Wobble: Payphones (second bit)

Checking In on the Professor: (continued)

Getting into the Observatory will not be hard, at least one of the Characters will be an honorary member of SEWER and have an access badge for the electronic front door (10 X.P. for the player that thinks of being a member of the group first). The place will be rather quiet as no seems to be in the front offices but nothing will seem amiss. The four land-line phones will be set for "Weekend" though it is still Friday morning. A couple labs in the back will be orderly and locked up. To get to the second floor there is a regular staircase and this is where Professor Flystop's personal quarters are. There is also a third floor where he maintains secured libraries of both digital and paper data. Getting into either floor will take some doing requiring an SR 40 on MENTAL and SR 25 on PHYSICAL to unlock the area without setting off burglar alarms. From the spiral staircase that leads from the labs on the first floor to the observatory platform a light will shine down with the noise of someone humming and working.

There will be an automated robot routinely checking the postal slot at the front door. It will scan the envelopes in a basket there and drop them off at the appropriate desk or lab's door slot. It will then attach itself to the spiral staircase's handrail and trolley-car its way to the observatory platform. 

How the Characters go about working their way through the Observatory will determine the tone of the scene. The platform does not have a telescope but various large processors and ample liquid-oxygen cooling systems behind a bullet-proof seal chamber. The open area has up to six work stations, complete with 3-D display "flats." Flystop will be there and apparently unharmed. the scientist will be the picture of health as well as the epitome of the distracted person in a lab coat.

Flystop will have four of the work areas on and apparently they will be switching between surveillance cameras at various public areas. All sixteen of the hacked cameras will be focused on pay phones. The Professor will at the fifth work area pulling 3-D graphs and maps of an unrecognizable star system in a red and purple nebula, and have various notes and lines swirling around. Seeing the Characters the NPC will at first be startled and then give the wide smile that he, or she, is known for in Wobbler circles. He will be dirty and unkempt, and his clothes will look to have been worn for about three days.

When hearing of the dire proclamation, Flystop will be surprised and bit amused.
"Reports of my death are an exaggeration." will be the quip response.

The scientist will then go on to explain that he is monitoring an alien incursion into our world, and that is probably why the Characters were mislead into checking on him. He will then pull up images of various people picking up payphones over the last forty-eight hours. Each will be visibly shocked. Some will collapse, others will just stand there. All nine of them will shake off the effects and walk away in an odd manner. Then Flystop will show coroner/pathologist reports of seven out of the nine dead because of heart attacks within hours of their contact with the payphone call. He will have the names and addresses of the last two people contacted, though he will be assuming the earlier of the two is dead just undiscovered.

At this point, one of the workstations will sound an beeping alarm complete with a flashing red light. Flystop will move to it quickly. He will replay a scene at the nearby train station where another person surprised by its ringing, picked up a nearby payphone, and fell to the floor. Once again after a seconds, the individual will get up, shrug off any help, and start walking towards the exit. The exit will be in the direction of Millionaire's Hill.