The Internet

Poirot
[Did I sleep?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 6, 9) ( success x 1 )
The Internet
[[Okay, the computer sits in front of Elijah! What specifically is he looking for on those fringe message boards?]]
Poirot
[Haha! Right now, he's looking into government kidnappings and cover ups. Cross referencing that with any reference people make to any kind of New World Order (which is just mainstream enough to HOPEFULLY not draw too much attention)]
The Internet
[[Okay! Int+Computer vs. 8 to sift through all the crap and try to find something potentially legit]]
Poirot
[Int+computers, diff 8]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (5, 5, 5, 6) ( success x 1 ) [WP]
Poirot
(can I extend?)
Poirot
[if I can? Then here goes! If not, that's cool too! Disregard]
Dice: 4 d10 TN9 (5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
The Internet
And thus, Elijah bravely dives into the world of conspiracy nuts. It's not as difficult as one might think to find stories of the New World Order kidnapping people. (Or perhaps people think it's easy; it all depends on your paranoia.) What's difficult is to sort through all the insane, tin foil hat-wearing ramblings to find some stories that might have an inkling of truth.
I saw black helicopters outside my window and then my cattle went missing.
There was a guy in a black suit who was hanging around when my girlfriend vanished. She showed up in Hawaii, weeks later with a new guy. I think she was abducted by aliens, that's not like her at all.
I'm being followed by mysterious government men all the time, I think they know I'm listening to their secret transmissions about who killed Kennedy through my fillings.
The Truth is Out There
You know, all that kind of nonsense. Or maybe it's not nonsense, who knows? Either way, it's not what Elijah is looking for. It isn't until he's been reading through stories until thinks his eyes are about to start bleeding that he comes across a tale of a woman who is looking for her son. What strikes Elijah about it is the fact that the story is posted in a forum about government kidnappings, but it doesn't mention any of the usual insanity.
The woman, Helen Scott, says that her son Isaac went missing about five years ago. Isaac was living with a group of friends in Seattle and had "fallen in with a bad crowd." A bunch of black-haired...you know, occult people...who listened to dark music and wore black nail polish and such. He had changed since then and she suspected that he was in a cult. But the entire group had vanished, except for one girl who was found dead, shot execution-style in their group apartment. Helen fears that they were "disappeared" for being too strange; Isaac had mentioned something in one of his rare emails to her about how they were looking into some other disappearances of people who were like them. She's afraid that they've been taken as some kind of terrorists and the government is just denying it.
It doesn't relate to Doctor Morgan or Khaled. But it's something.
Poirot
The internet? Is weird.
Elijah figures this is what he gets for starting the 4chan and then going even deeper in to the realm of what the Holy Hell is wrong with people? But he comes across one article, one woman- Helen Scott. Someone who seemed normal enough, who seemed content to be describing someone like Alyssa in her son. Something that caught his attention and seemed… well… normal.
Helen seemed normal, and that was the strange thing about her. She seemed normal enough that it made Elijah pause and decide to send her a message.
"Dear ma'am,
I came across your posting and I was wondering- have you heard anything about your son? Have there been any new developments?
-Hercule"
Like Hercule Poirot. The detective. With that, he had to try and look a little more into this Isaac Scott person from Portland. Not that it would help with Doctor Morgan or Khaled, but this… this sounded like the technocracy. He wanted to, at the very least, understand where they were coming from. What they were hiding from. He couldn't pursue this and yet… well… he had to.
Poirot
Dear ma'am,
I came across your posting and I was wondering- have you heard anything about your son? Have there been any new developments?
-Hercule
Poirot
(*Seattle, not portland, my bad!)
The Internet
Elijah doesn't get a message back right away. Such is the nature of the internet...for all its speed and instant information at your fingertips, not everyone is at their computers all the time and it's about an hour before he gets a response back.
The police have been incredibly unhelpful. They think that Isaac and his friends are criminals and killed this girl, then went on the run. But they also haven't filed any kind of report looking for him. I don't understand what's going on.
I was contacted the other day by two men who said that they were with the FBI. They asked me a lot of questions about my son and what he had told me, but I was very tired and stressed and I can't seem to remember what they asked me. They said that they were looking into it and that if I found that I had uncovered any further information, I should contact them.
Do you know anything about it? Do you know Isaac? I just want to know that he's okay.
Poirot
During the time that he was waiting for her to reply, Elijah spent his time cleaning up the apartment and mulling about and generally trying not to be nervous. he checked Ginger, and had been in the middle of thinking through some response before he finally got the reply that he was looking for.
He felt bad for this lady. Really bad, in fact. Elijah scratched the back of his head and went to formulating a reply.
First thing, I don't think that your son or his friends killed that girl-
He makes a note to the side to look into a murder, to look into any police records for Isaac Scott.
And I don't think those men you spoke with were strictly with the FBI. it's okay if you can't remember what they asked or anything of the like. Did they give you any contact information for how to contact them? Did they have names? One of my friends is missing, goth kid, and I was wondering if it might be related.
"Elijah, what the fuck are you asking? Grace is going to murder you."
Poirot
(ugh, computer, why)
Poirot
testPoirot
testPoirot
(come on, don't break the internet)
The Internet
[[Doobie Doobie Doo!]]Poirot
During the time that he was waiting for her to reply, Elijah spent his time cleaning up the apartment and mulling about and generally trying not to be nervous. he checked Ginger, and had been in the middle of thinking through some response before he finally got the reply that he was looking for.
He felt bad for this lady. Really bad, in fact. Elijah scratched the back of his head and went to formulating a reply.
First thing, I don't think that your son or his friends killed that girl-
He makes a note to the side to look into a murder, to look into any police records for Isaac Scott.
And I don't think those men you spoke with were strictly with the FBI. it's okay if you can't remember what they asked or anything of the like. Did they give you any contact information for how to contact them? Did they have names? One of my friends is missing, weird goth kid, and I was wondering if it might be related.
"Elijah, what the fuck are you asking? Grace is going to murder you."
The Internet
The response that comes through is short and to the point. It would appear that Helen Scott isn't one to randomly chat, at least when she's on this particular subject.
I'm sorry to hear that you have the same problem. And thank you for saying that about Isaac. No one else seems to believe me. They did leave contact information, I've provided it below. Maybe they can help you. I only ask that if you find anything about my son in the process, you let me know.
Sebastian Gross: (206) 555-2501Isabelle Wade: (206) 555-2502
Poirot
Elijah took a look at the information provided, and he started in to try and google these two people. He had his doubts, but he needed to see if they really were with the FBI. Something about this was definitely fishy, and the phone numbers were just glaring at him. Waiting for someone, anyone, to call.
Poirot
[int+computer]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 4, 7) ( success x 1 )
The Internet
Googling the names comes up with several entires for both "Sebastian Gross" and "Isabelle Wade." None of them are FBI agents, at least as far as Elijah can find. But then, would FBI agents be easily found as such on the internet? It's hard to say, and Elijah doesn't exactly know any legit FBI agents who he could test the theory with.
About that time, his email inbox pings. When he goes to check it, there is a message without a subject from someone named "WyteNyte," without an email address.
That's not a snake you wanna go poking.
Poirot
Elijah looked at the email cautiously, fairly convinced if he opened it, then he was going to end up having to buy a new computer (he might have to do that anyway, much to the chagrin of his parents). He went to check the email, looking carefully at the message. He paused, and then carefully typed a reply.
How did you find me?
The Internet
The response comes quick, pinging into his inbox mere seconds after Elijah sends his response.
You probably don't want to know. Just know that I'm not a friend or an ally. We are exactly opposed in a diametric manner, and yet trust me when I say...Googling Technocratic operatives isn't a wise move. There are ways for them to know.
Poirot
"HA! I fucking knew they weren't fBI agents!" he exclaimed at his computer. The young man probably shouldn't be as excited as he was about that particular finding. He looked back at the message, and carefully again formulated his reply.
Is it bad that I kind of do wish I knew? I don't want to make the same mistake twice. Or, at the very least, live long enough to consider it.
Was Helen Scott a real person?
The Internet
Yes. I don't believe that she will ever see her son again. And if she does, she will regret every second of it.
You're too trusting. Too optimistic. Issac Scott did not kill his cabalmate. He did kill the rest of his cabal. They were sacrifices. He became Nephandi along with the girl in the apartment. One down.
Poirot
"One down?" he asked.
So there's a chance they legitimately were looking into it. how does one go learning about WTF the technocracy is without ending up... well... fuck if I know, i'm lacking words. i'm trying to understand what is going on and my sources aren't reliable. One of them is, one person does not a comprehensive understanding make.
The Internet
There is a long pause, stretching out over several minutes, before... *Ding*
What do you want to know?
Poirot
How are they organized? I heard that they got hit by the stuff that caused the Avatar Storm as hard as the Traditions did. I heard that they believe in science and stuff.
Elijah took a moment to muse over things, to try and figure out what was going on and it had him thinking about the time that he was young and on the cusp of a complete and total breakdown. He tried to think of the counselor who had come to his house, the one whose face he barely remembered.
WTF is a Progenitor? Or Iteration X for that matter?
The Internet
Most of that I'm not going to tell you. What I will tell you about the Technocracy is that they protect mankind from the danger that out-of-control people with far too much power and not enough wisdom to use it present to them. People like Isaac Scott, for example.
The only problem is that some of them take that too far from time to time. The mission is sound, but the methods make them lose their way. "They" won the war. Then "they" failed to realize that there's a difference between winning and becoming that which you're try to stop.
Poirot
Isn't there a quote about dying hero or living long enough to become the villain somewhere? What about a big organizational overhaul? Surely, someone in there must realize that they've gone astray at some point, right?
The Internet
A short response comes back, very quickly.
Funny you should mention that.
Poirot
"Oh, shit," he murmured, looking carefully at the screen. It took a good minute before he responded.
Am I about to regret asking that? because I kind of already do.
The Internet
Relax. If you were in danger from me, I never would have made contact with you. I haven't seen anything to suggest you're a threat.
Poirot
That's fortunate, I pride myself on being generally harmless and not worthy of being scourged from the face of existence.
So, it isn't the mission of the technocratic union to completely obliterate all things that are not exactly fitting into their world view? Because that was really the impression I got. What constitutes as a major threat?
The Internet
When you threaten the Masses, you become a major threat.
A bit of a pause, and then another ding.
I have to go. I have to be careful. We'll talk again soon, I'm sure. Stop Googling Technocrats and hopefully you won't end up disappeared.
Later.
Poirot
Elijah was left to stare at his computer. This person... this person had to be careful. This person might not have actually left the union. Elijah found himself staring at his computer, unsure if he should really touch it or what to do next.
For now, he was content to send a message back
TTYL, peace!