Finally some clues.

New-U Investigation log, Day Two.

The search began in the personnel files we got from Dubois. Mostly Hyperion files in here, which means not much I can find on the Jakobs folks themselves. It does seem like we have found our weak point: Gavin Orland.

Apparently this layabout hangs out in the Upper Quarters at the Salon de la Mer, phoning it in to keep the New-U stations maintained. If we’re going to want a way to get access, this Orland fella might be just the “in” that we need.

Something else interesting did come up in that file search, though. One Doctor Maya Forester. There are traces of her in the files, but it seems like somebody didn’t want that. Zoe found attempts to tamper with the data and scrub it completely, but I guess they didn’t quite have Zoe’s skills!  It’s kind of unusual for somebody to leave a Hyperion job and just disappear. Not reported dead, just gone. That wasn’t a mystery we were going to leave unsolved!

But before we headed out to follow up on these leads, I had something I needed to clarify. I took Cicero and Penny down to the Siren’s Song to get a read on this Dubois. People seemed to fear him, and I wanted to know why. 

The dock hands we found were open enough for talking after buying a round, just like in most parts. They mentioned there were some open jobs down by the docks, if we wanted them. The person to talk to would be Captain Leona Stormrider. Something to note for another day, but today  I wanted to know about how Jakobs has been running Laroche. It seemed odd to me that folks weren’t trying to take off with this highly valuable oil. 

Turns out folks here aren’t particularly fond of the way in which order is kept. Dubois’ crew uses the usual bullying tactics, ultra-violence, threats and beatings. That explains why folks are a little spooked when the guard are around! Just to be sure, we had Cicero do a check and they weren’t hosting any sluggos, so we have to take this info at face value. At least some of the dock folks aren’t infected.

While we were chatting in the bar, Fin went to the lab to get some info off of Kael. I didn’t get to see how he got the info, but somehow he convinced Kael to give up Doc Forester. Although she doesn’t go by that name anymore, at least as far as Dr. Kael knew. She was still around, but was deliberately trying not to be found. Apparently, it cost her everything to get the Chameleon Syndicate to get her a new identity, disappear into the docks, and work on healing up kraken hunters.

Unsurprisingly, we headed for the docks to take a look around. 

How to catch a snake

With the decision made to head down to the docks and find this hidden doctor, the crew started to get their disguises ready. Everybody was prepared for Cicero to take the lead on this, but Fin just started slicing into his arm and punching himself to get into character. Blood was everywhere. I rushed as fast as I could to stop the bleeding and wrap him up, and with a little bit of luck I did not too bad a job. Starting to get the hang of this medic stuff! Of course, once I finally had his bleeding stopped he decided to stab himself in the head. Cicero tried to explain that they didn’t actually have to need medical attention, and wrapped up his arm to look injured. Hopefully Fin survives until we find this doctor.

The good side of having a massive lunatic with blood pouring out of his skull is that it made the dock workers extremely easy to convince to give up the location of a local doctor. Apparently the new identity for Forester is Rivers. I guess she wanted to stick with a nature theme? At that point, Zoe and I made sure to go into surveillance mode. With Kaylee in the sky, I found a quiet corner to zone out in and kept an eye on things from above. It wasn’t long before I spotted two suspicious figures trailing Fin and Cicero through the crowds. They were a little ways back, but I wasn’t going to take any chances and alerted everybody over the comms. Zoe tried to send the Mophead Twins in but apparently they stood out a little too much in this crowd and the pair tried to split off. Unfortunately for them, Fin’s legs were still totally fine and he leapt across the entire distance, wrapped them up in a giant bear hug, and carried them off to be questioned. The crowd was not exactly enthused by this display of violence, not to mention the sight of a razor-sharp bleeding grin leaping 30 feet through the air. Cicero did his best to calm the crowd but trying to offset what everybody just saw was not exactly easy. 

As it turned out, the pair were just some pickpockets, part of some street gang called the Crimson Serpents. We’d heard of them when looking up who the local gangs might be and we’d even seen some of their tags in the alleys near the Siren. I was willing to be “gracious” and let them go, for a future favour. Given they hang out in an alley near Salon de la Mer, it might prove useful later with that Gavin fellow. All we need to do is use their call sign to get in contact.

Doctor Forester, I presume?

To nobody’s real surprise, Fin walked right up to the doc and called her by her previous name: Forester. Obviously, that didn’t go over well with the doc, but it confirmed this was the right person fast enough. Lucky for us Cicero has that mind control mumbo jumbo and wipes the memory of that as quickly as he can, using his ever-charming ways to get what he wants. Now, perhaps there were other things that happened in there, but what I could hear over the comms was that Fin is apparently property of the Dahl corporation. That seemed to be news to Fin as well.

The real question was about the New U stations, and Rivers seemed to imply that the systems were working well enough, except for their tendency to embed parasites. Mostly, her job was to deal with all the folks who didn’t die but came back hurt from the hunt. Cicero managed to convince her to help out with the job of checking out a New U station and investigating it, but the doc doesn’t want to talk here with others around. Conveniently enough, she’s up for meeting at the Siren when her shift ends. We’ll definitely want Min to be around for that conversation.

The heist

It wouldn’t be a day in Laroche without discussion of a heist! With the focus on the New U stations, the crew wanted to get their hands on one without any evidence pointing back to us. Ideally, one of the local gangs. Some of the investigation uncovered that maintenance was done remotely, using droids that arrive by ship and deliver a New U station. There just happens to be one docked at Laroche! The idea was floated to make it look like a joyride, get in, grab the New U, then crash it and tag it with a local gang sign. Taking a look around the neighbourhood we had found signs for the Crimson Serpents and the Iron Fist. Either seem to be a fine fit for framing.

That dealt with the plan for the cover-up, but first we were going to need a way to get on the ship. This Orland fellow in the Upper Quarters was going to be our way in. His credentials could get us on the ship, and all it would take would be Cicero and his usual skills. Once we had Orland at a secondary location, we could use Zoe’s Hyperion droids and an Orland disguise to get on board. We pick up the New U, load the truck, and pistol’s your daddy. If we pull this off plan, we’ll probably have to take a lookout position and provide some cover for the part of the crew in the truck. Between Penny, Kaylee, and myself we should be able to keep anybody from interfering with the crew while they get on board.

Time for some food. Don’t forget to find Penny’s hat, she left it somewhere at the Siren.

Image credit:

• Cover image: “Black Market” by Waar, from their WorldAnvil  (Sourced from: WorldAnvil )