I’m going to start this one off with how much I had been looking forward to this event. S/I/S had told me about it back at Seeing Beyond Sight. Well, things don’t always work out as you expect them. So it happens that LeEvil had her first runway first fashion show since re entering modeling scheduled that night. I had a very tumultuous choice to make. Either play and experience relationship woes equivalent to the inferno of 1907 or give in, bow out of play, and prevent a fiery apocalypse that would leave my loins dry and lonely for months to come. I made a compromise. I would be an opening chaser and leave half way through, race myself over to the east bay and make it just in time to see the lovely lady strut her stuff. Good plan, right? To add to the insanity I chose to adopt a puppy about 4 hours before game time.

Enter Monkey, the JTTEOTN Chaser Dog.

Encounter 1:

I took a head start to the park in front of Coit tower (check point one) when I found upon arrival was being guarded by a convertible full of half dressed gay boys from gay.com (are you?). I skulked about there for a good half hour taking Monkey in and out of the backpack. I started out a little uncertain. I felt that I was at a disadvantage since after being in SF for over 2 years I still really don’t know the landscape of the city, and I damn sure don’t know anything about public transportation. After not seeing anyone for about 45 mins, I was convinced that I was going to go through my entire short time as a not seeing any action at all. I decided to take Orion, and Ian’s offer to call and get intel. Pretty much the only solid info I was able to obtain was that I should not be in the park. Not really what I was looking for, but in the end lead me to my first encounters.
I went to the Coit side of the park and began prowling the street there. That’s when the groups started showing up. I had tied the red band on my wrist under my sweat shirt and was loitering rather suspiciously directly in the path of oncoming players. They would see me and slow down, but since the band was not readily visible they wouldn’t bolt straight away. I would allow the tension to build and then pull up my sleeve rather dramatically. And…pow…they would be gone. FREAR IN THIR EYES AND FLIGHT…oh the power. I didn’t give chase.
They had do go through this pavilion to get to the stairs so I went to the next exit point and hide. Popping out just as they came up would send them scattering again. I soon got bored, Not wanting to dawdle too long thereby missing my chance to cut them off again at the next check point. I took off towards China Town. I met up with a fellow chaser on the way and we had a rather uneventful trip to checkpoint 2.

Encounter 2:
I continued the skulking strategy once we reached checkpoint 2. I didn’t do much more than delay and scatter players on their way into or out of the safe zone. The most memorable was seeing a huge group of kids led by Toom waiting for the light to change to walk into the safe zone. (Who waits for lights in a race?) I walk up and Toom says, “Hey, I recognize you!” he smiles and holds out his hand. I grinned and replied “Yeah, but do you recognize the badge?” there was a short pause of contemplation before a symphony of expletives and foot pounding. Although I was in arms reach of at least 10 people….. I let them go.

Encounter 3:
I got lost between checkpoint 2 and 3. While wondering from street to street trying not to backtrack anywhere where I would have to re-climb a fucking hill, I noticed two youngish girls doing stretches on the corner. They had a few pretty heavy strikes against them: Doing something to obviously identify as a player in the open, allowing a stranger to just walk up to them, and being past check point two….sorry ladies someone is getting tagged. I walked up to them fairly nonchalant; smiling. They smiled back and returned the “Hi” I greeted them with. Then I said, “do you guys like my dog?” and pointed at Monkey whose head and shoulders was poking out of the back pack. Their faces melted as they squealed at the cuteness. One of them reached out to pet her. Half a moment later the squeals turned into shreaks as they noticed the ribbon around Monkey’s neck. Her hand retracted like she had been bitten , she was shaking, they were screaming and the both bolted in opposite directions. I gave them a good 5 second head start. Since I'm lazy: an opportunist hunter that knows the importance of the conservation of energy I went for the one that bolted directly ahead of me and was running straight up the hill so I didn’t have to make the effort to turn around. I came up behind her fairly quickly. She to
ok a quick left into the street and was almost taken out of the game by a ford Taurus.

TAG!!

In the next half hour or so I ran up on a couple more people. But having created my own replacement, I decided not to turn anyone else red. This is just as true as the fact that I was not fast enough to catch anyone else.

Do you remember my plan? The making it to the fashion show by 9:15? Well, when I looked at my watch it was 9:05 and I was on foot nearly to Japan town with my car back at embarcadero square. Now I was the one turning and bolting for my life. I franticly caught a cab and raced across the bay at nearly 100mph in a VW Bug just in time to miss lee’s stage appearance.

I AM A BAD BOYFRIEND!!

But she did get a new dress as a guilt present so everything turned out ok.