[6/7] Something Awesome [1.3 - Redwatch] [Slot Open - Accepting Entries]

"..." Donovan stares at the screen. As much as he trusts himself and his sources, especially the police's sources, this could not possibly be right. It seems too outlandish for a police report. He clicks through a few things before deeming this is indeed, the correct document. "What." That's all he can say really. He doesn't really know how much longer this will go on. Not much, hopefully. Donovan clears his throat. "Well there's definitely something going on, that much is easy to tell."

"You know we have got to find these names, right?" Melinda says, laughing. She has to admit, she would love to meet some of these people. Ah, the stories they could tell.

SILVER HILLS POLICE DEPT.
Missing Persons Report A-47

████████ ████████ ████████ student ████████ ████████ ████████ ████████ she ████████ ████████ ████████ ties to local ████████ ████████ flamethrower development ████████ criminal ████████ ████████ ████████ boyfriend by the name of ████████ ████████ still at ████████ high school ████████ ████████ status unknown ████████ ████████ ████████ nuclear strike ████████ ████████ ████████ ████████ forest ████████ ████████ ████████ ████████ ████████ Corporation of Science and Technology ████████ Operation Reconnect ████████ ████████.

Uh.

The only other remarkable thing is the presence of a strange symbol - a red swirl with a lightning bolt striking through it.

Donovan smiles. "Of course we're going to find the names. What else would I do?" He turns to the computer, only to realize he had already switched it. It must have been when he checked the other one. This report... it was a complete mess. "Woah..." He copies a few choice phrases into his note book (such as flamethrower development and nuclear strike) as well as the symbol. But two things in the report really bothered him. The words 'still at ____ high school' and 'forest'.

***The contents of Oren Ashford's Office, for the perusal and potential pillaging of Otto Hoffman***

-Extensive supplies of painkillers, topical anesthesia, pepto-bismol, and various other pills and ointments
-A six-pack of Diet Coke with Lime, 5 cans remaining
-A banjo
-A music book entitled "Ralph Stanley: The Essentials- For Banjo"
-Prescription supplies and pills for the kids who need them
-A large, beige desktop computer
-A Ka-Bar high-carbon, epoxy powder-coated 1095 steel Combat Kukri stuck in a corkboard, holding in place a poster of a beagle in sunglasses and a miniature blues brothers outfit
-A bottle of Maker's Mark
-Medical Gauze and band-aids
-A modified Atchisson Auto-Assault 12 gas-operated shotgun, with a 20-round drum and 2x optical zoom scope
-Two steel containers filled with 12-gague shotgun shells, both buckshot and slug
-One 8-shell box magazine of self-propelled high explosive ammunition
-A bottle of Jack Daniel's, 3/4ths full
-A defibrilator on one wall
-A large pile of papers in a tray marked "TO DO"
-An empty tray marked "DONE"
-The printout of a personal email, balled-up and lying on the desk
-A lanyard with 3 keys and a shell casing on it
-A cowboy hat, white
-A leather field supply bag filled with gauze and medical instruments
-A fire extinguisher

"Write those down too!" Melinda says, pointing at "Corporation of Science and Technology" and "Operation Reconnect." Those are gonna be the biggest gold mines of answers down the line, after all! "Have you ever seen that symbol before? I sure haven't. We gotta ask around about this."

Donovan writes down the noted phrases and scribbles a 'needs research' at the top of the page. He then closes his notebook and looks at Melinda. "Looks like we've got out work cut out for us."

Otto puts on the hat, strums the banjo, opens up a can of coke, takes a swig, pours some Jack Daniels in it, takes another swig, swills it around a bit, adds some more JD, decides he's finally got the flavour right, then sits himself down in the chair and starts looking through the TO DO pile from the bottom up. Chances are there's something there old Oren should've known about but didn't, thanks to the ~*~wonders of bureaucracy~*~.

At some point he picks up the discarded personal email and peruses its contents, too.

The email reads:

To:o.ashford@shh.edu
From:Valgal3030@gmail.com
Subject: Re: We need to talk

No. We're visiting her aunt Maggie in Oklahoma this weekend. Don't come up.
Stop trying to see her, Oren. She doesn't even like fishing.

-Val

Lawrence rubs his forehead. This talk of mages in regular police reports is both alarming and unwelcome.

"Are you sure none of those are faked? Cops talking about magic, it's ridiculous.

If that note about the high school means anything though... Mr. Zikkit, could you try and find out what's blacked out? I've got to check something out over here."

Lawrence decides to do some research of his own - into the potato cult and the weird symbol, utilizing his connection to the magical world as well as his more technological assets (read: google).

"Milady." Athur greets the secretary, placing a hand at his stomach and doing a slight bow, then walking over to the principle's desk, standing tall and completely ignoring the chair that has been pulled out for him.

"Greetings! Mayor... ah..." Athur shouts, while he glances around for some kind of name tag in the room. "Ehm, Principle, I have been doing my work keeping the kingdom and your fair hamlet here safe from those knaves, but, forsooth, it has come to my attention that rumors of missing commoners among your people, I am gravely concerned. Pray tell, do you know any news about this that you could share with your king?"

Oren's headed to his office, but he lingers for a bit in the courtyard, taking a look around.

There's what he's looking for. Carter over here is a security guard he's established a bit of a rapport with ever since he saved his broken nose from mending back all crooked. Boy was sounding like a pennywhistle every time he breathed through his nose for a bit.

Oren trots up to him. "Hey, Carter. How's the nose?

You heard about them missing kids? Pretty grim stuff, ain't it? Listen I was wondering if there's anything you think I should know about it. Or, uh," he drops his voice a little. "Really if there's anything you don't think I should know about it either. This whole thing don't feel right, do it?"

Oren spots the memorial in the courtyard. Take a closer look?

"Are there any other profiles?" Melinda asks, staring at the bio, trying to somehow puzzle out the blacked-out contents. If only she had a better clue than the length of the black bars. "Sounds like this girl is probably still alive. She's gotta be really important."

Suddenly something occurs to her as she stares. "Hey, doesn't it seem weird that they blacked out everything but the important bits? What if this is all a red herring?"

After his conversation, Oren looks over at the memorial.

The memorial is in the shape of a large pillar, which rises above the center of the courtyard. At the base of the memorial is a plaque with the names of the students killed in the Incident engraved - save for the members of the Chemical Mafia. Two names are etched out, however. Who were they, and why were they etched out?

You then recall news of the original Silver Hills school - most of it was demolished following the Incident. However, plans to rebuild were passed before they could finish tearing the building down. The original science wing, complete with the original chemistry lab where the fighting took place, is still there. The chem lab remains locked and boarded up.

"Greetings! Mayor... ah..." Athur shouts, while he glances around for some kind of name tag in the room. "Ehm, Principle, I have been doing my work keeping the kingdom and your fair hamlet here safe from those knaves, but, forsooth, it has come to my attention that rumors of missing commoners among your people, I am gravely concerned. Pray tell, do you know any news about this that you could share with your king?"

"Hm." The principal spins around in his chair - a slately, gray-haired man in his late fifties staring through a pair of glasses - and turns to face Arthur. "We do have a few dissidents from the Incident and other vanished students from years past. The police have been keeping it secret as they believe they're onto something of great importance that would be too dangerous for the public to get involved in..."

The principal adjusts his thin, wiry glasses. "We know as much as anyone else on this matter, Arthur. As soon as we get word on what's going on, we'll tell you immediately. For now, though, continue your work as defenders of school law - our police force values your presence."

Oren sucks in his lips looking at the monument.

He roots around in his pocket for a pencil and pad to maybe do an etching, or something, then thinks wait. What am I doing?

He pulls out his phone and snaps a quick picture instead. He'll need to show this to Donovan.

If this weird tampering has gone all the way to the statue, then there's something majorly serious going on. And if Carter doesn't have any info, there's only one place Oren can think of where they can get answers. They want to know what's going on, they're gonna have to pony up.

What does he mean they? It's Donovan who's doing all the probin' around.

Is Oren really going to let a student in his charge skulk about in an abandoned part of the school that's been saturated in chemicals and condemned?

Well, not alone, he ain't.

He reflexively fidgets with the tarnished golden crosses, three of them, on a chain round his neck.
If he lets Donovan know his suspicions, the kid'll want nothing more to investigate.
And if they're going to investigate, they're gonna need a few things.

"Dammit," mutters Oren, and he goes to his office.

He runs into Otto's impromptu banjo session. "Well howdy, Burl Ives," he laughs. "Didn't know you was gonna get this cozy. I-hey now." He notices the empty can and the mixed drink on the desk. (although due to Otto's shuffling of paperwork he remains oblivious to the personal e-mail having been read). "If you wanted some liquid courage all you had to do was ask. In fact-" He goes over to the Jack, screws up his eyes, and takes a slug. "-Oof. I think I need some for myself. You know anything about that chem lab they got boarded up?"

While he talks, he goes to check his shotgun and grab some Gauze. He's gonna use a little trick he learned from a Buryat shaman in Mongolia. Make a few White Wards against any radiation or what have you still hovering in the air.

Donovan clicks a few more times and shakes his head. "That's the last of them. Well, the ones that met my search criteria anyway." He turns back a page and marks a few lines under the title of the first report, making sure to mark that one as potentially vital.

He clicks out of the window with the police reports and opens up another one at Google. He searches 'Potato Cult' first. "I'm pretty sure that it's not a red herring. I had to employ a bit... unorthodox methods to get to them, and I'm pretty sure the police wouldn't lie to their own members about anything."

"The stuff they blacked out must've been really important, then," Melinda chuckles. "And do you really think you're going to find the juicy stuff on Google? Come on."

If Donovan can find secret police reports, Melinda muses, surely he can do a deeper web search than that. If the cops went through the trouble of hiding this much information, there's no way they'll find anything important from a simple Google search.

First result for "potato cult"

Solanum Tuberosum Cultus - Library Search
Search your local library for "Solanum Tuberosum Cultus".

Seems like a book's your best lead.

Donovan shrugs. "Hey, you gotta start somewhere, and Google is as good a place as any. It's all about making connections." He clicks the first link to see if this book was available. The name was pretty strange, so he supposed it was as good as any.

LibrarySearch
Results for "Solanum Tuberosum Cultus"

Solanum Tuberosum Cultus
Anonymous Author
Reading Mansion Publications
June 2012

Solanum Tuberosum Cultus, published by an unknown author, provides an unbiased, factual look into the event surrounding the Anti-Late FedEx Deliveries Movement, an act of crime which caught the attention of the nation. Our unnamed writer beautifully pens the chronicles of the events, as well as a unique look into the purported survival of the three innocents known to have escaped the events.

This book is available at the following nearby libraries:

Silver Hills High School
One Silver Hills Drive
Silver Hills, Democratic Nation
One copy

Should be right in the school.

"Huh..." Donovan stares at the screen for a moment, then turns around to look at the shelves. "Seems a bit coincidental if you ask me, but you never know, I suppose." He writes the name into his notebook and stands up. "I'm going to go ask the librarian about the book. Feel free to check for anything else on the computer. Or you could come with me, I guess."

...

"Well I'll be damned."

Part of her says that was almost too easy, but she's not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. "The librarian's not in, is she? Come on, let's go book-hunting." She starts scouring the shelves for the right section, not totally sure what she should be looking for but not really caring.

Donovan sighs. "Ah. You're right." He shrugs and goes to the left section, looking for the supposed book. It was going to be hard to find it without an author, but he'd have to make do.