Tiger Laredo [THREEPIO] (cybersexual) wrote in theinvincibles, @ 2015-08-12 00:54:00 |
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Entry tags: | !narrative, !plot, !plot: act i, tiger laredo |
Narrative: Tiger Decryption [1 of 3]
Who: Tiger Laredo.
Where: The Armory. Sublevel 2 of Facility 003, Chicago.
When: Tuesday August 11th, mid-afternoon.
What: Tiger starts work on his mission from Hephaestus, and discovers something rather surprising. Part 1 of 3.
Warnings: Coarse language, unbecoming of a gentleman.
Sitting in the armory of an institution he despised more than any other, Tiger Laredo couldn’t help but feel like something of a traitor. He’d wanted so desperately to tell them exactly what they could do with their request for help, and he almost might have done it if not for the doctor’s help with his virus earlier in the month. Tiger hated them all, from the old woman at the top right down to her young, blonde lackeys at the base of the pyramid. It really was hatred, as well: he hated them with much more of a fervor than he actually expressed to people. On the internet, he seemed stoic, and often quite emotionless, but on the inside Tiger raged and railed against the injustices he was subjected to. He had so many creative ideas on how to kill the people he considered to be oppressing him that sometimes their severity surprised even him, but only sometimes. He was a cyberpath, after all: surprise was a product of human minds, capable of forgetting or misinterpreting information. Tiger didn’t forget -couldn’t forget, actually- and he didn’t misinterpret information he was given, unless that information was corrupted or incomplete. It was more of a curse than a blessing, but it was why they’d asked him to come here today - and it was why he was now sitting in a quiet corner of the armory, away from everyone and allowed to set up a little workspace of his own. He sat on a chair that, like most office chairs, was flawlessly designed to be as uncomfortable and badly-positioned as possible whilst still technically retaining the basic characteristics that allowed it to function as a place to sit. On the table opposite him sat a normal, everyday desktop computer: Paul’s computer. Operative Stonewall had never been as such to Tiger: he’d just been Paul, and he’d been good fun. The young cyberpath liked Paul a lot, and had even flirted with him in the past -before the incident that had left Tiger bereft of his old personality- and although the clumsily-codenamed Stonewall had never been serious in any of his responses, Tiger never felt like he was anything less than a charming presence. His death had hit Tiger much, much harder than he’d allowed anyone to believe, and if he was honest with himself part of the reasoning for accepting the decryption job was to make sure that some Department mole or another didn’t try and frame Paul for something criminal, and let Agent X-Ray off the hook. “OK then,” he said grimly. “Let’s see what you’ve got.” His eyes blurred as Tiger’s brain connected to the internal workings of the computer: DMS computers were always connected to the network, and that meant that Tiger could theoretically access them whenever he needed to. In practice it was more difficult, because a DMS computer had DMS encryption - and that encryption had been put in place by a team of cyberpaths far stronger and more adept than Tiger was. Individually, perhaps he could’ve taken them on, but as a team it was like scaling a sheer rock face. Made of ice. In the midst of an infinite mountain range. At night. Tiger was prepared for the fight that he knew was coming since the moment Hephaestus had told him that they wanted him to break into a friend’s computer, but what he actually found was somehow even more off-putting. He had expected the usual Department of Metahuman Security firewall to greet him, but there was nothing: like a gap in the data, the hole where his initial login screen should have been felt like a phantom limb. There was meant to be something there -there was always something there- and Tiger had begun to input the usual initial attack codes out of reflex, but...there was nothing but an abyss of blank code. It was almost oppressive, right from the start: there was no way to adequately describe what Tiger could do and have it make sense to a purely biological mind. The cyber landscape most closely resembled an MC Escher illustration, but only in the same manner that a molehill resembled Olympus Mons: though they might have taken roughly the same form at first glance, each was actually separated by impossibly vast leaps of time, space and logic. There was no Matrix-like scrolling code, no Tron-esque motorbikes and men in tight lycra (well, not usually...), just a vast, unknowable Otherworld filled with non-Euclidean geometry and terrifying monstrosities of the imagination that could never exist in the real world without imploding, exploding or some combination of both at the same time. People who thought that Tumblr was filled with freaks had no idea, Tiger had thought wryly time and again. Presently, his eyes rolled backwards as he reset the connection: expecting the lack of initial login caused him less concern this time, and he steamrolled through the entrance without much of a backward glance. His smartphone lit up as his mind connected to it, and the voice memo function flared into life. Zeus was requesting fifteen-minute updates, and Tiger didn’t want to disappoint. Actually, Tiger didn’t care about disappointing the old woman; what he didn’t want was to give her a reason to moan at him. “First attempt unsuccessful: initial assessments did not take into account user-defined access restriction alterations. Second attempt successful: completed safe reboot and gained entry to initial directories via sub-injection.” So far, so simple. “I have reviewed the Quartermaster’s notes and found them to be thorough, for a human: she has a grasp of computer systems that is almost cyberpathic, but I believe this network has been outfitted with heuristic bioneural packages. A security system that learns from your attempts to circumvent, and closes its own loopholes. Fucking ingenious.” Tiger smiled, tightly and for just a moment: despite the fact that it was blocking his access to Paul’s computer, he couldn’t help but admire the craftsmanship. Overkill for a simple Operative’s personal computer, but elegant and almost beautiful. It was the computer equivalent of a lightsaber: an elegant weapon for a more civilized age. Right now, he felt like Obi-Wan Kenobi disabling the tractor beam: sneaking through corridors and past guards, saving the day right under the noses of the Empire. Why it was almost-- The blast of neural feedback that hit his brain was agonizing, and Tiger slipped from his chair to hit the floor with a heavy thump. Perhaps he yelled out in pain, but more likely not as nobody came running to see if he was all right. Almost mocking, he could hear the voice in his head reminding him that Obi-Wan had sacrificed himself to Vader at the end of that act of sabotage (as an even smaller, weedy and self-serving voice screeched “Spoilers! Spoilers!” in the back of his brain, still managing to echo like a fart in church) and wasn’t he being rather self-aggrandizing by identifying with Kenobi? He was no Kenobi, he was barely even Aayla Secura. “Right, you bastard,” said Tiger angrily as he climbed back onto his chair. He cracked open an energy drink and took a determined swig. He could feel the security system of Paul’s computer, still unbreached and blocking access to the information they were after. That security block was all that stood between Tiger and the truth...and, entirely coincidentally, Tiger and a whole lot of cash. Both were a motivating factor, but one more so than the other: though on the outside all remained calm, on the inside his intellect began to crash against the electronic walls once again. “You want a war? You’ve fucking got one.” |