@Jaito: Just another day at home, staring at data in a language that makes no sense. It's not so much programming language as poetry. In Klingon. About high-level macroeconomic principles as applied to advanced diagnostic medicine.
It's not just that you can't make out the characters - you aren't even sure what they're supposed to SAY. Not as in words, but as in whether they're words. Or growls. Or music.
Will: here's nothing to eat; she'd have to order out. Or go out. :|
Will had gone through every cryptography algorithm she knew of in the last few days — and some she'd created on the fly — to try to break the code, but she was just as stumped as last week. Her dedication to the hacking was evident in that, to anyone looking in on her, she looks half-starved. She gets up out of her chair — prompting a series of joint-popping and a low "Ow" from her — and looks in the fridge. Of course t
@Jaito: BEEP BEEP BEEP - a message coming to her COMP.
Will: "Who c'd 'at be, hey?" she says idly, tapping a few buttons on her COMP to play the message to the otherwise-empty flat whilst she makes herself at least marginally presentable.
@Jaito: "You shouldn't have what you have. Not because it is restricted, but because YOU are. You do not comprehend it, which is the greatest tragedy of your life." The voice is male, warm, and a bit distant…like someone daydreaming.
Will: "Whozis?" She stares at her COMP as if it can answer her, pulling her brush through her hair. "An' I t'ink I ken th' greatest trag'dy o' me life, boyo. Don't go sayin' 't ain't."
@Jaito: Another response soon follows. "You are right about the timing, but incorrect in assuming that you 'ken' it. If you so kenned, you would not remain ignorant. What you possess is dangerous; surrender it to someone else."
Will: "Don't t'ink so, bucko. I don't know you, an' you don't know me, so let me do my t'ing and I'll let you keep doin your'n, savvy?" She puts a backtrace on the call silently.
@Jaito: The search starts to run quietly. "But I do know you, Wilhemina. I even admire you. Admiration, however, is not enough to overcome ignorance. You think you know the weight of a burden. Awareness…now, there is a burden. Consider this a gift: I am giving you an understanding that you do not NEED to know." The voice is gentle, like a parent speaking to a troubled child. "You have already suffered. It is enough. You can let go."
Will: She shakes her head. "Nah, dun t'ink I ken, actshully. Tell ya what'd be a better gift, 's if ye'd tell me what kinda cryptic bull 'is is. And I just *know* 'at me Freyja's still alive, somewheres. I have 'is feelin'. An' come hell 'r high water, I *will* find 'er. No question."
@Jaito: "Hmm. Well…Hmmmmmmmmmmm…."
"Protect yourself. If your conviction is sufficient, then you will be able to pay the price." The link goes silent, just as the backtrace completes.
Will: "Gotcher." She opens up the trace results, letting them crawl across her AR glasses view as she braids her hair back.
@Jaito: …according to this? From the game client's main server in Malaysia.
Will: "Hell. An' I dun have th' money t' make 'at kinda trip." She puts an alert on the network for any suspicious activity coming from that IP, and sets filters for hack attempts and the like so her inbox doesn't get spammed with notifications about security breaches or something. Finally, she pulls on a (relatively) clean tee — she really needs to do laundry at some point — and heads out, going for the nearest pizza place.
@Jaito: The Slice of Heaven isn't far. And while it's truly a good place, it seems to have odd ideas about what pizza is. The bread and sauces are phenomenal, but after that? Well…you'd have less options at a grocery superstore as to what may go on the pizza. There's even a standing challenge: The Divine! If you can come up with a pizza that's truly remarkable AND unique? You can order it for free whenever you like.
It's mostly empty at this time of night, except for a woman sitting at the bar, the proprietor in a face-covering red bandana and a narrow cowboy hat. Off towards a back booth, a couple of teenagers in surgical masks giggle around each other.
(Alertness, real quick?)
Will: (1)
Will orders her usual, an alfredo pizza with spinach, onion, and grilled chicken. Not everyone's idea of divine, but she sure loves it. While she's waiting, it's back to the grindstone. The file she made of her Danu analysis has, by now, gotten to about the size of the Pixie herself, and isn't exactly portable. So instead Will focuses her energies on other things, like more odd occurrences. Such as the very real injuries pe
ople have been sustaining by playing Amala, and impossibly carrying over into the real world.
@Jaito: There's something oddly familiar about the woman at the bar, but so it goes.
The proprieter gives her a score of 7 - lovely, yet uninspired.
(How'd you like to make a free fate point?)
Will: (Sure.)
(…Oh god, what did I just agree to? XD)
@Jaito: (…ding!)
As she's going over report after report…hell, this evening there's already rumors coming in of a Cait Sith, of all things, stabbing children in a park…the numbers and text all start to blur together like the 30th hour of research all over again.
Then, they start to arrange themselves in random words: yes. MIGHT. Fame. FURY. DeAtH. T0m0rr0w. NOW!!! FreYjA. ThE KiNg ShAlL RiSe!
Then there's the whispering: "Just look at her…" "I know, she'll pull through." "What do we say?" "What IS there to say?" "Should we…should we get her?!" "No, not her, too big, too big. we start small." "A kid?" "HEY! No…" "We gotta…gotta…."
…the boys in the booth. They're staring at her. Their eyes…there's something wrong with their EYES. The color in them GLOWS.
Then, just like that, it all passes, and the woman from the bar has her hand on Will's shoulder. "Are you okay?"
Will: She's leaned back against the bar, and can't believe only a few seconds has passed. What the fuck! Will doesn't answer the woman at first, instead using her help to take one of the nearby barstools. "I… I'm not sure, t' be frank. Bad 'ead rush." She takes a better look at the woman on the pretense of checking for her pizza.
@Jaito: …she looks almost eerily familiar. Pale, long hair, and pretty in that way models can be that's both masculine and feminine. In simple jeans, a vest, and for some reason a beret, she looks more like a model than anything else. "Happens to the best of us." She gently sets her on the stool and flags down a couple of rounds of scotch.
"Did something happen?"
Will: "I've been cooped up too long, 's wot 'appened." The first words rang in her head like they'd been shouted straight down her ear canal at full blast. She finds herself repeating one of the phrases out loud for a second, trying to puzzle it out. "Th' king shall rise… wot th' bloody 'ell does 'at mean?" Mostly it's said to herself.
@Jaito: The woman's eyes go a little wide. "The king…? I…have no idea…"
(Empathy?)
Will: (2)
@Jaito: She looks a bit concerned, the classic 'I am talking to a crazy person' kind of concerned. She slides the scotch in front of Will. "I think you need to relax. Definitely working too hard."
Will: Will nods, realising she had spoken aloud. "Ye got 'at right, lass. Jes ignore me ramblin's. Got somethin' ta do with research I'm doin'." The hacker throws back the scotch with little hesitation, but with a little frown as she swallows. "T'anks. Name's Will." Might as well be sociable to the nice girl who quite possibly kept Will from falling into the floor when that flash of… whatever happened.
@Jaito: "A pleasure, Will. Call me Rose." She offers a cheers, then kicks back. "Your English is very good. How long have you been studying it?"
Will: "Me whole life, guess ye c'd say. Well, when I ain't been studyin' other languages. I's born in England."
@Jaito: "…oh. It's…a beautiful dialect, then." She grins to cover embarrassment. "I've only been good at English in the last couple of years. I guess that was a rude question." She leans over a pizza that smells remarkably spicy even from here. "Are you going to be okay?"
Will: " 'Ventually. An' it's a'ight, lass. I jes got too much on me mind, some days. I'm what ye'd call a complex person." She smils.
@Jaito: She gets a tired smile back. "Aren't we all? Well, the drink was on me. Take care of yourself, Will." She slides out of her stool and gives Will a small hug and a pat on the back. "The late shift has to look out for itself."
Will: " 'Zackly." Will returns the hug, a little awkwardly, and then turns to her pizza which has finally arrived. "D'ye play Th' Game, Rose? Jes out o' curiousness."
@Jaito: "Me? Oh, no. Paradise is beautiful, but I can't really think of it as a game. I've gotta go, though. It's a long night, and only going to get longer."
She grins.
Will: " 'S fair. See ya."
@Jaito: Off she goes,after a tip of her beret. She glances at the boys, who are still staring at the two of them, then hurries out.
Will: Will follows Rose's gaze to the two boys, and she quirks an eyebrow at them, as if to say, "Got something to say?" Then she falls to eating.
@Jaito: One of them smiles with his eyes. "You're tasty-looking, Yankee."
One of others punches him in the arm.
Will: "Dun t'ink ye wanta have a taste o
"Dun t'ink ye wanta have a taste o' this, boyo." She rolls her eyes at the kids.
@Jaito: "Oh, I'm not picky. And you know what they say about Yan-" Another punch. "H-hey!"
"…fine. Screw that bitch, if you love her so much." He heads for the door, the other two jogging to keep up.
Will: calls after them, addressing the one in particular. " 'S called respect. Learn ye some, hey?" Then it's to an empty file of her COMP to make notes on what she remembers of… whateverthehell that flash was.
@Jaito: …that's…odd. Her COMP shows a "Transfer Complete" notice on the tasks.
…the Danu file.
…which shows a "File Not Found" error.
(Scholarship for details?)
Will: (Heh. Scholarship rolls. 4)
@Jaito: The file itself wasn't ON Will's COMP, if one recalls. However, it appears that someone used the COMP as a remote-access to her home data source. Which…shouldn't strictly be possible, unless Will's the kind of person that keeps private servers net-accessible.
Will: "Feck, I've been hacked. How th' bloody 'ell—" Fuggit. She slams closed the lid on her pizza, chugs a bit more of her drink, then dashes home. She coulda *sworn* she unplugged that server from the 'net after transferring the file…
@Jaito: (Investigation!!!)
Will: (4)
@Jaito: Finding the first mag-chip is easy. It's a work of art, really. Eighth-inch thick but smooth like a thumb tack, maybe an inch in diameter. The cover even changes colors to whatever's under it. That one, she finds against the side of her COMP device.
The second mag-chip is a bit harder to find…it's in the hallway roughly between her and Annabell's rooms.
Will: "…" She makes sure the door is locked, and then boots up the server, typing in a few quick commands to the bootloader. Rare is the person who could navigate a CLI well enough to boot a computer, but apparently whoever did this is. She goes in and starts looking for the log file of the OS, hoping she'd remembered to make a backup since downloading her notes on Danu.
(Spending a Fate point to tap Don't Stop Me Now)
@Jaito: While the backup is missing, the good old hardcopy backup she made is doing fine! The disc - offline, all the time!
@Jaito: There's only been one access. A direct-connect from her COMP.
Judging by the transfer rate, it's like a direct high-powered cable connection - over in a second.
Will: -_-; Good ol' paranoia. She copies it off to her main drive — that hard copy disk isn't powerful enough to do much with except store data. And how the hell was that kinda transfer possible over a wireless connection??
@Jaito: That's a truly excellent question. Some of the experimental GnOSis software is supposed to boast rates like that, but there's not HARDWARE in place designed to handle their dreams and smoke promises.
Will: "…Really?" Will calls up Xiao.
"Jes make sure ye do, lass. Someone's gotten their paws on some sorta gnostic kit, methinks."
@Jaito: The call drops right after.
Will: forces herself to relax and finish eating and getting *some* sort of energy in her. After the third slice, her COMP goes off again. "Lawrenson. Oh, Xiao. ye sittin' down?"
@Jaito: "I am, in fact, sitting down. Please tell me this is good news, beautiful?"
Will: blinks. Of course, Xiao can't see that on the other end of the call. It's a second before she replies. "Sadly, nay. Me COMP got hacked an' a important bit o' data got stole from me home server, lass. 'Ere's th' kicker: this data were near a terabyte in size. An' accordin' t' me logs, 't were done in a second 'r less. Know anyt'ing ken do 'at?"
@Jaito: "GnOSis."
Will: "Zackly. 'S why I wanted t' come t' ya wit' this first. If someone in your org did 'is, ye need ta know. An' if someone *not* in yer org did 'is, ye still need ta ken. I still got th' data, but so do someone else."
@Jaito: "Meet me at the coffee shop. And…be nice. Michael Lin may be coming. He's…delicate."
Will: "Noticed 'at th' me other day. Be there soon." She hangs up, sighing.
Will has joined #apartment
@Jaito: There's the faintest hint of a whisper. "She called you beautiful…" Bean Sidhe's voice. Funny, she's not actually summoned. Even if active, she should only be able to text.
Will: "…" just in case… "I, um, noticed. And um, how ya be talkin' out loud?"
@Jaito: "Oh, you're probably going crazy, mistress." Then silence.
Will: "Figures." Will takes a bit, grabbing a quick shower before heading to the coffee house. Maybe she just needed to clear her head…..
