Project Chameleon - Who-done-it?

[Athos]

The Idea:

Okay, so I’ve been gone for awhile and I’m looking to get back into things here at Elliquiy. I came up with this very basic outline for a who-done-it kind of group plot a few months ago and I’m curious to see if anyone is interested in trying it out with me.

My vision is to have four characters based (more or less) on the information provided below each work in their own ways, with their own individual motivations to solve the mystery. They may choose to work together, or alone or even against one another. I would play the part of the killer and any other supporting characters that would be needed to steer the plot toward the conclusion.

So if any of you find this interesting, feel free to shoot me a PM or post here.


The Trailer:

**Fade in**

The sun sets on Time’s Square and day turns to night. Lights and pictures from various buildings fill the air and people begin to emerge into New York’s teeming nightlife.

**Voice over**

"In the wake of a shocking murder..."

**Transition to a news broadcast**

“In a shocking turn of events, Dustin Wilhelm, world renown Ambassador and humanitarian has been murdered in his uptown apartment. Police report that there is no evidence of forced entry and none of the alarms or motion sensors have been triggered . The only clue is the word Chameleon which was written on the wall in blood.”

**Voice over**

"...four seemingly unconnected people will be propelled into a dangerous game of cat and mouse."

**Transition to a generic police station**

“Detective, this just arrived for you.”

A haggard police detective looks up as a uniformed officer plops a large package on his/her desk. Opening the package, it contains only a single piece of paper with the following words written on it.

Chameleon. You have five hours before I kill again.

**Transition to a darkly lit corporate office**

A figure sits in the darkness silhouetted against the light of a computer screen. Only the sound typing can be heard as the focus is shifted onto the computer screen. In the background there one can see the words “Intelligence Database” and the National Security Agency emblem in the top corner. Slowly the word “Chameleon” is typed and the enter key is hit.

**Transition to an unnamed street in the early morning**

A lone figure stands huddled in a doorway with a cell phone against his ear. He/she speaks quickly, with desperation in his/her voice.

“I swear it wasn’t me, you’ve gotten tell him it wasn’t me.”

There is a long pause and then a gravelly voice on the other end replies before hanging up.

“It doesn’t matter, they’re coming for you.”

**Transition to an upscale apartment**

A man/women is just finishing putting on a suit/dress. The focus shifts to an invitation sitting on a nearby table with the words “Dustin Wilhelm invites you” visible. The focus then shifts to the cover of a mystery novel which has been framed on the wall and centers on the words “best seller.” In the background a television is turned on and the news report detailing the murder begins. A glass drops to the ground, breaking into pieces before the focus shifts onto the man/women’s shocked expression just as the front door is broken down and police swarm the apartment.

**Fade out**


The Cast:

The Detective – Overworked, underpaid and underappreciated you are the quintessential homicide detective. When a prominent dignitary is publicly murdered you are surprised when the case falls to you. With the State department, Mayor and the Chief of Police breathing down your neck to wrap things up quickly, you begin to wish you had never joined the NYPD. Then one day, a package arrives at your precinct addressed to you. Inside is a top secret document that brings up more questions than it answers.

The Mystery Writer – You have built a media empire based around your writings. Movies, TV shows, best-sellers, you’ve done it all. You are on the A-list of New York celebrities and have more wealth than you could ever have imagined growing up. However, deep inside your mind you have become bored with it all. You long for the old days when you were anonymous and poor but driven. When a foreign dignitary invites you to dinner, you find your sense of intrigued piqued for the first time in years. Yet even as you prepare to go, you learn that he has been murdered only moments after speaking with you. As you reel from the revelation, the police smash down your door.

The Retired Spy – As a child you grew up in a nasty neighbourhood. Your father was a drunk who beat you and your family repeatedly and your mother was worse than useless. Despite this, you finished high school with excellent grades and joined the Army looking for a way out. You were an officer in the Special Forces for six years before being recruited into the NSA. The next twenty years of your life have been classified top secret. Though you’ve done things you wish you hadn’t, and seen things nobody should ever have to, you never stopped believing in what you were doing. Unfortunately, those in power eventually stopped believing in you and a year ago you were forcibly retired. You now live in New York doing corporate security. But when you hear of the public murder of a foreign dignitary, you feel something trigger inside of you. A single word, Chameleon, resounds in your mind and you know that you can’t sit this one out.

The Hired Thug – As a kid growing up in the Bronx you learned quick that life was hard. You father left when you were two and your mother shot herself to death when you were nine. The only person you’ve ever been able to trust is yourself. When your boss called you up this morning, you thought it was a little weird that you would be meeting a big fancy diplomat, but you’d learned long ago not to ask questions. As you pull onto the street where the building is located, you see it swarming with police. You’re nobody’s fool and you don’t wait around scratching your head as the police converge on the apartment. You get out, but one phone call back and you realize that your boss thinks the killer is you. Now you’ve got a price on your head and the only way you can save your life is to figure out who actually did it.

[jazz]

I'd be interested in the Writer position.  It sounds like a fun idea.

[BigBuckBob]

Somon aready jumped in as writer, so I'l express interest as retired spy.

[Athos]

Awesome! So we've got ourselves a writer and a spy, now we just need a thug and detective. If you guys wanted to go ahead and come up with a basic character sheet, age, sex, name, basic bio etc... that would be great. Just post it here. Feel free to tweak the characters anyway you like. I tried to keep things a general as possible in order to make that easy as possible.

[jazz]

Okay here's what I came up with so far


Character sheet
Age: 32
Sex: Female
Name: Samantha Smith
Basic bio:
Her name was synonymous with mystery, thanks to an army of public relations specialists employed by a company bearing her name.  An eerie musical score usually came when she was introduced from a much watered down television show that bore the name of her second novel but little else resembled it once it got to the screen.  It had won some awards, but she often had to fight the urge to cringe when she saw clips of it. 

Even her publishers were buying into everything being a formula for success.   They were trying to dictate a ratio of dead bodies to sex scenes ratio for x amount of sales.  It was getting ridiculous.  What ever happened to creativity?  When did a inventive story with interesting quirky characters seem trite?  Why did they think that large busted blonds and muscle-bound, wisecracking renegades that seemed to fall all over each other in a bed or on a desk in the midst of a crime drama was the height of literary excellence?

Where had the ecstasy of an unfolding story go?  In the beginning, even she didn’t always know what the outcome would be.  In fact, there had been a time when she had several endings planned.  Twists, unexpected turns that had tiny hints in the early chapters.  Now it had to be spelled out because the publicist thought it might confuse the reader too much.  Sometimes she felt like she had sold out.  Usually, not sometimes.  She wanted to get back to the roots of her writing, when it was fun.  When it was spontaneous and something she was excited about completing.

No wonder her muse had been wavering, sometimes seemingly on an extended vacation.  Smiling at public appearances was getting harder and harder anymore.  Looking in the mirror, let alone sitting down in front of a blank computer screen was hell these days. 

The chance introduction to foreign dignitary Dustin Wilhelm seemed to change things a little.  Inspiration had hit.  The last few days her creative juices were flowing.  Ideas were flowing more in the last few days than the last few years.  She’d pulled a couple all-nighters and still felt energized.  It was a writer’s high she’d not experienced for some time. 

So when the invitation came, she was thrilled to attend.  It wasn’t the usual scenario of her publicists’ having to convince her to be seen in photo ops and Red Carpet events. 

Samantha had even been on the phone with Mr. Wilhelm earlier to confirm her attendance.  It was all she could do to keep her cool and not come off as a silly schoolgirl. She had just zipped up her Midnight blue gown and sipped her bourbon when the sound of the Television special announcement filtered through her grey matter.  The sound of breaking glass seemed immediately followed by a bevy of unfamiliar voices that swirled around her in complete chaos…

[Tomalak]

Are you dead set on the concepts listed above?  The cop teaser gave me some ideas, but they'd be outside the limitations listed above.

[Athos]

I'm open to anything. Please feel free to change it up.

[Tomalak]

Lieutenant Samantha Porter is an embattled police detective of middle-age and middle-expectation from her superiors.  Her family is from the poor side of town, and includes some jailbirds; so the upper levels of the precinct tend to look down on her out of habit.  All she ever cares about is being a good cop; and she is.  For some people though, it's never enough.

Origins & Distant Past

Nineteen years ago, Detective Porter's first case put her name in the headlines and made the precinct look very good.  Wanda Marx, a pretty young witness was murdered before standing trial.  Other detectives accepted the local underworld hired an out-of-town hitman to do the job, but Porter didn't let go of the suspicion that something else was going on.  Eventually she put the clues together, and determined the true perpetrator, the woman's no-account cheap muscle boyfriend, Julian Dobbs.  Dobbs went away for life, and Detective Porter's prejudiced superiors almost never forgave her for her success.  There was little they could do but hassle her, until twelve years later.
Something about that case never felt right to Samantha.  Oh, Detective Porter found all the clues, and putting them together told the story all right.  But one night, while alone in the dark searching fitfully for sleep that never came, she remembered the missing clue.  One tiny, insignificant little fact that had been patiently circle her brain for so very, very long.  And it meant the pieces didn't fit anymore.
It took her four more years of her own time, and risking her job by occasionally bending regs and opposing her boss, but she figured out how the pieces really did fit together.  And then she paid a visit to one Cynthia Aston, living in Atlanta. 
After Detective Porter proved that Ms. Aston was in fact Wanda Marx, Julian Dobbs was cleared of the charge of murder, and released after serving sixteen years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.

but it was years before they could do anything about it.  That case was also a cat and mouse game, though that time she was the cat - and Julian Dober wasn't as quick as he thought he was.  She mentally outmaneuvered him, and put him behind bars for life.
Until twelve years later when she discovered evidence he was innocent.  Her battle against the justice system to see an innocently convicted man freed was enough to put her on the worst cases to come through the station for the rest of her life, but she didn't let that stop her from pursuing justice.  It took another four years, but Julian Dober is now a free man, cleared of the crime of murder.

Julian Dobbs (Jules to his friends), is a tough but clever man.  He makes a living floating from one job as a bouncer or bodyguard to another, never too far above financially even, living in one flea-bitten nearly condemned sorry excuse for an apartment or another.  He's not above petty crime, but prefers to do things legally when he can.
Though he was once involved in organized crime in his youth, Jules has gone straight since getting out of prison.  He's attended a few classes at a local college, but they're expensive.  He tries to get ahead, but doesn't worry about it two much.  Two things above all else make him glad to be alive, and give him hope for his future.  First, that though he did alot of hard time, the same detective who put him away risked everything to get him out.  He prefers to look at that as delayed justice.  And he figures she knew he's the one who planned Wanda's 'murder,' but he doesn't mention it - and she never has either.
The other thing that keeps him going is his hot-and-cold relationship with the detective.  It's an odd sort of love, but their feelings for each other - while complicated - are honest and fair.  And that more than either of them can get anywhere else in their lives.

Summation

So there he is, Jules Dobbs.  Ex-Con, bouncer/bartender/part-time laborer extremely ordinairy.  And yet, clever as hell, too.  After all, he did almost outwit the NYPD with that faked murder to get his girl safely out of dodge.  He's in fact alot smarter than he looks, which isn't all that hard.  When Sammy (only Jules & her partner get to call her that) got that package, the entire department went nuts.  Some of 'em are trying to help, her boss thinks she's connected, etc.  Jules is trying to piece the clues together, but she's not allowed to tell him anything so he has to do the work the hard way.  And Ed, as always, looks at Jules with suspicion.

[Tomalak]

I'm afraid I have to rescind my interest in this game.  I have become swamped by RL projects.  I'm sorry to miss out, and hope it goes well.

[Athos]

No worries bro, RL has kinda forced me to put this on the back burner anyway.