recolle | Boys In Not-Blue And Related Fields [Closed-ish]

Entry tags:

Boys In Not-Blue And Related Fields [Closed-ish]

WHO: Cops, CSI, Lawyers, Private Investigators, Judges, and Emil because he blackmailed his way in.
WHERE: Togusa's Apartment
WHEN: September 3
WHAT: Info-sharing, catching up new people, and coordination of what the hell the Recolle Police Department is going to do from here.
WARNINGS: Potential discussions of all the things that happened last month, so death, dismemberment, references to setting body parts on fire.

This meeting was originally going to happen on more neutral territory. Togusa was all set to steal one of the conference rooms at the station. But after one of their members has gone through another physical change, one she is quite self-conscious about? Togusa made the decision to move this somewhere more private and pull everyone over to his apartment. He has a multitude of reasons for doing this, primary of which is information. But it's also a way to connect everyone better, especially to Cleo and Naoto, to show them that they are a part of the force like all the others.

The apartment is spacious for only one person, enough room for everybody. Togusa has pulled out every chair he can get, and he's got stacks of drinks out for people. Please don't mind the white miniature schnauzer who will sniff at the ankles of anyone. He is very calm, but has a little bit of a limp on his front left paw. He will try to climb up into any lap that sits still.

Random items throughout the apartment may still have plastic googly eyes stuck to them, either because Togusa hasn't found them yet, or (like the bottle-opener) he left it that way because he thought it was funny.

They're here to discuss business, and Retrospec, but Togusa's home is still open for them to socialize, as well.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Eventually, Togusa stands up to get everyone's attention. "It's not my intention to take the lead on this, but I might as well start us off. First, you'll notice who's missing here. Detective Noah Gabranth. He's out of the loop again, which leaves our ranking officer as Detective Ichirou Matsuoka." He nods towards Ichirou. "I'm happy to leave things in his hands, and report up to him where I was to Gabranth before. Before this past month, Gabranth and I had been discussing a meeting just like this to catch everyone up to speed and to decide as a group how we're going to move forwards about Retrospec."

"I invited people in related fields, investigations, legal," nods towards Mariko, Matt, "because we have to accept that we don't have the staff to handle this if we restrict it to the full-time officers on the app. Even with CSI's help," a look to Tatsuo and Derek.

"More importantly," Togusa turns fully to Naoto and Cleo, "I'm of the opinion that you two have more than proven yourselves to sit here. What we all went through last month was more than would have been asked of any officer. You two not only helped defend the city, but kept your heads about you to bring back information that you knew would be more valuable. I can't thank you enough."

But now to jump into the meat of what Togusa needs to get clear. "So, before anybody goes writing anything down, you need to see this." There are a few file folders on the coffee table, case notes on a few recent incidents. "Two months ago, original charge on the kid was 'attempted destruction of human remains," Togusa shrugs, "I got it talked down to 'public burning without a permit.' Sixteen year-old got sent a severed human arm in the mail by Retrospec. Understandably. Panicked."

"We wrote down full details in the case report, mentioned Retrospec by name. Notice what isn't there now." Togusa frowns. "Anything specific about the company has just up and disappeared. Other files, statements I took on privacy violations three and four months ago? Have vanished entirely." He looks specificially at Ichirou, Fynn, and Mako. "I would have looked up the assault incident the three of you were involved in, but I was already getting in trouble for asking into these. I would be willing to bet you'll find the same answer."

"It's specific to mentions about the company," Togusa taps another folder. "The bust at the art museum a couple of months back was untouched, even though we dragged in somebody who was on the app, Retrospec isn't cleaning up after everybody's records. Just their own."

"I don't believe this is going to happen to personal notes that we are taking. Just things that are possibly shareable with people not on the application." Togusa gestures to the table, "like police reports. Any suggestions about what we should do about this for reporting purposes in the meantime would be welcome."

"A lot of this is probably going to ovelap with what other people report, go ahead and add anything you remember anyway, I'd rather overlap than have us forget something."

"Our team, for lack of a better term, got sent to the Retrospec building, itself. when we have had access to the building, the inside of it seems to change and shift, we're not sure what cased it. This time, the only thing that was inside was an elevator that would take us to the basement level. Far lower down than we expected, or than should be possible under the city."

"The inside was very technologically advanced, doors were automatic, the general aesthetic was out of a science fiction movie. We had to restore power to the communications, which involved a lot of setting off of their internal security. Security is primarily robotic."

"One Retrospec staff member was shown to be living on site there, Maurice Fitzwilliam. Intern, known to be in charge of their mail distribution. We found addresses, backups of all of the addresses of people on the application. So, if you want to know who is sending everyone guns and books and other stupid shit, it's Maurice. But once we did get in contact with him, he suggested that he didn't have control over what he sent people."

"However, comments between himself and another staff member, Joanne Wiseman, suggested that maybe Maurice has been a part of Retrospec his entire life. Same with Joanne. Wherever they are originally from, they have known each other their entire lives. But we also found Visitor badges in Maurice's room, which begs the question of who would even know about Retrospec to visit the building?"

"Maurice suggested that the full problem had been caused by an 'unreality storm.' Something that he and another staff member, Dr. Marguerite Mahoney, were working to resolve. A number of Retrospec staff members, as well as the 45 missing people, had been pulled into it, and the monsters had come out of it. We had to help resolve some smaller sections of 'unreality' before Dr. Mahoney was able to resolve the larger storm and bring everyone back."

"Inside one of the smaller unreality twists, we found staff member Joanne Wiseman. Sister to the new Janet Halloway, but we are unsure of her position on Retrospec staff. She was able to work Retrospec technology, however. She needed us to resolve and then bring back artifacts from inside the smaller twists. Small things like pearls or coins. It was odd, but she seemed to need them as power to work on the larger problem. She was able to use those to activate what she called the 'weapons protocol.'"

"Now this is going to sound familiar. She could grant people special abilities or power up weapons or give them companions. Which is precisely what we won by playing Jim's Bingo game last month, from what we can tell. People who didn't get any QR codes didn't see any changes."

"From here we're jumping into speculation, but it suggests to me that Jim Halloway knew this storm was coming and ran the weapons protocol for us before it happened. And then conveniently vanished with his new bride before anyone could solve it."

"There was one other thing that Maurice told us. Again, speculation. But he suggested that people who forget." Togusa nods significantly. "Like Detective Gabranth, for example. He said that their souls slip briefly out of place, and they need to be 'reset.' And then he refused to explain any further."

Togusa sits back down, but he'll be glad to explain or clarify anything else.

[General catch-all for mingling!]

The way Officer Izunia's eyes flicker towards Togusa at the mention of Detective Gabranth is telling. Fynn noticed Gabranth been missing for a for days now. He first assumed the man was on vacation leave until he started asking around the station. That's when he realized that barely anyone remembered the man anymore. It's as if Gabranth completely ceased to exist and to be frank, that upset Fynn more than anyone could realize. People don't just up and vanish into thin air without cause. Whatever happened to Gabranth had to been Retrospec related but Fynn doesn't have much evidence to prove it. He had sincerely hoped that the man would be back by now but unfortunately he's not. That's why they're here, isn't? At least that's one of many reasons for an assembly like this. Either way, Fynn is more than glad to be here.

He gives Naoto and Cleo a brief glance before turning back to Togusa again. His gaze doesn't linger long since it strays towards the other newcomers in the room. Fynn gives them a curt nod for now but doesn't say much. For now, he's content enough to let Togusa do the talking. His colleague is doing well enough to catch people up to speed by organizing all of the cases they've undertook until now regarding Retrospec.

"Why am I not surprised?" Fynn mutters under his breath once Togusa mentions about everything regarding Retrospec suddenly vanishing into thin air. "That's their usual MO, isn't it? Simply delete whatever they don't like and pretend it doesn't exist. I swear they're hacking into everything and altering whatever details they can to hinder our investigation."

He sighs somewhat, clearly annoyed with this turn of events. "My suggestion is that we keep everything offline for now. Retrospec, despite their influence, aren't devised of omnipotent beings. They're human much like us. They won't know we have these notes if we keep quiet about them. Only those who need to know should know."

[Cleo isn't quite aware of the reasoning behind moving things to Togusa's apartment, thankfully. So when she shows up, she's dressed quite nicely, in a black pantsuit. Which, she might be feeling overdressed, but she's also got a sword strapped to her side, and of course... Cat ears on her head, and a cat tail flicking around behind her. Retrospec has been a problem to her.

On the other hand, once she's calmed down a bit and is less nervous, she's going to spend most of the meeting with that schnauzer in her lap. Cat or no, she's going to be petting the hell out of that dog.]

That was new, and interesting. And... it possibly explained the short sentence the perp had received in that assault case. Can't lock a guy up if you can't report on everything about him. They were not going to let the people Sleeping have their worldview disturbed... But that brought a new question about why? Or rather, the same question.

"Is there much we can do?" He asks frankly and honestly. "I'm surprised they're going through this effort. It's not like the Sleepers believe us anyway, so why go through the effort of erasing our notes..."

The motivation's confusing.

[Derek looks up from taking detailed notes in a notebook.]

Briskly raising a hand he asks, "Wait, what is a sleeper?"

[It's never a good thing if Fynn is quiet.

The officer looks positively frustrated but not at anyone particularly here. If anything, he's horribly frustrsted at the situation they face in regards to Retrospec and this constant feeling of helplessness that comes with it. Just how are they suppose to take down a company as sinister as Retrospec when their information on them keeps vanishing? As soon as they get a good lead or a clue, everything goes up in smoke later.

See now why Fynn is frustrated? Retrospec keeps getting the jump on them every time he thinks he has concrete evidence against them. It's enough to drive a man mad.

He's plainly dressed today in a simple white t-shirt, a pair of jeans and dark gray boots. He is wearing his signature blue leather jacket that Jirou gifted him last month but who knows if anyone can see the color blue anymore. The sky is still just as gray as the ocean these days. While you can certainly see colors just fine online, everything else is still gray offline.

Weird shit, no? Fynn still doesn't know how to feel about that.

The bandages upon his right arm are concealed except for that little bit that rests around his wrist. He's still favoring his left rather than his right. The thought passed him a few times to just let Ardyn heal him but Fynn is stubborn.]

[wait. He remembers him. Huh-- go figure. But he explains honestly,]

The people who aren't on the app. It's the best name I've seen for them so far.

[Tatsuo chimes in from his spot.]

I like 'nappers.' Short for 'non-app users.'

Ichirou still had the briefest moment of panic whenever he was called the 'senior officer' on this, but he was trying to work through it. He wasn't the biggest fan of that much responsibility. It had been part of the reason he had always turned down offers to transfer to homicide despite it being a promotion fast track. But part of being a professional was being able to handle the unexpected and undesired, if everything was always optimal, you wouldn't need professionals.

"We should all keep personal notes, but not just that. We can make copies and keep the copies in a safe place. Well...as safe as any place can be, I guess." he said. As much as he didn't like, he wasn't confident enough to assume there was any actual place outside of Retrospec's grasp. "Keep our original notes ourselves and have a place to keep copies so everyone can reference each other's notes. It probably shouldn't be on Police property either, I'm doubting that's totally secure, now. But like Izunia said, having a ton of reach doesn't make you omnipresent, if we have redundancies built in and don't let it slip where we're keeping these notes over their network they should at least have some trouble finding things. I'd suggest a cipher, but that probably has too many chances of going wrong..."

He tapped his finger on the table. This really wasn't his strong suit.

"We should also probably come up with some procedures on what to do if anything like this happens again. Predicting this kind of stuff is basically impossible, but we can have some protocols in place. At the very least we need to at least get in the habit of contacting everyone in the force with the app if anything happens, we can always delegate from there. Like if something like the monsters happen again, get someone on top of helping with the monsters themselves, someone warning others, someone looking for the source... that kind of thing. Also maybe to have a collected list of anyone who disappears, if that ever happens again. We can't predict what'll happen but we can generalize 'categories' to have plans for, I guess."

Oh, OK. So using the analogy that they are "asleep" because they don't notice the differences? So, was I one before...like two days ago before?

That's a good one.

Whatever what we want to call them, what I said before is true. So I don't understand why the effort to erase their existence in writing.

Gallagher Brando was taking notes. He has taken the time from when he got on this network to this particular meeting to go through and try and extract some general information, just so he had something of a picture as to what exactly was going on here. He had at least bothered getting ready before he showed up, after all. So now, he was simply absorbing what he could about all of this. It was, a lot to take in to say the least, but Gall's brain worked at a hundred miles a minute anyways, so he was keeping up with the pace.

As Togusa finishes however, he is left not with any questions he believes Togusa can answer, but with another question altogether, one raised by his last statement. It was, as he thought about it more, a rather unsettling question in and of itself, but he felt it was something that he needed to say. Whether or not it should be heard.

"...That implies that their souls have a place to be set in, Togusa. A place this app is setting them in," He comments, his voice as sure and collected as ever, yet even so some level of concern was poking throw, "A place that Retrospec wants them to be in."

Yeah, basically.

Though, I guess Napper's another term. Point is, you were asleep, I guess.

Cleo nods in agreement with him, but speaks up regardless.

"I believe, personally, their methods are less about the 'Sleepers', and more about us." She manages to keep her voice clear from the spite she feels towards Retrospec, at least. "During this past month, twice my adventures with Team Absinthe had us asked what made us 'worthy'. What we had done for the greater good, essentially. I think erasing our notes, and driving us away from others, is an attempt to make us despair, and to isolate us from those who are not Retrospec-users."

Her cat ears droop, but even so, she lifts her tail up as an example. "As proof, not everything Retrospec does is invisible to 'Nappers'. They can see the modifications Retrospec has made to my body. Those who are Retrospec-users understand, but 'Nappers' do not. Meanwhile, we who can see and understand far more than 'Nappers' will inevitably get frustrated with how little they know. In other words, it's a perfect way to isolate us from them, and erasing even these mundane notes is to make us stop trying."

I never got the chance to talk to the Retrospec employees myself, but here's the highlights of the notes I got:

Cognac operated in the subways, where we found our terminal to speak to Doctor Mahoney. Mahoney looked different depending on what team saw her-- for us, she was an old woman. [a pause] And the password we had to enter into the terminal was 'catLUVR89!!' So. These guys suck at passwords.

As for the actual information we got out of them, I think other teams had more luck. But the conversation we had with Ronnie was probably the most interesting. He said he was in charge of "sidewalks." And when Mafuyu asked him about taking the exam to become a Retrospec employee, he said that we weren't allowed to, because we were alive.

[a pause.]

Ronnie was pretty cagey about the whole thing, but he seemed to imply that one day we could become employees. Given the conditions...

[he trails off.]

Anyway, I didn't find this out from Cognac, but I was talking to my friend, Penelope. I know it was brought up that the memories we had were "true somewhere." But she told me that she'd discovered that Retrospec's specialty was rebuilding destroyed worlds.

So we're going under the assumption that the app is something of a "wake up call"?

Maybe.

I think it's more like the Sleepers, Nappers... whatever, they just take whatever crazy change as fact. Just like you would in a dream.

Like a dream. [He let's out a thoughtful hum.] If that's the case, do you think it's possible to get people out of "La-la Land" without the app?

Surely there's a way to do it without letting Retrospec run the show.

Edited 2017-09-03 21:49 (UTC)

There are a lot of questions, but let's start with the easy one, as Togusa tilts his head to the side, and raises a hand. "Ronnie? Another Retrospec employee, or someone else?"

Retrospec employee.

[that was an easy one to answer at least]

Writing this one down, "Did you get any sort of full name? Do you know what sort of position they have with the company? And how did you run into them? Was it someone you physically ran into, had to rescue, or were they through the holograms?"

Togusa shakes his head. "Didn't take you for the spiritual sort. I think it's safe to assume that the idea of souls is a stand-in for something else. The data ghost, some digital aspect of individuality. Something similar." It's the least important part of what he has to report.

"I'm more concerned with gathering evidence, now that we've got you here, what is it that you would need to help build a case against what Retrospec is doing?"

Cleo is the most interesting smell in the room, so Daisuke is following Cleo around. He is a very low-energy dog, in the first place, whether that was a result of his injury isn't clear. But he will happily curl up in Cleo's lap. He likes nothing more than cuddling up with somebody.

Togusa eventually comes over with the most amused look on his face. He offers a little bag of treats. "He likes these ones a lot."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 12

Boys In Not-Blue And Related Fields [Closed-ish]

General Information

Reports: Team Daquiri

MINGLE

no subject

Cleo

no subject

no subject

Fynn Izunia

no subject

no subject

Re: General Information

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Reports: Team Cognac

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: Reports: Team Cognac

Re: Reports: Team Cognac

Re: Reports: Team Cognac

no subject

Re: Cleo