Post by Gidget on Dec 30, 2020 19:11:46 GMT -8
TRIGGER WARNING: Self-harm
Gidget woke up and stared at her ceiling for what felt like forever. She had so many notifications going off just at the edge of her field of vision that it was difficult to see straight, but she had absolutely no interest in reading any of the e-mails or text messages she had received. She knew that she probably had something from either WR or Drake, but she was also aware of how easy it would be to distract herself from what she needed to do. She closed her eyes and shuddered, clinging to the blanket she was curled up under. She didn’t want to get up, didn’t want to face what she needed to do… but she had no choice. She owed it to Scott.
Getting up, she didn’t bother with a shower or food. She simply made her way to the computer desk and plopped herself down in her chair. Sparing a glance at the one she had gotten for WR, she felt a smile creep up across her face. No. She shook her head. She couldn’t think about them, right now.
She turned to her computer, and took a deep breath. This was for Scott, she kept telling herself. She had to do it.
Gidget knew that she had to start small. All of her other research showed that he had simply disappeared. All social media references to Scott were erased, including pictures that her family had posted of him. Even the ones from Christmas, just a few days ago, were deleted, and she knew that her parents hadn’t done that. They never deleted anything. His cell-phone number had already been reassigned to somebody else. His e-mails were deleted entirely. This was all expected. So, instead, she went to all of the information the CIA had made public access. He wasn’t there, either.
She took a deep breath. Okay, then. Next step. It was a simple one. All CIA agents had locator services implanted in their most-used devices, a simple method that the agency utilized in an effort to keep up with their employees. Most people didn’t even know about it. She, however, did… and they weren’t smart enough to keep that information out of public proxy points. After all, they needed a simple, quick, and easy way to track their people: cell towers were everywhere, and so was public wifi. She knew Scott’s general location and his tracker number.
She entered his tracker information into a simple algorithm to try and find it’s most recent location. It took a total of twenty seconds for her program to work before it gave her an error code. Again, it was something she expected, but it did nothing for her anxiety. She took the number itself and ran it through a coder, utilizing some of the CIA’s own algorithms – stolen a long time ago, just before she got the chip implanted in her head – to try to code, decode, and recode the number. Only one came up with any sort of result, and it was a dud.
His location services for the agency and organization were removed entirely, and trying to access their databases through any of their security systems would only alert them to her search. She paused long enough to add nearly one hundred additional proxy points, in an effort to boost her anonymity, before she continued her search.
He wasn’t dead. Of that, she was sure. If he were dead, they wouldn’t have bothered erasing his tracking information. Instead, they would have just reassigned it to another agent. She shifted slightly, and began to go through the (sadly basic) security to figure out where the closest agency was to his generalized location. Or, rather, what had been his generalized location. Finding that out was almost painfully easy: they always scrambled their location in the same way, and it was a simple math problem to be able to identify it.
The security for that location was bound to be just as cryptic as the security for most of the other agencies, but that wasn’t what she was interested in. Instead, she accessed government records – thankfully, most cities had transferred their record keeping to digital years prior. She knew she wouldn’t find anything about Scott, but she had to check, anyway. She utilized his agency number, his birthdate (also scrambled, because they thought they were smart), and anything else she thought they might use, but whatever agents she did stumble upon weren’t Scott. Without wasting any time, she utilized one of the ones she found, and managed to get his location. This random was going to be easy for her to use. Because of his similarities to Scott, his passcodes and numbers were pretty easy to get ahold of… Now all she had to do was wait the required ten minutes before his passcode was scrambled.
She spent those ten minutes spot-checking her coding program, and at the exact right moment… she entered the program into the system. Instead of blocking out the passcode, which would keep it unknown to even the user, it showed it to her. Perfect. Now, she had fifteen minutes to work her magic.
Getting into the system and wiring it through as many proxy points as she could manage, she pulled it up on a computer in Switzerland, which she mirrored onto her own monitor. This way, if they somehow managed to determine that a hacker had entered their system, they would think it was an active attack. For good measure, she even put a Russian virus into the Switzerland computer, which would then transfer it to the CIA in about half an hour. It wouldn’t manage to get through, of that she was certain, but she hoped it would at least confuse them.
She was looking specifically for anything of interest: interrogation logs, experimentation logs, or anything that might mention a defector. She was almost impressed with the complete lack of information she gathered. The good news was, they did not consider him a defector… The bad news was, she had no idea WHAT they considered him if that was the case. She had such limited time, and she knew the pressure would soon start building. She needed to get out of the system completely before they scrambled the password again.
There was no interrogation planned of anybody unexpected, and no experimentation logs that did not directly relate to her and her new arms. It seemed like this location was… well, fairly boring, in comparison. She did, however, find a chat that she might like to read… and no time to read it. She quickly retraced her steps, made sure that her Russian virus was in place, and left using totally different proxy points than she had used to enter. She groaned, frustrated, and began to rub her head.
What did it all mean? They didn’t consider him a traitor, they didn’t think he was leaking information, they didn’t know about any of it. All that meant was that they had pulled him from his locale and distributed any relevant information to the head of the CIA. She would have to get into those computers if she wanted to find out anything.
Washington D.C. officially had Scott, and they were keeping all of his information locked up tight. She knew she would have to get in, somehow, if she wanted to find out anything about him at all…
And the last time she had tried that, she had gotten caught.
“Well. Fuck.”
At this point, she was quivering. Her anxiety was crippling her. She had done this. She had brought this down on not only her family, but on her brother. She had quite literally no idea what they were doing to him, or where they had him, or what was going on. She threw herself back from her computer, significantly more frustrated than she had ever been.
Gidget began to pace the floor, contemplating the implications of everything she had learned. Scott was gone… and she had no idea what that might mean for her family, or for her. They had taken him, of that she was certain. She turned around, suddenly, and rage overtook her. She slammed her fist into the wall, as hard as she could… and the wall did not give way. In fact, her fist did. She felt something in her hand fracture, and she screamed out at the pain of it. Her knuckles were already discolored as she pulled her hand back to examine them, but the pain seeped away from her mind as quickly as it had come.
Pain. It helped her focus. It helped her think. She stared at her hand blankly as ideas slowly began to form in her mind, through the chaos of her anxiety. The CIA had mentioned on more than one occasion that something made her special, something more than her genius. She tilted her head to one side. What could that possibly mean?
Cradling her possibly-broken hand, she walked into the bathroom. Just like the pain had faded away, so did the clarity. She tilted her head to one side as she opened the bathroom mirror, and there she found it…
She hadn’t used it in so long. She hadn’t bothered with it. She didn’t need the pain anymore, she had told herself… and thus far, for almost a year, she had maintained that. This was different. She reached in with her good hand and grabbed hold of the shining, polished straight razor. She shivered at the feeling of the cool metal in her hand, and moved to sit on the edge of the bath tub, trying hard to focus through everything that was going through her head. It was like having a dozen different paths of thought that all randomly intersected each other, creating a jumbled mess. She was shaking.
Then, she whipped open the straight razor with a well-practiced motion. She raised her shirt with her probably-broken hand and stared down at the skin on her hip. The scars were all mostly healed over, and not nearly as vicious as the ones on her arms had been. She snickered as she wondered, almost idly, if the CIA would give her new hips as well, one day. Maybe she would end up a total cyborg, and all of these scars would be gone.
And, with that thought, she placed the sharp edge of the straight razor against the thin flesh, just above her hip bone… and sliced.
Cleaning the wound proved to be difficult with only one hand, and bandaging it was nearly impossible. It was significantly deeper than she had meant for it to be, but it had done its job: it cleared her mind. Suddenly, she knew what her next step had to be.
Gidget woke up and stared at her ceiling for what felt like forever. She had so many notifications going off just at the edge of her field of vision that it was difficult to see straight, but she had absolutely no interest in reading any of the e-mails or text messages she had received. She knew that she probably had something from either WR or Drake, but she was also aware of how easy it would be to distract herself from what she needed to do. She closed her eyes and shuddered, clinging to the blanket she was curled up under. She didn’t want to get up, didn’t want to face what she needed to do… but she had no choice. She owed it to Scott.
Getting up, she didn’t bother with a shower or food. She simply made her way to the computer desk and plopped herself down in her chair. Sparing a glance at the one she had gotten for WR, she felt a smile creep up across her face. No. She shook her head. She couldn’t think about them, right now.
She turned to her computer, and took a deep breath. This was for Scott, she kept telling herself. She had to do it.
Gidget knew that she had to start small. All of her other research showed that he had simply disappeared. All social media references to Scott were erased, including pictures that her family had posted of him. Even the ones from Christmas, just a few days ago, were deleted, and she knew that her parents hadn’t done that. They never deleted anything. His cell-phone number had already been reassigned to somebody else. His e-mails were deleted entirely. This was all expected. So, instead, she went to all of the information the CIA had made public access. He wasn’t there, either.
She took a deep breath. Okay, then. Next step. It was a simple one. All CIA agents had locator services implanted in their most-used devices, a simple method that the agency utilized in an effort to keep up with their employees. Most people didn’t even know about it. She, however, did… and they weren’t smart enough to keep that information out of public proxy points. After all, they needed a simple, quick, and easy way to track their people: cell towers were everywhere, and so was public wifi. She knew Scott’s general location and his tracker number.
She entered his tracker information into a simple algorithm to try and find it’s most recent location. It took a total of twenty seconds for her program to work before it gave her an error code. Again, it was something she expected, but it did nothing for her anxiety. She took the number itself and ran it through a coder, utilizing some of the CIA’s own algorithms – stolen a long time ago, just before she got the chip implanted in her head – to try to code, decode, and recode the number. Only one came up with any sort of result, and it was a dud.
His location services for the agency and organization were removed entirely, and trying to access their databases through any of their security systems would only alert them to her search. She paused long enough to add nearly one hundred additional proxy points, in an effort to boost her anonymity, before she continued her search.
He wasn’t dead. Of that, she was sure. If he were dead, they wouldn’t have bothered erasing his tracking information. Instead, they would have just reassigned it to another agent. She shifted slightly, and began to go through the (sadly basic) security to figure out where the closest agency was to his generalized location. Or, rather, what had been his generalized location. Finding that out was almost painfully easy: they always scrambled their location in the same way, and it was a simple math problem to be able to identify it.
The security for that location was bound to be just as cryptic as the security for most of the other agencies, but that wasn’t what she was interested in. Instead, she accessed government records – thankfully, most cities had transferred their record keeping to digital years prior. She knew she wouldn’t find anything about Scott, but she had to check, anyway. She utilized his agency number, his birthdate (also scrambled, because they thought they were smart), and anything else she thought they might use, but whatever agents she did stumble upon weren’t Scott. Without wasting any time, she utilized one of the ones she found, and managed to get his location. This random was going to be easy for her to use. Because of his similarities to Scott, his passcodes and numbers were pretty easy to get ahold of… Now all she had to do was wait the required ten minutes before his passcode was scrambled.
She spent those ten minutes spot-checking her coding program, and at the exact right moment… she entered the program into the system. Instead of blocking out the passcode, which would keep it unknown to even the user, it showed it to her. Perfect. Now, she had fifteen minutes to work her magic.
Getting into the system and wiring it through as many proxy points as she could manage, she pulled it up on a computer in Switzerland, which she mirrored onto her own monitor. This way, if they somehow managed to determine that a hacker had entered their system, they would think it was an active attack. For good measure, she even put a Russian virus into the Switzerland computer, which would then transfer it to the CIA in about half an hour. It wouldn’t manage to get through, of that she was certain, but she hoped it would at least confuse them.
She was looking specifically for anything of interest: interrogation logs, experimentation logs, or anything that might mention a defector. She was almost impressed with the complete lack of information she gathered. The good news was, they did not consider him a defector… The bad news was, she had no idea WHAT they considered him if that was the case. She had such limited time, and she knew the pressure would soon start building. She needed to get out of the system completely before they scrambled the password again.
There was no interrogation planned of anybody unexpected, and no experimentation logs that did not directly relate to her and her new arms. It seemed like this location was… well, fairly boring, in comparison. She did, however, find a chat that she might like to read… and no time to read it. She quickly retraced her steps, made sure that her Russian virus was in place, and left using totally different proxy points than she had used to enter. She groaned, frustrated, and began to rub her head.
What did it all mean? They didn’t consider him a traitor, they didn’t think he was leaking information, they didn’t know about any of it. All that meant was that they had pulled him from his locale and distributed any relevant information to the head of the CIA. She would have to get into those computers if she wanted to find out anything.
Washington D.C. officially had Scott, and they were keeping all of his information locked up tight. She knew she would have to get in, somehow, if she wanted to find out anything about him at all…
And the last time she had tried that, she had gotten caught.
“Well. Fuck.”
At this point, she was quivering. Her anxiety was crippling her. She had done this. She had brought this down on not only her family, but on her brother. She had quite literally no idea what they were doing to him, or where they had him, or what was going on. She threw herself back from her computer, significantly more frustrated than she had ever been.
Gidget began to pace the floor, contemplating the implications of everything she had learned. Scott was gone… and she had no idea what that might mean for her family, or for her. They had taken him, of that she was certain. She turned around, suddenly, and rage overtook her. She slammed her fist into the wall, as hard as she could… and the wall did not give way. In fact, her fist did. She felt something in her hand fracture, and she screamed out at the pain of it. Her knuckles were already discolored as she pulled her hand back to examine them, but the pain seeped away from her mind as quickly as it had come.
Pain. It helped her focus. It helped her think. She stared at her hand blankly as ideas slowly began to form in her mind, through the chaos of her anxiety. The CIA had mentioned on more than one occasion that something made her special, something more than her genius. She tilted her head to one side. What could that possibly mean?
Cradling her possibly-broken hand, she walked into the bathroom. Just like the pain had faded away, so did the clarity. She tilted her head to one side as she opened the bathroom mirror, and there she found it…
She hadn’t used it in so long. She hadn’t bothered with it. She didn’t need the pain anymore, she had told herself… and thus far, for almost a year, she had maintained that. This was different. She reached in with her good hand and grabbed hold of the shining, polished straight razor. She shivered at the feeling of the cool metal in her hand, and moved to sit on the edge of the bath tub, trying hard to focus through everything that was going through her head. It was like having a dozen different paths of thought that all randomly intersected each other, creating a jumbled mess. She was shaking.
Then, she whipped open the straight razor with a well-practiced motion. She raised her shirt with her probably-broken hand and stared down at the skin on her hip. The scars were all mostly healed over, and not nearly as vicious as the ones on her arms had been. She snickered as she wondered, almost idly, if the CIA would give her new hips as well, one day. Maybe she would end up a total cyborg, and all of these scars would be gone.
And, with that thought, she placed the sharp edge of the straight razor against the thin flesh, just above her hip bone… and sliced.
Cleaning the wound proved to be difficult with only one hand, and bandaging it was nearly impossible. It was significantly deeper than she had meant for it to be, but it had done its job: it cleared her mind. Suddenly, she knew what her next step had to be.
