Chapter Twenty-Eight: Ghost in the Machine Part Two.
Harry took a couple of moments to figure out what they were going to do. His mind worked at a fair pace, and the sorcerer would need to given the circumstances. Daisy had stayed behind to keep an eye on Felicity. Given it was her program Indigo had been enhancing, they were going to need all of the help they could get. Thankfully, help would be on the way.
He looked up into the sky and hoped they could figure something up. A blur was coming over the horizon, and Harry smiled.
'Now, Indy has a head start, so we're not going to really have much time,' Harry thought. 'Time to get the attention of a certain woman of steel.'
Harry lifted his palm and opened it up. A sonic pulse erupted in the air which could only be picked up by someone of super powered hearing within the city limits. Second passed when the Woman of Steel dropped down on the ground and she shook her head in confusion.
"Hello, Superwoman, my name is Harry Potter, and as I'm sure you've figured out, we have a bit of a problem," Harry said.
She nodded, Lana mentioned her cousin, and how capable he was, and Claire really didn't want to know that. She looked towards the young man, and took him in.
"Yes, Brainiac has reformed into another form," Superwoman said with a stoic nod.
"I'm having someone working on tracking down Brainiac, or Indigo rather, but I'm going to need the help of a mutual friend of ours," Harry said. "Someone who is pretty good with computers and could assist us in accomplishing our goals. You know who I'm talking about, don't you?"
For a moment, Superwoman, still hovering about ten inches in the air above both of them, craned her neck and blinked when looking towards him.
"I'm afraid….."
Harry crooked one finger out and motioned for Superwoman to drop down onto the ground. She did drop down and Harry motioned for her to get in closer towards him. She did that as well.
"Let us not play games, Ms. Kent, especially given the world is at stake," Harry said.
Claire really had been taken aback. Harry Potter knew Superwoman and Claire Kent were one and the same, and that floored her. Granted, there had been a few people who had known her secret identity, but it had been fairly troubling to see someone who she just met just casually saying her secret identity. She opened her mouth and shut it, almost put into a stammering wreck.
"How…how…how….?"
"Does it really matter how I know it?"
Claire paused for a couple of seconds and shook her head. No, in the end, it didn't matter how she knew it. She turned around and flied off in the opposite direction.
Ten seconds passed before Claire turned, with a rather ruffled looking Chloe dropped down on the ground. She was dressed in her pajamas and a scowl when Claire dropped her down onto the ground. It was obvious she had either been in bed, or was in the process of waking up when Claire plucked her.
"Claire, what the actual f….." Chloe said. She paused when realizing where she was and who else she had been in the presence of. "Oh, hello Harry, fancy meeting you here, ummm…what the…"
"Well, you want the long story, or the short story," Harry said.
Chloe always loved when someone asked if someone wanted the long or short of the situation. It really put things in perspective, that did.
"Just whatever is more convenient," Chloe said, waving her hand in response.
Harry smiled and proceeded to launch into his story.
"Well, a couple of months back, there had been an attempt to hack into the Shining Light security main frame."
"Wait, someone tried to hack into Shining Light!" Chloe yelled. "Seriously, that's the most secure mainframe in the entire world. There are people in the government that will give up their right arms to get that kind of security and peace of mind the Shining Light main frame has you know and…."
Harry corked a slight eyebrow up and Chloe shut up. She ceased her babbling and started to listen.
"Well, I tracked it here, and the girl I thought was behind it, wasn't really behind it," Harry said. "But, there was someone else behind it. She called herself the BrainInteractive Construct Eight Point Zero, also designated to be Indigo."
Chloe let the breath she had been holding out in a flourish. Much like really bad malware, Brainiac found a way to return. Then again, it wouldn't have been the first time Brainiac had found a way to return. The fact one of the most dangerous forces in the universe returned, sent chills down Chloe's spine.
"So, Brainiac…is back, "Chloe said.
"Yes, and I sent Claire to pick you up, because we're going to need all of the help we can get," Harry said. "I have two world class hackers, but a third won't hurt."
Chloe blinked and wondered if Harry just pretty much said the fact he knew Claire out loud. She turned to Claire, who responded with a swift little shrug in response.
"Hang on."
Chloe wrapped an arm around his waist, getting a bit too comfortable in the process. The two of them disappeared in the process, landing down in the room where Felicity had her laptop out and ready to go.
"Chloe, Felicity, Felicity, Chloe, oh, and this is Daisy," Harry said. "Do you think you can help them get to Brainiac?"
"Well, I've already shut down one version of Brainiac before," Chloe said. She brushed the hair away from her face and shook her head. "I almost died for it, but hey, it's the thought that counts, isn't it?"
Claire stared a long time at Chloe, sighing about how blasé she took the entire situation of death. But, given how many close calls she had, perhaps it was just for the best she had a sunny overview. Claire had just as many herself, even though Lana beat them both. And Lois was catching up by the week.
A long pause followed before Chloe decided to ask a certain question.
"So, what exactly are we dealing with here?" Chloe asked.
"End of the world type stuff," Felicity said.
"Oh, just another Wednesday," Chloe said, perking up instantly. "I thought this wasn't going to be something I wasn't going to be able to handle."
Felicity frowned.
"Should I be concerned you seem so blasé about the world ending?" Felicity asked.
"Don't worry about it," Chloe said. "If you don't look on the bright side, you'll go insane."
Lucy Lane marched back into base right into the heart of Area 51. She walked passed off of the guards, and it became clearer they were looking at her as a second class citizen. Despite her capabilities, there were many people in the military base who looked at her as General Sam Lane's little girl, and the only reason she was there is because Daddy pulled some strings and called in some favors.
She tried not to let that get to her, even though sometimes it really did get to her.
'Like those people are any more qualified than I am.'
Ever since the meeting with Harry Potter, Lucy had been wondering what the hell was happening with her life. She wondered if the right calls were made. Lucy tried to shake those thoughts off, because she had a job to do.
The younger Lane sister made her way into the base and could see a few men crowding around the computer. A gentleman was trying to access the system, but it had locked him out.
"What's going on here?" Lucy asked.
They didn't even bother to make eye contact with her. They crowded around the computer.
"We have the matter under hand, Major Lane," one of the men said. "Why don't you return to your office, and we'll handle this…"
"What the hell is going on?" Lucy asked in a more forceful voice. "You think I'm not capable of understanding it?"
"No, it's just….it's not a problem of your capabilities because…"
The men looked very uncomfortable, with Lucy baring her gaze down on them, resembling her sister at her most angry more than anything else. She had made these men look terrified and for very good reason as well. It was good for them, to be scared out of their wits as far as Lucy was concerned.
"There's been a couple of unsettling discoveries, Miss," one of them said. He looked towards her, about ready to break.
"What kind of unsettling discoveries?" Lucy asked the military guard.
"There may have been a security breach on this base."
Lucy tried to keep her temper in check. The key word was try, because she didn't do a very good job at doing so. Security breaches at this particular base sounded particular awful. Given there were emergency access points to a lot of the country's defenses. That was the true Secret of Area 51 which they wanted to keep from the general public.
'And the country's nukes can be accessed from here, in the case of Washington being leveled in an attack. Not even the President is aware of this.'
"We're going to try and call General Lane to see….."
"My father doesn't need to be involved, "Lucy said. "He's a busy man, and I think I can handle anything we have."
"With all due respect…."
Lucy gritted her teeth, but the question had stopped when Lucy peered out the window. She could see large laser grids rising up from the ground. The grids were capable of knocking planes out of the sky.
"They're armed to fire in about two minutes," the technician said.
"There has to be an emergency override," Lucy said.
"The emergency override is all the way across the field!" one of the troops yelled.
Lucy thought it was a wonder she had any hair left these people after dealing with those idiots. She placed a pair of hands on the side of her head and just barely avoided ripping the hair out of the top of her head. She took a couple of seconds to take a deep breath and not tear them a new asshole, using language which would make Lois blush.
"Then there has to be a way to access this remotely!" Lucy snapped.
Lucy wished Chloe was here, for the first time in a long time. She could have been able to access it remotely, and these people didn't even look like they could hack a pocket calculating. Lucy turned around and stormed out of the room.
"What's her problem?"
"The same problem we all have if we don't stop the defenses somehow," one of them said. "We have a minute….I'm not sure where those are going to fire, but it's not going to be good."
One of the larger missile silos opened up and armed a missile at the control center. The technician furiously hammered on the computer in an attempt to access the system.
The first white hot blast of laser shot through the windows and shattered them, which sent glass flying everywhere. A blur shot through and scooped all of the military men up, and Lucy as well.
Lucy stood in the distance, with one shoe on and one shoe off. She had been flown out of position so fast, her shoe dropped down. Time stood still when she had stood face to face, eye to eye with Claire Kent.
"There was no need to save me, I'm not Lois," Lucy said.
"Yes, I'm well aware of that, and you're welcome by the way," Claire said. "So, long day?"
"I'm pretty sure you know what's going on here."
"Actually, I might be able to explain."
Lucy turned around to see Harry Potter standing right in front of her. She had been taken completely off guard by his sudden appearance. She tried not to go into a fit of absolute stammering even though it was hard for her not to do.
"There's am alien computer who is attempting to take over all of the defenses on Earth," Harry said. "This base….well, given how this can access all of the nuclear weapons in the United States, which are pointed at enemy nations right now…I'm sure you understand why this is a problem?"
Lucy's mouth opened completely wide. The first battery of defenses had gone off, and if the computer managed to fire nuclear weapons, the other countries, some with their fingers on the trigger, would fire their nukes. It would lead to the decimation of the world.
"How did you….."
"I know people in high places," Harry said. "We're going to have to gain control of this base before Indigo eliminates all of the fail safes."
"That shouldn't be a sweat, shouldn't be any harder than hacking into the Pentagon," Chloe said. "Granted, I've never really hacked into the Pentagon, so it's not like I have a point of reference, but in theory, it should be easier than hacking into the Pentagon…but I'm pretty sure I can gain control of this base, fingers crossed."
Harry blinked and sight.
"When you were composing that run on sentence, you could have already gotten a pretty good head start," Harry said.
"Chloe?" Lucy asked. Harry nodded. "Glad to have her help."
Little did anyone know Indigo crept in the sewers, pretty much directly underneath their nose, and she was getting close to breaking down the security grid and having her hands on the most deadly array of weapons on the planet.
Like with all plans though, it ran into a snag. Indigo felt something was holding her back from accessing the complete programming of the base, and all of the weapons. The problem came deep inside, with her core programming.
The trip into the Phantom Zone left her with some unfortunate instabilities in her programming.
"My system is detecting a potentially fatal flaw in my programming," Indigo said. "But, it doesn't matter…it can be fixed."
Indigo's fingers slipped through the access panel on the west end of the base. The east side had been distracted by her efforts which allowed her to find her way inside the base.
A spark flew through the wall and Indigo forced her way through the entrance. She made her way up through the stairway and climbed up towards them. Indigo wasted not a single moment when ascending the stairs.
Several armed guards walked forward. They were deep in conversation about something. Indigo performed a scan, wondering which one of them had the access card she needed.
The fact this base was on a legacy system, and such old technology gave her fits because of primitive it was.
"Hey, did you hear about what happened on the east side on the base? Well, some of the defenses had been enacted, and they started attacking the best."
"Well, the east side of the security has always been a bit weaker. West side on the other end, that's where it's at."
Indigo crept forward. None of them detected even a hint of her. So much for their world-class security. She cracked into a devious little smile and shot cables against the back of the neck. A small burst of electricity disabled their higher brain functions and dropped them down to the ground.
She fished through their pockets and pulled out an access key. She shoved it into the wall and a blinking appeared. She walked over towards the main terminal and smiled. She pulled out the now modified program of Felicity's, powerful enough to actually do what it was intended to do beyond the simulation.
"Well, Ms. Smoak, you've always wanted your work to live on, and now it will," Indigo said. "And it's going to live on a long time after you do."
Indigo accessed the system. A humming echoed the back of her head as she hesitated for a second. She closed her eyes.
"Reboot," Indigo muttered. "Clear, and reenter."
Indigo continued her work unimpeded although there was a sluggishness to her movements. A pause followed when she saw she wasn't the only one who had been trying to access the system on this evening. She frowned.
"Curious," Indigo said. "Trying to override my work…..well, you're not doing a very good job in covering my tracks…you won't reach the overrides before I eliminate them permanently."
Indigo pulled over a computer chair and sat down to get to work. Her fingers typed as fast as the keyboard could sustain itself.
Lucy returned to the Penthouse, and she realized, perhaps a bit too late, how Harry and Claire had pretty much just elected her for babysitting duties. A holographic image in the wall gave them insight on what was happening to the base.
'And you're just full of surprises, aren't you Harry Potter?'
No doubt, the government would be after whatever technology Harry used to set up this two way set up. Although, the more Lucy thought about it, the more she thought it wasn't exactly technology they were working with, at least in her mind.
'It's very interesting,' Lucy thought.
Felicity chewed down on her lip and frowned. She needed to find where Indigo was processing the computer from. The goth girl was getting nowhere when she had been typing into the computer.
"You know, you're not going to get in if you keep using such a rudimentary hacking protocol," Chloe said. "You have to be a bit quicker on the draw."
Chloe hit the keyboard with a small flourish which caused Felicity to almost jump up in surprise.
"Are you back seat hacking me? "Felicity asked.
"Well, to be fair, you're never going to progress with anything at this rate," Chloe said. "It's no wonder Brainiac is able to take control of your little school project…did you not think that was going to end up falling into the wrong hands?"
Felicity hated she was right, but she felt like there was a defense in what she did.
"I have a failsafe where anyone other than me and Indy….yeah, I know, I thought she was weird, I didn't think she was a psychotic alien computer bent on universal domination," Felicity said. "Give me a break, it's not like you're doing your part when you're lecturing me."
Chloe threw her hands into the air in frustration. Hackers could get pretty moody when their work wasn't really going right. She caught the eye of her cousin, who was just rolling her eyes.
"Do you think you can do what you need to do?" Lucy asked.
"Let me have a crack at that," Daisy said. "Felicity, keep working on your project….Chloe…why don't you take a break?"
Chloe shrugged in respond and walked across the room to fix herself a cup of coffee. Daisy took the laptop and parked herself down.
"Well, this base has been upgraded since the last time I tried to hack into it."
Lucy responded with a very exasperated look towards Daisy. She couldn't really say much of anything given the fact alarms.
"Just keep it up, ignore those alarms," Lucy said. "Um, Superwoman, there's something you should know. Remember the entire Red K incident?"
"How could I forget?" Claire asked.
Lucy decided to bite the bullet. Her superiors were lynch her if they found out she told Claire about this. Then again, they never thought an alien computer would compromise their systems.
"Well, the United States government wanted insurance in case you never went rogue again, and well….I'm really sorry you had to find out about it this way, "Lucy said. "Although I can see they've made some additions which….I'm just learning about."
Claire saw what Lucy meant when several anti-Superwoman drones started to rise up. She had very nearly gotten access in response. Harry stood right next to her.
"So, the government does have drones," Harry said. "And I don't….well, I guess I'm going to have to develop some now! Seriously, whoever you bought these from, you should ask for your money back. These designs are terrible."
"Why did you think we wanted yours? "Lucy asked. "Are you trying to tell me you really don't have them developed yet?"
"No, now I might have to though just to show you how to make them."
The drones armed for battle. Claire was so glad she shielded against Kryptonite because these drones were powered by them. The stinging lasers blasted at the ground. Harry blocked the lasers and propelled them back at an amazing force.
The drones exploded, but a second way, this time armed with miniature missiles arrived to do battle with the heroes.
"I'll be back, take over!" Daisy yelled, hurling the laptop at Chloe.
"Hey, that's a top of the line, be careful with that!" Chloe said. "Wait, you can teleport?"
She saw Daisy standing up next to Harry and Claire, and also a fourth woman, another blonde, who wielded batons and wore a skin tight bodysuit.
"I'll watch the battle, you hack the system, "Lucy said. "Don't forget, the security of the entire country is at stake."
"Right, I know," Chloe said.
The sounds of battle could be heard. Chloe really knew she was missing out on watching a pretty epic fight, but she had a job to do. She closed her eyes and became one with the system. As stupid as that might have sounded to an outside person,
"Looks like they're going to handle the drones," Lucy said. "Wow, that was….just amazing?"
"What, what was amazing?" Felicity asked.
"Felicity, focus!" Lucy and Chloe snapped at the same time.
The drones had been taken care off and fell into a blast of fire down onto the ground. They still had work to do though.
Chloe almost had been into the system, and she hoped she could beat Indigo to the punch.
'You want a battle, well, I'll give you a war.'
Indigo sat down in front of the table. She really wished the recurring system flaw would not have been cropping up at an increasingly frustrating rate. It made it rather hard to progress.
"Hey, Indy, remember me!" Felicity yelled.
She was about ninety seven percent of the way done, way too close to give up now. Once she dropped these overrides, the nuclear weapons would be launched.
"Yeah, I'm sure you remember me from your past copies," Chloe said. "And now, I'm in the system, you're going to be in for a nasty little shock."
Indigo continued to work hard in accessing the system. Her progress started to backslide.
"Hey, look, I think I got her, and it's time to regain access to my programming," Felicity said.
"Can't you wait?" Chloe asked. "I've almost got her booted out of the system, and your program won't be able to be used if she has access to the system!"
The groaning of Daisy followed.
"Amateurs," Daisy grumbled. "Okay, Indigo, you think you can just access a system that I pretty much built the base for? Well, you're wrong. And you're about ready to crash harder than Windows ME."
Indigo accessed Felicity's programming, in deep enough to override the system.
"I can access any computer on Earth now," Indigo said. "Including yours…goodbye!"
Indigo crashed the laptops which the three hackers were using in just a blink of an eye. She smiled when further getting inside of the system.
The nuclear weapons were close to being in the palm of her hand. But, why start there? She had loftier expectations in her mind.
"Let's set the base to destruct," Indigo said. "The impact should wipe out all of Las Vegas, and it's just a small sample of what I'll do."
The annoying system flaw which made her debate on what she was doing recurred.
"I thought the emotion chip had been disabled," she muttered. "No matter, there are ways around it."
She rebooted and hit the button in a flash before having a chance to consider. The base armed and destruction would happen in fifteen minutes.
"Now, time to teach everyone no place on Earth is out of reach to me," Indigo said.
To Be Continued on November 21st, 2016.
Well, that could have gone better.
Oh, I'm way too proud of that Windows ME joke. Microsoft will never live that one down.
And Harry being inspired to actually build drones because the government's drones suck ass is choice.
Until next Monday.
