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On Thursday evening, Colin drops by Sylvia's. He takes a moment to look at Kel's empty house, thinking of what his friend his facing now, and of how he misses his practical approaches.

He tries to think aloud at her, but if it doesn't work, he calls her.

"Syl? I'm just below your window. Can you get me in, a take a walk out? I've got something to show you."

"I think I've seen everything you've got, Full Monty."

"Oh, God and Great Spirit. Why must everything be so difficult with you? It's serious. I just got a corpse out of the school's tennis court, and it's too cold here for me to want to show anything but my face. Cold isn't a boy's best friend."

"You got a corpse out of the tennis court?  What?"  Suddenly Sylvia's serious.  "Hang on."  She trots downstairs and opens the door for him, admitting him into the house's gingerbread-scented warmth.  "What's this about a corpse?"

Colin gets in rubbing his hands, with a folder tucked under his arm.

"It's a long story." Colin grabs a chair and explains her hoe he and Sarah wanted to investigate a bit, and how they asked for Mr Heep's help.

"Only, we didn't find anything related to the sleep gas or to the the robots, but we found some new mysteries instead."

He explains her of the futuristic gun pieces, and how they got handled by the love goo guys, and then he starts the long story about the camera.

"So I asked a spirit friend of mine if Tom Renquist was dead or alive. Unfortunately he was dead, and had been for a long time."

He explains what Tom's ghost told him, and how they looked for his corpse. Then how he thinks everything leads back to Vandross again.

"Now I'm afraid that when he'll know tom has been found, he'll know we got quite close to him, and he'll stay on guard. We have to act quickly. So I've got a couple favors to ask you."

Sylvia nods.  "Okay."  She's waiting to hear what they are.

"There are a couple things that I don't think I can but I think you could.

First: the love goo guys. I know where they're held. If you could get there and read their minds, or just put them in a confessing mood, we'd know what else they're involved with besides the love goo.

Second:" He opens the folder "Spark. He tried to kill Megan and to exploit Velocity. He gave people a special flavor of the superman drug that made them super fast. And since Vandross is related to the whole superman traffic, he might know something about him. According to Greg, he is one of these three guys. We owe it to Megan to find out who he is. But he's got electric powers, and he's ruthless. No one of us should go alone after him."

"Okay.  Yeah, I think I can do that if someone can get me into the facility.  You think Chris would help?"


"Okay," she says again.  "Where do we start looking?"

"Here's the problem. Chris can't help us. He said they've got their lawyers and parents around. They have confessed they made the gas by themselves, but he's not too sure it's true."


Colin looks at the three guys in the folder, and hopes the universe helps him choose the right one. it would save them time.

"We start from this one." He says picking the one in the middle. "Who do we call as back up?"

"The problem is that I can get past people, but I can't get past electronics."  She thinks it through.  "I can reach out to you guys without seeing you, but that might have something to do with how well we know each other and the fact that you're not blocking me.  I don't know.  I know it can be done.  I know that a strong telepath can do it.  But I don't know if I'm strong enough."


"We need someone who can take a shock.  John?"

[Sorry, Kat.  :)  ]

"Donnie is good at spells about electronics. We might ask him if he come up with something." Colin offers.



[It kinda defeats the point of trying to involve more PCs into the investigations but I can't object to it.]

"Sure."

"Good idea."  She looks at the inlaid mosaic clock on the wall, something Mitzi had out in the garden in the summer.  "It's late.  Should we go talk to him now?"


"What's the plan?  We're not going to stage an attack, are we?  If we are, we should call the others."

"I'm not sure how long it takes him to whip out a new spell. And I dunno how long they'll keep the guys there. But you're right, it's late. Talk to him tomorrow."


"Not until we're sure of who the guy is. Then we have to lay out a trap for him. 'That one is Spark, I read it in his mind' doesn't work with the police. We have to be smarter."

"He'll probably still have doses of that Superman variant on him, the one that made them fast.  He was the one passing those out, wasn't he?"  Sylvia does try to keep track of things.

"Yes. And Megan says the DNA of a paranormal has been used to produce them. She was worried it could have been hers or John's."

"I can see it being Megan's.  How would anyone even take a sample off of John?"

"I have no idea. From his toothbrush?"

For a moment Sylvia musters the argument that John's nylon-bristled toothbrush probably wouldn't scrape anything more than tartar off his teeth, but they have more important things to discuss.  "All right.  So let's check this guy out while he's likely to be in his room, asleep.  Asleep is good.  Sleeping people are easy."

Colin shrugs. "Ok. When?"

"Now?"

"Ah. Ok. Sorry, I didn't get what you meant. Can you read him from outside his house?"

"Surely between us we can manage a little B&E.  All I really need is to get up to a position from which I can see him through a window."  She pauses regretfully.  "If Kel were here, he'd get us in like that."  She snaps her fingers and then sighs.  "I miss him sometimes.  A lot."

"I was thinking the same as I got here and passed in front of where he used to live." Then he thinks of what happened earlier in the evening. "Maybe I can gets us in there too. Let's go, Mata Hari."

Sylvia pulls on her coat.  "After you, Mr. Holmes."

The Allgood house was the product of new money trying to appear to be old money.  It was built at the turn of the century, but the Allgood family had poured serious cash into it to make it more modern inside.  This had certain side effects, like ruining some of the houses lines.

Tim Allgood was the only child of the family.  His father was a hotel developer who dealt mostly in overseas properties.  Allgood bought his sons way into Fenwick.

Sylvia eyes the architecture, puffing out steam as she pulls her scarf tighter around her neck.  "Now what?  I don't suppose you can do anything magical to get us some elevation, can you?"

"No, I'm afraid I don't." He lifts up his collar and crosses the street to get to the main door. Then he closes his eyes and tries opening it.

The door opens without difficulty.  As they get into the entryway they see there is an alarm, which seems to be off also.  The house is quiet, and most of the lights are out.  There is sufficient light to see by though.

Did you do that? Sylvia asks, nervous of the easy coincidences.

Sylvia reaches out with her mind, trying to pick up on the vibe of a sleeping teenage boy.  When that doesn't work, she sniffs the air and follows the smell of dirty laundry.

Sylvia has been practicing, and it's not hard task for her to find the boy asleep in his room.

Colin cautiously takes a look around at the room, feeling his heart thumping in his ears. He lets Sylvia work on the boy, but wonders if there is anything he could get a reading from. Finding out you can shoot lightnings should be something to remember, after all.

She throws Colin a look as if to say, 'Ready?' and gathers her thoughts before she tries to reach into the Allgood boy's brain and to find what she can.

[There's something in the rules about taking extra time, right?  Sylvia takes her time.  No rush job here.]

OOC: Need a power check from Sylvia.  1d20+4.

Need a Search check from Colin

Need a stealth check from both of you.

Power Check (1d20+4=6) (http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=1438950)


Stealth Check (1d20+2=21) (http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=1438948)

---

Sylvia has a hard time at first.  Maybe Colin makes her nervous.  At least, doing what she does, she neither moves nor makes any noise.

Search check (1d20+3=15) (http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=1439077)

Stealth check (1d20+2=15) (http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=1439079)

As Colin pokes around he finds a black motorcycle helmet in the closet, which is what Spark is seen wearing in all the pictures (what few there are) of him.  Hanging in the closet is also a jacket which resembles the one Spark has on in the pictures.

Sylvia finds the boys mind very difficult to make a connection with.  There is a great deal of noise, like static, when she reaches out to it.

Colin, if someone had the power to control electricity, do you think it would affect his mind somehow?  The brain runs on chemical energy, right?  I'm getting some static.  She shares the noise with him.

Well, if it never happened to you, it could be a clue. This jacket and this helmet look like Spark's. Let me check if they'll yield their secrets to me.

He touches them.

OOC: Will Save DC 14 from Colin please.

Will save (1d20+6=20) (http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=1439958)

Colin is bombarded with images of power and the rush of excitement.  Tom is Spark, and he enjoys using his powers.  He likes the rush of using them, and the rush that comes from hurting people.

Can we talk to Chris?

I can try again.  What is it you need to know?

Oh, hell.  Here we go.  She gives it another shot.  She's Charlize Theron in The Italian Job, and Allgood's brain is the safe.

[Can I take 20 on this?]

OOC: Sure, you can take 20.

Sylvia is able to wade through the static in his head.  His subconscious is a twisted horror/porno, but she's able to navigate once she gets her bearings.

Vandross is nothing more than an altered voice on the phone and an envelope of money to him.  He got a call from Vandross and a request for several doses of the special drug Spark has access to.  The instructions were to leave them in a locker at the bus terminal.  For this he was paid a good sum ($10K). 

OOC: There seems to be some persistent confusion that I will clear up.

The drug that Spark gives to people to give them super speed is not a version of Superman.  It's made from something that leaves traces of DNA in it.

Superman is not made from DNA, it's strictly an advanced chemical formula

[Does it leave traces of DNA in the user?]

OOC: No.

Sylvia shares the memory directly with Colin and his eidetic memory.  It's him.  We should tell Chris so he can tell us what kind of evidence we need to collect.  Maybe the police can take it from here.

Sylvia pushes for that last little bit of information.

[Is this another Take 20 scenario?]

Sylvia wades slowly through the mental static of Allgood/Spark's mind.  Looking for the way he gets the drug that gives people who use it super speed.  Allgood has a talent for biology, and when he first developed his powers he analyzed his blood, to see if he could figure out what was happening.  He realized that he could distill a serum from his blood that would boost physical speed temporarily. He tried it, and tested it on a hooker.  They hatched the plan to impersonate Velocity and rob people.

Sylvia nods and follows Colin as they make their escape into the night.

When they're a couple of blocks away, having walked in silence, she says, "Do you think Chris will need to talk to me?"

"I don't know. I guess you don't want to talk to him. Well, he found a body tonight thanks to me. I hope a judge will feel inclined to believe me when I say they should take a look at this Allgood boy."

"Chris?" Colin says in his phone. "I know you must be having a long night because of me, and I'm sorry but there's something else you should know. Kevin surely remembers a paranormal named Spark. I found out who he is. You should check Tim Allgood."

"I'll check the name out and see what we can find."

"Let me know if you need more than this."

OOC: Is there anything else happening in this thread?

OOC: No, we're done.