Follow the Money

Shade moves slowly but comfortably, pulling his Oracle ID out of his pocket and greeting the officer.

"Morning! I'm Shade, with ORACLE, and I was hoping to do a bit of investigating into last night's break-in. Do you know who I'd want to talk to for that? I'd ideally like to review some security footage, and maybe get some information on which safe deposit boxes were accessed. The hope is to get a better idea about where the money went, so it can be returned to the bank!" he adds helpfully.

Nadia smiles politely to Kadir, hoping that she and Constance seem normal, and that the detective will be amenable to a pair of capes butting in on his case.

"Thank you for agreeing to speak with us, Detective," she begins. "My colleague and I are among those who helped apprehend the three suspects at the bank last night. We wanted to make ourselves available to you to assist in the investigation in any way we can. Do you have any questions for us regarding our statements?"

Better not mention that two of us are already going to the bank to start our own investigation until we know how kindly disposed this guy is toward capes...

The robots face turns into a frown with eyebrows in a thoughtful scrunch before returning to a smile "I'm afraid that without a photo or ID number it is much more difficult to definitively identify someone in our records. We do keep a cooperative database with the police department as a fellow agency for public safety. Currently seventy eight percent of the Super Powered individuals in the criminal database are incarcerated of the remaining twenty two percent only three percent of criminals at large have a complete profile the remaining nineteen percent are just records that have been accumulated for suspected and confirmed individuals who have committed crimes and evaded justice. If you are able to provide a photo or even a composite sketch of the individuals I could assist further but with limited information my search has come up with nothing." the caretaker explains.

---

The officer inspects Shades ID and hands it back he looks to Archangel who stands with her arms crossed and stares back at him. "You two were here last night right? Threw down with the guys who got into the vault?" he says nodding. "You can talk to the manager if you want..." he continues pointing to the large man huffing and puffing after the men loading the armored truck, "his names Rolland Barnes, I don't know if he'll be happy to see you but he'd be the guy who can get you access. Otherwise you'd have to go down to the station and speak with the Detective working the case." he gives the duo a shrug and goes back to his post.

---

The detective nods along as Nadia speaks steepling his fingers before him. "For the time being I don't have questions for any of you, evidence seems to corroborate your statements so far. We're still working on interrogating the trio to see if we can get anything usable out of them. They seem inordinately unwilling to cooperate almost as if they fear the consequences of talking more than those of going to jail." he sits back placing his hands on the files in front of him and watches the reactions to what he just said.

Fear looks to Tremor and says, "Do you remember enough to draw them?" Hopefully this doesn't turn into a dead end.

Upon hearing that the three criminals were afraid to talk, Nadia perks up, taking that as confirmation that they were working for a third party as she had expected. "Oh good! I mean--uh--" she waves her hands in front of her, taking a mental step backward. "What I meant was, we were speculating earlier that the three in the vault were just hired to steal the money by someone else, possibly the person who built or commissioned the teleport they used to get the money out: it seemed improbable that the Terror of Temperature built it himself, in my opinion. Anyway, it sounds as though their reluctance to talk corroborates that hypothesis. Furthermore, the Phantom Fistpuncher destroyed the teleporter rather than using it to escape, suggesting that completing the robbery was more important than his and his compatriots' escape, which is less likely to be the case if the only people involved were those in the vault with him at the time, as the other two had already been incapacitated."

There are a lot more details to get through, but Nadia forces herself to wait for the Detective to respond. We've only just met, I probably shouldn't talk his ear off right away.

Constance lets Nadia do most of the talking, nodding and "yes, quite"-ing at the correct intervals.

Shade thanks the officer and heads over to the manager.

"Mr Barnes! I understand the theives were able to vanish a bit of your money before they were apprehended. I'm hoping we can help you recover that." Shade extends his hand. "My name is Shade. Would we be able to review some security footage, and perhaps gain a bit of info on if the criminals may have had prior access to the safe deposit boxes?" He asks hopefully.

"Yes it certainly seems likely they are working for someone else but as I said they have so far been reluctant to talk." the detective says. "Seeing as those details are in the statements you gave to the officers last night I must say I'm curious what you're here for." he continues glancing between the two women expectantly.

---

The portly man turns from watching the truck loading to shade and stuffs his handkerchief in his breast pocket haphazardly. He glances down at the proffered hand and ignores it. "And who the hell are you that I should give you access to our security footage." he replies eyeing the two suspiciously.

Nadia cocks an eyebrow in annoyance. "We-ell! Pardon me, Detective, we merely wanted to expand upon the interpretation of our statements from yesterday, which were given without the benefit of a night's consideration," she answers, keeping her voice polite and even as possible. "We're sure you're more than capable of conducting your own investigation without personally interviewing the people involved in making the arrests, if that's your preference. If you change your mind I'm sure you can have us called back in at a later date. However, there's also the matter of a message my colleague received last night after the robbery." She turns to Constance, inviting her to tell the officer about the Morse code phone call.

Constance nods and pulls out the code which she has kept in her pocket. She passes it over to the detective.
"I got a strange call after the robbery. It was from a blocked number and the only noise was some kind of code of long and short beeps..." She explains in detail her method of writing the code down before looking at him questioningly.

Shade smiles apologetically and bows a bit before manifesting a spectral arm that digs in his pocket and produces his ORACLE ID.

"I'm here on official business, and she's here as part of a mentor/mentee youth outreach program." He grins. "If you want us to take a hike, that's more than fine, you're under no legal obligation to cooperate. I just want to make sure I've done everything I can to facilitate the return of your missing funds." Shade sounds sincere and non-threatening, attempting to appeal to the man's concern for his money.

Detective Kadir reviews the information and the translated message with interest. "And you have reason to believe this is tied to the robbery in some way?" he asks, "If so I'll see about getting a warrant for your phones records so we can trace the caller and find out who sent this cryptic message. Perhaps then we can get some answers."

---

As the manager is about to reply Archangel chimes in "Look buddy we're just trying to help here and it would be a lot easier if we could see the tapes."
[Persuasion d6(2) Wild(2) = 2]

"Help?! I think we've had just about enough of your help. Doors broken down, vault compromised, money stolen. If that's the help you Supers are offering then I think we are better off without it." with that he turns dismissively and begins walking into the bank.

Trevor turns to Fear with the best faux-sincere face he can conjure up. "Yeah, my day job is actually as a police sketch artist. Here we go..." Trevor pulls a pen and receipt out of his pocket, holding it close to his chest as he makes a quick sketch. He makes a large show of the affair, holding it at a distance after every few lines on the page, hmming and contemplating for a few seconds before turning it around.

When he turns the receipt around, it shows three stick figures: one has big muscle arms, one has lightning bolts around him, and the third is shooting fire out of what might be his hand?

"Yeah, sorry, no. I don't really have anything else to go on."

Fear grunts and shrugs, "Don't worry, there are other leads, maybe we can come back after we get access to some of the surveillance footage?"

"Well, technically we chose to assume it's related by virtue of the suspicious timing, since 12:05 AM would have been right around when the money was transported out; but arguably since the potential harms incurred by a Type II error in this case would be... I mean ,it's less risky to assume it's related and find out later that it isn't, rather than ignore a potential clue." Nadia pauses. "So I guess the short answer is yes, we think it's related."

She glances at Constance for confirmation. "Do you suppose the guy in the cloak sent it? He approached us openly the first time, so I don't see why he would block his number if it were him."

The detective nods along with what Nadia is saying "Leave no stone unturned and all that. I'll go ahead and submit for a warrant but without a more definitive reason it may take a few days to get it processed." he responds. Ilham listens as Nadia speaks to Constance and he interjects "Guy in a cloak? what does he have to do with all of this?"

---

The robotic caretaker watches the exchange passively "Is there anything else I can assist you with?" it asks.

---

Archangel turns to Shade "Soooo... that didn't go great. What do we do now?".

Shade nods. "I wasn't expecting much, and I'm still disappointed. I'm not thrilled about the idea of trying to break in and get information." He rubs his face contemplatively for a second.
"Let's head back to the soup kitchen, see who's in, maybe make a few calls. Folks I know didn't know a ton about the bank, but they might know more about our rather colorful friends who tried to rob it. They seem like they'd stick out in one's memory."

"Fair enough, just a sec." Archangel replies, she digs into a pocket and pulls out a small plastic case. Opening the case she offers the contents, a small earbud nestled in a layer of protective foam, to Shade. "If we're going to be sticking together for a bit I'll feel more comfortable if we have an easy way to communicate, it's got limited range but it's better than nothing."

Shade examines the earpiece before screwing it into place. "Appreciate it. It might cut out when I ghost, just a heads up. Most tech doesn't agree with the other side." Climbing back on the bike and kicking it to life, he cruises back to his neighborhood, keeping an eye out for the few people who are conisdered more 'in the know' about meta activity.
[Streetwise d4 (1), wild (6,1) = 7]

"Uh..." Nadia turns back to the Detective when he asks about the cloak. "Right, so apparently no one mentioned it in our statements, since we didn't know he had approached every person in the group until after we left the scene. It turns out that prior to the night of the robbery, the two of us"--she indicates herself and Constance--"along with the four other capes were approached by a man in a grey cloak who informed us of the date and time of the intended break-in."

She waits for the detective's reaction before elaborating.

Cruising along through the streets of Rookfall Shade makes good time on his way home. A few blocks away he spots a man wearing a sandwich board standing on a corner. The front of the board reads 'Watch for the Truth' and the back says 'Lies are everywhere'. Shade recognizes this as the MO of a local crackpot named Daniel who liked to go by his internet handle Spotlight. A lot of people mistook him for being homeless or a mental patient but in reality he had a steady job and a small apartment. He was just a weird guy. He had a lot of conspiracy theories mostly centered around Capes and government programs like ORACLE. But most importantly for Shade it meant he was always up to date on the Supers scene.

Shade had dealt with 'Spotlight' a few times in the past. He'd been dragged along to the shelter by concerned citizens and even police once or twice. Shade didn't mind because Daniel was a good sport about it and usually ended up volunteering and helping out around the place before heading home. Needless to say he'd also talk anyone's ear off about his latest ideas the whole time too.

Shade finds a spot to pull off and park his bike. When Archangel notices she checks in with him on the comms. Shade explains and advises that maybe she keep her distance so as to not spook the guy. Agreeing Archangel lands on a nearby roof and watches. Shade approaches the man who's wearing a grubby white t-shirt and old pair of jeans under the signboards. A skinny guy in maybe his early thirties Daniel completed his scruffy look with shaggy brown hair and an unkempt beard. Seeing shade he greets him with "Have you heard! Someone is finally taking notice of the Capes being kidnapped for experimentation!" he shouts shoving a crumpled edition of that morning's The Daily Watch.

---

"That's very interesting I'll have to ask around if any other sightings of this individual have been reported. It seems one or more individuals had prior knowledge of the situation. I wonder what kind of game they are playing at." the detective makes several notes on various papers he has with him and pauses to think a moment. "Did he have anything else to say about the events? Who the people were? Why that bank? Anything at all?"

"Right! Yes! He said... " Nadia strives to remember the cloaked man's exact words. " I don't think he specified who the perpetrators were going to be, but he speculated that they intended to use the money to purchase a weapon with which to hold the city at large for ransom. I think that was it?" She looks at Constance for confirmation. "In any case, I suppose it remains to be seen whether their putative employer needed the three men in custody to carry out the alleged plan..."

I can't believe I forgot to mention the ransom thing in the report again. At the convenience store, at the bank and now today. Maybe I should have opened with that? Nadia internally chooses to blame the omission on Fear making her almost fall off the roof.

"Hmm... definitely interesting, I think we'll need to make this cloaked figure a higher priority than I originally would have. Either way it doesn't change the fact we need to find that money." Detective Ilham says. Rifling through the papers in front of him he stops at a certain page and scans it quickly and then opens up another file that seems to contain ORACLE records on each of the known Capes who helped take down the bank robbers he stops at Nadia's file and makes an affirmative noise. "I thought I saw that somewhere else." he says, looking up to Nadia he continues "It may interest you to know that the piece of the suspected teleportation plate you brought to the SWAT team's attention was made by an R and D company called Hexatronics a subsidiary of Omnitech which is a subsidiary of Omnigene your old employer. The lab isn't sure about the rest of it but given a best guess they think most of it came from the same company."

Nadia's jaw twitches imperceptibly beneath its metal casing. That isn't going to constitute conflict of interest, right? I don't want to have to read that stupid NDA again.

To the detective, she says "Fascinating, I'm surprised a project like that would have been publicly available. I don't suppose we're lucky enough that there would be a sales record to implicate someone? Unless the device was acquired illicitly." Either way, that could be a lead...

Fear turns to the assistant and says, "I think we're good for now, we'll come back later if we get an image of these criminals. Thank you for your time."

As Fear goes to exit the building with Tremor, he sends a text to Shade and Constance, Nothing from ORACLE. Need picture or ID number to get records, anything from your ends? Meet up location for afterward/debrief?