Chapter 3: White Infiltration
CI Stakeout of DataDyne Skyscraper
Nightfall
Joanna looked over the map once again, and quickly returned her gaze onto the DataDyne skyscraper, about fifty meters away. She was sitting in the civilian hovercar the Carrington Insitute had provided her and Jonathan. She looked over her shoulder, out of the backseat window at another building. The Suljestic Hotel. That's where her and Jonathan had their primary base, just across the street of the DataDyne skyscraper. Here, they could keep an active reconnaissance on the building, note entry points, security presence, and actively find defalcations in what appeared to be normal business routines. She took a deep breath, and returned her gaze at the skyscraper's lower parking lot area, just west of the main entrance. The lot was well-lit, and well-guarded. She could see DataDyne guards patrolling up and down the parking ramps, but they were unarmed.
Cars, and numerous cars, constantly packed the parking lots, all three stories of the parking structure. After a few days of reconnaissance, Jonathan and Joanna assessed that the perfect entry point would be the center parking garage, because according to the holographic and architectural map, there was about six inches of loose concrete that packed the north wall. That concrete was made to conceal a design flaw in the structure, and it led to another subfloor structure, which subsequently led to the ventilation shaft right above the DataDyne second-floor lobby indoors.
Joanna's thoughts were briefly interrupted, when she saw a black transport hover vehicle parked a few dozen meters behind the building. Because of the angle she was in, she couldn't see the details of the vehicle, but she and Jonathan had been watching that vehicle attentively in the past few days. Because Jonathan was in the hotel room, he had a better vantage point.
Jonathan could see the transport vehicle, as it stayed stationary. He noted the DataDyne markings, and two large yellow biohazard placards on either side of the truck.
"Joanna, do you see that truck again? I'm pretty certain that it's carrying some type of medical waste." Jonathan said into the throat mic. Jonathan could see personnel, dressed in white lab coats, opening the hind-doors of the truck, and carrying crates. Not extremely bulky crates, but enough to make Jonathan attentive.
"Yeah, I'm watching the truck now. At the angle I'm in, I can't see much of anything. Tell me what you see, Jonathan."
"There's a bunch of personnel dressed in lab coats, unloading crates with biohazard placards from the truck. They're taking them into some area behind the building, but I can't see anything from this angle."
Jonathan looked down from his horizon scanner (binoculars), and looked at the architectural schema of the DataDyne exterior the CI had designed. According to the schema, this area was restricted, but there was no significant or conspicuous structures, other than a possible loading/unloading bay. But he remembered Carrington had said that this area could possibly be the entrance to an extensive, secretive underground laboratory and research facility, but he wasn't entirely sure. Jonathan and Joanna would find out tomorrow afternoon. Jonathan then saw something that surprised him. As he looked through his horizon scanner, he saw several squads of heavily-armed DataDyne security, armed with CMP-150's with extended stocks and barrels. The squad materialized from the unseen loading/unloading area, and escorted about five personnel dressed in lab coats into the truck. The guards wore ballistic armor, and combat boots, so the personnel they were escorting were of extreme importance.
"Joanna, I'm looking at about eight DataDyne security guards, outfitted with CMP's, combat boots, and ballistic armor. They're escorting about eight personnel...." Jonathan cut himself short, as another transport hover-vehicle arrived at the scene. This transport was identical to the first one, but this one lacked biohazard placards. When it stopped, immediately another team of DataDyne security, this time about ten of them, exited the vehicle, with about five more lab-coats. They disappeared behind the bay, as the first group entered the first vehicle, and hovered above and away from the skyscraper, moving south.
"What? What do you see?" Joanna asked, through her throat-mic.
"Another group of troops with an escort of personnel just entered that bay. I'm almost sure that there is something around that bay that is more than we think. We're going to have to investigate."
"First thing's first, Jonathan. I need to establish infiltration, collect, execute." Joanna said, with a hint of annoyance in her voice. She wanted to get Dr. Carroll out of there, but exploring other facets of the skyscraper not part of the operation was dangerous.
Joanna had a small duffel bag on the passenger seat of the car, and dragged across the seat onto her lap. She zipped it open promptly, and checked off the contents in her head, that Carrington provided. The first object she drew from the bag was a small object, rectangular shaped, with a small LCD screen in the center of the metallic object. It was an electronic Data Uplink. Grimshaw had modified it and tricked it out with a special algorithm that was capable of picking up and exploiting computer systems by creating a backdoor, and relaying the targeted information on the system to the CI insitute. Passwords, password-protected documents, files, anything that may be an asset to finding Dr. Carroll, or extraneous snooping, frankly, can be exploited and procured. The Uplink could also be used to temporarily disable surveillance systems, by uploading a virus that spreads rapidly through a surveillance purlieus. It knocks cameras off its live feeds, disables CCTV's, and can also disable an intercom system connected to a surveillance circuit. The next object Joanna drew from the back was a spherical, slick, but extremely lightweight object. It was intensely opaque, and the only content that was remotely effulgent was the small lens that was right on top of the sphere.
This was the CamSpy. These things were astronomically expensive, and Carrington was reluctant to have Jonathan use it on this particular operation. He convinced him that it'll be tactically essential into reconnoitering inaccessible rooms and such. Joanna rubbed her fingers across the sphere. It was made of extremely dense alloys and fiberglass was the main constituent. These were nearly invincible against most forms of handling, but could crumble easily under the force of a bullet or grenade shrapnel. The CamSpy used its own antigrav unit embedded in the center of the sphere, and it also maintained a gyroscopic sensor, that allowed it to detect its physical orientation. It was remote-controlled, and Jonathan would be operating it from his hotel room, aiding Joanna. The next, and last thing Joanna drew from the bag was a DataDyne I.D. and medical bracelet. This operation would be a "white infiltration", which is essentially posing as a DataDyne employee, in order to penetrate the further level of obscurity of the skyscraper.
Grimshaw designed the I.D. card with extreme precision. It was so authentic-looking, that it would never arouse suspicion among those DataDyne personnel that would ask for an I.D. The I.D. also had a magnetic strip that ran diagonally across the back of the card. Grimshaw had trouble designing the strip, because he was reverse-engineering it from a procured DataDyne card. DataDyne changed the design of the cards every month, to stifle this type of engineering. Grimshaw was able to input false networking codes into the digital magnetic strip, so it would run a group of batched algorithms that would precisely and mathematically discern the password the DataDyne building had arranged on its employees' cards. Grimshaw had beat the DataDyne security system, within the confines of a single I.D. Genius.
At the top of the card, her name wasn't Joanna Dark, but "Paula Stavros". Below the name card, written in italics, was the title "Second-Grade Filer". She would be simply filing stacks of papers, unimportant legal papers, she thought. Below that, read "Supervisor: Jasmine Van Zandt." Jasmine Van Zandt didn't exist, but it would be sufficient enough for the social engineering of her "co-workers" and other potential threats to the operation. Joanna took another deep breath, and plopped the contents back inside the bag. She reached her hand into the bag, and felt the fabric of the clothes the CI had provided her: A white blouse, black knee-length skirt, black satin stockings, and soft Women's Kensington pumps, also black. Hmmm, pumps. They could of done better, Joanna mused mentally.
"Alright, Joanna. Time for some shut-eye. In the morning, you'll make the incursion. Forget about the parking garage point, it's best if you go in through the main entrance. We'll use the garage as a primary exit point if things get hostile." Jonathan briefed.
Joanna yawned, turned the throat-mic off, and let her eyes shut slowly, as the city began to fall asleep.