Roger Discovers a Land Scheme
Michael
Roger in Mountain View: fueled up on lo mein and having given himself a timely bathroom break, Roger maneuvers the van into place from the reed-heavy vantage point down by the water and keeps eyes on the Price "estate." One thing Roger can make in his few hours of surveillance up to 1 am is a Mountain View PD patrol car, with a single local cop at the wheel, returning on a route that takes him through the maze of underdeveloped blocks out here (and pointedly by the Price X-Mas Tree lot) on the outskirts of town twice: once at around 9:20 pm and another time at around 11:40 p.m. Streetwise roll to gather some conclusions on that.
>>>> SUCCESS
This feels like a regular patrol. This area doesn't have a lot to keep an eye on other than Price's trailer so Roger figures this is Brother Cop looking after Brother Cop. If Roger is going to black bag tonight, he'd feel more safe doing it after the next patrol comes through.
Bill
Well, that throws a possible wrench in the Tahoe Timing. Roger certainly doesn't want to be caught by Brother Cop. Assuming roughly a two hour cycle for the patrols might make 1 a.m. seem OK, but it's a particularly bad risk. The cycle of fresh donuts out of the fryer at the local cop java stop could easily throw it off. Roger's still going to prep to go, black ski mask, gloves, bolt cutters, etc. for around 1am, but wait to go until that patrol has come by. Jo starting a distraction when she does will have to be enough to take "Fred's" eyes off of home base for the patrol cycle as well.
Michael
The next patrol swings by a few minutes shy of 2 a.m., lingers just a moment in front of the gates to Price's lot, then speeds off on its usual rounds through the deserted grid of northeast undeveloped Mountain View. This gives Roger an opportunity to approach Price's lot and trailer. As I mentioned, it's an 8 foot chain link fence surrounding the lot; eminently scalable. And the front gate is locked. You tell me how you want to approach and penetrate, whether any gods or intercessories will be invoked before doing so, etc. I will say Roger's situational awareness feels total in this situation; the streets out here are dark which gives him an advantage to see any vehicles approaching or passing by.
Bill
Roger is going to ignore the front gate for now, and creep up (Stealth) to the opposite-side fence, closer to the trailer. He pauses anywhere there's cover, like from overgrown ragweed or other flora, checking out what he can see of the trailer for movement or sounds (Observation). He's got all the vevers with him, but no one riding yet. He's in a black jumpsuit, with the front unbuttoned to be able to reach his Charter Arms pistol in his holster, heavy work boots on so he can jump down without catching a nail in the foot. If he doesn't seem made, he come up to the base of the fence. He'll drop the bolt cutters there in some plants (for an emergency cut escape, should he not be able to climb back up for some reason). He'll scale it, (Jumping/Climbing), book it over to the side of the trailer in shadow, pause for more scans, then lockpick open one of the windows (his own skill). Assuming no one's inside, or he doesn't set off a booby trap, he'll start carefully Searching the place using a small flashlight with a red lens on it.
I don't think I ever set a Renshaw slot, so we'll have to make do without. I'd have probably put Intelligence Analysis or something brainy like that in anyway, not action stuff.
Oh, also if it matters, Roger's been sticking to good ol' coffee to stay awake. Given he didn't have to pull a long drive, I'm hoping that means he's mostly fatigueless. He would have also tried a half-hour nap in the van around midnight, right after the 2nd patrol set up the possibility of 2 hour cycles.
Michael
Okay. Your good Observation-by-10 roll will apply until you come back out of the trailer; that feels like it makes sense since you're having to reorient yourself coming out of a confined space out into the night again. I'll make the Stealth roll in secret with appropriate equipment bonuses. So if you could make a Climbing-16 roll (bonus for ample handholds on the chain link) and then a Lockpicking-17 (best quality lockpicks) roll, that should handle the first phase of the B&E.
Bill
Both handily made, no crits.
Michael
Roger enters the doublewide trailer. Nice digs. A little bachelor-stuffy — not that Roger would know anything about that, of course. A quick case of the joint sees no weird traps, no teetering crockery or carefully-poised boxes meant to create a mess if someone breaks in. It's kitted out pretty sweet; a nice small color TV in the living room area, a 3/4 size fridge in the kitchen. A couple of rinsed but not clean plates in the sink. Magazines scattered around: guy's mags like Hot Rod, Field and Stream, a couple of Playboys. Yes, he has a small flea market black velvet painting of dogs playing poker hanging up. Two crushed packs of Winstons in the garbage can, full ashtrays in both the living room and bedroom, empty and half-full cartons: dude is a smoker. Some pulp paperbacks: war stories, Westerns, a few books on psi stuff and a couple of Eastern religious texts as well, plus Zen in the Art of Archery. Gun safe in the bedroom. This is all the stuff that's plainly visible but of course you can do a deeper Search anytime, as well as poking through individual rooms (kitchen, living room, "study," and back bedroom).
Bill
This is hopefully more of a ghosting if we can manage it, so Roger will take quick notes on his notepad of the PSI stuff titles. He'll start a Search, but he's trying to be careful to be able to put things back. But he is also taking note of valuables, the kind a junkie would take, in case he needs to turn this into a smash-and-grab to cover up damage. Like, he'd risk a half an hour of "careful", out of his probable two hours before the patrol comes back by.
Michael
Roger cases the more hidden aspects of Price's trailer. He checks the kitchen cabinets for stashes, the fridge for one of those plastic lettuces, the bedroom for stuff stashed under the mattress, all while remaining as careful as possible in returning everything to its original state, looking for hairs glued across doorways, etc. Underneath the bed in the back bedroom, the room which seems like Price's sanctum sanctorum given the presence of the gun safe and some photos of Price with various police bigwigs, civic leaders, and a family picture that looks like it was at a barbecue 8-10 years ago (Price with his arm around a tall blonde about his age, mid-40s). Roger sends his arm under the bed looking for hidden objects and instead feels a very definite hollow space in the floor of the trailer. It's a panel that was cut loose and sealed off with a piece of linoleum that matches the trailer floor. Roger fiddles with it and feels it slide free.
As Roger reaches into the hollow space, he feels leather, soft leather, and after feeling around the sides of the object can tell it's a leather satchel or portfolio of some kind. Underneath the flap, Roger can feel papers. Again, remembering precisely where the satchel was positioned under the floor, Roger lifts it up gingerly and slides it to himself on the floor at the side of the bed. The satchel is sealed with a looped piece of string. Inside are a series of survey maps. Very quickly Roger goes through the maps — all from the Bay Area, about 3/4 of them from Silicon Valley. Various spots are marked off with five-pointed stars in black ink. Roger recognizes parcels of land in Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Cupertino, some in downtown San Francisco, and then a map of Mountain View. The map of Mountain View dates from 1971. It has an especially big black star on the very site of Price's X-Mas Trees. And overlaid over the adjoining lots and the ones across the street is a simple legend in Price's handwriting (we probably now have a sample or two at Livermore) with a single word in all caps, ten big letters: G O O G O L P L E X.
Bill
Roger jots down coordinates off the maps, the map series numbers, anything to get the ability to recreate this stuff on our own copies of these maps. He's not going for addresses, unless they're obvious, just the map boxes or parcel numbers or whatever's fast. Then he puts this shit back carefully, like it's a bomb (which it is). His state of mind is all business — no weird fears or anything stirred up by this, since that word means nothing to him. The five pointed stars only trigger him if they're obviously satanic — if they're just like a “gold star,” he'll take it like it's just about real estate or something. It all goes back.
Michael
No, the symbols aren't occult, they're just the kind of star someone would scrawl on something he wants to accentuate on a map.
Bill
Yup, all fine here, nothing to see.
Michael
since that word means nothing to him
Actually … it might. Mathematics defaults to IQ-6 if Roger wants to give a roll at a Mathematics-6.
Bill
Nope. The Martin Gardner columns are in Scientific American, and Roger's more a Popular Mechanics type.
Michael
Anything else on Roger's agenda? That was a careful half-hour search.
Bill
I believe the modern term is GTFO. Cleaning up, backing out that window, locking it, careful hiding from surprise cops, over the fence, take my tools, and skeeeeedaddle.
Michael
For the record (and for debriefing tomorrow night), the psi stuff is a couple of dozen books: half of them are classics of the genre from the '30s through today (Rhine et al.) and half are L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics, and Scientology. Oh, and the fridge and cabinets were full of really terrible food: a lot of canned meals, cheap beer, a pizza box, some Chinese cartons, not a green veggie in sight.
Bill
I think the 70s term is still “hunting cabin”, because “Mancave” hasn’t been coined and “fishing shack” is still specific. And pied-à-terre is too feminine.