New Forays pt.1

April 9th, 2014
Undisclosed Location
9:18 AM

“Firewall breached.” announced Cicero’s monotone voice.

The progress update was displayed on the large monitor in front of the hacker. He stood on a dais, with three immense computer monitors, feeding a constant stream of data. One display was directly in front of him, connected to the wall, while the other two were situated on either side of him.

“Bribe the gatekeeper, then move onto the next target.” he ordered.

“Understood.” Cicero replied, comprehending his operators code for creating a backdoor into the the secure database, for later re-entry.

These databases were critical to his livelihood, and had to be cracked one-by-one if he planned on jump-starting his business back up. He had considered waiting a bit longer before opening up shop again, but the restlessness had finally become too much for him. The information highway was always teeming with traffic, and he couldn’t bear just sitting back and observing any longer. He had to get back on the proverbial horse, and sink his teeth in.

The plan presented risks though. His relocation to America had been one of choice. Necessity had demanded it. He had always stayed one or two steps ahead of the authorities, but something had changed in the last two years. A very intelligent, and capable young woman from Scotland Yard had transferred to Interpol, and had been assigned to his case.

She was different from the others. Her files had been redacted and the codename, ‘Lestrade’, assigned to her. She began pursuing leads like a shark that had caught the scent of blood in the water. One-by-one she had either arrested or killed his agents. Only a fraction of his network had survived. While he had kept a sensible degree of separation from his people, she had effectively brought an end to over eighty-percent of his operation.

Her methods were the only thing that he had been puzzled over. He could understand that ‘Lestrade’ would follow a lead to it’s source, but how she had acquired some of these leads, eluded him.She had discovered connections between agents, and information about his networks, that should have been untraceable. At first he had suspected there was a mole in his ranks, but proper surveillance had dispelled those suspicions. Now he suspected that there was a meta-human factor involved.

‘Lestrade must possess some superhuman ability.’ he thought. It was the only solution that fit every question he had. She was gaining her intel from sources he couldn’t cover. It explained why her dossier had been wiped clean and then locked away. He wasn’t exactly clear on what made her tick yet, but he was sure that it was psychic in nature, and given time he would narrow it down.

“Firewall breached.” the statement brought him out of his reverie.
“Very well. Let’s do a little fishing before we continue.” he replied, determined to cure himself of his boredom. The current database he was exploring was the Rainbow Six Telecomm servers. “Bring up a map marked with cell tower locations and network coverage.”

An overlay of the city of Angel Falls was displayed on the main monitor. Dozens of small red dots manifested in an even dispersal across the city. Small green circles appeared around each of the dots. Each of the dots represented a tower or source of a cellular signal, while each circle marked the signal radius of each tower. Occasionally the circles would overlap, and the green would be a darker shade, indicating stronger cell reception in those areas.

As his eyes scanned over the map he noticed something odd. In a region of the city marked the ‘North End’, where two of the green circles overlapped, there was a blank spot in the shape of a perfect circle. At almost the exact same time, Cicero detected the same anomaly. “Zoom in, and enlarge.” The highlighted selection, was now magnified, and filled the screen. “Analysis?”

“Cellular ‘dead-zone.’ Approximately two square blocks in radius.” Cicero reported.

“Could it be architectural interference?”

“Unlikely.”

“Possible maintenance issues?”

“Unlikely.”

He sighed. “Artificial and deliberate in nature?”

“Favorable.”

Someone was blocking both cellular and WiFi signals. It was a jamming apparatus of some sort. Either military-grade or homemade. With such a close proximity to ASTRO labs and Angel Falls Medical Center, he knew someone was hiding something. His resources were still limited, so any probing efforts would have to be passive. “Prep a UAV. Small. VTOL with a sat-comm link-up.”

“Underway.”

(To be continued…)