(Fugitive) All That Remains

This Glimpse is a direct continuation from the Scene Corner of Murtaugh and Riggs, and occurs on the same day

Shodan only barely registers the agents on his tail falling, footing lost on the slick surface - and it'll take some time for his brain to fully process what happened. For now, he is way to busy with escaping. Still, he retains enough reason to storm in the nearest Wal-Mart and buy a roll of heavy duty aluminum foil ("That'll be $6.52, sir") he wraps tightly around his neck. Unless the pellet emits tiny fairy dust that only resembles electromagnetism normally used by this kind of tech, the Libertine should vanish from the MIBs radar.

Of course, that only protects him in the short term.

Changing the means of public transportation several times, just to stay on the safe side of things, Shodan returns home and produces a pristine, untested multi-tool. Not exactly intended for surgeries, but it'll do. Knowing he'll have to unwrap the foil for what's to happen next, the Prime Mover walks a couple blocks away, to a secluded alley with no cameras or witnesses in sight. The tool in hand, the Obrimos chants quietly, bending the rules of thermodynamics to aid him.

  2 successes

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2019-03-19 07:08:18		Shodan rolls 8 to Control Heat (Gno 3 + Forces 3 + HS 2) (10 Again)		4, 8, 5, 5, 1, 3, 4, 10, 2		2 successes

Content with his spell, Shodan grits his teeth and utilizes the multi-tool's pliers to remove the foreign body. It slides efforlessly out, and seconds later it is nothing but a bit of metal, crushed under Shodan's shoe "Yeah, well, fuck you"

  3 successes

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2019-03-19 07:09:57		Shodan rolls 5 to Remove the pellet (Dex 3 - Medicine 0 + Eq. Bonus (Multi-tool) 2 + Control Heat 2 + WP) (10 Again, WillPower)		3, 7, 10, 9, 3, 9		3 successes

His paranoia sated, Shodan gets back home and... yes, he gets to work. Not much in the way of tools - but that has never stopped the Libertine before. He spends the next several hours hunched over a table, amidst an ocean of parts that'd dazzle lesser minds. But not Shodan's. He is the man to talk to about technology in this town.

And he intends to prove it.

  Reverse-engineer the GPS gun, 25 suxx in total, 1 ex.success

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2019-03-19 07:15:51		[07] Shodan rolls 9 to Reverse-engineer the GPS gun (Dex 3 + Crafts 4 + Eq. Bonus (Multi-tool) 2) (10 Again)		2, 10, 7, 3, 10, 4, 7, 8, 3, 8, 6		4 successes
2019-03-19 07:15:51		[06] Shodan rolls 9 to Reverse-engineer the GPS gun (Dex 3 + Crafts 4 + Eq. Bonus (Multi-tool) 2) (10 Again)		2, 9, 4, 2, 3, 7, 8, 7, 2		2 successes
2019-03-19 07:15:51		[05] Shodan rolls 9 to Reverse-engineer the GPS gun (Dex 3 + Crafts 4 + Eq. Bonus (Multi-tool) 2) (10 Again)		9, 5, 1, 4, 10, 4, 6, 3, 9, 3		3 successes
2019-03-19 07:15:51		[04] Shodan rolls 9 to Reverse-engineer the GPS gun (Dex 3 + Crafts 4 + Eq. Bonus (Multi-tool) 2) (10 Again)		9, 1, 8, 2, 2, 2, 3, 5, 9		3 successes
2019-03-19 07:15:51		[03] Shodan rolls 9 to Reverse-engineer the GPS gun (Dex 3 + Crafts 4 + Eq. Bonus (Multi-tool) 2) (10 Again)		7, 4, 8, 3, 6, 3, 3, 4, 1		1 success
2019-03-19 07:15:51		[02] Shodan rolls 9 to Reverse-engineer the GPS gun (Dex 3 + Crafts 4 + Eq. Bonus (Multi-tool) 2) (10 Again)		10, 9, 10, 6, 6, 2, 3, 7, 2, 4, 9		4 successes
2019-03-19 07:15:51		[01] Shodan rolls 9 to Reverse-engineer the GPS gun (Dex 3 + Crafts 4 + Eq. Bonus (Multi-tool) 2) (10 Again)		3, 6, 2, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10, 6, 1, 8		8 successes

  Reverse-engineer the magic detector, 19 suxx in total, 1 ex. success

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2019-03-19 07:19:16		[07] Shodan rolls 9 to Reverse-engineer the magic detector (Dex 3 + Crafts 4 + Eq. Bonus (Multi-tool) 2) (10 Again)		8, 6, 3, 7, 4, 2, 8, 5, 4		2 successes
2019-03-19 07:19:16		[06] Shodan rolls 9 to Reverse-engineer the magic detector (Dex 3 + Crafts 4 + Eq. Bonus (Multi-tool) 2) (10 Again)		8, 9, 1, 10, 1, 8, 9, 7, 1, 5		5 successes
2019-03-19 07:19:16		[05] Shodan rolls 9 to Reverse-engineer the magic detector (Dex 3 + Crafts 4 + Eq. Bonus (Multi-tool) 2) (10 Again)		1, 5, 7, 2, 10, 5, 7, 10, 6, 8, 5		3 successes
2019-03-19 07:19:16		[04] Shodan rolls 9 to Reverse-engineer the magic detector (Dex 3 + Crafts 4 + Eq. Bonus (Multi-tool) 2) (10 Again)		2, 9, 7, 1, 7, 4, 1, 3, 10, 2		2 successes
2019-03-19 07:19:16		[03] Shodan rolls 9 to Reverse-engineer the magic detector (Dex 3 + Crafts 4 + Eq. Bonus (Multi-tool) 2) (10 Again)		8, 6, 3, 6, 9, 7, 8, 3, 6		3 successes
2019-03-19 07:19:16		[02] Shodan rolls 9 to Reverse-engineer the magic detector (Dex 3 + Crafts 4 + Eq. Bonus (Multi-tool) 2) (10 Again)		1, 3, 10, 3, 8, 1, 2, 9, 7, 9		4 successes
2019-03-19 07:19:16		[01] Shodan rolls 9 to Reverse-engineer the magic detector (Dex 3 + Crafts 4 + Eq. Bonus (Multi-tool) 2) (10 Again)		1, 5, 5, 6, 6, 5, 3, 2, 6		failure

Mechanics and other things

- If I count things correctly, the shift from "Corner..." to the Glimpse refreshed 1 Willpower point, which is immediately spent to bolster the roll. The multi-tool used is decribed in "Hunter: the Vigil" core rulebook, p. 233

- I'd also like to request a Willpower refresh for Shodan for fulfilling his Virtue of Fortitude by plowing on through the agents despite mounting difficulties, taking care of the GPS pellet and achieving his goals effectively all by himself, rather than surrender at any point or resort to outside help

- I went a bit ahead and did an extended Dex+Crafts roll to assess the acquired technology - the purpose being to reverse-engineer it, know its flaws (if any), its principle of operation, and if possible learn how to construct it (or something close to it). I rolled separately for the GPS device and what I assume to be the 'magic detector'. Please let me know if anything's wrong with them

Matrixchild

For a time Shodan was free; free from the chase. But despite Shodan's best efforts, eventually the MIB did pick up his trail, though his erratic movements did at times leave them in much confusion. Multiple times as he fled Shodan caught sight of the black van, the van that he had seen outside the cafe, following him even after the aluminum foil had been placed over the pellet. For a man of science, to see logic fail was...unnerving.

Once Shodan had found a location where he could extract the pellet he warmed up the insertion point, causing the pores of his skin to open and expand. With the use of the multitool and pure will he was able to force the pellet out, seemingly crushing it to nothing. As he left his makeshift surgical center though he noticed the van. As he stepped into darkness the agents walked right past him and directly towards the last known location of the pellet. In the end, they had found the pellet, even if it was no longer lodged in its prey.

Back at his house Shodan was able to determine that the tracker gun used precisely aligned electromagnets to fire a tracking pellet at considerable velocity. As previously seen the pellets themselves were the size of grains of sand, which made the clip essentially unlimited, but upon further analysis they were not powered by electromagnetism. The tracking was done though pseudo-etheric radiation emited from the pellets themselves which was then picked up by the GPS tracker. He had already seen that normal methods of disruption didn't seem to work, but further testing would reveal that no matter what he put the pellet in the signature would be picked up. Whether it was aluminum foil, a faraday bag, or even under concrete. The GPS could detect exactly where the pellet was up to a half mile.

The meter on the other hand seemed far more mundane than he probably expected. In fact the more he looked over it the more it looked like something he'd probably seen on ghost hunters, though this one worked. Upon some testing he could determine that the device in his hand could detect the presence of an uncloacked glyph at a range of about fifteen meters, but the device had no way to determine how close or how far away the glyph actually was. All it could do was point the user in one of eight directions.

Reminder that Willpower does not refresh even one point between continued scenes, but I agree that based on his actions and the obstacles placed before him he did fulfill his virtue of Fortitude and his WP is refreshed in full, minus the one spent in this scene. I will say Shodan did not remain long enough at his home for them to realize it was his home.

For purely OOC reference the GPS pellets are the Etheric Tracker from HtV pg. 155. The magic meter is essentially the Energy Meters from HtV pg. 240, though slightly modified for the plot. Like the text says the meter cannot precisely determine exactly where the magic is coming from, but has quadrants like on the photo I posted that can allow a person to determine the general direction it's coming from. It still cannot determine closeness to the user. I'll rule that Shodan cannot figure out how the pseudo-etheric radiation for the pellets are created, but he could create something similar to the gun. He could also probably create something similar to the meter, but it'll only detect magic, no other supernaturals.

Shodan was more than a little surprised to see the agents so close to him, even after he undertook what under normal circumstances'd be a game-changing precaution. Surprise turned to irritation, however, as experiments determined that the GPS device was running on tiny fairy dust, after all.

Shit.

But all is well that ends well. He's learned a lot about the enemy's tools and is fairly sure he can replicate them. He's escaped with his mind, body and freedom intact. He didn't have to deal with Winter. The uncracked database is kind of a sore spot, but Shodan - ever the optimist - is certain an opportunity will present itself to try again. All in all, a good day's work. In the coming days, he'll probably need to convert his findings into Simple English as well as prepare for what's to come.

But that's tomorrow. Today, a marathon of pizza and Halo is his reward.