Medical Maladies (OOC)

[Cubist]

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.

[Raveled]

... Buses?

[Cubist]

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

[Raveled]

Public transit is more than buses, you realize.

[Cubist]

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.

[Blue Rose]

But you'd miss surf 'n turf day. :P

[Raveled]

Okay. How do you want to start that research, Cubist?

[Tiffany Korta]

Okay YB going to stay with the ship and go check the lab. And as a bonus she gets fed for her troubles .

[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.

[Raveled]

Cross-referencing time tables and survivor stories, Jubatus can see that the only transit stop all the victims have in common is a subway station in Hanover.

[Cubist]

Okay, Jube is going to look over that subway station by himself. He's actually okay with being alone, but at the same time, he doesn't like the idea of facing N villains all by himself, which he regards as a very real possibility, albeit not one with a high probability of actually occuring. So he'll make sure to leave a commlink with his comrades on board Stormbreaker's ship, just in case he needs to push a panic button while he's looking at the station. Jube's relevant skills are Notice +9 and Knowledge: Technology +9, and Jube will Take 20 on both, with Quickness to negate the "takes 20* longer" penalty of Taking 20. Ergo, 'rolls' of 29 for Notice and 29 for Knowledge: Technology.

[Blue Rose]

Taking 10 on Intimidate via Skill Focus. Result 20.