[PM][O/O/1st] - Week ---: Backtrace it!

[Thanatyr]

Spoiler: note

Finny, Hase and myself, the briefcase thing. Let's do this back tracing so we can report it like this guy!

The difficulty with basement levels was that if the airflow was stifled in the least, the entire floor began to get an overly dusty odor and layer that slowly built up. That would not do when the workers on the floor were trying to put together technical masterpieces to assist the corporation, as even the smallest spec of dust could screw up an intricate circuit board. Lanky and overreaching, Colin Healy was leaning over a safety rail to swat at a grate that was supposed to return air from this room and allow for proper circulation. Why the hell the architect wanted to put something so crucial in a top corner of the room screamed at the ineptitude of whoever it was.

Unable to reach it the Irishman finally had enough of physically trying to get things going. Within a minute he had covered every open project his team had going, to some open protest, with simple sheets. Next he reached over to environmental controls and commanded the fans to go into overdrive on both the input and the output. Columns of dust shot down from the ceiling directly onto some of the sheets that protected the electronics before pillowing out into the air and being slowly sucked away into the intake... fans? Oh, so there was a single intake fan behind one of their unused server racks, if the flow of dust was to be trusted.

“Don’t worry, that should clear up soon enough!” he shouted to the other IT people over the fans that were sounding more like jet engines now, “Just give it a few minutes and they’ll shut down before they burn out. I’ll leave the clean up in your capable hands guys!”

Coughing as he quickly exited and closed the door behind him, Colin was alerted to a familiar face coming quickly down the elevator. Standing uneasily by the doors he waited for the fiery redhead to exit the elevator only to be surprised when she was accompanied by two unfamiliar people. In his usual smart ass way he asked, “Have you come to slap me for something I may or may not have done and will not confirm or deny until you tell me what you think I’ve done?”

“Later, and you know you’ve deserved it,” Ayako grinned curtly before gesturing to Hotate, who was carrying the case, “We have a toy for you to tinker with. There was a signal coming to it a few minutes ago and we need to find out who was broadcasting and from were.”

[426]

 

[Hase the Storm]

When Xavier got a urgent call from the Tyrant Hideo himself, he rushed to Cerberus. He made it there in just enough time to catch up with Ayako, and a woman he had only seen once before.

“Hey Ayako, Hideo told me to come find you!”

Xavier was updated on what had happen as they rode down the elevator. “I leave for a couple of days and all the crazy shit starts to happen! Thank god I am home,” he chuckled to him.

As soon as the elevator opened the air smelt musty, and dry. Xavier scanned Colin’s lab as he and Ayako talked it up.

This ain’t better than our lab!

[114/114]

 

[Redfin]

Hotate stood there with an empty smile. Her mind was still focused on what had happened just a short while ago. In a scant few moments, the game had changed entirely. The view of the lab barely registered a response. She had been to the ninth multiple times not to be surprised by any technology but she also didn't know how most of them worked.

She was holding the case in front of her with both hands. Her movements were very slow and careful as she stepped off the elevator. It was as if any unnecessary jostling would damage the contents or set something off within the briefcase.

"Here you go. Where would you like me to put this, Mister Scientist?" Hotate asked.

[123]

 

[Thanatyr]

“Scientist? Now that’s a funny joke! Of course, I’ve been called worse. Really you can think of me as just the IT guy and the local technological savant of Cerberus. I’m like the Tony Stark, only far more dashing,” Colin let his humor cover the nerves of being in the presence of a shinigami, even if she was so... green. Things must have been dire for the corporation to allow one of the reapers into the tower. Her strange assortment of jewelry was rather macabre for his tastes, but that was neither here nor there.

Reaching out the Irishman took hold of the briefcase, swinging it nonchalantly over his shoulder. Already with the device in his hands his eyes took on a solid black sheen that denoted he was carefully prodding at the software within. After pointing to a meeting room off to the side of the labs, Colin lead the way, “This is a fascinating bit of tech you have here. There’s a quite a few precautionary bits in the way to prevent normal tinkering. Lucky for you I’m not exactly a normal hacker. Do I get any hints about where it’s from?”

[194/620]

 

[Redfin]

Hotate attempted to reach out and stop the man from so carelessly handling the briefcase but she wasn't fast enough of course. With a small shake of the head, she just followed him into the meeting room.

"Did I mention that I think there's a bomb in there?"

Even with that belief, the girl didn't exactly shy away from the briefcase. She stood with hands clasped near the edge of the table. Any explosive in there would reach a good distance in such a confined space anyway.

Taking some time to brush hair out of her face first, she eventually said, "I'm sorry Iron Man but I have no idea. Computers aren't exactly my strong suit. I just use the Google to find videos of cats doing funny things."

She looked around at the other two, hoping they would have a more insightful perspective on this matter.

[270]

 

[Hase the Storm]

Xavier was not too sure about Ayako knowing anything about hacking, but he did and he was not going to waste time getting sidetracked with careless jokes or anyone prying into stuff that was not any of their damn business.

“Yeah hacker, listen to this lady's warning! You WILL be tinkering but this is no ordinary toy! Let's be clear about a few things; for one this information is on a NEED TO KNOW basis and you DO NOT NEED TO KNOW! And for second don’t play coy, there isn’t a hacker that I know that doesn’t keep a treasure chest file of all their hacked data.You can find out after we get what we need,” Xavier paused to let Colin grasp the importance of his words.

“Now that I have your attention, start by scanning for all the unknown signals within a 20 mile radius that came in or out of this building within the last 30 minutes and then cross reference them with every signal that has comes in or out of this place in the last ten days. There has to be a match,” said the ex-hacker as he silenced himself so that his words could be put into action.

[206/318]

 

[Thanatyr]

“You really need to chill, you know that? Besided, there’s no bomb. She told me so.” Colin gestured to the briefcase as if it was a living being, and as he spoke his eyes returned to their piercing emerald green. The bits of security inside the case he was probing had told him enough. Even without the eye change, data flew in and out of his brain quickly enough to perplex most ordinary people. Some of the basic running information had already surfaced from the talk he had with the machine even from their walk over to this room.

“First and foremost, I can tell you that this sucker is broadcasting at roughly 160 gigahertz and encoded in such a way that non-encrypted receivers will just think it’s excess background radiation,” Colin pointed to a screen that he willed to come downwards just then before showing colorful splotches, “I mean that. Cosmic background radiation, not just any old radiation that might freak people out. So this sucker is hidden beyond all belief. Luckily we do track signals, but not always on that frequency due to the nature of what’s being sent back and forth. Else for tracking signals that would also give us what, geo-stationary satellites in fixed orbit? There’s got to be at least a few that use this range for that. So...”

The Irishman walked over to a set of monitors and began typing, “You don’t want the signal from just this building, that just tells us a signal strength and very, very vague direction. What you want is this, seeing if we can get this same signal from any other points we monitor across the city. Use those to help triangulate any possible hits and you get... shit.”

A rather large list of timestamps and signal strengths began to flood the screen across several columns. Colin looked at the list before starting to strike out signals that did not appear on any of the other columns, “Well then, an exact time frame for all of this would be helpful. The timestamp in the briefcase decided to wipe itself after what ever it was you lot were doing upstairs, didn’t even say it was sorry while we talked.”

[370/990]

Spoiler: note

Colin's a technopath, if it wasn't obvious. And... yeah, he's a bit aloof at times.

 

[Redfin]

"Right," Hotate nodded. There was a glassy look on the girl's face as she listened to the explanation.

"As long as cthulhu is not at the end of the trace right?" she added awkwardly while scratching the back of her neck.

[311]

 

[Thanatyr]

Well, I can’t help if I can’t see, Ayako thought to herself while pulling off her jacket to expose the tattoo on her left arm. Focusing her reiatsu into the ink, the odd sensation of seeing from the point of view of the meter long green eyed ethereal grey fox that manifested on the desk leapt into her mind. Locking the fox’s sight on the screen, the medic witnessed herself walking towards it while putting her jacked back on and pointing at over half a dozen items on the list.

“Those don’t work; they were far too early in the day. Our meeting was under a half hour ago, and it lasted perhaps ten minutes to fifteen minutes with this briefcase transmitting. Do you have anything to add Ms. Shinigami? Or Xavier, I hear you know a few things about tech, can you think of any algorithms or... what ever it is you tech people use to help out?”

[159/779]

 

[Hase the Storm]

This was the first time Xavier had ever seen Ayako’s abilities, the translucent fox was remarkably beautiful, “ You are right Ayako, from what Hideo has briefed me on, the meeting couldn’t of lasted no longer than 15 minutes. By the way Ayako your seeing eye fox, is amazing!”

“What am I missing? There has to be another way to get the time stamp,” he thought.

Just then a light bulb went off in his head, “There is always a backup system! Even for a state of the art briefcase, like the one we have here.There is always a back up system, we just need to find a way to making the briefcase start its backup system.”

Xavier started to rub his hands together, building up enough friction to start a electrical charge within his hands, “Hey technopath, I never caught your name. But tell your friend Xavier said he was sorry!”

With those closing remarks, the corporal placed his hands over the briefcase, releasing an electrical surge powerful enough to restart the briefcase’s system.

“Well folks, either it worked or I justed fired our chances of ever finding Fukushin!”

[190/508]

 

[Redfin]

Hotate honestly felt pretty useless here. Listening to them talk only compounded that feeling as she did not understand the sentences put together by the words. Every individual work had meaning but when put together, it was just a string of sounds.

The girl raised one hand and said, "I have a thought. I am hungry and going to go get some food. Anyone want me to bring back anything?"

She took out a cell phone with the same hand and just waved it around. "I'm sure you got all my information from that brief look so you can call me if there is anything you need me to do."

[420]

 

[Thanatyr]

Spoiler: Whoopsie!

So Will let me know that any excessive prying or damage to the briefcase would cause the pulse within it to stop. We can probably still use this thread for the next part. I think.

Colin was starring at the briefcase with a look of both awe and that of a child that just lost their first pet. The broken hearted Irishman looked at Xavier only to start smiling. “Well then, that machine-defibrillation you did? Not helping. Looks like you did reboot the system but instead of just updating the logs, a signal pulse it was still doing in the background has stopped.”

The list on the screen shrank significantly shortened to only a few possible hits, Colin called to the shinigami who was leaving, “Hold up! One other thing, this is more bad news. Since this tech was broadcasting and the reboot caused it to stop, who ever owns this is going to know we’re on their trail. So the countdown really hits home. The only good news I can see is I can eliminate the most of this list by going off the exact timing of the logs. We’re still going to have a large swath to hunt through, and fast.”

A map popped up over the screen with a few points through Tokyo highlighted by red dots, with pathways stemming from the Cerberus Tower connecting them in one of three paths.

“Those are the locations I can’t check remotely with security cameras, which makes them our prime suspect locations. I’ve even programmed a system for each of you to cover in what should be the quickest method. Faigh dul! Get going!”

[239/1018]


Edit: Oh, you and finny can choose which one you guys want. There would be North, East and West. Nothing to the south, but east and west would be taking some southern points. North would have the largest travel distance between points.

 

[Redfin]

"Yes, of course. I am on it," Hotate said in an almost too enthusiastic voice.

She also didn't stop moving towards the elevator, instead opting to turn when she spoke and walk backwards. Pictures were easy enough to understand. Red dots are bad.

After a quick study of the map, the girl said, "Okay. I will take that area then." She aimed her hand way to the left side to make it abundantly clear which direction she planned on going. Her hand wasn't even anywhere near the map.

She suddenly stopped moving as she felt her back hit the wall. Hotate flipped around and pressed the elevator button.

[528]

I have chosen poorly haven't I?

 

[Hase the Storm]

“Fuck, this bastard is crafty” shouted Xavier as he attempted to swing at a invisible Fukushin.

“Shit! I screwed up! I thought that would of worked,” thought Xavier as he paced around scratching his head.

The rash young agent pinched himself as he started to feel doubt creeping up inside him. All his other baggage did not matter at the moment. What matter was life! Everyones life! Xavier forced himself to stop worrying about the spilled milk on the counter; the glass was more important.

Taking a few minutes to look over the map carefully, Xavier thought about where Fukushin could of possibly broadcasted that conference. But with them narrowing down three locations it was still a crapshoot. His only option was to make guess and hope he gets lucky. But with the shinigami randomly picking the east quadrant, it only left the north and the west quadrants.

“I’ll go to the west quadrant and see what I can find. How much time are we looking at before Fukushin finds out we have been playing with his little toy?”

[179/687]