Cubist

Okay... Jube's investigation. Step one: Find out which transit lines (bus, subway, monorail, etc) the victims used. For those victims who are conscious/coherent enough to cooperate with us, we can just ask them. For other victims, we use the known data of their home addresses, plus the address & working hours of their employers, to work out which transit lines would be viable candidates. Step two: Once we have the transit lines, figure out which specific busses, or which specific subway cars, or whatever, the victims are most likely to have been riding in when they got infected. This means looking at the Freedom City Transit Authority's schedules for the past two weeks or so, with particular emphasis on those days on which the victims are most likely to have been infected (see also: "incubation period", medical records of when the first symptoms showed up, etc). Jubatus can give each of these buses & etc a once-over with hs educated nose; if any of the buses & etc carry a scent which Just Doesn't Make Sense for them to carry, that's a red flag which bears further investigation. Step three: Evaluate the possibility that the infection-vector was not actually on the transit lines. What if the bug was transmitted by means of an odorless, colorless aerosol dispensed from a gizmo at [insert physical location here]? Once we've got the relevant transit lines, compare line-schedules to see if there's any specific combinations of time-plus-location where there could have been a cluster of the relevant subway cars (or trains, or monorail cars, or whatever). If there are any such statistical clusters, go over the relevant locations with the proverbial fine-tooth comb, looking for indications of machinery that's not supposed to be there; also look at the maintenance schedules for those locations. If we find out that there was an alleged janitor someplace where the work schedule says he shouldn't ought to have been, that's an anomaly that needs to be looked into. Step four: Check the maintenance schedules on those busses & etc which are the most likely candidates. If any of these buses & etc had any work done on them outside of the normal maintenance schedule, that's a red flag that needs looking into. Step five: Background checks on all the mechanics/janitors/etc who could have worked on the buses & etc we're most interested in. Does any of them fit the description of a villain who's known to use engineered pathogens? Are any of them plausible candidates for villainous blackmail -- say, because they have a child with a rare medical condition, or something? In game-mechanical terms, all the above probably boils down to Take 20 on a Gather Information roll. No, Jube doesn't have the Gather Information skill, so he's letting his Jack of All Trades feat take up the slack. Anyway, Take 20 on GI. Jube's Quickness more-or-less negates the "takes 20 times longer than normal" clause of Taking 20, so his 'roll' ends up being 21. It would be nice if Jube's Master Plan feat was applicable here... ah, well. 21 is a good deal better than nothing.

Xavier nodded. "Sure; you're in a real weird place. So of course your brain is scrambling for any explanation it can find. But weird place or no, I'm thinking it'll be easier for you to figure out what's happened if you can manage to keep your head, okay?" "Complutense?" Xavier said, puzzled for a short moment—and then he recalled where he'd heard of the place, and why. Universidad Complutense, located in Madrid, was one of the most-respected centers of higher learning in Spain, and a few weeks back, it had hosted an exhibition of superscientific devices which manipulated sound in interesting ways… one of which was a transducer that could convert any energy into sound. And the Universidad shut this exhibition down, after some sort of tragedy which wasn't described in detail in the reports Xavier had read… The feline didn't like the picture that was forming in his mind. "Damn. You're a long way from home, Constance: This is the United States—Freedom City, to be more precise. Okay… What can you tell me about the 'glowy thing' you stepped into?" Xavier hoped he was wrong about what had happened to Constance. He sincerely hoped he was wrong…

True; the FREEDOM CITY sourcebook says there's subway and monorail lines, in addition to the bus system. This just means the public transportation system is that much bigger, and will require that much more time to investigate, than if it were busses alone.

Yep, busses. Because all of the people who've been infected by this weird bug, are people who ride public transit.

"Complutense University"? Cubist hasn't heard of this, but a quick Google reveals a "Universidad Complutense" in Madrid, which suggests that Constance could be a Spaniard. Okay, gonna do some Knowledge (Whatever) rolls, to see what Jube can recall about this 'Complutense University' off the top of his head. We have a Knowledge (Business) roll (1d20+8=25), and a Knowledge (Current Events) roll (1d20+8=17), and a Knowledge (Technology) roll (1d20+9=17), and a Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) roll (1d20+9=12). Also: What language is 'Constance' speaking? If she's 'talking' to Jube thru some sort of telepathic link, this is prolly a moot question, but if there's any actual spoken language involved, perhaps Jube would recognize her tongue. In this context, it may be worth noting that Jube speaks Spanish as well as English (and French, too, but that language is less likely to be involved here).

The buses are a definite avenue for investigation. Jubatus will go this route, on the grounds that there's a friggin' lot of busses that could be involved, and a speedster like him can do the necessary poking-around in record time.

Hm. Kid sounds like she's ready to lose it. On the assumption that this is for real and not a scam, she needs reassurance. Damn, I wish there were someone available who's, like, good at that kind of thing… "Dead? Doubtful, Constance. You're talking too much to be dead," Xavier replied. "I'm hearing you, and you're obviously hearing me, and since when can a corpse hold up its end of a conversation, hrrrmm? Okay… I can hear you, like I said, but I can't see you. And you can't see where you are. Hrmm. What can you tell me about how you got into, hrr, whatever situation you're in?" Keep her talking, hopefully, that'll help her keep on an even keel.

What the hell..? Xavier thought. Weird. Okay, let's start by triangulating the source of that voice. This was trivially easy; the voice was a highly localized effect which emanated from exactly the spot where Xavier pounded the other pellets into grey dust. Oddly enough, the sole pellet Xavier left intact was not that source—wasn't making any sound whatsoever! Again: What the high holy hell..? What was going on here? The voice sounded like a lost traveler crying for help, but how accurate was that impression? For all Xavier knew or could tell, the voice might be the bait for some kind of scam. I think… I'll treat it as genuine, and see how that goes. Xavier moved into the proper position to hear the voice, and spoke in as normal a tone as he could manage: "My name is Jay, I'm not sure where you are. Can you describe what you see around you?" Now to wait for a response, if any. Should be interesting.

The first thing Jube will do, when he hears that voice saying "Who are you? Where am I?", is locate its source. Cubist expects that source to be the hypersound pellet he didn't reduce to power; whether that's true or not, Jube will use his swivelable ears and also move around, the better to catch any variations in tone and volume and etc. Wherever the voice is coming from, Jube will choose to respond to it as if it genuinely were the simple cry for help it appears to be. No, he doesn't really believe that, but putting up a pretense of acceptance won't hurt anything, right? Jube will say, "My name is Jay, I'm not sure where you are. Can you describe what you see around you?" He'll speak at the voice-source like he's talking to someone right next to him; maybe the voice will respond in kind, maybe it won't. We shall see. If no response, Jube will pick up the foil-wrapped debris of the powdered pellets and head back to Riff.

After he handed over one foil-wrapped package of hypersound gizmoes, Xavier observed the Guitar Genius with genuine, evident interest; the feline was mostly a solo act, so he didn't have many opportunities to watch another competent person do their thing. Xavier paid close attention to everything Riff said about the little grey pellets; the feline hadn't even considered that A.S.T.R.O. Labs might have any relevance to the problem at hand! Thus, the value of a specialist like Wilder, as compared to a generalist like me. Hmm… Looks like Wilder doesn't think there's any significant chance of a booby-trap. Good to know. Xavier nodded. "I'm on it. Betcha the suckers won't survive the impact of a steel hammerhead moving at Mach 4, hrrmmm? I'll leave two of the pellets intact—they could give us a little advance warning when Manderly makes his move, also just in case we need 'em for evidence later—but the rest are toast." So saying, Xavier sliced at the duct-taped package of pellets with his claws, cutting two individual pellets free, each of which he wrapped up in its own EM-blocking shroud of aluminum foil. "Not sure where Manderley-slash-Wlodjyka is right this second, but he was within arm's reach of me a few clock-minutes ago, so he's probably in the near vicinity. I also recommend we hold off before we confront the man. If Manderley turns out to not be Wlodjyka, just an innocent dupe of a look-alike, leaning on him would be a mistake; if he is Wlodjyka, we probably don't want to spook the man while there's a friggin' crowd of civilians around." Then he held one of the two individually-wrapped pellets up for the Guitar Genius to take if he chose. "Okay. One for you, one for me?" Once that minor question was settled, Xavier gave the Guitar Genius a 'be seeing you' salute and blurred away. At the converted SUV he called home, he paused long enough to pick up a massive ball-peen hammer, then sped off to the shoulder of a nearby highway a couple of miles from where the music festival was occurring. He laid all the pellet-packages down on the asphalt, and then, still maintaining his upshifted tempo of 40, rained supersonic death down on the offending gray pellets at a rate of several score impacts per clock-second…

Jubatus Canon threads Crashing In: 11 posts Medical Maladies: 1 post Riffsational!: 6 posts

Some points you should be aware of, Darksider, in case Riff might want to react to them… One, Xavier is carrying all the hypersound-emitting devides on him. They're covered in duct tape and N layers of aluminum foil, so their sounds are probably muffled, but they were emitting those sounds and Xavier tried not to do anything that would interfere with their functioning. Two, Xavier's speech sounds like a vast collection of sound effects (squeaks/pops/hisses/etc) spliced together in close imitation of a normal voice. If his appearance causes double-takes, it only makes sense that his voice would cause notable reactions, as well. Three, you might want to look over Jubatus' Reputation Chart to see what Riff is likely to know about Jube.

Looks like I misjudged their familiarity with me and my tricks, the feline thought as he noted… everyone else's… reaction to his appearance. Oh, well; my bad. He did not even consider apologizing for the shock; given his peculiar appearance—and even more peculiar voice—Xavier simply expected spit-takes and such from people, regardless of what sort of entrance he made. "Right idea, wrong tech," the feline replied. "Those ultrasonic noises you heard were being emitted by a bunch of little grey pellets…" and he gave Wilder a concise, comprehensive summary of what he'd found, what he'd done, and what he suspected about the source of the hypersound devices. "…that Manderley-slash-Wlodjyka character. I've got the pellets wrapped up in aluminum foil as an impromptu Faraday cage—" Here Xavier pulled a flat, foil-wrapped package out of one vest-pocket. "—so if the gizmoes need an external signal to trigger anything, that signal ain't gonna penetrate the metal. The problem I was hoping you'd help with is, what should we do with the pellets now? I'm not really comfortable with carrying them all on me, but that was the least-worst option I could think of, and I'm hoping you've got some better ideas, like, say, how to deactivate them without tripping any booby-traps they might have been equipped with."

Now that Jay Xavier has all the hypersound devices, what's he going to do with them? Answer: Consult an expert on sonics -- namely, Riff. The Guitar Genius has vast expertise in the field, so he's a great person to ask, eh wot?

Collecting and neutralizing the hypersound gizmoes was no bad thing. But how that Jay Xavier had the devices, what the heck was he going to do with them? Stuffing them all into improvised Faraday cages should prevent them from receiving command signals from external sources, and that was great as far as it went. It just didn't go far enough. Suppose the devices needed to receive a 'heartbeat signal' at regular intervals, and were programmed to do Bad Things when the 'heartbeat' stopped? Xavier spent several dozens of upshifted clock-seconds wracking his brains for a solution to the problem of What To Do With Potentially Hostile Hypersound Devices, cursing his lack of expertise in sonics… and then he realized there was an expert in the field within a 50-yard radius. A person intimately familiar with exotic applications of sound and sound-based technology. A person that Xavier was on the payroll of right now, technically speaking. Upshift, seek-and-find, downshift, and a bipedal cheetah popped into existence next to Warren 'Riff' Wilder. "Hi, boss. Don't think we've met, but my name's Jay Xavier, and I got a little problem there's a damn good chance you can solve..."

Jubatus' first move, when he arrives on the scene: Move all the civilians outside, away from the haywire robots. Jube has met Bee-Keeper III, but since there was a burning apartment building at the time, Jube doesn't know BK3's scent, and therefore he won't treat Mr. Bowles any differently than he would any other civilian. Since the timing is ill-defined, we could say that BK3 got armored up before Jube reached him. Or we could go for the "comedy of errors" thing and have Jube haul Bowles out to the parking lot, all unaware that Bowles is, in fact, a hero-type?

Robo-rex gone berserk. Of course, Jubatus thought when he blurred into the museum. Upshifted as he was, the feline was looking at an isolated snapshot, one 'frame' of the 'movie' that was playing around him, but even that one snapshot had much to tell Jube about the current situation. And… Young Brittania's on it, so no immediate worries there. Let's see what the rest of the mecha-saurs are up to. And Jube sped through the halls, looking for signs of robotic rampage—which he found plenty of. Apparently, the 'Rex was far from the only audioanimatron that had been affected by… whatever it was. Visitors getting the hell away from the glitchy 'bots, good. Looks like that guy could use a little help, though; that velociraptor is too damn close for comfort. And he's not the only one… For Jubatus, the choice was clear: Move the civilians out of harm's way. For the small number of clock-seconds it would take him to empty the museum, he strongly doubted that the teleport-capable Young Britannia would have any serious trouble.

Jubatus had been hanging back, on the theory that Vetto would be more likely to cooperate if he didn't have an inhuman predator breathing down his neck. Since Vetto was disproving that theory, he decided to get more-directly involved. He stepped forward, in the center of Vetto's field of vision: "What she said," he stated with a gesture at the one-armed space pirate captain. "Dunno if you've thought this far ahead, but we're dealing with a blatantly artificial engineered pathogen that's threatening lives, okay? Me not being a lawyer, I dunno whether that counts as an act of biological warfare or terrorism or aggravated assault or what—but I'll bet you a kilobuck that the federales know exactly which laws have been violated by this little stunt, and they're gonna come down on someone like 47-hundred metric tons of molten lead. "So you basically have two choices, Vetto. One, you can help us get to the bottom of this mess ay-ess-ay-pee… or two, you can blow us off until the [bg=black]xxix[/bg] hits the fan, at which point you'll be explaining yourself to a Federal judge." The feline paused to let his words sink in. "Choose wisely."

Nobody else seemed to notice that irritating high-pitched noise… which was only to be expected, as that sound was scraping up against the high end of Jay Xavier's enhanced hearing range. Normal human ears simply couldn't register that hypersonic pitch—which, now that he thought of it, he'd heard coming from a few other places in the general area, just not so obtrusive as it was at the moment. Oddly, the hypersound source that had captured Xavier's attention was evidently something on the person of that new hire, Alfred Manderley, who nobody liked and nobody really knew what his duties were… and Manderley looked familiar, somehow… "I'm taking my ten-minute break now," Xavier declared to everyone in earshot. He upshifted, to systematically seek out all the sources of hypersonics his ears could detect—and there were rather more of those sources than he'd been expecting! Specifically, a number of small grayish pellets, all of them hidden in inconspicuous spots, lost amid amplifier cables and the like in Wilder's equipment and that of a few other musicians. What the hell is the point of the hypersonics? The audience sure ain't gonna hear that crap! Is that even a frequency that's known to have biological effects on those exposed to it? Well, fine: At best, the hypersonic devices were a completely gratuitous power drain, so he'd just have to… Hmm. I don't actually know what the devices do. Since a good number of them are here, in Riff's tech, there's a damn good chance I don't really want to find out the hard way. Okay, what's the best way to ensure the gizmoes stay harmless, while at the same time minimizing the risk of triggering any booby-trap(s)..? After considering and discarding several plans, Xavier decided he'd use an X-acto knife with an insulated handle to scrape each hypersonic gizmo loose from its resting place; lay each device on the sticky side of a length of duct tape, making sure no two devices were in physical contact; when a length of duct tape had no room left for more pellet/devices, lay that tape on a sheet of mylar, sticky side down; and wrap each such mylar sheet up in several thicknesses of aluminum foil. The thin metal sheets would serve as a Faraday cage, blocking any signals that might be transmitted to, or recieved by, the devices… or at least that was the theory. Within a small number of clock-seconds, Xavier had found and thus neutralized all of the hypersonic pellets. And when Xavier asked the festival's organizers about Manderley, he found that the man had been hired two weeks ago, replacing a roadie with more than a decade of experience who'd quit because of an inexplicable series of migraines. Xavier was not surprised that Manderley had been bounced from his first crew over a dispute about whether or not he'd planted something in that band's equipment… …and there was one more thing: Manderley was a dead ringer for Konrad Wlodjyka, a European engineer who divided his time between working on spacecraft and speaking in defense of various supervillains. And it just so happened that Wlodjyka was currently on leave from the European Space Agency! Gosh. A tech-savvy villain sympathizer, depositing mysterious devices of unknown function-slash-purpose in and among the tech of a superhero-cum-performer? Yeah, nothing at all suspicious nor worrisome about that… Well, whatever peculiar scheme Wlodjyka might have had in mind for his little hypersonic pellets, Xavier was satisfied that stomping on that scheme was merely prudent. No point in confronting the man now; the longer he believed his scheme was still running smoothly, the better it would be for everyone else.

Also: What does Jube know of how the human body, and/or nervous system, is affected by hypersonics of the frequencies he's hearing? Jube's got Knowledge (Technology), and can use Jack of All Trades for Knowledge (Life Sciences); Take 20 on both, for 'rolls' of 29 for the Tech skill, and 24 for the Life Sciences skill.

The reason Jay decided to just wrap the gadgets up, rather than try to disable them: He doesn't know what sort of fail-safes and booby-traps they're equipped with, so he figures poking around their innards is a worse bet than screwing up their RF reception. Wrapping them with foil… that's a Dazzle versus "radio sense group", you should pardon the expression. Dazzle is normally 1 pt per rank for a single sense group, and is also normally Ranged. In this case, however, it's clearly got no Range at all, so there's a 1-pt Flaw, and that means 1 pt buys 2 ranks (see Fractional Costs, pg 111 in the Core Rulebook). Jube is going to shoot the works -- pour all six of his Gadget Points into it, for Dazzle 12 -- because he's going to make sure the gizmoes cannot and do not receive nor transmit anything..

Jay Xavier was eartips-deep in a particularly nitpicky editing job when he heard an arpeggiated chord—the signal he'd decided on for when his newswatching software entity, Jeeves, had learned of a current event that might warrant some personal attention from the fastest cat alive. "Jeeves: What's up?" "Anomaly at Hunter Museum of Natural History," was the obviously mechanical reply. "On-site fire alarm triggered absent any externally-evident indicators of fire. Presence of audioanimatronic dinosaur exhibit implies heightened probability of exotic troubles." "Jeeves: Thank you. Jeeves: Get some rest." A perhaps-false fire alarm at the site of a museum exhibit centered around life-sized robot dinosaurs? Sure, it could be a simple mistake of some kind—but it could also be the only way someone had thought of to alert the outside world of Something Nasty Going Down. May as well check it out, Xavier thought as he confirmed that his Vest Of Many Things was fully stocked, then went through all the rest of his standard pre-heroing checklist. If it's happy and calm, file it as a clock-minute's break from that damn contract; if there is any trouble, Jubatus will probably be useful. Either way, it's all good. And Jubatus blurred down the streets of Freedom City to the Hunter Museum…

"Something is happening and you don't know what it is… Do you, Mister Jones?" The old song wafted through Jubatus' mind as he looked at the mugger he'd just apprehended. When Jube downshifted before the mugger's eyes, he'd intended to tell the perp to give up peacefully, but he hadn't even managed to get the first syllable out before the perp's face went bloodlessly white and he turned to run as if Jason Voorhees was after him—and his stench of sheer, raw, terror suggested that this wasn't any kind of trick. A siren's wail heralded the approach of officers of the FCPD. Excellent. Now, what's this twit think he's doing? Jubatus thought to himself. Running from any cheetah isn't a smart move; running from me is just plain stupid. It was the work of an instant to catch up to the mugger and duct-tape his arms and legs together. Okay, perp's well and truly caught. Next move: Ask him W-T-F his malfunction is. But when the cheetah downshifted, the mugger screamed "Don't eat me!!" just before he passed out. This wasn't the first time a criminal had reacted to Jubatus as though he were the subhuman predator he physically resembled—but it was among the most intense such reactions. And these oh-god-I'm-dead reactions had ramped up in the past couple of weeks, occurring decidedly more often than they used to… Well, whatever. It wasn't like Jube could do anything more than he was already doing to convince people that he was as human as they were, in all ways beyond the purely biological. The police car screeched to a halt; two officers in STAR Squad body armor stepped out. "Hi, guys! He's—" One of the armored officers squelched Jube's words: "Step away from the suspect." "Not a problem," Jubatus said as he complied with the order. The silent officer took charge of the mugger. Oh, joy. Just my luck to get one of those STAR Squadders who really thinks superheroes are intruding on their turf. "Anything I—" "Quiet," the same officer said—and this time, he unholstered his weapon, which he didn't quite aim at the feline. Who pissed in his cornflakes this morning? Jubatus thought. Whatever. They clearly aren't interested in dealing with me on any level, so I'll just leave 'em to do their jobs here. "Later, guys." Whatever reply either STAR Squad member might have uttered, Jube was beyond earshot by the time it would otherwise have reached his ears.

Let's do it. Presumably, Jubatus will have been able to rejoin the group after he finally arrives back at Freedom City (see also: 7+ minute travel time, as compared to instantaneous teleportation).

Delay. Jube isn't here, hence he doesn't see the robot T-rex going berserk, and doesn't even know there's any trouble. As soon as there's a news report or a police transmission about the rampaging robots, then Jube will be aware. So let's say that Jubatus zips in at a dramatically appropriate moment, say, when someone is in imminent danger of being crushed to death beneath robo-rex's clawed feet?