Webcam up in here.

[seems_legit]

[Hardison is sitting in a nondescript warehouse somewhere, chillin' at a desk, with a bottle of orange soda in hand. Clearly someone else must have gotten it for him, because he's still on Hypatia's shit list. He leans back in his chair and folds his arms over his chest--wait, the camera...he's using his netbook's webcam to broadcast onto the

Comments

[ text > encrypted: 100% ]

[seems_legit]

[Well, Hardison recognizes that encryption method, even if all the network signature data is different.]

Dude, you really think she'll answer me when 214 individual safety alerts have gone unnoticed? Someone's beating down her front door, don't think she's likely to check her pager.

[ text > encrypted: 100% ]

[seems_legit]

Hell yeah I did. Had the subsystems feeding data to me since I got booted; there was a processing shift and new higher function program started up a while ago.

By the time I started investigating it, it was locked down and encrypted like they were protecting digital Fort Knox.

Didn't think much of it at the time, given how much the local sysadmin likes me, but seems suspicious as hell, now.

[A few keys and he sends you the logs for the last few days. The incident he's describing is very apparent at about the time Shodan took control.]

[ text > encrypted: 100% ] (Dammit Hardison, stop reposting.)

[seems_legit]

I can compile a list of AI hooked to the network, but all this code is as alien as the next. I haven't met a single one of them. I'll screen for the ones that have identified themselves as nonhuman, but these results will only be as accurate as they are truthful.

Those ports, though, to the mainframe, had to be activated manually. The reaction time in the system is too fast for a wireless transfer, even in space. Whatever did it might have left duplicate code from previous accesses.

[If it had just arrived and decided to take over, they were fucked. But otherwise it was a reasonable guess.]

[ text > encrypted: 100% ]

[seems_legit]

[And Hardison wants to? Oh man, hell naw. He's not going anywhere near that Zone, it was suspicious as hell already, and after Parker's warnings about weird people on the network, he's done some checking up. People are practically eating each other out there.]

Good call. Know anyone who wouldn't mind a walk through the Steranko?

[ text > encrypted: 100% ]

[electroniccrane]

"Know" is a bit strong.

[She just showed up on the network in response to hearing someone talk computers.]

[ text > encrypted: 100% ]

[electroniccrane]

I'll lead a squad. I'm not going into an unfamiliar hot zone alone.

[Implying she'd be perfectly fine with going into a familiar one alone.]

[ text > encrypted: 100% ]

[electroniccrane]

A couple, but they're potentially compromised.

[lol ghost hacking]

One's not a threat to me regardless, but the other could be a problem.

[She doesn't want to have to fight herself.]

[ text > encrypted: 100% ]

[electroniccrane]

My physical and mental equal.

["Exact double" is about as equal as you're going to get.]

If we end up facing off, all it will accomplish is wasting time.