Undertow 2.3
Undertow 2.3
Tuesday, 12:54pm, April 26th, 2005
Sam was already waiting for me when I pulled into the parking lot next to Bali Springs. After a brief greeting and an apology for springing the whole thing on him so suddenly, we began to make our way to the front entrance. As we walked, I cast a scrutinising eye over the exterior of the building, paying close attention to the decorative timber facade, looking for signs of weathering and wear that might indicate its quality to me up close. I made note of the orientation of the building as well, lining up the plans in my head with its street facing and mentally marking out the location of the two rooms I was most interested in, checking that the windows all still lined up to the plans I'd seen.
Based on the building's orientation, I surmised that the offices and the room likely containing the MDF were adjacent to the parking lot I pulled into. The wooden facade exterior had some weathering to it but was otherwise well maintained.
"So. Able to get someone to take notes after all?" I asked conversationally, taking a quick glance up at Sam to my side as we stepped into the building.
"Yeah. Jane's covering two of my classes and then I've got another friend taking the third for me."
"I hope you'll find it was worth it!" I enthused, peering around the reception as we walked up to the front desk. I greeted the receptionist - a young looking woman with brown skin, a big smile and a smooth voice - and gave her the details of our booking. She then offered us a small checklist to fill out some preferences for the treatments and directed us to some chairs we could sit in.
I turned around a little bit to face Sam, pondering over my sheet and its many options. I pored over the list, quickly filling in all the boring allergy and medicinal stuff. Then I moved on to the straightforward options, picking a basic relaxation massage and a herbal scrub, looking up to see if Sam had picked anything exotic before I finalised my choices.
As I glanced up, Sam turned his checklist away defensively as if he was hiding a test paper from me. I faltered and quietly directed my eyes back down to my own clipboard, wondering if I'd made a faux pas. As I quickly ticked off the remaining boxes, something caught my eye as I got to the bottom of the checklist. I flipped the sheet over, honing in on some writing in a small font on the bottom right corner.
For more discreet services, ask the manager about a buttermilk scrub.
I quickly flipped the page back down, doing my best to put on a poker face. It wasn't the most subtle of hints, but it was innocuous enough to go unnoticed if you weren't looking for it - and exactly the sort of thing you would look for if you were interested in 'discreet services'.
If I asked, I could probably downplay it and act embarrassed, I suppose. Going through with it might give me some insight as to where the girls are, and I could turn it down when the time comes... but with Sam here, that's a super awkward proposition. And it feels wrong.
No. I would pass. I'd already decided what I was here to get, and I would do just that. No need to improvise.
I made no comment, taking a step back from Sam as I turned to him again, just to be clear about not peeking at his sheet. We handed off our checklists to the receptionist and then made our way through to the changing rooms at her instruction. I stripped down, stowed my belongings in one of the lockers, and donned a robe before making my way through to something called a 'Garra pond', where I met up with Sam again.
Still mindful of my goals, I kept the context of the building layout in my head as I moved through to the next room. Some new walls had definitely been put up in order to segment the building further - but on a macro scale, the floorplan was unchanged, with all supporting walls marked in the blueprint still present. Stepping out into the Garra pond, I saw a small rounded pool set into the floor of the space, dressed up to look like a pond you might find at a park or a fancy backyard. There were a number of small fountains and water features feeding into the crystal clear water, which was filled with dozens and dozens of tiny fish, a number of which were currently swarming the feet of the three other people sitting around the pond.
"Wow..." Sam muttered as he exited the men's changing room and joined me.
"This place seems pretty up market," I admitted to him, making my way over to the pond to avail myself of the… fish pedicure?
Sam took a seat beside me, trying and failing not to squirm as the fish began to gather around his toes.
"Nice to know your hard work is being appreciated."
"More like you were probably right about me spending too much time at my job," I responded dryly, not bothering to try not to squirm and letting out a soft squeal instead as I flexed my toes, slowly acclimatising to the sensation.
Sam let out a laugh and then clamped his mouth shut as the other patrons flashed him a dirty look.
"Whoops," he whispered.
I let out a bit more of a restrained giggle, partially at the continued nibbling and partially at the situation he'd found himself in.
"It's a little hard for me to disengage," I continued conversationally after a moment. "I'm still thinking about work right now, you know. It just kinda continues on its own in the back of my mind sometimes. Hopefully I'll get some real good out of this trip."
"Well as long as it's not at the front of your mind, I suppose that's something."
I continued to look around, letting the sights of the place sink in... Discreetly checking for security cameras and making a final mental note of what the room implied about the layout, pushing myself to be as fastidious as I possibly could be in light of my sense of duty. So far, I'd clocked two cameras in the reception area, and now a third looking over the pond. After spending probably way too much time processing the details of the environment and neatly filing it away in my memory palace, I leaned back and closed my eyes, finally letting myself relax for a little bit.
Some other customers came and went and after about 20 minutes, two young looking women - one Asian and one Middle Eastern - came into the room to collect us. We were led down a hallway and into a large, well decorated room, with two massage tables set out in the middle.
"Would you like me to draw the privacy curtain?" The Asian woman asked.
I went to wave it down, indicating not to bother - having rarely been bothered with it with others in the past - and then I stopped, remembering how Sam avoided looking at me when I came downstairs earlier today.
"Oh, uhh," I stalled, looking over at Sam with a shrug.
"Um... I'd like the curtain please." Sam said a little awkwardly.
Entirely unconcerned, I nodded firmly in support of Sam's decision. The Asian woman smiled and drew a curtain up between the tables to conceal our bodies from each other, though we were still able to see each other's faces. The woman took my robe and helped me up onto the table to lie face down. She rubbed some oil over my back and then started the massage, based on my chosen preferences from the form.
I closed my eyes and let the masseuse do her thing, relaxing my body while my mind drifted. I re-envisioned the hallway we walked down, mentally ticking off the walls and partitions, again clocking any cameras, particularly noting any other visible doors and signage, adding everything to my mental map just in case it would be useful.
I opened my mouth to ask Sam what treatment he was currently getting behind the curtain, and then decided not to pry, just to be safe.
Instead, once my collation of the layout thus far was complete, I let my mind drift once more to blueprints of Data Knives, anti-gravity explosives, hard-light training dummies, and the other various concepts floating around in my head.
The next two hours drifted by in calm, relaxing bliss. The massage and body scrub finished, the woman helped me back to my feet and offered the robe again as she directed me towards a shower for washing off the scrub before going to the hot springs. I shrugged into the robe and thanked her, proceeding through to the shower and then the hot springs once I was clean, opting for the mixed gender pool.
A few minutes later - and to my pleasant surprise - Sam joined me, slipping into the spring a conservative distance from me and only removing the towel around his waist after he was submerged.
"Hooooo... That's nice."
"I thought you'd opt for privacy again," I muttered, not teasingly but merely observationally.
"I thought about it, but it seemed kinda rude to not join you since you invited me. Where'd all this confidence come from suddenly? …If you don't mind my asking?"
"Oh, I've... never really been bothered by it so much... It's only really embarrassing if someone else finds it embarrassing. I don't want to... make you uncomfortable, though, like I did when I came down from my room. I'm pretty sure we could talk over the barrier, if you'd prefer, but it is probably a little easier to chat here. I thought I'd leave it all up to you," I explained.
"I'm okay here. I never would have guessed you were embarrassed because I was."
"Well, I mean - sure, accidents happen, but I was embarrassed because I didn't mean to, uhh... well! Just because I'm okay with my body, doesn't mean exposing other people to it who aren't of the same opinion isn't really poor behaviour, you know? It's... rude, impolite."
"Yeah," he acknowledged.
"But, well, here you know what you're signing up for, I guess," I ventured, and Sam nodded sagely.
"You been enjoying yourself?" he asked.
"I think I've been getting what I came here for," I answered truthfully; in all honesty, also feeling quite relaxed, although somewhat energised beneath that layer. "My masseuse did a good job. How about yours?"
"My shoulders haven't felt this loose in ages. I'm gonna have to do some painting when I get home." Sam chuckled softly.
I let out a gentle laugh along with him.
"I wonder if you'll find an improvement in your work or not?" I asked, opening my eyes again to look at him, checking whether he was looking back at me, or elsewhere, or had his eyes closed like I did.
He was looking in my direction, making eye contact when possible. I liked that.
"Maybe~" he answered playfully.
"I'm gonna get up out of the water for a minute," I said by way of fair warning, having spent a few minutes heating up and ready to take a short break. I lifted my arms up out of the water behind myself, preparing to raise myself up, pausing for just a moment in case Sam wanted to avert his eyes.
He did as much. Closing his eyes and tilting his head up to point at the sky. I slowly pulled myself out, dripping as I sat myself up on the edge, lowering the towel down to my lap.
"You've never done something like this before painting, before, then?" I asked.
"You mean painting nude subjects?" Sam asked with a hint of incredulity, keeping his gaze firmly upwards.
I let out another soft laugh.
"I meant relaxing and getting a massage to see if it helps you with the detail work or something, but I like your question more."
"No, I don't usually go to spas. Not usually something that's in my budget, even with my current circumstances. I have painted nude subjects before, but they're professional models, and I'm doing it in a room full of other people also painting the same nude person. It's… not the same as looking at my roommate, slash friend, slash landlord while she's nude in a hot spring with me," he answered candidly.
"Think it makes a big difference? Being so much more... impersonal, about it, I suppose?"
"Absolutely," he asserted.
"For better or worse, do you reckon?"
"That is a much more difficult question… that my brain is too mushy to answer right now," he responded with another little chuckle.
I opened my eyes and fixed him with a stare, banking on catching him looking at me. His eyes were still shut and directed skyward.
Such a damn gentleman.
I let out a little chuckle and slid forwards to sink back into the hot water, moving my towel back up to my head and sinking back down to my shoulders. Sam gave a tentative glance down to me and then lowered his head, seeing I was now back in the water.
I spent another five minutes or so submerged, opting for idle chatter about Sam's classes, the news, or whatever came up, and then slipped out again - giving fair warning once more. While Sam was ostensibly not looking at me at all, I glanced back over to the main building, once again observing with a critical eye. Now that I'd had a chance to see it in person and think about it, Aiko was right. It was entirely plausible that a basement room had been added underneath the building when the springs were built.
I dipped back down for a third and final short soak before deciding I was done and letting Sam know as much, giving him the opportunity to be his polite self before I stood upright to exit the spring. Sam averted his eyes as I climbed out and departed the area, joining me again a few moments later once we were both covered. Another staff member came over and showed us back to the changing rooms to dry off and dress once more.
As I prepared to exit to the main area, I produced from my purse something I'd prepared the other day while working on my Data Knives. A small USB drive - one of three I'd brought - which I put just hidden mostly out of the way at the base of one of the lockers, where someone coming through to clean would see it. With any luck, they'd be dumb enough to plug it into one of the office computers and the malware program loaded on it would give me remote access to the machine even after the USB was unplugged.
I pocketed another USB, ready to seize an opportunity to plant it somewhere in or near the reception area on my way past, out of sight of the cameras I observed on the way in. Sam was waiting for me at the reception desk, currently filling out something on a clipboard. The receptionist turned to me with a smile.
"Would you mind filling out a quick survey to let us know how your experience was?"
"Of course!" I said, reaching out to take the proffered survey.
At the far end of the reception, I spotted a chair next to a side table with a potted plant and some magazines on it - it seemed to be just in the blindspot of the cameras. I waltzed over and planted myself down, clicking my pen a few times while I palmed the USB and then placed it carefully into the stack of magazines, making it look as though it may have fallen out of someone's pocket. Spycraft completed, I finished up the survey itself - standard fare I made sure to rate them highly on - and handed it in before returning to Sam.
"Heading home now?" Sam asked as we made our way out to the parking lot.
"I need to pick something up from the shops, so you'll beat me home," I replied.
"Back for dinner though?"
"I should be," I weaselled. "Might be a bit late, but no later than seven thirty, alright? I'll send you a text when I'm on my way back?"
"Awesome. I'll be sure to have dinner ready by seven forty-five then. See ya soon!" He gave me a wave goodbye.
I waved back, opening the door and getting into my car, then pulling out my phone to fiddle with it until he pulled out. Once he was gone, I wound a window down and peeled out, tossing the final USB out onto the pavement to clatter in towards the walkway along the outside of the building - basically no security system was going to save camera footage at a bitrate high enough to even spot the tiny little thing without forensic analysis, or so I gambled.
I already knew exactly where to go to get materials for Reef's costume, having done all the research the first time around making my own. After hitting the outdoor/sporting goods store, a textile outlet, and a hobby shop, I pulled back up to the lab a little under two hours later, just before 7pm.
I found Aiko munching on some taiyaki as I unloaded my recent purchases, and we spent some time going over the sketches she'd worked on in my absence. I told Aiko about my findings at Bali Springs, and explained the USB plan to her, after which she sheepishly admitted to ruining one of the mannequins and damaging the targets I'd left her with.
I cast my eyes over to survey the carnage for a moment before looking back at her with a barely exasperated sigh. There was some heavy denting in one of the targets I'd set up. As for the mannequins, the arms on one had been broken in half and the other had had its torso completely crushed just above the stomach, effectively cutting it in half.
"Oh well. They'll be cheap to replace, and I was kind of expecting you to smash them, so it's okay," I said with a forgiving smile. "Will you be alright here for the rest of the night?"
"Yeah. I'll be fine, there's a ton of sushi and stuff in the fridge and I ate a whole bunch at lunch so I'm not too hungry. Is there anything for me to do here about the USBs or is that all you?"
I shook my head.
"If they do pick them up and plug them in, it'll try to run some software that will install itself and then try to phone home. If they're really smart or well organised they might have their computers secured against that exploit, or maybe a policy in place to throw out USBs, but it only takes one person to think 'Oh, I'll just plug it in to see who it belongs to' and, welp, system's compromised. I think there's a good chance I might not need to use a Data Knife or sneak in personally if it works, but we'll see. Probably by tomorrow."
Aiko gave a thumbs up as she took another bite of taiyaki.
With that, I gave Aiko the suggestion to look up some sewing and dyeing tutorials and a warm farewell before heading back to the apartment. Unfortunately, traffic was not on my side on the drive home, and it was approaching 7:45 before I made it back. A sheepish smile and an apology on my part was met with some light teasing - followed by a meal of herb-seared chicken with roasted vegetables and a lemon-y sauce that beat anything I could have ordered off a menu. I thanked Sam again for joining me and for the meal before retiring to my room to spend a few hours working on the software components of my Data Knife concept and then conking out.
The next day got off to an excellent start as I rolled over to check my phone for notifications.
Software upload successful.
You beauty!
I let out an approving grunt and pumped my fist in the air victoriously. I quickly climbed out of bed and set about getting dressed and fixing myself some toast as I shot Aiko a text to let her know we'd got a bite and we'd find out what we'd caught when I got to the workshop.
A response quickly followed.
Aiko: 🖕
I hung my jaw open in bewilderment, until a second text came through.
Aiko: Crap. Wrong one.
Aiko: 🤞 ✌️
Aiko: 🤞 ✌️
I chuckled to myself before shooting off a response of my own.
Annelise: See you soon! 👋😉🖕
Aiko: 😛
Aiko: 😛
Well, she's getting the hang of texting pretty quickly, which is good.
I cleaned up after myself quickly and then headed back down to the car to head to 'work'.
Cautiously optimistic, I pulled up, dropped the roller door, and proceeded into the back, calling out cheerily to Aiko.
"Hi- Ow! Fuck! Hothothothothot!" came the reply from above.
Up on the mezzanine I caught Aiko doing a ridiculous dance as she tried to dodge away from an invisible foe and quickly resorted to pulling her shirt off.
"Everything OK?" I called out to her, pausing on my way over to the computers to peer cautiously up in her direction, in case she needed any help quickly.
"Spilt coffee over myself. It was so hot!" She came downstairs a few moments later in just a sports bra and some loose pants, tossing some paper towels into the bin before offering me a takeout cup.
"Oh, you got some for me too?" I lit up happily as I relieved her of the offered cup, holding it up to my lip to test the temperature.
"Yeah! Seemed rude not to. Careful."
As I held it to my lips, I pulled back reflexively. It was very hot. With a chuckle, I set it back down at my desk a little bit away from my keyboard and a few stacks of loose papers, dropping down into my chair.
"Thanks, Aiko. Oh, uhh, do you need any more cash yet?" I asked as I turned around to face the screens, logging in and bringing up a terminal.
"I'll probably be okay for the next day or two but who cares about that?! What did we get!?!" She leaned over to me very eagerly, pressing up close as she looked over my shoulder at my computer screen.
Proudly I issued a command that printed a little text-formatted ASCII table, with one entry, denoting a single remote shell currently dialled into my server for me to run commands on.
"Ta-da!" I said, gesturing grandly at what probably looked like a useless mess of alphanumeric jargon to her. "Now, to be fair, we don't know what we'll get. It might not be incredible. Especially if they're old-school and do all their books by hand... but who knows. If we get a little bit lucky - maybe incriminating evidence, stuff we can use to track down higher-ups and other important locations."
"So can we look through their files or do we have to wait for them to do stuff?"
"Well, let's find out! We might need to. Right now, I have a shell running on some computer, most likely one of the ones at Bali Springs that's probably on their internal network. Lets see here..."
I intertwined my fingers and stretched, palms out, before leaning forwards and attaching to the remote shell. I ran some commands, looked at some outputs, a few walls of text denoting the extent of hardware accessible to the shell, trying to find some clues to put together a picture of exactly what they'd plugged my USB into.
A point of sale, perhaps? Or an office computer?
A few minutes of browsing around coupled with context clues told me this was most likely the reception computer, but it was connected to some other systems. There were records for bookings, some email communications, employee rosters, maintenance scheduling…
"We've got some records, some correspondence, rosters, stuff like that," I explained to Aiko in a stilted manner between rapid typing. "I'm grabbing what I can now, and I'm hoping, if we're lucky, that their cameras aren't closed-circuit, because then we might be able to take a peek..."
A few more minutes of searching, rooting and querying passed and I was left disappointed.
The cameras were on a closed circuit, or at the very least, they weren't on the same network I currently had access to. Furthermore, any other truly useful pieces of info that I might have hoped to access didn't reveal themselves to me. Nothing related to finances or transactions, and there was a distinct lack of administrative communication, files or the like.
"Damn..." I muttered softly as I probed a few other avenues to confirm what I already knew. "Ahh, well, can't win them all so easily..."
I leaned back in my chair, idly watching the download progress as my program pillaged their devices for what minimal lesser-secured data remained available, pondering the next move.
"What? Is it no good?" Aiko asked, sounding somewhat distressed.
"We got in, and we got some stuff to go through. Might be some useful stuff in here, but might not be. No cameras on that net... And there's other stuff missing too. I'm pretty sure there's another network there, physically segregated. That will be where all the administrative stuff is, and possibly the cameras. But I've gotten everything I likely can out of the USB trick."
Aiko frowned and her brow creased with frustration. There was a slight crumpling sound as she squeezed her coffee cup just a bit.
I liked to think I'd gotten to know Aiko pretty well, even though it had only been a couple of days. I'd seen her at probably one of her lowest lows and what I hoped was one her highest highs in recent years. She was visibly fighting the urge to lash out in anger. I reached out and steadily placed a hand softly on her wrist above the cup; with my other hand I reached out to gently take it from her, intending to set it down and lean in for a hug.
It took a bit of effort to wrest the cup from her hand and the moment I did she tightened it into a white-knuckle fist. She made no move to close herself off from the hug I wanted to give, but she didn't open up for it either. From the look on her face, I wasn't sure she even recognised I was beside her right now. Her silence was deafening.
Instead of a hug, I left one hand on her wrist and reached across her to put my other hand firmly on her shoulder to ground her.
"Aiko. This cost us nothing to get, and we haven't struck out yet. We're so far from out of the game it's not even funny, we've got so many options left it's just a matter of deciding which one to take; like I said, can't win everything that easy, and if they were really that vulnerable, some other hacker would have fragged their system for laughs or blackmail long before I came along. This was just the opening salvo, okay? A ranging shot. We didn't get everything, but we were prepared to get nothing out of this. This is good."
"We got nothing. We wasted a day talking about playing dress-up then you went and got a massage..." Her voice was tight as she spoke, rage boiling just beneath the surface.
I faltered, recoiling back in slow motion, leaning back into my chair with a distraught expression. The soft tugging at her shoulder stopped as my hand slowly slid back with me, my hand on her wrist dropping down to dangle off the arm of my chair. I opened my mouth to say something and then shut it again a moment later, my brain having failed to supply anything to respond with in time. I just sat and let her statement twist in the air unanswered.
"It's not over," I insisted stubbornly after a few moments, my tone a little bit lacklustre.
Aiko continued to just stand still, rigid with anger, still fighting the desire to just explode with anger.
And then she lost.
Her head snapped to the left in the direction of the practice range and the tentacle erupted out of her arm. It lanced towards the mannequin with broken limbs and closed around its throat before proceeding to slam it into the ground over and over again until the torso was nothing but shattered plastic. She retracted the tentacle, pulling the head of the mannequin to her other hand and it expanded into the shape of a giant, inky black crab claw, using it to effortlessly crush the head as if it was made of paper.
I jerked away as she lashed out violently, kicking out to roll my chair away from her as she used her power so close, so suddenly and so angrily. I pushed up to my feet abruptly once I had a few feet of separation and continued to back away as my chair careened off somewhere behind me. Heart pounding and eyes wide, I kept my gaze fixed on her, save for the moment I glanced away to locate the Lightreach.
Once the mannequin head exploded in the grip of her power and her sudden outburst started to subside, I slowly came to a stop, most of the way backed up to the weapon stand holding the Lightreach upright, my hand halfway behind me, frozen damningly mid-reach for it.
I blinked at her once, twice in the ensuing silence, uncomfortably still, remembering what she did to the people at the Buena, what she did to the person who begged for their life. That sickening crunch a deafening echo in my ears.
A deathly silence hung in the air as Aiko took a few deep breaths, the claw slowly withdrawing back into her arm.
"Tonight." She said, her voice not as tense but still hard, adamant. "We go tonight and we do it your way. Or I leave tomorrow and I go back to doing it my way."
She didn't mean it as a threat. It was a statement of fact.
AN: Definitely not as happy with this chapter as I could be. 😕 I said the forecast was sunny with a chance of asskicking last chapter but life really got in the way of things these last two weeks. On top of work, I had to fly out of state for a few days for a big job interview and then when I got back, it was finally time to graduate from university after three and a half long years!
On top of all that, I discovered as I was writing that there was actually a whole lot of stuff that came between Lise leaving for Bali Springs and the brief throwdown that will occur there. It was too much to manage as a single chapter in order to finish in time, so I made the call to split it in two in order to have something ready for this week.
Because the next chapter is already partially written, I'm hoping to get it out a week ahead of schedule but I can't make any promises. Here's to hoping you'll all stick around until it releases.
Thanks as always to Casey for beta'ing and thanks for reading!
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