I13 - CSIBM

[John Hino]

John entered the Computer Engineering Lab at a fast walk. Having called ahead, the secure system was already booted up. He immediately went to work setting up the necessary protocols.

[ASHLIE]

"If you need assistance please don't hesitate to ask. Though I'm afraid I'm a bit clumsy with your manual input devices and connecting directly is not an option."

[Narrator]

The lab lit up one screen after another, as John entered his element.

Hooking up the iPad to the computers triggered eight or nine safety warnings, captured by the various strong firewalls and security systems the oncampus computers had. It didn't APPEAR anything got through, but that'd probably be something to check later.

The first thing to notice was that, well, the iPad wasn't exactly stock, off the shelf. Oh, the casing was, and most of the actual circuits and whatnot, but the code had been dramatically rewritten--or, at least rewritten with a certain je ne sais quoi.

The code was a weird mishmash of multiple programming languages, and, in all rights, shouldn't work. Like, at all. Yet, John could boot it up, seemingly without issues.

[ASHLIE]

"This makes no sense." Ashlie points out, looking over his shoulder. "And I've been inside a computer that made no sense before. This makes less sense."

[John Hino]

"This has to be some kind of cryptographic scrambler at work, or maybe a false code layer hiding what's really here," he said. He loaded up an advanced decryption algorithm he programmed himself and ran the code through it.

[Narrator]

Success! A read-out came on the screen.

Code: Select all

Ha ha that tickles.

...OK, what?

The descrambler WAS doing work, though, helping straighten some things out. The iPad was probably useable at this point, though they'd have to remain somewhat cautious not to trigger any booby traps of some description.

[John Hino]

John blinked. "I really hate hackers..." he muttered. He ran a search for buried code that might clear things up.

[Narrator]

The iPad seemed to have started life as your garden-variety iPad--that is, it was manufactured and produced normally by Apple.

It ALSO seemed to have been used normally for some time--perhaps the device itself was stolen?

The new code mostly was obfuscation--hiding the origin of the signal, and allowing the device to communicate with a number of other devices--basically like a remote control. It formed a secure network with these other devices and allowed the user to operate them from wherever they happened to be.

[John Hino]

So John tried to hijack the remote control function and backtrace the target systems. Stealthily, of course. For someone who hated hackers he was pretty damn good at it.

[Narrator]

John would have some serious troubles actually activating the controls--they seemed to require some sort of biometric input to actually activate, and he would have some trouble working around that particular signal.

He COULD, however, make some educated guesses as to the locations of some of the devices being controlled. There was something here in Maldon, somewhere in a four-block radius around Elements. There was something else towards the outskirts of London, in some sort of industrial district. A third was more centrally located in London. The final one was at the dead-center of Manchester.

[John Hino]

"Now that's more like it," he grinned, sliding his chair over to the next computer to put the coordinate ranges into a better and safer map.

"Okay ASHLIE, see if you can logic out where in those zones any suspicious facilities might be hidden," he said as he rolled his chair back.

[ASHLIE]

"On it." she says, manually transferring the coordinates displayed on the screen and beginning to pull up her own maps. Which may include some spy satellite data. She cross-references the coordinates with known facilities and sends out her web-spider protocols to see if any suspicious activities have been happening in those areas like equipment being ordered or moved or surges in network activity.

[Narrator]

Well, the one in Maldon suddenly saw a huge energy spike, that much was certain, as a load of power got transferred there.

[ASHLIE]

"This is unusual." she points out and sends the data to John as well while she tries to trace the source of the activity.

[John Hino]

John looked at the data.

"I think you've just found where we need to look. Send the team the coordinates and we'll meet them there."

[Narrator]

As they prepared to go, another site pinged up, identified.

M Industries.

The third site, outside London, was in an old abandoned surgical supplies warehouse, while the Manchester location was in the middle of the center square.

[John Hino]

"I knew we should have torn that building to the ground," he grumbled as he added the addresses to his belt computer.

"Send those too."

[Will Stanton]

Kinda...OOF.

Kinda busy John! Was Will's response via the intercom, as laser blasts could be heard.

The first signal roughly correlated with the location of the X-Intercoms

[John Hino]

"Let's hurry, they might need some extra muscle," he said as he raced out.

[ASHLIE]

"I will continue deciphering the information here in case this location is a ruse."

[John Hino]

"Understood!" he called back, and was gone.

[ASHLIE]

Ashlie turns towards the tablet and, while continuing her traces in the background, gives the damned thing a careful poke. Kind of like someone trying to pet a dog and being afraid of being bitten. "Whoever made you is nasty."

[Roland Sackville]

ASHLIE'S perimeter senses would trip before Roland appeared in the doorway.

"What have you found."

[ASHLIE]

"We have found a couple possible locations, though there is a high probability of at least some of them being deceptions. I am trying to narrow these estimates down while the team is investigating the closest one."

[Roland Sackville]

"Where are these...locations?"

[ASHLIE]

"The teams have been made aware of them already." she says, either not understanding Roland right or being more clever than you might expect from a machine.

[Roland Sackville]

"Make me aware of them."

[ASHLIE]

"In addition to the site currently under investigation here in Maldon there are two in London though they appear to be decoys based on previous mission sites while the final one is located in Manchester." she says as she brings up the specific locations on the computer screen, not willing or able to just withhold information. And what she pointed out to Roland can't really be strictly considered a lie because she lacks the data to make a definitive decision and the Manchester location is one that makes logical sense in some scenarios she's calculated. Just not all of them. Or even the majority.

[Roland Sackville]

"Manchester, you think, has the highest...probability, then?"

[ASHLIE]

"Yes, it does." Of course Roland didn't specify the highest probability for what.

[Roland Sackville]

"Fine. I'll take care of this," Roland said, whirling. "I'll have them home for dinner."

[ASHLIE]

"I hope they will be." Ashlie agrees.

[Narrator]

And with that, Roland left. That wasn't ominous.

[ASHLIE]

Ashlie engages the X-Team com-link.

"Current Team Leader, Mister Sackville just demanded I tell him the possible locations of the abducted teenagers. He...

She pauses for just a second.

"...decided to pursue the Manchester lead. According to my calculations it has the highest probability of him not interfering or endangering anybody."