Quote:----
Half an hour later Teela left the apartment with a small box under her arm. Slowly she made her wa towards the bar where herself and Cally had met Quattro the day before. She took great care to keep out of the way of larger groups of people.
Cortana was still working on her analysis of the stations floor plans and had promised the results the next day, so they had cut the connection early.
“And make sure the beer is still cold” Cally had shouted when Teela left, her voice sounding more than a little bit stressed.
The first hatch she had identified on her way was just around the next corner and Teela was already looking forward to being done with dropping her little cargo. She found herself starting to speed up, only to stop dead in her tracks when she rounded the corner.
The terminal near the hatch was in use. One of the local Dark-Senshi, all dressed up like an extra in a Marilyn Manson video in cheap fishnets and dark makeup.
The Gliesbie using the terminal looked down at her as Teela passed and cooed. “Oh, that’s a cute cat... are you new here, I don’t remember seeing you earlier.”
Teela shook her head. “We are just here on a visit... I am sorry, I think I should go now.” She tried to hurry along.
The senshi sighed. “Poor things, always in a hurry, no time to have a nice chat. Just tell me, what is your name?”
Teela stopped and turned towards the woman. “My name is Teela... I came together with Cally, my owner.” She looked at the box in her hand. “And I should get her some cold beer from the bar she said.”
“Oh, she will wait for a few more minutes without being angry, I am sure... Teela, a nice name... tell me Teela, is Cally a nice owner?”
‘Dangerous question’ thought Teela, but running away now would be bad. “I think I had a lot of fun together with her, and she has always looked after me... I like her... yes, I would say she is nice” Teela said with a smile.
The woman nodded pleased. “That sounds good... goodbye Teela, maybe we will see each other again.”
Teela bolted.
“Oh, the bar is that way...” the woman called after her, pointing down a separate corridor. A little bit puzzled Teela hurried away, still unsure what the woman had wanted. ‘
She found another hatch quickly, this one unguarded. Teela quickly opened it in a hurry, fumbling with the catch, and crawled inside before closing the hatch behind her. As Cally and her had thought, there was enough space behind the hatch to access some network equipment, stored away in a small locker.
Teela removed the QED from the box and found a suitable cable running into the switch. She clamped a vampire tap around it, screwing it down tightly before wiring it up to the QED. Data began to flow into the box. She looked away from the QED to the vampires LEDs, which began to flicker along with a stream of pings and acks.
“Good luck Cortana, I will get you back tomorrow” Teela whispered and quickly left through the hatch again.
The rest of the way to the bar was easy... but getting the beer proved to be a little bit more difficult.
“We don’t sell to cats” the barkeeper said, glaring down at the catgirl “Do you have proof who sent you?”
Teela tried to smile friendly. “My owner Cally said I should get her six bottles of beer... and something to keep them cold on the way... you can call her in her room if you want, she gave me the money for paying.”
The barkeeper weighed the risk of possibly annoying a customer on the station and giving beer to a catgirl and finally concluded it was not his fault that this cat had money. Money was money no matter where it came from.
“Here is your beer... for five bucks you can get enough ice water to keep them cool.” He grinned avariciously at her.
Teela sighed, but paid up and quickly left. She smirked. It wasn’t her money anyway so why worry? She hurried back to Cally’s apartment, stabbing at the doorbell.
A bleary-eyed Cally answered, looking and smelling like she’d just been roused from an unintentional slumber.
“Phh... mission accomplished” Teela beamed. “I have your beer.”
The door closed behind her.
----
Jet had a problem.
“Top down, strange charmed....” she thought out loud.
And after that she ran into a mental wall. Try again.
“Top down strange charmed...”
She knew they came in pairs like that.
Tiegel was smirking at her. “There is no wifi out here. We are on radio silence,”
“Ah, I fucking know this!” she grunted, holding on finger on one hand up as if it’d serve as proof. Her frustration was obvious. It was palpable. It stained the air.
Tiegel read from the card again, “There are six kinds of quarks. Name all six,” His German accent almost seemed to mock. His eyes gleamed. He knew he had her. “And there ist no wi-fi out here.”
“Top, down, strange, charmed...” A pause. “Ah feck!”
Everyone at the table was staring at her. Engels and Senshi, joined together in Trivial Pursuits. anything to pass the time
“Give up?” Tiegel enquired smoothly. “You still have a minute,”
“No!” Jet snapped at him. “I know this,”
Mari started to laugh. “Yeah, and I’m Queen Serenity”
“Alright your Majesty,” Jet curtsied. “Top, down, strange charmed and...”
Mental block. The comm panel on the wall crackled to life. “Jet Jaguar, Jet... this is Cortana.”
Saved by the bell, thought the cyborg. She reached over and flicked a switch. “This is Jet,”
“Lucky,” Tiegel mumbled.
Jet shot him a dark glare while Lenneth whispered something in his ear.
“Jet. I have contact with the computer on Nehallenia using the second QED. I have a basic map from Cathy’s collar and a message for you,”
“I’ll take it down in the bay,” Jet responded.
The others at the table were staring at her. At times, she was as subtle as a brick to the face.
“Up down, strange charmed...” she began. She quirked her head a little. “Top bottom?”
Silence.
“Correct, but two seconds too late,” Tiegel answered. His accent gave it an almost bureaucratic finality. “And that puts you out of the game Jet, I’m afraid,” He rapped his fingers against the table. Hard ceramics meeting light chipboard made a hollow sound.
“Fine,” she exhaled a breath. The penalty for failure was ten solar credits, taken from a wallet in a pouch strapped to her hip. “Bloodsucker,”
Jet left them to their game. It was frustrating running under radio silence. Without wireless or interwave access, her apparent IQ dropped by about 20 points. She reminded herself that it was also possible to rely too much on her hardware, at the expense of her own skill. It was all about balance.
Max wouldn’t have been please.
Jet dropped down the ladder, hitting the deck with a heavy thunk. Luka woke up and looked at her for a moment, before dropping back behind his console. Jet silently apologised with a raised hand and a soft smile, before heading forward into the shuttlebay.
Cortana was still waiting in the Stargazer
“Hi Jet... you didn’t need to come down instantly” The AI’s avatar greeted, smiling. Truthfully, she was glad for the company. Playing Desmond at TF2 was getting boring.
“Got news?” Jet question, leaning in to the car through an open window.
“Ja,” the Avatar nodded. “Our two agents managed to connect me to the local network... I am currently browsing through the directories and attached services.” Cortana explained. “They have a lot of digital security attached to the network, but not enough to prevent a direct intrusion. Their system is set up more to prevent outside access and fly-by attacks. They did not expect an AI to be attacking from inside network.”
There was an air of self-satisfied smugness to her voice.
“But I think Cathy was right,” The avatar continued “Some parts of the station are not connected to this network.”
“And that’s exactly where what we’re looking for is.” Jet added. It was a fair assumption.
“The system was not designed by a moron,” Cortana told her. “It appears they decided that the added complexity and inconvenience of securing against an AI intrusion from within the Station’s intranet just wasn’t worth it. What I have is sensitive enough...”
“So what can you get access to?” the cyborg asked. interrupting.
“Everything almost,” Cortana said. “I was able to achieve root access to the main server using a flaw in thow their internal mail application handles message attachments. I can get anyones documents. Station schematics. A great amount of administrative files. I have some references to what we might be looking for, but nothing concrete.”
“Such as?” Jet questioned. She stared at Cortana’s display.
“i have verified that Sato was in contact with Roland. She sent the emails to him personally. ”
Jet smirked. That strengthened the link. That was good evidence
“And,” Cortana continued, sounding like she was boasting. “This particular email from Naoko Sato’s account referring to the VSW project. It gives it’s real name as Virtual Slaver Wasp.”
Jet drew back.
“You’ve heard of it?” Cortana enquired.
Jet rested her chin on her metal hands. She was staring at something that seemed to be on the other side of the bulkhead wall. She was running a quick text search and some files she hadn’t bothered deleting.
“Slaver Wasp rings a bell,” In a mail someone had sent her about a Girl Genius collection they had for sale. Jet felt her blood chill just a little bit at what that implied. “Can you search for any references to Agatha Clay in the data?”
Jet tried to sound casual and unbothered.
“There is a message from Ford along with the first batch of data. She is mentioned there.”
Jet unplugged a memory stick for her ear. “Can you give me a copy of it? The map, and any relevant mails or docs,”
She purposely waited for Cortana’s permission before plugging it into her dataport. It was generally considered the polite thing to do, rather than just sticking it in.
“Go ahead,” said the AI. “I have scanned the email archives I have for the names mentioned in Fords message, and documents I can perform a plaintext search on. I will include those too.”
Jet plugged the drive in. “There should be about a Gig or two free on that,”
Cortana grinned. “And I have uploaded you a copy of the relevant pages of the webcomic the slaver wasp is coming from.” she said and finished the file transfer. “The whole comic is a little bit too much, but I think you will get the reference.”
“I do.” Jet said.
“Ah okay, sorry... thought you did not know. What I think is fascinating about the name is that the slaver wasps in the comic were much more than a memory wiping attack.” Cortana said thoughtfully. “Do you think the attack on your friends was just a test for something more ?”
“Definitely,” Jet responded. “It’s what that something might be that bothers me,” Jet pondered for a few moments, waiting for the transfer to be finished. “Can you access their defence systems?”
“No,” Cortana answered. “They are on a separate system. I cannot get access. Like I said, their network was not designed by a moron.”
“Damn,” Jet breathed.
“What where you thinking?”
“Can you install a backdoor on the system?” the cyborg enquired. “We might not be able to take out their defense grids with it, but it’ll still irritate the shit out of them if we can bring down their comms remotely.“
“I can try... its still difficult, but at least we will not care about alarms from cyberspace at this point.” Cortana admitted. “This might make it possible. Maybe I can connect it to the alarm level in the asteroid. When they raise alert, it can bring down their computers and communication.”
“Any little edge.” said Jet.
“I will try what I can... I will try to backup most systems, they might be damaged when the worm will go online.” Cortana turned her attention back towards the data. “I will work on the data I am acquiring from their computer system... I think in a few hours I might tell you more about the station. I will call you again.”
“Right so. Be about it,”
Jet left the AI happily munching away on the data, making her way through the ship. She was looking for somewhere she could go through what she had with a little privacy. Jet was sorely tempted to switch over into raw mode, but this was just too trivial to be worth risking damage to her psyche.
The thought served to remind her of the Lehrling back at Grunthal. How well where they doing with Gant training them. How was Jana doing?
She climbed up to the top of the ship, hoping to find the bridge to be empty. The Captains cabin was off-limits. Jet wasn’t the Captain. the gun-room was too small, so that left the bridge. She dismissed the Sammie Knight on watch, agreeing to take over the rest of his watch for him.
Bridge watch on an asteroid was little more than having someone awake who could notice there was an alarm going off warning of an impending Boskonian attack.
She found herself a comfortable position in the Pilot’s chair, and srt about reading, beginning with Ford’s message.
“Didn’t think we’d have this chance. Day 2. Vidkun appears to trust me. She offered me a permanent job and all. Began repairs on the truck, but it’s a mess. Do me a favour, kick the Nova’s gunner for me. If I’m lucky I’ll have it flying day after tomorrow. You have access to main station network now through the black box. What we’re looking for isn’t on it, but on a separate system. We’ll try and find it tomorrow. Teela thinks she knows where it is.
Our Bob Rife’s name is Quattro. She’s the only madgirl on the station right now and she’s a hell of a bitch. She’s about medium height, a build that really suggests she was modded. Golden brown hair, bunched into a pair of pigtails. Golden eyes behind a pair of spectacles. When we saw her, she wore a blue body suit with ‘IV’ engraved on a nameplate, and some sort of heavy white overcoat.
She’s also a hell of a cutesy bitch. She tried to buy Teela off me.
Discovered from Vidkun that Agatha Clay was here recently. She left some time ago and I don’t think it was a pleasant parting. I get the feeling that she saw what the other two were planning and decided to get the hell out of dodge before it all blew up. Quattro may have been her apprentice or understudy. That’s just a hunch.
She’s obviously based herself off some source fandom, but beyond the Audi 4-wheel drive system I’ve no idea who or what Quattro is trying to be.
Most Dark Senshi here are just a bunch of Gliesbies. They’re idiots playing with fire, trying to be edgy or some dipshit thing like that by running drugs. We have a few real Zwilniks in among them, coming in on freight runs, but most are just morons.
With a bit of luck. I’ll see you in two days. It depends on how truck repairs go.”
Agatha Clay.
Virtual Slaver wasp.
“Chikusho,” Jet grunted under her breath.
She reached over to the comm panel, flicking a switch.
“Cortana, this is Jet,”
“Yes?” the AI responded with inhuman speed “Back so soon?”
“Yeah. I need you to look for a few things. Get any data you can on Agatha Clay from their servers and collate it. Anything that might hint where she was gone, why she left, or how much she was involved in this project. Second,” she let her mind catch up. “Can you run an interwave search for characters named Quattro, or for shows where characters take their names from Italian numbers. If you have Ford’s message, compare any matches to the given description.”
“Is there anything else?”
Jet was about to say no, but a thought occurred to her. “Forward the data to Butterscotch. Include Quattro’s description, somebody in the task force might recognise it or what fandom she’s in. Uh...Classify it Gamma 2 and above.”
“Done,”
“Thanks.”
Jet closed the line, and stared out the windows at the rock walls of the crater. These jobs never did get simpler as they went along, did they?
----
I had to watch StrikerS for this story, so it stands to reason neither Jet or Ford would recognise the name Quattro. Jet's more of a fan of shows like Gunbuster or Diebuster (Hmmm... Zig-drone Buster Corps) Someone on the task force probably will.
“Chikusho,”.... Just think of all the times Priss says that in Bubblegum Crisis, and that's Jet's voice right there.
There's space there if anyone wants to jump in and inform Jet just who Quattro is.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?