentleman's bet over who could reap the most bang for the buck while not compromising on function or efficiency.   Once each piece is completed, a second round of testing can begin.

One part of this machine was stolen from Smithfield Medical in Jadetown.  It had been completed two weeks prior, and after it passed a series of final tests it had been crated up for shipment to MarsTech corporate for assembly. The night before it would have been sent out, however, someone stole it.  The company reported the theft to the police, and quickly rushed the production of a replacement a few days later.

Of the two remaining pieces, one is complete, the other is in final stages of production.

Dr. Fujitsu is sure that Alice will steal the other two components. All the components are being gathered and shipped to MarsTech Head-Quarters for integration testing.  The Neutrophin Accelerator was just about done  All that remained were cosmetic modifications and final testing.   The final piece is at Centerville Biomedical, but hasn’t been finished yet due to some delays.

The parts are replaceable, so Dr. Fujitsu and her partners are willing to let the heroes use the remaining two components as bait.

As ECU is the only facility that appeared to have redundant enough backups of their surveillance systems, footage is available for Emerald Star to view, should she wish to do so....
This message was last edited by the player at 10:10, Tue 21 July 2020.

The campus brought back a host of memories for the perpetual academic.  ECU was a more modern school than either of her East Coast alma maters but it had that feel of wonder and worry, stress and strangeness that every university possessed.  Jenni could have flown directly to the Watts-Windover building but she elected to stroll across the campus and bathed in the glow of higher learning.  She took selfies with several students along the way, waved at the loners laying in the grass who glanced up from their textbooks as she passed, and stopped at several booths setup for student organizations or causes.  These were her people, even the theater majors (God help them in their future food service industry careers).

Dr Fujitsu reminded the heroine of her Electricity and Magnetism professor at Princeton, straight to the point, no need for embellishment.  That just meant that Jenni had to ask questions to get the extra details.  Fortunately she was VERY familiar with cancer and radiation and though her knowledge of the bio sciences might not be as extensive as her mastery of the physical and mathematic she was no slouch there either.  She asks how certain immunity and degeneration problems had been overcome, expecting the same efficiency in the answers the doctor had delivered in the run-down of the project.  It was a chance to establish her own credibility, offer Fujitsu an opportunity to share on an academic to academic basis, and frankly to see if anything sounded....off.

After a handful of minutes with the technical small-talk, Jenni will ask to view the surveillance tapes.  As she reviews the footage she asks:
- Has there been any interest in purchasing the device prior to the thefts?
- What about inquiries for membership for testing?
- What are the plans for the device assuming it passes final testing?

  Cassandra had been to college—and at barely sixteen—as well, but she'd only been in her third year when her sight deteriorated and hadn't returned since.  That history degree apparently lost its allure once she started just observing history directly.  And that's what she had come to do that afternoon, tagging along to ECU with Emerald Star, so they could each review their own record of the heist there.  She held back near where they had landed, ducking into buildings and joining up with small packs of students, to be sure the girl who had arrived with the celebrity would be lost in the crowd.  She had a reputation, definitely.  But she also had nothing to mark her as unusual, without the customary blindfold or the toga she sometimes added when she meant to leverage that reputation.  In dark shades, she could be just one more nineteen-year-old on campus, trudging from one class to the next.  She spent a minute or two becoming as nondescript as possible, even changing into an ECU-branded sweatshirt and leggings she lifted from the campus bookstore.

  Once she'd scrubbed her identity as hard as she could without being able to use makeup, she took a winding path across the campus, eventually emerging at a perfectly ordinary speed from DeFrees Hall, next to Watts–Windover, and walking in the door like some kind of normal person.  The handle of the door held memory enough to trace Emerald Star's path to the counter she'd rested a hand on, to a chair she'd brushed against, to the door marked Restricted Access.  Cassandra didn't have an ID badge, much less one cleared for the wing, but the keypad next to the door had been used recently, and with a brush of her fingers over the numbers, she let the prior hand steer hers.  On the other side, and presumably on a different camera circuit, she finally accelerated herself enough to fall into place behind Jenni and Akane, just as they stepped into the Fujitsu lab.  Introductions were a little awkward.

  Afterward, while the doctors talked shop and got familiar, Lachesis traced the night-time security patrols looking for cut corners and blind spots.  She could never be entirely sure about the lines of sight, but that kind of precision wasn't the point of the exercise, only ruling out major oversights that would have let a mundane thief pull off the theft.  She got back to Akane's office afterward briefly before Jenni got around to asking to see the footage.

  "And I'll need to go into the room where it was stored, until it wasn't," she added, gesturing with her thumb in the direction of a few locked doors she'd thought better of trying to pick open.  "Maybe more, to follow the trail.  Oh yeah, and I want you to come with, doctor Fujitsu.  The only security camera I could reach was covered by a dome.  It'd help if you told me which way they point.  Whenever you're ready."
This message was last edited by the player at 23:43, Mon 27 July 2020.

Fujitsu provided details as follows:

Has there been any interest in purchasing the device prior to the thefts?
Maximilian Mars and MarsTech have done a couple of spots on the news about it, primarily in the "Medical Tech" sector news reports and ground-breaking news.  So, it's gotten enough publicity.    There has been no attempts to purchase or make inroads to corporate buy-outs.

What about inquiries for membership for testing? 
That, on the other-hand...  There is a wait-list of several thousand who have contacted MarsTech to volunteer for the procedure, even as a test-case.

But MarsTech has been the primary channel for that angle.   Fujistsu can name a half-dozen people on-campus and two or three off-campus who've approached her directly.  None appear to have the background--that she's aware of--for corporate pull or criminal wherewithall.

What are the plans for the device assuming it passes final testing?
Once past initial testing, it'll go to human trials.  After that process, mass-production with the profit from the manufacture and sales of the devices going to each of the five companies for their respective parts.  Each of the companies also retain certain limited "spin-off" rights to if they can apply the tech to other approaches and sectors.   It's not a typical model of operation, but to a research-based university, it's an enormous boon.

After a handful of minutes with the technical small-talk, Jenni will ask to view the surveillance tapes.  As she reviews the footage she asks:

Dr. Fujitsu is happy to share all of their information with the heroes. The police believe that Alice picked a lock and entered through a maintenance door. She probably worked alone. Shee wore gloves the whole time, and left no fingerprints.

Video Surveillance first captures her at the door to the lab where the component was stored.  The entrance to the building did not have surveillance coverage.

Alice appeared to know the layout, as she went straight to the room where the component was located.  She used a device to defeat the keycard
security, walked in, stood before the book-case-sized device, and pulled another device out of her long leather overcoat.   A beam of greenish light hit surrounded the case, then Alice lifted it easing a hand under one side, and carried it out of the lab, one-handed.

Campus security had no record of her entrance, and the key-card used apparently belonged to a  graduate student, Joshua Briggs, who'd recently flown to Vancouver on a family emergency.  Briggs had been contacted by the police and was due to arrive back in Emerald City later that day to meet with the police.

Campus security performed a walk-through an hour after Alice's departure, but the guard did not have card-access and did not appear to notice anything amiss.

The only other people on-camera during the hour before and hour after was a pair of ECU janitors.   A Short, portly Chinese woman and an older Caucasian man with a halo of white frizzy hair and bad skin.





Afterward, while the doctors talked shop and got familiar, Lachesis traced the night-time security patrols looking for cut corners and blind spots. 
The campus security was not aggressive by any means.   Most likely, they hadn't been advised of the relative value of the items within.    Patrols through the building seemed to take a circuit roughly every two hours, but it was hallway-access and key-carded.  And there were some labs for which the security had to call their command-post to effect a remote-release (if their key-card didn't have sufficient access levels).  In most cases, unless things looked wrong when looking through the windowed door, they simply wouldn't go in to look around.

Fujitsu nodded at Lachesis' suggestion, willingly led her (or them?) out into the hall towards the labs...

@Lachesis,
Having done the walk-around,  can you give me an Investigation roll to Search the area?  Call it... a DC18 Investigation check. I'll post a little more based on the roll.

30 btw

Jenni frowns as she follows the footage, wheels turning.

Can Jenni deduce anything from the footage and security guards at ECU which might indicate why sure a low security location would capture footage of Alice but MarsTech facilities wouldn't.

No concern about rapid response from guards?

Anything about the video appear off like it had been tampered with?


18:29, Today: Emerald Star rolled 19 using 1d20+6.  Invest.
- that was supposed to be Investigation

She'll ask for a copy though AEGIS may have already secured one.

She inquires about Briggs.  What he like?  Any signs of stress or sudden changes in behavior recently?

Unless Fujitsu has anything further to add EM thanks the doctor for her time and checks to see if Lachesis is still in the vicinity or has moved on to her next stop.

  "So hey, your guards act like there's nothing here to get excited about," Lachesis commented as they walked in past the security doors. She had adopted the authoritatively casual demeanor of a police detective around beat cops, all unconcerned with how she came across. "No budget for anyone professional enough you could tell them what they're guarding, huh? That's your first problem, and you can tell admin the AEGIS rep said so. Let Jim-Bob and the crew focus on regular patrols."

  She made a circuit of the room as she talked, unerringly approaching various pieces of equipment and running her fingertips over knobs and dials for a few seconds before moving on. It was difficult to reconcile her movements with the rumor that she was blind. AEGIS had never quite confirmed that one, either. "Cool toys. No idea what you's talking about when you were playing with 'em, but biology was never really my thing. So, I need the exact spot your quantum defrobulator used to be sitting. From there, I'm gonna want to backtrack the way she came in, then follow her out, and I'll probably ask you about the security cameras a few times. Lead on, chief."

She's especially going to be watching the path from the security door back to where Alice entered the building, once she hears about the contents of the videos. And then a lot of attention to how she got something that size back out of the building, see if the exit point is monitored or not.

Lachesis:
Actually, in Lachesis sweep of things, she came across an electronic device--a micro-camera/transmitter on the upper edge of the women's washroom nearest to the Lab.    It was a small enough device that it could have been overlooked entirely or mistaken for something else, being no more than three or four centimeters across.  It is small and has only a limited range... suggesting that it's the kind of thing found in most commercial electronics stores.

Although security is tighter during the night, someone dressed appropriately could walk in the front door during working hours and place the transmitter without being questioned.

Lachesis, of course, Could Review The Past with a Perception roll vs DC15 and/or an Investigation roll vs DC18.

There is nothing to stop you from questioning students, staff, cleaning staff, etc, but your mileage may vary, depending on who you ask.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:45, Wed 05 Aug 2020.

@Jenni

Can Jenni deduce anything from the footage and security guards at ECU which might indicate why sure a low security location would capture footage of Alice but MarsTech facilities wouldn't. 
Good question!  I too the liberty of rolling an Intelligence check for you.
Control, on behalf of Emerald Star, rolled 24 using 1d20+5

Yes!   Campus Security footage is not centralized per building but across campus.  This means that the primary systems control is operated out of the Campus Security building, not the Windover-Wyatt building.  If Jenni had to guess, it would be that the perpetrator either couldn't or didn't feel it was worth trying to hack the campus system.

The other sites had system failures or curiously specific blackouts.  While some of the cameras in the campus system went down, they were elsewhere on campus (department of oceaonography) and nothing is recorded as having been stolen or tampered with there.


Anything about the video appear off like it had been tampered with?
Nothing immediate.  But the footage could be copied for analysis by AEGIS forensics.


She inquires about Briggs.  What he like?  Any signs of stress or sudden changes in behavior recently? 
Ironically--and in such a manner that makes him a definite person of interest in this investigation--his father is in Vancouver due to a severe case of jaundice, which has indicated that his father's colon cancer has now metastasied to his liver.
Fujitsu paints Briggs as feverishly dedicated, a young man (he's nearly thirty) who is operating under the certain knowledge that the device won't be completed in time to save his father.  Also ironically (but not) is that his father is among the first on the list of approved testees because of Joshua's position.

One of the downsides of playing this out is that I will continue to make shit up... and a lot of it won't be at all relevant... thus potentially clouding the waters even more....  But as long as y'all are enjoying it...

@Lachesis & @Emerald Star

Futjitsu glanced at Emerald Star, a brief quizzical expression on her face.  But Star wasn't acting like Lachesis presence there was a bother, so... so be it.

"The Deans and the Board of Governor's decide where the budget goes." Fujitsu said, exasperation touching her voice..  "For all I know, there's political gain to be made by allowing just this kind of spectacle to happen.  "In the end, the device itself isn't that important.  I mean, <U>of course</I> it's important.  But none of the research data, the schematics for the construction, build, and testing data.  None that went missing.   If we've got to fast-track another working model, it'll take us a week, maybe ten days.

Campus Security wasn't terrible, but it wasn't high-grade, either.   If you were so inclined, you could also discuss things with the campus security, directly...

Fujitsu shrugs and leads Cassie and Jenni into the main lab, through an orderly set of desks and into a glass-enclosed area.  there was no security feature separating the room, but Fujitsu mentioned that the internal area was buffered from a dozen different types of radiation and energy interference, since the amount of radiation emitted by the component needed to be measured in extremely minute amounts, other outside interference had to be minimized.

Video Surveillance first captures her at the door to the lab where the component was stored.  The entrance to the building did not have surveillance coverage.

All right then...  Give me a Perception- roll of DC15 to synch into Alice's interactions in this room...

The entrances to the labs are.  The entrances to the buildings are not monitored.     But there are glass-break and motion-detectors in the building.

Understood

I'm good to move on to join Punching Bag