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Post by Mankoi on Dec 4, 2014 15:46:32 GMT 1
[OOC: This is the sideplot threat for Prof. Cinders's character, Alan Day. Start however you like, Prof. Cinders]
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Post by Prof. Cinders on Dec 4, 2014 20:44:45 GMT 1
It was a quiet evening. The servers hummed idly, going through the motions of backing up student data. The sophisticated cooling system roared overhead, pulling the hot air away from the racks, carrying it to the comfortably warm building containing the supercomputer room. Techs occasionally wandered in, checking tiny monitors, trying to look like they were being useful before sauntering out again. Alan sighed happily, settling down to peruse the Internet.
At least, he assumed it was evening. It was hard to tell from the greyscale security cameras he'd "borrowed" to watch the outside. Not being able to see the sky properly soon annoyed him further, so he pulled a stream from one of Stark Industry's more public satellites to watch the planet spin. He wondered if he could hijack it one day.
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Post by Mankoi on Dec 5, 2014 4:13:03 GMT 1
"Knock knock, Zero." The words didn't come from a voice of any sort. Rather, one of the security cameras had gone out, and seemed to be displaying text instead of a picture.
"You're a hard man to find." The text continued after a moment.
"Ever try to get a girl's phone number?"
"(888) 555-0134"
"Call me."
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Post by Prof. Cinders on Dec 5, 2014 20:10:15 GMT 1
The security camera's feed was quickly replaced with a looped recording of static, and the tape wiped, just in case the security guard had been paying attention. Alan paused, before blocking all access to the security network too - you could never be too careful with hackers. And a girl? Who knew where he was? He'd taken precautions! Not one of his wires had tripped, not one of his firewalls had triggered, nothing!
... He paused. The servers continued humming; the fans kept sucking hot air. The world turned gracefully on the feed he'd pulled. She hadn't penetrated his inner sanctum. And she'd called him Zero - maybe she didn't know his real name? That was something. Nevertheless, he threw up some of his more sophisticated firewalls before connecting to the payphone outside. It clicked, and he pushed the indicated number to its simple system. He pulled up a voice synthesiser, one of his projects - he could tweak the voice dynamically to make it sound almost real - and hooked it up to the line. Now all he had to do was wait for someone to pick up.
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Post by Mankoi on Dec 5, 2014 21:04:20 GMT 1
"Hello, Zero," the woman on the other end of the line said. "Or do you prefer Dr. Zero? You earned it, after all. Calling from a payphone, I see. It's all right. I'm not your enemy. I just needed to get your attention."
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Post by Prof. Cinders on Dec 5, 2014 21:12:50 GMT 1
"You have it." He'd chosen a thick Brooklyn accent, but emotionless so far - she'd surprised him again.
So she did know who he was, which meant she was a threat to his location, whatever she said. If she got word to the authorities he'd lose what little worldly possessions he had left. It's not like they let dead men keep things - or worse, they'd isolate him, study him, who knows what. Oh, and she knew how to tell a payphone from a normal phone. Joyful.
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Post by Mankoi on Dec 5, 2014 21:24:27 GMT 1
"You know you'll be declared dead eventually, right? Declared dead in absentia. After about seven years. You can only be a missing person for so long. But I think we can do something about that, you and me. After all if someone had access to... say... your body, and a cloning facility, we could always make a new flesh home for you. Or we could clone someone else. If you're attached to your old body, that's fine. But if you want a new one, that's fine too. It doesn't matter, really. The clone will be mindless, so there's no moral weirdness about it."
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Post by Prof. Cinders on Dec 5, 2014 21:44:39 GMT 1
Alan paused for a second. She could practically read his mind. This was getting waaay too creepy. Plus, mindless clones? She could make an army with that tech. Maybe she already had. Fake zombie hordes. Brrr. "I'm not interested."
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Post by Mankoi on Dec 5, 2014 22:46:30 GMT 1
"Of course you are," The voice said. "I know you're afraid of being discovered, or you'd have announced your presence. That means you're vulnerable. Having a body again would remove that vulnerability. I already have access to the cloning facilities. We made them to help fix the organ supply problem. Clone a person's body, you know you have an organ that won't be rejected. No more waiting on lists, hoping some poor sod somewhere gets killed in a way that leaves their heart intact so you can have it, that sort of thing. That's why the clones are mindless. Brain dead. Vegetables. But the project got shut down. Too much worry the Christian right would declare they had souls anyway. Or that they were evil demonspawn. It could have gone either way."
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Post by Prof. Cinders on Dec 5, 2014 23:09:50 GMT 1
"I'm not afraid."
She sure did ramble. And fixate. He didn't need a body anymore. He had ruined the first one, and the next probably wouldn't fare much better. Plus, he wouldn't be able to literally surf the Internet... No, what he wanted was something less tangible. Maybe she couldn't read his mind after all.
"Why did you want my attention?"
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Post by Mankoi on Dec 5, 2014 23:32:23 GMT 1
"So we could make a deal. If you don't want a new body, fine. We can clone one anyway. Prop it up against something, take a picture every few years in a new part of the world... enough to confirm you're alive. They'd stop watching your bank account, you wouldn't have to worry about whatever earthy possessions you have, that sort of thing. And all I want in return is a little phone data. I can give you the numbers, you can make a few calls, hop into the phone, and send the contents of said phone to this number."
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Post by Prof. Cinders on Dec 6, 2014 18:13:03 GMT 1
Well, that was a more interesting proposal, to be sure. But there were still questions that needed to be answered.
"Two things," Alan said, switching to a more businessman sounding accent. Something nice and Wall Street-ish. "Who are you, and why do you want the data?"
Since she tended to ramble, maybe she wouldn't notice a ping to the phone... Determine where she was, maybe even see what company she was calling from. He set up a worm and shot it down the phoneline.
[OOC: Roll K: Hacking, I believe]
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Post by Mankoi on Dec 6, 2014 18:37:25 GMT 1
"You can call me Fiona," she said. "Fiona Chillingworth. As for the data, there's a man who I believe may be in some trouble. Access to his phone data, especially if I can look through his camera, would tell me if he was all right or not. If he gets into a mess, then I'm going to help him out for it, in exchange for a sample of his DNA, which could provide some rather dramatic advances in medicine and biotech."
The phone, as it transpired, was actually the toll free hotline for the Oscorp building in New York.
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Post by Prof. Cinders on Dec 6, 2014 19:02:06 GMT 1
Well, Oscorp then. They did medical stuff, so that definitely validated her weird clone claims. Unless the call had been bounced somehow. But surely from a hotline, it would be hard to anticipate which call would be his? At least her cause sounded just, even if it was motivated by monetary gain. Bah. Too confusing. This woman was a web of questions.
He left it a few seconds before responding, hoping it appeared he was thinking hard about it. Then, in something resembling his original accent - to sound more sincere, he hoped - he said, "Ok. You keep up appearances for me, I get you info on this guy." And even if she wasn't sincere, then maybe he could warn the guy.
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Post by Mankoi on Dec 7, 2014 4:38:26 GMT 1
"Thank you, Zero," Fiona said. "The number is 958 157-0323. Do keep an eye on him for me, please, if the phone has a camera on it?"
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Post by Prof. Cinders on Dec 8, 2014 22:26:22 GMT 1
"If it's facing him," Alan said, just in case it wasn't clear how limited the things he could do were. It's not like he could flip the phone over. "Is that everything?" For a rambler, she'd given him so little to go on...
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Post by Mankoi on Dec 9, 2014 0:11:48 GMT 1
"I think that's most of it. Just send me what you can find on his phone. If you can, keep an eye on things. Microphone, webcam, just try to be aware of the situation. I understand phones live in pockets, just try to stay aware of it. If he gets into any sort of trouble, let me know about it straight away."
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Post by Prof. Cinders on Dec 9, 2014 0:56:01 GMT 1
"Will do." He hung up. No point in prolonging an already long conversation. But hey, his synthesizer seemed to be working rather well! Or, at least, he thought it did. Maybe he should ask this guy he was supposed to hack what he thought.
He glanced over the firewalls, checking nothing had tried to hit him while he was preoccupied. He doubted it had; these firewalls were good enough for banks, so why not a few servers? He did a quick back up of his memories of the conversation as well, then copied them to some of his usual safe spots across the web, some of them more obvious than others (if something was wiped, they'd most likely be first, and he'd have some warning).
Itching to see what this was all about, he pulled up a web phone service - no point making this harder - and zipped himself to their servers, already dialling the number he'd been given. As soon as there was an answer, he should - if all went well - be able to transfer himself to the phone through its network.
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Post by Mankoi on Dec 11, 2014 0:42:40 GMT 1
This thread is now closed. For the continuation, go to this thread!
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