Disaster Recovery: Part 4
Wrench opened one bleary eye and ran his tongue over chapped lips. His mouth was dry and sour, and his stomach churned like a cement mixer. He managed to lift his head, groaning as a red-hot pain shot through his skull. He was lying on a filthy couch in an even filthier room, his head pounding in time with the bass seeping in through the walls. As he squinted into the gloom, trying to piece together the events of the previous night, his stomach rolled and he let out a moan of pure misery.
There was a sticky patch on his jacket that smelled of stale beer, and a vague memory began to assert itself. Strobe lights, angry shouting, a thrown punch... he clenched his fist and his knuckles throbbed obligingly in confirmation. The rest of the night was a blur of screams, cigarette smoke, and the wail of rapidly approaching police sirens.
"Oh, you're alive. Pity." Lenni's voice dragged him back to the present. Wrench winced - Lenni's voice was comparable to nails on a chalkboard when he was sober. Hung over, it was like a dentist drill to the eye socket. He weakly turned his head to find the bespectacled hacker looming over him, her expression twisted with distaste. "Is that your puke on your shoes? Actually, don't answer that."
"What the hell am I doing here?" Wrench eased himself up into a sitting position. He felt like he'd been run over by a Nudle bus. He ran a hand over his mask, checking it was still in one piece.
"Well you see, when a mommy Frankenstein and a daddy Frankenstein love each other very much-"
"Fuck you, that's not what I meant."
"You started a goddamn brawl. In my club." Lenni didn't actually own the club, but the amount of money she paid under the table to get the management to turn a blind eye to Prime Eight's activities warranted her arrogance, in this case. "It was a shit show. Someone called the cops." She leaned over and spat, as if the word had left a bad taste in her mouth. Wrench's stomach heaved again.
"So you kidnapped me?" he managed to say, before he had to sacrifice his last shred of dignity and put his head between his knees.
"I rescued you, you ingrate." Lenni rolled her eyes and ran her fingers through her greasy hair. "Would you rather have woken up in the drunk tank?"
"Prob'ly would smell better," Wrench mumbled. Lenni pretended not to hear him, but when his stomach threatened mutiny, she shoved a trash bin into his hands. He pushed his mask up onto his forehead as the room swam around him.
"I want to cut a deal," said Lenni, when he'd finished. Wrench wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
"Go to hell."
"Oh for the love of- you're stuck in an enemy bunker with no phone signal, puking into a trash bin. Are you seriously going to act like an asshole?" Lenni's tone could have cut glass. Wrench made the mistake of looking up - without his mask he got the full force of her disdain. "God, this might be the most pathetic thing I've ever seen."
Wrench felt pathetic - he couldn't even summon the energy to cuss her out. He slid his mask back into place, shut his eyes and leaned back into the threadbare couch, clutching the bin with one hand and rubbing his temples with the other. He'd had worse days, but this one was turning out to be a solid contender.
"What kind of deal?" he said eventually.
"Sweet cheeks screwed up my bio mods," said Lenni. "The useless dipshits I've been working with have no idea how to break his encryption." The alcohol-soaked mass of grey matter between Wrench's ears finally began to slide into some semblance of order.
"You want Josh to fix your implants." Lenni leered at him - it was as close to a genuine smile as she got - and nodded.
"Bingo. Assuming he's not crippled or in a coma." She leaned closer. "You pansy-ass Robin Hood douchenozzles piss me off, but he didn't deserve that. Get him to fix me, and I'll help you find and punish the fuckers who did it." Wrench hesitated. 'Lenni' and 'helpful' didn't belong in a sentence together - hell, they didn't belong in the same canonical universe.
"How do I know you didn't do it?" he said, voicing the suspicion that had led him to his current predicament in the first place.
"You don't," she said bluntly. "But if we find the real culprit, then you'll know for sure." She snorted at his sceptical silence. "Come oooooon," she drawled. "A bunch of extra eyes and ears for one teeny favour? It's a good deal."
"It's not my choice to make," said Wrench. Even as the words left his mouth, he realised he was making the first good decision in a distressingly long time.
"Oh, fine ." Lenni flapped her hand dismissively. "Go and ask twinkle toes, but tell him it's an offer he'd be crazy to pass up!"
"So you're going to let me go?"
"Ha! You were never trapped here in the first place, idiot. Door's over there." She nodded to a doorway at one end of the dimly-lit room. Beyond, Wrench could make out a set of concrete stairs leading upward. He rolled his eyes and hauled himself to his feet.
He felt like he should say something to acknowledge the fact that Lenni had saved his ass from a beating - or at the very least, being arrested.
"Sorry about your trash can," he lied. Lenni's lip curled, and he beat a hasty retreat before she could change her mind about letting him go.
I•I•I•I
Lenni had been truthful about the lack of cell phone signal, at least. When Wrench emerged from the bunker - screwing his eyes shut against the harsh sunlight - his phone immediately began to buzz as ten hours' worth of frantic calls and texts arrived at once. His phone battery had fared about as well as he had underground, but he had just about enough juice to make one call…
"You little shit!" Frannie hissed as soon as she picked up. Wrench winced. He'd hoped to reach Josh, but it had been a long shot. "Where have you been?"
"Uhh, that's a long story." There was silence on Frannie's end. A very loud silence. "You're pissed at me," he guessed.
"You're goddamn right I'm pissed off!" Frannie exploded. Wrench held his phone away from his ear as his headache came surging back. "My grandson's been beaten black and blue and what do you do? Up and disappear in the middle of the night! He's been worried sick! I nearly put out a missing person report!"
"I'm sorry," said Wrench, and he meant it.
"Sorry for what? For disappearing off to who knows where? For making him sit up all night worrying about you? How could you do that to him?"
"Is he okay? Can I talk to him?"
"Define 'okay'." Frannie sighed, her temper allayed by her exhaustion. "He's not here. He went to look for you with Sitara and that other nice boy." She thought for a moment. "They said something about The Castro." Ah. So they knew he'd been looking for Lenni. He wondered if they had heard about the bar brawl.
"Wrench," Frannie's voice broke into his thoughts. "You're an extremely clever young man. I expect you don't hear that enough, so I'm telling you right now."
"Thanks?"
"So stop acting like a fool and put your mind to better use. I know what you are, and I know what you're capable of." Ah. Wrench's brain wasn't in much of a state to figure out the particulars, but her tone suggested she wasn't talking about fixing cars or working as a contractor for CToS - both necessary lies he'd told her in the past.
"Nothing gets past you, does it?" He said, sounding more bitter than he felt. Frannie ignored the jibe.
"Find out who hurt Josh," she said. "Find them, and give them hell."
She hung up, leaving Wrench to try and figure out where he was. Peering at the Bay Bridge in the distance, he guessed he was somewhere just outside of Oakland. He thought about calling for a cab, but one look at the state of himself and he quickly dismissed the idea - no self-respecting cab driver would let him anywhere near their car. He sighed in resignation, pocketed his phone, and, trying to ignore his mercilessly pounding head, went off in search of a bus stop.
I•I•I•I
Marcus was the first to notice when Wrench logged onto the VoIP channel.
"Dude!" he exclaimed, stopping dead in the middle of 16th Street. "Where you at, man? We've been searching for you for hours!" Sitara and Josh crowded around him, ignoring the death glares from everyone who had to dodge around them.
"Is that Wrench?" said Josh, his face flooding with relief. A second later they were all talking at once, asking questions and demanding answers faster than Wrench could keep up.
"Everyone, shut the hell up!" he interrupted. "My head's killing me!" His voice was starting to break up. "Look, I don't have much battery left on my phone. Can we meet back at the- uh, at Gary's place?" The others made noises of agreement, and a moment later Wrench dropped from the channel, his battery apparently exhausted.
"I'm gonna kill him," said Sitara. Marcus folded his arms.
"You're gonna have to wait in line."
I•I•I•I
Wrench had smart-mouthed FBI agents, survived many fist fights and faced down a line of cops in riot gear on more than one occasion. Waiting for the others to get back was more nerve-wracking than all of those things combined. He swiped some painkillers from Gary's first aid cabinet on his way downstairs, and raided the mini fridge for something - anything - to drink. The jackhammer in his skull had almost stopped when the door to the hackerspace slid open and the others came thundering down the steps.
"Wrench!" Sitara practically flew down the stairs, closing the distance between them and landing a punch on his shoulder that made him recoil. "You dickhead !"
"Ow! Fuck!" Wrench held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Okay, I deserved that."
"Yeah, you really did." Sitara shook her head, several emotions warring on her face. Eventually exasperation won out. "Don't ever do that to us again." Wrench placed his hand on his chest.
"Cross my heart."
He bumped fists with Marcus, who said nothing but gave him a look that spoke volumes. Then Josh appeared at the bottom of the stairs, and his heart dropped into his shoes. Josh's bruises had come up a florid purple colour, making obvious the extent of his injuries. He was limping slightly and he looked like he'd hardly slept - but for Wrench, the most galling thing was the expression of pure relief on his face.
"Hey," he said, but Wrench hardly registered it as he reached out and pulled Josh into a fierce hug, burying his face in the crook of his neck. Josh's arms tentatively circled his waist.
"I've been a shitty boyfriend." Wrench's voice was muffled by his mask and Josh's hoodie. "My priorities have been all fucked up." Peripherally, he was aware that Sitara and Marcus had moved away to give the two of them some space, but for now his world had condensed into the apologies tumbling out of his mouth and the man in his arms, who felt far too frail.
When Wrench had run out of things to apologise for (it took a while), Josh gently but firmly extricated himself from his embrace.
"You smell terrible," he said. Wrench let out a quiet laugh.
"Sorry about that, too."
"You don't have to keep saying that." Josh rubbed the back of his head - a flush had crept up from his neck and was spreading over his cheeks. Wrench longed to throw his arms around the man and kiss him. "Just… don't leave me like that again." His gaze fell to the floor. "I need you here."
"I'm not going anywhere," Wrench assured him. "...Except maybe a shower."
"Yeah," Josh's mouth turned up slightly at the corners. "You could use one of those."
I•I•I•I
"You have got to be kidding me," Sitara declared. She, Josh and Marcus had commandeered one of the couches, but Wrench had been relegated to the floor a few feet away. ("You smell like a frat house on a Saturday night," Marcus had told him flatly.) Wrench had just finished filling them in on the previous night's events - those that he could remember, anyway - including Lenni's offer. Sitara's scepticism was shared by the others. They were all staring at him as if he had grown another head.
"Hey, I'm not saying we have to trust her," he protested. "I'm just telling you what happened."
"Oh, we are definitely not going to trust her," said Sitara. Marcus made a noise of agreement.
"Yo, you're lucky she didn't lock you up in her creepy sex dungeon."
"She doesn't have a sex dungeon," Wrench retorted, though a note of doubt crept into his voice. Marcus fixed him with a level stare.
"You don't know that."
" Dude- "
"-Guys!" Sitara interrupted loudly. "Not in front of Josh. He's been through enough." Josh didn't argue. "Anyway, it's his choice, right?" Three pairs of eyes turned to Josh, who balked.
"Me?" he frowned, and shook his head. "No, we don't need her. We got this."
"Damn straight," said Marcus approvingly.
"So… what now?" Wrench looked up at the others. "We're stuck at a dead end."
"Not quite." A sly smile spread across Sitara's face. "Marcus here is going to break into the S.F.P.D." From the look on Josh's face, this was news to him too. Wrench leaned forward eagerly, his interest piqued.
"Go on…"
I•I•I•I
When it came to getting into places he wasn't supposed to be, Marcus was a professional. Even Sitara, whose frequent rooftop activities usually involved hurling herself, at speed, into places not designed for the human body to go, had to admit that he was a natural skulker. But even Marcus' talent had its limits, and when he couldn't go over, under, or around an obstacle, well. The only alternative was to go through it.
This was how he came to be standing outside a police station in downtown San Francisco in broad daylight, wearing one of Josh's polo shirts and a tie, with 'Marvyn' burning a hole in his pocket. He tugged at the too-tight collar and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to channel his inner Friendly IT Guy.
"Relax," Sitara's voice crackled through his headset.
"I'm relaxed." Marcus adjusted the plasticky earpiece, trying to get rid of the sputtering noise. They'd gone for a cheap Chinese knockoff of the Nudle Voice headset for added authenticity. It looked better than it worked. Sitara's laugh sounded vaguely musical in his ear.
"Bullshit," she said. "You're shitting bricks." Okay, maybe he was - very tiny bricks, anyway. Marcus would almost take sneaking around and trying not to get shot over this.
Almost. Getting shot hurt .
"My feet are killing me," he grumbled. They'd placed gravel in his shoes to subtly change the way he walked. It was just enough to fool any biometric gait recognition software in the cameras, but not to impede him if he had to make a quick getaway. He hoped.
"Aww, corporate life is so hard," Sitara teased him. "Just breathe. Pretend it's the Nudle op all over again."
"Sure, except all the hipsters have been replaced with cops, and all the chai lattes with guns."
"Please don't get shot," said Josh. "I like that shirt."
"Ha, funny." Marcus rolled his shoulders to ease some of his tension. "Alright, here goes nothing." He pushed his tinted glasses up his nose, adjusted his tie, and ascended the handful of steps to the main entrance.
A reception desk and a metal detector gate sat between the entrance and another doorway, through which the rest of the facility lay. There was a security guard in Umeni uniform, too, the irony of which wasn't lost on Marcus. He plastered his most affable smile on his face as he reached the desk, and the woman behind it looked up from her ancient computer with an expression of pure boredom.
"Hi," Marcus said, going for his most non-threatening tone, "I'm here to fix your printer?" It was a gamble, but a fairly safe one, according to Josh. Sure enough, he caught a flicker of recognition in the receptionist's expression.
"ID?" she asked, in a way that suggested the question had become automatic. Marcus had prepared for this - he cupped his hand around the laminated card clipped to his pocket and waved it casually in front of the glass. Sitara had put it together in about five seconds, with an entirely fake identity, of course. It wouldn't hold up to scrutiny, but who wanted to be the guy who inspected every ID badge at close range? The receptionist nodded and gestured to the door.
"Down the hall and take a left. It's the second door on the right."
Marcus mumbled a thank you and headed for the door. The guard's eyes followed him as he passed, but Marcus didn't break his stride. The gate chirped as he stepped through, but when he reached for his laptop bag, the guard waved him through. Marcus had to force down a laugh - the poor bastard had taken one look at him and seen no weapon. He had no idea that Marcus' laptop was his weapon. He entered a brightly-lit, institutionally beige hallway and tried to look like he knew where he was going, even though he'd already forgotten the receptionist's directions. It was the kind of hallway that looked the same no matter which way you turned.
"I'm in," he said, as soon as he was out of earshot. His earpiece crackled again.
"Nice," said Sitara. "Never underestimate a nerd in a polo shirt - oh, sorry, Josh."
"Wait!" someone said loudly, and Marcus froze. He turned around slowly, his heart dropping into his shoes as the security guard strode towards him.
"Something wrong?"
"You'll need an access card to get into the office. I'll come with you." Marcus nearly sagged with relief. He nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and followed the guard down the hallway. If the man noticed him sticking unusually close, he didn't comment on it. By the time they reached their destination, Marcus had scanned and copied his access card with the NFC reader on his phone.
"Here, all yours." The guard waved his card at the reader on the wall, and the doors glided open.
"Thanks, man," said Marcus, more genuinely than the guard could ever know.
The doors led to an open-plan office space. Everyone looked far too busy to pay attention to the tech guy, which suited Marcus down to the ground. He found the offending printer - a plastic monolith of outdated hardware that looked like it was held together by duct tape and positive thinking - and sat down on the ground with his back to it and opened his laptop.
He Nudled the make and model of the printer in case anyone came over and started asking questions, then connected himself to the CCTV system (all CToS, of course) and began to poke around.
It didn't take long to find what he was looking for - the server room was nestled between the restrooms and a janitor closet. He looked around to make sure no one was paying any attention to him and headed back out into the corridor, retracing his digital steps through the building. He kept the CCTV feed open, using it to avoid anyone who might wonder what he was doing.
"Guys, I found the server room," he said, scanning his phone at the card reader and slipping inside. "Time to put Marvyn to work."
"Have you fixed the printer already?" Sitara teased. "That was fast."
"Yeah, I turned it off and on again." Marcus grabbed the innocuous-looking USB stick Ray had given him, found the right port and plugged it in. With any luck, it would be days, maybe even weeks, before someone found it and figured out something was wrong. That would be more than enough time for Ray to do whatever he needed to do.
Marcus' time frame was more urgent, though. As soon as Marvyn had scooped up the login credentials for everyone in the building, he found the account with the closest thing to administrator access and began to copy as much data as he possibly could, straight onto the hidden, encrypted partition on his hard drive.
More accurately, it was a hidden partition within a hidden partition. All of DedSec's devices were set up this way, as a precaution in case anyone was unlucky or stupid enough to get caught.
Within ten minutes, Marcus had a hard drive stuffed with stolen data and a sense of irrepressible smugness that came with a job well done. He unmounted his hidden partitions and slipped his laptop into its bag.
"That's it," he announced. "I'm getting out of here."
As the others made celebratory noises in the background, Marcus snuck back down the corridor, passing several offices along the way. One door was open, the room empty of people, but something caught Marcus' eye, making him back up.
"Guys," he said, shaking his head. "You're not going to believe this."
"What?" Sitara sounded concerned.
"I just walked by the captain's office. He keeps his password stuck to his monitor." He heard a slap that might have been Sitara smacking herself in the forehead.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the genius of the S.F.P.D," said Wrench in the background.
"You know, as the I.T Guy, I really oughta change his password to something more secure," said Marcus, already checking to make sure no one was coming down the hallway.
"It would be remiss of you not to."
"How about the first million digits of pi?" Sitara's laughter filled his earpiece.
"Now that is secure."
I•I•I•I
As soon as Marcus headed downstairs, he knew something was wrong. The others were crowded around Josh's desk, watching something on his computer. Josh had his arms wrapped tightly around himself and was staring into space. Wrench soothingly rubbed the spot between his shoulder blades, but he held his other hand stiffly at his side, clenched into a white-knuckled fist.
"What's going on?" Marcus said, a trickle of uneasiness pooling in his stomach. Wordlessly, the others moved over to let him in.
It was a video, the footage grainy and washed-out, as if it had been inexpertly brightened. It was hard to see anything from the shaky camera work, but Marcus could make out a group of three men. At least, he assumed they were men. Their faces were blurred out, adding to the general confusion. One of them took off running, and the others followed, the camera lurching as whoever was filming struggled to keep up. When it steadied out, the men were crowded around a figure huddled on the ground, their feet and fists rising up and down practically in unison.
"Holy shit ," Marcus drew back sharply as he realised what he was seeing. The camera shuddered as it moved closer, and one of the men pulled back. The figure was curled up in a ball with his arms thrown up over his head, but Marcus would have recognised him even without his green hoodie.
"Holy shit," he said again, feeling faintly sick. Sitara tried to answer, and found she couldn't. She swallowed and tried again.
"There's sound, but…" she shook her head. "I had to mute it."
"Where did it come from?"
"Lenni sent it to us, said one of her crew found it on a video-sharing website. The guy who uploaded it has all kinds of videos just like this - abusing homeless people, beating people up when they're drunk…" Marcus looked away, unable to stomach any more.
"So this was just a random attack, then? Someone who likes to go after vulnerable people for fun?"
"Who fuckin' cares why they did it?" Wrench was shaking with barely contained rage. "We need to find these shit stains-" he jabbed a finger at the screen.
"-And what?" Sitara demanded, shaking off Marcus' hand as he tried to calm them both. "Get ourselves killed trying to get revenge?"
"It's better than sitting here doing nothing-"
"Stop it." Josh said, so quietly his voice was lost among the bickering. He shot out of his chair, sending it skidding across the concrete floor. "STOP IT!" The others fell quiet, taken aback by the outburst.
"Don't you get it?" his shoulders heaved as he took a shuddering breath. "You're all missing the point. Lenni found this, not us. We missed it!" He shook his head. "We missed it."
"What are you saying, hun?" Sitara asked softly. "You want to take her up on her offer?"
"I don't know." Josh shrugged helplessly. "If there's a chance it will help us stop them? Then yes. I don't want anyone else to get hurt." There was a long pause as the others processed this. Wrench was the first to recover.
"Hey, I'm with you, whatever you decide," he said. Josh gave his hand a grateful squeeze.
"Okay, so we… what? Call a truce?" Marcus scratched his chin. "I mean, we can't let her in here, right?" He gestured around at the hackerspace.
"Fuck no," said Sitara, with feeling. "We'll meet somewhere neutral. Somewhere away from her merry band of assholes."
"I guess I'll give her a call." Wrench grimaced. After this, he was going to need a drink. Several drinks.