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[IC d20 Modern Campaign] The Piece That Doesn't Fit
JacquesCousteau
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Regardless of our knowledge of physics, things always fall down and without knowing a lick of biology our hearts tick away our lives. In a world where ignorance pays as much as knowing it has been decided that the burden of truth need only lie with a few and, indeed, this is the way it normally goes. But when we do decide to take a deep look into the world around us... sometimes there is a Piece That Doesn't Fit.
Hank
Smoke break at the hospital. The security job isn’t much, but you get to put the hurt on the occasional junky who tries to rip off morphine and it makes your parole officer happy that you’re a “contributing member of society”. You even managed to make a new friend.
You met Josephine on your first day when you saw her getting mugged in the parking lot. After the job you did on her mugger it was lucky the hospital was so close. Since then there’s been a lot of smoke breaks together, although Jo’s been trying to get you to quit lately. Today when you see her, the look on her face says something is up.
Josephine
The night air is cool, and of course Hank is there, as always, leaning over the railing of the break room’s balcony like a gargoyle. When you met him, you were almost as scared of him as you were of the mugger he saved you from, but now that you’ve got to know him, you know he’s actually a big teddy bear.
It’s been a hard week and it’s good to see him. You lost a young girl a few days ago on the table. She was sleeping off an appendectomy that you’d performed just a few hours before when her vitals started falling. A sonogram showed internal bleeding and before you could get to it, she bled out. Somehow they think you screwed up, so pending an autopsy you’ve been suspended from ER and put on pathology.
You just arrived, but apparently there’s a backup down in the morgue already and you’re staffing it alone for an hour until another doctor shows up. You hate going to morgue alone, that basement is so damn creepy.
Christine
Out of school for the summer, you’ve landed a strange job for some kind of technology firm called International Sciences and today is your first day. Although you were unsure of why a tech company would want to hire a music student, they assured you that the experiments they were doing were of a musical nature. The directions they gave you have led you to a warehouse in an older industrial area of the city.
It’s one of those old paint-peeling, dilapidated buildings that you see in movies about drug smuggling, and you recheck the address to make sure you got it right. As it seems this is it, you head for the entrance; a heavy steel door with a small eye slit. You swing it open. Inside, it is poorly lit and crates are stacked in clumps all around the room, so you can never see very far ahead. Somewhere within, you hear piano music playing.
Sal
Your ears are ringing and you feel a dislocated, throbbing pain. The world swimming around you, you take a moment to recover and try and recollect what happened.
You were in your friend Raul’s rare book store checking out a haul of new books he had just gotten in, when someone came running in a panic through the door. You can’t remember his face except that he looked like the devil himself was on his tail. That’s when the weirdness started.
The man started shouting that there was someone after him and that he needed a place to hide. Raul – oh God Raul. You remember now he had gone for the phone, but before he could dial… You picture him laying there on the floor, his body slowly melting away. The man standing over him, holding some kind of… thing. Before you could react he hit you and then you woke up here.
You’re in a small room with a single door and a small window. The wallpaper is peeling and yellowed and there’s a funk in the air. You can hear a beeping, like Morse code outside the room.
Hans
The weekend had been going pretty slow; a few beers, a few hockey games on the TV, the usual. Of course that is until about an hour ago. A few months ago, you had a new neighbor move in next door to your apartment. Looked normal enough at first, but when you tried to introduce yourself he ran off into his apartment and locked the door; that and his goddamn CB radio going all day and night.
Anyway, today you were getting your mail and you saw him rush through the front door, franticly dragging this giant garbage bag onto the elevator. Nothing too unusual for that sort of guy you guess, but the image has been bugging you ever since. In the back of your mind, you swear you saw a tuft of hair poking out of the top.
Hank
Smoke break at the hospital. The security job isn’t much, but you get to put the hurt on the occasional junky who tries to rip off morphine and it makes your parole officer happy that you’re a “contributing member of society”. You even managed to make a new friend.
You met Josephine on your first day when you saw her getting mugged in the parking lot. After the job you did on her mugger it was lucky the hospital was so close. Since then there’s been a lot of smoke breaks together, although Jo’s been trying to get you to quit lately. Today when you see her, the look on her face says something is up.
Josephine
The night air is cool, and of course Hank is there, as always, leaning over the railing of the break room’s balcony like a gargoyle. When you met him, you were almost as scared of him as you were of the mugger he saved you from, but now that you’ve got to know him, you know he’s actually a big teddy bear.
It’s been a hard week and it’s good to see him. You lost a young girl a few days ago on the table. She was sleeping off an appendectomy that you’d performed just a few hours before when her vitals started falling. A sonogram showed internal bleeding and before you could get to it, she bled out. Somehow they think you screwed up, so pending an autopsy you’ve been suspended from ER and put on pathology.
You just arrived, but apparently there’s a backup down in the morgue already and you’re staffing it alone for an hour until another doctor shows up. You hate going to morgue alone, that basement is so damn creepy.
Christine
Out of school for the summer, you’ve landed a strange job for some kind of technology firm called International Sciences and today is your first day. Although you were unsure of why a tech company would want to hire a music student, they assured you that the experiments they were doing were of a musical nature. The directions they gave you have led you to a warehouse in an older industrial area of the city.
It’s one of those old paint-peeling, dilapidated buildings that you see in movies about drug smuggling, and you recheck the address to make sure you got it right. As it seems this is it, you head for the entrance; a heavy steel door with a small eye slit. You swing it open. Inside, it is poorly lit and crates are stacked in clumps all around the room, so you can never see very far ahead. Somewhere within, you hear piano music playing.
Sal
Your ears are ringing and you feel a dislocated, throbbing pain. The world swimming around you, you take a moment to recover and try and recollect what happened.
You were in your friend Raul’s rare book store checking out a haul of new books he had just gotten in, when someone came running in a panic through the door. You can’t remember his face except that he looked like the devil himself was on his tail. That’s when the weirdness started.
The man started shouting that there was someone after him and that he needed a place to hide. Raul – oh God Raul. You remember now he had gone for the phone, but before he could dial… You picture him laying there on the floor, his body slowly melting away. The man standing over him, holding some kind of… thing. Before you could react he hit you and then you woke up here.
You’re in a small room with a single door and a small window. The wallpaper is peeling and yellowed and there’s a funk in the air. You can hear a beeping, like Morse code outside the room.
Hans
The weekend had been going pretty slow; a few beers, a few hockey games on the TV, the usual. Of course that is until about an hour ago. A few months ago, you had a new neighbor move in next door to your apartment. Looked normal enough at first, but when you tried to introduce yourself he ran off into his apartment and locked the door; that and his goddamn CB radio going all day and night.
Anyway, today you were getting your mail and you saw him rush through the front door, franticly dragging this giant garbage bag onto the elevator. Nothing too unusual for that sort of guy you guess, but the image has been bugging you ever since. In the back of your mind, you swear you saw a tuft of hair poking out of the top.
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"Uh, hello...?"
Only waiting for a few moments for an answer, she shrugged and took a few steps in, trying to look down the hallway.
And a second later, there she was, walking onto the balcony. It was one of those wierd things where she showed up just as he was thinking about her.
"What's up Doc?" he asked in his usual deadpan. Glancing over, he saw the look on her face. Not good.
"Hey. Jo. C'mon now. I know you don't want me to say nuthin' but it's like this... you're a doctor. There's been doctors for like a million years and people are still dyin'. Doesn't make you a failure if somebody dies. That's just like... I don't know, that just how shit happens."
And then of course, Hank had to say one of those things that made her want to know less about his past.
"Besides, it's not like you were trying."
Taking a deep breath he tried again.
"Ai-yah! Tyen-ah..."*
They say that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing and expecting different results. Sal hadn't been expecting it to feel better the second time around, but he was unprepared for the wash of nausea that nearly made him retch up the stew he'd had for lunch. He was suddenly reminded of that last time he'd spoken with his advisor.
"You know Aksel, for such a smart guy you sure don't learn do you?"
The words came to him unbidden. He slowly levered himself into a sitting position and tried to locate the throbbing pain in his head. It seemed to pulse in time with the ringing in his ears a way that was somehow sickening. If he turned his head, the pain moved, as if it was someone trying to stay just outside his peripheral vision. It beat the hell out of any hangover he'd ever had.
He slowly got to his feet and looked around the room. It was no worse than many flophouses he'd crashed in, though the stench was unique. Gingerly inspecting his head for contusions he staggered over to look out the window to try and get his bearings.
*Damn! Merciless hell...
The room in front of you is large and dusty and the light filtering through the filthy windows is only enough to give it a sickly glow. As the light from your penlight flicks around the room, you notice that the crates have started to mold and the stale air wafts into your nostrils. The only sound either than the piano music is the hum of electricity, but suddenly, out of the silence, you hear a door slam.
Sal
Looking out the window, you see it is approaching dusk outside. The view is of a residential street in an older part of town. Apartments seem to surround you and the scene is fairly normal. What isn't normal is the window itself. The quarter-inch of glass is wire-reinforced and the window frame is a heavy metal, fitted with a locking mechanism.
In other news: you manage to locate a nasty bruise on the back of your head that is likely the cause of your pain. Although you're not bleeding, the sick feeling suggests it might be a minor concussion. Outside the room, you can still hear the beeping of a machine.
Josephine walked to the railing that Hank was leaning on and peered over it, eyes squinting to pick up something in the horizon. Maybe she was looking for a sign or some kind of portent for the future, it was doubtful that even she rightfully knew.
"So like... of course everyone's going to fuck up every now and then, right? I mean I'm not saying that it's not my fault (it may very well be my fault) but what I am saying is that I don't think it's my fault. Also what I'm saying is that it's not that I don't feel bad about losing another patient, which I do indeed feel bad about, but that doesn't mean they should suspend me for something that I had no idea was going to happen."
She extends her hands out in front of her and shakes them in a half shrug, half measure of frustration.
"I'm not perfect, I'm not saying I'm perfect, but a procedure like an appendectomy is like... so textbook, you know? If you gave a fucking fifteen year old kid an hour to review the procedure before slapping a scalpel in his hairy palm, he'd be able to perform it without a hitch. I did EVERYTHING I was supposed to, I double checked the girl's history, I performed all the pre-procedure actions. When I went in I saw nothing out of the ordinary except an inflamed portion of the intestine. When I sutured her back up again, it went smooth as silk. I've been doing surgical sutures since before college, I doubt I even need to have my eyes open."
As she spoke and her voice rose bit by bit, so did the exaggeration of her actions, until it seemed like she was shouting her anger at the heavens themselves.
"So then she starts bleeding out and I have no idea why, the nurses have no idea why, I doubt the Dali-fuking-lama would have an actual reason why. We get blinded-sided by this crazy complication and I'm trying to not let her die, but of course I don't even know what's causing the bleeding in the first place. Then the director comes and tells me that he wants to put me on suspension due to me fucking up? I told it to his face that I did not fuck up, I did everything by the book and to the best of my ability, (which if we are truthful is pretty damn good). I told him that he better let me do the autopsy of the patient so I can shove the evidence to his face. You know what his response was?"
Of course Jo wasn't waiting for Hank to answer. Instead she twisted her face into a frown and hunched over in a mongoloid pose while wagging her finger.
"'You want to do path work? Thats fine with me. You're being relocated to Pathology duties effective NOW.' I mean WHO THE HELL DOES HE THINK HE IS PUTTING ME ON PATH DUTY FOR SOMETHING THAT I HAD NO CONTROL OVER?!? Ugh."
Now finished with her embittered tirade, Jo's arms hang limply at her side and she lets out a deep sigh.
"Yeah, so put out that cancer on a stick and come with me OK? There's no one else there and my history of watching George A. Romero movies really doesn't give me much courage to go to a dark place filled with dead people by myself."
"You sure about that? Mosta them movie monsters are prettier than me, y'know."
Hank smiled, showing his big yellow teeth. His face almost looked liked it hurt when he smiled, its lines and scars stretching over his forehead and cheeks.
"Don't worry about it. I'll keep ya company, Jo... just lead the way."
Between you and the elevator, the hospital is at its usual bustling pace, but a path seems to clear in front of Hank as you walk. A few stretchers take the elevator first, but you finally nab one down to the basement. When the door opens, you can see the hallway stretched out in front of you. The lights are on power save, and they give the concrete a dull blue glow. As you step off the elevator, the motion sensor brings the lights to life, bathing everything in white.
The morgue itself is near the end of the hall, while the rest of the doors lead off to maintenance and the resident pathologist's office.
The high-frequency whine from the neighbor's CB was one of the many constants in Han's life. He worked at a mechanic's shop, servicing the few items that people bothered to get repaired. "Usually they just buy a new one." Twelve years had rendered this work monotonous, and his weekends had deteriorated into acts of cushion compression.
Today was different. He had almost adjusted to the character that was his neighbor. Until Hans saw the hair. It had stared at him; it had cried for help.
"What am I thinkin'? I know what hair looks like, damnitall!" Hans released himself from the stale sofa and studied at the door leading out of his apartment.
The roar of his archaic television masked his footsteps as he neared his neighbor's door. Ever so softly, he pressed his ear on its scarred surface.
"Hell."
He looked down at Jo, trying his best to not sound threatening.
"Y'know I wouldn't admit this to anyone else... but this place gives me the creeps too. We goin' to the pathology office?"
Feeling better, Sal moved towards the door to inspect it. As he inspected it, the incessant, and rather annoying beeping that had been at the edge of his attention broke through. He wondered what it could be. He put his ear to the door to try and hear it better.
The door is thick and you can't hear a lot more, outside the sound coming through the wall. Although it sounds like the CB radio has changed from its typical scan to a series of beeps that almost sound like Morse code. After keeping your ear to the door for a few seconds you hear the sound of footsteps approaching from inside.
Sal
From your side at least, the door seems surprisingly normal: thick, wooden and locked. The lock is a simple doorknob lock and it doesn't look like there's a deadbolt, but considering the age of the building it looks relatively sturdy. Your attempts to listen through reveal nothing new, but the sound of the beeps continues incessantly.
The sound of the door slamming caught her attention. "Uh, hello? Someone there?"
Awaiting a response (even if she didn't expect one), she eventually began moving again, looking around for the source of the piano music.
It took the utmost effort for him to reduce his volume to a mutter. "Damn draft... I left my keys in there." The footsteps grew closer to the door. Han gripped his bottle of lager, shoved his hand in his pocket, and spun over and leaned with his back to the wall opposite his now-inaccessible apartment.
With booze in one hand and pocket lint in another, he waited.
"What's that word? Yeah, nonchalant."
The source of the sound leads you deeper into the warehouse, which is much the same as the entrance area. It seems like a pretty standard shipping warehouse, with rows of towering shelves against one wall and a dazzling number of wooden crates scattered around everywhere, some of which have been broken open.
Although there is no answer to your query, you finally track the noise to the shipping office. It is a small one room attachment built against one of the warehouse walls. It is simple with white walls and a wood-panel door, under which you can see the glow of a light.
Hans
You hear the sound of several locks being unbolted and you hear the door open slowly. It sounds as if it is stopped by the chain and after a moment slams closed again. You hear the chain slide off and the door opens again, this time your neighbour scuttles quickly past you toward the apartment laundry room.
He has something in his hand that you can't make out that is about the size of a hammer and is muttering something to himself about checking his pockets before he does the wash.
He glanced at his apartment door. Locked out. He glanced at the neighbor's apartment door. Locked out.
The rest of the lager bitterly escaped down Hans' throat. He changed his grip on the bottle, holding it like a bat, and felt for the knife on his belt.
Readjusting himself inside his denim jacket, he gingerly followed the echo of steps down the hall.
"'Better make hay while the sun is shines."
Jo walked to the door, pulling the hospital ID card out from the front pocket of her pale green colored scrubs.
"One of these days Hank, you're going to come with me to one of those rich suburban neighborhoods. We're going to sit at the local playground and watch as soccer moms pull their kids home at the sight of us. Does it make me a bad person if I think that'd be funny?"
She swiped the card against the electronic door lock with a beep sound. The lock clicked open.
"You know, I hear in the specialist OR doctor's lounges on the fifth floor, they have a coffee machine and a snack bar thats always stocked with milk, fruit, and various pastries. Then there's couches that circle around some thirty inch plasma TV which is always on to the financial channel or whatever. Bet they don't need to deal with patients dying for no apparent reason either. Bastards."
Your neighbor doesn't seem to notice as you stalk behind him and heads through the laundry room door. Just as you put your hand on the door to follow after, a series of low thuds sounds from the direction of his apartment. The sounds go on for a few seconds and end with a loud bang.
Sal
Although your fists are useless against the door, your feet manage to do some work. After a few rounds of kicking, the bottom of the door begins to splinter and if nothing else, you're making one hell of a racket. Hoping to finish it off, you throw a hard shoulder into the door; it doesn't move an inch. You rebound off and hit the cold floor.
Josephine and Hank
Hank's timing is oddly appropriate: when you open the door, the stale smell of old cigarettes floods out. When the power-save lights flick to life you can see that the floor is littered with cigarette butts. Either than that oddity, the office is a simple one: phone, desk and computer.
There is a note folded into a sitting position on the desk:
Hey Dr. Mackenzie,
Heard about that BS on the top side; I’ll try and make your stay here as easy as possible. Anyway I have my progress notes in the blue folder on my desk. I can’t figure out about that little girl; looks like someone took a processor to her insides. Unless you started operating with the Magic Bullet, I can’t see this being put on you.
You can barely make out the signature of the path guy scribbled at the bottom. Standing in the doorway, Hank, you swear you hear the padding sound of footsteps down the hall toward the morgue, but when you turn to look there’s nothing there.
The first thing that Jo does is scrunch her nose at the messy pile of cigarettes on the ground. Indeed, it's taking almost all of her willpower to not go looking for a broom to sweep it up.
"Like oh my god, what a slob. I'm all fine with clutter and all that but throwing trash on the floor is just plain dirty."
She walks over to the desk and picks up the note, unfolding it and reading it out loud in a rapid pace. After she's done, Jo reaches for the blue folder and cracks it open with one hand while signing into the computer with another.
"Well that's the good news at least. The bad news is that there's no way in hell something like that could have happened so fast. Well... time to get to work then."
She blinks at Hank as he reacts to the noise.
"What, something wrong?"
Hank's hulking frame filled the doorway as he leaned out, looking down the hall. His hand reflexively started moving into his coat where his Colt was holstered. He tried to act like he was scratching at his ribs... man, would she ever be upset if she found out he was packing.
"I'm going to go check it out. If this doesn't feel right you should call security. Don't tell them I'm down here already, though. I think ol' bucktooth whatshisname doesn't like me."
Hank stepped out of the doorway, his sunken eyes looking down the flourescent-lit linoleum and sickly gloss-green hall as he slowly walked toward the morgue.
Escape artist to get through the hole I create:1d20 + 2=4
Every beat was a increase in blood pressure. "I spend twenty years doing nothin' and now this!"
Without a second thought, Hans threw open the laundry room door and shouted, "Now what the hell is going on!"
Hank; the buzzing of the fluorescents is the only discernible noise as you stalk down the hall. As you are about half way to the morgue, you spot a cigarette butt on the hallway floor. Continuing on, you notice there is a trail leading all the way to the door of the morgue. The last cigarette is still smoldering.
The door to the morgue is stainless steel, with rippled, frosted glass windows bordering it on either side. Through the rectangular windows you can see the blue light of the morgue is on and it casts blurred shadows on the glass.
Josephine; as the computer flickers to life, a message pops up on the screen:
Been making some calls to see if anyone else has seen symptoms similar to the little girl. I actually had some responses from area hospitals and they sent me some pictures. Looks like something pops up like this every month or so, but it's mostly homeless. Also, the last report was almost three months ago. Weird. Anyway, pictures should be in the blue folder if you want to take a look.
When you flip open the blue folder, however, there is nothing; no little girl, no photos, nothing.
Sal
Your kick knocks out the bottom half of the door, providing enough room for you to crawl through. The room on the other side appears to be the living room of a small apartment, albeit heavily fortified. The windows are a similar make to the one in your room and the front door has several locks, a bar and a heavy chain. Oddly, they are all currently unlocked.
The only furniture is a well-worn chair sitting in front of a table with some books and a large CB radio on top, which is the source of the beeping. Taking up the rest of the space are piles of newspapers and magazines and a padlocked refrigerator.
Hans
Your neighbour, currently hunched over one of the washing machines, yelps as you slam open the door and stumbles backward onto the floor, facing you. He is hugging something tightly in his arms that you can't quite make out, even as he stands.
Hell, even as he raises the thing like a can of spray paint and points it at you, your mind can't really place what it is. Pushing the glasses up from the tip of his nose, he says shakingly, "You won't get me! I'm going right back to my apartment. Now just-just get out of my way. Get out of here!"
Although you still can't discern a shape, you're pretty sure the thing has started glowing.
Christine
The door opens with a loud creak, revealing a bare-bones office. The only oddity is the piano, a well-kept, old-fashioned grand piano. With no player. Just then, a hand lands on your shoulder. You shrug it off quickly and spin to face your assailant. It is a weathered-looking old man, dressed in a grey suit. He smiles, saying in an soothing English accent, "Sorry to startle you. I had just run off to the washroom. Bad timing I suppose."
"If I can't get an answer out of you, I'll beat it outta ya!"
Attack - 9
Damage - 4
"Hey buddy... ya got a light?"
With a few keystrokes, Jo signed into the system. She then gathered the empty blue folder in one hand and went outside, double checking to make sure she didn't leave anything important behind before she closed the door and heard the electronic lock click into place.
"Uh... Hank? Who are you talking to? Also, please don't smoke here. Just because the other doctors do it doesn't mean you should."
As Sal began to root around the room for his belongings, the beeping from the radio finally made it to the forefront of his consciousness. He listened closely for a few moments, and realized that the beeping seemed to be some sort of code. One he thought he just might recognize.
booyah, I dare say.
The sound of Hank's voice echoes in the hall outside of the morgue for only a moment. Whoever is in the morgue, if anyone, doesn't seem eager to respond to his question. Though still muffled, Hank can hear the sound of footsteps once again, moving about hastily this time as the shadows on the frosted glass windows ripple. If someone is really in there, they certainly aren't interested in guests.
"Hank? Who are you talking to?"
Josephine speaks up, being sure to close the office door, but fumbles the blue folder in her hand by mistake. She ducks down quickly enough to catch it, at least: but an odd sight greets her. That folder was definitely empty...so what could have fallen out of it? A page of paper rests on the floor, face down.
Something definitely isn't right about that. It would have been hard to miss a sheet of paper in that folder, and yet...
It takes Sal a good ten minutes to find the rest of his things stuffed into a nearby closet: but at least whoever brought him here didn't leave them behind. The beeping from the nearby radio was a little irritating, but not too hard to tune out. Listening a little more closely, it's...well, odd, to say the least. Every now and then, something barely recognizable as a word comes out, but for the most part, it's all gibberish.
A noise from outside the room grabs Sal's attention - sounds like someone's passing by the door.
Josephine mused to herself as she held up the sheet of paper that slipped out into the light. She heard about things like this happening to residents who had to work two and a half days in a row before, they would start imagining things. It didn't really happen to her before. Plus, it wasn't that she was lacking from sleep.
"I really need a vacation after this."