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The project I am working on is taking onger than I thought. I'll send them out tomorrowish.

Same goes for Whirled Peas!

If somebody could call Katie a moron for me that'd be great, thanks.

How's that foot tasting, Totem?

Skeet

I'm working on it! really. and the e-mails have not gone out yet. this week and the last one have been too busy!

That was in depth character research...

/poke

/runs away runs away

So who dropped the ball, here, slackers?

The next day, I woke up early. After a bit of breakfast, and a few phone calls, I sat down to my workstation and brought up the OS. The encryption program and cypherbots had both finished their duties. The garbled text message from Darkplagues PDA was flashing “done” in the queue, so I pulled it up. Here is what it said.

“Transfer complete. Awaiting purchase instructions on ATComm preferred stock. You currently control 41 percent, and have an option for 51 percent with voting rights. How shall we proceed?
Krull financial”

Hmmm. Interesting. I set the searchbot to covert mode and let it go to dig up whatever it could about “Krull financial”. I turned my attention to the password chip for the PDA. The password decrypter had done it’s job well: Xrg1a1952b^ was the password listed. That could come in useful. I decided to have a go at the cell phone.

I retrieved the phone, still in it’s open state from my jacket and placed it on the workbench table. This was going to be a delicate operation, so I turned on the overhead scanner/light combo. Simply plopping in a new battery would erase whatever data might be in the buffer. Using a small Philips head screwdriver, I removed the plastic casing from the back of the phone, exposing the circuit board, power leads, and the ribbon cable up to the display. Using a microcutter, I gently snipped the power cable portion of the ribbon cable. I then spliced in a thin power lead from my desktop power supply, and adjusted the output to match factory specifications. The tiny LCD lit up. Next, I placed a power inductor pad over the flash ram chip. Slowly, I increased the power, stabilizing the memory buffer. With that done, I severed the power connections to the chip itself using a microsaw, then bridged the gap in the circuit with a bit of wire. That done, I turned my attention to the battery compartment. Despite the time the phone had spent exposed to the elements, t was in surprisingly good condition. The terminals needed a bit of work though. I removed the remains of the spent battery, then got out a mixture of Vinegar, Citric acid, and activated baking soda. After a bit of fizzing as the ingredients combined, I used a fine wire brush to coat the power terminals in the case. Minutes later, they were back to factory clean. I attached another set of power leads to the battery box, and brought the phone online.

The phone LCD instantly switched from blue to the desktop screen. On it, there was a partially dialed number:

286… The last numbers were missing
Well, it was a start. Not too much to go on though.
I pulled up the call log, and keybuffer time stamp. The last key pressed was within the timeframe for the coroner reported time of death. That gave me a pretty good idea of when exactly the murder took place. Could be very useful in proving or disproving an alibi.

I flipped again through the copy of the police file. Nothing else stood out immediately. I’d take the time to read it more in depth later that afternoon, just in case.

With that all said and done, I headed out the door towards my first appointment.

Mr. Angry hippo’s personal assistant had seemed to be a bit hesitant to allow me access when I first called, until I mentioned that I was representing Taredoru. After that Mr. Hippo was more than happy to see me any time I wanted to stop by. I grabbed my coat.

I made my way over to the Homewood Suites hotel. The impressive granite brick façade, surrounded by tall evergreen trees gave it the look of an ancient medieval hunting lodge. Only the parking lot filled with expensive imported automobiles gave lie to the illusion. It had been built back in the early 1900’s as rich miners coming back from the Alaskan gold rush made their way back east.

I pushed open a large brass bound door and walked into the richly wood paneled lobby. A large stone fireplace cheerily lit the middle of the lobby. Off to the east, breakfast was being served to a few patrons. I wandered over to the main desk and signed in while the desk clerk rang the room. Shortly thereafter Mr. Hippo’s personal assistant, alwayslost came down and led me to the room. Inside, I found Angry hippo sitting on a large leather couch, wearing a Hugh Hefner standard issue smoking jacket. An attractive woman on each arm. He looked up, then turned to his companions. “Fifi, Betty, take a walk. Hippo has business to attend to”. They both pouted, then giggled and walked out the front door. I saw alwayslost give them a disapproving glance before he too withdrew.

“so, Mr. Drachensborn. My assistant mentioned you had some business with me this morning. Sit, please, sit. Would you like some Brandy? It’s a particularly good vintage…” I shook my head no politely.

“Mr. Hippo, as you know, recently your associate Darkplague was murdered down at Esther Short Park. I’m investigating at the request of his sister.

He nodded. “Yes, tragic that. I am of course happy to help out in any way I can. Tell me, how is Taredoru taking it?” he asked, perhaps a tad too earnestly.

“Uh, erm, she’s in mourning.” I replied a bit awkwardly.

“Ah, I see. It is to be expected. Still, let her know she has my sympathy, won’t you? Now tell me, what can I do for you?” he asked.

“I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.” I queried.

“Certainly, although I don’t see what good the answers will do you.” He answered, a bit warily.

I nodded. “It’s routine to question the associates of a murder victim. Haven’t the police taken a statement already?”

He shook his head. “No, they called to let me know it had happened, but they said it was a drug crime. Terrible tragedy.”

I cursed @workslacking silently. A rookie cop wouldn’t have made that mistake, especially not a “by the book” type. Something strange was going on here.

“Aye, that it was. Now tell me, on the night of the murder, at 6:15pm, where were you?”

He frowned. “I’m not sure I like your insinuation Mr. Drachensborn”

I shrugged. “It IS a standard question.”

He sighed with disdain. “Oh, very well. If you must know, I was at the charity auction ball still with Fifi. At least 50 people probably saw me there. Feel free to check.” Now is there anything else? I am a very busy man…”

“Well actually, there is one other question. A few weeks ago eyewitnesses reported that you and the victim had a major argument, then a falling out, Can you shed some light on this?” I asked, trying my best to not further antagonize him.

It didn’t work. Angry hippo was visibly… erm, well angry now. His face scarlet as he threw up his hands and began to pace. “Why does this always come up?! It wasn’t that big of a deal! Look, it was about something that happened way back when we were in college back in Canberra. Darkplague found out some information about something that happened once at a frat party, he took it wrong, and he was pissed. Sure, we had it out about it, and we weren’t on speaking terms, but it wasn’t something that anyone would kill over.”

I nodded. “So this argument was just about college?”

He sighed with impatience, clearly still angry. “If you must know, it was over a girl. But that’s all I am saying without a lawyer present. Mr. Drachensborn, you hare trying my patience. I really think you should leave. Now.” And with that, he stomped off into the back room. I sensed that perhaps I had overstayed my welcome, and made my way to the door. As I exited into the lobby, I passed the bimbo twins and alwayslost heading back to the room. As I passed alwayslost, he handed me a scrap of paper without ever looking in my direction. I walked outside the lobby and into the foyer. There I read the note:

360-555-2534

Mr. Drachensborn, I have information you need, but my employer would be most irritated if I were to give it to you. Call this number after 7:30pm. I am doing this only to protect my position.
A

I put the note in my pocket. This was certainly an interesting development. Overall my detective senses were not registering Mr. Hippo as a major suspect despite his abrupt manner with me, but now I was intrigued. I promised myself that I would make the call when the time came.

I had a little spare time before my next encounter, so I decided to run a quick errand. A short drive later, I pulled into the parking lot of a small, seemingly run down shop down on Main street. An aged sign out front proclaimed the building “Mren’s Antiquities”. I walked inside.

The interior was in surprisingly good repair given the outside conditions. Soft hanging lights and artfully placed spotlights lit the various treasures spaced around the shop. Antique swords, paintings, period furniture pieces surrounded the front of the room, while a large grand piano dominated the center of the room. Off to one side, a large bearded lizard surveyed his domain with grim approval. At the back of the room, Mren sat behind the counter. I nodded to him as I made my way to the register.

“Hey Mren, how’s the junk collection business going today?” I said. I often teased him about his odd hobby, which he had started back in the force. He had been caught up in the same mess that saw the end of my career, so we had a common, if uneasy bond.

“It’s not junk! And put that down! You’ll break it! You still owe me for the last one!”

oh. Er. Oops. I had forgotten about that. I quickly put the expensive looking bauble down. “he he, sorry about that. I’ll tell you what though, I’ll make it up to you. I happen to know someone who is in the market for a piano for their lobby. I’ll send them on over” thinking of one of my other clients, who had damaged their other piano a few weeks earlier after receiving some particularly unpleasant news. Besides, Mren had been trying to sell the thing for years. I didn’t even know how he was going to get it through the doors. “Hey Mren, you still have that back room wired?”

The back room of Mren’s shop was legendary. Back before Mren bought it, it had been a communications hub for old Pacific bell network. A new hub was built later on, but the previous owner had been some sort of mad wiring genius, and had managed to reactivate the old node without tripping any of the line fail safes. To this day we still don’t know how he managed it. Mren had brought the old timer in for privacy code violations a time or two, but in the end, He decided that the old shop was just what he needed to clear his name, and hopefully someday, mine. Hey, if you can’t beat them…

Mren nodded. “Yeah, How long are you going to need? I’ve got a trace running right now…?”

I shrugged. “Probably only a few minutes. I’m not in a hurry though.”

He thought for a sec. “Ok, come back later this evening. I should be done by then. Bring some Chinese food!”
I took my leave and promised I’d bring some decent Chinese food.

A short while later I arrived at the Inn at the Quay down at the Columbia River waterfront. I parked my car, then headed in for my appointment with Angua.

...To be continued because the second half has a slight problem since I already used one of the characters I thought I was going to use here…

This was the love scene.

Make sure they use protection, or else....

Tarv, if you had the least amount of respect, you would keep it in the **** thread. Seeing as how you dont, I would like to proclaim you the ****-tard of the century....

/flea is better.

And it doesn't take a devil to make me do it.

Fine writing Kao (and the goat-LOL)!! I came to this thread late, but finally had time to read it all. There seems however to be a rather large posting gap since you last posted @ Fri, Jan 23rd 3:32 PM 2004...

Hmmm. Poking and hugging didn't seem to help.


Look into my avatar...(not you others, just Kao)

You NEED to write another installment...

You WANT to write another installment...

You are typing another installment now...

Jelly rolls? All I'm getting is that beer commercial with the two girls fighting in the fountain.

I think it's still on "beer and sex" mode, Kelti.



mmmmmm, jelly rolls