gabriel. (relaunched) wrote in ripic, @ 2018-09-16 23:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !narrative, character: gabriel ryan, date: 8/9, player: lily |
Who Gabriel Ryan (narrative)
Where His lab
When 8/9 @ 4 a.m.
What Obsessing
Rating Low
He could have just let it go. Writing the malfunction of the dome off as a fluke or a freak accident would have been fine for practically anybody else, but Gabriel Ryan took some goddamn pride in his work. Perhaps a little bit too much. Which was exactly why he was still sitting in his office at 4 a.m. after minimal sleep the night before in order to discover what exactly had gone wrong. Had someone hacked in? Impossible. He'd developed the most recent security upgrade himself. There was no way that somebody overrode his code.
Even if someone had managed to hack in, why would they simply make it rain? It didn't make sense, considering once someone hacked into the mainframe, they could do whatever they wanted. Change the view or write a message on the dome ceiling or really terrify people with more freak weather than a little bit of rain. So far, he'd managed to rule out human error and foul play... so what was left? Perhaps something on the outside conflicting with the dome itself. The radiation was the most alarming conclusion Gabe had made, which led him to remain in his office far later than he ever had before. Gabe was a workaholic, certainly, but he usually went home to exercise these tendencies. This, however, was important.
Deciding to do a preliminary sweep of the vital controls, Gabe ran the program and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes for a moment. The computer beeped when it was finished, so Gabe turned it off and leaned forward, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand. He was exhausted, but maybe just this one thing would give him the answers he sought. Scanning the results, he found everything normal except...
Suddenly, wide awake, Gabe practically jumped to his feet to remedy the newest problem he'd discovered. The radiation control, meant to keep the dangerous substance out of the dome was set to zero. Meaning, any radiation nearby was seeping through vents and poisoning the air. Forcing his way into the program, Gabe found the controls with every intent to remedy it, but his next surprise of the night gave him just as much reason to worry. It was permanently set that way. Without hacking into the code, there was no way to solve the problem. Perhaps they wouldn't all die right away, but it was a slow, painful death that might already be too late to prevent.
Still, something felt... off. Instead of forcibly resetting the controls, Gabe decided to dig deeper. The radiation had already poisoned them. What was a few more minutes? Hacking the mainframe took some time, and it was nearing 5 a.m. when Gabe finally accomplished it. What was he looking for? Hell if he knew, but he knew there was something. An explanation, a hidden message, anything to tell him why this had been changed. As with all answers Gabe was finding this particular night, it led only to more questions.
Within the code, there was a date. The date that the code had last been altered was long before Gabe was even born. Meaning...
"There's no radiation..." Gabe concluded. "No fucking way."
He needed more, and he knew the council wouldn't answer any questions he asked. So, instead of asking for permission, Gabe forced his way in. He helped design the upgrades and he knew all the passwords. The ones he didn't know, he could easily take and take he did. One by one, threads began to unravel. Emails exchanged back and forth privately, expected to stay just that way, were all available for Gabe to see and they were damning as hell. There was no radiation.
Leaning back in his chair, Gabe felt his blood run cold. They could leave any time they wanted and the council knew. The scavengers knew too. That's why their job was so secret. They weren't treated well because their job was dangerous, they were treated well because they needed to keep quiet. The artificial sun came up as Gabe sat there, pondering everything he'd ever known about the dome and why he hadn't looked into this sooner. This was a hell of a secret to know and Gabriel Ryan was terrible at keeping secrets.