Part 13: Paranormal Activity

Part 13 - Paranormal Activity










The worst thing about living in a cyberpunk world is that it apparently never stops raining. We're back to running solo since Coyote's still recovering and Paco vanished without a word between loading screens. Thanks, buddy. This is exactly why we keep the company of drones.



We chat up a local hooker, as one does, who tells us little aside from that the local bums have apparently been stealing junk from the NTSB for years.



Not much else here, so we head for the docks proper. Gate's closed though, and there's a guard posted on the other side who addresses us as we approach.



I'm working with Lone Star on the crime scene investigation in the NTSB warehouse.

Sure you are. And I'm Lofwyr, the King of Dragons. Beat it.

Well, it was worth a shot. With the Security etiquette you can claim that Aguirre called you in to investigate whether the security had been too lax when the murder happened, but we don't have it so we have to find an alternate method past the great dragon.



Maybe this ladder'll do the trick, assuming it's how the bums get in to do their thieving.



The nearby old man reacts poorly to our ladder-grabbing intentions.

I'm not taking it far. I just need a little boost over the fence.

Oh, you breakin' into NTSB warehouse too? If you see any o' them airplane blankets or pillows, snag me one.

We went for a Charisma check of 3 here, but ¥5 or telling him you'll use his intestines as a rope work too. Diplomacy is great.

Now we just need a distraction, so we return to our previous acquaintance.



Not me... a friend of mine. I need you to have some fun with the guard by the fence around the corner. Would ¥20 be sufficient?

[She looks at you knowingly.] Alright, 20 buys you a five minute distraction. Then I've gotta get back to work and earn some real nuyen.

She walks up to the guard.





While she's doing her thing...





...we do ours and make our way to the other side. How we're planning on getting back out of here is a matter that'll never be addressed.



Now we just need to find the warehouse. Note that these aren't the same docks the first battle took place in, though they're just about as spacious.



While looking around, we find an open crate near a helicopter with a couple of grenades of the concussion and phosphorus variety inside. Nothing says "pyrophoric party" quite like the gentle touch of white phosphorus.



Here we are. Hopefully we made it before Officer McDumbsky this time as well.









Fortunately it's Aguirre who's here to welcome us instead of the ork. Seems like Dresden's here as well, does the guy have any time off at all?



You know the traffic these days. Fill me in.

We had time to go over the evidence while you were en route. Turns out this might not be a Ripper murder after all. I left the computer on in the office over there if you want to see for yourself.

What? Who cares about unrelated murders, hopefully we're not just wasting our time here.

The victim worked here at the NTSB warehouse as a black box researcher.

NTSB?

This is a slightly awkward bit of dialogue since we literally mentioned NTSB ourselves a bit earlier.

The National Transportation Safety Board. This warehouse is used to go over the wreckage from plane crashes to try to determine what happened. The vic was in charge of their highest priority investigations at the moment. We've gone through his computer and his case notes indicate he was selling secrets. Idiot kept records.

Spilling corp secrets? Not the wisest career choice.

Tell me about it. Some runner like you probably offed him to cover up his Corp master's involvement and tried to make it look like a Ripper killing. Here's the office key. Check it out for yourself if you want.

Might as well, seeing as we're apparently an official part of this investigation team these days.



We enter the office nearby and check the computer.



Let's just go down the list.

Case file #95:



Case file #96:



The note file for #98 is corrupted, so we move on to the researcher's private notes.



Well, just because he messed up doesn't mean that we can't make use of his work. There's a locker we can look at in this room as well, but we'll come back to that later.

We can also point out to Aguirre that if this was indeed a corp hit, it's strange that they'd left the evidence on the computer.



Back in the previous room, we notice a locked door near the victim but currently lack the means to get it open.

There's a woman who doesn't look like a police officer nearby as well, but we'll talk to our coroner buddy first.



Looks like business is good for Dial-a-Morgue, these days.

Ha! Yes... yes, indeed. The victim's male, mixed Native American descent, age 38. Based on the condition of the body, it looke like he was killed around two in the morning.



Not quite how I'd want to go out.

Well, it seems that the victim was quite dead before the organs were removed. So at least he had that going for him, don't you think? The killer definitely took the lungs. The more I look at it though, the other missing organs may just be eviscerated within the chest cavity.

Now there's a breathtaking mental image.

It seems like the Ripper is taking a different trophy from each victim. Sam's liver, this guy's lungs... any theories?

Sorry, I don't do theories. I'm just a scientist who happens to prefer dead people. However, while there was massive damage in the chest cavity, I can see that the victim's lungs were transplants. Which is interesting, since another victim's missing heart was also a transplant.

Y'know, just in case you somehow still haven't caught on to the pattern.

Granted, modern medicine has made organ transplants relatively easy but it is an odd coincidence. But, as a scientist, it's just that. A coincidence. This is only the third body I've personally examined as one of our other branch managers handled the other two. If I find that more of the victims had organ transplants, I'll let you know.

Is McKlusky getting any closer to a suspect?

McKlusky couldn't find his ass with both hands. Don't tell him I said that, though.

What about Officer Aguirre, how is he doing on the case? He seems like a real go-getter.



We ought to just count ourselves lucky that we have such an obvious lesser evil to work with.

Did you take the money?

[He grins from ear to ear.] Do you have any idea how much this job pays these days, ma'am? I don't think Aguirre's salary is going to do much to seduce me into helping him.

Who's that woman over there?

No clue. She just showed up. Next of kin, I think.

Alright, I'm going to take a look around.

Good luck out there.

Let's find out what her business with the corpse is.



I'm independent. What's your relationship with the dead man?

[The suspicion in her voice and eyes departs almost instantly when the subject turns to the deceased.]

He's my brother, I... I've been trying to speak with him, but I'm afraid his spirit is too disoriented by his recent journey to answer me.

You're a shaman?

Yes, for all the good it's doing me. If I could just make contact, I might be able to deliver justice and allow my brother's spirit to rest.

Were there any other witnesses?

Not so far as I can tell. Not among the living anyway.

[Realization then dawns, bringing the light back into her eyes.]

But my brother's spirit may not be alone here this night.

[She closes her eyes and concentrates, droning a low chant you can barely hear.]



Shannon really likes her [descriptive texts].

But I can't do it alone.

What do you need?

This warehouse contains the spirits of plane crash victims trapped between worlds. They wish to help. They wish to be heard. And I think they have something to say about my brother's murder. Lone Star won't let me in there, but you seem to have the run of the place.

It sucks being a dead person in RPGs, feels like every other guy has their spirit trapped or otherwise left wandering restlessly in the limbo or whatever.



Wait, is this just some plot to get us to pilfer stuff for you? For all we know you're just one of the bums from the outside, maybe one who has taken enough drugs to start thinking they're a shaman.

Whatever, it's not like we've any better ideas.

Alright, I'll do what I can.

Our job now is to scour the warehouse for any particularly spooky items.



First we go back to the office room with the computer and look through the locker we ignored earlier. It apparently belonged to the victim, and contains a toothbrush and a comb. We poke the toothbrush first.



A little gross but not particularly spooky. How about the comb?



Comb your hair with this and you'll have permanent morning hair. Terrifying.



Heading deeper into the warehouse, we spot a large pile of shoes next to some seats. If these belonged to the plane crash victims, we might find some creepy crocs or something.



The dress shoe and the high-heel bump appear to be perfectly normal footwear, but the sneaker on the other hand...



Static electricity? Yep, that has to be dead children alright. Technically we now have the two objects we were asked to find, but we might as well be thorough and see if we can find something more.



There's a pile of potentially ghostly garbage in the corner of the same room.



Ewww. We end up with a dented lunchbox, an earring and a credstick. The lunchbox is completely ordinary and the credstick fattens our account by 200 nuyen. The item of interest here is the earring.



Or maybe it's merely a normal earring and Amazon's just real scared of salmon for some reason. Let's continue looking a bit longer just in case.



Next to the trash pile in the northeastern end of the room is yet another locked door. Fortunately there's a small opening in the wall next to it, a feature we're well-equipped to take advantage of.



Just like back at the apartments, spirit summoning would've done the job as well. To my knowledge there are no other means to get through.



There's no haunted objects or loot inside, but we do find a little something that'll help us get through the other locked door that was near the murdered man.



Like so.



The only thing of interest inside is an old diary which apparently belonged to a teenage girl. The game makes no mention of what it reads or even if it's a haunted object, but since it can be picked up we damn well are gonna do so.

That's all there is to be found, so back to the shaman.

It feels as though you have found enough objects.

Yes, here they are.

[You hand her the objects you've found. She closes her eyes and chants over them for a time. When her eyes open again, they're filled with tears.]

Thank you. These items are all I will need. It shouldn't take me long to--



Welp, things can just never go smoothly it seems.



This is a crime scene, officer. Not some Salish drum circle.

That's her brother. Makes it her business.



I loathe to admit it, but that was a pretty good comeback.

Now get the hell out.

Come on. If we stay much longer, I'm liable to do something I'd regret. Or worse, something I'd enjoy.



We're returned back to the entrance, our way to the warehouse blocked. Netted a decent chunk of Karma for our efforts, at least.



Yeah, hopefully we won't be working with him again.

But there's no helping it now. I should just be grateful you were able to collect these items before those clods carted everything off.

Can we still summon the spirit?

Not from here I'm afraid. Spirits such as these have domains, to which they are anchored. We need to get back in there.

I swear you're just coming up with all these rules as we go along. All Sangoma needed was a glowing puddle and she murdered like four people with it.

Not looking good now. But do you have any plans for this evening?



You sure you're up for this?

It may be a rabbit hole, but I have to get to the bottom of it.

Whatever your reasons, I thank you. Now, since we have the time, we should probably enlist some help as they may post security overnight. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say you know where to find the kinds of people we need.

You could say that.



"Wad" isn't an understatement, she actually hands us four thousand nuyen. I don't know if this is the highest lump sum you ever receive in the entire series, but it's definitely up there.

Meet me back here at midnight. The spirits will be strong then.

Never a good night of sleep around here it seems. As we head for the exit, our commlink chirps with an incoming call.



Just getting jerked around by Lone Star. Same old thing.

I hear you.

[Her jaw sets.]

I don't know if I ever told you this, but I was born in the Royale. BTL pushers like Stevie J ran the squats. Ran my world when I was growing up.

I remember.

[She looks relieved.] Wiz. I have a cousin - Gino - who's been missing for months. He hit the Sprawl 'bout a year ago and immediately fell in with some tweakers. Bad guys. They hooked him on high-amp dreamchips and started using him for all sorts of drek. I tried to help him but he pushed me away, and then he disappeared. I've been shooting up BTL labs ever since trying to find him.

You're on a crusade.

Maybe. That's what Mrs. Kubota calls it.



It's actually completely possible to refuse, saying that you want to get paid or are otherwise busy. Doing so skips the next mission entirely, but I'm not sure if that has any longer-term consequences as I've never tried.

It's not like we have anything better to do until midnight anyway.

On my way.



Yeah, see you. See you next time, that is.