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John: "If he is than this is real complicated real fast. Why would he murder his own kind if he was in it with them? To sell the deception better? Seems unlikely. That kinda stuff only happens in cheesy holo novels. What I find more likely is if one of these guys disguised themselves as one of us to further sew dissent and paranoia. That seems more like the M.O. I've seen."
Seeing that the room is a little crowded, Beauregard is going to try and block Rar'gul from leaving. "Bud, I know going back to the rooms sounds great right now, I know that it does, but remember, we're probably dealing with . . . them, y'know. And the good doctor is probably going to torture us next time we fall asleep, we all talked about this bud."
When Beauregard gets back that night he taps his head for a psychic link. ”Hate to say it, but pretty sure we are still under the Grey’s control. I mentioned several trid shows that don’t exist and said I was sad I missed the women’s zero-G boxing championship even though it is the off season, and she played along, acted like she’d seen those shows I just made up. I’m assuming they don’t have the capacity to copy the entirety of the infosphere, that’s why I did that. “Anyway, the quote unquote good doctor has taken a turn for the sadistic, asking how much things hurt and and gettin’ real creepy about my injuries. I suggest we stop cooperating, subtly though. Rate everything a five, and use fictional or nonexistent pop culture references to explain things. If they have captured us for information, it’s a good bet we shouldn’t give it to them.”
With Dr. Nodens: Beauregard is going to start peppering his speech with pop culture references that don't exist when talking to the doctor. Saying things like "Man, it was just like that one show, what'ch call it, Star Drek? Ever seen that?" or "Oh, I mean, it must have hurt more than when Ed laser saw'ed his own foot off on that episode of Community College when such shows never existed. Ask if a college sports team won their recent championship when it is the off season. See if she catches on. My bluff check is +14 with Charming Veneer active.
In the psychic link: "I don't want to sound paranoid, but I think we are. Listen, I'm the last one that wants to go through the rest of their life paranoid about if I'm in a simulation or not, but look at the coincidences. Mystery, paranoia, stress, combat. On the first ship, we have a murder mystery, paranoia from the shapeshifters, we are put under undue stress, and then fights. In the space station, we have the mystery of how we got there, the paranoia that we might get killed by the brain bombs at any time, stress, and fights. On the rescue ship, we have the mystery of the lost day, paranoia when our allies turn on us, stress, and fights. Plus, all the inconsistencies. Nothing here makes sense. How would they just have the ability to 'turn us off' on the rescue ship? The resources thing I mentioned, the minor details of my backstory are off, why does everyone have a brain bomb except us? It all makes sense if these are just . . . stress tests. Designed to push us to our limits without giving us time to think about what is going on. If I'm right, we're going to be presented shortly with a mystery, followed by undue stress, and then some fights here shortly."
”Sure, I can clue you in.”
Going over the infosphere news: ”Hmm, this doesn’t add up. I can understand the institute wanting to cover up the deaths for bad PR, but some of the changes don’t add up. Changing the dates I can take a guess at, it could obfuscate the cause of death, but why change the fields they were studying? They were all witchwarpers, it was a Witchwarper academy, none of them were studying Technomanc-Aw, crap.” He turns to the Shirren and taps his head again, indicating another group mindlink.
"Not sure what I can tell you that doesn't break confidentiality. Some kid did an unauthorized magitek experiment, don't ask me the details, stuff was WAY over my head, something went screwy and it accidentally ended up killing three students and the kid's on the run. Not much more to tell. If you gimme access to an encrypted comm channel, I can see if they'll be willing to talk to you to corroborate . . ." Beauregard's eyes narrow a bit, and his voice changes to be a bit more suspicious. "Say, what's your angle on all this anyway? This happened a good three, maybe four months before I was abducted. Why are you so interested?"
"Ah, you'd think being a private Dic is all missing Maulteese falcons and sinister murder plots, but I live . . . lived in the low-rent section of Akiton's rear end. It's mostly adultury cases, some bail-jumpers. Every once in a while I get a corporate embezzlement case. I was actually coming off my biggest case so far when I got swept up in all this, looking for a murderer. Student at some magic academy somewhere accidentally killed three other students with an experiment that went wrong and then ditched the joint. I got a lead on where he might be, but he had skedaddled by the time I got there, so I was hopping a ride back to Absolom station when . . . well . . . this whole thing happened."
"If that's true, that's a real problem. Modern militaries have rules about hurting civilians . . . us. If their, uh, military has no such ethics . . . that could be real bad."
Beauregard considers Johns words, but then responds: "Sure, learning about us is . . . well a goal but there are easier ways to go about it. There are literal yotabytes of psychological papers, medical texts, cultural thesis, treaties on history, all for free on Absolom's datasphere alone. If they wanted information, you have all of that stuff free, why waste so much resources on doing it their way? it doesn't . . . as you say . . . 'maximize profit.' No, there's something there . . . "Listen, I dunno how much my private eye business applies here, but if I've learned one thing in my years of work it's 'follow the money.' That almost always gets you 90% of the way to a closed case. Husband sleeping around? Check his credit history, find out what hotels he was using and when. Some guy is suspected of embezzling? Did he just buy a new hover-car he can't afford, or a beachouse on Castrovel out of his budget? Most of the time it always comes back to money, which is why this is bugging me so much."
"What gets me is the size and scope of everything. John, your big guy, Abdar, he's all about business right? Double check my thinking here. "Seems to me that most ventures, business or otherwise, are about doing things as efficiently as possible, right? Don't spend more money than you need to? Finding that line is sometimes a balancing act, sometimes you are too cheap, sometimes you overspend, but the goal is always get the most for your buck right? "That's a rule, a universal-a godly rule. Literally passed down from Abdar. But these . . .'Greys.' They don't follow that rule. They are expending huge amounts of resources. An entire space station, not to mention how many resources it would have taken to kidnap that ship we were on, PLUS the ship they sent to monitor us, and whatever resources they spent to whammy us and do a day of testing . . . what could be worth that level of investment? What are they getting in return for such a momentous resource expenditure? Even if they don't have a traditional economy, they still have to have resources . . . it cost energy and time and materials to make those things. manpower-er, Grey-power to go through all that data."
”Well, as I’ve said so far, the whole thing makes no sense to me. I mean, these grey guys are after shapeshifters right? Well, there were two of them on the first shuttle, that, uh, simulation thing, but since then nothing. Why were they followin’ us around. I mean, I guess they thought we could be shapeshifters too. . . Blast it. I’m used to finding alduterers and people who skipped bail. This whole level of conspiracy is beyond me. Heck if someone came to my office and told me this story I’d dial up the nearest mental health facility.”
”The uh, ‘Grey’ ship, if that’s what we are calling them, was largel wrecked. We had hoped to get info on why they were chasing us and presumably why they had knocked us out. We arrived in a medbay, not core worlds standard but of comparable technology, lest wise as far as we could figure. Four the crew manifest, but some of the survivors attacked us. . . They, I dunno, could phase through the walls by some means. Luckily my, uh, unique capabilities allowed me to keep up. Between us we managed to down them. And between the greys we killed and the ones we found dead. Sadly, according to our Tex whizes, the main database was damaged. Could only pull that they were intensely studying shapeshifters, which adds up as there were two shapeshifters on our original so-called shuttle ride.”
”Yeah, sure you can have my weapons, but I’ll warn you, I’ve got a mean left hook-no I don’t plan on punching anyone just being . . .y’know what, never mind.”
”Hey doc, I appreciate the once over. I-uh-I think they knocked the crew out for 24 hours without us realizing it. During that time they, or someone, really ran roughshod over my horns. Doesn’t hurt or nothing, but I think they were taking samples. So maybe the process, either knocking me out or sampling my horns, left some forensic evidence behind? I’ve been in and out of a spacesuit since then so maybe it’s all contaminated but I figured I’d bring it up.”
"Yeah. We have a lot of questions and very few answers. To be honest, nothing is really making sense. That being said, I suggest you up your security measures and scanning abilities as high as you can. These uh . . . these sentients we have encountered have a propensity for hiding, and they've tracked us down through the drift twice as far as I can tell, and I didn't even know that was possible." Also, is it just me, or is this AP giving us like NO money and no way to spend it? Like, I'm still using item level 1 weapons, and like an item level 5 armor (which isn't too bad I guess) but has no upgrades. And I still owe Dr. Flint-barge 600 credits! Ugh.
"Yeah. We have a lot of questions and very few answers. To be honest, nothing is really making sense. That being said, I suggest you up your security measures and scanning abilities as high as you can. These uh . . . these sentients we have encountered have a propensity for hiding, and they've tracked us down through the drift twice as far as I can tell, and I didn't even know that was possible."
"More questions than answers, but at least we know one thing. They are interested in shape-shifters. Presumably because they either want that ability for themselves, or they are worried about people with those abilities. Makes sense after several shapeshifters snuck aboard their little experiment back there."
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