As everyone spreads out, people begin looking for clues, without trying to look like they're looking for clues.
Goo keeps to the shadows, while Whip flies over head as far up as she can and still see the ground, doing overflight and watching the others more than anything else.
Goo, in the bushes, oozes over the ground and realizes it doesn't feel just right. He stops and looks at the ground, and finds a purse and two cell phones. The phones are oddly damaged, screens shattered in an odd way. The purse is still soggy.
Pulse is walking near an empty bench when she notices that the paving stones are spidereb cracked, and freshly so, over a large area that seems centered on the bench. Additionally, the bench is broken, with some yellow 'CAUTION' tape wrapped around it. The wood looks like it's broken, but something doesn't look right.
The phones were broken from the inside out, as if something inside them expanded, cracking the screens and boards from the inside out. Like a balloon was blown up inside them. They are damp inside.
The bench slats were broken by pressure from below, as if something swelled up from underneath and broke the boards, not like someone hit it from above.
Pulse points Aegis towards the 'scene of the crime' as it were.
"Things seem... off." she says, tilting her head. Saffron was a lot further ahead in her engineering than Hotaru was... so maybe she could help puzzle it out.
We've got something over here. No Rush. she sends to the others' cell phones that have them.
Goo quickly examines the cell phones and can't determine what caused the damage. I should take these back to the bus maybe someone else can figure this out.
Aegis moves closer to examine the damage but isn't able to catch that the damage came from below so didn't have much to add.
"No idea but it's the best we've got, look around until the others can take a look?"
13- looking for other clues.
Violet will continue to look around for familiar points and locations that match up with what she saw in Richie's thought-salad, although she's not sure what else she'll find now that the good Doctor Goo has made his discoveries.
Hotaru gives a small shrug, and does the only sort of sweep she reasonably can that the others can't, feeling around with her radio and radar senses in the immediate area for anything out of the ordinary. She didn't really expect anything, though.
The group searches the archway park for an hour or so, and then return to the bus.
Just as you are returning to the bus, you 'hear' a phone in your purse connect to the network, and transmit a very 'dense' message. It takes less than 15 seconds, so by the time you get it out of your purse, it's done and silent again. The phone that transmitted was the burn phone the foreign guys gave you.
"Not a fan." Pulse says, suddenly,and apparently unprovoked, "Of distrust, but either they don't trust us, or they're digging for information. I can't really read it." Pulse adds "But something bigger than a text was just sent from the phone you have, Aegis.". Hotaru shakes her head. "I've no way of knowing what was sent, but... if you can get me the number we're supposed to call off the phone, I'll be able to make contact, I think. Which means we can burn the burner and not have to worry about what they're learning."
Briana rubs her face in frustration at the report of the data burst. "Oh. My. God. I just asked if you could tell if there was a tracker, but there was an entire damn phone given to us?" She moves away for a moment to fume in private, and returns slightly calmed down.
"Okay, that's good that you might be able to trace it," she says with a forced smile. "In the meantime, can you put it far away so it's not listening to us?"
"Well... I didn't discover what happens when I get pin-balled by automatic weapons, so I'd call that stellar. It could have been much, much worse. I figure they'd have shot me, I'd have gone sparky, and then they'd all have shot me...." she shrugs a little. "It was a bit... precarious. But they gave us a burner phone to let them know what we find out about the old man's granddaughter." Hotaru says as she slips on the bus. "We should stock the bus with costumes." she says, distractedly, as she slips into one of the front seats. "That way it looks less odd when you come out wearing wings, and goo looks less odd when he comes out in an all-black body suit... or something. It'd make a good cover."
"Well, I mean... I did mention it." Hotaru responds, "It's not like it was relaying anything, til just now. I should have gotten the number out and already nuked it, though."
Hotaru texts just Rocket's phone Should hide it in a cop car or something. Have them chasing their tails.
"Okay, okay," she assents, pinching her brow. "Just... do something with it before it does it again."
Upon returning to the bus Goo shows his teammates the cell phones he found, "What can ?" As the others look at the phone he begins searching the soggy purse.
Briana raises her eyebrows when Goo produces the purse. "Well, let's take a look and see what's there," she says. She helps catalog the contents of the purse.
"I have never in all my life wished more thoroughly that I was a psychometrist," Violet sighs, looking at the wrecked phones.
Rocket pulls out his phone again and opens Google. After a pause he reads aloud, "...responsible for the administration and scoring psychological and neuropsychological tests under the supervision of a clinical psychologist or clinical neuropsychologist..."
He turns to Violet, cocking his head. "Why? You think we're crazy? I mean, there for folks who say anyone who dresses up to fight crime is a bit touched...
"Anyway, Aegis and Goo, science wasn't really my thing but if there's something weird about those phones...well, maybe you all could figure it out back at the lab?"
Looking back at his phone he sees he'd missed a text from Pulse. Reading it he chuckles. "Stashing it in a cop car sounds like fun...though I don't know, does it maybe have your prints on it now? What will the cops do if they notice it?"
Aegis raise an eye at Whip's reaction to the phone, this combined with the car incident was definitely raising suspicious about her.
Aegis would wait until Whip was done examining the purse to offer her the phone. "Would you feel better with it in your hands?"
The purse has the following :
3 colors of lipstick (black, purple, and blue)
2 vials of nail polish (black and purple)
2 emery boards
1 wallet containing $387 in assorted bills
8 credit cards, all with the name Svetlana A Korovich
1 drivers license, with the name Svetlana Adorina Korovich, indicating she is 21 years old, and lives in St. Louis.
1 makeup kit, partially used
1 packet of tissues
1 set of keys with 23 keys on it and one pink unicorn figurine with ruby eyes.
3 earrings (all mismatched)
2 rings (one gold with a diamond, the other silver with an emerald)
1 bracelet with cheap dangly plastic bits
Violet looks at Rocket, puzzled, then shrugs. "Psychometry, not Psychology. Object reading. Spooky Woo Woo psychoscopy. Like, I pick an object up and bam! I know its history and all that..."
She pauses, tilts her head, and looks to Whippoorwill. "I don't suppose your contact at SLPD might know something about Ms. Korovich, would he?"
"I really need the number we're supposed to call off of that phone, please and thank you." Hotaru says, a little impatiently.
"Money and Jewelry were left behind." Pulse adds to the situation, "So it's either not about money, or that's not worth the meta's time."
Briana shakes her head and passes the phone over to Pulse. "I'll feel better if we knew what it just did, since the possibility of it recording what we're saying and then transmitting it is making me nervous. I'm just glad we haven't brought it back to base yet."
Looking at the purse's contents, she shrugs. "Sean might have something, if she's got a record. I can ask him." She sifts through the credit cards and then looks at the keys. "Lots of keys. Interesting."
Briana studies each key on the ring, hoping to get some idea of the use of each one.
Pulse steps away as the phone is offered to her. "Can't. Touch. Electronics."
"Once you let me know, I'll give them a call and inform them of what we have, maybe surprise them a bit with what we're able to share already."
"All right," Whippoorwill says, then takes the phone far in the back of the bus and puts it in a storage compartment.
Goo takes a closer look at the keys trying to determine what they are used for. H asks, "Anyway we can retrieve information off that phone. It would be nice to kn" He looks to Whip, "Do you know anyone who could help with getting her phone records or use the pho"
Aegis picks up the cheap bracelet and examines it. "Odd, guess she's the sentimental type. If we can find who gave her this we might have a new lead."
13-
Pulse massages her temples and slides into a seat on the bus, to stare out the window. One of her fingers twitches on occasion: A sign that she's channel surfing on her internal radio.
"I'm surprised you want to give your kidnappers any information at all. Why are you feeling so charitable?"
The bracelet seems to be just cheap. The phones, when examined, are totally shreded inside, the circuit boards cracked and the chips shattered. The screen is also shattered. The circuit boards are also damp to the touch. Both phones look damaged in the same way.
"Honestly? Because they already likely know it. If we send them what we have, we give them nothing, and make it look like we're playing their game. It's like giving a customer a free shake. You'll get the money back in tips, and you'll gain a customer's favor. If they know we're forthcoming with what we have -now- they'll have less reason to dig in later once we save the princess. 'least I hope." she adds, still flicking her fingers and not looking towards the others as she talks. "Makes everyone happy, and costs nothing in the process."
Violet ponders the evidence and attempts to put things to Occam's Razor.
The phones look like something expanded inside them from the inside out, they weren't crushed, they were exploded. Probably ice crystals expanding, which caused all the massive trauma.
If there's someone who can do that running around the city, maybe looking for other incidents of cold or odd damage, or looking for places where extreme cold wouldn't be noticed would be of use...
Violet purses her lips and considers for a moment.
"I'm not all that familiar with the area, but... where would you go to hide around here if you or your powers just happened to cause explosive, expansive freezing? I don't think the phones were damaged deliberately. I think they're a side effect. And look at them... They didn't get stepped on or crushed. They blew up."
She pauses, giving Goo a chance to speak to his observations, and then continues.
"So if you had ice powers that could do this kind of thing... where would you hide so no one would spot you? Or maybe... where would you go that your powers would be useful?"
Briana shakes her head, just throwing out random suggestions. "A meat-packing plant? Industrial freezers? Polar bear exhibit at the zoo?"
Without any really accessible maps, Pulse just offered what she did have. "Maybe mountains, no one would notice a bit more snow. Freezer seems like a good one, because freezers keep cold in. Are there any skating rinks? Does Saint Louis have Hockey?"
"Cryog Goo suggests.
"If he has control over his power he may not need any of that but they are good starting points. We should head back to base soon we'll be useless if we can't stay awaken even if we find him.
"Did we still want to go to Kansas City?" she gives Violet a glance. "It'll still be there if we want to take a breather and go over everything that's happened tonight."
Violet shrugs, sighing. "Somehow I think our Russian friends would have some... words... if we were to head to Kansas City. And we have a real missing person here, and a real Richie in the hospital. Any evidence from days ago will still be from days ago, even if we got there right away."
She looks out the window and then back to Whippoorwill. The smile on her face might actually be real. "We should be heroes here first."
Briana nods her head toward Violet. "Understood. Let's go home."
"Lets stop at that Egyptian falafel place on the way. I'm famished!
"Oh, and Whip, how much help can you get from your cop friend? Could he tell if you if there's been other cold damage around the city, or weirdly damaged things like here by the Arch?
"Or even if he can't...Pulse, can you listen in on the police blotter? Maybe there are some clues there."
"I'll ask him next time we talk. Given what we've learned tonight, I'll call him first thing in the morning."
"Do you have a way to send him a picture of Rocket's drawing? That might help us narrow down who the guy is, too. Assuming he's local." Hotaru adds.
"Actually, there's bound to be street surveillance around the Arch. Maybe he can get us access, so Violet or Pulse can ok k him out. A freeze-frame would probably be better than Rocket's drawing. No offense," she offers with an apologetic look to Rocket.
Once everyone was ready Aegis would start driving them all home for the night.