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Players Involved: Hek (GM), Delphine
Notes to Staff:
This is the first in a series of plots related to Aztechnology working to counteract Wuxing's success in with Consumer Goods in the Denver area.
(+bbread 4.4/5)
Summary:
Delphine is hired by Aztechnology as a 'matrix researcher' and tasked with looking into Cartwright Cartage and Freight Inc, a Wuxing subsidary. After some difficulty she manages to deck into the system and obtain personnel files, shipping records, and information about properties owned by CCF in the Denver area.
=============================> Corporate Rumors <==============================
You receive word from Aztechnology Human Capital Department (Wed Dec 10 18:48:19 2014):
Job Title: Senior Matrix Researcher
Skills: Information Searches, Systems Analysis
Pay Rate: Negotiable
Length: Contract to Permanent
Location: Denver
Job Description:
Working as part of the Marketing team, the Senior Matrix Researcher will be responsible for conducting information searches and systems analysis in the Denver regional area. This is a contract position with Aztechnology in the Denver region. The successful candidate will be a self starter who is able to work well under pressure, while meeting tight time lines.
Interest parties should contact Aztechnology Human Capital at <OOC: Contact Hek, plot related>
------> Posted by Hek (#10968) <-----—
The Quebecois ex-corper sits at the Pentabucks near her apartment, which has become something of a regular haunt of hers in the past few weeks — a place to keep a soykaf buzz going long and steady as she handles her legitimate biz from the public dataterms that the cafe offers. The Aztechnology Human Capital Department offer catches her eye…
Self-preservationally paranoid, Delphine begins to poke around the edges of what might be really going on, to result in Aztechnology's Human Capital department looking to fill a matrix research position. Her contacts express some surprise that she has not been keeping up on what is public knowledge. Specifically that Aztechnology has transferred on of their Managing Directors in the marketing department into the Denver area in order to compete with, and hopefully roll back some of the gains that Wuxing has made in the consumer technology markets over the last couple of quarters.
There are plenty of opinions on both sides of the issue when it comes to taking jobs like this with a triple A rated mega corp. While some advise extreme caution, others point the benefits of 'job security'. The public nature of the posting implies that the job is likely low risk, to the point of being legal.
Corporations are notoriously risk adverse, and one can surmise that the position was vetted through the legal department before it made it anywhere near the corporate job boards and into the hands of various recruiters.
-----> Message #5 on Board Nightly News <----—
Posted By: Hek (#10968)
Date/Time: Wed Nov 19 21:48:42 2014
Subject: Corporate News Network
CNN Wire Service
19/11/2074 @ 19:30
In North American corporate news, Aztechnology has announced the promotion of Mr. Juan Eduardo Garcia Ruiz to the position of Managing Director for the North American consumer goods division. Mr. Garcia Ruiz will be relocating to the Denver metropolitan area in order to directly oversee the product marketing and sales functions for the world renowned mega corporation.
According to the Aztechnology press release, the company intends to compete aggressively with Wuxing in the North American market. Executives with Aztechnology have been forced into a defensive posture by investors and board members who are questioning Wuxing's focused advances in the consumer technology sector, long one of Aztechnology's strongest markets. The Aztechnology board believes the Denver metroplex, specifically its Free Trade Zone, represents a dynamic market in which Aztechnology will be able to demonstrate the wide ranging appeal of their products to the broadest consumer base available in North America.
While AZT stock has yet to recover the year to date losses that have been the result of a few lack luster product launches, the market responded favorably to the news and sent shares of the AAA rated megacorp up one and a half percent in after hours trading on the Nikkei exchange.
Out of sheer curiosity, Delphine sends a resume to the AZT HC Dept. She spotlights her experience in matrix-related fields, both directly and indirectly, and makes sure to indicate her capacity for mediating, multiple language fluency and understanding of corporate etiquette in delicate matters.
There are few assets operating in the metroplex who possess the necessary skills to construct a CV able to pass the background screen of a triple A mega corporate entity like Aztechnology. Apparently Delphine is one of those individuals, given the response that she receives via trix mail roughly twenty-four hours after submitting the information. The speed with which the data is processed begins to hint at the internal priority given to the need to fill the position. Details for the interview location are provided, including an address in the Downtown FTZ and the time of the appointment.
Delphine takes the necessary mental steps to become her fake SIN-ed alter ego, Monique Dauphin. She styles her hair differently, alters her attire in a slightly different manner and hopes for the best by submitting false info to AZT of all the corps. She understands she's taking a very big risk on this, but she needs an opportunity to get ahead right now, and is willing to take longshots in order to do so. With only the brief 24 hour window to mentally prepare, the woman is slightly nervous, but she thrives on this, lives for the challenge.
"Monique" arrives 5 minutes early, watching the time carefully on a mental HuD that she keeps running in her field of vision.
The environment no doubt brings back twinges of familiarity for Delphine. Though every corporation has minor variations and flourish that distinguish them from each other, on the surface one could be mistaken for being unable to separate the interior of one top tier megacorporate office from another. There is a sense of newness to everything, from the exotic wood of the reception desk, to the polished stone floors and freshly painted walls. While the mind knows that the office has been open for quite some time, it none the less presents the image of having been recently renovated.
Twenty plus stories above the ground floor, the occupants of the office go about their business with the stern efficiency of those who are blessed with the relative safety of the megacorporate existence. Insulated from the gritty realities of the street, they move with self important airs while carrying out the unimportant, in the grand scheme of things, wishes of their executive overlords.
The interview is just another task for them in the middle of a work day filled with an endless supply of them. It is handled with efficiency and the thinnest veneer of hospitality expected in such situations. Refreshments are offered as Monique is escorted into the office of a low level manager. The man is predictably browned in skin tone as one would expect given the corporation in question. Dressed in an off the rack suit that has been tailored to fit him, the only thing that distinguishes him from any other corporate drone is the Aztechnology lapel pin slash asset tag in suit coat.
"Thank you for taking the time to respond to our job position." The man begins the process, his brown eyes fixed comfortably on Monique. "My team has reviewed your CV and I agree with their assessment that you possess the potential to be a good fit with our operations here in the Denver area."
Monique greets the man efficiently, returning a handshake if he offers, and seating herself. She holds her posture straight and avoids leaning back in her seat. "Excellent," she replies to the interviewer's assessment. She waits for further questions, speaking when spoken to.
Delphine aka Monique blends into the environment with alacrity, easily putting Jorge, the man behind the desk, at ease. Her natural charisma and mastery of all the right buzzwords soon have the man sold on his desire to have her on his team. With that out of the way, he details the structure of the position and its corresponding responsibilities.
As part of their expanded marketing efforts, Aztechnology needs a competent matrix asset to conduct opposition research. Before details are provided, a Non Disclosure Agreement is provided which Monique signs, knowing quite well that refusing to do so would cut the interview short. With the legalities out of the way, Jorge explains that position is a contract position, with the potential for full time if Monique's work product is satisfactory. Tasks will be provided one at a time, for the foreseeable future, as long as Monique desires to continue the relationship.
The first task is a 'go to' on Cartwright Cartage and Freight Incorporated, a Wuxing subsidiary located in Denver. Jorge, like the risk-mitigating corporate drone that he is, speaks vaguely at a high level not providing much detail beyond explaining that the process he likes to go through with his team is conduct research as one of the initial phases of developing an effective marketing strategy. Monique is expected to contribute to that effort by acquiring details about the extent of CCF's operations in the Denver metroplex, implicitly by information searches and direct access to their matrix host.
Due to her status as a contractor, Jorge provides her with the 'opportunity' to work offsite, along with flexible hours on the condition that she meets the project deadlines and delivers a suitable work product that is up to the standards he expects of his employees.
Monique expertly steers the conversation towards tools and after some back and forth with Jorge about the corporate procurement process and how much help can be provided to outside contractors versus inside employees, the low level manager concedes that it is in everyone's best interests if Monique has the resources at her disposal to increase the likelihood of success in the endeavors that she has been tasked with. Compensation is settled by providing her access to source code for a sleaze utility and a couple thousand in certified credit.
Leveraging publicly available, open source information, Delphine is able to track down an address for Cartwright Cartage and Freight. Not surprisingly, they are leasing office space in one of the office towers that stretches up out of the Downtown FTZ and into the thin air of the Mile High City. Many months old street view shots show the same sort of anonymous glass and steel tower that could have been designed by the same architect who did any of a dozen other buildings within a mile wide radius. It does not take a detective or trained security contractor to estimate that the zone is at least rated A on a traditional security scale.
The Triangle District
This sector drips with wealth, but not just wealth: power. Skyscrapers glitter like silver spires here, rising into the clouds above the pristine streets below. Each silver-tinted window marks another office, another nerve center in one of Denver's hottest power-broker arenas. Standing out even here, the Yamaha Motors building sprawls over a city block, surrounded by the smaller silver towers.
Two skyrakers rise up on either side of the Denver Convention Center as if they are sentinels, guarding the smaller building against all comers. The Ares Macrotechnology logo is prominent on many surfaces here, on the cameras and corporate sponsored smart kiosks that litter the street like little silver-faceted jewels, relaying the correct time, weather, and local news to the businessman on the go.
Security: Knight Errant (Gov)
Sec Rating: AAA
Delphine's first course of action is to take a drive through the area where the Wuxing subsidiary is physically located: The Triangle District. The constant flashing of the Ares logos in the area make her grimace, but she has a goal, and there's no time to dwell on old corp-instilled biases right now. She parks her BMW in an inconspicuous location about a block away from the tower that houses the freight company and considers her options.
In the heart of the corporate world, everything is catalogued, categorized and accounted for. That includes parking locations, which are strictly an interior only affair. Sure, there are streets and traffic flows on those streets, but thanks to the persistent threat of vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices in the modern urban security environment, curb side parking is a thing of the past. Pedestrian crowds are much too soft of a target and so the threats must be mitigated by all means necessary.
A few public parking structures are available. They are multi-level, automated facilities that require a certified credstick to access. Stationary cameras capture the comings and goings of those who use them, recording faces and plate numbers that are then retained for who knows how long. The only other options are the garages of the buildings themselves, whose access is limited to those exclusive few who are employed by companies leasing space in those buildings.
Throughout the district, the GridGuide keeps traffic flowing in an orderly fashion. Other than the occasional delivery courier on a rush assignment who disengages the AutoNAV, 100% of traffic is controlled by the efficient system
The area firmly resists her attempts to park. Damn this corporate environment of fear disguised as safety. Unfortunately, she hasn't been able to have her morphing license plates installed yet, but she does have her transponder library running to spoof the gridguide tracking system, for what its worth. She should have realized the defensive stance of the district before even attempting to venture in, but in her desire to begin rebuilding her deck, she jumped without looking. She reroutes and sets a course for an area better suited to coming up with a plan of attack.
Del can't seem to avoid that damn Pentabucks no matter how hard she tries. It's almost become a ritual of hers to stop in for a soykaf when she contacts her decker. She and Malakai used to work together, back when they were both coming up in the world. The world of Cross Applied Technologies that is. Until Del was unceremoniously thrown into the shadows and Malakai was forced to go double agent and insinuate himself into the Ares corporate world. Cross kept its hooks in them both, but they had history together and that kept them in touch. Sympathetic to each others' positions, Del calls up her old friend and requests yet another favor…
The conversation with Malakai is as short as it can be while still remaining polite and cordial. The decker expresses his optimism when he learns that the forced retirement from Cross has not hindered Delphine's ability to find work. In fact he is more than willing to help her get her consulting career going by helping her locate a place to work from. After a 475 nuyen credit transfer, an encrypted trixmail shows up in a throw away inbox a few minutes later. The contents are simple, just an address that turns out to be in Chinatown.
The triads, of course. Who else would be able to provide quality matrix access to the discerning, privacy conscious consumer on short notice? A quick search of the address reveals that it is a tea shop tucked down an alley off of one of the main streets.
Del takes her overly-elaborate coffee to go. Even though she's ridiculously underprepared for this job, she's operating by the old maxim, "Fake it 'til you make it." And she needs this job to work out. Working for AZT is not necessarily the ideal gig, but it's -A- gig and that's all that matters right now. A brisk walk across the street sees the woman entering her apartment building and taking the elevator up to the Delta floor, east wing, apartment 21. She hastily changes out of her current suit, sits before the vanity to apply a polymask, then redresses in a keen white powersuit with slacks that fit tight at the hips and billow by the time they reach the ankle. She slips a few choice items into a snap-tight briefcase and descends to the garage to fetch her Beemer.
Chen is more than happy to accept a couple hundred nuyen for a brief discussion of what is going on in Chinatown. It turns out that other than the intermittent protests against Shiawase, that part of the plex is pretty quiet like one would expect. The Red Dragon triad keeps the peace and everyone is content with the order of things. Speaking of those nefarious characters, they are also in the business of providing black market matrix services like the kind that one visits tea shops for. Chen has heard of it and assures Delphine that it is as legitimate as an illegitimate operation like that can be. The triads are not in the business of ripping off paying customers.
The visit with Chen is uplifting to Del's spirits, but her face shows nothing. Her normally wooden features are made even moreso by the application of the half-Japanese featured polymask. She ends the call as she settles into her GHT-50 and jacks into the Virtual Dash.
Chinatown is one of the more pedestrian dense portions of the metroplex, primarily due to cultural reasons. Large, extended families packed into tight apartment style housing and a history of living within a close knit community leaves people little reason to own vehicles. None the less, parking near the tea shop is easy enough to come by in the form of a parking garage at one end of the commercial block. Twenty nuyen for the day and as much reassurance that the vehicle and its contents will be safe as one can expect in any sort of public parking arrangement.
The trip to the tea shop is an uneventful walk of about a block and a half. Delphine sticks out a bit, given her decidedly uptown corporate look in a rather middle class sector. None the less, she soon enough finds herself being shuffled into the back room of a shop that on the surface seems to have nothing to do with technology. The air is filled with the scent of teas and herbs, and all of the signs are in Chinese. The space that the proprietor provides is no larger than a small closet, in fact, that is probably what the architect intended. Now it has a small shelf, a folding chair and a matrix jack. Some nod has been given to hospitality in the form of a few bottles of water, and some snacks that actually look rather healthy.
After cautioning Delphine that, "You bring no trouble here!" with a wagging finger, the proprietor leaves Delphine to her business.
Delphine's keen eye notices a few elements that are out of place for a spot that deals primarily in tea and herbs. Another door, off of the closet that she is ensconced in, has been secured by an expensive and complex looking maglock, complete with keypad and fingerprint scanner. While concealed throughout the shop are half a dozen security cameras, including one keeping an eye on what goes on inside of the closet.
Delphine offers her most polite thanks for the use of the facility and proceeds to shutter herself away in the meatbody storage locker before jacking in. The water and snacks are not even considered to be an option, though the hospitality is given a grudging nod. The aspiring AZT consultant seats herself in the folding chair facing the door, and removes her deck from the briefcase. Deck goes in lap, briefcase goes under chair, and a deep breath goes into her lungs while she eyes the conspicuous jack with grim determination. She says a silent prayer to whatever she believes in and extends a cable from a retractable spool in the deck to connect with the wall. Another is pulled up to a point just behind her right ear. «LOGGING IN» Her vision goes black as the matrix rezzes in her mind.
Inside the small closet, the fans inside the deck whir to life as it starts suck in air to cool the internal components responsible for generating the virtual environemnt that Delphine finds her mind accepting as reality. A simple system, the plain UMS iconography of some local telco that runs the Chinatown LTG providing matrix connectivity to the local businesses. The previously provided MXP account allows her access to the system, no questions asked.
Del is oblivious to the world, to life as we know it once she hits the Chinatown LTG. Her Persona is as a Greek figure, draped in a digital representation of an ancient, white, single-shouldered robe. Another white and gold piece of fabric is draped over her head like the hood of a cloak. The Oracle begins her search.
Very few matrix researchers have the talent required to operate in the trix without the aid of a whole suite of programs to assist them in their task. That the Oracle can manage to convince the Denver RTG to grant her access speaks to her competence and familiarity with the telecommunications protocols that tie the matrix together. Soon the whole Denver metroplex, at least its digital representation, spreads out beneath her feet as the robed Oracle rises up out of Chinatown and surveys the sights before her.
The Oracle's iconography holds poses like a statue, seeming to shift from one stance to another without the limbs passing any intervening space as the circumstances dictate. Upon the first entry attempt, the Greek figure appears dismayed, eyes closed and head tilted down to conceal features beneath the white and gold embroidered hood. Hands are held out as though turning away from something in haste, and the cloak is frozen in motion behind her. The second attempt allows Delphine the information she searches for and the persona snaps into a pose like leaning down and cupping its hands together as though scooping a double handful of water from the surface of a small pool.
As the icon goes through its vogue like poses, in the meat world, Delphine's mind races a mile a second as she tries to mentally construct information access requests on the fly. The system is less than impressed with her first attempt to appear as a VPN tunnel routed into the FTZ subnet. The error codes generated by the first attempt give her enough of a clue to glean an idea of what a legitimate request should look like. Armed with that information, she manages to get the system to display the information required to route connections into the appropriate LTG.
Decking without the proper utilities is not easy work, and despite Delphine's best attempts to hack out legitimate looking logon packets with the tools inherent in her cyberdeck, the system wants nothing to do with her attempts to route traffic to it.
In an effort to break through into the proper LTG as quickly as possible, Oracle attempts to brute force the entry with a shifting of priorities. Subtlety be damned.
If at first you do not succeed…. Delphine is nothing but a quick learner it seems. With her brain directly connected into the data bus of the cyberdeck, she seemingly intuits the flow of the packets between her terminal and the remote routing hardware. A subtle tweak here, a minor variation there and the Oracle finds herself sucked down towards the surface of the Denver grid and into a more stylized neighborhood. In fact, it seems quite similar to the FTZ in the meat world. Clean streets and plenty of corporate architecture in the form of high rise towers that claw their way upwards into a virtual sky.
The Oracle holds a humble posture once the new environment is revealed, with arms gently folded beneath her breasts, hands lightly resting upon each opposing forearm. Her head is bowed, the face hidden as though in deference to the almighty matrix itself.
For as long as people have been using computers, the subject of user interface design has been a popular topic. The general consensus is that systems should leverage metaphors that the users are most familiar with. It should come as no surprise then that the Cartwright Cartage and Freight system presents itself as a large transhipment facility. Surrounded by four meter tall blast walls, the only entrance into the facility is represented as a guard post next to a re-enforced vehicle barrier.
The guard on duty accepts the Oracle's presence as he would any other legitimate employee. She is allowed into the facility without any hassle. The facility itself is a huge open area, with plenty of vehicles representing every transportation modality possible. From small motorcycles, through vans to semi-trucks and even helicopters, airplanes and sub-orbitals in the distance. A building that seems to serve as a warehouse and office is located not far from the gate.
Oracle stands before the warehouse, arms spread out to the sides, hands low and with upturned palms. Her head is tilted back as though basking serenely in the glow of warm sunlight. Del's neurons on the other hand are working overtime, her bodily functions pumping extreme levels of adrenaline and seratonin and a mess of neurochemicals that assist her decking. She formulates a search request on the fly in order to suss out any details on the extent of CCF's operations, and hopes to be able to make it out before she trips any IC…
organization."
Del's persona aligns itself precisely at the seam where two sides of the warehouse imagery meet. The palms of the digital statue's hands are positioned just millimeters from actually touching the surface, one hand extended out to each side of the ninety degree corner, and minuscule sparks flash like static electricity between the statue's fingertips to the walls as data is sought but not yet accessed.
Given the invasiveness of the cybernetic link between Delphine and the matrix that is facilitated by the deck, the awareness of where the files reside within the system is delivered more intuitively than it is visually. Sure there is a faint clarity of focus when her attention is drawn towards the office building, but the simple fact that her attention is drawn towards the office building in the first place is the real clue that what she is searching for is somewhere inside of it.
Delphine maintains her icon's position, probing the structure with the flashes of static electricity from her hands. The first datapacket reveals no hidden traps, so she moves on to seeking out another of her three necessary files. In a nanosecond, the statue is now perched high atop the corner of the structure, overlooking the surroundings like some figurehead of an ancient ship.
Developing a feel for the data flows through the system, Delphine hacks together more accurate queries of the file system meta-data tables. Not surprisingly the same portion of the system that holds the shipping records, also holds the personnel records. Once again, Delphine gets a very strong feeling that what she is searching for is located within the brick and glass confines of the squat, one story building near the front of the facility.
The Oracle remains atop the corner of the warehouse, but as the danger of being targeted by security grows, the feet of the statue seem to fuse with the rooftop — a subconscious representation of Delphine's intent to push as deep into the host's defenses as she can to get what she needs. She makes yet another inquiry, this time looking up to the heavens like a proper figurehead and spreading her arms wide. She makes an attempt to locate any and all matrix-based transaction records based out of this host that have ties to the shipping records located moments ago. The static electricity that previously only flowed from the statue's fingertips now ripples across the white fabric of the figure's robes, like living embroidery.
As the statuesque form of the Oracle becomes one with the corner of the building like some sort of digital gargoyle, the glass double doors in the front of the building come flying open and a security guard comes charging out, flashlight in hand. Its dark grey uniform bears the Cartwright Cartage and Freight emblem on its short sleeved shirt. "You do not belong here!" It screams up at the statue.
One second the Oracle is there on the edge of the building and then the next second she is gone, ducked back from the edge of the roof and out of sight from the suddenly perplexed guard. Recognizing the potential of a skylight, she heads over to it and glances down to see an orderly office. Summoning her most authoritative voice, she yells at one of the office workers inside and demands that they provide her with the file. Instead the office worker grabs the file folder out of the drawer and quickly feeds it into an industrial sized paper shredder.
Del's bellow from the skylight had no effect… Drastic measures are going to need to be taken. And fast, or best case scenario: Del will be out of a job. Worst case: she doesn't even want to think about that right now…
Apparently clued by the sound of the shredder destroying the contents of the file that Delphine was after, the guard scrambles up the side of the building in a move straight out of the Matrix. Wielding his flashlight, he shines the beam towards the statue and while the light momentarily flickers across Delphine's field of vision, the guard cannot manage to hold it on her. None the less, he makes sure to remind her in his most authoritarian tone. "You do not belong here!"
The guard finds his footing on the edge of the roof and having stabilized himself, pulls what looks like to be a mace / pepper spray cylinder off of his belt. Fully focused on the Oracle, he holds her steady in the blinding white light of his flashlight and again reminds her, "You do not belong here!" All the while he douses her in what seems like a fluorescent pink spray that stains her previously pristine white robes.
Delphine does what she can to make the Oracle statue inconspicuous by trying to blend her icon's code with the data infrastructure of the CC&F host, but she fails to match the syntax and stands out like a sore thumb. Or a pink-graffitied statue on a rooftop.
The Oracle endures the marking of the security IC stoically, glowing with the surging sparks that ebb and flow across her robes. Her attention is now focused on attempting to decrypt the personnel file she located earlier, but to no avail.
The Oracle dodges around the roof, ducking behind an air conditioning unit and giving the security guard the slip long enough to yell down through the skylight, demanding files from the office workers going about their mindless work of shuffling paperwork around the virtual office space. Apparently the way she is asking is causing them confusion and rather than passing the file folder full of information along to her, the androgynous looking clerk takes it over to the shredder and feeds the documents into its maw.
Once again, alerted to the Oracle's presence by the sound of the document destruction taking place, the security guard focuses its attention on her.
Having located the intruder, the security guard once again reminds her. "You do not belong here!" Apparently whoever coded the anti-intrusion routine did not have much memory to work with, and program effects were low on the priority list. Following the same pattern as before, he attempts to douse the Oracle in fluorescent pink. It is only by the sheer speed of the DNI interface that she is able to anticipate the attack and dodge the brunt of it to eliminate its effectiveness.
Delphine directs her persona toward the last remaining file she uncovered. The statue winks out of existence, reappearing in the same instant near the vehicles which, to Del, seem representative of the matrix-based transactions. The statue's aura of golden, popping sparks spray out from splayed fingertips to probe a massive sea-going shipping vessel that lies among the vast array of digitally-imposed vehicles.
Throwing caution into the wind, the Oracle flees for the vehicles and attempts to digitally ransack them for data. Both the security guard and clerical worker are hot on her tail though. As quickly as she pulls clipboards full of work orders out of the cabs of the vehicles, the clerical worker snatches them out of her hands and feeds them into a portable shredder. "You are not authorized, to view that." The worker helpfully reminds her in a sing song voice.
"You do not belong here!" The security guard reminds her as he again attempts to fix the beam of his flashlight on her and hose her down with the marking spray.
Computers and the software that they run are efficient, very, very efficient. While the firmware in Delphine's deck is purpose built to obscure her signals and modify data packets on the fly in order to disguise them as legitimate traffic, the longer that she stays logged into the system, the more opportunities its intrusion counter-measures have to isolate and identify her signals. As all of those routines are running behind the scenes, all that the Oracle sees is an aggressive security guard with a large supply of bright pink paint that he soaks her robes in, turning them more pink than white.
Delphine is not making much headway in the CC&F system, and decides to try one last thing to ease any subsequent attempts at earning favor with her potential AZT employers. Her mind races as she formulates a false personal account and attempts to tie it into the host's native employee monitoring software.
The clerk, previously preoccupied with denying the Oracle access to anything that she could get her hands out, produces an identification badge from her pockets and offers it to the paint spattered visitor. "This badge needs to be, worn visibly at all times." That sing song voice helpfully reminds her.
For his part, the security guard wants nothing to do with the unwanted visitor. "You do not belong here!" The authoritarian voice echoes eerily in her ears, as if the man is standing right next to Delphine in the closet and yelling at her.
While the clerk seems ameniable to the Oracle's presence in the system, the rest of the system grows outright hostile. No sooner has the paint spraying security guard muttered something into his commlink mic on his lapel, than does the front door to the office fly open and his armed colleague bursts onto the scene. Apparently educated in the "shoot first, ask questions never" school of security operations, the aggressive guard levels what looks distinctly like an old fashioned Ares Predator at the Oracle and squeezes the trigger.
Contrary to the suddenly rushed appearance of the guard, his shooting posture is spot on. Two hands on his weapon, one eye closed aiming down the sight. *pop* The bullet strikes the Oracle in center mass. Despite the digital trauma inflicted and the direct neural interface she is using, Delphine's mind is able to separate her physical body from the digital projection of the Oracle. As her icon staggers in response to the system launching a serious denial of service attack against her cyberdeck and overflowing its memory buffers with garbage data, she manages to avoid any ill effects of the sudden digital reconfiguration.
Chips of digital stone burst out from the Oracle icon's wound, and the statue itself strikes a reactive pose, hunched forward with hands reaching toward the point of impact and the hole in its robe. In the meatworld, Del's eyes flit from side to side under her closed lids like an extreme case of REM sleep.
Adding insult to injury, the paint spraying security guard further vandalizes the Oracle statue with its seemingly limitless supply of bright pink paint. There practically isn't any white left on her robes at all.
The pink-painted statue, in its gunshot tattered robe drops the teleporting poses that Delphine had been using, and begins to move with more "natural" motion, actually appearing to dash further between the array of vehicles, its sparks sputtering in a representation of the impending failure of the icon's ability to remain in the host.
Working at the speed of thought and then some given the cybernetic augmentations that have enhanced key parts of Delphine's neural mass, the aspiring matrix researcher does her best to string together SYN/ACK packet pairs in an attempt to obscure her presence in the system. The combination of the compromised firmware and severely stressed system components work against her, thwarting her efforts at every step due to the system's intrusion countermeasures having become fully calibrated to the digital signature of her cyberdeck in its bare state, devoid of anything more than an of the shelf sleaze program.
Left with no other choice but digital suicide, she reaches up and yanks the fiberoptic cable from her datajack. The sudden shift from the digital world back into her meat body is enough to make her head swim and a bit of nauseous bile to bubble up into the back of her throat.
As her physical reality rudely forces itself back into her perceptions, she is struck with what feels like a jolt of electricity straight into her brain. Delphine's eyes roll back in her head and a low groan escapes her lips before she can fully regain control enough to angrily disconnect the datacable from the jack in her skull. She aims her face up toward a ceiling corner and with one abrupt tug, the jack slips from its socket to clatter to the floor. She slumps in her the folding chair, arms hanging limp at her sides, nearly touching the floor.
After a few deep breaths and the choking back of bile, she weakly extends an arm toward one of the bottles of water. She unscrews the lid and rinses her mouth out, spitting the water back into the bottle so as not to swallow it. There is no dainty way to do this. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and begins to take stock of the situation. First attempt failed, head POUNDING, stomach grumbling… But she did manage to secure herself a personal ID on the CCF system, so perhaps after a dish of stir fry and a light nap, she may be able to actually succeed on a second try. Once the system security falls idle of course.
Del sets her unwanted bile-spittle bottle on the shelf and rises, forcing herself to take the single step across her illegal jackpoint closet and begins to open the door.
Delphine smooths her hair, though the way she styles it, it's practically immovable, and then proceeds to smooth her suit jacket by grasping the bottom hem and tugging it tight, then running her palms across her front. The wrinkle-free fabric really doesn't need such motions, but it's a psychological preparation of hers. She leans out the door and flags down the hostess while remaining in her room.
"Excuse me…"
She orders a dish of something quick, whatever the tea house might offer; Szechuan noodles in spicy sauce would do in a pinch. And then she settles in to close her eyes while she waits on the meal.
The tea house offers quality fair, even if it is soy based. With a culture steeped in vegetarian tradition, it should come as no surprise that the noodle and tofu are quite tasty and equally nutritious. The proprietor leaves the Oracle to eat in peace, but not before fixing her with a dubious glance at her partially bloodshot eyes, and other subtle signs of the ordeal that she just put herself through to further Aztechnology corporate interests.
After ordering, Delphine retreats to her temporary quarters to contemplate her mistakes and the possibility of appealing to Jorge's interests by offering him proof that she's entered the CC&F host in order to get further support in the form of a greater range of utilities. The hostess brings the quick snack to the woman and Del closes herself back in to think things over. In the process of making a plan to convince the proprietor of the tea house to allow her to leave and return without paying an extra fee for the backroom jackpoint, she even dozes off momentarily, mentally drained by the experience in CC&F's host. It wasn't the worst she's ever dealt with, but she's out of practice and it shows. With a start, she comes to after fifteen minutes, Szechuan noodles still held in her lap, only half-eaten. She primps herself hastily before seeking out the proprietor for a quick exchange.
Their brief relationship is one based on strictly business and unfortunately for Delphine, her Japanese heritage does not do her any favors with the older Chinese man who runs the tea house. While he is willing place his establishment at some small risk by allowing her to return to the scene of the crime so to speak, that 'privilege' is going to cost her another 475 =Y=
With the choice between paying it, or having to find another jack point to work from, she presumably takes the path of least resistance, at the cost of some of her rapidly dwindling profit margins. What else does one expect when working with mega corporations? Comfortable in the knowledge that she will be able to gain access to the matrix again, she heads off to meet with Jorge.
The man expresses some surprise that she is back so soon, and his cautiously neutral demeanor turns slightly sour at the progress report. While Delphine is wise enough to gloss over the details and not mention the failed intrusion attempt, the fact that she is asking for additional software is enough of an indicator that the task might be too much for the aspiring employee. None the less, Jorge apparently subscribes to the age old adage of 'In for a penny, in for a pound.' Though it takes a couple of hours, he manages to work with procurement to provide Delphine with what she asks for.
Delphine does her best to come across to Jorge as professional, and simply lacking in understanding on the illegal side of things, though the word 'illegal' is never explicitly stated. She makes the comparison of a professional dancer having to learn a new set of rules when they move from the stage to a street-level breakdancing competition. With much thanks, Delphine accepts the further utilities and bids the man adieu to complete her task. Another drive to the tea house sees her settling back in after gracious nods to the hostess and proprietor once again for allowing her to use their facility. She loads up the newly acquired software into her deck and presses the datacable into her jack for another shot at earning her place with AZT…
The Chinatown LTG manifests again, impressing into Delphine's consciousness a cleaner and simplified version of the neighborhood that she is in. Plenty of familiar architecture in the form of arches and tiled roofs, wooden buildings and paper screens. A little pocket of Asia manifest in a corner of the Denver matrix.
The Oracle statue rezzes into the Chinatown matrix hub, intact once again and no longer marked with pink from the CCF host's security protocols. Now armed with new software, Del navigates her way back toward the freight company, finding some difficulty at the FTZ SAN…
…But she makes it through, proceeding toward Cartwright Cartage and Freight with purpose, gaining access via the account she managed to improvise before fleeing hours ago.
Manipulating the matrix at the speed of thought and empowered with a basic suite of essential utilities, Delphine as the Oracle manages to leave the tranquil surroundings of Chinatown behind as she transits through the sizeable Denver RTG and back into the digitally rendered corporate towers and precise, orderly 'streets' of the FTZ LTG. Though momentarily delayed as the deception routine was running out dated bypass codes, a second crack at the operation bolstered by some on the fly code modification sends her on her way to the familiar shipping facility that is the Cartwright Cartage and Freight system.
The guard at the gate is more than happy to cause the massive, tank resistant vehicle barrier to slide back into the four meter tall blast walls that surround the facility. "Welcome to the system. Make your day a productive one." The guard encourages her while admitting her to the sprawling central lot that is bustling with commercial traffic. Semi-trucks, vans and forklifts move about in an orderly fashion, as employees move amongst them. Everyone and everything has a single purpose, the transfer and tracking of commercial freight.
The Oracle statue's Greek-styled, white, hooded robes are trimmed with crackling gold sparks around the hems, and below her left shoulder, a personal identification badge has been superimposed over the fabric. Delphine has consciously abandoned the statue-like vogue-ing that she used earlier, adopting a more natural walk, but keeping the appearance of polished, delicately swirled grey and white marble for the persona's skin. She walks in past the traffic to begin her search anew, seeking out files for Jorge, and the chance to secure an opportunity.
A simple request elicits a simple denial from the system. "You are not authorized to view that information." The clerk in a smart pants suit with her clipboard explains to the white robed Oracle in her familiar sing song voice. Despite denying her, the clerk does not seem particularly offended by the request. Apparently regular system accounts are not allowed to view personnel records.
The Oracle seems to have fallen back into her statuesque ways, remaining still, with fanned hands held out near her hips, fingertips splayed toward the ground. The figure's face is mostly obscured by the hood, but the lips seem carved into a disapproving grimace. Barely detectable sparks just pop and fizzle around the hems of her robe and cowl. Delphine aims her attention toward the shipping records she previously located, sending a stream of golden sparks into the ground at her feet.
The clerk consults her clipboard slash datapad and after typing in a few commands, offers a chip to the Oracle. "This Q4/2074 shipping records for the Denver Metropolitan Area." The singsong tone is absent, replaced by a standard female vocal effect. Apparently whoever coded the data retrieval routines was not clued into the auditory programming specifications.
Back in the tea house closet, Delphine's deck squirrels away 20mp of data in its active memory.
The clerk listens to the request, then types away at the datapad. After a few seconds, she shakes her head and looks quizzically at the Oracle. "I am sorry. Will you please be more specific?"
Delphine is thrilled at finally having achieved at least some portion of her required file quota, but the clerk's inability to produce the advertising media she sought leaves her frustrated yet again. She begins to walk, pondering further lines of inquiry that she might be able to gain access to through her falsified employee account. She offers a series of queries to the attendant with her datapad.
A rapid series of back and forth queries between the Oracle and the helpful clerk turn up a list of Cartwright Cartage and Freight facilities in the Denver metroplex. A quick review of the data as it is being transferred across the telecommunications grid and into the memory of the cyberdeck reveals that the corporation has a fair number of warehouses, satellite offices and maintenance yards for their vehicle fleet scattered around the region.
Del's robe-sparks bounce between herself and the clerk as the queries are responded to and the second datafile is absorbed. The Oracle's path has led her to the main entrance of the warehouse with the clerk in tow. The persona reaches out to open the door, heading within to the location below the skylight where she initially saw the personnel files being shredded. She begins searching file cabinets for intact backups, careful to avoid triggering any more Scramblers, lest she be left without the third piece of her puzzle.
The Oracle's hood withdraws from her marble features to expose eyes made of a dense collection of her golden sparks and she looks deep into the parka, errr… file cabinet at her target.
Nothing suspicious is located however, so the hood extends back over her face to conceal the flickering glow once again.
Determination and persistence pay off. Despite the lack of a purpose built utility, Delphine is able to hack together an analytical routine on the fly that causes the system to disgorge the contents of memory registers. Quickly parsing through the output, it becomes evident that there is nothing out of the ordinary about the files subsystem on the host.
Inside of the matrix, the Oracle perceives a perfectly normal system.
The Oracle's marble fingers crawl across the tops of file folders until she narrows in on the object of her desire. She removes the manila file folder and lays it face open in order to read it. As this occurs, a large scroll appears draped over her left arm and a quill-pen-shaped stylus in the right. The face of the scroll is like that of the clerk's datapad however, a standard matrix interface turned 2-dimensional, and as Del mentally begins to manipulate the code that will trigger a download of the Megapulses of data, sparks begin to flow from the datafile to the pen and ultimately into the scroll.
While the data flows successfully out of the system and into the relative safety of the cyberdeck's active memory chips, there is something amiss in the matrix. The Oracle has the sudden sense that the system is aware of her presence, and has initialized some relatively benign probe routines to investigate what she is doing in the system.
Oracle extracts the last remaining piece of data that her employer requires, and although she knows the system has grown suspicious of her presence, she is unwilling to go gracefully just yet — she already has her fingers in the cookie jar, so she digs deeper, hoping to get more for Jorge than initially requested.
On the surface a high level account on the system seems like a viable gift, but after putting some more thought into it, Delphine realizes that all such accounts are eventually detected within a matter of days. The detection of the accounts will lead the owners of the system to look into how the accounts got there, and will in a round about way, betray the fact that their systems have been recently compromised. A true professional would cover their tracks and leave as few clues behind as possible.
Oracle reaches a marble arm to her breast and plucks the falsified ID badge from her robe and begins attempting to tear it in half but it would appear she is unable to eliminate her own insinuated code from the host's account list. her hands begin to crackle with a growing aura of popping sparks as she makes a second attempt at obscuring her digital trail.
Delphine is much more pleased with the results of her second attempt at getting the CCF data. And the results are a clear testament to the benefits of having even the most meager of utilities to work with, as opposed to none at all. The marble persona succeeds in tearing the ID badge into equal halves and drops them to the floor before Del physically, and quite literally pulls the plug on the operation. As her senses return to the meatworld, Delphine allows herself a small self-satisfied smile while she busies herself with packing her Saturn-5 back into the hermetically sealing briefcase she brought with her. A gracious thank you to the proprietor on her way out, and then Del hits the streets in her BMW to head back to Jorge to deliver the good news. And the paydata.
The hour is late and most of the staff have gone home when Jorge receives Monique in his office. The man is hard to read, his face the practiced mask of neutrality that corporate animals must adopt to survive in the sociological jungle that they live in. The neutral mask remains dispassionate after accepting the chips from the part time contractor and reviewing them on the display there at his desk.
"Good work." He says with a succinct nod, showing the slightest bit of humanity when he acknowledges Monique and meets her eyes. "These are exactly the kind of results that I was expecting, and I am glad that you were able to deliver on your part of our agreement." He pauses for a moment while considering how much to share with her and what to say next. "As you are aware.." He begins, resting his forearms casually on the desk. "This position is a contract to hire position. It is company policy to vet potential resources over an extended period of time. While you have performed adequately on this task, I am not yet in the position to recommend that the company extend you an offer. In fact, it is not my position to do so at all."
The man offers the most imperceptible of shrugs as if to dismiss his powerlessness. "What I will do though is fairly assess your strengthens, and weaknesses, as you have demonstrated them here and make sure that they are routed to the appropriate staff members in the human capital department. They will go into your file, and I am sure that should further opportunities arise that your skills are suited for, they will reach out to whatever contact information they have on file for you."
Delphine-as-Monique takes special note of Jorge's work ethic, what with him staying late and all, giving an approving nod that most likely comes across as an acceptance of the man's inability to offer the contract immediately. This would be a fine interpretation in Del's opinion, since she understands the hierarchy in an arrangement like this; there is a whole series of slightly bigger fish, all the way to the top. And right now, she's the littlest in the pond.
She doesn't want to waste any more of the business man's time after delivering her paydata so she answers any questions he may have, but leaves him with a final reassurance that she has learned a great deal in their limited interaction with each other. "I dearly apologize for my lack of professionalism, returning halfway through the stated objective as I did, but I have to state again, this was a significant… change of venue… from the way I am accustomed to working. I assure you, any further jobs that you are gracious enough to send my way will be handled expediently and to the letter."
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