Video, same encryption (100%)hows_the_kneeMarch 4 2011, 22:12:19 UTC
[When Sarah receives the message, she just sits there for a long moment, staring. She watches the video through twice before finally reaching out with a shaking hand to turn on her own feed, double-checking to make sure of the encryption before she does.
She's not restless like Polito is - instead, she looks into the camera with still, quiet intensity, as if she can hardly believe what she's hearing, and is afraid that if she moves too suddenly, it'll all go away.
She smiles, though, slowly, as she turns the video on.]
Video, encrypted ~forever~ => action!hows_the_kneeMarch 5 2011, 00:30:28 UTC
I'll be there.
[And Sarah disconnects. Somewhat recklessly, she doesn't bother to tell John or the Terminator where she's going - she's still riding the high from Polito's news, and feeling perhaps a bit overconfident. If this works, they'll have a whole zone to themselves - no monitoring from the AI, nothing for the T-X to hack into and watch them from. Finally, they might have a chance.
She arms herself with as many weapons as she can carry and heads out, covering her tracks by teleporting first to the adjacent zone and from there to the coordinates in Zone 7.
Sarah arrives late. Not just a few minutes behind schedule, but hours late. She makes no apology for this, or even mentions it at all - as far as she's aware, it's been just a few minutes since she finished her conversation with Polito on the network. She smiles as she approaches, holding a shotgun up briefly to show the other woman.]
[At the best of times, Shodan is impatient. Her vast intellect races ahead of most humans, and she finds them slow, sluggish, boring.]
[To be forced to wait hours is unacceptable. She amuses herself with the network and then proceeds to start hacking the defenses she can take down from here, but inside she seethes. And when Sarah arrives...?]
You idiot What the hell took you so long? Didn't I say we were on a time limit!?
[Sarah stares, completely taken aback. Not only has she never heard Polito snap like that, she also has no idea what might have triggered it. But it only takes her a moment to rally.]
I got here as fast as I could!
[She returns Polito's glare, still baffled, but ready to defend herself. It had taken her a few minutes to arm herself, but she would have thought Polito would understand that.]
I couldn't get rid of those robots for you without any weapons.
Two hours, Sarah, [said with a dangerous hiss.] Two hours. And with a delightful little interlude of you babbling about someone named Kyle over the network. An invisible someone, I might add.
If you're going to lose your mind while we're trying to work...
[She sighs, then holding the bridge of her nose, and takes a few deep breaths. All illusion, of course - really, she's weighing the benefits and drawbacks. She needs this human. She can't lose her temper. Diplomacy, Shodan.]
[Sarah watches the video in silence, her confusion only growing.]
...I don't understand. I...don't remember this at all...
[She shakes her head, hopelessly. Even Sarah can see that there's something wrong with herself in that video, something not quite all there. And even if she had found Kyle, why wouldn't she have contacted Polito, let her know not to worry?]
[Sarah frowns, still unnerved. That post is frightening her, and not only because she'd actually put an unencrypted video on the network. And can't remember it at all.]
...I should call John. Try to figure out what happened.
Too risky. Hypatia could pick up a transmission and decide to lock this whole sector down. This shouldn't take too long anyway, and you can always contact him when we're done.
[Sarah hesitates - her instinct is still to call John, to make sure he's all right. After all, if she'd died...
But she's also still very, very leery of using the network, of the AI watching her communications. And what Polito's saying makes sense. She nods in agreement.]
[She taps something on her wearable, and a nearby vent opens up with a loud HISS-POP. ]
That's an access vent. As far as I can tell, we go forward fifteen feet, then we hit the spiders. Little bots that are going to try to eat us.
[She taps a gel pack at her side] Brought this along myself to help with it; it'll fry their circuits but mostly just be sticky to us. [Thank goodness her own chassis is much better shielded.] Following that, we get into a larger corridor where there should be at least one bigger combat bot, and then we'll need to blow up a door.
I... don't know what's on the other side of it, but it's either going to be clear or full of nasty things.
[She glances at the vent, a little skeptically. Being trapped in a tiny space like that sounds like it could end badly, especially with crawling bots in there with them...but it's worth the risk.]
She's not restless like Polito is - instead, she looks into the camera with still, quiet intensity, as if she can hardly believe what she's hearing, and is afraid that if she moves too suddenly, it'll all go away.
She smiles, though, slowly, as she turns the video on.]
Good work.
[Understatement of the year.]
Just tell me where to go.
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Bring guns.
[ ==> action? ]
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[And Sarah disconnects. Somewhat recklessly, she doesn't bother to tell John or the Terminator where she's going - she's still riding the high from Polito's news, and feeling perhaps a bit overconfident. If this works, they'll have a whole zone to themselves - no monitoring from the AI, nothing for the T-X to hack into and watch them from. Finally, they might have a chance.
She arms herself with as many weapons as she can carry and heads out, covering her tracks by teleporting first to the adjacent zone and from there to the coordinates in Zone 7.
Sarah arrives late. Not just a few minutes behind schedule, but hours late. She makes no apology for this, or even mentions it at all - as far as she's aware, it's been just a few minutes since she finished her conversation with Polito on the network. She smiles as she approaches, holding a shotgun up briefly to show the other woman.]
Ready.
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[To be forced to wait hours is unacceptable. She amuses herself with the network and then proceeds to start hacking the defenses she can take down from here, but inside she seethes. And when Sarah arrives...?]
You idiot What the hell took you so long? Didn't I say we were on a time limit!?
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I got here as fast as I could!
[She returns Polito's glare, still baffled, but ready to defend herself. It had taken her a few minutes to arm herself, but she would have thought Polito would understand that.]
I couldn't get rid of those robots for you without any weapons.
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Two hours, Sarah, [said with a dangerous hiss.] Two hours. And with a delightful little interlude of you babbling about someone named Kyle over the network. An invisible someone, I might add.
If you're going to lose your mind while we're trying to work...
[She sighs, then holding the bridge of her nose, and takes a few deep breaths. All illusion, of course - really, she's weighing the benefits and drawbacks. She needs this human. She can't lose her temper. Diplomacy, Shodan.]
I'm sorry. I should not lose my temper.
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[Sarah's eyes narrow as she steps forward, her body language a little more hostile now.]
Two hours? It hasn't been two hours, it's been less than ten minutes. And I haven't touched the network.
...How do you know about Kyle.
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[She pulls up a hologram from her wearable, and plays that post for you, Sarah. ]
Looks like you have. If I had to guess? I'd say you got killed between then and now.
Might want to encrypt that post.
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...I don't understand. I...don't remember this at all...
[She shakes her head, hopelessly. Even Sarah can see that there's something wrong with herself in that video, something not quite all there. And even if she had found Kyle, why wouldn't she have contacted Polito, let her know not to worry?]
I don't know what happened.
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I have heard that something's been happening in Zone 8. At the very least, it has Hypatia's attention. Possibly you succumbed to this.
In any case... it doesn't matter. You are here now, and you seem mostly sane.
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...I should call John. Try to figure out what happened.
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Too risky. Hypatia could pick up a transmission and decide to lock this whole sector down. This shouldn't take too long anyway, and you can always contact him when we're done.
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But she's also still very, very leery of using the network, of the AI watching her communications. And what Polito's saying makes sense. She nods in agreement.]
All right.
What do we do?
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[She taps something on her wearable, and a nearby vent opens up with a loud HISS-POP. ]
That's an access vent. As far as I can tell, we go forward fifteen feet, then we hit the spiders. Little bots that are going to try to eat us.
[She taps a gel pack at her side] Brought this along myself to help with it; it'll fry their circuits but mostly just be sticky to us. [Thank goodness her own chassis is much better shielded.] Following that, we get into a larger corridor where there should be at least one bigger combat bot, and then we'll need to blow up a door.
I... don't know what's on the other side of it, but it's either going to be clear or full of nasty things.
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All right.
Just how big is the bigger one?
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