She is going to run into Skye/Daisy Johnson isn't she? Which would be pretty good, since she was the best hacker in the MCU, before it was decided to make Agents of Shield non-canon.
I wonder if she knows that Fury's wife is a Skrull? Also if she has something that would allow the Skrull or Fury to find them a planet that they can settle, and thus defuse the naysayers wanting to take over Earth later out of frustration.
Actually that Sigil would help them hide settlements from the Kree wouldn't it? Which would be a good way for them to set up colonies without the risk of the Kree attacking them...
Something to think on, especially if some of the visitors to the site she set up were actual Skrulls, and they decided to try it out.
Wouldn't you, given how weird the show got after Season 4? I mean, I hate the show for other reasons, but the writers went way off the rails after a while.
Lol, retyping a database of 22,000 entries into Excel by hand is absolutely unhinged. Jackie needs to write a script to pull that information, or even just email them and say you're researching trends in missing people for your Master's degree or something. All of that information already exists in a database and Jackie doesn't need to get carpal tunnel syndrome retyping a quarter of a million words of boring data.
Lol, retyping a database of 22,000 entries into Excel by hand is absolutely unhinged. Jackie needs to write a script to pull that information, or even just email them and say you're researching trends in missing people for your Master's degree or something. All of that information already exists in a database and Jackie doesn't need to get carpal tunnel syndrome retyping a quarter of a million words of boring data.
And also, it's crazy Hydra within S.H.I.E.L.D. never found out about the Skrulls as they work with Fury and could have done something extremely wicked at them. To add why some Skrulls grew to hate humans after suffering by Hydra's hands.
And also, it's crazy Hydra within S.H.I.E.L.D. never found out about the Skrulls as they work with Fury and could have done something extremely wicked at them. To add why some Skrulls grew to hate humans after suffering by Hydra's hands.
On the other hand, I do like to believe that the Skrulls found a new home planet already at some point after the events of Captain Marvel film and a small group of Skrull volunteers joined Fury to help him out of gratitude as he and their savior Carol Danvers stood in the Kree's way and defied them.
Lol. You do know that there are multiple websites that are purposefully designed to be hackable, right? Like, you pay them money so you can practice authentic hacking that's ethical and legal.
I'm trying the free version of TryHackMe. It's pretty fun.
Edit: AKA don't worry, I found a way to do it legally
I ended up going to Hack Queens with Uncle Joshua. My parents said that it would be good for us to bond and maybe it would help with his job search.
It took a little time but we eventually found it on the second floor of one of the buildings. Up a long, cramped flight of stairs, we reached a door with "Hack Queens" spray-painted on it.
I looked at Uncle Joshua and shrugged, then we walked in.
Immediately I heard a babble of voices and the hum of electronics. The tiny hallway the door opened up into a big room separated into little nooks and crannies, all of it stuffed full. The center of the room held a long table set up with multiple computers, several of which were in use. Against the wall there was a soldering iron station that someone was using, with a couch slightly further down occupied by an old lady who was knitting. The walls were covered with shelves holding all kinds of doodads and things I couldn't make out, except for one that had a whiteboard with words "CTF" written on it with other jargon I didn't understand.
It looked amazing.
A dude with a bushy red beard looked up as we walked in. "Oi, new faces!" he said cheerfully as he got up and walked over to us. As he did, I read his t-shirt, which said "1st rule of programming: if it works, DON'T touch it".
"I'm Jeff," he said, holding out a hand to shake. "But you can call me Rascal. So what brings you to Hack Queens?"
"Hi, I'm Jackie," I said as I shook his hand. "And this is my uncle Joshua. I'm interested in cybersecurity, and I was wondering if you offered lessons, or at least help."
"Nice!" he said. "You'll have to check the lesson schedule on the calendar, but we can definitely help with that. Oh, there is a membership fee if you want to use our computers, it's like 40 a month, but we can call today a freebie and see if you like it."
I blinked. Well, that was affordable, especially since I had money stashed away from allowance and Auntie's training trips. "Sure," I said. "Lead on."
"Great!" he said as he led us to a computer. "So what kind of cybersecurity were you thinking of? Red teaming, blue teaming?"
"Actually, I'm interested in learning how to track down missing people. If possible. But anything you think would be useful would be nice."
"Really? Huh," said Jeff. "Not the normal request, but I'll see what I can think of. In the meantime, have you ever used Linux before?"
"No, what it is?"
"It's an operating system, like Windows. But Linux is better for cybersecurity. Our computers use Ubuntu, which is a form of Linux like Windows XP is a form of Windows."
He booted up a computer for me. "Why don't you check it out while I see what I can figure out for you." He turned to Uncle Joshua. "And are you interested in anything, or are you just here for the little miss?" he asked.
Uncle Joshua replied and I lost track of the conversation as I tried to make sense of the new system. It was pretty simple? Just the same functions, but in different places. Although it was interesting that the only web browser I could see was Firefox.
I glanced up as a new guy joined us. He was a rather eye-catching fellow with blue hair in a fauxhawk and tattoo sleeves. "New blood?" he asked.
"Yep! This is Jackie," Jeff said. "Jackie, this is Landon, who also goes by Lunatic."
"Spelled L-U-N-A-T-1-K," Landon said. "So Jackie, want to see a magic trick?"
I looked at him with suspicion. "…Sure, I guess."
He grinned, wiggled his fingers at me, then placed them down on the table. When he pulled them up, there were paperclips dangling from his ring fingers.
I blinked. D-did Landon have superpowers?
I looked closer. The paperclips definitely weren't attached by glue or friction or anything. But I would have thought that anyone with powers would have been picked up by Hydra!
That was when I noticed a small lump on each ring finger.
Landon laughed. "Well, some people like to hack computers," he explained. "I, on the other hand, like to hack bodies." He leaned against the table. "You know how in sci-fi stories they have cyborgs and sh-stuff?"
I nodded.
"I want that," he said. "I want to be a cyborg. But, of course, doctors aren't going to try and make cyborg implants for people without disabilities, so, I'm doing it myself."
"Isn't that dangerous?" …I'm pretty sure there were people who tried to diy plastic surgery and ending up injecting themselves with cement and stuff. Landon seemed healthy enough though.
He shrugged. "Oh, of course. But you can't plot the future without taking a few risks. I'm not just doing random things either." He wiggled his fingers at me. "The thing about magnets, the really powerful ones at least, is that they pick up electromagnetic fields. So, by inserting them under the skin by my fingers I can train myself to be able to 'feel' those fields. It's pretty cool."
Landon put his hands in his pockets. "It's not just me that's doing this either. I'm a part of a community called "grinders". And we hope that by self-experimentation we can push the fields of medicine and science towards a brighter future."
"Okay, that's kind of cool," I said. Thinking about it, there were a lot of people on the super scene, or would be on the super scene, that had done diy medical procedures on themselves. Heck, Tony Stark's chest arc reactor probably counted as one.
Then again, Mr. Curt Conners, also known as the Lizard, was an excellent example of why that wasn't always a good idea.
"I dunno. Seems kinda out there," Uncle Joshua said.
"Yep! But hey, it's my body, and I feel I should have the right to try this for myself," Landon said. "Anyways, enough about me. What are you here for?"
"I want to look into trying to find missing people," I said.
"Oh, that's interesting," Landon said. "Normally people your age want to recreate movies- which, by the way, are incredibly inaccurate, so I wouldn't try."
"Yeah, I figured. Do you have any suggestions on where I could start?"
"Well, you might want to look into OSINT- Open Source Intelligence," Landon said. Seeing my blank look, he explained, "You know Google? And how you can use it to search for things? OSINT is basically using Google and other websites and data available to the public to learn about something. You'd be surprised how much you can find out with the right search terms."
Jeff laughed. "Oh, right, Google dorking. It's hilarious. Here, let me show you."
He pulled an office chair next to me and sat down. I leaned back as Jeff opened up Firefox and navigated to a website.
"So you know how if you Google something in quotation marks it looks for that exact thing?" he said. "Well, Google has other commands. Like if you type in "site:" followed by a website, it will only search within that specific website. So if I type in, I dunno, "site: hackqueens.org" followed by the words "sensitive info" in quotation marks, Google will search our website for the words "sensitive info". Guess how that could be bad if someone typed in a different website?"
I frowned and wrinkled my nose. Yeah, that could mess something up if the person making a webpage wasn't careful.
"And that's legal?" I asked.
"Yep! Well, for the most part," Jeff said. "It's kinda like having a kitchen knife. You're not going to get into trouble for using it to cook dinner, but if you go out and try to hurt someone with it, you'll probably go to jail."
"That's fair."
"Anyways," he waved a hand at the website he pulled up. "This is a database of all the ways people have been able to get juicy files, restricted information, and other things through googling. We call it Google dorking because you have to be a dork to leave that information online without shielding it from Google."
"And I could use Google to find out more about the people I'm looking for."
"Exactly. It's kind of sad, but a lot of law enforcement officers are still stuck in the 90s techwise. I wouldn't be surprised if they missed something pretty basic just because it was online and they didn't think to look there. You could do a lot of good."
He reached over and patted me on the back. "Take a look through the database, and see what kind of inputs people are using."
I nodded, and pulled out my notepad. Time to experiment.
...
Sometime later I was testing out some of the google commands when a kid, maybe 13 or 14 years old, sat next to me. I glanced over at him, taking in the oversized hoodie, the smeared emo makeup, and the dyed black hair.
"Hello?" I offered.
"Sup, noob," he said. "I'm Iz."
"Your name is Is?" I asked.
"No, Izzzz. Like I-Z." He rolled his eyes. "It's actually Isaac, but Iz is my hacker handle, so call me that."
"Alright, Iz." I paused to let him continue, but he just sat there, staring at me. Ok edgelord. "Do you need something?"
"No." He scowled. "Lunat1k wants me to "make friends" with people my own age. So I'm going to sit here, pretend like we're talking, and then we can ignore each other, okay?"
"Sure, as long as you don't bother me."
As much as I could tell that Iz needed some proper socialization, I was not getting involved with someone who clearly did not want to interact with me. Nope. Too much on my plate, and my savior complex for such things died a while ago.
True to his word, after about ten minutes of mutual ignoring later, Iz left me to my peace. Eventually, I finished up writing up a list of commands that looked useful, then I found Uncle Joshua over by the soldering station and we headed home.
Mom and Dad were happy to hear that everything went well, and oddly enough especially about Iz.
"It's just… it's been a while since you've had a close friend that's your age," Mom said. Not since Tom, went the unspoken ending.
I resisted the urge to scowl. "A, I just met him today, and B, I don't think he wants to be friends," I said.
"Hey, you never know," said Dad. "Maybe he just needs to talk to you a bit." He patted me on the hand.
"Sure," I said. Time to SNIP-smile, nod, ignore, proceed. "So is it okay if I buy a membership? I have enough saved up for a couple of months."
"Sure honey. And if you keep going there a lot, we can cover some of it too," Mom said.
"Thanks."
After dinner I shrugged on a coat and grabbed a towel to head outside for my daily meditation. Although it was interesting trying to acquire some of the plants, my feng shui native plants only garden was coming along nicely.
I threw a towel onto the single boulder in the northeast corner of my garden, the part most aligned with personal growth, and sat down. I made myself comfy, set a timer, then began.
Take a deep breath.
Feel the energy deep within the earth.
Feel it rising up. Up through the feet. The legs. The hips. The chest.
Breath out.
Let the energy flow.
Feel your consciousness expand.
Feel the sleeping trees and bushes, waiting for spring.
In.
Reach deeper.
This place is by an oasis of power.
Feel it pulse, almost like a heartbeat.
Out.
Be a well of qi, flowing outward.
To the plants. The insects. The animals.
The people.
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP BEEP-BEEP-BEEP
Ugh, twenty minutes already? I shut the alarm off, and groaned as my numb fingers protested the sudden movement. I pressed them to my neck to warm up.
As I did, I glanced along the garden. It was doing well, hopefully not just because I was taking care of the plants' physical needs, but also my meditation sessions. I was admittedly cobbling things together from different occult and fictional sources, but it seemed to be working.
At the very least, I was now getting to the point where I could sort of "sense" qi and plant life around me without first going into a meditative state (not that it was working very well in winter). When plant life was really thriving, I could even get an idea of the non-plant life, just by the interactions.
It was almost time for the next step.
The law of sympathy found in many occult traditions around the world stated that things that were similar or came from the same thing could be used to magically influence other things, such as a voodoo doll affecting the person it was tied to, or yellow objects attracting yellow gold to their owner. I'd already seen it happen with my scrying using maps. Thus, if I combined the scrying, maps, law of sympathy, and sensing energy, I was wondering if I could make an energy map of NYC, one that would fluctuate with any changes.
My plan was to first take a bit of dirt or stone from each place and glue it in the corresponding place on a map. Call it an art piece if my parents were curious. Then, go back and plant sunflower seeds in the places where I had taken dirt. The sunflower seeds would act as living sensors for magic, and combined with the sympathetic nature of the taken dirt, just might allow me to build a map that would let me sense the energy levels all over without leaving the safety of my home.
If it worked of course.
I was planning on a smaller test map of my neighborhood first.
"Jackie!" yelled my mom. "Come inside. You'll catch a cold out there!"
"Coming!" I yelled back as I headed inside.
Well. Big plans and all that.
...
AN: Yay! I've done so much research for this chapter and I am going to tell you about it. Last chapter I posted I mentioned a group that uses hacking to find missing people. Well, it's called Tracelabs and it turns out literally anyone with a computer and an internet connection can join. You can guess what I did. Haven't tried to find anyone yet, they ask that you be a part of their discord for a month first, but the community is nice and they pointed me in some interesting directions. I'm now on a duolingo-esc learn to hack website called TryHackMe, and I'm thinking about joining another one called HacktheBox.
I am having so much fun. I love research.
Also quick note: although Google used to allow direct searching using quotes, it no longer does. I am aware, but I chose that example because I didn't want people getting ideas. Seriously, if you want to try hacking, I recommend the services above. Don't actually trawl the internet looking for sensitive info.
AN: Yay! I've done so much research for this chapter and I am going to tell you about it. Last chapter I posted I mentioned a group that uses hacking to find missing people. Well, it's called Tracelabs and it turns out literally anyone with a computer and an internet connection can join. You can guess what I did. Haven't tried to find anyone yet, they ask that you be a part of their discord for a month first, but the community is nice and they pointed me in some interesting directions. I'm now on a duolingo-esc learn to hack website called TryHackMe, and I'm thinking about joining another one called HacktheBox.
You can also find your local DefCon satellite group either on Libera Chat IRC or Discord by searching for #dc{AREA_CODE} as in the area code of phone numbers issued in your area. And if either of those don't work you can try hopping on the dc801 version and ask there. (That's for SLC.)
As much as I could tell that Iz needed some proper socialization, I was not getting involved with someone who clearly did not want to interact with me. Nope. Too much on my plate, and my savior complex for such things died a while ago.
The law of sympathy found in many occult traditions around the world stated that things that were similar or came from the same thing could be used to magically influence other things, such as a voodoo doll affecting the person it was tied to, or yellow objects attracting yellow gold to their owner. I'd already seen it happen with my scrying using maps. Thus, if I combined the scrying, maps, law of sympathy, and sensing energy, I was wondering if I could make an energy map of NYC, one that would fluctuate with any changes.
Also quick note: although Google used to allow direct searching using quotes, it no longer does. I am aware, but I chose that example because I didn't want people getting ideas. Seriously, if you want to try hacking, I recommend the services above. Don't actually trawl the internet looking for sensitive info.
Right I phrased that badly. It does technically work, but it feels like half the time Google gives you ai results it thinks you're looking for, especially if you're looking for something a lot of people do. Or they give you the result from whoever gamed the system the best.
New Years came and went, and school started up again. Luckily, I was mostly in advanced placement classes where the kids were far less annoying than the ones in the normal classes. It was almost worth the extra homework.
I kept going to Hack Queens, and eventually I figured out a few people's schedules. Jeff was pretty much the owner and spent most days after work there, save for Sunday when it was closed and Monday. Landon popped in throughout the week but was never there on Tuesdays. Iz was there every hour that he could. He even did his homework in Hack Queens.
There was also Cindy, the grandma that, upon stumbling across the hackerspace, decided to adopt everyone in it as substitutes for the grandchildren that lived too far away and Tana, the artist that liked using whatever broke and couldn't be fixed as components in her projects. Those two came in on rather ad hoc times.
There were others, of course, but those were the people at Hack Queens most often, and they got to know me as well.
And then one day while I was going through my files of missing people, trying to decide who was the most likely target for Hydra, when Iz sat next to me.
I raised an eyebrow as he sat down. "Lunat1k bugging you about befriending me again?" I asked.
He smirked at me. "No, actually," he said. "I was wondering if you'd seen a certain video."
Iz gestured at my computer, and I rolled my chair over to give him access.
He pulled up a video titled "Message to Scientology" by a channel called ChurchofScientology. I glanced at him as he played the video and then stared at the screen in shock as the video began with "Hello, Leaders of Scientology. We are Anonymous."
Holy shit, this is the start of Project Chanology, the attempt by the hacker group Anonymous to take down the Church of Scientology.
I watched as the video continued, telling Scientology that Anonymous had found them guilty of corruption and thus they were going to destroy it, finally ending with "We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forget. We do not forgive. Expect us."
I turned around to stare at Iz. He smiled at me.
"Isn't it cool?" he asked. "There're chats where there are instructions to join. That is, if you aren't a chicken." Iz folded his arms into wings and made clucking noises as I stared at him.
"Honestly, you daring me makes me not want to do it, just to spite you," I said. Then I turned to the computer. "On the other hand…"
Wouldn't this be considered a major historical event? Or perhaps not that major, but definitely something historical.
System? I asked silently. How many points could I get from participating in Project Chanology?
[Basic participation, such as participating in the DDoS is worth 200 points! However, depending on how far your participation goes and the effects of your actions, you could earn more!]
Well. That was a good amount of points. Certainly enough to justify some risk given how I currently had next to no points.
Of course, who knew exactly what basic participation meant, aside from being a part of the DDoS attacks. If I asked the System, it would probably give me some BS along the lines of "whatever you feel is best!"
So. Would it be worth it to try and DDoS Scientology?
Well, I never did like Scientology, and I do need to practice actual hacking. If I remember right, a few people got arrested, but I think that was because they didn't cover their e-tracks, and I knew how to do that, plus this was a public computer. Also, if I did get caught, I think being twelve would be enough to get the judge's sympathy.
Then again, if I did get caught, I could kiss my laptop goodbye and there was no way my parents would let me come back here.
Of course, I might be able to get a replacement laptop from Hai Rong if necessary…
I checked to make sure that the VPN was on, and that I was as protected as reasonably possible. As I did so, I glanced up at Iz.
"Remember, if the feds find this account, they might go after Hack Queens," I said.
He briefly looked panicked, then relaxed and laughed. "Nah, I doubt the old fogies will be able to find us, not with so many other people participating."
I shrugged, and entered the chat that Iz pointed out to me as the one belonging to Anonymous. It was moving so rapidly I could barely read the bottom post before the next posts had pushed it to the end of the top of my screen.
It took a bit of quick searching, but soon I found a post with instructions on how to join in on the DDoS attacks on the Scientology website, by essentially flooding the website with so many requests it lagged and shut down from overuse. Then I copy-pasted it to a note file so I could take a look at it more closely.
Seemed… pretty basic? And easy to follow, but I was not an expert.
"So I just do this?" I asked Iz.
"What, not confident enough to do it on your own?"
"Dude. I've been studying OSINT, not DDoSing. Forgive me for double checking before committing a crime."
He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, it's correct. Now get on with it."
"Desire to do this lessening," I sang as I found the right window and copy-pasted the prompt in. Then I hit "run".
[Congratulations! For joining the hacker organization [Anonymous] and participating in [Project Chanology] you have earned 200 points and a [Special Award]!]
I eyed the box as I folded my arms. Well, at least I had confirmation that it worked. Was definitely curious what the special award thing was, but I'd wait until I was home to check it out. Probably wasn't anything good anyways.
"So, you aren't just a poser," Iz said. "So how do you feel, now that you're a proper hacker?"
I looked at him. "Is that what this is all about?"
"What?"
"'So you aren't just a poser,'" I quoted. "Did you seriously convince me to DDoS Scientology just to prove I'm not, what, just doing this for lols?"
Iz's mouth opened and closed, but he didn't say anything.
I glared at him. "I'm not here to impress you. Fuck off."
Then I turned back to my screen. I had better things to do with my time than dealing with emo assholes.
...
I spent the rest of the hour in a shitty mood, and that was saying something as I hadn't been in the best mood to begin with. It was literally less than two weeks away from the beginning of Iron Man 1, with Tony Stark winning an Apogee Award, and so far I had no idea if he'd done anything about my warning. Sure, the Apogee awards ceremony seemed on track, but it wasn't like the government was going to just tell the public when and where their weapons demos were going to be held, let alone who was going to be there. I was trying not to think about it, but just like with pink elephants, that just made it pop up in my head more.
It didn't help that I wasn't certain which outcome I was more afraid of: Tony Stark heeding it and getting away, or him not heeding it and getting kidnapped. Because one proved that fate was changeable, but possibly removed one of the most important heroes of the galaxy from the board, and the other brought up questions about destiny that I really didn't want to have to question.
Gah, now I was thinking about it again. I shook my head and focused on my list. I'd narrowed it down to about 20 people, all under the age of 16 when they went missing. Now I just needed to figure out who would be the most likely candidate for Hydra to kidnap, and then I'd start trying to track them down.
I twitched as the door to the hackerspace swung open with a bang.
"Isaac!" yelled the woman who walked through the door.
"Mom!?" Iz said. "What are you doing here?"
I looked up to see a woman in a nice-looking pantsuit stride into the room, followed by a slightly mousier looking man and a young girl who was also dressed in a formal suit.
"Don't be silly, I would never say that. Of course you have to go, don't you want to support your sister?" She rolled her eyes. "You're so ungrateful."
"The dinner is going to take all night and I'm not done with my homework," Iz argued.
"That's your fault for not managing your time right. You knew the fundraiser was coming up, you have no excuse."
"You said-"
"Don't talk back to me," the woman said.
Iz tensed up, then all the fight seemed to go out of him and he slumped as he got out of his seat.
"Better," his mom said. "Now, we can't have you wearing that ratty hoodie to the dinner, you look like a gangbanger. Your suit is in the car, you'll change in the bathroom once we're there."
Then she turned to everyone else, with a sudden megawatt smile. "So sorry my son made me disrupt your business, he does that a lot. I'll get us out of your hair now."
With that she grabbed Iz's arm and pulled him out of Hack Queens.
I looked over at Jeff to ask what had just happened, but he saw me open my mouth and put a finger to his lips.
After a few moments he relaxed.
"Sorry," Jeff said. "Sometimes Iz's mom pretends to leave something behind so she can pop back in unexpectedly to see if people are talking about her behind her back."
"Really?" I asked. That sounded… paranoid.
"Oh yeah, she's a biiiitch," said Landon.
"Amen!" said Tana as Jeff sighed.
"Lunat1k…" he said.
"What? It's true," Landon said. He turned to me. "She accused me of being a gay freak after she hit on me and I turned her down," he explained. "Like my sexuality has anything to do with not wanting to sleep with a married woman."
"Really? Yikes." I did not that vibe from her at all, but Landon really wasn't a liar.
Maybe she was different when her husband wasn't around?
"Heh, yeah." He reached up and tugged on a blue lock. "Think she saw the hair and assumed I'd be down for whatever."
"And she called my art ugly!" yelled Tana from her workstation. "So like, fuck her!"
"Oi! Language around the minors!" yelled Jeff back.
"Aww c'mon Rascal! She probably hears worse from her peers all the time!"
"Yeah but that doesn't give you a free pass!"
I sighed as Tana made a face at Jeff and went back to her project.
As much as I didn't care for him, it obviously sucked for Iz to have someone like that as a mother. No wonder he spent so much time here.
Still, it wasn't my business. I was here to learn, to track down missing people, and make Hydra pay. Anything else came after that.
...
AN: If you'd like a nice video explaining Project Chanology, I really recommend this one. Also I'm considering having Anonymous play a bigger role in the fic, and by that I mean having them mentioned more than a few times, but I was still very young when project chanology went down so if anyone has memories of that time they'd like to share, I'd love to hear it.
The best part was where they made the printers and fax machines constantly print completely black pages. Disrupting communications and wasting their money. People (younger people) nowadays have no idea how important faxes were for big business/cults back then. I know there were also attempts to flood their call centers.
Sucks for Iz to have a bad mom, but *man* that "Fuck Off" from Jackie was somehow one of the most satisfying scenes in the entire story till date. No ifs, no buts, just straight calling someone out on their shit and giving them whats what.
AN: Hey before you read the chapter, just know that there's some topics that might trigger people in it specifically
mentions of pedophilia, suicide, cancer
If you do not wish to read this, please feel free to skip to the third section, starting with the line:
"…and apparently he thought I was like fourteen the whole time,"
Here is a quick summery of the part to skip if you don't want to read that section:
Jackie goes looking for missing girl Louise. Gets Iz to help her and he apologies for his behavior. They find that Louise, who was 15 at the time, was convinced to run away by her pedophile boyfriend. They then find her current location, and tell Rascal and Lunat1k. Rascal and Lunat1k decide that Jackie and Iz should only look for missing people under adult supervision from now on. Rascal tells the police about Louise.
Chapter 28
Two days ago, Tony Stark won the Apogee award. I didn't see it, but when I looked online I saw people discussing it.
He didn't show up, just like in the movie.
If the movies were correct, he was probably flying to Afghanistan right now. Maybe even in Afghanistan heading to the demo. That is, if he didn't heed my warning.
I hadn't been able to concentrate all day. It felt almost like I was floating. My parents were worried about me, I could tell. They asked if anything was wrong but I just said I felt like something bad was going to happen.
Luckily it was the weekend.
Still, I had to get my mind off of things.
Thus, I decided to finally start my search for the missing people I thought Hydra had taken. And I had the perfect first candidate.
Her name was Louise Franklin, and she'd been declared missing a year and a half ago.
Her early childhood was good. Louise had been born into an upper middle-class family in California. Had the white picket fence, dog, all those good things. She'd been a star soccer player and was in the National Junior Honors Society at her middle school.
Then her mom had gotten sick. Cancer.
About six months after her mom's diagnosis her dad divorced her mom. From what I'd seen, he'd very quickly picked up a new, younger Latina girlfriend who Louise hated.
Louise started acting out in school and getting into fights with her dad, which only got worse after her mom passed away.
She'd run away from home two months after her mom's death, at the age of 15.
Louise was white, athletic, smart, capable of violence, and could be very easily taught to hate minorities. In short, she was the perfect recruit for Hydra.
Now I just had to find her.
The first step I took was heading to her MySpace page, which had given me most of the information I had on her. From there, I started tracking down her friends, specifically the ones who used to appear in her pictures and were mentioned in her posts right before she went missing. I was looking for either evidence that Louise had gone to them or evidence that they were connected to Hydra in some way.
I wasn't finding much. Aside from most of her friends being white, none of them seemed to be part of Hydra at all. They were just normal teenage girls.
…a lot of them made posts asking Louise to come home after she went missing. Saying that they missed her and that they were worried about her. Asking if she was okay.
I had to minimize the page after the third one I read, and just take a moment to breathe.
It brought back bad memories.
Likewise, I couldn't find out anything suspicious about any of the adults I could find that were in regular contact with Louise before her disappearance. No military contractors or anything like that. Just normal white-collar workers like programmers, teachers and businessmen.
I went back to her MySpace page, and read her last post, one that was made on the date she'd run away. Louise had called her dad out for being an asshole and told him that she wouldn't play any part in his "do-over family". Said that she was old enough to live her life freely. Then she'd ended by telling her friends not to worry about her, she had a plan.
…At least, it didn't sound like a suicide note.
I found myself fiddling with my quartz pendant. I could try scrying her… I probably knew her well enough by now that it would work. But at the same time, I had wanted to see how far I could get with just hacking. I had suspicions that Hydra had at least some mystical knowledge, after an attempt to scry Tom's location had fallen flat. Why they never seemed to use it I didn't know. But if she'd been taken by Hydra, the scrying attempt would probably fail, and I would have no idea if it was because of Hydra or something else.
I looked at the MySpace page, a moment frozen in time. A monument to a missing girl. Had I gotten all the data I could from it? I think I had.
At least, all the publicly available data.
I glanced towards the Login button. I could try to see if I could get into her account. I'm pretty sure that MySpace had a message function. She might have left messages to people saying more about her plans.
If I could log in.
A bit of searching on DuckDuckGo netted me her email address, or at least what I was pretty sure was her email address, but I hit a blank when it came to the password.
I bit my lip and glanced over at Iz. We hadn't really talked since that day I joined Anonymous and he'd gotten pulled away by his mom, but I'd heard he'd made a password cracking code.
I had no idea if it would work for MySpace, but it was probably the best chance I had.
I sighed, got up, and walked over to Iz.
"Hey," I said, as he looked up. "I heard that you made a password cracker. Do you know if it works for MySpace accounts?"
"Uh, maybe?" he said, obviously confused as to why I was talking to him. "Why do you want to know?"
"Because I'm trying to get into a Myspace account?"
Iz looked at me, then sighed and got up. "Let me see what's going on," he said.
We walked back to my computer and Iz looked at Louise's page. "School bully?" he asked.
"No, actually. She's been missing for nearly two years, and I'm trying to find her."
Iz did a double take. "Wait, really?" he asked as looked at me. "Are you serious?"
I sighed as I clicked on the tab for Louise's page on the Charley Project.
"Yes, I'm serious."
Iz took in the page with an incredulous expression as I looked at him.
"I've been very clear that I joined Hack Queens to learn how to find missing people," I said. "Why are you surprised that I'm looking for missing people?"
"Wait, that's really why you joined?"
"Yes? Did you think I had another reason?"
He scratched the back of his head. "I guess… last few times someone my age joined Hack Queens, it's like they magically assumed that they were quickly going to become some kind of leet hacker with no real work. So they just hung around maybe doing a few lessons and then quitting when they realized it took real work and no one would hold their hand while they did it."
Iz shrugged. "I figured that you were one of them and you were just saying that you wanted to find missing people because it sounded cool or because you wanted to be a cop or something."
I stared at him as I crossed my arms. "Well, I'm not," I said. "Now, can your password cracker deal with MySpace or not?"
"I'll try it? But," and here he turned to me. "Why do you want to find this girl so badly?"
I sighed as I turned to the screen. "I had a friend. He went missing when I was nine. And I promised myself that one day I'll find him." I gripped my arms where they were crossed. "But to do that I have to practice. She's the one I decided to look for first."
"Right. Okay." Iz looked uncomfortable. "I'll get the password cracker started."
He plugged a USB into the computer and started pulling up what he needed. As he did, he said quietly, "I'm sorry."
"Not your fault."
"No, I mean, um, I'm sorry for the whole poser thing and all that."
"Oh." I sighed. "Look, I get that it sucks when people don't really respect what you care about. But that doesn't mean you should just shove everyone new into the same box. So apology accepted, but next time like, think a little please? Give people a chance first."
"Er, right." Iz's shoulders hunched up a little. "So, uh, what's her story?"
"Hmm?"
"The girl you're trying to find. What's her story?"
"Oh, Louise. It's not particularly happy. Mom got cancer, dad didn't want to deal with all of that so he divorced her, and Louise ran away from home after her mom passed away."
"What? That's awful!"
"I know, right? Sometimes I hate people."
I slumped down in my seat. "I just hope that wherever she is, she's okay."
"Agreed. Now, let me just run this aaand- got it!"
Iz turned to me with a smile. "It worked!" he said.
"Great, let's check the messages."
I took the mouse from Iz and clicked on Louises messages. Most of them were from her friends, but there were quite a few from one name I hadn't seen elsewhere, a JohnnyWin.
Curious, I clicked on one of the messages.
My darling butterfly… it started.
"Looks like Louise had a boyfriend," Iz commented.
"Lucky her. Maybe she ran away to be with him?" That would be a nice ending. Of course, this could be a Hydra honeypot, but considering the number of messages it seemed like a lot of effort for just one normal girl.
"Maybe," Iz said. "Let me have the mouse; I wanna check more messages."
After reading a few more messages with mentions of up coming freedom, and Johnny promising Louise that he'd take her to all kinds of amazing places, I nodded my head.
"Okay," I said. "Louise definitely ran away to be with her boyfriend."
Iz sighed. "Lucky," he said. "If I had a safe place to go where my mom wouldn't find me? I'd definitely run away too."
I made a noise of sympathy. "Yeah, I get that. Okay, let's just check in on this guy and see if we can confirm that Louise is safe. If she is, well," I sighed. "I guess we just leave her be? Not like I really want to send her back to her a-hole dad."
I took the mouse and clicked on JohnnyWin's name to get to his page.
Then I froze.
"Iz," I said. "How old does it say JohnnyWin is?"
"Twenty-seven," Iz said in a numb voice.
I shuddered. "That's…" I started before I trailed off. I knew that the internet could be a horrible place, but I was looking for Hydra not pedophiles.
Iz nodded, looking horrified.
"Right. Okay. So. We need to deal with this," I said.
"How? This is… eugh!"
"Well, we went looking for Louise," I started. "So uh, let's try to confirm her location. Then I think we need an adult."
"Alright." Iz said. "Okay, let's check his posts."
I nodded as I scrolled though.
"I don't see any mention of her," I said.
"Do… do you think she's okay?" Iz asked.
"I hope so."
After searching a bit more I went back to JohnnyWin's page. "Let's see if we can find an employer or real name, maybe we can find him elsewhere."
"I think he works for a guitar shop? Yeah, there," Iz pointed to JohnnyWin's blurb. "Winners' Guitars and Music."
"Okay, let me Google it."
Google brought up a Facebook post from a band thanking the store for their lead's new guitar, as well as the owner of the store, Johnathan Williams. From there, I pulled up Johnathan Williams' Facebook profile and there was Louise.
Standing next to a man with a receding hairline who was posing with a guitar. She was wearing black clothes and her previously blonde hair had been dyed so many colors it had just ended up a dark grayish-green.
The picture had been posted two days ago.
"Right," I said. "Let's get Rascal."
…
The face Jeff and Landon made when they realized we had found a pedo would have been funny if the situation were different.
I showed them what we had found, and now they were looking at it, absolutely silently. I was reminded of watching a teacher silently look over a student's work.
Then Jeff leaned back and sighed, wiping his face with his hand.
"Hoo boy," he said. "Where to start…"
I shrank down a little in my seat. That didn't sound good.
He looked over at me. "Jackie," he said. "I'm sympathetic to your cause. But I don't think you should go looking for missing people for a while. You as well, Iz."
I blinked up at him, shocked.
"Wait, what? Why?" said Iz. "But we found her."
"You found a pedophile, kids!" he yelled.
"Rascal," Landon said.
"They found a pedophile, Lunat1k! They're twelve and thirteen! They're way too young to have to deal with that!"
"And I understand that," Landon said as Iz turned to stare at me for some reason. "As well as the urge to protect them. But can you truly tell me, that if you were their age, you would have listened if adults told you to stop?"
Jeff pulled himself up, as if to reply affirmatively, then sighed and slumped. "…no, I wouldn't have," he said.
Landon nodded, then turned to us. "Don't get me wrong," he said. "Rascal has a point about the danger and seeing things you're too young for. So, here's a compromise: we let you keep using our computers to search for missing people, but here's the catch: you have to do it with adult supervision. And by that I mean the adult has to be one of the regulars, like me, Rascal, or Tana. That way, if we see you start to stumble upon something that is better suited for someone older, we can step in. That sound good, Jackie, Rascal?"
"As long as I can keep searching," I said. Not like he would have stopped me either, I would have just done all of it at home.
Rascal sighed and nodded. "Alright. I'm not happy, but I do realize that's the most reasonable solution," he said.
"Can I help search too?" asked Iz.
"Under adult supervision, same as Jackie," Lunat1k said.
"Okay," he agreed.
"Now, disregarding my feelings about what you found," Rascal said. "I do admit you did a good job on your hacking skills. There's just one big problem."
"What?" I asked.
Rascal navigated back to Louise's MySpace page. "All MySpace profiles include the date last logged on. Since you logged in as her, that's now updated. Can you tell me what her family and friends would think if they saw that?"
"They would think that Louise had logged on," I said.
"Yes. Now, what if you didn't find her?" he asked. "Or if she was dead. How would they feel, looking at that log in date?"
"Sad?" I guessed. I would have said hopeful, but the way Rascal asked made me think he was looking for a negative emotion.
"Sad, angry, maybe hopeful before having that hope dashed," he said. "And that really isn't something that we want to cause other people to feel, even if it's for a good cause."
Rascal glanced over at Iz and said "This goes for you too, Iz, especially since your password breaker was key to this."
"Furthermore," he continued, "Doing that could muddy the path for actual police and investigators. They need to know the last time a victim actually logged in, not the last time a hacker logged in."
"Okay," I said, feeling guilty.
Rascal sighed again. "That being said," he said. "I am proud of you two. Despite your age, you have shown great moral strength and potentially helped a young girl."
He patted both our heads, as Lunat1k laughed and said, "Wish I'd been doing that at your age, instead of just messing around."
"Potentially?" I asked.
"I'm going to contact the cops," Rascal explained. "And they'll be the ones to take it from here. I'd like to say everything will be fine, but honestly we don't know the outcome yet."
He sighed and put his hands on his waist. "And after I'm done with that, I'm going to head home and hug my nieces and nephews."
Lunat1k patted him on the shoulder, then smiled at us and went back to his computer.
As Rascal turned to leave, Iz turned to me.
"You're twelve!?" he asked.
...
"…and apparently he thought I was like fourteen the whole time," I told Tom, late at night in bed.
[Tom Sawford: Funny.]
"I know, right?"
I paused, feeling guilty. "…thanks for distracting me," I said. "But you really should get to sleep."
[Tom Sawford: Are you sure? Will you be okay?]
"Yeah. I'll be fine."
…that was probably a lie. But Tom really did need to get his sleep, and I didn't want to overburden him.
[Tom Sawford: Well, alright then. Night.]
"Night."
I watched the screen disappear, then stared at the ceiling above my bed.
I couldn't sleep.
Louise had been a great distraction. But now? Here in my bed, with nothing to take my mind off of things?
I returned to thoughts of Tony Stark. Was he okay? Will he be okay?
I groaned and rubbed my eyes, then sat up and hit refresh on my laptop screen. It was set to a news feed after the third time I'd gotten the irresistible urge to get out of bed and check to see if something had happened.
Was the screen light bad for my sleep? Yes. Did I care? Nope. Way too wound up.
I resisted the urge to stress pace. I didn't want to wake my parents up.
The screen showed nothing new.
Arg. I lay back down, flipped over and started hitting my pillow.
Stupid. Fucking. Stress. Rah!
It wasn't like I could do anything, either! I knew that! But I didn't feel like it! I felt like I should be able to!
I huffed and sat up again.
Time to check again.
This time, when I hit refresh, there was a red banner at the top of the page
BREAKING NEWS-
Oh no, was it-
-TONY STARK THE MERCHANT OF DEATH-
No no no nonono
-HAS BEEN CAPTURED-
I gave him the letter I gave him the letter whydidnthelisten
-BY THE TERRORIST ORGANIZATION THE TEN RINGS
It was late. I couldn't scream.
I grabbed the pillow behind me, pulled it in front and bit down with all my might.
Why didn't he listen? Why didn't he FUCKING LISTEN!?
Was this fate? Was it destiny? Was it those stupid fucking TVA people?
I kept biting the pillow, tears in my eyes, willing the urge to scream down. Once I was lightheaded from lack of breath, I released the pillow.
Square breathing, just like the therapist taught me after 9/11. In 1-2-3-4, hold 1-2-3-4, out 1-2-3-4.
[Jackie!] the System said.
"What?" I asked in a ragged whisper.
[As a distraction, I would like to remind you that you have yet to claim the [Special Reward] for joining Project Chanology!]
"A distraction, yeah, okay." I needed that. "Uh, I'd like to claim that then."
Out of the box fell… a Guy Fawkes mask?
Oh. Because the Guy Fawkes mask was synonymous with Anonymous.
[If a further distraction is needed, I can give you the points earned from finding [Louise Franklin] immediately! However, this will not allow you to gain points that might have otherwise come up from the police's investigation.]
"Oh. Thank you, but that's alright. I'll wait for the full points."
I guess that meant that if the police uncovered more shit or something because of my tip I'd earn more points? Or something?
I stared down at the mask in my hands, feeling floaty again.
No.
I didn't want to feel floaty.
I wanted to help people.
I wanted this STUPID FUCKING CRAPSACK DEATHWORLD TO BE BETTER DAMMIT.
Deep breathes Jackie.
Well. I knew how to track missing people now. And I was a part of Anonymous.
Let's see if I can combine the two.
I logged onto the Anonymous IRC chat rooms. Had my username set up as "MPHunt".
[MPHunt: Hey, the DDoS is nice and all.]
[MPHunt: But I bet that Scientology has some real skeletons in their closets.]
[MPHunt: Like that missing woman, Shelly Miscavige.]
[MPHunt: You think we could find her?]
[MPHunt: You think we could find all the missing people connected to Scientology?]
...
AN: And here comes Iron Man, the movie that started it all.
Next chapter is the first interlude, focused on SHIELD. It's already written, and I'm planning on putting it up Friday.
Well I'm down for Anonymous screwing with Scientology even more, also is the mask just a mask or does it do something? Wonder how crazy Shield is looking for whoever delivers the letters.
God this is so good. I adore fic like this where the mc doesn't have too much pure power and must rely on the structures they have to do little good things. I loved the walking dead si fic where the mc tried to create a county for human rabies, I love how mc finds missing people. Damn I just want more of these. Anyone have recommendations
This was a nice little chapter. And perhaps one of the only slightly grim possible outcomes of that person hunt given how much worse things could have been. I'm all for more investigatory shenanigans and messing with Scientologists. I'm also looking forward to finding out what happened behind the scenes with Tony Stark, and when Jarivs is going to tumble onto her.
