Interval 61: Damp Pursuit
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Ninara's ex was snooping around. Catch up before she can go too far.
"Didn't you say that student who was poking around in here was Ninara's ex?" She's already gone, but she can't have gone far.
"You think Shenla had something to do with it?" asks Selko.
"She was up to something in here and she knew the victim. She definitely knows more than we do. Let's find out what."
"Well I can look up her contact-"
"No, if she's involved she knows she's potentially under investigation, we need to move quickly. Juketta, could you hold things here?" Your friend nods and you dart outside with Reizay, Selko and Jessica in alarmed tow.
"Are we just going to chase her down?" asks Jessica.
You try to keep your voice calm and give an intellectual explanation for the two academics. "It's possible that she's one of the people who is covering this up. Dating someone is a classic way for a surveillance agent to get close."
"You think that she– Oh!" Selko nods and her poise returns a little. "I always thought she was a bit fishy, going after Ninara like that!"
At the end of the hallway you see Shenla's frilly white swimsuit vanishing through a doorway. You race to the exit and see her outside, picking briskly between puddles and sheets of rain breaching the shields. The noise of the crowd is rising. You estimate thousands of people now, no longer just students, standing in the rain as speakers yell at them. She's headed towards it and its anonymising mass.
She looks behind her as she moves, sees the four of you, tries to play it cool a moment and then dashes round the corner. You pursue, feeling subtly elated. You've spent the whole day dealing with politics and forgotten faces and now ancient academia. This kind of thing though, is something you know.
She darts into the edge of the crowd and you move to try to keep up with her. <<Reizay, you got her?>>
<<I'm into some cameras. I've got an overhead view.>> Reizay drops a red highlight into your vision, that picks out Shenla behind the press of bodies. She's trying to lose you but you get the impression she's not had good escape and evasion training because she keeps glancing up, which lets the cameras reacquire her, and she's having as much difficulty navigating the crowd as you are. A moment's bad luck with a conga line carrying some kind of giant worm puppet has you in striking distance.
"Hey-" you reach out a hand. She turns. She seems startled for a moment then frowns, as if she's figured out something unpleasant. She begins to back off, then sees Jessica pulling up behind. She half-glares, half-sneers at you and then calls to the crowd.
"Hey! Isn't that Jessica? From Archaeo-shorts?"
Someone looks around: "Wait, the source of the footage?"
Mara, you bitch. It's a pointless thought. It would have been impossible to edit Jessica out and she'd never have done so. It makes you worry. Even if you did the same thing, made the exact same calculation. That it would be all but impossible to remove Jessica without making the images a totally unconvincing medley.
Everyone nearby turns. And then everyone near them, in a wave of recognition and implosion travelling through the dynamics of the crowd. As everyone else steps forward to see the celebrity of the hour Shenla steps back and vanishes behind the press.
You mutter something foul, try to press after her, glance behind you to see the other three hopelessly trapped and give up on them. You set your feet properly, turn your shoulder and apply some real force to break through. You spot her again in the mass; she's moving toward the far edge. Fragments of noise crowd around you.
"-mercs are claiming they were attacked, bullshit-"
"-saying there's been tremors reported around a lot of big deep o- uh, Nereidi temples-
"-Chrysanthemum are clearly working with the River to start this war, there's only one ruling class-"
"-put that worm puppet away, this action isn't about the fucking worms-"
<<Reizay, do you have her?>>
<<No, but she can't have moved far. I've got angles on all the perimeter.>>
Behind you, you hear Jessica speak up. "Please! I'll speak! I'll tell you what happened at the temple. What's really going on!" She's linked into the speaker somehow. She's managing to sound confident. She's good at this.
"Get her up on the platform!" someone calls.
<<All quiet here,>> says Juketta. <<Except Academician Menti just came in. She seems rather annoyed to have company and she's pretending to have work to do.>>
Reizay gets a good match and the highlight comes back, flickering on and off, uncertain. You home in towards it. She glances back, and maybe sees you in the ocean of pale students, then redoubles her pace, reaching into her cleavage for something that twitches and unfolds in her hands.
<<Gun.>> Reizay says.
You escape the press and see her in the flesh again, ducking into a door and brushing past a pair of students with hasty apologies that you repeat as you step past yourself. Where's she gone? You're in a hallway. Displays of cutaway machinery and vehicles grace the walls and ceiling. A recruitment reel from an offworld industrial federation. You hear footsteps down a side corridor, she's no good at moving quietly. You follow and see nobody. It's a deserted part of the building. But one door has been pushed open.
You approach. On the far side there's a small room stacked with pallets with all the varied junk of an engineering department and on the far side a door to a waterlogged garden. There's also a perfect dead space you can't see on the inside of the door. And the faint whine that takes a moment to identify. Some kind of multi-action stunner. You're briefly surprised it's not something more serious, but with no true resurrection, life is more precious here.
She doesn't say anything but you know exactly where she is, held inside the door, having decided to fight rather than run. The moment you step through that door it'll be on between you.
The chase is over, one way or another.
[ ] Slam the door open into your quarry and disarm her.
[ ] "I know you're behind the door. I just want to talk. About what happened to your girlfriend."
[ ] "We know you're behind the door. We have people covering the routes out. Put the weapon down and nobody has to get hurt."
"Didn't you say that student who was poking around in here was Ninara's ex?" She's already gone, but she can't have gone far.
"You think Shenla had something to do with it?" asks Selko.
"She was up to something in here and she knew the victim. She definitely knows more than we do. Let's find out what."
"Well I can look up her contact-"
"No, if she's involved she knows she's potentially under investigation, we need to move quickly. Juketta, could you hold things here?" Your friend nods and you dart outside with Reizay, Selko and Jessica in alarmed tow.
"Are we just going to chase her down?" asks Jessica.
You try to keep your voice calm and give an intellectual explanation for the two academics. "It's possible that she's one of the people who is covering this up. Dating someone is a classic way for a surveillance agent to get close."
"You think that she– Oh!" Selko nods and her poise returns a little. "I always thought she was a bit fishy, going after Ninara like that!"
At the end of the hallway you see Shenla's frilly white swimsuit vanishing through a doorway. You race to the exit and see her outside, picking briskly between puddles and sheets of rain breaching the shields. The noise of the crowd is rising. You estimate thousands of people now, no longer just students, standing in the rain as speakers yell at them. She's headed towards it and its anonymising mass.
She looks behind her as she moves, sees the four of you, tries to play it cool a moment and then dashes round the corner. You pursue, feeling subtly elated. You've spent the whole day dealing with politics and forgotten faces and now ancient academia. This kind of thing though, is something you know.
She darts into the edge of the crowd and you move to try to keep up with her. <<Reizay, you got her?>>
<<I'm into some cameras. I've got an overhead view.>> Reizay drops a red highlight into your vision, that picks out Shenla behind the press of bodies. She's trying to lose you but you get the impression she's not had good escape and evasion training because she keeps glancing up, which lets the cameras reacquire her, and she's having as much difficulty navigating the crowd as you are. A moment's bad luck with a conga line carrying some kind of giant worm puppet has you in striking distance.
"Hey-" you reach out a hand. She turns. She seems startled for a moment then frowns, as if she's figured out something unpleasant. She begins to back off, then sees Jessica pulling up behind. She half-glares, half-sneers at you and then calls to the crowd.
"Hey! Isn't that Jessica? From Archaeo-shorts?"
Someone looks around: "Wait, the source of the footage?"
Mara, you bitch. It's a pointless thought. It would have been impossible to edit Jessica out and she'd never have done so. It makes you worry. Even if you did the same thing, made the exact same calculation. That it would be all but impossible to remove Jessica without making the images a totally unconvincing medley.
Everyone nearby turns. And then everyone near them, in a wave of recognition and implosion travelling through the dynamics of the crowd. As everyone else steps forward to see the celebrity of the hour Shenla steps back and vanishes behind the press.
You mutter something foul, try to press after her, glance behind you to see the other three hopelessly trapped and give up on them. You set your feet properly, turn your shoulder and apply some real force to break through. You spot her again in the mass; she's moving toward the far edge. Fragments of noise crowd around you.
"-mercs are claiming they were attacked, bullshit-"
"-saying there's been tremors reported around a lot of big deep o- uh, Nereidi temples-
"-Chrysanthemum are clearly working with the River to start this war, there's only one ruling class-"
"-put that worm puppet away, this action isn't about the fucking worms-"
<<Reizay, do you have her?>>
<<No, but she can't have moved far. I've got angles on all the perimeter.>>
Behind you, you hear Jessica speak up. "Please! I'll speak! I'll tell you what happened at the temple. What's really going on!" She's linked into the speaker somehow. She's managing to sound confident. She's good at this.
"Get her up on the platform!" someone calls.
<<All quiet here,>> says Juketta. <<Except Academician Menti just came in. She seems rather annoyed to have company and she's pretending to have work to do.>>
Reizay gets a good match and the highlight comes back, flickering on and off, uncertain. You home in towards it. She glances back, and maybe sees you in the ocean of pale students, then redoubles her pace, reaching into her cleavage for something that twitches and unfolds in her hands.
<<Gun.>> Reizay says.
You escape the press and see her in the flesh again, ducking into a door and brushing past a pair of students with hasty apologies that you repeat as you step past yourself. Where's she gone? You're in a hallway. Displays of cutaway machinery and vehicles grace the walls and ceiling. A recruitment reel from an offworld industrial federation. You hear footsteps down a side corridor, she's no good at moving quietly. You follow and see nobody. It's a deserted part of the building. But one door has been pushed open.
You approach. On the far side there's a small room stacked with pallets with all the varied junk of an engineering department and on the far side a door to a waterlogged garden. There's also a perfect dead space you can't see on the inside of the door. And the faint whine that takes a moment to identify. Some kind of multi-action stunner. You're briefly surprised it's not something more serious, but with no true resurrection, life is more precious here.
She doesn't say anything but you know exactly where she is, held inside the door, having decided to fight rather than run. The moment you step through that door it'll be on between you.
The chase is over, one way or another.
[ ] Slam the door open into your quarry and disarm her.
[ ] "I know you're behind the door. I just want to talk. About what happened to your girlfriend."
[ ] "We know you're behind the door. We have people covering the routes out. Put the weapon down and nobody has to get hurt."
