In Service: A Science Fantasy Quest

With drowsy eyelids you turn over in your flip-down seat, using your thick, heavy, and, most importantly, warm greatcoat as a blanket. Leaning your head against a hand hold, you close your eyes and let the rocking of the van lull you to sleep.

~~~~~~~

A day later, with the light of the morning sun greeting you when you woke up, you, along with the rest of the trainees—sans TJ, are back in the briefing room, Briefing Room C. KT Captain Daniels stands at the back of the room, at the head of the table. He looks each of you in the eye as he drops a folder on the table.

"Four of you passed, one dropped out, and one failed." He bluntly drops onto the scene with all the grace of an ogre in a ballet. What little chatter there had been is gone now, silenced by the statement. The very air itself thrums with tension, your shoulders hunching.

The Android draws a file from the folder, a picture clipped to it—your picture. You remember when they took it, during processing, though the other pictures on the file you don't recall being taken. "Trainee-Agent Itzabella Williams, TA-7257, you passed with exemplary marks thanks to your leadership. Good job." You feel a small smile grow across your face as tension leaves your body. Your shoulders fall, relaxation flowing through you. "There is a note from your Mentor, though I'll leave that to him."

"Trainee-Agent Jessica Farrow, TA-7246, you passed with noted usage of defensive positioning." He lays her file down next to yours.

"Trainee-Agent Ryan Tuckenburg, TA-7247, you passed with exemplary marks thanks to your combat prowess and selflessness. Good job." His file joins the others. "Though, it is recommended that you don't put your life on the line so much."

"Trainee-Agent Sean McCullen, TA-7254, you passed with noted proficiency in talking down a mad cultist, though it is preferable to refrain from scaring civilians." He places Sean's file ontop of the others.

"Trainee-Agent Theodore-Jeordine Harlington, TA-7259, has decided, while he passed, to drop out from the program. The Service wishes him well in his future endeavors." Daniels lays the file away from the others.

"And finally," he pulls the final file from the folder, Amelia's picture clipped to it, "Trainee-Agent Amelia Raegin, TA-7265, has failed to pass the exam."

(Perception (Visual) Roll DC 85: 44+10=54, failure)

Amelia doesn't react to the words, save for a slight twitch of her ears. "You struggled with communicating your actions to the rest of your group, doing things with no warning and little explanation. On the field that is an essential skill. Like the last time, you are free to go through training again." He turns to the rest of you. "Thank you for your time."

He nods to you and passes your files to the respective persons. "Those of you who passed, and don't yet have mentors, will report to processing to receive one in a week's time. You have leave for that week. For the next year you will be learning from a Senior Agent on the field." He finishes up, turns, and leaves—his heavy steps thumping out as he moves.

With little else to do, you flip open your file and start reading.

~~~~~~~

GM's Note: Debriefings like this are going to be much shorter than normal updates, just the way things go. Voting will be closed tomorrow at 6 PM CST, thanks for reading.

Stepping into the Chicago Labs, you breathe deeply of the sterile air, feeling it flow through your lungs and reinvigorate your body. This is it, you're an actual agent of the Service of Supernatural Solutions. You passed the test, with flying colors at that. All that's left is a year of mentoring under Damien and you'll be a full and proper Special Agent. Just thinking about it sends giddy feelings bubbling up in your gut.

But first, before you can even think about your future, it's time for you to get down to Super Science! Cracking your knuckles and rolling your shoulders, you cast your gaze across the large, sequestered off room and step up to your lab area and run your fingers over the tools on display. Almost caressing the screwdrivers, you turn your attention to the files you'd brought with you.

Placing the screwdriver down you flip open the file on Dullahans, specifically their detaching necks. It's… sickeningly empty, you'll have to fill it up and what better time to start than now?

(Knowledge (Fey) Roll DC 50,75,100: 58+10+10(Learning)=78, double success, one more needed)

Stepping back from the stacks upon stacks of files and treatises on Dullahan, you raise your arms over your head and stretch, satisfied with your work for the day.

Tomorrow, you'll see if you can't design that troll-muscle fiber you've had bouncing around in your head.

(Craft (Super Science) Roll DC 50,80: 13+15=28, failure)

You snarl, tossing aside a bundle of wires––which lands in the trash. You've had it up to here with this damn supernatural bullshit!

Stomping off, you decide to try again. Just not now.

Besides, tomorrow, you're going to be testing the Cutter Rounds and that'll be exciting!

(Cutter Rounds Testing Roll DC 40,90: 62+15=77, success)

One, two, three times you pull the trigger and one, two, three times does a target splinter in half, the axe-shaped bullets splitting the wooden silhouettes clean down the middle. You grin, adjusting your safety goggles as you hold the smoking gun. The Cutter Rounds seem to heat barrels up quite a bit, meaning you can't put too many down range too quickly, something to work on in optimization.

(Cutter Rounds now available for field use!)

~~~~~~~

"Mistress, perhaps you should…" STEVE's voice picks up as you're walking the halls, a box of your things under your arm. You've been moving your things from your old trainee room to your new agent room, until you find some place for yourself, that is. You shake your head, a soft smile on your face. You'd been so busy recently with training and super science that you hadn't even considered a place to stay! Fortunately, the Service took that into consideration and has provided you and the others in similar situations with lodgings for the time being. "...look into your struggles with magic? Not that you struggle with anything! You're far too powerful and insidious to ever struggle with something!" He hurriedly corrects himself.

You frown, mulling it over before sighing. You'd hoped to ignore it for as long as possible, but, frankly, you're a bit surprised that they passed you when you've got such a glaring weakness. "...maybe you're right," you finally reply, cutting the furtherly stammering STEVE off mid-plea, "I need to deal with this sooner or later, preferably sooner and under my control than later and out of it."

"I knew you'd puzzle it out right away! You're amazing, Mistress!"

"Yes, yes I know." You grin and, after glancing around to make sure you're all alone, let a small maniacal cackle slip free. Your back arches as your fingers curl into claws, your face turns towards where the sun would be, were it visible from this place. It wouldn't do to give your new co-workers the wrong idea! "I am amazing, aren't I?"

"Yes!"

"Okay, you can stop now."

"Yes, Mistress!"

You sigh, sometimes you forget about your past self and then it all comes back to you in a rush. Memories of your past cringe self bombard your mental defenses with the undiluted and unrefined edginess of a 12-year-old. You shudder, disgust creeping across your face as you cringe violently.

"Regardless," you cough, drawing yourself back to full awareness, "I need to find somebody, or something, to help me out with this. Thoth knows that books don't help me." You pause, realizing something rather obvious. "Hey, STEVE, you know of anyone that could help me? I know you've been active in the databases."

"Why yes, yes I have!" He leaps into action, eager to serve as always.

(Contacts Roll DC 40,60,80: 97+10+20(STEVE)=127, triple success, oh my god
100+27=127, quadruple success, no fucking way
89+27=116, quintuple success, why
95+16=111, sextuple success, I don't even question it anymore, he says, lying
74+11=85, septuple success, phew)

STEVE provided exemplary directions that lead you out the Service building and down several streets, taking you all the way to the South Side, where you'd seldom been back in your 'parents' 'care'.

You find yourself standing before a dingy looking parlor, the red, white, and blue spiraling pillar next to the door tells you that this was once a barber shop. The windows are quite greasy, dirtying and obscuring any view inside that you could've gotten from an outside glance. The sign, old and musty just like the rest of the place, reads 'Potions, Curses, and More!' as it hangs over the faded red door. You doubt that the place is actually called that, the sign more a descriptor than a name, but that doesn't really matter too much, now does it? STEVE says that the lady who owns the place is an accomplished and well respected member of the magical community, so she's probably going to be a good bet.

With slight hesitation and a hitch in your stride as you hit a loose step, you enter the storefront––a little jingle signaling your presence. You find yourself vaguely disappointed that the culprit is just a normal bell and nothing magical.

The first thing that strikes you as you enter is how dark it is, what little light filters through the windows reveals plumes of dust in the air, thick enough to cause you to cough. The second thing that strikes you are the stacks upon stacks of old, musty things. Ancient-looking books pile atop one another, mounds of dried ingredients rest on tables as their not-yet-dry siblings hang from clotheslines in the air.

And the third thing that strikes you is the absolutely gargantuan old lady emerging near silently from around a stack of books, a rolling pin clutched in her ancient gnarled hands. She's the very pinnacle of the Russian 'babushka', shawl and all. You know, if babushkas were mountains of muscle with faces of little old ladies, well, more than they already are.

She blinks, as do you, and sets the rolling pin down. You catch a glimpse of her palms, at the white powder coating them––she must have been baking. At least, that's what you're hoping she was doing, you can never tell with babushkas.

"Hello?" She speaks, her ancient, slavic voice sounds like she's been eating dust. "Why have you come here, child?" She steps forwards, broad shoulders looming in the low light levels. She presses a hand against your forehead, her fingers a blur as she moves too fast for you to clock properly. "You're not sick, not physically." She whirls around you, magical sparks leaping from her fingertips as she twirls around the room, her muscled mass an odd sight given how spry she seems. The sparks land on piles of this and that, the sundry objects righting themselves and tidying themselves up. She appears next to you, a clapping a clacker right in your ear, causing you to jump in startlement. "Hmm, not a matter of the mind…" The beshawled old lady pauses mid-spin, you'd have sworn you saw a lightbulb go off above her head as she fixes you with a sly smile, cozying on closer to you and. "Perhaps… it's a sickness of the heart?" You feel the corner of your eye twitch. "Perhaps the young dearie before me is pining after someone, yearning to be with a strapping young man. But the strapping young man doesn't love her back! Oh, how tragic!" She makes a show of falling backwards in a faint, falling into an overstuffed chair that slides from the darkness to break her tumble. "Don't you worry your pretty little head, dearie," she wiggles a wrinkly finger at you, winking conspiratorially as she gets up, sprier than a spring chicken ever was, "Old Baba will fix that right up! Just you wait!"

"I'm not here for a love potion, or anything of that sort." You finally collect yourself, shutting your wide open jaw with a Click!

Baba ignores you, or at least she deliberately misunderstands you because there's no way she didn't get it. "Ah, I see! You want to do things properly, by the strength of your arm," she flexes, "and the quickness of your tongue! A good choice for an adventuring lass like yourself! But, that doesn't mean you can't go without an ace in the hole in the form of a Princess Charming Potion!"

"I'm not looking for potions of any kind." You say firmly and assertively, gaining her solid attention for who knows how long. "I'm looking for somebody who can help me with a problem, a magical problem."

"Oooo, a magical problem!" Baba leans in, a sparkle in her eyes and a shine on what few teeth she has left. "Baba is quite good at those, puzzles in general too." She flicks a thumb over to a slightly better lit corner of the shop, where a particularly large puzzle sits half-finished. "That ones been stumping me for the past week! I've been tempted to get out my crystal ball and divine the piece, but that wouldn't be true to the spirit of the game, now would it?"

"I find myself… struggling… to learn magic. It just doesn't… click for me." You admit, both to her and yourself. She eyes you up and down, quickly coming to a conclusion.

"You're one of those super science types, aren't you?" You nod. "I had thought so! Superscientists always have problems with magic, it's something of an unwritten law of Forged Existence as far as I've seen. Though, much like all rules, there are exceptions and allowances, we just have to find you a good one for you!" She twirls back around, gathering ingredients from various piles and containers. "Now, why would you want to learn magic? No, wait!" She stops you as you go to answer. "Allow me to guess!" With little other choice, as you suspect that she's going to regardless of what you say, you acquiesce and give her leave. "You want to impress somebody, a boy perhaps? A boy who's only interested in the mystic arts of magic and has no time for something as silly as science! The only way to get him to notice you is to learn magic yourself! How romantic!"

Old Baba seems to be rather concretely lost in her delusions, but she's not charging you for this service, so that's a win.

(Gained Old Baba as a magical teacher, she'll help you with your magical inertness and, potentially, your love life)

~~~~~~~~

In an attempt to recover from Old Baba and her, well, Old Baba-ness you find yourself cloistered away in the Archives, fending off the world one book at a time.

(Learning Roll DC 30,50,70,90: 96+10=106, quadruple success, you can't make this up
61+6=67, quintuple success)

Your eyes glimmer as you come across a piece of offhandedly mention technology, which led you to a footnote, which led you to the Technopedia, which lead you in turn to a thesis by a Doctor Wallace Williams, a name you recognize as an ancestor of yours––your great-grandfather on your father's side. From the thesis you stumbled across his diary, which you had sworn was in the family vaults. Dr Wallace was something of a family historian, he was very heavily interested in the history of the Williams clan and, specifically, the mysterious, demon-slaying progenitor from which all Williams come.

The Chainsaw, one of the first pieces of super science ever made and a legendary piece of demon-slaying equipment. While there are many chainsaws like it, this one belonged to Ashley Williams, the founder of your family. Since the days of Ashley, however, the Chainsaw––and his Boomstick for that matter, have been lost to time.

Dr Wallace dedicated his life to tracking them down, but was unfortunately unsuccessful. But now, with all his notes and his findings, you might be able to finish what your ancestor started.

With great reverence, you speak the word your family has uttered for decades before embarking on endeavors both safe and dangerous: "Groovy".

(Gained option to further research the whereabouts of Ashley Williams' weapons)
(+6 to Mental Health)

~~~~~~~

(Combat (Dagger) Training Roll DC 30: 100+10=110, success, wow, okay
54+10=64, double success
Second Roll:
18+10=28, failure, yeah, we're going with the first lmao)

You duck under slicing blades, the mad laughter of Zerada-Kil dancing in your ears as you dodge. You swipe a lock of sweat-soaked black hair from your face, tucking it back in the ponytail. You've got a long road ahead of you, but it's one you're determined to take.

(2 Successes towards Blades of the Crow II, 18 left)

~~~~~~~

It's time for the first case! The only question is… which one?

The Cases:
[ ] Sadistic Trap Making Child
[ ] Griffon Smuggling Ring
[ ] Fey Screwing Around
[ ] ???

~~~~~~~

GM's Note: I had a lot of fun writing this update, I won't lie. Voting will be called tomorrow at 6 PM CST, thanks for consuming.

You're jostled from your sleepy and absentminded sketching by the appearance of Damien in your peripheral vision, his shadow falling across your pencil and sketch paper like the moon eclipsing the early-morning sun.

You lean back in your lab's chair, blinking up through eyes encrusted by sleep as he stares back down, his scruffy stubble as scraggly as ever. "Can I help you?" You half-mutter half-mumble while you're half-asleep, yawning as you do.

"We've got a case." That has you wide awake in an instant, jerking upright in your cushioned seat. You hop up to your feet and blearily accept the lightly steaming mug of 'coffee' offered by Damien. Draining the 'coffee', which is little more than caffeine drenched sludge, in one long pull––the quicker you drink it the sooner the taste is out of your mouth. Wiping your mouth with the back of your hand, you place the mug on your desk and grab your greatcoat from the coat rack in the corner.

"What kinda case?" You ask as you slip on the heavy coat, following Damien's long strides as you do. "Any information?"

"We're heading to the briefing now, Room C. There's a consultant, a friend of mine, waiting there for us." The tall man replies as you round a corner, nearing the briefing rooms. "From what little I heard, it's something to do with a little 10-year-old kid left home alone making traps far beyond what he should be capable of."

"Capable of?" You ask, mind racing. It's possible that the kid realized a branch of super science. It happens, every once in a while, somebody somewhere stumbles across something they hadn't encountered before and it just clicks. That's one of the ways super scientists come about, the others being born with it like yourself and/or innovating in a particular branch of normal science enough that you become a super scientist. "Like, what kinda capable of are we talking here? Are we talking super science? Magic? Mutations?"

"That's what we're being sent in to figure out." Damien says as you reach Briefing Room C. He pauses at the door, hand on the latch, before adding as an afterthought, "And to do our jobs, of course, should the situation call for it."

And with that, he opens the door and the both of you enter the room.

Sitting at the head of the table is a head of greasy blonde hair casually flipping through a copy of Traps Illustrated, a scantily clad redhead pulls a switch on the cover, a caged robber looking dejected behind her. What's interesting is that the man reading the magazine seems to be, well, actually reading the articles.

He glances up as you enter, giving you a good look at his baby face and light blue eyes as you take a seat at the table. He's got a bit of grease smeared on his cheek and you notice that his hands are rough and heavily calloused. "Damien," he nods a greeting at your mentor as the tall man walks around the blond.

"Todd." Damien returns the greeting as he sits down across from you. Zerada-Kil blurs into being in the chair next to him, the little girl-like Arming Devil leans on the table with a bored look on her face. "Todd McCallister, Trap Consultant and friend of mine," Damien gestures at the now-named Todd and then directs his hand towards you, "Itzabella Williams, my mentee."

(Knowledge (Corporations) DC 65: 77, success)

McCallister… Now, why does that name ring a bell? A glimmer of memory floats up, an image of a blue placard with the words 'McCallister Home Security' planted in somebody's lawn. Oh, that's where you heard it before, well, that and that time you met one of the McCallisters at a rich person function––not a party, never a party. He was okay, a bit too obsessed with traps for your liking but, well, super scientists, what can you do?

The door opens once more and a middle-aged woman enters, a six foot scowl on her three foot body. She marches right on up to Todd, who instinctively scrambles from the seat, pulling his feet off the table in the process as she takes his spot. She wrenches the seat up and up, until she's on, roughly, equal footing with the rest of you as Todd stands off to the side. She glares at the magazine left opened on the table so hard and with such vitriol that you're half-scared that it'll ignite.

This is Senior Handler Laura Bristle, a Gnome and the lady who gives you your cases and assignments. She's a rather nice lady when she's not on the job, she even gave you a cookie once. But when she's on the job…

"We received a call from first responders requesting Service investigators to come in and take a look at a situation." Laura begins, her voice rough and gravelly from too many cigarettes. "Max Mercer, ten years old, was left home alone while the rest of his family went on vacation in Japan. The family is currently unaware of the situation. The child saw a strange car pull up in the mansion's driveway and panicked, constructing traps and defenses far beyond what a child of nine should be capable of. The people in the car, house sitters hired by the Mercers, were completely unprepared in all ways for the ordeal they were about to face. Mrs Pam McKenzie, wife of Mr Jeff McKenzie, sent a frantic call to the local police department who then called us. Max Mercer is still holed up in the mansion and has not yet communicated with the outside. Both McKenzies, while injured and traumatized, are still alive thanks to luck and quick thinking on their part. Your assignment is to determine how Max Mercer built these traps." She finishes, laying the folder on the table. "The layout of the Mercer Mansion is currently unknown, the Mercers' refused to give up the current blueprints after remodeling their home and diviners are not turning much up." You grimace, that's not good. "Mr McCallister here will assist you in dealing with the traps you encounter."

"Any questions?" Senior Handler Laura Bristle finishes speaking, her fingers laced before her.

Do you have any?
[ ] Write in, as many as you want

~~~~~~~

After the briefing, you and Damien stop off at the Armory, where Tim stands waiting with Damien's loadout ready for him.

You turn towards the Armory, thinking about what to bring with you.

"I recommend you bring some of your creations with you, a can of MSB 10 and the Infragoggles at least, perhaps a magazine or two of the Cutter Rounds, just in case things get real ugly." Damien comments as he's sliding a hefty-looking pistol into his shoulder holster and a trio of magazines on his waist.

"Probably should." You respond, making selections.

What do you choose?
[ ] Damien's Recommendation (Service Pistol, Service Knife, Handcuffs, Investigation Equipment, Lockpicks, Rubber Gloves, Evidence Baggies, One MSB 10 Can, Infragoggles, Cutter Rounds)

Or you can customize and build your own here. Same capacity as last time, save for you being able to store whatever you want in Damien's car (within reason, of course).

~~~~~~~

GM's Note: And here we go, your first case as an actual agent of the S3. Let's see how you do! Like always, voting will be called tomorrow at 6 PM CST. Thanks for reading!

"What are the occupations of the rest of the Mercers? The ones of working age at least." You offer as a question, several more circulating in the back of your head.

"The vast majority of them have senior or top-level positions in Mercer Financial, an investment company. The rest are in Mercer Security, a minor security provider for homes and competitor of my own family's company." Todd McCallister answers from his position by the wall, arms folded over and under the other. Laura nods, gesturing for you to continue.

"That's not going to get in the way, right Todd?" Damien speaks up, a narrowed look on his face as he looks at the blond. "Conflicting interests and all that."

Todd waves his hand, as if he were some great king dismissing the idea. "Of course not. Who do you take me for, a Baxter? Even if the Mercers are dicks they don't deserve a dead kid."

"Thought so, just wanted to make sure" Damien nods, accepting it and turning back as you continue your questions.

"Hobbies? Any we know of?" You ask and Laura sighs, flicking her hand towards Todd, who answers it as well.

"Never met this Max, or most of the family for that matter, but I know his parents. I went to highschool with his dad, Mike. He's a smart guy, wicked smart, but he never realized a field of super science and a developed something of a complex around super scientists cause of it. Last I spoke with the guy he hadn't changed much and didn't have many nice things to say to me. I did date the kid's mom, Carol, in college, so that might have been why he didn't like me. Carol's a fine lady, if entitled but she's been working on it last I spoke to her. She enjoys travelling, especially to Asia, possibly a bit too much." Todd finishes his winding words with a chuckle, memories he's not sharing crossing his mind. "That enough for you?"

"Yes, thank you, though I'm not done with my questions yet." Zerada-Kil wheezes, silent laughter pouring from her mouth as Laura's eye twitches. The Gnomid sighs, gesturing for you to go on.

"Do we have any details about the bills/contractors?" You ask, tapping the table and making a scribbling motion in midair. "Anything that shouldn't have been remodeled or moved?"

Laura flips open the folder, retrieving invoices and other documents. "A company by the name of Gromine Contractors remodeled the house a few years ago for a hefty price in the multimillions of dollars. And then they paid a whole lot more to keep the blueprints private, in the range of tens of millions of dollars." Back in the 2040s-2050s, the rich wanted to install magical and super science defenses into their homes. Illegal defenses, sometimes very illegal. So they lobbied the government to let them. The nascent Service of the time didn't want this to pass and heavily opposed it. Eventually, a compromise was reached where one could pay to keep blueprints private and, therefore, any illegal additions private as well. "Gromine is a crystal clear company, nothing our records have indicates anything sketchy, well, beyond the norm. If that's just how they are or if there's somebody cleaning them we don't know. Maybe one of the other agencies knows something, if they do they're not saying."

"The pair of victims, the McKenzies, would they know anything?"

"You'll have to question them to find that out. But I would assume that yes, they do know something, especially given that they were inside the building." Laura says dryly, giving you a flat stare that you shrug off, some things need to be asked.

"Any means of communication with the kid, like, a land line or something?" You question, flipping though the file.

"Police tried that when they got there, kid picked up the phone but didn't say anything––he hung up not long after. Police noted that there was something breathing on the other end of the line, deep and husky, far too deep for a child of ten." Ah, there it is, found it right as she answered. "Any more questions?"

"Yes," Laura glances towards the fluorescent-lit ceiling, a pleading look in her eyes, "it says here that the parents haven't been contacted yet, why is that?"

Damien steps in here, answering it as he crumples a cigarette butt in the ashtray on the table––a fresh one inbetween his index and middle. "So they don't make a ruckus with us getting into their home. If there wasn't an active case we'd have to get a warrant or their permission to enter their mansion. If they're hiding something they're going to try and pull out all the stops to halt us, it's just easier this way."

"Isn't that… illegal?"

"Yes, if we were the FBI, but we're not. We in the S3 are a lot more freeform and flexible when it comes to what we can and cannot do then the other alphabet soups." Zerada-Kil leans over and lights the cigarette as he places it between his lips with a snap of her fingers and a flexing of power. "There have been many times that easily solvable cases resulted in disastrous outcomes because they were stymied by angry and belligerent home owners for too long. Supreme Court gave us the go ahead when it comes to cases with limited or unkown timeframes. If it's got a known timeframe but the limit's large enough then we gotta go to court. It's a process." He huffs, a puff of smoke drifting from his mouth. "Try not to break anything when we go in, we can get hit with a hefty lawsuit if it turns out that breaking it wasn't necessary to solve the case and the Service takes a dim view on agents who do that a lot." He pierces you with a serious look before closing his eyes and going back to smoking.

"Also the fact that they're in Tokyo right now. I suspect that they're going to notice that their child isn't with them soon enough." Todd adds as you nod, pulling your next question out.

"You mentioned Diviners, was there a recon team sent in? Anything visible from the outside?" You hold up one of the pictures of the outside of the house, taken by the first responders.

"There was a team sent in for a peripheral look and were able to give a description of the entrance hall, which seems to be relatively trap free. There's a staircase leading to the second floor and, presumably, the third floor as well. There are also four doorways leading to other parts of the house, one to the north, one to the northeast, one to the east, and one to the west."

"Do we have the blueprints from before it was remodeled?"

Laura nods, tapping the folder again. "They should be in the folder. Two stories, a large attic, and a large basement."

You don't have any more questions so you thank Laura and leave with Todd and Damien.

~~~~~~~

Todd's got his own transportation, so he'll meet you two there. In the meantime, after you loaded everything up in the trunk, you're riding shotgun in Damien's Service Issue Cruiser. Literally, given the shotgun attached to the roof of the car.

"Shotgun?" You ask, staring up at the pump-action sitting in the ceiling mount as you climb into the vehicle. The vehicle, a Cruiser, is more or less what you expected from a Service vehicle––just with more cigarette butts than you thought. It's rugged, it's responsive, and can redline like nobody's business.

"Yes, a shotgun." Damien replies, buckling into his chair and his hands on the steering wheel. "It's for when I need a shotgun. And yes, I know, Zerada is capable of doing more damage than the shotgun can. There are certain situations that only a shotgun can solve and I'll be damned if I don't have one when the time comes." He finishes in a rushed huff, several puffs of smoke escaping his mouth and piling on the roof. You get the impression that he's had this exact conversation many times before and wisely choose to not touch it.

Which is why you decide to ask about his relationship with Helen instead.

(Persuasion Roll DC 85: 100, success, really?
88+0=88, double success, alrighty then)

He grips the steering wheel like it owes him money, the cigarette crunching between his clenched teeth as he stares straight forward––his eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead.

"We got together, didn't work out." He says finally, impossibly, through tightly gritted teeth. "We separated on good terms, though…" He sighs, seemingly aging twenty years right before your eyes. "Why'd we marry in the first place if she knew it wasn't going to work out?" Your Mentor mutters in a quiet voice, barely perceptible to the human ear. He laughs, a hollow, bitter thing. "Kid, take this old fuck's advice and don't date precogs, it'll leave you questioning a whole lot of things."

"I-I'll be sure to do that." You wince, grimacing in apology. "Sorry for bringing it up, I didn't know there was history like that between you two."

"It's not your fault, couldn't have known." The soul-bonded warrior sighs, breathing out a heavy puff of smoke. "She's a good woman, tries to do the right thing… but she has a bad, bad habit of not telling people what she's doing or why she's doing it."

"So, uh, what are we going to do once we get the kid?"

"Couple of options, all of which depend on the cause of the change." He turns the wheel, rounding the street corner. "If it's just a case of super science being realized, then we hand him off to the Super Science Council who'll look after him while he gets a hold on the megalomania." You nod, thinking back to your own time with them. They're decent people for the most part, if a little eccentric, but what super scientist isn't? "If it's something more insidious, like a possession or an 'imaginary friend'," Damien does little air quotes while gripping the wheel, "then we figure out if it's simply scared or genuinely malevolent. Since it hasn't killed anyone yet it might be able to be calmed down and acclimate to this world, but that's only if it isn't malevolent. If it's malevolent…" He points at the shotgun hanging from the roof. "We do our jobs and put it down, hopefully without having to bury the kid as well." The Senior Agent looks uncomfortable with that thought and quickly adds on to it. "If we have to put him to rest his family will be duly compensated and all funerary expenses will be paid for by the Service. Our primary goal here is the safety of the kid, as long as he's still able to be saved."

And with that, you fall into silence, until you pull up at the Mercer's household.

Police tape walls off the house as a small crowd has formed, kept at bay by police officers in their blue uniforms. An ambulance sits off to the side, a pair of towel-wrapped people, the McKenzies, sitting in the open back. Some of the windows of the house are shattered, the culprits a pair of buzzsaw blades lodged deep in the concrete driveway. Bright orange safety cones mark their location––specks of blood surrounding the saws more than evidence enough for the reason. You see Todd's beefy vehicle off to the side, the man himself talking to a police officer.

Damien turns to you as he shuts off the engine, elbow on the shoulder of the backrest. "I'll let you take charge here, what's the order we do things in? We can question the McKenzies, meet up with Todd for his preliminary analysis, talk with the police for their insight, take a quick peek in the house, or something else. What're we gonna do first, before we actually go in of course."

The Order (Please number these in the order you wish to do them, you also don't have to do them all, though you can)
[ ] Question the McKenzies
[ ] Todd's Preliminary Analysis
[ ] Talk to the Police
[ ] Peek inside the House
[ ] Write in

~~~~~~~

GM's Note: And here it is, you're on site and there's the case ahead of you. Voting will be called tomorrow at 6 PM CST. I've been thinking about shortening the cut-off point for voting by a bit, perhaps to 4 or 5 PM CST, what do you think?