Of Dead Nodes
14th of February 2007 A.D.
"Kemmler's little helper is back..." Not the words you had been expecting to hear waiting in the bus stop right across from a Wendy's and especially not almost in your own voice inside your own head. "Check this out..." An experience that is not seen nor heard felt nor smelled nor tasted unfolds in your mind like an algorithmic flower. You are seeing the world from Iris' point of view, you realize, the Internet to be precise and it is definitely not the Information Super-Highway of cheesy 90s shows it is the constant stream of data packets sent and confirmed, waves of meaning crashing upon the razor sharp shore of nul-space that is a firewall infused with malicious purpose.
There's a flicker of amusement at the brutal intrusiveness of the construct. SUTRA powerful enough to build defenses this layered and strong wouldn't make them this obvious. But as the protections unspoiled Iris realized her target had already fled, that is had never been in the system at all, just projecting from a bio-organic support... not bio... that did not make sense! An Error message you discover feels like a ten minute migraine compressed into a fraction of a second.
"Ow! You could have warned me!" you snap rubbing your temples.
"Oh, sorry," Sophia looks a little embarrassed. "Figured you wouldn't notice, your pain tolerance is a lot better than mine."
"Turns out Anti-Bob was using a Black Court Fledgling as a relay to get into government servers and play ghost in the machine. He's been playing with Gard for some time and we're not sure why, other than him being a petty asshole. The best guess we have is that he's been stalking a bunch of people on Uncle Sam's dime, testing their protections and Gard was just the first one to get the right kind of help."
"What, what happened to the vampire?" Somehow you manage not to shout that one aloud.
"Oh he wasn't a danger to anyone, starved of blood and mortared into the wall of an office in DC, like a very creepy antenna. Anti-Bob jumped in there through a wire some so-and-so had run through the vampire's skull which is both clever and gross. As soon as he was in there a third party picked him out long distance. And let me tell you Nevernever 'Physics' or not..."
"Not an easy lift," you conclude grimly.
"Did you call this in to the library?"
"Yeah, that's who found the corpse, Von Trier was not amused, even though I did keep everything that could be traced back to Harry out of it the fact that the bad guys got into a building with sensitive servers, took down a wall and left a 'present' was bad enough. Black Court elders and hacking is apparently worse. Told them to keep a piece of Antenna Vamp for divination purposes, the body was fresh enough that they can do that.."
"When did all this happen?"
"Got off the phone with her ten minutes ago, then you called me and it felt like serendipity," she answers with a smile, your smile.
"You know..." you sigh. "It's a lot more fun when we surprise other people."
Dad and Harry had just shown up, the latter looking curious, the latter worried at whatever expression the two of you are wearing.
"So just to be clear we are not about to have Undead Y2K Two: This Time It's Happening?"
"Not as far as I can tell, though I... suspect a bunch of people were a lot less paranoid about this kind of slow probing than Gard is. Whatever this operation's doing besides spying it's been doing for months."
With that stomach-clenching thought you say 'Hi' to Lydia as well.
"The hikers..."
"Fine thralls probably, we haven't tracked them yet."
One good thing about the timing of this, whoever's behind this plot sounds like they belong in supernatural Super-Max.
Before stepping into the Nevernever what do you want to do about the Black Court hacking plot?
[] Warn Lara Raith, she has government contacts, tech savvy and a reason to make getting to the bottom of this a priority
[] Ask Von Trier to FedEx you a piece of that Black Court Fledgling, you would like to do your own divinations on it
[] Write in
OOC: Good news, you found Evil Bob. Bad News: Evil Bob found the internet and made friends.