Mission 4B - An Eye Claimed

7/20/3010

It's been about 3 weeks since a major typhoon came through and wrecked the Desian Islands. Recovery for the upper levels of the city have been relatively swift. Power and utilities are almost completely restored, train lines are running on time, and everyone is basically back to life as usual. For the lower levels of city, where the vast majority of the poor live in tunnels that largely flooded during the storm, that is a vastly different story. It is unknown how many people died, but it is believed to be in the tens of millions.

The government has been discussing what to do about the tunnels as draining the water and burying the dead is a task that is simply too large to fathom. The value of those who lived down there is deemed not high enough to warrant search and rescue efforts and so the current plan appears to be to simply seal the flooded tunnels off and treat them as a mass grave. Some even say that their deaths were a culling of the dead weight pulling down Mingmei and that without them the city will be allowed to flourish and enter a new age of prosperity.

Human Rights groups find the entire situation appalling and have been working to find and rescue what survivors they can find in the tunnels before they are sealed off. It is unclear what plans the government has should there be rescue workers still down there when they do seal them off, but officials have stated that anyone who enters the tunnels does so at their own risk. All in all, life is kind of a nightmare at the moment, but one that many are able to blissfully ignore.


***


Chougou has been pretty nervous in general the last few weeks. Though he tried to get his mind off things by going to an anime convention (where he actually noticed Sam on a hilariously awkward looking date), the weight of everything is slowly crushing him. The e-mails, the collars and finally the boy exploding was just too much to ignore. The one person that Chougou believes could be responsible for all this is dead, and the only way to end the slow escalation appears to be to wear the collar that was sent to him. He is currently in the community center with Wujen and Ichigo, the three collars currently laying in front of them on a table. Given what the last one did, none of the three are particularly eager to wear them. Unfortunately, it appears to be the only way forward...

Fuchou swears an oath to avenge the little boy and says to the others:

"I have to do this, and if you all come along I will have no qualms if you have to stop and leave. I will go forward to the end even if it means my death, but we have no way of knowing what these things are capable of doing, they might just explode when we put them on. I'd like to ask Sam to examine them as much as he can without triggering anything, it might be helpful for someone to have some information no matter how small.

I will put the collar on first, and if I don't explode and you all wish to follow then we will find out what this twisted road has in store for us. I suggest we go to an area where blood wouldn't be so difficult to clean up?"

Ichigo is weary about putting this collar on after seeing what happened to the little kid. But he's not going to abandon a team mate. "So sam is going to examine these collars?"

Sam, being a well-proven coward, says that he is not going anywhere near a potential bomb collar. His expertise is not in bomb handling. However, he does take a look at the collar in matrix space and analyzes it's wireless connection. It appears to have a solid firewall and though Sam is skilled, he isn't confident that he can hack it without setting off alarms. He also has no idea what would happen if alarms are sounded. It is likely that either it is designed to go off immediately and/or alert whoever sent them that it is happening.

Given that a skilled hacker seems to be linked to these collars, tinkering with them seems like something that would eventually be noticed and irritate whoever sent them, but Sam believes that if you are going to have someone tinker, it should probably be by someone who has a bit more expertise with demolitions. Unless you just want to destroy the collars' electronics and don't care about who is connected to them thinks, at which point he can certainly do that through the matrix.

FuChou thanks Sam for his analysis.

Well boys, there's no time like the present. Let's do this.

FuChou offers a ride to anyone that is coming and heads to an open space where he can put on the collar.

Fuchou is in the open space with whoever is coming ((I assume anyone wanting to go will jump in )) and puts on the collar

Ichigo looks at the the rest of the team and asks "who's coming with?"

Given the density of the city, an "open space" is somewhat hard to come by. But the last collar's explosion was not terribly large so you wait until night time when there are few to no bystanders and head out to the nearby parking lot. It's not a huge open space, but it'll do without driving for hours down the mountain.

Chougou places his collar on his neck. It makes a clicking sound, audibly locking it in place. There does not appear to be an obvious way to remove it. In AR space, you all notice a notification appear above Chougou's head that reads, "1 of 3..."

Ichigo will pick up a collar and put it on he will look at fuchou giving him a silent not then claps the collar around his neck.

The collar locks around Ichigo's neck and the AR display above both Chougou and Ichigo's heads read, "2 of 3..."

"Oh hell, are we going to have to find a third person to put this on....?"

Fuchou muses aloud...

"Alright, I'll put one on even though I'm not supposed to be risking my life like this anymore. If I get in trouble I'm sending little dragon after you, Fuchou. You are warned"

WuJen puts the collar on and waits to explode.

The third collar locks into place and the AR display reads, "3 of 3. Confirmed."

Little Dragon is about to speak up about the matter when a bullet hole appears in her chest. She looks down at it in confusion, as if to say, "that's not something that is supposed to be able to happen," before suddenly vanishing in a puff of mana with an echoing scream. Turning in the direction of the shot, you notice a rotodrone floating nearby with a rifle pointed at your group.

There is a beep and you all half expect to be decapitated but instead feel a brief prick in your necks as you are all injected with something. Before you have much time to react to it, everything goes dark and you all slump to the ground.


You awaken in a dimly lit room with thick concrete walls. Your collars are attached to cables, each of which run up to pulleys that are placed behind a razor sharp spike. On one wall is an analog timer, it's only hand currently pointed at 15, though whether that is meant to be minutes, seconds, hours or some other measurement of time is not indicated. A few meters ahead are three sealed glass boxes, each containing a key fob.

On the far right side of the room is a heavy metal door. Judging by the length of the cables on your collars, it appears to be out of reach. If only you could remove the collars...

While you are getting your bearings, a voice issues forth from a speaker in a dark corner of the room, which draws your attention to the camera below it, currently watching what you do. Below that is a glass jar filled with nails and a chunk of C4 with a digital timer over it reading: 10:00.

Checking your belongings, you each quickly realize that all you currently have on you are the clothes on your back and Little Dragon is nowhere to be seen.

A heavily distorted voice says, "Welcome, Chougou. I am glad that you have managed to bring a pair of friends along. Your record for dealing with friends who show you kindness is a grim one. Will you betray them like you did your old father, I wonder? I want to play a game. I have a series of puzzles for you to solve. Succeed and you will be set free. Fail and you die.

"Let's begin. In front of each of you is a glass box containing the key to your collars. Once you begin, you will have 15 seconds to free yourselves from your collars before the cable retracts and the spike behind you impales your skull. Regardless of when you choose to begin, there is a bomb in the room with you that will explode in ten minutes. The door to your right is open, so you should be perfectly safe so long as you leave the room in time. Oh, and in case you had any thoughts of using magic to cheat, the injections from your collars also contained a dose of blight. Those of you without magical abilities should notice no effects, but those of you who are awakened will find them temporarily unavailable. The drug should wear off shortly after you finish our game.

"The bomb timer begins now..."

The digital timer changes from 10:00 to 9:59.... 9:58... 9:57....

The analog timer remains pointed at 15...

((I would have started recording both audio and video as soon as I felt the needle prick.))  "WHAT".... "How the hell we gonna get out of here?" I look at the key fob is there anything on it and I look at the other collarsis there anything on them that might match the fobs?

Willpower 3 intuition 4 Valacan carried out 7 launched of one d6text :

4 , 2 , 4 , 1 , 5 , 2 , 3

Earlier
With the prick fresh in his flesh and his strength quickly fading, Ichigo does his best to set his ears to record. As he falls unconscious, his last thought is that his eyes most certainly won't record anything through his closed eyelids...

Now
When he awakens, Ichigo can see on his image link that he has been recording since he was drugged and that it has been about 4 hours since then. As the timer on the nail bomb ticks down to 9:40, he realizes that perhaps now is not the best time to review the audio. Using his enhanced vision, he examines the glass boxes. The fobs appear to be hanging inside by a cable. There does not appear to be anything unique about one from another, at least visually. Assuming that it is the right fob for the collar, placing it against the collar should cause it to unlock.

"YOU'RE DOING ALL THIS TO PLAY A GAME WITH US!?!?!"

Fuchou yells to whoever their captor is.

"If you are Nikaru, I would have expected something more clever than this. I watched him die though. You are either a ghost or a psychopath, but I was helping Nikaru to redeem his honor while freeing myself. But if this is the game that you're playing then so be it."

Fuchou asks Ichigo or WuJen (whoever he is next to, both if possible) if they would be willing to hold onto him while he breaks the glass in front of him with his fist and if he manages to get the key out then he will touch it to his collar and tells them if that doesn't work then they should try to touch it to their collars.

"As I see it, there are four possibilities:
Possibility 1) Each fob in front of us unlocks one of the collars, but not necessarily our own. I would like to break open my case and see if it unlocks mine with you two holding me in case the 15 seconds is up. If it doesn't then you two can each try it, but I don't know what action will activate the timers on yours as well.

Possibility 2) Each fob in front of us activates our collar but we have to do them all at once. If that is the case then we would be best suited to just break open the case and apply them to ourselves as quick as possible; but if the pulley goes off we will have no way to stop one another from being pulled up to it.

Possibility 3) A combination of the two is possible in that we have to all do them at the same time, but that the ones in front of us are not the ones that will unlock our collar. Nikaru was a sadistic person and used to be a clever man so it's possible that this would be the most tricky thing that his little brain could think of.

If that is the case then there are only 6 possibilities and what I would propose is that we each try the key in front of us; if that doesn't work then two of us closest to this wall trade.

If that doesn't work then we shift them all down in a circle, trading in one direction. If that doesn't work then two of us closest to this wall trade.

If that doesn't work then we shift them all down the circle again and if that fails then the if the two closest to the wall trade that will be the final possibility.

Possibility 4) He's gone through a whole bunch of pageantry just to kill us no matter what. It would seem to be a huge waste of time and for very little purpose, but it is a possibility. That is why I would like to propose that you all hold my feet while I try the first key so that maybe we would have some more time, but I'd just as likely be choked so it might be best to just let me try it and see what happens.

If we die here then I apologize for bringing you all into this and I will try to make it right on the other side. What do you guys think.

"So all this shrek is out of my wheel house. You know this guy better then anyone else I have faith in you fuchou!"

Despite Chougou's screaming, there is no response from the speaker. Either it was a prerecorded message or your captor has no intention of speaking further. Either way, the bomb timer continues to tick down.

7:36

"works for me, give it a shot. I don't see as there are a lot of options."

The timer continues to tick down:

7:31

WuJen turns to examine the collar on his friends necks and takes a close look at the spokes in the wall. He also does his best to look closely at the glass box the fob is in.

If everyone is down for the plan of each going to deactivate the collars at the same time, then let's do a dry run just so that we understand each other:
(( I don't know how we are lined up so I'm going to assume just because it's what's in my mind that Fuchougou is in the middle with Wujen on his right and Ichigo on his left? ))

Attempt 1) We all move forward and try to break the glass, or lift them if they aren't held down and then each try the fob on our own collar.

Attempt 2) WuJen and I will switch and all three of us try it again.

Attempt 3) We each pass the fob to our left (with Ichigo giving his to Wujen) and try again, if that fails then Wujen and I will switch

Attempt 4) WuJen and I will switch and all three of us try it again.

Attempt 5) We each pass the fob to our right (with Wujen giving his to Ichigo) and try again, if that fails then Wujen and I will switch

Attempt 6) WuJen and I will switch and all three of us try it again.

Fuchougou draws this in the dust (?) as such:

L M R
I F W
1 2 3 try original
1 3 2 F&W switched
3 2 1 passed left
3 1 2 F&W switched
2 3 1 passed right
2 1 3 F&W switched

Wujen takes a look at Fuchougou's collar and it at least looks like the same collar you all had. There is no way to know for sure that it is the exact same one, but there is no real reason to think it's different. The spike behind him is solidly attached to the wall and more than sharp and large enough to give a bad day to anyone who is pulled back into it.

The glass boxes ahead are a few meters away, but the cable attached to the collar only goes about a meter or two. Roughly enough to lay on the ground with it attached to you without accidentally strangling yourself in your sleep. The fobs inside are suspended by a string and it is unlikely that they have enough range for them to respond to your collars without opening the boxes first.

The cables on your collars are attached to pulleys above the spike and it looks like if you were to pull on it, you might be able to get some extra length out of the cable.

((I'll draw a quick sketch of the room if it helps you all visualize))


As Fuchogou explains his plan and sketches it in the dirt, the bomb timer continues ticking down...

6:35