Talina stepped forward. "Sir, you're facing an old fashioned battle of hackers. She's called me out with this challenge. I have to accept and defeat her here or we all lose a lot more than just my name on the net." Talina's confidence didn't waver as she explained the situation and she pulled her virtual monitor visor out. "If I can get inside the building, I'll get a rare treat, and I'll show that two bit wannabe who the real hacker is around here."
Tereus didn't like the shark eating grin that had just appeared on the woman's face as it always meant trouble. "Talina, what is it that you have planned? The Captain's going to have to back this plan if we're to get even anywhere near that building without getting riddled full of bullets."
Nodding Talina slipped her visor on and started the preliminary checks on her equipment as she started explaining, testing the various pressure points of her arms that served for her keyboard when she crossed her arms. "I'm going in and if I have someone to watch my back, I can get a hold of Briarios and if he's willing I can use his computing power and wireless connectivity to the building to back hack her while he follows the directions he gets from the back hack to find her. I have the feeling that she's on site now. She wants this to end like I do. This is the show down. The problem for her is I don't think she's got someone to watch her six, where as I will."
Tereus was right. This was going to be trouble. The only one he trusted to watch her six while she was doing a complicated back hack like this was Briarios, Deunan or himself. With Deunan being tied down and Briarios going to be used as a part of her plan that left him as the only open member of the team to watch her six in this crazy scheme. "I'll watch Talina's six while she does this sir. I know what her combat capabilities are and I believe that she is fully ready to reenter field ops with a qualified partner."
Lance looked at the two and thought over his options. Unfortunately he had come to the same conclusion that Tereus had. "Very well then. You two need to keep an open com channel to me at all times. I don't care if you back flush your hack data to the van or what you have to do, but I want to make sure I have the means of making sure this rescue op goes off without getting you two killed."
The two before him snapped to attention. "Yes sir." Turning around they ran out of the van weapons ready and made their way to their insertion point and into the building. So far it had become clear that ES.W.A.T. had gotten holed up in the south wing of the first floor. That was where the two were getting in and where they were holing up to perform this op.
Tereus popped the window open on the window knowing that Talina had already disabled the security system for the south wing on the first floor to keep their entry form being noticed by the others. Boosting his partner in she grabbed his hand and in a cybernetic assisted heave pulled him in after her. "Never thought I'd be pulling people in after me like that." Talina could see through her visor like a pair of wrap around sunglasses but right now she was more worried about finding a place to belt in and focus in on the data coming in. "The data is becoming critical. We need to find a bunker position and get ready for the op. I'm contacting Briarios now."
Using a text channel to the cyborg she forced open the com channel to her friend.
[Talina: Briarios, txt only. Need to borrow one of your external system overrides so that I can use u as a hack point for the building. U'll be a walking hacker with me guiding u]
[Briarios: I should fry you for that com force. Agreed. No funny business.]
"Briarios has agreed. Is this room defensible from the information I gave you?" Talina had given Tereus a run down of the room, its location and its location in relation to the other troops that had been pinned down. They weren't far away, but they couldn't reveal their position or the whole op would be compromised if Talina had to get up and move.
"Yeah. Get to work, I've got your back." A quick smile was passed between the two before Talina's dark eyes were hidden behind the visor again as she went to work, her fingers flicking up and down her arms in what looked to anyone else like nervous gestures. If Tereus didn't know that her arms had the pressure pads for her keyboard he would have had second thoughts about the stability of his partner for this mission. Instead he saw that she was cool and very composed. She knew what she was doing and that she would succeed. She had more motivation than the norm to succeed in this mission.
[Talina: OK, I'm about to change your wireless signal to that of the other cyborg units that have been "converted". Hope Deunan doesn't kill me later for this]
[Briarios: Hope I don't kill you for this later if she doesn't. Just do it and move it.]
Shoving the text screen to a corner of her "screen" she opened up another screen that held the floor plans of the congressional building. Using Briarios's new link to the other cyborgs she hacked their memories and got the locations of the congress members that were in their offices under the lock down. She already knew which ones were a part of the sting and which ones were to be left alone. Moving Briarios through the halls and the various check points with her hacked information she found her little back hack had been discovered and she smirked. That one had been to get Cassandra's attention.
[Cassandra: You has been. You should have stayed out of this. You would have stayed alive longer that way. I would have plead leniency for you you know. A last favor to my old partner]
[Talina: Look who's talking you wannabe. You need to give up. If you don't I will find you and you will not like what happens to hackers that can't hack the business.]
Seeing that her screen for Briarios was flashing she flicked over and saw the message and replied with the information he needed. Her hacks were getting progressively more and more complex and they started to eat up some of his system memory he had noticed he wondered what the hell she was doing and had demanded if the drain on his system resources was necessary.
[Talina: I'm doing everything I can to pull from my own resources. But I can't compile and send these out as fast as u can, so I'm using a little of ur processing pwr to help me with these hacks. Cassandra is fighting me every step of the way and she doesn't want to be found. I'm going to find her tonight and we're going to end this once and for all]
[Briarios: Well just don't burn me out so I can't fight if I need to will ya?]
Talina moved the window again and recompiled the information she had just gotten sent it back to Briarios so that he would be able to get thought the next check without her standing over him and went back to Cassandra.
[Cassandra: Can't hack the business? I am the business and u have no business being here any longer. I am the new generation for our world]
[Talina: Don't think so princess. u learned from looking over my shoulder, and over hearing what I muttered under my breath. Everything else would have to be trial and error. Besides, who wrote the program that took advantage of the ES.W.A.T. patch program? Wasn't u. U got a lot to learn before you can beat me. I still have more tricks up my sleeves than you have cards to play with.]
One of her favorite little programs was making headway in tracking down Cassandra. Surprisingly enough she had called the little bugger "traitor" because it disguised itself as a system file in a hacker's normal stash of files and sent out the back hack signal from there. The trick was getting it into the target's files in the first place. That had been accomplished easily when Cassandra started the txt com with her. Com static was normal and even expected. Her little file would go as a piece of static, and once it infected its target, you were as good as caught.
[Cassandra: U shouldn't have been a member of ES.W.A.T. in the first place. Guarding ur weak ass like a prized poodle who was doing tricks. Granted you tried to pull ur weight, u failed! Its ur own fault u got shot. I took a fall that wasn't mine to take. Now its ur turn]
[Talina: Cassi, ur a rl piece of wrk. Every1 goes into an assignment with a partner to guard their 6. I was guarding urs evn if it didn't look like it. u left ur post and in doing so put me, you, and the entire op at risk. ur bad.]
Noting the flashing again in the corner she pulled up Briarios's window.
[Briarios: last 1. U get that trace?]
Checking her files she noticed that the congressional building's computer security system and Cassandra were so busy trying to block out her veritable flood of other hacking attempts and back hacks that they hadn't noticed traitor's activities yet. Now she had the location of her former partner.
[Talina: you bet. she's in the basement levels hoping that the general noise of the servers down there will hide her signal. It would have workd.... but she has a traitor in her rank and FILES]
[Briarios: hmph. Smrtass. broadcast 665 and send everyone down there]
[Talina: }:) I have something better planned]
[Briarios: Talina, don't do anything crazy]
[Talina: ]
[Briarios: TALINA!!]
He could feel her rooting around in the patch file that she had put into him and following her while keeping an eye on the head of the security council he saw her start to group and compile a section of code he had never found before. Section heading 666. He knew exactly what it did however when she compiled and executed it.
Every cyborg unit that had gone on the sting was heard to say that night, "Bitch, you fucked with the wrong hacker. Eat this data load." After which the internal data lines of the congressional house strained under the tremendous load of random data packets being loaded into the back hack door that Traitor had opened for Talina into Cassandra's cyber cortex, shorting it out from the sheer influx of random, stupid, useless information.
Getting up from her position, she had basically been in a lotus meditation position to reach all the pressure pads on her suit. It was ingeniously designed for solo ops, but did leave the user open for attack. This was probably why it had been impossible for any one to describe her physical features during the war. "I'm going to get her. This collar is mine. She was after me, I'm going to drag her ass in now that I've shorted out her cyber cortex."
Tereus looked surprised that Talina had done this, but he had to have been deaf to not have heard all of the cybernetic voices in the building yelling about the data they were about to shove down her cyber link.
Pulling her trench back on Tereus realized that the coat doubled as protection for her suit as well as keeping her from accidentally triggering any of the touch pads. Grabbing her sidearm again she nodded to Tereus and they moved out of the room making their presence known to the now recovering Deunan and had her put in charge of the other recovering agents.
Moving quickly they ran down to the basement levels and found where Cassandra had been hacking from, her equipment was still there. Not liking the idea that she wasn't there even though her cyber cortex had been shorted out, Tereus backed off into a darkened corner in the direction of the stairs and waited. Talina had a vague idea of what he was doing and let herself bait the trap that was now being set. "Cassandra, come out, it's just you and me. You're wounded, give up and we'll get you treatment and take you in for questioning. Lets just end this OK?"
Talina didn't like the idea of anyone being in pain needlessly but Cassandra was bringing this on herself and trying to keep this in the front of her mind was hard now that she had her side dish of holding her place in the hacking world. "Talina, you'd never understand where I'm from. Never. So I'm going to make sure you never have to. Looks like you can't seem to keep your partners from abandoning you though. Watching the six of a keyboard jockey too boring for him?"
"Tereus is a better partner than you'll ever be Cassandra, I just wish I could keep him after this mission. He didn't abandon me while I was dealing with you and helping Briarios. You annoy me Cassandra. Come out and lets have an end to this." Talina was now thoroughly irritated and Tereus found himself hoping that the normally calm woman didn't lose her cool during this critical part of the trap.
"I don't see you denying that he's abandoned you now. That's just too bad, cause it means that you'll just die alone now." Dropping from the piping above Talina, Cassandra was a mess. Nose was bleeding sluggishly parts of her body weren't responding as they should have been indicating where she had cybernetic components. Still she managed to handle her weapon well enough to bring it to Talina's head level just behind her ear as she had dropped down behind the woman.
"Are you so certain that Tereus has abandoned me?" Talina smirked as the trap slammed shut on Cassandra knowing that Tereus was moving forward to take the gun away from the woman behind her with the sense she had developed about her friends movements.
"She's right. I haven't abandoned my partner. Now you will cease resisting arrest and you will come quietly." Tereus spoke up his tenor voice startling Cassandra almost as much as his hand closing around her weapon and pulling it away from Talina easily with his trained strength. She had lost the war and so gave up.