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A few minutes later people are collected in the news room.

OOC: Did someone want to coral Nick there to?  If so it's easily done and he's there.

In the library, Donnie throws his stuff into his battered backpack and shuts off the palmtop, quietly muttering the incantation that magically locked the encrypted files. He hurries out the door, pausing as the Geometry teacher came strolling down the hall, before heading up to the newsroom.

Yes, please.  Send Dave or Greg.

Sammy comes into the room bracketed by Sylvia and John, her buffer zone for now. Though she's relieved to know that she wasn't doing what people think she was doing, her mind seizes up every time she tries to think about what happened to Nick and possibly to Elrod, and what that might imply.  Elrod broke one kind of rule; Nick broke another. And they both believe...

Sarah walks in leading Elrod.  She salutes the two girls and John.  "So what's the story Sammy?"

Sammy's face is blotchy with emotion. "Somebody's pretending to be me," she says sadly, "and they're messing with the people around me."

"And whoever it is can make someone think they're going for fries when they're walking off a roof."  Sylvia frowns at that, as if she's taking it personally.  "Who's got a grudge against Sammy?"

"Oh fantastic," offers Sarah, "As if there aren't enough head games going on in high school as it is." 

She looks at Elrod and says, "I think something similar was just happening to Elrod.  He was heading outside when I called him and he couldn't remember why."

Sammy stares at her toes and mumbles.  "El, your sister has been telling people that she saw you and I have sex last night.  Thing is, I wasn't there.  There's another rumor going around that Nick and I had sex last night.  I wasn't there for that either.  Somebody else got a phone call from my home phone, a phone call I never made.  I was in the city, with the Usual Suspects, fighting a mummy at the museum, then watching Jack interview a vampire in the early evening.  It wasn't me."  She slumps a little closer to Sylvia.  "It wasn't me."

Colin frowns.

"Maybe not a grudge against Sammy. If someone wanted to hurt her, I think I'd pick it up. Maybe this is someone who -envies- Sammy."

He squints, and looks at Sammy, Nick and Elrod with his ghost sight. Maybe they still have traces of this manipulation upon them.

Donnie listens in, then checks the three of them for traces of magic hoodoo.

Elrod takes a seat after Sammy proclaims 'it wasn't me.'  he looks a little pale. 

Nick and Elrod have no magic mojo on them, but there is something that Colin's ghost site shows as a 'blotch' on their aura.  Like a disruption in the normal flow of the color. 

Sarah looks at Sammy with a thought.  "Maybe you should check in with your family while you're at it.  Just make sure they're all okay?  Maybe find out if "you" were home last night and if you did anything strange.  Like maybe you forgot your keys and had to be let in the house?"

To everyone she asks, "So... how do we find whoever is doing this?"

Sammy hadn't made the connection between Whoever being in her house and Whoever interacting with her family, leaving behind who knows what kind of "presents" with them or her other friends.  Considering what happened with Nick and Elrod... what might have happened with John... this makes her turn a greenish pale color.  Nobody would have thought her expression could be filled with more pain, but somehow, it happens.

"My sister.  Somebody find my sister.  She's probably in the cafeteria.  She'll know if I was "off" last night.  Oh gosh... if this person was in my house, she could have left stuff behind to get me in trouble, if whoring around wasn't enough to get me punished forever.  Colin?  Your mom's friend?  Call him.  I want my house searched."  Her eyes fly madly around the room, and come to rest on a Sharpie pen.  She grabs it up, and waves it around a little wildly.  "Somebody draw something on the back of my head, on my skin, where I can't see it and nobody will know to look for it -- she can't copy what she doesn't see, right?"  Then another thought occurs to her.  She pulls her shirt however she has to do it to reveal the "Colin" tattoo, and shows it to both Nick and Elrod.  "This.  Did she have this tattoo?"

"She's a mentalist, I think," Sylvia says.  "If I understand what she's doing, it means that it's not so much that she's turning into you as that she's making people think they see you.  A tattoo won't help.  If we know it's there, we'll see what we expect to see."

The pen drops out of Sammy's hand and rattles onto the floor.  "Oh," she says softly.

Sarah asks, "Instead of a mark what if we have a code phrase?  And..."  

And now the paranoia kicks in...

"And how do we know everyone in this room is really themselves?  If Sylvia can detect the real us then that's something but... oh this is already making my head hurt."  She rubs her temples with a sigh.  "Sylvia?  It takes a little while to get specific information about people doesn't it?  Especially if they don't want to give up the goods?  Would we notice someone messing with our heads?"

She brightens up a bit when she says, "Oh and we're rude huh?  I guess Dave and Greg will have to make our apologies to that new guy Jakob.  I'll bring him some cookies for next lunch time."

"Good idea," Sylvia says, staring at the floor and chewing her lip.  If Smith were here. . . .

If Smith were here, he'd find this mentalist in a heartbeat and pave over all the wrinkles in her cerebral cortex with a thought.  But he's not, and Sylvia's not quite sure she has the juice to do this, but she has to try.

She's sure Sammy is Sammy, so she keeps it between them.  I can try to set up a kind of silent alarm, something that'll notify you when you're being tampered with.

"Uhmm..."

He steps closer to give it a better look. Does it look like something that could be fixed? He rubs his thumb on Nick's cheek, trying to make it go away.

Nick looks at Elrod.  The two boys share a strange moment that only two guys who found out they had sex with the same girl on the same night can have.  They don't say it in perfect harmony, but it's still got an erie effect.  "No."

Sammy pushes her clothing back where it belongs.  She can't meet either boy's eyes.  "You've both seen it before, but you still thought the person last night was me," she says, in a tone that sounds like she's delivering news of a death in the family.  "She must have put on a really good act.  Good enough that the whole school believes it now, and they always will."

Sammy turns away, and moves slowly back to a spot near Sylvia and Sarah.

Sammy's statement makes both of them uncomfortable.  When Colin tries to 'fix' the blotch on Nick's aura he realizes it's not something that can be fixed, it's not a flaw so much as the residue of interacting with another aura.  An aura that's not perhaps on the same 'wavelength'.

Nick turns a bright shade of red and leaves the room.  John looks at Sammy and then follows him.

Elrod just shakes his head, "It was more than that.  You..."  He stops himself, "She knew just what to say, and that smell.  That smell you have about you, like right after it rains.  And she kissed the way you kiss.  I didn't really think about your tattoo, And what's all this about my sister catching us?  No one was home, She's off on some trip to Seattle with her Economics class."

"Well that's something.  So whoever this is can't imitate a mystical tattoo.  So at least we can always tell the real Sammy and Colin.  But why would whoever mess with Sammy's life?"  She looks with a bit of concern at her friend.  "I mean other than it's pick on a Samantha Jameson week.  Sorry I forgot to get you a card."  

She shrugs and says, "I mean, okay she's dating Elrod and he's cute and loaded and popular... so that's a pretty good reason right there.  Is whoever trying to ruin your rep or just out having fun with other people's lives?  Maybe they're after Nick.  We can play along and hope to catch them when they swoop in to get together with one of the boys or we can go hunting.  Search for other odd behaviors or weird rumors."

Sylvia tries to narrow Sarah's suggestions down.  "Give us your short list of enemies, Sammy, someone who'd have cause to hate just you and not all of us.  Someone who seemed jealous?  Someone you traded ugly stares with?"  She looks at Elrod.  "And has anyone in particular been after you?  Did you turn some girl down because you were dating Sammy?"

Sammy still can't meet Elrod's eyes.  She hugs herself tightly.  "John heard both sets of rumors.  He said one got started by your sister telling somebody that she walked in on you and me.  Maybe that person pretended to be Lisa too."  She pauses.  "The smell.  Maybe its another djinn.  You know the stories about genies granting wishes, but never, ever for free?  It always backfires unless the wish is carefully phrased.  Well you guys each got to sleep with the version of me that would say and do what you wanted, and guess what?  Kaboom."


Sammy replies, "We already shut her down, unless she had some powerful friends left behind.  Or unless it wasn't her that got taken down, but some puppet in her place."

"Torrance?"  Sylvia's brown eyes go almost black.  "I'll check on her."

"I don't want one that says..."  He stops, "Point taken."  And then Elrod gets up and leaves. 

OOC: Because I'm evil I need a fate roll from Sammy.

OOC: Fate roll. (1d20=14) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1786220/)

She whispers "Goodbye."  The way she says it sounds like she's tossing a rose on a coffin.

OMFG! (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1786222/)

There is a crashing sound that reaches the space you're in, and someone sets off the fire alarms.

Sammy's head jerks up.  "OMFG!  What was that?"  She takes off at a run to find out what is happening.

"Or maybe this was just the first round," mutters Sarah.  She calls as she heads for the door, "Be careful and watch your backs!"  Once outside she will port for the source.  John will no doubt already be there cleaning up the mess.  

OOC: Any chance we can immediately discern the direction or cause of the noise?  JIC
Notice Check (1d20 8=23) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1786258/)

The source of the noise was something crashing through a few of the walls from the lunch room.  There is a panic in the North Cafeteria (where you guys eat lunch) and people are running in a panic.

When you arrive in the room you need a little height (fly or table) to see over the masses of people running from the room.  Sammy and Sylvia.....yes, Sammy and Sylvia are screaming at each other and it's obvious that there is a hole in the wall that leads back into the main part of the school.  From the looks of the damage it came from near the girls, and tore through the walls and chewed up the floor.

Sylvia: "Did you fuck him too?"  Her voice has a harsh edge.

Sammy: "And what if I did?  I don't know what your fucking problem is, but you need to stop killing all the boys I have sex with!"

Sylvia:  "Don't blame me just because they all have minds with the consistency of Jello!"

Lots of heads do a double take when they see Sammy and Sylvia race into the cafeteria to see the trouble.  Lots of heads snap back and forth.

OOC: New Thread Time.