Scraped from
here.
(Credit to Wildbow for
Worm, its characters, etc. Credit to White Wolf/Onyx Path for Exalted)
And we're back again. The first thread was a bit of a mess. New ground rules:
1. No arguing about things irrelevant to the story. Go nuts about the setting, the crossover mechanics, the plot, the characters,
the costume, my grammar; that's all fine. Going nuts about McDonald's Coffee or wasting two pages on a totally unrelated game? Less so.
Other standard rules of engagement: No namecalling and no empty shitposting. Think a chaper/snippet/other poster's comment was garbage? That's fine. Want to say it? Perfectly acceptable. However, I only ask that you justify it. This is more so that people don't shift from simply calling each other idiots to calling each other's posts idiotic. It's semantics, but hopefully it helps.
[WARNING WARNING] I have been politely asked to remind readers that Taylor Hebert is 15 years old, and that one should think on the cultural and legal implications of this fact before driving discussions in certain directions. I post this per the request.
[WARNING WARNING]
Okay, index and new snippet. As always, thanks for reading.
Index:
Breath 1.1
Breath 1.2
Breath 1.3
Breath 1.4
Breath 1.5
Breath 1.6
Breath 1.7
Excellence 2.1.1
Excellence 2.1.2
Excellence 2.2.1
Excellence 2.2.2
Excellence 2.2.3
Excellence 2.2.4
Excellence 2.3.1
[*******Begin thread 2*******]
Excellence 2.3.2 (Below)
Excellence 2.3.3
Excellence 2.3.4
Excellence 2.3.5
Intermission: Daniel
Essence 3.1.1
Essence 3.1.2
Essence 3.1.3
Essence 3.1.4
Essence 3.2.1
[*******]
One lightning fast spread of rumor later and the rest of the present Wards were lounging in the break room munching on mini sandwiches. Noises of appreciation washed over the room as everyone devoured their share. I sat back on one of the couches after having my fill, balancing my bewilderment with my new skill with my consternation at the powers-that-be.
After a minute or two passed and everyone was more or less done eating, I threw my cards on the table.
"So, what are the chances that me not being told anything about that engagement was a set up for a big test?"
Chatter ceased and my peers all exchanged glances at each other. Everyone looked to Dennis as the first one to respond- Carlos wasn't in the room. Dennis shrugged, not even making a joke. Missy spoke up first.
"It sounds crazy, you know? But we all have stories of nonsensical orders or inaccurate intel. I think it was a little creepy they did this to you on your first outing, but then again I'd keep in mind that no one at all accounted for the pocket dimension. I think if things had been ideal you would have encountered them on stage then been overrun by PRT agents from all sides the moment they appeared. Glory Girl and a total newbie would be a tempting enough force to attempt to attack, you know? Assuming you knew you could handle Glory Girl."
Dennis cut in next.
"Yeah, those two jokers can be pretty mean, but usually they don't go full lethal or even crippling versus heroes. They're assholes but they play the game. Leet doesn't make horrifically lethal death rays to vaporize us, we don't freeze him in time, space-warp cinder blocks around his ankles, and toss him into the bay. And that's just Wards-tier potential. Miss Militia . . . she has to go nonlethal when her power is a universal deadly weapon. She wants someone dead, they die. We're under heavy pressure to play nice, but everyone knows we're human and we can snap."
I was nodding my head with my eyes closed when Chris started mumbling, but his voice gained volume as he went on to become clearly audible.
"-about that, I really am, oh man. Ah, anyway, my orders were to film what went on during your debut fight, and to disable Leet's cameras. I was also to report on the ideal time for everyone to storm in. The cameras were autoprogrammed to film all capes, but when the pocket dimension opened I was cut off from input. That was definitely not accounted for."
After he finished, I stood up.
"Ah, Taylor," Missy said.
"Hmm?"
"I don't know if you caught it, but Piggot was kind of pissed off after the op before the briefing. Then she got a text, ducked into a conference room, and came out ten minutes later all stonefaced," said Missy.
I didn't have time to comment before Dennis interjected again.
"Yeah, Piggy's 'need to know' line was kind of out of character, even for her. You might not have been able to tell but she didn't look too happy saying it."
I, in fact, had been focused on my power at the time. When she said the words, I became aware that she was saying it to get a particular reaction. I then had mentally spun off into conspiracy theories and suspicions of incompetence. I hadn't considered her personal emotional context.
Mind whirling, I remembered to address my new team one last time before I retreated to my room.
"Thanks, guys. I'll try to not dwell on it too much."
Before anything else could be said I was gone.
[***]
And then I was in my room, dwelling on it too much. The internet was serving as a mediocre resource; even after I casually noticed the censorship filters in place, then proxied outside the country to continue browsing in peace. A few minutes later and I was seeing the Director's PRT service record.
Three minutes of reading later and I had more insight into her personality than I ever wanted. Only survivor of the famous failed raid on Nilbog, before they raised the wall around him. All but crippled from injuries, never to work in the field again.
There wasn't much commentary about her personality online because she was more of an internal face to the PRT. From what I understood of the talk of the Wards, she was a no-nonsense leader who didn't give an inch to anybody. Her way or the highway. I began to understand how such a person could have potentially squeezed constructive use out of anyone- she would just disregard their own feelings in any given matter.
Still, what did she have to gain by antagonizing me? I considered a dozen alternate ways she could have handled the debriefing. I considered my likely reactions in each.
I still couldn't shake off the feeling that this is exactly what they wanted me to do. Thinker speed chess? I'm getting paranoid.
As I mused I dug a tunnel through another couple asian VPNs, then a TOR node, then another proxy. I was only casually familiar with these things before I had my powers, but I was using them like a veteran. As a final step I found someone's home router with compromised firmware, hijacked the malware on it, and proceeded to start loading a handful of tools to its internal flash. I also referenced the existing malware's database of wherelese it had tried to spread, and grabbed hold of a few more compromised home routers around the world as well.
I then burrowed through another series of proxies, VPNs, and TOR nodes from that router. Once I was sure I would be able to notice any backtracing before they reached the first compromised router, I started some common script-kiddie class portscans and tests for various exploitable services exposed to the internet.
As I expected the vast majority of my paltry assault vanished as if falling into a black hole- as a properly firewalled network should respond. To my complete lack of surprise a few successes got through, revealing poorly configured Apache Tomcat implementations and other services ripe for the taking. About then I noticed a backtrace rapidly climbing through the first proxies and VPNs; the IP addresses came from all over the place simultaneously. I had the router wipe itself out and jumped to another I had ready.
This time I dove straight into the compromised server. No backtrace happened.
It's like there were hundreds of high-tech information warfare countermeasures arrayed around the PRT's entire network like a looming wall, and then there was just one section that was a typical American house's chain link fence.
I apparently had root access on a PRT web server. It wouldn't get me too far by itself, so I found a folder excluded from antivirus scanning and tossed in a keylogger. Confident I'd have a password in a few hours to a few days, I burned my second compromised router, carefully disassembled my chain of connections, and went to hit the sack.
I wasn't even impressed that I could pull all of this off; any normal human with the appropriate knowledge could have done the same thing. This particular feat of mine was simply artificially boosted skill, no superhuman crap involved. The horribly exploitable hole in security was neither unusual or special. The only question was if it was a honeypot. I'd find out soon enough.
As I faded to sleep I considered how I felt about this course of action. It could be called . . . no, it was definitely a betrayal, of sorts. But I couldn't feel bad about it. Piggot lied to me. She might not have wanted to. But something smelled bad, and I intended to find out what. Depending on what I discovered, I may even quietly continue to follow orders and not raise any hell.
Ha. Yeah, that sounds likely.
