Session 96: Extracurricular activities
Play date: January 14, 2017
In-game date: April 3, EY219
Location: The abandoned Jejaeso Lumber Mill, Daebak, in the Aiscapo system
Previous events: Bishop and Whang have lots of really good sex. Oh, and some experiments with the black slime.
If the gang is going to break into the University's Department of Xenobiology and Xenotechnology and steal some phat lewt they'll wait until the sun goes down and there are very few people on campus, but not go so late that anyone wandering around would be suspicious. Leaving at 7pm would let them get there at 9pm, which sounds perfect.
With five hours to kill Jillian asks the Grob more about the invasion of their home system. Now that the Song and the black slime are definitely connected maybe she can get some more information from the Grob that she missed before? Sadly, that's not the case. The Iof's crew were on the edge of the system and couldn't make out many of the details, though the fact that some of the Grob ships attacked others is in keeping with the current D'vor strategy.
Malcolm uses the Iof's comms to listen in on what is being said on many frequencies but there's nothing too interesting going on. The navy isn't mentioning the D'vor, which may be good or bad. Like many big cities Wonju doesn't have very good radio stations and he spends a fair amount of time hopping frequencies, bored. He eventually takes Xao's luxurious car for a ride. The Resplendent Dragon's captain might be a spoiled rich kid but damn, he has nice cars.
Volkova spends more time poking around the Iof and continues to be impressed with the way that the Grob managed to mesh their technology with the advanced D'vor machinery. The way that the D'vor ship is built in a modular way is also mindblowing. By swapping out components between systems it's possible to change the performance of the ship severalfold. It's just amazing. Some of the technology -- like the invisible field that provides additional protection and the beam weapons -- operates on mechanics that's hard for Volkova to get her head around. With Vob's help she figures it out and manages to think of some ways to counteract these capabilities.
Bishop spends his time showing the Grob photos of Whang and teaching them more specifically what "hot" means. He's told them before but now he has the ne plus ultra of the term to show them. Although they're attentive they don't exhibit any real attraction to Whang. He might as well be teaching them what "warden" means. Still, he's happy to educate them in important human terms and concepts.
Seo and Xao spend their time chatting. It's been a while since they've spent any time together -- pretty much the longest time they spent with each other was on the Resplendent Dragon before he turned her over to Hoax -- and with everything that they've been up to separately an exchange of information is useful. He's not used to the sort of verbal jabs that are Seo's stock in trade but he's got the social smoothness to roll with it. For her part Seo's sad that Xao's not up for some conversational sparring.
As 7pm approaches and everyone preps for their raid Jillian talks to Vob, who's been in the guts of the Iof with Volkova for most of the day. She apologizes for the time, long ago [session 29!], when she was terrified by the Grob climbing into bed with her. Vob is fine with it -- it's the Grob equivalent of water under the bridge -- but hints that another piece of art would be appreciated if she feels bad. Jillian finds it cute that a Grob is trying to manipulate her psychologically. They're so bad at it! Vob excitedly takes her into the Iof and shows here where another of her works would best fit.
When the two exit the Iof everyone's waiting for them and the Steel Hummingbird's crew is soon on the road with Seo. Xao opts to stay behind, joking that if they get caught he'll just say that his car was stolen.
It's dark when they pull up to one of the gates of Aiscapo University, choosing one that's not got any of Alexei Rusanov's sculptures. Jillian's always got mixed feelings about returning to the school she was expelled from and later caught vandalizing while drunk but coming here to steal something helps. Malcolm parks very close to the gate but in shadows as much as possible; Xao's limo is fancy enough to stand out anywhere. Not the ideal getaway vehicle!
AU (as it's known) is an urban university with a dense campus and a reasonable amount of traffic for 9pm on a weeknight. They all know where they're going and Volkova splits up from the group for the trip. They might pass for grad students but she'll most likely be taken for a member of the janitorial staff and it would be odd to be seen walking with them. Everyone's got student-like backpacks. They get to the department's building without any troubles. Malcolm acts as a lookout, finding a bench with a nearby lamppost and pulling out a book to read ("The Rings: Piccadilly's Grandest and Most Beautiful Mystery, by Imogen Eunice Pimperton-Noseworthy, GCB VA SLPM"). It's autumn but not so cold yet as to make reading on a bench stand out.
The others approach the building. It's brick, five stories tall and fairly long and narrow. They've been there before and know that the basic layout on each floor is a central hallway that runs the long axis of the building with rooms on either side. The small museum is on the ground floor, but they're not interested in it. Bishop got a feel from one of the pieces on display but they were later told that only replicas were to be found there. The top floor is where the real stuff is stored, according to Seo.
There is an elevator and stairwell by the front door, but that's too well lit and too exposed. Climbing the rough brick exterior is a possibility but the consequences for falling are severe and if seen there's really no way to talk their way out of it. They opt for the rear door and the interior fire escape. Sneaking over to it, Volkova and her tools have no problems with the door's lock -- this is a university, not a bank. Inside, they close and lock the door and tiptoe up the stairs after pulling pantyhose over their faces. Everyone in the building is quite accomplished at sneaking, all except Seo. Despite her diminutive size she walks like an elephant in comparison to everyone else and they decide that Volkova will piggyback her up the stairs. She's so light that Volkova honestly doesn't feel the extra weight and Seo is willing to swallow her pride for the sake of the mission. Her climbing skills help her hang on.
Floor after floor passes in quiet. The doors between the stairwell and corridors have enough space that they can see that the lights are on. When they get to the top floor Jillian oils the hinges so that the door opens as quietly as possible and slowly pulls it open.
There's a university guard sitting with his arms crossed on a chair halfway down the hall, and all the stealthy maneuvering and oiled hinges don't do them any good when the guard happens to be looking directly at them as the door opens!
Volkova sprints past everyone else and is a thundering mass powering down the hallway towards the guard as he starts to get up from his chair and put a whistle to his lips. Everyone else can only watch tensely as Volkova tries to get there in time.
She makes it. Her strength excels at dashing in straight lines and just before the whistle is at his lips she crashes into the guard, smashing him off the chair and landing on top of him in a crushing embrace. The air knocked out of him, he surrenders in a pained whisper. He's quickly bound and gagged before Seo points at the otherwise unmarked door that holds the collections. There's no need to pick its lock: the guard helpfully has a ring of keys on his belt and they're soon in the collections room. The guard is dragged in and unceremoniously piled into a corner, his face to the wall, in the small room through a doorway with filing cabinets. He can't see what they're doing and if they keep their voices down he can't hear them either. Bishop stuffs some fabric from a roll into the gap under the door so no light spills into the hallway.
Seo wasn't often involved with the collections but was in here enough to know how it's organized. It's by the location where the objects were found, not usefulness or assumed function, so there's a lot of going through the filing cabinets for information -- while trying not to step on the guard -- and a lot guessing as to what is most promising. Many of the notes are by Mi Kyong Choi, who used to work here before being arrested and sent to Crapworld. Most everything's in boxes and they're shoved into everyone's backpacks along with documentation.
Outside, Malcolm notices a guard approach the back door of the building and try the handle before unlocking it and heading inside. Not sure what to do, Malcolm waits a bit to see if the guard is just briefly checking things out and will exit soon. Unfortunately for the crew inside, the guard makes his way straight up to the top floor, where the valuable collection is. On the top floor, the new guard makes no attempt to be quiet as he tromps down the hall and the Hummingbird's crew inside the collections room hears him.
Stopping by the empty chair where the guard that Volkova barrelled into usually sits, the guard stops and mutters something to himself, then clicks on the crackling walkie-talkie that he's carrying and informs the central security office that the guard here is missing.
Once it's obvious that the guard isn't going to leave, Jillian oils the door's hinges and opens it silently. Volkova waiting and sees the guard in the corridor with his back to her, receiving a message from campus security that they're sending someone else over and to keep checking things out. As soon as he signs off Volkova's all over him and he's quickly rendered unconscious.
There's no time to hang out now that more guards are on their way. Anything that looks vaguely useful is shoved into backpacks and everyone runs down the stairs.
Certain that the guard has been in there too long to be only checking out the ground floor, Malcom opts for the distraction that broken glass provides. He picks up a nearby rock and whips it through a window on the ground floor, then heads off to the car to start it up for their getaway. The rest of his team inside hears the noise, but it's come too late to help them and they're already heading down the stairs.
Another security guard, heading towards the Department of Xenobiology and Xenotechnology building, stops Malcolm and asks him if he has noticed anything. He tells her that there were some suspicious people skulking about over by the Rusanov dolphin sculptures and says so convincingly enough that the guard thanks him and heads off away from his friends while he continues to the car.
Leaving the building the crew splits up like before and they make their way to the getaway vehicle unnoticed by any other guards. They pile into Xao's family's car and Malcolm smoothly pulls away from the curve and drives back to the lumber mill. Everyone's pretty pleased with not getting caught, but they wish they'd had more time in the collections room. Ah well, their haul will hopefully provide some useful tech.
It's well after midnight when Malcolm pulls into the lumber mill's yard and drives into the main building. They're pretty jazzed to have so much stuff to go through and with the help of Vob and Chig they figure out what they can about their treasure. Most of it is chaff, as they thought it would be, broken and useless. There are four types of useful tech, though:
Twiglike stuff that Mi Kyong Choi used on Crapworld to control the beasts there -- much the same as she used, but some of the stolen notes have her musing about using them in strong artificial magnetic fields on people.
"Lenses": Four soapstone-like things that fit into one's palm. When Malcolm takes one from its box and holds it in his hand Bishop and Volkova hear an agonizing screeching in their brains that lasts until Malcolm puts it down. Strangely, once he picked it up he had no desire to put it down; he wasn't paralyzed, but really didn't feel the need to.
"Hedgehog": A spiky thing, like a rolled-up hedgehog. An electrical field (even from a human body) lets it make a dim blue light. Volkova determines this is low-energy Cherenkov radiation; dangerous only if there is long-term exposure. The little spikes can be removed and glow independently. Volkova thinks that the strength and wavelength of the glow depends on the strength of the electromagnetic field and that it would be trivial to make a detector that would pick up the range of radiation that these things put out even from a fair distance.
A knot of tubes about 40cm on a side; very light and they alway feels warm. Twisting the knot into different configurations makes it hotter or warmer. The hottest they can get it is around 100ºC.
Although these items might be useful, it's obvious from the notes that the most promising things were taken by Hoax. So it's not just beer money that Hoax takes...
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Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: 0, tragically (running total: 25)
Jillian's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 4)
Malcolm's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 13)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 6)