More writing. Woo. Nothing else to say.
El x
"OK, tell me about yourself."
"Err well she's-"I stop as Oscar gives me a stern look, "fine, I'm about 5'3'', Italian, brown hair, brown eyes. I go to Cheltenham ladies' college. I love lacrosse, fashion and style – actually those two are the same really" I let out an overly fake giggle, glare at Oscar and continue, "I would describe myself as flirtatious, good-looking," I sigh exasperatedly and, dropping my accent, finish "a bit of a slut."
Oscar laughs, but I defend myself, "No seriously, I mean, have you seen the length of her skirts!"
"Yes alright grandmother, can we get back to the job in hand?"
I scowl; I don't want Oscar to think I'm a prude, but I'm a little worried about having to dress like Sofia, I'm going to be constantly tugging at my skirt, and I'm guessing that if Sofia comes back with some form of morals it might just give the game away. The four of us are lounging in HQ, Oscar and I are still studying the life of Sofia, Carrie is checking out some blueprints of the De Luca Manor and interviews with former staff, and Rose is trying to hack into the security system.
"So, do you have any pet names for members of your family?"
"Well," I remember to do a Sofia-hair-scrape, and Oscar smiles, "I call my Dad, babbo, it's a term they use in Tuscany. I don't talk about my Mother; babbo get's a little...tetchy around that subject. The only other really permanent member of the household; we go through house staff quite quickly; is Frederico, our Butler, who came from Tuscany with us. I call him Freddy, he loathes it and I do so love to wind him up."
"Good, good, what about your influences, who do you look up to?"
I'm just about to reply another text book answer when we're interrupted by a cry of "Yes!" from Rose. I turn round to see her doing a little victory dance as she chants "I'm a genius, oh yeah, who's a genius, I'm genius". Upon seeing us watching her she freezes, arms mid-wave, slowly lowers them and scrunching up her nose says, "Yeah, well, I'm really good". Pushing herself away from the computer desk to reveal her computer screen she lets out a cry of "Ta-da!" and waves her hands at the screen. On it, about sixteen black and white squares show us exactly what is going on everywhere in the manor.
"Awesome, you managed to hack into the CCTV", I've got to admit, I'm impressed.
"Told, you I was good" Rose is clearly enjoying her moment of success, "Here we have De Luca's extensive security camera system. There's about 260 cameras in all, this is just a few, I can pick and choose anyone I like," she demonstrates, choosing a shot of a security guard having a surreptitious cigarette, "Calvino is seriously paranoid about security, but he doesn't seem that interested in sound, just seeing what everyone's doing. I'd guess that he has a lip-reader on hand if he gets really curious. The whole system centres around a nerve centre, the only place in the house not covered by cameras, security there is ten times tighter. Even once you're in the house, to get into this room you have to pass a voice pattern scan, quoting your full name I think, punch in a pin that is changed hourly and swipe one of just four unique smart cards."
Oscar lets out a low whistle, but I'm already working out whether I could get in. Voice recognition - we could just take a recording of Sofia and I could play it back; pin – Sofia probably gets informed as it changes, so no issue there and smart card- well I'm guessing Sofia has one of those too. While I've been mentally braking into the nerve centre, Carrie's pulled up more info on it.
"Yeah, the nerve centre, I came across that." Carrie takes over, "In 2006 De Luca ordered massive construction work to reinforce the outer walls of the manor; already five meters high and made of solid steel; he backs that up with diamond" she pauses for effect. I'm a little stunned, diamond, man, this guy is seriously loaded! "Anyway, at the same time he had this room in the centre of the manor reinforced too, he now uses it as a safe/ control room, and spends most of his time there. The room is completely sound proof, blocks all signals and light, but only when all four layers of the door are shut. De Luca never closes all the layers; he doesn't like to be cut off from the rest of the house. "
Oscar's already worked this information into our plan, "So when Mia goes to De Luca, asking him if she can go meet her friends in town, she's probably going to have to get in the nerve centre to speak to him. Should be simple enough, I'll contact base control and ask then for the necessary stuff from Sofia."
I look at Rose who looks deep in thought as she reads through more of a security report on the manor, she thinks out loud, "It says here, that De Luca has a 'lockdown' system, which he operates remotely from the nerve centre by radioing a guard, the station is manned 24-7 with the men taking shifts of two hours. If De Luca gets suspicious and orders a lockdown while Mia is still in the house, there's no way she's getting out." This freaks me out a little and I wonder why Rose is telling us this, but I realise she hasn't finished, "If I could remotely close the fourth door of the nerve centre then De Luca would be completely cut off, and unable to order a lock down. I don't think we'd have to worry about any of the guards having the initiative to order it themselves as it says here that De Luca purposefully hires guards with an IQ of less than 65, apparently he doesn't want them to be able to think for themselves, just uses them as muscle. Being able to seal De Luca off would be a really good back up plan, just in case anything goes wrong."
Oscar looks enthusiastic, "Yeah, that'd be brilliant, what would you need to do it, is it possible?"
"Not remotely, but I'm thinking if I can get Mia to implant some sort of hacking device, I might just be able to take control. I don't know, leave it with me and I'll see what I can do." Rose ends the discussion by turning back to her computer and beginning to type frantically.
Carrie continues to trawl through the interviews and Oscar and I go back to working through everything I've got to know. For the first time I'm actually beginning to get excited about the mission.
