Quote:Teela finished her initial probings, poking at the local network like a cat might poke at a ball of yarn. She’d been finished for hours.
Hours left waiting alone in that room, staring at the door. Waiting for Cally. She scratched at her collar, the metal ring getting tighter and tighter around her neck. It was constricting. It was making it hard to breath. She was not used not to do anything that long, but at the moment she was not supposed to do anything.
It was about time she figured out how to get the electric blankets working. Time flies when you’re curled up in a furball soothing yourself with your own purring. She lay there, lost in bliss for hours.
If any part of Teela’s mind was aware of the door opening and then closing, the catgirl did not show any evidence of it. Teela had better things to do at the moment..
Then she felt a hand going over her fur for a moment and Teela thought she heard a voice somewhere far away saying something about a ‘lazy clever cat’... and then the blanket was switched off.
Teela mumbled a little bit and stretched herself, then she looked up into Callys face with a smile, then she jumped up and hugged Cally hard. “You have been away for that long... did something bad happen?”
“Just a lot of work on my truck” Cally answered, slowly extracting herself from the catgirls embrace. “And what did my lazy clever catgirl do in the mean time?”
Teela just grinned. “Oh, just some experiments to move the clock faster than normal... can I come with you to the truck next time? I could carry your toolbox for you!” Teela looked down to the large box Cally had put down.
Cally’s expression darkened.
“Nobody touches my box but me. Besides, our little gadget’s in there.” And nobody would blink an eye at her keeping her toolbox safe from would-be thieves. She undid the lock, opened the toolbox and carefully removed all the trays inside.
The last thing she removed was a well-wrapped box.
“How’d you’re first look at the network go?” Cally asked.
“Well enough,” Teela answered.
“I sense there’s a but in there,”
“Well enough to tell what we are looking for is not on the main network.” the catgirl clarified. “Which means that it must be islanded away somewhere safe.”
“Which means we have to figure out where, and how to get in there without getting caught.” Cally sighed. “Joy.”
“It would be boring if it was easy,” Teela said, licking at the back of her hand.
“We should at least test the box first,” Cally said. She started to undo the wrappings. It was utterly unremarkable looking... nothing more than a black box with a label warning the user to Beware the cat.”
“I think a local test would be sufficient. We can transmit our floor plans and a short update of the mission status to the ship, less risk to trigger too many warnings on the first run” Teela replied and nodded.
They quickly got the cubic box out of its wrappings and Teela put a small network cable into its socket and connected the device with Callys collar remote control.
A few lights switched from red to green and Teela smiled. “The QED is online, we are connected... Cortana is accessing the data I have prepared in the last hours... if you want to add something, you should do so.”
“Any sign it’s being monitored?”
“None”.
She stopped to think. “Even if what we’re looking for isn’t on the main server, maybe there might be some evidence. Confirm that Roland was being controlled from here.”
Teela nodded. “Lets just get the current data out of here, after this we can connect it to the terminal and let Cortana a little bit fun with the local network. Maybe she can find more evidence than me, she is better in correlating data.”
“But not the terminal in this room,” Cally said. “If she fucks up, I don’t want it being traced back to here.”
Teela started to scratch herself behind the ears, concentrating hard. “There are some terminals on the floors.... and I think I have seen some maintenance hatches near a few of them.”
Cally nodded.
“We should find a place that is not directly watched by a camera with a hatch like this, there we will find a hidden network access I think” Teela’s grin bared her teeth.
Cally dropped onto the bed with a thump, leaning back onto the pillow. “I don’t know about you, but I feel like a beer. Maybe you could stop by the bar and pick me up a few bottles when Cortana’s got the message.”
“Sure... I think I even know the right box to carry them...” Teela answered, her grin deepening into a full bare-fanged smirk.
Those big white canines were glowing with mischief in the light.
We have started working again on the story...
