Chapter 10: Cyber Battle
Getting inside had been too easy, a quick spell from Hiro and the entire security crew fled the room screaming in illusionary pain. It just went to show how dangerous Hiro was, but he isn't important now. Now Danna is in her world. As far as security systems go, the defenses on this system are impressive. Luckily for her, most conventional security measures are run off of an operating system, and this one is no exception. Danna simply accesses the data directly and replaces the system with her own personal creation.
Needles to say, the technicians who were franticly trying to regain control of the system have no idea what to think when their operating system is suddenly replaced by something called Danna+.
It isn't long at all before Danna has full control of everything, Cameras, doors, wall mounted anti intruder missles. Isn't interconnectivity a lovely thing?
The first twenty minutes are spent keeping the security forces busy, leading them out of the paths of Hiro and Seth, but then things get a lot more interesting.
At first, Danna takes the van for what it was pretending to be, a Dimenstra-Tek security van, requesting permission to enter the grounds. This is good Danna thinks, it means the outside hasn't realized the facility is under attack, and she wants to keep it that way. So in they come, moving rather slowly until suddenly a fireball flies forth from the passenger side window and melts the camera she'd been using to monitor their progress.
Almost no time passes before she detects the log in. Someone actually bypassed her security wall and is attempting to take control of the network, that definatly isn't something Danna can allow.
Celestia rushes through the facility, her map constantly displayed on a wrist mounted holographic projector. She orders ghost to locate an out of the way computer terminal and watches as he and wizard quickly make their way there.
Wizard is excited. It isn't everyday he gets the chance to take on a Dimenstra-Tek system. Once he gets jacked in, there will be nothing they can do to stop him from completing his mission, or so he thought. As far as he is concerned, the other members of this team will be useless. Wizard looks down at the three tank-like machines moving down the hall beside him. They are all the assistance he'd ever needed.
Ghost is a jumpy, paranoid person, which is kind of odd considering he is probably more frightening than anything he'll ever encounter, of course, he scares himself sometimes as well. Ghost is just under 35 and already has a pure slate of gray hair without a trace of color left. His left eye is almost twice the size of his right, and he walks with a large hunch, which only surves to emphasize the large hump on his back. His skin is as pale as his name, and is slimey, with a very faint tint of green.
Ghost really couldn't care less for Wizard. Wizard is older than any other solar agent, and he barely looks it. Of course, there isn't any particular age category he does look like. The entire left half of his body is pure machine. From the robotic eye, various ports, recievers, and transmitters on his head, to his robotic arm and leg, he's everything technophobes had feared for the last hundred years.
Still, a job is a job, and ghost had worked with less desireable partners in the past.
Wizard walks up to the closest terminal as soon as he enters the dimly lit office and orders two of his drones to stand guard in the hall as the third converts into a tool box filled with a wide variety of tools and adapters.
The system loaded up, skipping the usual startup screens and goes right to a pink screen that has the word Danna+ in chrome silver displayed diagnolly across the screen and nothing else. No log in screen, no response to input from the keyboard, the mouse pointer didn't even show up on the screen.
Wizard has to admit he wasn't expecting this, but he doesn't have time to find a way in. He'll have to take a risk and hook himself up to the network directly, just as he's done countless times before.
Wizard unplugs the fiber optic cable that connects the computer to the rest of the network and plugs it into a port on his own skull.
What he finds once he's hooked up is a bigger surprise than anything else he'd ever encountered. Every terminal on the network has been locked out, but are still running hundreds of background programs. All of them being controlled by some sort of translation matrix that is moving all over the network. There is actually something inside the system giving orders. Wizard heads straight for this source, attempting to take control away from it and make use of it's own functions.
Danna is impressed, and extremely irritated. This hacker not only knew how to access a network and bypass it's security, but he is also able to locate her and is trying to use her own programs against her.
Danna is good too though. She's already zeroed in on the terminal he is accessing the network from and is about to overload a gas pipe and knock out his connection when a devilish idea comes to her. Since this hacker is so good, he must have a real "thing" for machines, it seems only fitting that he have a chance to see what it's like on the inside.
Wizard is begging to grow extremely annoyed. The matrix had suddenly callapsed leaving him with nothing but a huge some of incomprehensible data to sift through for the systems security controls.
Suddenly his attention is drawn back to the real world. A second terminal suddenly lights up and security footage starts playing on the monitor.
Wizard quickly unplugs himself and rushes over.
As soon as he touches the mouse the word Gotcha takes over the screen and two hands reach out of a white portal and pull him inside.
Danna smiles triumphantly at the confused face of Wizard, staring at the voidlike realm dumbfounded. Data flows in every direction like currents in a lake. Danna sais calmy, "It's beutiful isn't it," and then pushes Wizard into one of the streams, his body flowing away rapidly like the rest of the data.
Ghost stares stunned at the terminal. One minue Wizard had been standing there, the next he was gone. Ghost immediatly projects himself around the base until he locates Celest, his astral form taking the appearence of what he'd look like if he wasn't horribly disfigured that he loved so much.
Celest looks at him angrily, "What's taking so long Ghost, you should of reported five minutes ago. How's wizard doing?"
Ghost squeels, a high pitched squeeky excuse for a voice, "Wizard is gone, he just dissapeared. I think the computer's security did something to him."
Celest pulls on her hair in frustration for a moment before regaining her composure and calmy replying, "Don't worry about it. Get out of the facility and head to the van, get it ready to leave as soon as we're done here. We'll just have to do this the hard way."