View source for Invisible Pizza in the Park

{{Log
| date=10/05/2018
| summary=Alma speculates with and sometimes at Arthur about Devil's Night.
| cast=
* [[Alma]]
* [[Arthur]]
| place_name=[[Riverfront]]
| log=
<div class="ooc">
<<DICE>> Alma rolls perception + alertness, difficulty 9<br />
<<DICE>> 1 success (2 2 2 7 10, Specialty: No, Willpower: No)
</div>

Arthur is seated on a gray blanket with a Harvey Mudd College logo in yellow,
on the grass at the river. On the blanket is... well, at first it looked empty,
but Alma just barely makes out something hazy.

<div class="ooc">
<<DICE>> Alma rolls int + stealth, difficulty 6 <br />
<<DICE>> 4 successes (3 4 6 6 9 10, Specialty: No, Willpower: No)<br />
<<DICE>> Comment: Does Alma walk unnoticed among the riverfront crowd<br />
<<DICE>> Arthur rolls per + alertness, difficulty 6 <br />
<<DICE>> BOTCH (1 1 4 5 5, Specialty: No, Willpower: No)<br />
<<OOC>> Arthur does not notice alma, safe to say
</div>

Alma notices the Harvey Mudd College logo on someones--It's
Arthur!--blanket and then sees the fuzzed distortion. "Hi, Arthur!" She's
energetic from studying her birds and walking the rounds of the city. Plus,
there's a weird new thing that she's never seen before. This is really cool.<br />

Oddly, she is dressed in... a dress? It's not her usual garb. It's a
dress with a different large bg. and a cardigan. And maybe Arthur didn't notice
her because she popped right out of the flow of pedestrian traffic. "What are
you up to? She stares preciesly and accurately at the blurr."

Arthur starts, sitting up. "Alma, you surprised me. I didn't see youp there.
Have a seat if you like. Pizza?" He pulls back, well, nothing at all and
suddenly it's clear there was something there, and beneath the something was a
medium sized pizza box from Belle Isle. "Sausage and beef. Trying a new style?"

Alma stares at that pizza. "Sausage plus beef? huh. I'll totally try a
slice." Alma is neophilic sometimes! She isn't always the juvenile corvid.
She explains, "Maybe I'll try this look, but really I'm just trying to look
different. This place creeps me out--and I'm worried I might sucked up by the
thing." She's trying for vagueness. She looks around to make sure no one is
looking. "That's so cool!" She tilts her head towards it.

Arthur takes a napkin and a paper plate, serving her up a thick slice, and
sliding the plate over. He then takes the blanket. Then one for himself, and
lastly ccovering the pizza box with the blinvisibility blanket again. "This is
the statuc photonic deflection matrix prototype. Small scale. The full size one
is in the lab, ready to go for Canada. And.. the thing meaning..." He points in
the direction of a certain public piece of art.

Alma nods along to Arthur's description. "So it's like, uh, spun
alumin--whatever the stuff was. and, like, a butterfly's wing? you know,
structural color. not pigment and not reflection." She bounces a little,
excited about the thing. "Research engineers are so amazing. I don't know how
you and Emma do all that stuff." She frowns. "I still want to help you with the
wetlands survey, but... There's all this stuff going on with the holidays, and
I might be the only person who can help with the wooOOooOO. and fire
divination--think of it like people building ecological models."<br />

She reacts to his pointing with, "Hssst. Don't point!" Alma looks
uncomfortable. "Er... I'm not sure if all this is required, she nods down at
her clothes. But I like being on the safe side. It doesn't hurt."

Arthur can't help it, he chuckles at her reaction. "Then have a seat, get down,
get out of view. And have some delicious fresh pizza." He takes a bite himself.
"Not spun aluminum. It's not refraction as such. it's a subatomic level
manipulation and channeling of photons."

"Of course," Alma says. She settles down to address the free pizza and
Arthur. "Well, diffraction and some other things." She doesn't want to mislead
anyone about biology, that would be awful. "I wonder if that would keep people
hidden from," she head tilts towards the thing. She takes a bite of the pizza
and chews and tries not to talk at the same time but she's hungry and busy.<br />

"Have you talked to Fred uh, I can't remember his full name. I mentioned to him
that you had that thing with the city inspector. I explained the Angel's Night
activities that go on. Volunteers start watching from the 29th to the 31st. I
want to help if you're planning anything. Looking forward in time is... tricky.
It's easier to look backwards, but I can use approaches ecologists use for
identifying potential hotspots. It gives me something to ask the universe
without interfering with what the results will actually be.. ugh." She rubs her
brow. "Thinking of the right questions to ask. Tricky."

Arthur gestures to the pizza. "I have met a Fred a couple of times. Don't know
much about him, but I ran into him at this pizza place one time. And this
interesting tattooed woman who has very good opinions about pizza." He munches.
"Yes, the assessor. You want to try to see if something... fortean is causing
the fires?"

Alma rubs her chin, pondering this. "I hadn't thought of that. I was
thinking more like... well, criminals might be taking advantage of the time for
wiping out rivals. Or people might want to take over strategic real estate. You
can do weird things with that apparently. I've got a lot of ideas for what
someone could try. One," she holds up a finger, "I'm worried about the people
who live in those areas. On top of that, I don't want anyone taking advantage
of the chaos to set up some ritual--or three, complete one. I don't know if
you've talked to," She frowns. "Alexandra about this but there's something
going on with the city. Geography is involved somehow. I am avoiding her at the
moment. Zach knows about it too. But... there's also the serial killer. I'm
wondering if he's going to be completing a ritual. People can get a lot of
power from fire."

Arthur nods between bites, "So you're just trying to do somethin gnice for
people. no politics, no... nothing out of the ordinary at all." Humming. "And
if it stops a, well, ritual, so be it. What can I do? The city plus Measure 2
is a large amount of space to cover."

Alma says, "well, there's the nice part. But those rituals are serious
shit too. I mean, what if someone uses all that to raise the dead? Or wipe out
sections of the city as though they never existed? That's happened. Alexandra
and Zach know about that. People have lost family. And... I don't even know
what happened to my brother's ghost. Did he get... So, yeah. And that's just
two..." Alma looks around a lot, lost in thought. thoughts. A flock of birds.
She sees an ant and her eyes widen a little. She follows it for a bit to see
which direction it's leading her. "I..." She looks that way, and then the
opposite way. She looks back up at the flock whirling around and looks in the
direction between it and the ant.

Arthur listens, and watches. And she's really getting into the weeds now.
Literally. He finishes a slice of pizza, and goes to get another, pulling aside
the invisibility blanket again. "You seem very concerned about this ritual, and
the ghosts. I can't say I know fo any way to help you about the ghosts, but...
do you know anything about the person doing this ritual?"

Alma focuses again on Arthur's face. She holds up her hands, "It may
not be one ritual, Arthur. It could be 7, or 3." She's folding fingers as she
talks, to count off the numbers. "I understand that it's not always obvious how
interrelated things are," She takes a bite of pizza and finishes it before
talking again. "The thing is, there are multiple things at play here. At the
bases of these, a lot of the investigations we need will uncover things useful
to all of us. This is key. Now, I don't know what's going on with that Island
but here you can see that there are no shore birds or migratory water fowl."<br />

She waves all around them. There are only pigeons and other city birds.
She narrows an eye at a starling. "I could very well do some divination for you
guys. Or, something I uncover about any Devil's Night plans? Well, maybe it
gives you a lead on who might be taking advantage of that island. As for
ghosts, and this murderer? I don't know if they're related. I'm speculating
there. I'm gathering more data. I'm going to be gathering data on Devil's Night
because of the nature of fire and the nature of the the next day--all hallow's
eve. A lot of things come together then." There's another ant. It jerks her
gaze, but she brings it back to Arthur.

Arthur quirks. "You're the second person to tell me I haven't done nearly
enough preparation for the Canada mission. You and Aaron are both right. I will
gladly accept your offer of any sort of recon you can do on Fighting Island. No
birds? Intersting. I wonder if I can have that done to my side yard, wher I
keep the trash cans."

He hums. "An entire city sounds difficult to handoe for Halloween. Is there
an... area.. I can handle for you? An official I can talk to? "

Alma narrows her eyes at the birds comment but she decide Arthur is not
behind the disappearances. The narrowed eyes also cover her thoughts on Aaron.
"Yeah, there's no way we could marshal people to cover the entire city and
unincorporated areas." She pauses a moment to consider if there is actually a
way. Her face brightens as she starts to speculate, "I mean, maybe if we go
fast enough? Anyway, this is where planning comes in. Maybe you could talk to
city officials in charge of planning Angel's Night efforts? It's technically
three days of efforts. You can see where the city's efforts are focused. I'll
check with volunteer groups too. Do you know someone who could help to dig up
any organized plans by..uh crime people?" Alma has no experience with 'crime
people'. "Meanwhile, I'll keep chasing down the murderer with people. Maybe
figure out if he's aiming to do anything or if he's just insane. or both."

Arthur shakes his head. "I personally have no contacts into the underworld. I'm
sure people i the home office do, but I can't exactly go upstairs and ask. And
I can tell you without asking. The city of Detroit will be covering the formal
city bounds. Anything disincorporated will not be covered, as they lack any
legal jurisdiction."

Alma explains, "The authorities can't cover the entire city. They're
spread thin. They don't have the budget for this. Checking to see which
neighborhoods they are planning the most coverage for will help with any
response I might need to organize--or you too. You'll also be able to tell if
your place is in a target rich environment or not." She cocks her head at him.

Arthur eats some pizza as he thinks. He bought it, he's going to eat it while
it's hot and gooey. "Yeah but they'll get at least token coverage city-wide.
there will be zero coverage of any kind in the entire disincorporated zone. By
legal mandate. Michigan has no laws to let police cross jurisdictional
boundaries for any reason."

Alma nods. "Definitely. But the city coverage will be uneven. Hmm,
maybe I can just predict that. Anyway, if you do happen to talk to someone who
knows about the city plans, drop me a line." She licks a finger and holds it
up. "Hmm, this wind speed. and direction." She looks at the ants again. "I
better get going."

Arthur nods. "I'll look into it. And I'll let you know. And let me know what
you find out about Fighting Island, please, if you get the chance. Be careful."

Alma nods. "I will. Thanks for the pizza!" She smiles distractedly and
takes her leave.
}}