G-020: Live Session Summary

Live Session 2022-02-13

 

Crystal Coast Resort, Ranulf’s On-The-Water, The Tank

Oliver and Lia continued their discussion of how to approach their task.

Resort map

They eventually settled on a plan of Lia attempting to feign a casual meeting with the Envoy, possibly utilising his interest in Chak, while Oliver looked for options for electronic surveillance.

 

Oliver – Crystal Town

Oliver took a quick cab trip into Crystal Town to pick up some electronic gear.

Cabs are routinely available from the front of the resort and the trip into nearby Crystal Town takes a little over a Task and typically costs 15.

Crystal town itself is built into a steep-walled valley a little inland of the Crystal Coast Resort.  A number of buildings have been build at the head of the valley, and the entire valley roofed over to allow part of the city to be pressurised.  Living spaces are also dug into the valley’s walls.

Oliver’s cab took him through a huge roadway airlock and dropped him at an entrance to a subteranean area in the valley wall, where he was able to locate the store he was after.  He spent 5,500 on some high-end surveillance tech (some if it clearly illegal), including two recording and two transmitting bugs, a laser window microphone and reception gear.

He stopped by a clothing shop to pick up some workman’s coveralls.

He then caught a cab back to the resort. 

Lia – Room 429

Meanwhile Lia obtained a beginner’s book on Chak from the resort’s gaming room and went to her room to study it and dress for her casual meeting.

Crystal Coast Resort, Accommodation Level 4

Accommodation map

Oliver joined Lia in her room (429).  They talked more and he attempted to see if he could hack into the resort’s surveillance system to allow Lia to know when the Envoy was leaving and make her meeting look accidental.

Oliver noted that the Envoy’s room (402) has a one-way window looking out to take advantage of the light well. 

At the start of Blue Shift, Lia went for a quick recce, and happened to chance onto what appeared to be the Envoy’s security shift change and the Envoy heading out with ‘The Little Guy’.

The Little Guy is a short, thin man aged about 11 with unhealthy-looking pale skin and dark thinning hair. 

Lia and Oliver also had a partial view of ‘the Big Guy’ – a tall, heavily muscled man stuffed into neat, casual holiday-maker’s clothes that seemed to be struggling to contain his physique.  His skin is so dark it looks almost black.

She signalled Oliver and followed the Envoy and his guard to the elevator.

Lia – Following the Envoy

In the elevator, Chak book poking suggestively from the top of her bag, she found her plan to engae the Envoy’s attention not working as hoped.  Most unusually, the Envoy ignored her, Lia’s perception of people suggesting to her that he was tense and pre-occupied.  His guard took an interest in her cleavage but did not appear suspicious.

On arrival at the ground floor she overheard the Envoy telling the Little Guy that he had booked a private room in the outdoor area and would be spending some time there.

Lia took advantage of knowing where the Envoy was heading to stop at a terminal and send some messages:

• To Glover advising that the job for Zayaire was not what they thought it might be, and they could ‘relax’ and noting that the job might help with ‘the little spanials’
• To Lexi saying the same
• To Oliver telling him where she was heading 

Then she went to the Outdoor Area, discovering that it comprises a lower corridor ring bordering a series of rooms, and an upper level where the ‘real’ fake outdoor area is located.  She was able to determine the approximate location of the Envoy from his loitering security guard (in a room at about 2 o’clock on the map – not that that reference would mean anything to Lia!)

The upper area was not currently being used, though there were signs of setting up for a future event.

Skirting the perimeter corridor, she was surprised to spot the Envoy, wearing a change of clothes, slipping out through a service door and heading for the Aerostat park.

Lia followed, apparently managing to avoid being noticed – which streak of unusual behaviour would, fortunately, continue for the rest of her excursion…

 

Oliver – Accommodation Level 4

With Lia now having spotted the Envoy, Oliver decided there was no point in continuing to hack the cameras.  A quick glance around Lia’s room revealed her taste in luggage wouldn’t do for his disguise, so he dumped excess and possibly revealing items out of his backpack and loaded it with tools. He did a quick examination of Lia’s lock, hacking its code into his PDA so he could re-enter her room, and also practicing for breaking into the Envoy’s room.  

He donned the coverall he purchased in Crystal Town and left Lia’s room.  The floor was quiet.  Approaching the Envoy’s room 42 and about to knock or check out the lock, he spotted a small camera placed up high on the door frame.  He decided to continue on and knocked on 403 instead.

After a pause the door was opened by a sleepy-looking woman:  Light tan skin with light brown hair in a short bob, grey eyes, aged about 12, 170 cm tall.

“Yes?”

“Been having a few lighting issues in some of the rooms. Would you mind if I got into the wiring.?

She came instantly alert, queried his desire to access the room electrics.

“I don’t mean to disturb you, you can wait until you’ve vacated, that’s fine,” Oliver turned to leave.

“What’s your name?”

Oliver pondered for half a second, considered that she might try and ask him for his ID, “Oliver.”

“You work for the hotel, Oliver?”

“Not Directly, contracted in occasionally when they’re understaffed or it’s busy.  Is there a problem? I’m happy to leave you to your day and I can come back once you’ve vacated.”

“I see, I’ll confirm that with the hotel.”

“Thank you.”

Oliver left, noting as he turned that on the table behind her was a laptop with camera views of the corridors.

To clarify, what I didn’t make clear initially:  The hotel has cameras in the circular areas covering the elevators and in the elevators themselves, but not in the straight corridors.  

‘Shit. The one person I did not want to answer that door!’ Oliver thought to himself, 

Debating what best to do, he returned to his room, 308, to consider his next steps and see if he would be arrested.

 

Lia – To Crystal Town and Back

Lia followed the Envoy to the Parking Office, where he donned a respirator and headed out into the night.  Picking up one of the courtesy respirators she followed him as he worked his way along the car park until he came to a footpath (not shown on the map) where he made his way back to the front of the resort and hailed a cab.  Lia followed, bouncing through the low gravity and darkness. 

There was another cab waiting and Lia was able to use the line, and appeared to allay the drivers’ curiosity or incredulity.

The Envoy’s cab travelled into Crystal Town, dropping him off next to a park in the centre of town.  Lia had her cab pull up a distance behind and watched from a nearby cafe as he went and sat on a bench, and waited.

Not long after his arrival a man came up from deeper within the park and sat next to him.  The man and the Envoy did not exchange a word, and Lia observed what appeared to be the Envoy surreptitiously handing off a small item to the man.  Shortly after that, the man got up and walked back the way he came, and the Envoy returned to the street.

Lia observed the man was wearing casual pants, a T-shirt and jacket of average or below-average quality.  He was aged about 10, average looks, well built and moved easily. 

Lia followed the Envoy back up the block where he found a taxi and returned to the resort, having the cab drop him off in the vehicle park out the front of the Parking Office, arriving as the star was rising.

Lia followed him in, dropping off her borrowed respirator, and suspected that he returned to his private room through the same service tunnel that he used to leave.

She alternated keeping an eye on the service door and his guard, who, as expected from Zayaire’s file, was impatiently moving about.  About four Tasks later, she found the guard had disappeared.  She did a lap of the perimeter corridor and spied the Envoy and his guard making their way back toward the resort buildings, the Envoy re-dressed in his original clothes.

Lia followed them back to 402, waiting an elevator behind and noting that the large dark-skinned guard was standing outside the Envoy’s room as she returned to her own.

 

Lia – Room 429

Back in her own room she found no sign of Oliver but the items from his bag, which included:

• Various technical books
  • Computer technical books
  • Cryptography books
  • Electrical engineering manuals
• A couple of handwritten notebooks (Argyle’s, though Lia would not know them as such)
• A small black leather-covered journal, old, worn and tied shut.
• A pile of clothes that look identical to the clothes she sees Oliver wear everyday – he has two of those
• A 25cm tall statue glass of the Overlord
• His laptop

Lia finds herself drawn to the leather journal, and skims through it, finding it to be Oliver’s personal journal.  The entries she skims detail Oliver’s recollection of what seems to be a terrorist operation against a Legion base.

We can assume that Lia did a good job of supressing any reaction she might have had to that information.

She checks her messages and read’s Oliver’s, goes to his room.

 

Lia and Oliver, Room 308

Oliver checks the peep hole on his door, sees it’s Lia and lets her in. He’s rather quick about it.

“Hey, come in,” he closes the door quickly behind her.

He asks, “How’d you go?”

“Well, something unexpected happened.”

“Hmmm?”

“I followed him, he was very distracted.

“He was supposed to be in a meeting room in the outdoor area, and he ducked out on his security, took a cab to a park, had a meeting with no words exchanged and a hand off to a young man, and came back. He’s now in his room again.”

“That sounds…strange. Do you think our honourable Envoy is a drug dealer?”

“No I don’t think so. He possibly handed off information. It was very small, whatever he gave him. Possibly a widget, or a piece of jewellery.”

Oliver frowns.

“What happened with you, who is this friend you ran into?”

“The Woman.”

“The woman?”

“The Woman. The security officer.”

“Ah,” Lia pauses, asks delicately, “How did that happen?”

“Well, there’s a camera on his front door, so I thought I would see if the adjacent room was vacant and…it was not.”

“Oh.

“Right.

“So this is going swimmingly so far.”

“Yeah, very well.”

They exchange rueful looks.

“We currently have no surveillance and no conversation.”

“Oh, and the thing I was trying to do with the camera she has already done.”

“How do you mean?”

“She’s got a laptop set up looking over the cameras in the hallway.”

“I see, I suppose that makes sense for them doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Thoughts?”

“Ah…”

Oliver trails off, there is a long pause.

He asks, “Did they notice you?”

“In the elevator the smaller security guard certainly noticed me, but not in an ‘oh, you’re suspicious’ way. But he would recognise me if he saw me again.”

“Because you stood in an elevator with him?”

“Well, yes.”

Oliver considers that.  It’s probably accurate.

“And, I stuck my head around the corridor and the larger security guard was outside the room and he certainly noticed me. I wasn’t doing anything suspicious, but he would recognise me again. But, I could just be someone in the hotel.”

“Right. You’ve go the excuse of sharing your floor with them, I… was meant to be a tradesperson so I probably can’t be seen again.”

“She would recognise you again?”

“She was less than a metre away from me for our conversation.”

“Oh dear.”

“Right. Don’t quite know what to do now.”

“Well, there’s nothing stopping your side of the plan, I just have to do my side of the plan a bit more carefully.”

“Yes, but now he’s back in his room. I can’t just hover outside the elevator all Cycle.”

Oliver makes an agreeing noise.

“I’m interested in why he skipped his security detail to have this meeting. Clearly not something he was supposed to be doing. I’m guessing he was handing over information of some kind, I’m just not sure what.”

“Did you recognise his contact?”

“No, I’ve never seen him before, but I would recognise him again. He looked like… a tradesman, maybe, just in ordinary clothing. Nothing up-market. Possibly a messenger? Who knows? Clearly there to pick something up.”

“Clearly.”

“I’m sure this information will be very interesting to our employer, but I can’t tell him what the information was.”

“And, we still don’t have an answer to our primary question.”

“Possible I should have followed the other man, but I didn’t want to lose the Envoy…

“Well, what now?”

“Well, we can always try again.”

“But what about you?”

“Well, I think I should take a more distanced approach.”

“Do you think she might try and contact the resort?”

“She might have said she was going to do that…”

“Oh. That could be a problem.”

“Possibly…”

“Could you possibly intercept that communique?”

“Ah… not without her noticing, most likely. Depends on how she contacts them.”

“I suppose it depend whether she sends a message or calls directly.”

“Yeah.”

“Is there any way to hack into the resort’s message system?”

“Probably… it’s do-able but success and stealth might be difficult.”

“What would you need to do that?”

“Just some time and a terminal to be honest.”

“Hmmm. I wonder if there’s a way to send her a message from the resort explaining your presence?”

“Possibly. I said there was lighting issue and we’d tracked the issue to the wiring between the two rooms.”

“Because if she had an official communique from the resort then she might be less suspicious of your having turned up. Is that possible to do?”

Oliver notes he could use a staff member’s terminal, or he could try hacking in to the system.  Lia retrieves his laptop from her room.  Meanwhile he’s been examining the terminal in his room and discovers it has a maintenance setting accessible from the comms trunk that helps him bypass security.  With a bit of work he is able to access the messaging system and he and Lia compose a message along the lines of:

TO: All Guests…

“…and a generic template looking thing. Generic is good when you’re trying to be official…”

Due to electrical issues…

blah blah blah…

…there may be maintenance staff attending…

blah blah blah…

…not compulsory…

blah blah

…apologies for inconvenience…

blah blah

…appropriate people have been disciplined…

blah blah

– The Mgt

Shortly after, Oliver and Lia both received a message from The MGT.

Lia comments, “So now it won’t look so peculiar if you go knocking on other people’s doors.

“Since you’re in the system, can you see if there’s any emails from the security officer to administration querying you?”

“I can take a look.”

He does, but is unable to find such a communication.  However, taking a look around the system while he has access, he notes that there was a request from a guest to access the maintenance data, lodged through reception, but it was withdrawn moments after Oliver sent his bogus message.

While in the system, Oliver notes:

• The Envoy is registered as himself, and has a VIP flag next to his entry.
• The occupant of room 403 is named Sydney Noyes-Bowie
• The occupant of room 401? is named Theodore Wasylow.
• Lia and Oliver are listed as conference guests, and have slightly different VIP flags against their names

 

“Do either of the guards look like a Theodore Wasylow?” Oliver asks distractedly.

“I couldn’t possibly comment.”

Lia notes what Oliver is looking at, “Across the passage might be the logical place for the third guard, unless they’re sharing a room, which is also possible.”

While Oliver is still fishing about she asks, “Do you think the Woman knowing your name is a problem?”

“I only gave her a first name, in case she demanded to see my ID, I didn’t want to lie to her.”

“You can’t access any cameras or anything from this system can you?”

“I’ll give it a crack.”

Already being in the system, he can now access the hotel’s security system much more easily than his previous, aborted attempt.

Oliver and Lia then discuss next steps, without coming to a firm conclusion on how to proceed…

 

[GM:  Feel free to add anything I may have missed.]