Issue 1 Downtime

Will, in uniform, was crouched in front of the front gate of St. Peter's Church, investigating an unexplained scorch mark...a scorch mark in the pattern of a bird.

"Either Bear has been doing impromptu target practice..."

"What d'ye think, sir? D'ye think it be a sign?" the minister said from behind Will.

WOW that accent is thick

"Um...I don't know. I'm going to call in an expert on this sort of thing," he said, reaching for his communicator.

"...hrm. Seems to be... a bit jammed..."

"Oh, just a tad," the minister said, dropping the accent entirely as he pressed a small black box to Will's back.

"Grrrrgh."

Will collapsed into a heap.

The minster grabbed him by his legs and pulled him into the church.

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MUCH, much later, the church would be quiet when the Trabant pulled up.

Without much regard for properly parking the car Sara stops and gets out, taking a look around to see if she can find any clues.

The scorch mark Will had been checking out was still there, but that was about it -- it was deathly quiet.

Madrox followed her out and immediately began scanning with both the bio-sensor and his own sensors, for anything that stood out.

The scorchmark on the ground was common ash, albeit ash with a higher than normal saline content.

Will's signal was coming from inside the actual church building proper.

"The signal is inside," he reported, moving toward the church.

"Maybe he is just at church. For hours and hours. And didn't tell me. And forgot to charge his cellphone." she mumbles nervously as they enter the church.

The church was quiet and creepy, as quiet churches often are. There wasn't anyone in the main chamber, though voices and whatnot could be heard from several adjunct rooms.

The signal seemed to be located directly ahead, near the pupit.

Madrox nodded towards the pulpit and walked ahead.

Sara nods and shifts to stone, following a step behind.

There behind the pulpit, was a short, cylindrical device, beeping, with many colored lights on it, as well as a fair amount of oxidation and rust.

Sticking into the bottom if it was a tiny clump of clay.

The device, as far as it could be told, was amplifying the signal, throwing Maddie's biosensors off and providing false strong positives.

"Damn... it's a decoy..." he sighed, scanning for explosives.

There were none! Or, at least, no explosives Maddie's sensors could detect.

"God damnit! They really did kidnap him... Bastards!"

"Get back. I don't detect anything dangerous, but considering the level of tech involved..."

"Yeah, this smells like a trap... But if we don't disable this then we won't get a clear signal."

He leaned closer and began determining the best way to disable the device.

Maybe if I... hmm...

The device didn't appear to be inherently dangerous.

Madrox carefully and slowly removed the device.

When removed, the blinking lights slowed down, and then stopped entirely.

However, Madrox could detect a short, encrypted signal that was sent out of it very quickly on a high-bandwidth frequency at the moment it was removed.

He frowned. "We're clear... but they know we found it. Unfortunately the signal was too short to backtrace."

"Fuck. So what now?"

"But," he smirked, "I did manage to clone the transmission. I think I can decrypt it."

"Good, good. Wait, clone? Yes, that might work..." she says, carefully peeling the piece of clay from the device.