15:32 <Crion> There will be time enough for the cemetary, and the teens. For now, an investigation of Greater Manchester's greater camera system. Aaron Aster is examining networks and infrastructure, via and thanks to the Greybox, with his newly-minted office door open. 15:32 <Crion> After all, he's constantly going to the kitchenette to refill his coffee. 15:34 <Crion> He's in his little workspace in the Greybox to be clear. The one Richard just put a roof on. Not the lab. 15:35 <tom> Bob's standing outside the door with a pained look on his face for a long time after Aster notices him. 15:35 <Crion> Aster: "Mister Goreman." 15:35 <Crion> "Step into my office." 15:35 <Crion> Christ knows he could use the distraction. 15:36 <tom> He's got his old army cap literally in his hand. 15:36 <tom> He slinks in: "Evening." 15:36 <Crion> "Stop wilting, man." 15:36 <tom> "It's so hard not to." 15:36 <Crion> "Tell me about this vampire of Willie's." 15:37 <tom> Is there a chair? Bob seems surprised, anyway: "Oh, yeah, sure, actually, yeah." 15:37 <Crion> "I'm not talking politics. Just want to know about the man." 15:38 <tom> "...You know I might not be the right person for an objective sitrep, here." 15:38 <Crion> Aster: "Of the two of you, you are." 15:38 <tom> "Christ, what a sentence." 15:39 <tom> He doesn't hem and haw: "Sergio Bonasera sliced right through my Huginn at 11:23 pm last night and implanted the mental compulsion to throw myself at four Vampire Elders before letting Willie come to harm." 15:39 <tom> "So, I guess he's legit?" 15:39 <Crion> Aster: "Well. Legitimately of the opinion that you are disposable, yes." 15:40 <tom> "Well, I am." 15:40 <Crion> "I suppose as a gesture of...valor, I suppose it's better than mind-controlling her." 15:40 <Crion> Waving a hand: "Don't be an idiot." 15:40 <tom> That gets a laugh. 15:40 <tom> "Honestly, man? Best night I've had in forever. It felt really fuckin' good dude." 15:41 <tom> "Is that all that's left? Gettin' so burned out that mind control seems pleasant?" 15:41 <Crion> "Some four thousand miles, a rough plane ride, and the consternation of the government of the United States of America argues against that. Was anyone impressed you walked in there with a shotgun fire stick? Because I bet you did, and I bet someone was." 15:42 <tom> "Man mine was like, easily the smallest there. Embarrassing. They've got ghouls with Heckler and Koch, the nice MP5's with the integral suppressors." 15:42 <Crion> He clicks out of the silly police portal for the GMP. Useless. "Predictable doesn't mean disposable, and far better men than either of us have been mind-killed by the vampires." 15:42 <Crion> "The fuck is an MP5 supposed to do to a vampire?" 15:42 <Crion> "These aren't German left-deviationists." 15:43 <tom> "From a tactical standpoint I think I get why they wouldn't give their humans vampire-killing guns." 15:43 <Crion> "From a strategic standpoint, that makes them useless against the only attackers that matter." 15:44 <tom> "Otherwise? Shit, maybe they just looked for the classiest toys and kitted 'em to look nice. You're the vampire guy!" 15:44 <Crion> Aster: "So this Sergio mind-controlled you. For justice. Somewhat tired, still contemptible. Better than him mind-controlling her, though." 15:44 <Crion> "However, I suspect he's still done that." 15:44 <tom> "Do you got a test?" 15:45 <tom> "How do you test for mind control?" 15:45 <Crion> "That's something I have to work on." 15:45 <Crion> "We had people for that at VASCU." 15:45 <Crion> "Psychiatrists." 15:45 <Crion> "I am not a psychiatrist." 15:45 <tom> "If it helps I can give you my Huginn sometime. I mean, it helps, it's just not, sorry, a silver bullet." 15:45 <tom> "Maybe you could figure out something by backsolving." 15:46 <Crion> Aster: "Well, it wouldn't matter if it was. Werewolves have retreated from this world." 15:46 <Crion> "I'll figure something out." 15:46 <tom> He's dragged a chair in from the conference area and is sitting with his arms crossed. 15:46 <Crion> "The reason I ask about this man is he sent our girl back to work with maybe half her blood left." 15:47 <Crion> "Obviously we cannot police this liaison. Willie is an adult." 15:47 <tom> "Don't you die if you lose way less than half?" 15:47 <tom> "I am obviously not in a position to criticize. Which is what I wanted to.." 15:47 <tom> He kinda scratches his neck, looks away. 15:47 <Crion> Aster: "...Yes. I was speaking...look. As a professional matter, the last week is an untenable status quo." 15:48 <tom> "Man, story of my life." 15:48 <Crion> "I've spoken to her about it." 15:48 <Crion> "Now I'm speaking to you, because you're the man that Sergio knows." 15:48 <tom> "Did you have more luck than I did?" 15:48 <Crion> Aster: "I didn't attempt to." 15:48 <Crion> "Badawi actually covered most of my objections. Made things easy." 15:49 <tom> "Ha! Wow, yeah." 15:49 <tom> "Did she tell you about.. well, it's not my business. But I get it." 15:50 <tom> "I'm sure you've noticed the teeth." 15:50 <Crion> Aster: "Sleeping with the enemy makes all of this our business. Whether Willie likes it or not." 15:50 <tom> "Strictly speaking, at this juncture Sergio is a civilian." 15:50 <Crion> Aster: "No he's not." 15:51 <Crion> "There's no such thing as a civilian anymore." 15:51 <tom> "I can show you the Army handbook if you want, it doesn't mention vampires." 15:51 <Crion> "You're not in the Army." 15:51 <Crion> "I'm not a cop." 15:51 <tom> He throws his wrist dismissively. "Yeah, yeah.." 15:52 <tom> "What do you wanna know? I didn't clock his blood type." 15:53 <Crion> Aster: "His demeanor. Him controlling you instead of her tells me something, but it can still go either way. And how old he is. I don't mean the age of his body." 15:53 <Crion> "Is he fresh to the night? Is he a weird old man that, presumably, looks like an Italian runway model?" 15:54 <tom> "He was spooked pretty bad. Willie was speaking French or something with their lizard queen." 15:54 <Crion> He makes a face. "The man hasn't bothered to learn French? He must be young." 15:55 <tom> "Impossible to guess his real age, I mean, but he quaked in his little shoes when Willie busted out with the whole pitch to his boss." 15:55 <Crion> Aster: "Is he a misogynist?" 15:56 <Crion> There's no real emotion in the delivery there, no more than any other part of this conversation. 15:56 <tom> "I don't know if I'm in a place to talk, man." He sets his jaw, furrows his brow. "Real chivalry hours I guess. That count?" 15:56 <Crion> Aster: "Put the self-effacement aside for the moment. Did he bristle at Willie using the social function for her own advancement?" 15:56 <tom> "He was scared for her." 15:57 <Crion> Aster: "Mmmm." 15:57 <Crion> He closes the laptop. "Well, there's nothing to be done about him now. At least not without her sign-off. What can I do for you, Bob?" 15:59 <tom> Oh right, yeah: "So you know what I said at the meeting about... Cheiron and aliens and... I guess it was pretty off-the-cuff." 15:59 <Crion> Aster: "It was." 15:59 <tom> "You still got your V A S C..." He's struggling. 15:59 <Crion> "Vanguard Serial Crimes Unit, VASCU." 15:59 <tom> "Yeah, you still got your file access? You got the x-files or whatever?" 15:59 <Crion> "No. But I have tricks." 16:00 <Crion> "And contacts." 16:00 <Crion> "And a powerful brain." 16:00 <tom> "What've you got on alien abductions and... like... elves?" 16:01 <tom> "It sounds insane, I know, but..." 16:02 <Crion> Aster: "You're talking about the abducted." 16:02 <Crion> "I suppose it should be a proper noun. The Abducted." 16:02 <tom> "I'm going off what I can get from wikipedia, which isn't much." 16:04 <Crion> Aster: "Well. I should hope not." 16:04 <tom> He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "Well, you know more than FORT ever gave us already. You ever read the Army reports? 'ENE-ED'. Extra-normal, Extra-dimensional." 16:05 <tom> "I've got a firsthand account if you wanna take notes." 16:05 <tom> "But there's so fucking much I don't know, and I really need to if I wanna stand a chance here." 16:07 <tom> He chews his words before speaking: "She got picked up by, well, something. Light on details here. For some reason she doesn't want to talk about it!" 16:07 <tom> "Imagine that." 16:08 <tom> "Came out all fucked up. I thought she was an alien." 16:08 <Crion> He crosses his arms. "The Abducted. They claim to have been replaced in society with cunning clones made from trash and hay, after being kidnapped by creatures from beyond the fourth dimension. We never had any evidence of the latter claim, but on at least two occasions in casefile history VASCU did attempt to effect an arrest on a 'twin' attempting to kill their 'twin' and arrived too 16:08 <Crion> late, observing through various paraphenominal lenses and recording devices a strange disposition to the corpse." 16:08 <tom> "Twin?" 16:08 <Crion> "It was a person, however." 16:08 <Crion> "We didn't interfere with prosecution." 16:09 <Crion> Aster: "A twin." 16:09 <Crion> "A person who looked like them; a fraternal or identical sibling." 16:09 <tom> "Wild." 16:10 <tom> "I guess it'd make sense," he kinda deflates. "Most people wouldn't even notice..." 16:10 <Crion> "The only difference was computational material analytics had them as some ninety five percent straw, and KirlianPlus wavelength analysis had them looking like the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz." 16:10 <tom> "Did you guys ever do any research on who was doing the grabbing?" 16:10 <Crion> Aster: "Absolutely not." 16:10 <tom> "That's the most important part!" 16:11 <tom> "Weren't you dudes trying to stop that shit!?" 16:11 <Crion> Aster: "No. The most important part is closing the case. We had a perpetrator." 16:11 <tom> Christ alive, isn't there anyone who cares: "Nice. Nice." 16:12 <tom> "Real nice." 16:12 <tom> "Well, I give a shit, so if there's anything you know.." 16:14 <Crion> Aster sighs. "You are Chief Special Agent in Charge, head of VASCU Philadelphia, and you have six new cases a night and three closures a week. When the babbling crustpunk who can slip handcuffs at will brains his brother with a crowbar, do you: detail an entire investigative unit to investigate his rantings about The Man With the Plan, who kept him in custodial custody in his labyrithine 16:14 <Crion> estate for 46 years -- mind this suspect is 25 if he's a day -- or do you move on to the creature dumping women's bodies in front of the Liberty Bell every Friday at midnight?" 16:15 <tom> He suppresses a long, angry whine. "Yeah, I get it. I do." 16:15 <tom> "It's hard when it's someone you know man." 16:15 <Crion> "That creature required three M40s." 16:15 <tom> "See, that's what I'm good at. I'm not on the intel tip. Not ADAMSKI material." 16:16 <tom> "Well, okay. There's some stuff I can give you, at least. I know they don't like iron." 16:16 <Crion> Aster: "I wasn't part of the kill team myself, either." 16:16 <Crion> He nods. "Unadulturated iron, yes. That makes sense. Another Liberty Bell interaction." 16:17 <tom> "How do you figure?" 16:20 <tom> "But yeah, I mean, right now, all I can do is go insane on top of a pile of machined wrought-iron slugs. These guys can just roll in whenever they want, wherever they want, apparently." 16:20 <Crion> "Well, previous to the Great Bell Lizard case, VASCU agents contrived to corner one of these slippery men at the bell itself. Now, the bell is some ten percent copper -- it was melted down and reforged, even before it cracked. This man said he'd sworn a contract with every tower bell in the world, and laid hands upon it, bidding it to ring for him. However he touched some of the metal around 16:20 <Crion> the bell, not the bell itself -- and that was iron." 16:21 <tom> "He catch on fire or what?" 16:21 <Crion> "After he recoiled screaming, he was tackled and arrested. Then he escaped on the ride to prison because the idiots used plastic zipties." 16:21 <tom> "Bad night for him, I guess." 16:22 <Crion> "It didn't sound particularly fun for anyone involved, but no one ate a bullet." 16:22 <tom> "'Yeah mom, can you pick me up? No, the bell was iron'." 16:22 <tom> "I guess that's what mission success looks like." 16:22 <tom> He sighs until there's no air left in his lungs. 16:22 <tom> "I'm scared, man. Hate to say it." 16:23 <Crion> Aster: "It doesn't sound like the reassurance you want is going to come out of my old casefiles." 16:23 <tom> "Maybe I can add some. I have seen some wild shit in the last two months and not all of it was on drugs." 16:24 <tom> "Obviously there's some stuff I can't talk about, like, actually can't." 16:24 <Crion> Aster: "Of course." 16:25 <tom> "What I can say is that I went into a dumpster with a sprig of pine in my pocket after doing a secret knock and ended up in Narnia, where I saw a woman made of silk kill a pig monster by slicing it in half by stepping on it." 16:25 <tom> "That is a thing that happened." 16:26 <tom> "I am in deep." 16:26 <Crion> Aster: "'Do not cite the Deep Magic to me, Witch! I was there when it was written.'" 16:26 <tom> "Yeah, like, actually." 16:27 <tom> "So this stuff is pretty close to the top of my mind." 16:27 <Crion> "Well, perhaps the lion would be trustworthy, in that narrative framework. But perhaps not." 16:28 <tom> "Would an elf analogue of Jesus be a dick, you think?" 16:28 <tom> "None of this shit makes any fucking sense of course." 16:28 <Crion> Aster: "Actual Jesus, given the Scriptures, was a dick." 16:28 <Crion> "I can't imagine this facsimile of him pissing off the Romans less." 16:28 <Crion> "And we're the Romans in this analogy." 16:28 <tom> He shakes his head. "I guess so. But yeah, if you're wondering why I'm losing my shit over here." 16:29 <Crion> Aster: "My prescription, of course, would be to simply not go to Narnia anymore." 16:29 <Crion> "I assume that's impractical." 16:30 <tom> "They seem to live and breathe that stuff. A few of them basically live there and only pop in to check on their investments." 16:30 <tom> "I'm talking about the nice ones. Haven't met the shitty ones." 16:31 <Crion> Aster: "Haven't you." 16:31 <Crion> "Well, they would be better teachers than I. All I can tell you is to take that workbench and reloading tool of yours and work some iron without heat, and figure an appropriate primer and powder." 16:32 <Crion> "And get a knife." 16:32 <tom> "I've got it worked out. Back half of the slugs are copper, the iron deforms out the barrel without heat." 16:32 <Crion> Aster blinks. "If that satisfies the compositional requirements, then excellent." 16:32 <tom> "I'm gonna cold-hammer some knuckledusters I think." 16:32 <Crion> "Difficult to test." 16:33 <tom> "Yeah I'm not sure how to do that without capping someone I don't wanna." 16:33 <Crion> "Sounds like there's an excellent supply of pigs, if they allow you to pass through." 16:34 <Crion> "We know matter transposes wherever they go." 16:34 <Crion> "If only because their clothes don't just stay in a heap on the floor." 16:34 <tom> Bob blushes. 16:35 <tom> Moving on, quickly: "I'll work out what I can do. I might need help if shit gets tough. Or maybe I should just die so you guys don't have to bite it with me." 16:35 <tom> "I'm getting the feeling these guys are as bad news as it gets." 16:36 <tom> "I guess the best info I can give you is that, yeah, those guys are still looking for their runaways. And obviously, it's not good when they find one." 16:36 <Crion> Aster turns back to his computer. "Don't come to me for advice or information if the lesson you're going to take away from it is that you're better off dead." 16:37 <Crion> "And if that's just something you say to fill dead air, I don't appreciate it." 16:37 <tom> "I'm just working the problem." He does seem to be turning it over in his mind as he speaks. "It's just... you ever wonder what we were even doing?" 16:38 <Crion> Aster: "No." 16:38 <tom> "Really?" 16:38 <Crion> "I always knew precisely what I was doing." 16:38 <Crion> "Even when it wasn't the right thing." 16:38 <tom> "Shit, man..." 16:38 <tom> "Sorry. Yeah, I think I get it." 16:40 <tom> He steadies himself, stands. "When I figure out how to drop one of these things, you'll be the first to know. Might actually do some good for once if your buddies know." 16:40 <tom> "I gotta go. Need to get some actual sleep tonight, getting up early to cook breakfast. It's exam day." 16:41 <Crion> Aster: "Take care of yourself." 16:41 <Crion> "And stay in touch." 16:41 <tom> "Same to you," He manages to stop himself from saluting the guy, at least. And he's gone.