Cubist

An idea occurred to Jubatus: If the killer had indeed left the train, he should have left his scent on the outer surface of whichever car he'd exited from. And the killer's scent might well include residue of the corpse's scent. Therefore, it would make sense for Jube to give the train's entire outer surface an olfactory once-over! His Timeshift made the train's velocity a non-issue, and his [bg=green]Super-Movement (Wall-crawling)[/bg] claws would grant him a secure hold anyway. It was far from a sure thing -- just how likely was it that any such scent was still detectable after however-many hours of exposure to the train's exhaust and the winds of its motion? -- but to a perfectionist like Jube, it was worth a shot anyway. "Miss Wells, I'd like to confirm whether or not the killer is still on board," the feline said as he moved to the back of the car. "How many inches of ground clearance does this train have?" "Excuse me?" Miss Steampunk blinked in puzzlement. "Whatever can you be planning to do, Sir?" "Gonna sniff at the train's entire outer surface, and I want to know if there's sufficient room down below for me. If there isn't, fine, I won't sniff at the undercarriage, on the assumption that if I can't fit down there, neither could the killer."

"More to the point," Jubatus said, "would the killer have heard it, and would he have recognized what he was hearing? Miss Wells, I'm thinking it would be prudent to assume the killer knows that you went for help, and plan accordingly."

Jubatus nodded at Miss Steampunk's comparative cluelessness; she was clearly part of the Empire's in-group, so it was hardly surprising that she didn't consider out-group members... such as the Sikhs, or Ramstein... to be worth sparing any attention for -- Attention! How obvious had the Brit Machine's departure/arrival been? "Miss Wells? How much of a bang did that thing make when it landed here?" the feline asked, gesturing at the Brit Machine. "Would the passengers, killer included, have noticed anything? And if so, would they have known what they were seeing and/or hearing?"

Jubatus looked over the holographic 'blueprints' Blueshift had shown him. It seemed like a reasonable design, and if the occasional notes about the place's future uses were any indication, whoever had drawn the plans (Blueshift? or someone else?) had taken the long view when drafting the plans. "Not bad," the feline allowed. "Looks like it'll serve our needs well." During construction, Jubatus made a point of taking over any task that didn't require fine motor control. His damn forepaws simply weren't as good as hands, that's all there was to it, and it would be a sad, sad joke if a wall collapsed years after the fact because that wall's builder just hadn't been able to hold the hammer properly... "De nada," Jubatus said with a half-smile. His attention was primarily focussed on the chili in the bowl before him... yummy smell indeed! Voice modulator? What -- oh, that thing, Jube thought. "Don't know -- haven't tried it yet," he replied. "I tried to tell you it wasn't necessary, but you were on a serious roll. I'll check it over when I get home, and let you know." And then, belatedly, he registered the disappointment on her face when he said he hadn't even tried to use her gizmo. Oh, hell. Gotta throw her a bone -- "But... if you're looking for a problem that does need a solution, here's one:" And he raised one forepaw to Blueshift's eye-level, giving her an excellent view of the appendage. It only had three digits, which were a good deal shorter and stubbier than real fingers. Jube rotated his forepaw slowly, for a 360-degree view, as he went on. "My so-called hands. Compared to real hands, human hands, they suck -- apart from the obvious physical deficits, manual dexterity just isn't all there. Got anything in your belt of tricks to fix that?"

Jube's motivation: Being old enough to remember Sputnik and the first Moon landing. he's a big fan of NASA and the dream of spaceflight. Actually setting foot on another planet? Just try to stop him...

Idea for Blueshift: What if the mysterious patron insists on catching the critters within a highly specific timeframe, and the patron's list of targets includes two critters which would be suitable for Supercape to handle? SC can be anywhere he wants, but only one place at a time, so whichever critter SC goes for, Blueshift can take the other.

The Curator? [reads up on Curator] Hmm. Anything that's public knowledge, or has appeared in the mainstream media, is fair game for a technically-oriented guy whose days are 150 hours long; too bad the Curator just isn't public knowledge. What sort of quarry for Jube to go after: Hmmm... [*:hsx92c31]Critter with superspeed (obvious choice) [*:hsx92c31]Critter from an environment that renders vision and hearing useless (underground cave w/ perpetual echoes? dark planet w/ high winds all the time?), so that scent is the primary useful sense [*:hsx92c31]Critter with continuum-tweaking abilities, which Jube's Timeshift power could perhaps counteract [*:hsx92c31]Critter that project some sort of power-nullification field, so that only innate physical stuff works. The idea being that Jube's Timeshift isn't working, but his cheetah qualities (including the 70-MPH hunting sprint) are still good.

Jubatus would be well-suited to such a venture. Jube would also be rather suspicious of the 'patron'; yes, exotic specimens may well require hunters with exotic abilities, but why bother to recruit hunters from a podunk backwater planet like Earth? Is the 'patron' trying to avoid being scrutinized by the lawmen of their own society?

A Time-manipulating villain, and you didn't think to invite Jubatus? [shakes head] Ah, well...

Now Jubatus spoke to Carrie: "Lemme see what you found for me, hrrm?" and took the coat & hat off her hands. He'd learned very early on that most clothes that were cut for human-normal anatomy did not work well on his body. Apart from that, he'd already decided against even trying to disguise his inhuman physical nature. Being swaddled in all-concealing cloth like the Invisible Man wouldn't stop him from receiving unfavorable reactions from other people; rather, it would just change the reasons they were reacting unfavorably to him. "For what it's worth, all five of these people have Crane's scent on them," Jube said as he tried on the coat and hat. "And all five look to be physically capable of breaking a neck -- even Willowbreak, which strikes me as odd, given his apparent age. As for the Sikhs, is it possible he might have wanted to hire them as bodyguards or assistants or something?" As Jube had suspected, both the coat and the hat were unwearable; the hat was very uncomfortable on his ears, not to mention the bloody thing insisted on blocking his vision, and the heavy coat constricted his breathing even as it crushed his fur. "Hrrrm... thanks for the thought, but this won't work for me," the cheetah told Carrie. Since Miss Steampunk had previously granted the heroes permission to rifle through Crane's luggage for clothing, he upshifted and did that now. He found a white silk shirt and khaki-colored trousers (he wasn't entirely sure of the hues, thanks to his eyes' deficiencies vis-a-vis color-discrimination), both articles of clothing baggy enough on him that they didn't restrict his movements, and both feeling okay on his fur. The shirt was usable 'as is', modulo the overlarge cuffs; the trousers required a little alteration, mostly a fly in the rear to accomodate his tail. This wasn't the first time Jubatus had modified clothing to fit his current body, and he put that experience (and the basic sewing kit he carried in one vest-pocket) to good use now. In well under a minute of clock time, the deed was done. When Jubatus returned to the normal tempo of 1, he was wearing the shirt under his 'vest of many things', and the trouser-legs were buckled just under his knees. The rear fly wasn't elegant, but it served Jube's needs. "Don't forget Ramstein and Willowbreak," Jubatus suggested to Fenris. "If you're as much of an aristocrat as you give the impression of being, you're probably our best bet for extracting information from the dudes in the lounge car. Why are they in India? Do any of them have dealings with Crane? And so on, and so forth..."

Jubatus Wayward Transit Habitat for Metahumanity Murder on the Victorian Express I KAN HAZ HUMANITY?

Questions for the GM... Of the five people whose scents Jube detected on the corpse, which ones look like they've got sufficient upper-body strength to be able to break someone's neck? Also -- of those five, which ones had the corpse's scent on them? (this question assumes Jube managed to notice that when he was zipping thru the cars, which may or may not be a valid presumption) The two "probably Sikhs": Were they wearing what Jube would recognize as appropriately Sikh attire? Turbans for sure, perhaps other stuff which Cubist is unaware of but might be covered by Jube's Knowledge: THeology & Philosophy (9) skill? And how about those traditional Sikh knives?

Jubatus did not build any more outhouses by himself; while he was certainly quick enough for such feats, he now knew that his forepaws -- hands -- just didn't have the fine control needed to do it right. So instead, he merely distributed lumber and supplies out to the various building-sites, thus ensuring that the necessary materials would be conveniently on hand for whoever did the actual construction. Food was an excellent idea! Best to forestall one possible glitch in the program before it could happen, however: "Sounds like a plan to me, Push. If you're worried about dietary preferences, I'm an obligate carnivore -- no veggies for me, thanks." Jube wasn't going to complain if his chili contained small amounts of plant matter; it wasn't poisonous to him or anything like that. But there was a very definite upper limit to how much of the stuff his body could tolerate, and if he exceeded that limit, things got messy, starting with severe diarrhea.

In response to Carrie's question, Jubatus said, "No idea what sort of knife this bit of metal came from -- for that matter, I don't even know that it was a knife, rather than a sword or epee or whatever. But I'll bet that if we find the thing, I can match this little fragment to it." Then, to Miss Steampunk, "Hold on while I check something --" and the feline vanished in a blur. Jubatus returned in a second or so, and said, "Okay, I just swept the train for anybody who smells like one of the scents on the corpse. I found five of 'em: Two in the second-class car just ahead of us, and the remaining three in the lounge car. The two in the second-class car look like --" here, Jubatus described the pair whose scents he'd recognized "-- and the triad in the lounge look like --" and the speedster described that trio.

Jube will make one super-fast pass thru the entire train, running along the walls and/or ceiling so he doesn't have to fuss about obstructions, in order to see if anybody on the train has a scent that matches one of the scents on the body. He won't bother with a disguise, because even if someone does happen to see him, he'll be an indecipherable, momentary blur in their field of vision. This presumably calls for a Notice check for recognizing scents (1d20+9=15)... and I hope 15 suffices?

Hmmm... Here's an idea, for you to use or not, as you see fit; either way is fine by me... Jubatus is not into martial arts, and certainly would never take part in this sort of tournament if he was given a choice. But there's a lot of animal-derived terminology & etc in martial arts, isn't there? So: What if Guan Yu figures it's about time to create a new school of Kung Fu or whatever, a cheetah-based school whose moves are derived from how Jube performs in this tournament? RP-wise, Jube would basically be playing the "fish out of water" role here.

Jube and the outhouse: This is the sort of thing that can happen when you combine Quickness, the Jack of All Trades feat, and the Take 20 rules. At least that's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

"Take it where?" Jubatus said, referring to the outhouse-to-be. "Sounds like a plan," the speedster replied. Then he got a distant look in his eyes: "Hrrr... see what I can do about exploiting natural airflow to help keep the stench down..." The fastest cat alive blurred into action! And a short time later (as measured by any normal clock), the desired outhouse was 'open for business'. It had a number of wide, shallow slots along the bottom edge of its north wall (to take advantage of Haiti's prevailing winds, whose source direction varied from northwest to northeast over the course of a year), and a sort of narrow tube leading directly up from the cesspit beneath to 12 feet above the ground. The slots, and 'chimney'-top opening, were all lined with mosquito netting, the better to prevent local wildlife from poking around inside. Jube had even drawn a crude blueprint of the outhouse on the wall opposite its door; this diagram was rather rough, but nevertheless managed to communicate its information effectively.

When Jubatus finished leaping around/across/over the corpus delecti (it didn't take more than a minute or two of clock-time), he spoke to Miss Steampunk: "Lot of different scents on your boy; one's a lot stronger than any other, so I'll assume that scent is the man himself. There's a small number, hrrrm, maybe three to five? Anyway, a small number of other scents more-or-less tied for second place, intensity-wise, and my tentative assumption is that the murderer is among this group. If I run into a person whose scent matches any of the scents on the corpse, I'll recognize them, end of discussion." Now the feline held a envelope up at Miss Steampunk's eye-level, a transparent envelope which contained a tiny chunk of steel. That metal's sharp odor is what had initially drawn his attention, and 'one set of sterile tweezers from a vest-pocket' later, Jube had the steel flake in custody. "Found this bit of metal lodged within the wound; my guess is, it flaked off of the weapon which made that wound. Oh, and the corpse didn't fall where it's lying now. It hit the floor there," -- Jube indicated his best guess at the spot where the corpse had originally fallen -- "it got dragged a few feet, and it only started bleeding after it got dragged over to its present location. And given how the head is positioned relative to the body, I'm betting the killer broke the victim's neck first, and stabbed him a little later." As the feline speedster spoke, Carrie approached him with what was presumably a set of clothes she thought he might wear; Jubatus acknowledged her with a quirk of one eye and a palmpads-forward hand gesture whose intended meaning was I'm busy right now, and will get to you ASAP. [OOC]

Jube will exploit the ever-lovin', blue-eyed heck out of his Jack of All Trades feat and Quickness, and Take 20 on both. Or that's the plan, anyway. Medicine 'roll': 23 Knowledge/Science 'roll': 24

Jay Xavier sincerely believed that truth was better than lies, that reality was better than fantasy, that painful facts were better than the most comforting of wishful thinking. But there were times when he could understand why other people might feel differently... and listening to the the Doctor and Doktor as they discussed his condition was one of those times. So it sucks. BFD. If it's true, suckage won't make it not-true; if it's false, lack of suckage won't make it true. Damnit. While the scientists conversed, Jay kept his mouth shut, as he'd promised earlier. His face was unreadable, only partially because of its inhuman anatomy. However, his ears (flat against his skull), tail (hanging to the floor, utterly limp), and posture (hunched in on himself) constituted reliable indicators of his mood (sad & depressed, and getting more so). At this point, Rao turned to Jay... and the instant her eyes met his, she decided to forego the line of inquiry she'd originally thought to bring him in on. The poor man's heard more than enough, was her immediate thought. "Perhaps, Doktor Archeville, we could... refrain from speculating on an alien species' motives?" she said, and the unspoken terminal clause 'in my patient's presence' hung silently in the air between them. Now what -- ah! -- Returning her attention to Jay, she said, "You know, we can finish examining your tissue samples any time -- there's no need for us to perform all those procedures right this minute. So how about if we shift gears, and do something your presence is genuinely required for? Namely, the brain work." The feline frowned at Rao. "Hrrm... I'd hoped... rrraaooww!" he snarled. If it's true, suckage won't make it not-true. "Fine. Let's, hrrr, let's get it over with." "I think I understand your concern, Mr. Xavier. Given how extensively the rest of your body was transformed, you think it's likely that there's a high degree of, ah, 'cheetah intrusion' in your brain, correct?" The feline glared at her. "No schist, Sherlock!" he snapped -- just before he 'blurred in place' for a moment or two, after which he was a good deal calmer. "Hrrm, you're right, I am worried about that. But, hrr, better to know than not. However badly it sucks, it won't suck any less if I stay clueless, so..." And he trailed off with a shrug. No wonder he's a hero, Rao thought. Anyone who can be functional when they're facing up to something like this, is a person who simply will not be fazed by anything as trivial as muggers and supervillains. "I understand, Mr. Xavier. But given your known and documented behavior, particularly in the last few months, there's good reason to suspect that any such 'intrusion' which may exist in your brain is comparatively minor!" "You don't know that," Jay said with a disquieting frown. "No. I don't," Rao replied. "But at the same time, you don't know that I'm wrong, do you? All I'm saying is... it's not hopeless. Let's begin, shall we?" And the brain scans started with something relatively simple, a high-end electroencephalograph...

Several new pieces of lumber had been appearing every second since Jubatus' most recent departure; had the speedster been watching it, rather than making it happen, the spectacle would have strongly reminded him of stop-motion animation. Having experimented with various load-weights at the start of his initial 'cargo run', Jube now knew that he got the greatest degree of throughput when he carried 300 pounds at a time. Which wasn't all that great, strictly speaking... other that it was nearly triple his body mass. The fastest cat alive blurred to a stop just in time to head Blueshift say, "Jubatus, Marceau, want to take the outhouse?" "Take it where?" was Jube's instant reply.

Jube has Notice 9. He's gonna Take 20 -- and use his Quickness 6 to make it happen in, like, one realtime minute or so. Accordingly, Jube gets a 'roll' of 29 on his Notice check. Applicable Super-Senses: Normal Olfactory Sense (Extras: Acute, Tracking) for detecting the scent(s) of the culprit(s) and/or the murder weapon & etc, Low-Light Vision for picking up on subtle visual clues which might conceivably go unnoticed by anyone who needs normal levels of illumination, Ultrasonic Hearing to detect any noise (footsteps, heartbeat, yada yada) the culprit might be making if said culprit is sufficiently close to the body at the moment, Motion Sense to detect the culprit's fleeing if the culprit is sufficiently close to the body at the moment. Investigate and Search... they're both "must be trained in their use" skills, and Jube has neither one. Fortunately, Jube does have the Jack of All Trades Feat, so he can roll for either/both of 'em anyway. Both of those skills are Int-based; Jube's INT of 18 gives him an ability modifier of +4, so his rolls should be [1D20 + 4}, as far as I know. Search: Jube will definitely Take 20 for a Search roll. What's the point of Quickness if you don't exploit it at every opportunity, amIrite? So the cheetah gets 24 on his Search 'roll'. Investigate: This skill requires tools. Now, Jube does have a forensics kit on him, but it's an Earth-Prime forensics kit, which means the evidence it yields may or may not be regarded as valid by Earth-Victoria's legal system. Way the heck different jurisdiction, eh wot? Jube will inquire of Miss Steampunk, and only do an Investigate 'roll' if there's a reasonable chance that its evidence will be legally valid hereabouts. Thus, Jube's Investigate 'roll' will either be 24, or else inapplicable.

As per my most-recent post, Jubatus is going to use his nose to good effect. I'm not sure if any sort of die-roll is called for... I'd think it's a Notice roll, but since he is using his TImeshift to give himself bunches of extra time in which to make the roll, would the Take 10 and/or Take 20 rules apply?

Jubatus nodded his acknowledgement. After Miss Steampunk gave her approval/assessment of his proposed cover story, he got to work. The feline didn't want to disturb the body, or anything around the body, if he could help it... okay, he had a plan. Jubatus leapt across the compartment on a low trajectory -- but he upshifted almost instantly after his feet left the ground, thus giving himself tens of seconds of his own personal fast-time to sniff at the body while he drifted over it. With no physical contact between himself and the corpse or anything in the corpse's immediate vicinity, he could be confident that he hadn't affected the evidence to any significant degree. The feline did this again and again, calculating his leaps to ensure that he'd gotten a good, thorough sniff at every part of the corpse, and everything within a one-meter radius of the corpse. If there were any 'foreign' scents on the body, Jube had no doubt that he'd detect them now, and be able to identify them if he smelled them at a later time.