LogEclipse Phase: Profits of Doom-Jason-1

Game log for the 2016/10/02 session of Eclipse Phase: Profits of Doom, as taken by Jason

Prophet and Daryl are drinking together at Forbidden City. Darly notices that Lady Hortencia Felicia Gallaraga y Toro has entered the bar, accompanied by a friend (Lady Selena). Hortencia also has a male escort with generic good looks, named Fernando. Prophet invited Hortencia to join them, but she indicates that she's with people and can't. She's been laying low, trying to avoid anything tht might injure her reputation further. As it happens, Hortencia was hoping Prophet & co might be able to help her friend with some difficulties she's having.

When the three of them reach Lady Hortencia's table, Fernando gets up and goes to sit at the bar. While Callisto comes up short, Tinky Winky tells Daryl that Selena's only been around for a couple years, she's known for being able to put people together and grease situations. Clio tells Selena that it really is the same Prophet she knew many, many years ago, still in the PI biz, and that he recently helped Lady Hortencia out of a bit of a jam.

Prophet gets right to business and asks Selena about her problem. Seems she's been getting threatening messages, expressing hostility about her recent arrival and attempts to become part of the local scene. They agree to meet at the office tomorrow to get a grip on the case. Selena leaves early, and after she's gone, Prophet asks about their history together. Seems one of Lady Hortencia's sons was good friends with Selena, and they became friends. Hortencia got to see the filming of an episode of AF199 recently. AF199 is a science fiction "monster of the week" show set on a reclaimed Earth starring Patricia Broadbottom, featuring a pro-Reclaimer, pro-biomorph agenda. We finish our drinks with her but when Fernando returns, Prophet and Daryl make their excuses.

Selena attends a fancier party where she's expected, says hi to some fancy people, and returns home at a reasonable hour.

That night, Edward hacks Selena's messaging system. He finds the offending messages and downloads them to local storage without being detected, but he can't find the sender. Whoever sent them has covered their tracks well. Edward can't tell if this about Selena's current identify or something coming back from her old life.

Selena returns from her ball, goes to bed, and has a nightmare about walking down a red carpet when the questions coming from the crowd become the sort of questions asked in the threatening mails. Also, when she wakes up, there's a dead body on her floor. It's a woman's body, propped up so she's looking at the head of the bed and pointing at it. There's a pool of blood on the floor. At Clio's advice, Selena touches the body and finds it cold to her touch. Clio tries to find the surveillance footage of the corridors outside but gets tied up trying to find activity during the relevant time period. She activates her facial recognition program and finds out that the body is Ming Haowei, wearing a pleasure pod. She goes by Ying Hua, Mandarin for "Cherry Blossom," and works as a headline dancer at a prominent eroto-club called Haze. Selena calls Prophet and wakes him up. Body on the floor. Yeah. Problem. Prophet wakes up Daryl to get him in, and rings Edward as well. Edward confirms the law is on its way. Prophet's thinking run, Daryl's thinking that running now just makes her look guilty, but then whoever set this in motion probably already has a frame set. Conclusion: don't rely on innocence, run. Daryl offers to scout ahead while Prophet gets Selena going and Edward looks for evidence of... well, anything, really.

Edward hacks the surveillance outside Selena's apartment, allowing Prophet to get her out without being observed. With Daryl scouting ahead, Edward can engineer extremely brief roving surveillance outages, and the three of them end up in a taxi to Peacock Tower, a location Prophet knows well from the case he worked for Lady Hortencia.

The three of them arrive without incident. Edward stops hacking once they're in a place where the hosts will agree to cover for them. Edward recommends sweeping her ASAP and turning off her mesh inserts. Prophet asks for a girl he's worked with before and goes up to her room to have a private conversation. Tinky Winky coaches Daryl on checking Selena for bugs, and we cannot find any sign of a bug. As we all relax over drinks, Prophet asks Selena for the whole story.

Edward analyzes crime scene footage and concludes that the dead woman in Selena's quarters was killed somewhere else, moved there, and then stabbed. Edward and Prophet both try to figure out where the high-end pleasure pod might have come from. Haze is a new club with a lot of good buzz around it, built into a stalactite hanging from the top of the cavern/dome. The transparent dance floor of Haze lets people look straight down at the city. The owners, inevitably, have strong underworld connections. The bartender, known as Long William, has a reputation for having the very best lunar weed. Daryl calls his scum friend Ernest to ask who's trading in top notch pleasure pods these days. Ernest doesn't know why this guy he only knows through their mutual friend Barking Dog thinks he knows a damn thing about pleasure pod dealers. Prophet can't figure out why there's such a high end pleasure pod at Haze. They're more into biomorphs like Slyphs, and people desperate enough to do pods probably aren't paying for top notch high end stuff. Maybe this dancer ended up in this pod because she owed somebody a whole hell of a lot. Edward goes to run down Ying Hua and see what there is to know.