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 Posted: Mon May 21, 2018 11:58 pm
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Posted: Tue May 22, 2018 12:12 am
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Engrav Setlar
The screen flickered, a dismal reflection of the inventor's scarred face staring at him from the darkened gloss of the husktop for a brief moment before it was backlit with bright colors again. Engrav stared at it like a note he'd hidden in an attic and forgotten about. How long had he been staring at the husktop? It felt like days. Weeks even. Sweeps.
Engrav yawned, wiped the sleep from his eye, and stretched. Looked through the network architecture again. He'd swiped an ID from one of the useless drones staffing the edification center hours ago, and already made himself at least four different staff logins, but it wasn't enough. He wanted admin access. The inventor glanced down the rows upon rows of edification center disquisitionblocks, his vision beginning to get all funny. They looked like they went on forever, and unbroken string of tedium leading all the way to the other side of Alternia. It didn't even look like anyone was even using the lab.
Scratching at the bottom of his missing eye, he open up yet another root directory in the network, looking for the elusive admin ID. He was pretty sure that it wasn't intentionally hidden - there was just a LOT to sift through. Engrav wondered for a moment longer if it was even worth it. The workroom was absolutely deserted this late at night. No one here but him. They'd actually tried to turn the lights off once before he'd yelled at the drones that he was in here, "studying". But the promise of a job completed kept him going, grinding away at the directories like they would yield gold. Or dirt.
Gravel?
The metaphor was getting away from him. He clicked through another directory, grumbling under his breath.
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Posted: Tue May 22, 2018 1:44 am
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Degras Tysson
As his sniffnode brushed the surface of moon Ephias jolted back with a start. A greasy smudge coated the centre of the monitor from the tip of his sniffnode, blurring the image with a pale, prismatic blur. Hastily, Ephias moved to wipe it with his sleeve. That seemed to help a bit... though now the rest of the screen seemed to suffer for it. The words glared out at him through a hazy outline. He rubbed at his lookstubs and leaned in again. A burning sensation radiated at the back of his sockets, as he tried to parse the letters from the harsh, green background.
With a sigh, Ephias leaned back in his chair. Lifting his eyebrows, he felt relief stretch across his brow. He closed his eyes momentarily and massaged away a cluster of aches at his temples. The pain receded into the back of his skull. In its place however, exhaustion swooped in. That had to be a first. He glanced down towards the clock in the corner of the screen: and it wasn't even morning.
Still, late was late and the redblood was not about to pass up one of the few times his body deemed itself ready for sleep. Skimming to finish the last paragraph, Ephias closed the window, saved his personal documents, and finally ejected the data grub, which promptly went into his backpack. After logging himself out of the terminal, he started towards the exit.
Most the other students and staff had gone home, but as he passed by a row of disquisitionblocks he saw a lone figure hunched over the keyboard, pecking away at the keys. He paused, glancing towards the screen. Every once in a while he glimpsed another soul at the brink of morning, usually a harried student, frantically churning out an essay at the last minute, but... the yellowblood seemed to be of a different sort. For one thing, the program in front of him was no essay, and besides he looked far too relaxed to be pulling together an overdue assignment.
Removing his headphones from one spongeclot, Ephias heard the yellowblood let out grumble; the words themselves were too muted for him to make out. It was none of his business, but... he had trained himself in a certain amount of paranoia. He crept up behind the yellowblood. “Working late?” he asked with a yawn and a half-smile. |
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Posted: Tue May 22, 2018 7:39 pm
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Engrav Setlar
Engrav jumped in his seat as someone called out to him. He thought he'd been alone. He was certain he was alone. This late in the night, he was fairly regularly the only troll active. Had someone been sleeping in a disquisitionblock? It took every single nerve the yellowblood had, but he acted casual, letting himself relax back into the chair. Engrav glanced over his shoulder at the newcomer, leading with his good side.
"Ha, uh, I guess so." Engrav said, covering most of the screen with a shoulder. Nonchalant. No problems here. "Must have gotten lost in what I was doing." Good gog. He'd never seen a troll that looked quite as tired as this redblood. And for him to sneak up completely undetected on the inventor while wearing all of those chains... Alarms went off in Engrav's head. He struggled to pull himself from the haze of exhaustion, try to bring all of his attention on the interloper.
Deep bags under the eyes, hair disheveled and unkempt. Standard edification center student fare. This redblood took them to another level, wore the lack of sleep almost like an accessory. Engrav smiled up at him, friendly, polite. He hadn't decided what his cover was yet. Fellow student? Network engineer? Surely the drones weren't responsible for system architecture here. Hopefully a little polite conversation could steer the redblood away from anything that actually mattered here. "You're burning the early oil too, huh?"
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Posted: Thu May 31, 2018 1:07 am
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Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2018 9:13 pm
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Engrav Setlar
Engrav blinked as he watched the redblood's gaze wash over the network of scars that covered his eye. That was probably good. The inventor liked the scars insofar as they were a smokescreen, something that pulled attention away from what he was doing and turned it into a question of who he was and what had happened to him. Not that he appreciated the attention, but at least it was focused away from anything dangerous. "Of course," the inventor responded with an oily smile and a little incline of his head. "I just, um..." What was he doing here this late in the morning?
Keep it casual, yellowblood. Deflect. "Physics, huh? I'm more of an engineering enthusiast myself, but I've dabbled." At least, he'd read enough to keep up with the theory Polair tended to spout like anyone knew what in the world she was talking about. The inventor glanced back at the screen for a moment, where a list of logins was slowly compiling. Gog, but that was taking forever. "Did you need help with your sim? I know a bit of coding." Anything to get the redblood away from the husktop.
Green Minuet Short, sorry. Just trying to get us going again. |
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Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2018 10:05 pm
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Engrav Setlar
Engrav flinched as Ephias craned his neck over the partitions of the husktops. Was the redblood going to... oh gog. Engrav's thinkpan went into overdrive as Ephias sat down, sweat beginning to bead on the back of his spinal column. He felt... itchy. The inventor memorized Ephias's login information as the tired redblood entered it, purely as a force of habit, storing it away for later, but his pumpbiscuit wasn't really in it. It was busy sinking as the redblood looked over at his screen, the login information of dozens of users flickering across almost faster than the eye could see as Engrav stored them in a hidden partition for later access.
"Uh... yeah." Engrav said as Ephias stared. "Software. Definitely software. Right now I'm doing a... simulation?" As if that screen could look anything but malicious. "Just testing an old virtual machine for some pretty common exploits, you know. Yup. That's what I'm doing. Really pretty boring stuff, honestly. Uh, you should show me your simulation though."
His bag was at his feet. Maybe he could sneakily grab his pen, and shoot the redblood with a tranquilizer dart if he made a scene? But he'd still seen Engrav's face. The inventor might just have to burn the whole operation if Ephias wouldn't leave him alone.
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Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2018 7:22 pm
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Degras Tysson
Ephias' gaze lingered on the yellowblood's monitor for only a few seconds. His face was devoid of expression. He did not so much as bat an eye. Then, with a shrug he looked away. “That sounds interesting,” he said with all the interest of someone tethered to a subject they would much rather move on from.
“But yeah. It's pretty basic stuff... just... lots of f-fo... interactive algorithms, and it's annoying to keep track of them all.” Ephias pulled open the program, code displayed on one half of the screen and crude visual on the other. He scooted his chair aside so that the yellowblood could scoot in. “The class study is based around gravitational fields and orbits so... Yeah, you c-can... can see that one there is b-bugged. Er, broken formula. I've been editing it all night, but I can't find where I...”
Even as he rambled, filling the yellowlbood's spongeclots with inane chatter, Ephias' thoughts went a mile a minute. A hacker. For reasons he could only begin to guess, the yellowblood had a hundred, a thousand, several thousand login credentials flooding his screen. It should have been cause for concern, but Ephias found himself processing this information with a further seeing gaze. Tevini had her own technical skills, but she worked more of the hardware side. A software specialist could prove useful, even if only under contract.
And someone operating illegally to obtain information could not be that friendly with the Alternian military.
“... the great thing about physics degrees,” Ephias continued. He sat with his chin in his hand, watching Engrav over his shoulder. “There's a lot of applications for it, especially with so much... or... organ... so many organisations pushing for space travel in the past few sweeps. I guess there must be a lot of job opportunities for c-coders too, huh? Security and stuff is always looking for experienced programmers. Hey, do you think we could work together some day?”
He regarded the yellowblood with a dim, sleepy expression. Maybe he was laying it on a little thick.
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Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2018 10:29 pm
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Engrav Setlar
Oh, for... who did this redblood think he was kidding. Engrav knew that he knew that Engrav knew that something was afoot here. Engrav tacked a few keys and saved his stolen files to a grubdrive, so he could get a chance to look at them later when he was more... solitary. At least it didn't seem like Ephias was going to immediately call security on the inventor. No, this seemed a little more like... planning. Which was something he would do himself.
He could work with that.
Engrav didn't even listen as the redblood chattered away, saying nonsense about orbital mechanics that he really just couldn't possibly have been bothered with. And really.
The redblood was laying it on just a little thick.
But that told Engrav a couple things. First of all, the redblood was comfortable with breaking military law from time to time, which wasn't entirely unusual with his caste. It was difficult to get much done as a redblood in general, and sometimes a rule just had to be ignored. But... it also told him that Ephias had use for someone with his skillset, or at least the skillset that the redblood had been presented with. Engrav wondered with a small smile if Ephias might be getting more than he bargained for here.
"I'm sure we'll be seeing plenty of each other very soon, Degras. But I have very pressing business to take care of elsewhere. Official engineering business, you know how it is." The yellowblood pulled the grubdrive from his workstation and dropped it into a waiting pocket. "Let me give you a card, though. Always plenty of oppurtunities to go around, and it's a please to speak to someone who's so well versed in... interactive... algorithms. Don't hesitate to call."
The yellowblood would have like very much to pick Ephias's thinkpan further about what exactly them working together might entail, but he already felt he's spent far too much time in an environment as uncontrolled as this. Next time they met, he'd at least like to do some reconnaissance, maybe track down one or two of the redblood's friends and grill them. He really didn't like going into meetings blind.
Satisfied, the inventor spun on a heel and made a dash for the exit.
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Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2018 6:14 pm
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Degras Tysson
Spinning in his chair, Ephias watched the yellowblood with narrowed eyes as he left. Only when the door swung shut behind him did he look back at the business card tucked into the keyboard. He pried it from the keys. Engrav Setlar. Ephias turned it over, eyes roving over the details printed on the simplistic design. After a moment he glanced over at the now empty terminal next to him.
Interesting.
He flipped the card back over in his fingers, rubbing the surface with his thumb as he pondered. A smile formed across his face. At last, he tucked the card into his pocket. Closing the program on his own computer, Ephias packed up to leave. Session logged out, grub drive extracted, backpack zipped, headphones on. He made his way towards the doors, static playing in his sponge clots. Just before he exited however, he shot a glance up towards one of the security cameras.
It had been a long time since he had met with Chiara.
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