Book 6, Chapter 1: Unscheduled Demolition

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{{#set:

  | title  = Unscheduled Demolition
  | is a   = chapter
  | chapter of = Humans are the Worst
  }}{{#set: chapter number = 1 | ordinal = 1 }}{{#set: has parent story = {{#ask: is book of::Humans are the Worst has book number::6 |link=none|limit=1|searchlabel=}} | chapter in book = {{#ask: is book of::Humans are the Worst has book number::6 |link=none|limit=1|searchlabel=}} }}{{#set: book number = 6 }}{{#set: blurb = In which the sudden disintegration of a house near McMaster campus turns suspicious eyes toward the Department of Energy Research. }}{{#set: content = Between one game and the next: Jack is taking courses to become a police officer at McMaster, and Allan is doing a work term in the morg.  Allan is also getting to know a pair of changeling twins - Robert and William Grimm - who are attending MacMaster on a football scholarship, and is trying to encourage them to join Autumn, with a bit of success.

It was a fine evening in November... which is to say that it started to get dark around 5... when Allan was giving Jack a ride back to Jack / Dave's home. Unfortunately, the street was blocked by the police. This may not be unusual, if there was some sort of accident with visible body parts. It happens on the 403 about once every few years. What was unusual was that there were opaque fences that kept everyone (and since a small crowed had gathered, I do mean everyone) from seeing what was going on.

In an attempt to find out more information, Allan started to flirt with a police woman named Constable Morda. This proved to be less than helpful, because, according to Morda, no one tells her anything, she wasn't part of what was on the street and it wasn't her job to know what was going on in the street. She did, however, see some dark shapes before things got obscured by the fences. She figured there was some sort of spill.

Jack takes a more direct approach. He climbs a tree and uses his excellent night vision. Although it is dark, Jack was able to make out 12 people who were not wearing any protective gear. They were not construction workers. He also managed to see some of those dark shapes. They were about the size and shape of hockey pucks.

Around 10:45, after the fences are taken down and people are cleared to use the sidewalks again, Allan mentions to Jack that the area smelled like a farm, specifically like methane dioxide. In layman's terms, there was the faint smell of cow fart. While Allan goes home (to study), Jack takes a quick look around. After some exploration, he was able to find a patch of grass that smelled like farm. In that area, under some bushes, was a patch that had been recently ripped off of some clothing. The patch had the logo of the McMaster Department of Energy Research (MDER).

The next evening, after sharing this information, Allan and Jack decided to so some research. Allan took to the computers and Jack took the more direct approach. Again.

According to the MDER's website, the department is a small faculty that specializes in researching high energy physics rather than finding new kinds of energy. Allan wondered if there was any particular patterns in the research that could have given a clue as to what happened the night before. However, all of the published papers were over Allan's head.

Jack brought the patch (in a plastic bag) to the MDER, with the words "You dropped this". The receptionist took the patch without any worries. When Jack tried to bait her with the words "I hope no one got hurt", she didn't react. She didn't know anything about the spill. Jack looked around the area. He saw very complicated equations (on the walls?) and several people coming and going. Eventually, Jack found a comfortable spot and waited. He saw four grad-students enter the building, as well as a professor. He followed them through the building and into a door that was labeled "Warning: Lasers in use. Knock before entering" as well as a nameplate: Dr. P Glaves. Dr Glaves' website lists her research interests as "high energy physics" and "theoretical energy physics" but has no details about what that actually means.

The next day was hard for both Allan and Jack. It was particularly hard for Jack because he spent the day learning how to interpriate forensic reports (seriously less cool than CSI), and his potential new girlfriend, Veronica, was much better at them than he is. Oh his way home, Jack notices that someone in a house on his street is staring vacantly outside his front window.

Allan ended up calling a reporter: Damion Kraft. Damion had covered another spill that happened several weeks earlier, on the Red Hill Expressway. Most of the details of the two crashes were the same, though Damion didn't notice any odd smells, nor did he know who cleaned up that spill. He did notice the fences.

The next day, there was a dedication ceremony for the new Paterson Wing, which will be the new home of the MDER. Several of Hamilton's big-wigs were there. The building is not yet completed, but will be cone/egg shaped. There are the same type of opaque fences around the building. Allan gets a look at the name of the fence company that provided the fences: Koots-Rent-A-Fence.

The next morning, on his way to school, Jack sees the same guy, in the same position, wearing the same clothing. Jack waves, and the guy's eyes track. However, when Jack hears a crumbling/falling noise, the man in the window doesn't respond. When the house's chimney falls into the house, the guy has no reaction. Jack decides to make sure everyone is okay. He knocks on the door. Another guy wearing just sweatpants answers, but closes the door in Jack's face when Jack asks if everything is alright. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on one`s point of view), Jack got a good smell of the guy who opened the door: major BO. In fact, it smelled like he was raised in a barn! He quickly sends Allan a text to get over asap because of the house falling. Then more roof falls in, and Jack`s cell phone goes up in a shower of sparks. Jack goes to another phone (a land line in David`s house) and calls the fire department.

When Allan gets the text, he ditches work because he thinks that the house that is falling belongs to the twins! He left a note. Fortunately, it wasn`t the twin`s house. Unfortunately, the house belonged to another med-student that Allan knew - one who took a co-op spot that Allan had wanted.

The firefighters arrive just after Allan does, and they get the two young men out of the house (as well as look for other people in the house - there weren`t any). The landlord confirmed that the two boys lived alone (the third housemate having left a few weeks ago). When the police arrive, they evacuate the adjoining buildings as a precaution.

Jack was close enough to see that the remaining bits of the house were still crumbling. Allan cast a quick spell to detect entropy, and got a sense that some power had increased the forces of entropy and decay. This something was not natural, nor was the force of acceleration natural. There was a Force of Entropy all about. After giving his statement to the police, Allan quickly warned the twins (who were entertaining) that something weird was going on. He managed to get back to work, looking respectable, just before his supervisor arrived.

The media was having a field day with this, including Dona! Jack noticed that none of the reporters had any problems with their equipment. Dona zeroed in on Jack for an interview, and as Jack gives her the mundane information (and mentions his cell exploding) she wrote down much more than what Jack seemed to say. The possibility of drugs being involved was mentioned. When Dona asks that Jack doesn`t talk to any other reporters about this, Jack agrees to stay quiet for twenty-four hours. During this interaction, Veronica sees Jack and Dona talking, glares at them, and starts to storm off, catching a bus before Jack can catch up to her without using his super-powers.

Later that day, Allan gets a call from the police to go through his statement again. Allan tells the truth: that he was just there for the aftermath and didn`t see much. He tells the inspector, who was having trouble contacting Jack, the time that Jack usually gets home from classes. The inspector says he will call back.

The next day, Jack and Veronica clear the air. Jack explanes what Dona wanted, and said he would never date her. She was too old! She`s, like, practically thirty! They leave to study for the midterm that they have tomorrow.

The next day, midterm completed, Jack is on his way home when he hears the same crumbling sounds as before. After turning OFF his new cell phone, he goes to take a closer look. The rubble is shifting, but there is more movement than should be accounted for, and there are crunching noises and walking noises that shouldn't be there at all.

Jack leaves his cell phone across the street, and goes in for a closer look. The hairs on his arms raise, and it feels like there is mystic danger around.

There are many dark shapes moving, about the size of a hockey puck, each crawling over each other.

Going back across the street, Jack turns on his cell and gives Allan a call, and then makes an anonymous call to the MDER - specifically to Dr. G - leaving the message that "you didn't get them all." Jack leaves his phone up a tree for safety, then gets a closer look. He sees that the wall adjoining the fallen house to the neighbor's house had been scraped clean. Maybe these creatures had done the scraping?

Jack tries to follow the path of one Puck with his eyes. There doesn't seem to be any particular pattern. Towards the back of the house, the larger pucks were leaving the property, and no new ones were arriving. Jack follows where the pucks are going, while Allan warns the Twins that something odd is happening; thus interrupting their "entertaining".

The warning given, Allan gives Jack a call to see where he is. The tree beside him rings. Allan sighs, and tries to follow using the regular sidewalks.

Jack follows the puck through an unused part of the lot, and towards a sewer-grate. The puck - which looks like a pill bug in three pieces up close - can go down the sewer-grate without much trouble. Jack can't tell what the pucks are made of, but the darkness seems thinner around them.

Allan, who earlier that day had just had a near miss with his boss catching him not at work, was enduring a very long story about some of the places his boss lived in as an undergrad was not really all that great and were perpetually falling apart. "In short", his boss said while Allan thought it was too late for the story to be too short, "it was just cockroaches." Allan was saved by the bell from hearing even more of that story, and since it was time for him to go home and he had permission from his supervisor to leave, he went to help Jack. Upon seeing the creatures, Allan thought that they were acting like ants, the way they were moving the rubble.

Jack makes an anon. phone call to Dr. G, telling her that they missed some. He puts his phone in a tree for safe keeping. Jack follows some of the bugs down to a sewergrate, and discovers that they pucks have no trouble going in. Upon closer inspection, it looks like the pucks are like pill-bugs, only in three parts.

Allan warns the twins that something weird is happening on their street, and that he will give them more information tomorrow. He calls Jack... and is startled when the tree beside him rings. Sighing, he makes his way on his motorcycle along the streets. }}{{#set: starring = Allan Tarik }}{{#set: starring = Jack Marks }}{{#set: guest-starring = Penny Glaucus }}

Unscheduled Demolition

{{#set: location = McMaster Campus }}

McMaster Campus, timestamp::2011/11/16 (played session date::2011/11/07)

In which the sudden disintegration of a house near McMaster campus turns suspicious eyes toward the Department of Energy Research.

Between one game and the next: Jack is taking courses to become a police officer at McMaster, and Allan is doing a work term in the morg. Allan is also getting to know a pair of changeling twins - Robert and William Grimm - who are attending MacMaster on a football scholarship, and is trying to encourage them to join Autumn, with a bit of success.

It was a fine evening in November... which is to say that it started to get dark around 5... when Allan was giving Jack a ride back to Jack / Dave's home. Unfortunately, the street was blocked by the police. This may not be unusual, if there was some sort of accident with visible body parts. It happens on the 403 about once every few years. What was unusual was that there were opaque fences that kept everyone (and since a small crowed had gathered, I do mean everyone) from seeing what was going on.

In an attempt to find out more information, Allan started to flirt with a police woman named Constable Morda. This proved to be less than helpful, because, according to Morda, no one tells her anything, she wasn't part of what was on the street and it wasn't her job to know what was going on in the street. She did, however, see some dark shapes before things got obscured by the fences. She figured there was some sort of spill.

Jack takes a more direct approach. He climbs a tree and uses his excellent night vision. Although it is dark, Jack was able to make out 12 people who were not wearing any protective gear. They were not construction workers. He also managed to see some of those dark shapes. They were about the size and shape of hockey pucks.

Around 10:45, after the fences are taken down and people are cleared to use the sidewalks again, Allan mentions to Jack that the area smelled like a farm, specifically like methane dioxide. In layman's terms, there was the faint smell of cow fart. While Allan goes home (to study), Jack takes a quick look around. After some exploration, he was able to find a patch of grass that smelled like farm. In that area, under some bushes, was a patch that had been recently ripped off of some clothing. The patch had the logo of the McMaster Department of Energy Research (MDER).

The next evening, after sharing this information, Allan and Jack decided to so some research. Allan took to the computers and Jack took the more direct approach. Again.

According to the MDER's website, the department is a small faculty that specializes in researching high energy physics rather than finding new kinds of energy. Allan wondered if there was any particular patterns in the research that could have given a clue as to what happened the night before. However, all of the published papers were over Allan's head.

Jack brought the patch (in a plastic bag) to the MDER, with the words "You dropped this". The receptionist took the patch without any worries. When Jack tried to bait her with the words "I hope no one got hurt", she didn't react. She didn't know anything about the spill. Jack looked around the area. He saw very complicated equations (on the walls?) and several people coming and going. Eventually, Jack found a comfortable spot and waited. He saw four grad-students enter the building, as well as a professor. He followed them through the building and into a door that was labeled "Warning: Lasers in use. Knock before entering" as well as a nameplate: Dr. P Glaves. Dr Glaves' website lists her research interests as "high energy physics" and "theoretical energy physics" but has no details about what that actually means.

The next day was hard for both Allan and Jack. It was particularly hard for Jack because he spent the day learning how to interpriate forensic reports (seriously less cool than CSI), and his potential new girlfriend, Veronica, was much better at them than he is. Oh his way home, Jack notices that someone in a house on his street is staring vacantly outside his front window.

Allan ended up calling a reporter: Damion Kraft. Damion had covered another spill that happened several weeks earlier, on the Red Hill Expressway. Most of the details of the two crashes were the same, though Damion didn't notice any odd smells, nor did he know who cleaned up that spill. He did notice the fences.

The next day, there was a dedication ceremony for the new Paterson Wing, which will be the new home of the MDER. Several of Hamilton's big-wigs were there. The building is not yet completed, but will be cone/egg shaped. There are the same type of opaque fences around the building. Allan gets a look at the name of the fence company that provided the fences: Koots-Rent-A-Fence.

The next morning, on his way to school, Jack sees the same guy, in the same position, wearing the same clothing. Jack waves, and the guy's eyes track. However, when Jack hears a crumbling/falling noise, the man in the window doesn't respond. When the house's chimney falls into the house, the guy has no reaction. Jack decides to make sure everyone is okay. He knocks on the door. Another guy wearing just sweatpants answers, but closes the door in Jack's face when Jack asks if everything is alright. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on one`s point of view), Jack got a good smell of the guy who opened the door: major BO. In fact, it smelled like he was raised in a barn! He quickly sends Allan a text to get over asap because of the house falling. Then more roof falls in, and Jack`s cell phone goes up in a shower of sparks. Jack goes to another phone (a land line in David`s house) and calls the fire department.

When Allan gets the text, he ditches work because he thinks that the house that is falling belongs to the twins! He left a note. Fortunately, it wasn`t the twin`s house. Unfortunately, the house belonged to another med-student that Allan knew - one who took a co-op spot that Allan had wanted.

The firefighters arrive just after Allan does, and they get the two young men out of the house (as well as look for other people in the house - there weren`t any). The landlord confirmed that the two boys lived alone (the third housemate having left a few weeks ago). When the police arrive, they evacuate the adjoining buildings as a precaution.

Jack was close enough to see that the remaining bits of the house were still crumbling. Allan cast a quick spell to detect entropy, and got a sense that some power had increased the forces of entropy and decay. This something was not natural, nor was the force of acceleration natural. There was a Force of Entropy all about. After giving his statement to the police, Allan quickly warned the twins (who were entertaining) that something weird was going on. He managed to get back to work, looking respectable, just before his supervisor arrived.

The media was having a field day with this, including Dona! Jack noticed that none of the reporters had any problems with their equipment. Dona zeroed in on Jack for an interview, and as Jack gives her the mundane information (and mentions his cell exploding) she wrote down much more than what Jack seemed to say. The possibility of drugs being involved was mentioned. When Dona asks that Jack doesn`t talk to any other reporters about this, Jack agrees to stay quiet for twenty-four hours. During this interaction, Veronica sees Jack and Dona talking, glares at them, and starts to storm off, catching a bus before Jack can catch up to her without using his super-powers.

Later that day, Allan gets a call from the police to go through his statement again. Allan tells the truth: that he was just there for the aftermath and didn`t see much. He tells the inspector, who was having trouble contacting Jack, the time that Jack usually gets home from classes. The inspector says he will call back.

The next day, Jack and Veronica clear the air. Jack explanes what Dona wanted, and said he would never date her. She was too old! She`s, like, practically thirty! They leave to study for the midterm that they have tomorrow.

The next day, midterm completed, Jack is on his way home when he hears the same crumbling sounds as before. After turning OFF his new cell phone, he goes to take a closer look. The rubble is shifting, but there is more movement than should be accounted for, and there are crunching noises and walking noises that shouldn't be there at all.

Jack leaves his cell phone across the street, and goes in for a closer look. The hairs on his arms raise, and it feels like there is mystic danger around.

There are many dark shapes moving, about the size of a hockey puck, each crawling over each other.

Going back across the street, Jack turns on his cell and gives Allan a call, and then makes an anonymous call to the MDER - specifically to Dr. G - leaving the message that "you didn't get them all." Jack leaves his phone up a tree for safety, then gets a closer look. He sees that the wall adjoining the fallen house to the neighbor's house had been scraped clean. Maybe these creatures had done the scraping?

Jack tries to follow the path of one Puck with his eyes. There doesn't seem to be any particular pattern. Towards the back of the house, the larger pucks were leaving the property, and no new ones were arriving. Jack follows where the pucks are going, while Allan warns the Twins that something odd is happening; thus interrupting their "entertaining".

The warning given, Allan gives Jack a call to see where he is. The tree beside him rings. Allan sighs, and tries to follow using the regular sidewalks.

Jack follows the puck through an unused part of the lot, and towards a sewer-grate. The puck - which looks like a pill bug in three pieces up close - can go down the sewer-grate without much trouble. Jack can't tell what the pucks are made of, but the darkness seems thinner around them.

Allan, who earlier that day had just had a near miss with his boss catching him not at work, was enduring a very long story about some of the places his boss lived in as an undergrad was not really all that great and were perpetually falling apart. "In short", his boss said while Allan thought it was too late for the story to be too short, "it was just cockroaches." Allan was saved by the bell from hearing even more of that story, and since it was time for him to go home and he had permission from his supervisor to leave, he went to help Jack. Upon seeing the creatures, Allan thought that they were acting like ants, the way they were moving the rubble.

Jack makes an anon. phone call to Dr. G, telling her that they missed some. He puts his phone in a tree for safe keeping. Jack follows some of the bugs down to a sewergrate, and discovers that they pucks have no trouble going in. Upon closer inspection, it looks like the pucks are like pill-bugs, only in three parts.

Allan warns the twins that something weird is happening on their street, and that he will give them more information tomorrow. He calls Jack... and is startled when the tree beside him rings. Sighing, he makes his way on his motorcycle along the streets. {{#ask: |Unscheduled Demolition |?title |?chapter number |?blurb |?empty |?label |?image |?parentordinal | sort = chapter number | link = none | format = template | template = SMW campaign chapters level 3 }}