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Post by Allison Cooper on Oct 5, 2015 18:22:55 GMT -5
Allison simply held up the wallet in answer to Alex's question. She leafed through, repeating the name aloud. "Tiberiu Bălan.... And the winner of the most generic name I've heard, John Smith. Fake ID maybe? And a bad one at that. I don't know, what do you make of any of this Alex?"
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Post by Alex Cooper on Oct 5, 2015 20:09:58 GMT -5
Alex took the wallet to check for herself, but not in a rude way. She didn't just . . . snatch it out of Allison's hand. She can be a jerk, but not that much of a jerk. "Sounds like we've got ourselves a real John Doe, Scully," she said, checking the cards in the light of Allison's phone. "Gotta give him credit. If these are his crazy notes, he's got great handwriting." She held out a piece of paper covered in numbers and strange symbols, like some sort of super chemistry or math equation. She was right, too. Guy had perfect penmanship.
October 1st, 2015. 12:33 PM.
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Post by Allison Cooper on Oct 5, 2015 21:31:26 GMT -5
"Great penmanship, but the gibberish of a madman. Or a genius? Either way it's beyond me." Allison sighed, looking around at the ruins again. "You were right about one thing though, this stuff is definitely off. I mean, you see the smokestack? How does that even happen?" She reached into her bag to pull the rock back out. "What do you make of this? Only thing sitting in an area clear of debris, and it was covering the wallet."
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Post by Alex Cooper on Oct 6, 2015 4:01:44 GMT -5
Alex squinted at the rock, perhaps feeling the effects stronger than Allison had. "This whole place feels weird. I think that rock is giving me a headache just for looking at it." She wasn't wrong. It certainly was messing with her head.
October 1st, 2015. 12:34 PM.
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Post by Allison Cooper on Oct 6, 2015 7:59:08 GMT -5
"Yeah, weird right?" Allison shrugged, returning the rock into her bag for now. "Honestly Alex, I don't know what any of this means now. I feel like coming here just made more questions."
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Post by Alex Cooper on Oct 6, 2015 17:46:22 GMT -5
From the shadows it watched. The flesh it wore was human; a strange, cold feeling. So used was it to the fur of a rat or the feathers of a crow. Humans were such . . . fragile creatures. A small bump or scratch and its body was damaged, and yet it still marched on. This made them dangerous. A rat carried disease, and in a swarm they could strip the flesh of a large beast. A crow soared above danger, swooping when opportunity presented itself. Humans were always capable, always ready to swat back at anything that harmed them, always ready to strike first and strike hard.
Would it been allowed to swarm, it would have done just that. Arnold Hart had no friends or allies. No furry creatures with long tails and cute whiskers to join it in their mad dance, teeth nibbling―gnashing―against flesh, feasting upon strings and bathing in blood. Here it was not a rat. It was a man. It was Arnold Hart. He was Arnold Hart. I am Arnold Hart.
Skulking forward out of the darkness, he held out his hands in a pathetic, weasel-like gesture. "You shouldn't be here," it―he, now he―croaked. His voice was raspy, like the effort of talking proved almost too much for him to manage. He was filthy, wearing a vagrant's garb. Long, oily hair clung to his face and shoulders in dirty, matted strings. He had a permanent five o'clock shadow, and yellow teeth, missing most of them.His fingernails were long and broken, the undersides caked with dirt. His eyes were bloodshot, one of them sealed shut from an ugly bruise.
"Jesus!" Alex shouted, eyes widening as she turned to face the man. He scared the crap out of her. "You scared the crap out of me." After a quick review of his dirty―maybe even soiled?―clothes, she made the astute observation that maybe he wasn't supposed to be there either. "Back off, don't get any closer," she warned, closing the distance between herself and Allsion. For whatever reason, he gave off a dangerous vibe.
KILL HER, SHE KNOWS!!
The man smiled, hands up in the universal sign of surrender. Completely disarming.
October 1st, 2015. 12:35 PM.
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Post by Allison Cooper on Oct 6, 2015 18:24:06 GMT -5
"Holy shit!" Allison yelped as the ragged man appeared out of the shadows, and had she still held the stone in her hand it would have fallen to the floor. "We weren't doing anything. We were just looking." Her hand tightened on the strap of her bag, eyes peeling off the man briefly to look toward the door, contemplating making a break for it should the man make any sudden movement.
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Post by Alex Cooper on Oct 6, 2015 18:51:45 GMT -5
Despite having his arms up, though the gesture didn't seem any less threatening given his unnerving appearance, he took a step forward, then another, testing the range before Alex raised her hands into small, unimpressive fists. What she had in cunning she lacked in physical strength.
"Give it the―the me . . . me the wallet," he groaned, forcing the words out of his mouth. Class A crazy homeless man. "It's not yours. I'll give it back to T-Tiberiu," he said, taking another step forward.
"I said back off!" Alex threatened again, taking a half-step forward and reaching for her back pocket. She kept a small pocket knife there, and Allison at least knew it.
SHE HAS A WEAPON!
He frowned.
October 1st, 2015. 12:35 PM.
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Post by Allison Cooper on Oct 6, 2015 19:42:38 GMT -5
Allison shot a glance to her sister at the man's insane rambling, raising an eyebrow skeptically. "...If you need some change I'm sure I can spare some, but I don't... think that I should be giving this wallet to you..." She still looked ready to run if the situation called for it.
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Post by Alex Cooper on Oct 6, 2015 20:04:42 GMT -5
Alex continued to feel as though something was very, very off. Then it hit her. "Do you know this guy?" she asked, briefly looking at the wallet, then back to the filthy vagrant.
"N-n- . . ." he stammered, his one good eye going wide and almost bugging out of the socket, twitching and looking every which way as if trying to read off of projectors scattered throughout the room.
YOU―! IT'S―!!! TAKE―! FOUL―!!
The voices were furious. He made a mistake.
"Answer me!" Alex exclaimed, taking a step further and reaching out to grab the man. He offered no resistance, too lost in the ecstasy of the howling in his mind. Gone was Alex's fear. She was riding the high of finding out what had happened, and this man knew something. "What happened? Why did he go suicide bomber on our show?!"
October 1st, 2015. 12:36 PM.
Alex Wits + Composure (Perception) 5 Pool 2 Success
Allison Wits + Composure (Perception) 3 Pool 2 Success
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Post by Allison Cooper on Oct 6, 2015 20:20:43 GMT -5
Allison was also starting to catch on, and as Alex started to accuse the man it all clicked into place. "Yes you do!" She added, refuting his stuttered denial. "You know his name, who is he? What happened the other night? People died for fuck's sake."
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Post by Alex Cooper on Oct 6, 2015 20:29:54 GMT -5
Still lost for words, the man tried to back off, but realized Alex was holding onto his shirt by her fist. "I-I was wrong, I don't know him, I don't know anything," he cried. Literally, he started sobbing and going weak at the knees.
Alex let go out of pity, and that was her first mistake. As soon as she released him he started to bolt, running for the door they came in from and shoulder checking it to get outside. As they persued, the moment they made it outside he was gone. There was no way he would have been fast enough to make down either end of the alley, what with them a second or two behind. There was no cover for him to hide behind either, meaning he just vanished into thin air.
"What the fuck?!" Alex shouted, starting to run down one end of the alley, but she quickly realized it was foolhardy.
October 1st, 2015. 12:36 PM.
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Post by Allison Cooper on Oct 6, 2015 20:38:16 GMT -5
Allison dashed after the fleeing man and her sister, pulling to a stop at the door and looking down the two possible paths. "What the hell...?" She realized Alex had picked a direction and seemed to be slowing to a stop so she chased after her. "What the fuck just happened Alex?"
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Post by Alex Cooper on Oct 6, 2015 20:47:43 GMT -5
Irritation was written all over her face, and oozed out of her tone with no filter. "Do you want a list? You find a crazy headache rock, some bum shows up out of nowhere and tries to snag the Kaczynski's wallet, then name drops him, bails, and dips out into thin air," she rattled out, fingers going up with each point. She even referenced the Unabomber by surname. Topical.
October 1st, 2015. 12:36 PM.
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Post by Allison Cooper on Oct 6, 2015 20:50:58 GMT -5
"...Alex." Allison's tone was soft, an attempt to calm her riled up sister. "Look. We still have the rock, and the wallet. I... I don't know what the hell was up with that guy, or how he got away but... But we can find out can't we?" She patted her bag as she spoke with one hand, the other gesturing to the wallet Alex was likely still holding.
"Now. What do we have in there that can lead us to more answers. Seems this... Tiberius guy is our best bet."
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