Chapter 27: Running the gauntlet

All in all, it was easy to get into the gauntlet. Surprisingly easy. Though the beginning had been a little tricky. Because none of the games that had a flag planted in them were even installed on the MI6 computer for obvious reasons, he'd had to piggyback on one of the many DDos attacks that were coming out of Europe. When he found the server, he disconnected himself from the other hacker's signal and got to work. He got in surprisingly quickly. Maybe GHOST hadn't made the initial hack hard, luring in as many hackers as possible.

As he finished the initial hack, a screen had popped up.

This gauntlet will take 36 hours to complete.

Proceed: Y/N

Doubt struck him again for a second but he roughly shoved it aside. Now was the time he would prove himself. 'You can do this CROW.' He thought to himself. 'If you don't believe in yourself, believe in GHOST. If he says you can do this then you can do this.' He took a deep breath, and then another one. Relaxed. Smiled. And then pressed Y.

The screen went black immediately. Nothing appeared at all. Jordan laughed. Oh, this would throw off a lot of lazy newbies. Those that had programs that would do the work for them. Q was obviously separating the cream from the crop immediately. Because if you didn't know commands and prompts you would get nowhere. After a minute a button with an x appeared in the top right corner as if to push people to either start hacking or leave. He wondered briefly if the button would start flashing if he did nothing or if he would get thrown out eventually. He wouldn't put it past Q. But that wasn't what he came here for.

He typed in a command. Nothing happened. Another got him the same. Jordan smiled. This was fun. Q had made the first step difficult. It was a treasure hunt for the information he needed to even start the challenge. He started typing in command after command. Most resulted in nothing, some threw up a lot of text that, after scanning through it was obviously meant to throw the hacker off course. It took more than 30 tries before he found what he was looking for.

A list appeared, some files, some programs, with a bunch of different types of extensions, the challenges Jordan realised. There were so many of them. No wonder this would take a long time. It looked a daunting, knowing there were some truly tough ones in there. But there was nothing to it but to open one and get to work.

They were sorted by difficulty Jordan soon found out. The first ten he got through quickly. He decrypted simple files, hacked a home entertainment centre and intercepted signals. Slowly, very slowly the difficulty increased. Knowing that all challenges needed to be completed and that the order probably didn't matter he decided to scroll down the list and try one of the harder ones. Immediately the screen split and on the left side a word popped up:

Password:

Immediately Jordan's mind went back to the day MU3RT0S had set off that EMP in their department. That first laptop Q had broken into had had exactly the same screen. If Q had copied the defences of that laptop he was in for a challenge. He started typing and groaned as the code changed. It was exactly the same polymorphic engine. It probably had the same traps too.

It took him 5 hours, nearly three times as long as it had taken Q, before he had cracked it. Taking a little break after all that hard work he sat up, wincing as his tight back ached. Looking around him he saw all of his colleagues were there. All of them. The night and day crew and both Sadler and Talbott, were watching the big screen. Just like the first day GHOST had hacked MIT the off-duty minions had found chairs and snacks and were discussing the show. Jordan smiled as they looked up at him. Iris stood from where she had been sitting off the side of the room, walked up to him and pulled him into a tight hug.

"Oh wow, Jordan. You're doing even better than I thought you would." She said.

"Thanks, Iris." He whispered, startling that he couldn't get any sound out of his throat. Iris quickly handed him some water. He drank it down quickly, ignoring how his bladder screamed at him as he did so.

"How long?" He asked, his voice working a little better.

"You're 7 hours in now. A good time to take a little break." Ormond said as he walked up. Q's eyes had a glint to them, as if they smiled.

"Sounds like a good idea." He replied and turned to the exit. He was shocked to find not only all 4 of the double-0's looking in, but Moneypenny and M were standing there too. A little red with embarrassment that he had to walk past them on the way to the loo, he made his way to the door.

"Sir, Ma'am." He greeted them.

"Mr. Bruskin. It looks like you're doing well. Your colleagues certainly look impressed." M said.

"Thank you, Sir." He answered wondering if M was going to make this long. He needed to go back soon and the loo was calling.

"You're welcome. Now, I won't keep you. Go take your break and then get back to it. You still have a lot of work ahead of you." M said as if he noticed his urgency.

"Thank you, Sir." He answered quickly and all but ran down the corridor.

"Hey Iris, wake up!" She felt someone shake her arm and with a groan she sat up. Her whole body ached from sleeping in the chair she'd stolen from the rec room.

"Rose?" She sleepily recognized her night crew counterpart. "What time is it?"

"Almost time for shift change." Rose answered with a smile causing Iris to groan again. "But the good news is there is coffee." She held out a cup that Iris accepted gratefully. She had slept for only two hours, having been too excited to watch Jordan run the gauntlet to go home and get some proper rest.

"How's he doing?" She asked.

"He's doing well. He failed his first challenge though. You remember that laptop security he was working on? It exploded. Or at least that's what the gauntlet said. It's a shame, it looked like he was finally making headway." Rose reported. Damn and she had missed that. Poor Jordan. He was always so tough on himself. Iris hoped it wouldn't throw him too much off his game.

"How did he take it?" She asked.

"All in all, rather well, I think. He didn't seem too upset. Just took a bathroom break and then started again on some relatively simple ones. Though they aren't particularly simple anymore he still seems to breeze through them." Rose answered. Iris sighed in relief.

"Good, anything else happen last night?" She asked.

"Nah just enjoyed the show really. Remember those partitioned off hard drives? Those were genius." Rose gushed and Iris couldn't blame her. They were a work of art. "But anyway. There's sandwiches and you've got just enough time to pop into the loo before shift change so I won't keep you." And Rose turned back to their desktop and started working again.

Nothing much happened during the first few hours of her shift, much like yesterday and the days before but at least they had entertainment to keep them occupied. Jordan was working on some programming for decrypting a code. Text and a key had been provided along with a C++ builder. The program itself was simple, just a general executing program for the key but it still showed off the skill of the programmer as time was very limited. Jordan managed it in under two hours.

Jordan himself was starting to show the strain. He had been running the gauntlet for close to 20 hours now and awake for more then 30. It was more than he had ever done. Even after the explosion he had only lasted 16 hours max. Apparently all that physical exercise was doing him good. But now she noticed he started to lag. His tempo was slowing though he seemed to push through it admirably.

"Anyone have any energy drinks?" She asked looking around. She could smack herself for not having thought of it sooner.

"Drank my last one an hour ago." Andy complained bitterly. He was addicted to the things, horrible and smelly as Iris found them. "But I might be able to steal a couple from Anita from personnel. She had a cooler of them, remember." Oh yeah, the dreaded cooler. Many a sermon Andy had held in honour of the cooler. Iris had rolled her eyes after the tenth time Andy had started to daydream about having one in Q-branch and had said she would fill it up with diet coke if he ever thought of getting one. Andy was hyper enough from all that caffeine from the three he normally drank. He certainly didn't need any more.

"Good idea. Jordan will need at least one during his next break. But if I see more then 4 in your hands, I'm going to be pissed, Andy. And hurry. It looks like he's almost done with this one." Iris said, looking at the screen.

Fortunately, Andy walked back into the room just as Jordan swayed to his feet.

"Here man, you look like you need it." Jordan accepted the can with a grimace but didn't complain as he drank it down. He didn't say anything though, but stumbled through the door towards the bathroom.

"Man, he looks like he's at death's door." Andy commented. "I hope he'll make it."

"Jordan doesn't give up." Iris said convinced.

"Not until he drops no." Andy replied. "But it doesn't look like he's far off."

"We'll just have to make sure he doesn't then." Iris said stubbornly, believing with all her heart that Jordan would be just fine even though worry was nagging her too.