Day 0: I'm just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened

[Ozma]

With further clarification(and a minute or two of thought), Emily carefully climbs up and into Jackson's pickup, sitting primly at the far end. She tilts her head thoughtfully, then knocks on the window.

"There's an old Bus stop on Elm street. If That's what she told Cole, she wants us to meet her there at noon. We could get there early. It might be better to park a street or two over and walk." She purposefully gives Cole some space in the truck, aware of how he'd reacted to her holding his arm. 

[Ezeze]

The station is on the edge of town. To its North there is a government building of some sort, the Normel history museum and gift shop, a half dozen restaurants to cater to the government employees’ lunch breaks, and a few little shops limping by on selling to people who come for the restaurants. Approximately one in every three buildings is empty – casualties of internet shopping and home delivery. That’s the direction the trio has to park in if they don’t want to stand out because to the South there’s nothing but the highway the bus station was originally intended to serve, with publicly owned land for the few hundred feet it takes to turn into corn fields which, in turn, stretch out towards the horizon. Corn fields being, after all, the background radiation of life in Nebraska.

It’s relatively early on a Saturday so parking is free and there isn’t a lot of competition for it just yet. Jackson can snag a choice spot and the three can approach the bus station casually without attracting much attention. The trio's destination is a single story brick building that runs parallel with the road a dozen feet back from it. Behind it is big parking lot where, presumably, buses were kept overnight back before this particular station was decommissioned - but it's empty, so parking there would have been a dead giveaway that someone was here waiting.

The station was built during the New Deal and as such its style can best be described as 'art deco on a budget.' An attempt was made at evoking strength and permanence with the squat, sturdy archways around the three side-by-side entrances. But it mostly comes across as ironic now, given that the glass doors in those archways are boarded up with ugly plywood and the sides of the building are sporting a few graffiti tags.

There aren’t any tents, or sleeping bags, or trash, or people hanging about, or any other signs of squatters. It seems to be genuinely abandoned.

 

Kacey isn’t here.

[Knave]

DiceBrawn d20+1
Fight d12+1
Grit d10
Charm d8
Brains d6
Flight d4 || StrengthsEasygoing: Get 2AT per failure
Protective: +3 to protect
Rebellious: +3 to persuade children or to resist persuasion from adults or children || FlawsIgnorant
Reckless

Adversity Tokens: 0

---

 

With a gesture reminiscent of an  attempt to stir a bucket of coal with a poker, Jackson moves the stick to neutral, and then waggles it a few times to be sure, before releasing the clutch pedal. He leaves the engine idling though, since it only starts clean nine times out of ten and he doesn't want to get caught flat-footed. "Did the message say like, what we are doing when we get here?" 

He taps his fingers on the steering wheel for a minute, looking about the street, then starts rooting around the dash and under the driver's seat, coming up with a half empty bottle of coke and a loose cigarette - unstamped of course, likely bought in bulk from the Pawnee reservation. Originally anyway. He looks delighted, and takes a swig of the coke, but with a glance at Emily, he tucks the cigarette behind his ear for later.

Edited February 14, 2023 by Knave (see edit history)

[Mister Doctor]

"She said she just wanted us to 'observe' but we ain't seeing shit out here," Cole said. He grabbed his bag and pulled out a humble looking bundled travel kit of tools that may or may not include some homemade lock picks. These he rammed into the back pocket of his jeans before pulling out a fixed blade knife as well. The knife was definitely not some over-designed ego piece or an oversized 'weapon' but rather a humble looking utility knife.

"C'mon,  'n stay quiet," Cole said, leading Jackson and Emily around to the back of the building to a forgotten employee entrance. He did not even have to use shim or anything similar, he just jiggled the old door in the now massively ill-fitting frame and it came open, revealing the gloom of the long abandoned bus station.

[Ezeze]

The employee entrance is at the back left edge of the building. It's smaller than the double glass doors at the front of the building and the architecture obscures rather than calls attention to it; it's tucked behind a little column that would have made it difficult to see if you didn't know it was there. Cole's instincts lead him to practically make a beeline to it.

The trio enters through the door, right past a laminated 9”x13” paper posted on its inside stating that it is to be unlocked while the building is occupied under the order of the Normel Fire Inspector. Jackson reaches for the light switch on impulse and, surprisingly, the overhead florescent lights flicker to life. The building is apparently still getting electricity.

Immediately on your right is an empty, open supply closet. Next to that is a dark stairwell leading down. Beyond that, the hallway opens into the main atrium of the bus station. The interior walls are all of the same brick as the exterior ones. You're on the 'employee' side of the room, behind a long, built-in service desk that runs nearly the entire length of the building. The desk ends just in time to fit in restrooms and, beyond that, an area that was formerly a cafeteria. Even if you couldn't tell by the built in bar (conspicuously abscent of any bar stools) and the old cooking appliances tucked away in a corner, a big, blue sign still hanging from the ceiling points to both the bathroom (as indicated by a 'Ladies' and a ‘Gentlemens' symbol, separated by a line, enclosed in a square) and to the cafeteria (for that there are three items - a stylized sandwich, salad, and coffee cup – side-by-side with an indicative arrow) would let you know.

Tucked behind the employees’ desk are a number of doorways to a number of offices. Closed doors set into glass walls with blinds pulled. Looking into any of them reveals filing cabinets, no doubt either empty or filled with paper that is no longer of any use to anyone. Their light switches are just as operational as the first one.

The customers’ side of the atrium is almost entirely empty with the sole exceptions of a lonely metallic square bus token dispenser set into one wall (that must be very old; the buses switched over to a card system in the 90’s, before this bus station was even shut down) and a single, swivel office chair that somehow must have managed to migrate from the offices behind you into the open floor on the other side of the desks.

It's now a few minutes before 9 am. Kacey said things were going down at noon, so you have three whole hours to kill.

[Mister Doctor]

"Alright," Cole muttered to himself as he looked over the atrium, "Why would she be coming here? Why didn't she just say what she wanted us to do? Why 'observe'?"

The answers were, frankly, pretty obvious given that it was Kacey they were dealing with. There was one reason she would call them all together. Kacey was a decent person but Cole had no doubt that if he were not useful to her and her crusade, she would not be giving him the time of day. The three of them had been recruited into Kacey's investigation for specific reasons.

So, answer one was that this had something to do with Steph. Answer two was also pretty obvious, if she felt the need to hide what she was saying, she thought she was being watched by someone other than a parent or sibling. Answer three kind of annoyed Cole. She thought there was something to gain out of this exercise. Someone had gotten in touch with her about Steph, probably in a threatening way, and instead of thinking about her own safety first, she decided to play along and use her minions as an ace in the hole.

She was going to get herself killed like this.

"Alright, so obviously this is Steph Stuff," Cole said. Jackson might not get it as the guy was pretty much a golden retriever in a human skin but Emily might understand that Cole would not really be around them if it were not Steph Stuff. "She probably got a lead dumped in her lap and was told to meet someone here, around noon. So she wants us here as backup and extra eyes. We've got about three hours to find some hiding spots and plan."

[Knave]

DiceBrawn d20+1
Fight d12+1
Grit d10
Charm d8
Brains d6
Flight d4 || StrengthsEasygoing: Get 2AT per failure
Protective: +3 to protect
Rebellious: +3 to persuade children or to resist persuasion from adults or children || FlawsIgnorant
Reckless

Adversity Tokens: 0

---

 

Jackson listens to the explanation and accepts the conclusion without question. He sits on the office chair and spins it slowly. With three hours to kill, now he does light the cigarette, having scooted a little way away from Emily first.

"That's a long time. Why'd we come here so early? We should've got food."

[Mister Doctor]

"When the guy with the truck is raring to go, you don't argue," Cole said, walking through the space. There were multiple entrances and thus no way to tell what direction Kacey or her mystery contact would come from. He looked over to Emily and Jackson. They could split up to cover multiple angles but that would involve separating them and putting them at risk of discovery or... something else.

"Here's what I'm thinking. I set up behind the service desk and you two hang back a bit behind one of the employee doors. If things go south I can signal to you and we either bust out and hope numbers are enough to scare off the bad guys or we book it out of here."

[Ozma]

"I ate breakfast with my parents." Is Emily's answer. She gives Jackson a small, concerned frown. "That is both deeply unhealthy and illegal for you to have Jackson." She warns him not with anger in her tone, but worse. Disappointment. 

"What signal will you use?" Emily doesn't protest the plan, though it's unclear just how much help she'd be if something dangerous were to happen. Or how terrifying she could be to a potential adversary. She crosses over closer to one of the employee doors(again frowning at Jackson smoking as she passes him), and waits in the doorway for Cole to finish talking.

 

[Ezeze]

When there are no objections Cole gently but firmly shepherds Emily and Jackson into an office, draws the blinds and closes the door on them. He turns off the lights Jackson hit, then finds a place beneath one of the teller desks to hide.

It's a long wait. Plenty of time to bounce in place, tap your fingers, check your phone and worry about that algebra test on Thursday.

But the trio are not the only ones to have decided to come early. At around 11:15, Cole hears footsteps. Not approaching from the front glass doors like he anticipated but from behind them. Climbing the stairs that they passed on the way in.

Given his choice of hiding place, he’ll be totally visible the moment the stranger turns the corner. He has just a few seconds to do something.

[Mister Doctor]

"Text," Cole said holding up his phone, "Keep yours on silent."

---

Realizing just where the footsteps were coming from, Cole realized just how exposed he was and scrambled for the nearest open office door as quickly as he could. Unfortunately, he shut the door a little too fast and a little too loud. Well, there went his careful planning. Since his phone was already in his hands to text Jackson and Emily, he sent off two quick texts.

stay down

cane up from bhind

Hopefully he would stay the only person the mystery contact had noticed and whatever happened next would be limited to him.

---

Adversity Token: 1

Edited February 16, 2023 by Mister Doctor (see edit history)

[Knave]

DiceBrawn d20+1
Fight d12+1
Grit d10
Charm d8
Brains d6
Flight d4 || StrengthsEasygoing: Get 2AT per failure
Protective: +3 to protect
Rebellious: +3 to persuade children or to resist persuasion from adults or children || FlawsIgnorant
Reckless

Adversity Tokens: 0

---

"Breakfast seems ages ago." He shrugs at Emily's admonishment, but takes one extra-long drag and then drops the rest a little earlier than he would have liked. He flaps his hands around a bit, to get rid of the smoke, then allows himself to be guided into the enclosed space with Emily. An abandoned bus station is not a romantic setting and there's no history at all, but being alone with any girl is a bit... implicating. Tense.  He hurriedly walks away, sits in the far corner and makes himself as small as possible. It's not very small. He tries to think of something to say, but doesn't succeed.

Then he leaves, fetches the spinning chair, rolls it towards Emily, a little too hard probably, and resumes his seat on the floor. 

Edited February 16, 2023 by Knave (see edit history)

[Ezeze]

The footsteps advance to the top of the stairs in the time it takes Cole to scramble out from under the desk and get to the office. He closes the door a little too hard, a little too loudly, and the footsteps pause. The stranger definitely heard him. When he talks, it’s in the strained tones of someone deliberately trying to disguise their voice.

“Ka-” the stranger starts to ask if Kacey is there, but then thinks better of it. Cole, Emily and Jackson hear footsteps again. Anyone squinting through the privacy blinds on the office windows sees a tall figure dressed in, of all things, a plague doctor’s outfit. Mask included. It’s doing its job of hiding his identity, but from height and build alone the stranger is almost certainly an adult man.

The stranger tries to open Cole’s door, but thankfully Cole thought to press the little push-button lock. Those interior locks are not secure, Cole knows from experience. A pen knife slid along the gap between the door and the frame is enough to bypass them. Thankfully, the stranger does not appear to know the same. The lock is enough to keep him on the other side of the door – for now.

When he speaks it’s in the strained, gravely tones of someone deliberately attempting to disguise their voice. He says “I didn’t call you out here to hurt you. We need to talk, but there are some people who don’t want me talking to you so I need to be sure it’s you. Come out and I’ll answer as many of your questions as I can.”

Though the stranger is trying to disguise his voice, the trio can maybe guess at who he is?

 

OOC

I don't believe this system has any rules for group checks, so here is what I'm going to do. All three of you can attempt this roll - DC 10 Snap Decision Brains check. If any of you make it, none of you will get an Adversity token. If none of you make it, all three of you will get an Adversity token.

 

Edited February 16, 2023 by Ezeze (see edit history)

[Knave]

DiceBrawn d20+1
Fight d12+1
Grit d10
Charm d8
Flight d6
Brains d4 || StrengthsEasygoing: Get 2AT per failure
Protective: +3 to protect
Rebellious: +3 to persuade children or to resist persuasion from adults or children || FlawsIgnorant
Reckless

Adversity Tokens: 2

---

Jackson cracks his knuckles... but the figure claims to mean no harm. He looks wordlessly to Emily for her direction.

Edited February 16, 2023 by Knave (see edit history)

[Ozma]

Emily wavers, uncertain. She gives Jackson a look and shakes her head subtly. Right now he doesn't know they are in the other room. This was a strength, and until he tried something violent it might be better to let the man talk. 

Edited February 16, 2023 by Ozma (see edit history)