Tangled Currents - Tbyte Options

[Mercy]

Friday 8 June 2075 1430 The Green Lady Seattle



The Green Lady is what it purports to be; a runner bar. It is a place where one can generally come to relax, toss back some beers, get a few trid games in, maybe look for a job. Trouble is, most of those sitting around a place like this on a Friday afternoon were the sort of people who need a job. That includes you. You made the rent for your medium grade studio apartment, but it was tight this month and will be a whole lot tighter next month unless something comes along. Eight days into the month and nothing, nada, zip, zilch, zero income. You could always bet everything on some game, but you know little about odds and could lose everything so you wisely stay away from the gamblers. Sometime there was something at the day-labor spot, but it was usually work more suited to that guy three tables over who is built like some sort of tank. So day labor is generally out as well. That left hoping, which was not doing so hot just now either. Life sucks.

You are watching the highlights of last night's Blood Bowl match on the trid screen above the bar when the guy walks in. You might not even have noticed him but he goes straight to the bar and Mac points a rather skinny arm directly at you. The man nods and leaves something on the counter that disappears before you can tell the size of the scrip bill. Then turning in your direction, the guy walks to your table with two beers, one of which he puts down on the table and slides over to you. Taking the other chair at the table, he gulps from his mug and looks at you. "If you are Tbyte, I may have a job for you. A real job that pays real money. Interested?"

[Unlucky Badger]

Friday 8 June 2075 1430 The Green Lady Seattle

This particular morning had not been kind to Tbyte. For one reason or another he'd barely slept three hours and so found himself downing about five cups of soycaf just to stay awake. One of the little joys about this place was that they actually made a decent cup of caf. One or two nuyen here and there didin't matter at this point in the month, unless something came in soon, Tbyte was going to have to spend the next two weeks scraping fractions of Nuyen off of people's accounts down at the local bank, a tedious process that never yielded enough to be worth it except in the most desperate times. Last night's Bloodbowl match was failing to hold his attention, another reason he'd not gotten much sleep. Claus wouldn't let him rest until he'd gone through the highlights with dumb sound effects included.

It took him a moment to realize that someone had joined him at the table, with a drink for him no less. It was a bit early to be drinking but one wouldn't hurt. He raised his mug in thanks to the man. "Well Mr. Johnson, I probably would be. What exactly are we dealing with here?"

[Mercy]

Friday 8 June 2075 1433 The Green Lady Seattle



The man frowns. "I hate that name; it always sounds so stupid to me. Please just call me Titus. The job is small but could lead to other things if you do well. Sort of depends on how close to the gray you are willing to go. The job is just a hair shy of being completely illegal. Interested enough to find out more?"

[Unlucky Badger]

Friday 8 June 2075 1433 The Green Lady Seattle

Tbyte smirked as the man spoke. "I think you'll find I live quite comfortably in the grey, Titus. So what is it exactly that you need me to do?"

[Mercy]

Friday 8 June 2075 1435 The Green Lady Seattle



Titus grins and stands. "Drink up and I will take you for a ride to where we can talk in peace and comfort."

[Unlucky Badger]

Friday 8 June 2075 1435 The Green Lady Seattle

Tbyte absolutely hated it when people said that, only because one time the drink ended up being spiked. Those were different times though, one would need to have a serious deathwish to try and drug a runner in a runner bar....it would be a shame to waste good beer too. He raised the mug and downed the rest of it before standing up from the table. "Lead the way, Titus."

[Mercy]

Titus walks from the Green Lady and points to a beater car at the curb. The outside certainly gives the impression that anyone stealing this thing is taking a step down in life. The man snickers a bit as he gets in and interprets your look. "Hey, it runs and who is going to steal it. Take it easy and sit back. This will take about thirty minutes. Sorry, but no sound system. That would double the value of the thing and then it might get stolen." He laughs as he tries to put the car in gear and it just sits. He tries a second time and fit starts, running sort of smoothly. He hums the same song over and over during the trip, making you quite glad when he gets to the destination and parks. He motions for you to leave the car and walks you up a set of stairs and into a house that has certainly seen better days. The entry hall is full of garbage and debris and he steps around it, heading for the stairs at the end of the hall. Titus turns a switch and a weak light illuminates the stairs going down. At the bottom is a door and you can see a weak green light coming through the cracks. He uses an old=school key and open the door for you to enter.

You pass into a room that is a vast improvement on the rest of the building. Several comfortable-looking chairs are set around a small coffee table. There is a sort of mobile work station next to each chair. He points to one of the chairs and asks you to sit. "You need a soycaf or something before we get started?"

[Unlucky Badger]

Tbyte would by lying to himself if he said this wasn't perhaps the oddest start to a Johnson meet he'd ever experienced. The man's car left him wondering if he truly had any funds at all to offer for this job and his choice of tune to hum left Tbyte questioning his sanity. The state of the bolthole, if one could call it that, seemed to erase all the fears he had about the Johnson though. It was obvious now that the run down area and car were either disposables or cover.

He collapsed into one of the chairs and tried to work out the kinks in his back left by the bottomed-out suspension. "Better make that a double."

[Unlucky Badger]

((Posted for Mercy))

---Johnson---
Titus smiles and brings you a double soycaf, handing it to you as he sits down in one of the other chairs. “OK, here is the scoop. I have been contracted to find some hackers. Good ones. My employer is apparently considering something big and wants three of you to work on a project, but not just any three. He has provided me with a list of tests that he thinks will stretch your abilities and tell him if you are what he is looking for. For the first test, I am to provide you with a deck that is pretty basic in its capabilities and software. If you pass and go on to the second test, you may use your own deck or continue with his.” He takes a drink from his mug and looks at you. “You will stay here until the first test is complete. There is a bathroom just through that door over there, a small frig behind you, and I can provide some food if it takes you too long. You know where the cafpot is. You may quit at any time and I will still pay you for the test, but I do encourage to make a good-faith effort. I am to tell you that this job could be quite lucrative if you make it to the final team.”
Another drink and he asks if you are ready. “Your first test is to determine the name of the mistress of the assistant branch manager of the New Seattle Bank’s branch office at 15th and Trolley in Downtown Seattle. You may begin now and take as long as you need. You are being paid by the job, not the hour. Good luck. I will be in the office just through that door if you need anything. Let me get that deck for you.” He goes to the small office he had indicated and returns with a mid-grade deck. "The current password for the deck is "LUCK907"

--Tbyte---
The mousey hacker downs the double soycaf in record time, happy to at least have some work. "Cool, think I saw this sort of thing in an old trid once or twice...but I can understand where your boss is coming from with this. Don't want to end up with incompetent team members after all. He boots up the deck and allocates it's resources for a nice long evening of information scanning. He spends the better part of an hour configuring the new deck just the way he liked it. After passing the double soycaf through his system, Tbyte reached up to the back of his neck and pulled a plug attached to a small data transfer cable out. Plugging it into the mid-grade deck and zonking out into full VR.

Meanwhile in the Matrix, a badger sits on a park bench in the middle of the Emerald City reading a newspaper. The obvious thing for Tbyte to do is to even find out the name of his target. Considering the Big Ten parade their department heads around like trophies, he doesn't really thing it should be all that hard to find...so the badger flips a page of the newspaper. (Matrix Search 8 ) Satisfied he had the right target, the badger icon jumped off the park bench and proceeded to trot towards the Emerald City bank branch that represented this particular office in the virtual world...but a small and angry animal waiting near the entrance would be sure to draw attention from passers by and the roaming IC or spider. Instead it started to dig its den in the alley adjacent to the bank, peaking its head out any time someone left. (Hide 8 and matrix perception 8 )Once Tbyte is fairly certain he's got the target right, the badger emerges from its den and starts to trot through the busy virtual cityscape after the icon, trying to nibble at its ankle once before running away into another alley. (Brute Force 8 )

The critter lifts its ears to the sky hoping to collect what it was after. It races to catch up and trail the persona from a far after some initial data has been transferred. (Snoop 8 and and spoof command 8 - send site visit history).

[Mercy]

Friday 8 June 2075 1720 Titus' Hideout



The badger has little trouble identifying the target and following him. The nip at the ankle gets his attention for a moment but is soon forgotten, although you know that you have probably started the overwatch clock by that action. The man eventually turns from the curb to a walkway leading to a small apartment building. He stops before entering the building and disappears in such a manner that you are sure he has disconnected his wireless.

[Unlucky Badger]

Friday 8 June 2075 1720 Titus' Hideout

Meanwhile in the real world, Tbyte's datajack retracts back into his neck. With all the texts and call logs on this particular cyberdeck, he starts going through and looking at the contacts, calls, and texts sent by and to this particular mark. He starts looking through them hoping to identify which one is the wife which one is the mistress. Hopefully he can find enough publicly available information to reference the commcodes to the apartment building.

[Mercy]

Friday 8 June 2075 1730 Titus' Hideout



Your search eventually manages to reveal all eight of the public comm codes registered for the residents of the building. Another search lets you know that there are only four Apartments in the building.

[Unlucky Badger]

Friday 8 June 2075 1730 Titus' Hideout

In AR, Tbyte places the list of public comm codes next to the call and text logs taken from his target's 'link. If none of the codes match up then he does a further search into each comm code in search of a connection. Perhaps they work for the same company or share a similar hobby or interest that might be discovered while sorting through the links to trids of funny cats and him asking the wife what dinner will be that night.

[Mercy]

Friday 8 June 2075 1750 Titus' Hideout



It does not take long to get a match in his call log. A check against the official registry yields that the comm is registered to Mr. Alexander Gordon.

[Unlucky Badger]

Friday 8 June 2075 1750 Titus' Hideout

Tbyte sits up and lets out a groan as he stretches, cracking much of his back. He cranes his head over the back of the seat to speak with Titus. "Right, think I got it. This mistress of his seems to be a man named Alexander Gordan or an unfortunately named female. "

[Mercy]

Titus looks at you from his chair behind a small desk in the office. "Are you absolutely certain that you have the correct answer?"

[Unlucky Badger]

Tbyte reboots the deck so as to hopefully lose the attention of GOD for now. "Never can be 100% certain without making physical contact but it's my policy to always give the Johnson some sort of lead at this point just in case I meet one hell of an attack barrier." After rebooting the deck, he once again inserts his datajack into the deck and zonks out in the chair. This time his icon took on the form of a faceless man in a suit. Hopefully a search of the area would show the icon belonging to the commcode of Mr Gordan or his previous target. Since he had time to work with, Tbyte's mark would be a bit more subtle..perhaps just a bump in the crowd or a knock on the virtual door of the apartment.

Whichever one of them he was able to find and mark first, he'd set his deck to intercept the traffic coming from the 'link in order to spy on them in real time.

[Mercy]

Friday 8 June 2075 1827 Titus' Hideout



Yeah. You find no such thing as an attack barrier in the Gordon 'link. The firewall is easily bypassed and you get your marks. Scrolling through the call log, you find that the only number that has been used in the past three months is that of your target, the bank assistant branch manager. The call log only goes back the three months, so was new then or the rest has been wiped. Most of the log is just short calls out but there are some rather salacious texts from the manager to someone named Peg, although he usually refers to her in somewhat more fanciful terms of endearment. These texts describe in great pornographic style what the sender wants to do to the receiver.

[Unlucky Badger]

Friday 8 June 2075 1827 Titus' Hideout

Tbyte snickers quietly to himself as he transitions from VR back to realspace. The datajack once again retracts into his neck. His head cranes over the chair again, smiling. "Alright, all the good stuff is finished processing. Rather deceptive name to go with the 'link, at this point no doubt it's probably a burner. Her name is Peg but we've got a real saucy bastard on our hands here. I'll save some of the highlights if you'd like a laugh later." At this point he taps away on the tablet, going on a hunch and just looking again at the bank's "about our team" page to see if anyone whose name could be shortened to Peg also happens to work there.

[Mercy]

Titus smiles and once again asks if this is your final decision. The bank's page does indeed list the employees, but you do not see any with a name that could be Peg, however, the branch manager's name is listed as Alex Gordon and his wife's name is Margaret. None of the other spouses have similar names.

[Unlucky Badger]

Tbyte does his best to nod, still looking at Titus upside down over the back of the chair. "Yep, I'm stickin' to my guns on this one. The 'link seems to have been purchased in the name of his boss...Sleeping with your boss' wife though..so scandalous." He continues tapping out essentially another Google search. "Depending on how much you believes last century's records, Peg can be a nickname for Margaret...and I'll give you three guesses what your mark's boss' wife's name is."

[Mercy]

Friday 8 June 2075 1848 Titus' Hideout



Titus smiles and comes out of the office. "Well done, Tbyte, well done. That is the correct answer. You get to move on to the second test. You may take a short break if you like. Let me know when you are ready."

[Unlucky Badger]

Friday 8 June 2075 1848 Titus' Hideout

Tbyte stands up and plays a symphony of cracking joints before going over and grabbing another soycaf and one of those instant sandwich type deals. He goes back and sits in the chair backwards on his knees, using the backrest to support his torso. "So if you don't mind me asking, how many others have you put through your tests? No details mind you, I'd like to keep my head and whatnot." He'd wait for Titus to explain in whatever way he wanted to. Once Titus was finished, Tbyte would toss the trash from what passed for a meal. "Alright, let's kick it. What's the second test?"

[Mercy]

Friday 8 June 2075 1900 Titus' Hideout



Cannot give you too much, but there have been eight people in that chair. I am working from a list provided by my employer. There are more names on it if you fail. So on to the second test. It is actually a continuation of the first one. now that we know that he really has a mistress and who it is, I want you to investigate the target deeper a bit deeper. Please tell me what you find. Take all the time you need. Please make sure of the details and follow all the relevant leads. Any questions?"

[Unlucky Badger]

Friday 8 June 2075 1900 Titus' Hideout

Tbyte shrugs. "Well color me suprised, I figured it would have been fewer...ah well. Guess the only question I've got is if you're looking for something specific on him or if you just want to know so much about him you can have a one-sided conversation? Either way, might wanna get comfy cuz it'll probably be an all-nighter at least." He goes back to his chair, sprawling sideways in it as he fires up the deck one more. The datajack goes in but he sits in AR for now so he can hear Titus speak.

The first order of business is to simply pull up the New Seattle Bank's page to get what they claim is his basic biography, then he started going through old articles regarding any scandals or controversies the bank might have been involved in that involved Mr. Gordan because of participation and not just because he's the branch manager. And of course he checks to see if this guy is silly enough to have a MeFeed or an Ibook page. After all that, he'd search again for the burner commlink his wife seems to be using and try and trace it to a physical address if the public searches didn't list one for him. Provided that worked out, in the virtual, a fly icon would appear in the house and try to land on Mr. Gordan's 'link and Mrs. Gordan's 'link assuming it needed to be compromised again. He'd simply start to download the logs from the real 'link and then intercept the traffic once the branch manager woke up and went to work.