Food for Thought

[Bjorn]

Hit by a sudden thought while chatting with Dracos, Bjorn turns on the local news (radio or TV) and scans the Internet for any information related to yeterday's escaped mental patient.

[Brian]

Nothing on TV indicates an event that you could see as being related to yesterday, but it could also have veered just off the road and vanished into the snow.  This is, however, unlikely.

Being a gamer/techie/geek, of course, your TV is unpacked, even though the majority of your dishes are not.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn grunts softly, and then turns back to his computer and bends all his information sifting skills (normally reserved for discovering the best wavelet-decomposition model of cochlear response properties) to finding out whatever he can about yesterday's escaped mental patient -- a name, where he escaped from, anything.

[Brian]

You begin to search.  'Escaped mental patient' nets you some very odd websites, among them a site for ameture romance fiction.  However, when you throw in the 'Toronto' modifier, you are able to pull up a listing of the bulletins sent out by the radio statio that spread the broadcast last week.

Their bulletin reads thusly:

Be advised that it is possible that an escaped mental patient is loose near the Western outskirts of Toronto.  No desc. availible, but consider him to be dangerous.

Update:  The mental patient is described as being caucasian.  He has medium-length black hair, and was last seen wearing a torn hospital gown.

A link from there to their primary news site also gives traffic updates, and mentions a car crash and or vehicle fire at about what you believe was the time of the incident in the same area, though.

There is no update suggesting that he isn't still at large, but that is the extent of the information you can gather in about two hours.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn hesitates for a second, and then dials the number provided in the bulletin, to ask whether there have been any updates on the situation.

[Bjorn]

<@Brian> Very well.  You are at home, looking at the news site for the radio station that had broadcasted the report, and are eyeing the dry and uninvolved dispatch.
* Bjorn picks up the phone and punches in the number.
<@Brian> It rings about three times before a tired masculine voice answers the phone.  "Caber here.  You have an update?"
<Bjorn> "Um.  I think I saw someone matching the description about 11:30 yesterday.  Has he not been captured yet?"
<@Brian> "What?  You don't--"  The voice cuts off, and you hear indistinct mutterings, as though he's placed a hand over the reciever of the phone.  After a moment, the man comes back, and says, "Ah, we got word that he hitched a ride west in a car with someone who didn't know better.  He's not considered to be a threat in the Toronto region, anyway."
<Bjorn> "Oh.  So it couldn't have been him I saw?"
<@Brian> "It might have been -- we got word at closer to noon that he'd headed out."
<Bjorn> "Oh.  Okay, well, sorry I couldn't be more help."
<@Brian> "No problem, Mr. Christianson.  Thanks for the info."
<@Brian> The line goes dead.
<Bjorn> ...
<Bjorn> O-kay.
<@Brian> It could have been caller ID.  Maybe.

[Bjorn]

After the conversation, Bjorn gets up and starts unpacking his house.   As he does so, he makes sure that place unobtrusively in all rooms, within convenient reach of anywhere he might happen to be, is something -- a hammer, a screwdriver, a kitchen knife -- that he can use as a weapon.

[Brian]

Code Select Expand

Perception check (8- +int/5 + 1sb)
Bjorn --> "OkibiOhki rolls 3d6 and gets 11.

As you unpack, you wonder two things.  Firstly, how did you get so much stuff, and secondly, why is all the packing tape for each box already cut open?

[Bjorn]

O-kay.  Right, then.  Bjorn short-circuits his unpacking efforts to grab his worn, flashless-yet-functional katana, and spend some time prowling his house.  He's not sure what he's looking for -- or rather, he knows exactly what he's looking for (signs of forced entry, bugs or other surveillance equipment, ninja assassins), but with the possible exception of the last, he's sadly aware that he has no idea what they'd actually look like.

[Brian]

You spend some time examining your house for ... something.  You find everything apparently in order.  None of your unpacked things are out of place.

Nothing is missing.

Nothing in any of your boxes appears to even be disturbed.

No strange electronic devices (or even familiar ones) have been stowed in the heating ducts, or in your shower.

There's no sign that any of the locks or window latches are open.

...but you know you didn't cut that tape.

[Bjorn]

This is definitely weird.  Maybe not time to completely panic, but.... With that, Bjorn looks up the nearest hotel, and makes a reservation for tonight.  Just to be on the safe side, and he decides that it's time to get out of the house.

And then, after another few seconds of thought, he makes a reservation for the same night at both the Airport Hilton and the Mariott in Hamilton -- all under his own name, of course, since he has to give them his credit card.  What the hell.  Signing bonus was generous, and if somebody is spying on me, might as well give 'em something to do...

After that, he goes back to his careful unpacking -- but he keeps his sword tucked through his belt.

[Brian]

You discover that doing chores with a sword stuck through your belt is awkward, but not impossible.  You are to unpack for several hours without discovering anything else out of place.  At that point, it's dark out (and still snowing, of course), but you see no additional signs of people messing with your stuff, or coming after you.

You are a bit hungry, though.

(It's about 6:00 PM EST)

[Bjorn]

Bjorn makes himself a frozen pizza, pours some Coke, and then sits down to check up on email and IRC.

[Brian]

Ah, frozen pizza.  Advances in technology over the last few years have accelerated it from tomato-paste-on-cardboard flavor to obsceneley-thin-cracker-coated-with-tomato-paste.  The cheese and sausage are decent, though.

Unfortunately, the snow is still coming down pretty hard, so by the time you get back to your computer, you find that your internet connection is down.  The phone lines are still going, and you have power, however.

[Bjorn]

"Son of a...."

Bjorn doesn't continue with the swearing, because if there's no one around to be amused and/or offended, what's the point?  But it would be good to phone the ISP, except that he would normally look up the number online, and can't.  Luckily, he still has the paperwork from signing up (buried in his "filing system" in a desk drawer), so after a little, he makes the call, ready to complain.