Cassandra (predicted) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-03-29 18:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | batgirl, oracle, ratchet, robin |
Who: Luke, Bly, and Quinn (with ceiling!Gwen)
What: Dissecting Gwen's computer
Where: Luke's warehouse
When: Sunday night
Warnings: None
Luke was alone in the warehouse, Oracle’s laptop on the table in front of him. He hadn’t touched it since Max had dropped it off, mostly because he was hardly an expert hacker and wouldn’t be able to get very far even if he did attempt to work past her security. Part of him wondered if he should start improving his skills in that area but now wasn’t the time for any of that. The comm was in his ear even though he still wasn’t sure how he felt about it, never mind this ‘Rescue’ character who was now apparently calling the shots, but Thomas wouldn’t have given it to him if it was too dangerous or this new network couldn’t be trusted.
He wasn’t sure who would arrive first, Quinn or Bly, but he was on guard regardless.
Quinn hadn’t wanted to be doing this. It felt invasive to a mother that who may not be there, but Quinn was certain was still alive. It was a reminder, though, that she wasn’t there. A reminder that it may be the one key to finding out her mother was dead or alive. The thought made her sick to her stomach, but it was all she had.
She was still exhausted, a tired look in her eyes as she pounded on the warehouse door. Luke should be in there. She hadn’t seen him in over a week now. This wasn’t the reunion with him she wanted either.
Even though he was expecting the knock Luke still flinched, but the video feed showed him who it was without him even needing to get out of his chair. He had no idea what to say to Quinn or how to comfort her, frustrating as it was, so when he unlocked the door and pulled it open he didn’t say anything. Instead he just nodded, stepping back and giving her room to enter. “It’s on the table,” he said quietly, before closing the door behind her. Bly should be coming soon, and hopefully they’d be able to find something of use.
It reminded him of what he and Max had done when Thomas was missing, but this was worse. He’d only been missing for a few days whereas it had already been much longer with Oracle. They were running out of options.
Quinn looked up at Luke, bags dark under her eyes that gave away just how tired she was feeling. She still held the stony pokerface of determination like she wasn’t crumbling on the inside, giving him a nod back. She moved past him without even a greeting and went directly for the table. Her hands touched the laptop cover reverently, staring down at it. “Can probably log in,” she said before she sat in front of it and opened the cover, booting the computer on.
Oracle’s laptop was one of many, but they all had access to the same data, and had the same security protocols in place. While Quinn never had authorization to go into her computers under normal circumstances, there was a program that would grant her backdoor access in the event that Gwen died or was incapacitated for a long period of time. After noting that Gwen hadn’t logged into her computer in over seventy-two hours, the list of people who could access the computer doubled to two people. That still meant a long list of security measures to get around.
For Quinn the window that would pop up first would be the normal login prompt, awaiting Gwen’s login information. A small button marked “other” could be pressed, and would lead to a prompt to place her thumb on the scanner near the touchpad for a fingerprint scan. Then she would have to answer a series of security questions that only Quinn would know. Where was Gwen’s apartment back in New York? What color was the couch Quinn used to sleep on? What is Gwen’s middle name that she never uses? Seven in all. Gwen had tried not to overdo it.
Quinn looked wearily at the screen, eyes carefully taking in the booting up of the computer. She tracked her finger along to press the ‘other’ button like she remembered Gwen had told her. At the time, it seemed pointless. She never thought Gwen would ever die or disappear, just a constant force for the rest of their lives. She felt stupid and naive now if she thought back on it.
The security questions were easy for Quinn, careful hunt and peck typing answers. Some made her smile at the memory they invoked before it faded into a serious look as the prompts faded and the computer allowed her access. “I’m in,” she told Luke, beckoning him to look over with her.
Luke hovered behind Quinn, giving her space to do what she needed to. He tried not to stare at the keyboard and watched the screen instead, finding it all too familiar to what he and Max had done with Thomas’ computer. It just kept happening, didn’t it? Hell, maybe he should set up something similar in case he died or went missing. The chances of that happening weren’t as low as he would have liked.
When Quinn beckoned him over he moved closer, leaning over her shoulder to get a better look.
Gwen’s computer was a mess of files, very little rhyme or reason in their organization. Seeing as how she would have to only think of what she wanted and the computer would bring it up, she stopped paying attention to how to set up her files. She pitied anyone actually looking for anything in particular.
Quinn’s login automatically brought up a folder of certain files that she felt might be necessary in case of emergency. There are personal files, of course, her photos and videos, a copy of her updated will and who to contact for more. Things that would only ever mean anything to Quinn, those were easily accessible. Also, some banking information, for accounts stateside as well as abroad, not overly full by any means but certainly a good amount saved. There’s a note to please don’t spend it all on QVC. There is access to Gwen’s complete address book, entries spanning almost everyone she knew back in Musings to anyone she’s worked with now. No mask names and, unless Quinn knew the civilian identities herself, it looks like contact information for businessmen, attorneys, bankers, doctors, any layman that Gwen has cleared as trustworthy or has worked with in the past so Quinn can have it for the future.
Very few of her research folders are without further encrypted access. The notes, footage, and strategy plans she has available are for old or completed missions. Anything recent has been locked still. Gwen knows Quinn all too well, and the last thing she would want is her daughter running headlong into whatever mess that killed her and made Quinn poke around her computer.
Quinn gently touched the screen as the pictures came up. Her eyes far away and lost to herself. Shaking herself out of it, Quinn focused on to contacts and research folders. Quinn frowned as she poked around the folders and turned to Luke, “Recent is locked to me. Need Ratchet.” She understood why Gwen would, but damned if it kept them from finding what they needed. “Have to wait then.”
Bly was running late because his teacher was a stupid cow. Douche. Whatever. The lady was a pain in the ass, talking to him after class about how he didn’t pay attention and his test scores were low and he needed to read the books in order to do well and blah blah. He wasn’t interested in literature, he tried to tell her, but she didn’t seem to care. Somehow, leaning why it was important that Character A had green eyes and wore a blue shirt seemed paltry in comparison to, oh, everything else that was going on in his life. Seriously, being a super hero sucked. It was demanding. He was tried of getting things demanded of him. He just wanted to be normal. And boring.
Oh well. Boring was kind of overrated. And he liked being busy.
Poking his head into the warehouse, he looked around before sliding in and spotting Quinn and Luke. He jogged over to them and dropped his backpack, filled with gizmos and what’s-its that were his hacking tools. “How’s it going?” he asked, a little breathless from the bike ride. “Where’re we at?”
Luke was checking his watch when Bly poked his head in, and he reacted instinctively at the sound of someone entering the warehouse - defensive posture, turn around quickly - but relaxed once he saw who it was. He’d had a feeling that Quinn alone wouldn’t have been able to access the files they needed, but hopefully Bly could. “Hey,” he said in greeting, gesturing towards the laptop. “What we need to look at is locked. Think you can get in?”
Bly turned the laptop toward him, wrinkling his nose at it and tilting his head to one side. “Yeah, let me see what I can do,” he said, letting it go to fish around his backpack for some of his tools. “What have you guys gotten into so far? Anything?” He figured Quinn would probably be able to figure some of Gwen’s passwords, at the least, since Quinn would know a lot of Gwen’s personal information. Even geniuses with computers sucked at passwords, he was beginning to realize. Everyone seemed to choose passwords that had meaning to them - birthdays and anniversaries and stuff like that.
“Hi,” she gave Bly a weak attempt at a hospitable smile. She really needed to meet Luke’s friends under better circumstances. She gestured at the computer screen and told him, “Gwen let me in this far. But this,” she tried to pull up a recent mission and showed the jumble of encryption. “She locked me out. New stuff. Things may help.”
“Alrighty.” Bly dropped into a chair and cracked his knuckles as he scanned the gobbledygook in front of him. Lots of computer language, stuff that didn’t make sense. A few programming messages that amounted to “Haha, you suck, you can’t read me.” More than a few. He nabbed one of his hacking tool things and plugged the USB in. He went to work, poking and prodding at the encryption, looking for an in or a hole to exploit.
It would be quite some time before Bly’s attempts would yield some proper results. Gwen’s ability made it easy for her to access anything and everything on her computer, so cumbersome encryption never bothered her. It only bothered everyone else.
Once he is finally able to make some headway, Gwen’s files would start to reveal themselves to Bly, though he would still need to dig to find where everything was. He would be able to find her most recently accessed files easiest.
There is a breakdown on the Mockingbird situation, pinning down who was targeted, but not who with. Corbinian, Ratchet, Nyx, Bat, Oracle are on the list with the dates they were targeted. No one else is, as no one else had told Gwen by the time she last updated the list.
There is a short list of people who could be Mockingbird, noting an attempt to breach her own computer security three months ago that she traced back to Harmatia. Considering she had nothing after the fact, she ruled out anyone there as a suspect. Rescue is mentioned as possibly being one, as he has ties to Sparke Industries and Anton Sparke returned to town shortly before the Mockingbird threats happened. She quickly annotates that Mr. Sparke has a history of not being shy about his work or his suit, so there would be no reason to eliminate the masks as competition. Rescue is still noted as a person to trust, and she notes that she needs to talk to him about getting a second pair of eyes to figure out this Mockingbird situation.
There is also surveillance footage from Nightwing’s recon of a bank downtown from around the same time as the messages from Mockingbird. Notes reveal that there are very good security measures with two vaults that house multiple priceless items from Seattle's museums and elite citizens. All on the up and up. The lower levels, it would seem, have been sealed off and there is no entrance on schematics or indicated in the security room. There are no surveillance feeds from this area either and Gwen has noted about how very odd that is. Further research reveals Mockingbird had breached their security, and Gwen notes how odd that is too. For someone skilled enough to get in, Mockingbird should’ve been careful enough not to leave a trace, unless they wanted to deliberately bait. Oracle makes note to investigate further, but then the work stops abruptly, as if the trail and any leads were forcibly pulled from her.
Shortly after the release of the Night Terror, Oracle began investigating Verisimilitude, trying to find out anything about the building, who owned it, and how they managed to suppress Ability affects. Again, despite obvious desire and drive to continue researching, her work stops very abruptly, as if someone convinced her halfway not to keep going.
Her calendar was also updated with reminders to check in on Thomas and see how he is doing. Also to call Dr. Henderson, as she still isn’t sleeping or feeling well.
There was a lot of information to go through. A lot. As he hunted through things, opening one folder and document, and closing another, Bly hunched over the laptop, curling into a tighter and tighter position, until his knees were drawn to his chest and he was crouched on top of the chair. The laptop screen was inches away from his face, and he scrolled through a document with one finger hitting the down arrow on the keyboard. It was a lot to take in, months worth of information, and he would have liked time to actually process it. But he didn’t have time.
Sitting back, he slid to his bottom, sprawling in the chair with a thoughtful expression on his face. He wrinkled his nose as he thought, lips moving as he did his best to quickly make sense of everything he had seen. With a heavy, heavy sigh, he turned to Quinn and Luke. “Okay, so. There’s a lot of stuff there. Like, a mind-boggling amount.” His eyes hurt from staring at the screen so long. Rubbing them, he popped open the document that seemed to present the most immediate opportunities.
“So, this is a weird investigation Oracle was running, right? She was all looking into this bank, doing research and stuff, when bam. It just ends. No wrap up. And that’s weird, because, you know, she’s pretty thorough in most cases. There’re a few things like that, but this is definitely the most important,” he said, trying to summarize and not babble and failing miserably at both. “This Mockingbird person got into this completely one hundred percent sealed off basement, under this bank. Big bank.” He gave the name. It was the kind of place where only people who wiped their butts with money did business. “This is weird. Oracle’s research just up and stops.” He chewed on his finger for a moment. “And it’s the best lead this gives us. I think if we want to figure anything out, that’s where we should start.”
Quinn tilted her head to the side in a curious gesture, her eyes going back and forth between Bly and the computer screen. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees as she listened to him. She didn’t know anything about this bank, which confused her. Why had Oracle hid this bank from her? It hadn’t made much sense.
She tilted her head to the side before she announced to them, “Then we get in to that bank.” A simple plan.
There was a lot of information on the screen, and Luke had a hard time following it, so he gave up and let Bly do his thing instead. They needed to skip over the less important things and go to whatever could help them find Oracle, but the mention of a bank caught his eye even though he wasn’t giving the laptop his full attention.
“Quinn’s right,” he said after a pause. The bank was currently their best lead and it was strange that the research had just stopped halfway through. Besides, any mention of Mockingbird was a definite red flag. “The bank is our best shot. When we go, though, we should take the schematics with us. We’ll need it to navigate and get past security.” It was no easy feat, but between the three of them why couldn’t they handle it? “Problem is we don’t know exactly what we’re looking for, so we’ll have to keep our eyes open for anything. Oracle might not actually be there, but it’s a start.”
Bly nodded. “Actually...” With the record of Mockingbird’s entry, he was pretty sure he could get himself a copy of what was inside the bank, throw together a roughish layout of it in CAD using footage from the security cameras, and make a viable map. He said as much, slowly at first, and then with increasing vigor. “Give me like. An hour,” he said, thinking that there were at least two plug-ins he could use to make everything go a lot faster. “Unless you want to go to the bank later. But at least an hour, I can get us a map, and we can figure out what the hell is going on.”
“An hour,” she agreed, “Gives time for me and Robin suit up.” She stood and turned to Luke then back to Bly, “Safe if me and Luke go. Could do...thing with camera? So not get caught?” She didn’t know how to explain it, but Robin and Nyx being shown breaking in to a bank would probably be bad.
He nodded again. “Yeah. I can get some loops and feed them into the line. That’s not a problem.” Chewing on the very end of his thumbnail, he nodded absently as he scrolled through some information on Mockingbird’s entry into the bank’s security. He could do it. He could do it with more stealth, too, now that someone had forced her way in and given him a path to follow. “Alright, let’s do this,” he said with a grin. “Figure out what’s going on, and get Oracle back.”
Luke stood when Quinn did, deciding that he’d get in touch with Thomas once they were in the bank and hopefully found something. “Okay. Good. Quinn and I will go suit up, and then we’ll go in.”
Quinn looked between the two boys, face determined. It was a strange feeling to have people on her side. That they were willing to help her find Oracle, that people weren’t giving up hope. She straightened up, shook off the exhaustion and said seriously, “Let’s go find Oracle.” If anyone she knew could do it -- it’d be them.