A/N: Sorry about missing Wednesday's upload. Its busy as hell at work, since somebody decided to take the week off without any advance notice. Or even applying for leave. Been pulling double shifts ever since. Anyway, managed to cobble this together over the last four days. Next upload on Monday as usual. Enjoy.
Chapter 8: Data Thief
Walking around the corner, I glance up and down the hall. Deserted. With a grin, I slip into invisibility, before setting off at a jog towards the tower. It won't be hard to locate the systems running it, considering the heat they emit would set off my ships' sensors from orbit. Even with my suit's inferior sensor suite, it should be child's play to slip in and out without encountering anybody.
Dodging a group of contacts on my motion trackers by ducking into an empty classroom, I consider my options. I don't see any sort of stairwell to the top of the tower on my scans. Do these people even care about fire safety? Shaking my head, I step back into the hall, before approaching the elevator doors. Shut, and apparently locked down.
"Ghost," I whisper quietly. "Can you open this?"
With a brief flash of light, Ghost transmats out of my storage matrix. Turning towards the panel, he emits a clicking noise as a beam of light lances out, connecting him to Beacon's systems. Crossing my arms impatiently, I glance up and down the hall. Still empty.
A few seconds later, Ghost chirps quietly as the doors slide open, revealing… an empty shaft. Turning, I give him the flattest stare I can muster, before cursing. Fucking helmet. Shaking my head, I step forwards into the elevator shaft.
The moment I do, I damn near jump out of my robes as the sound of static splits the air before resolving into classical Russian opera. "Rasputin…" I sigh. "There isn't even an elevator here." Scowling, I look up. No ladder, but it couldn't be that easy. Reaching up, I grab hold of one of the cables and begin to climb.
Halfway up the shaft, I pause. Looks like the heat signature is just on the other side of the wall. No access though, for some reason this elevator has two stops – the top and the bottom. Maybe there's a service elevator I missed?
A sudden shaking of the cable I'm clinging to jars me out of my train of thought. Shit, it looks like the elevator is moving. Not enough space to let it pass, and I'd rather not be squished at the bottom…
With a sigh, I reach out, summoning the Young Wolf's Howl. A pulse of Light sends flames rippling down the blade, as I set it against the steel. Thirty seconds and four quick swipes later, and I tumble through the hole in the wall into a surprisingly small server room. Just a couple of racks of computers and cooling equipment, sitting in a room barely ten feet to a side.
This is what handles a quarter of the world's communications? I frown. No, it can't be. The system must be more distributed than I thought, the CCT simply a glorified signal amplifier. The actual processing and data storage must be done offsite. Makes a certain amount of sense, I suppose, not to put all your eggs in one basket. Any attack on the CCT itself would only shut down external communications, leaving local comms intact.
Well, whatever. Time to get what I came for. Stepping forwards, I inspect one of the nearby server racks. Hmm. Seems fairly primitive, judging from the noise it's probably using an old hard disk drive. "Ghost?" I say. "Your turn."
Reappearing above my upturned palm, Ghost drifts towards the server before making contact. "…" He flashes briefly before a small timer appears on my HUD. "Three minutes, huh?" I say, leaning against the wall. "Fair enough. Try not to set off any alarms on the way in."
"…" Ghost nervously clicks, before my trackers update, zooming in to show two contacts racing up the tower towards my position. "Great," I mutter. "What do you think clued them in?"
"…" Ghost chirps and blinks rapidly.
"No way they had a sensor grid in that wall. This door isn't even locked. If they cared so much about security, surely that would be a minimum."
"…" Ghost spins around to face me, before raising the upper portion of his shell.
"…No, you're right. Nothing these people do makes sense." I admit. "Make yourself scarce. I'll escape through the elevator shaft just as they open the door. Hopefully, they'll chase me and give you a chance to finish the download. We'll rendezvous at the ballroom or failing that at the ship."
Turning towards the door, I open my storage matrix and begin browsing through it for a possible disguise. Maybe Titan armor? It would help camouflage my build, make me look bulkier and more intimidating. No... I might need it later. A flash of black and green catches my eyes. Desolate robes? Sure, why not, I won't even have to change class. Switching them out, I draw my sidearm and pull back to the wall, waiting for their arrival.
Slamming open the door, Glynda and I charge into the room, scanning for the intruder. A faint glow from the back wall draws our attention, where a shade towers over the servers, twitching unnaturally as the patterns on its body shift and fade.
Its arm blurs upwards, weapon in hand. Using my cane, I shove Glynda aside as I roll behind a bulky server rack. I see glowing blue tracers slam into the wall where we stood, the sound of gunfire surprisingly loud in the tiny room. Louder than it should be. Just as I hear the click of an empty chamber, the clack of booted feet on metal tile rings out. Leaping out of cover, I see the intruder dive headfirst through a large hole in the wall.
Sprinting forwards, I peer through the hole. An empty shaft yawns before me, and I can see the intruder at the bottom, glowing faintly before slipping through a hatch at the top of the elevator. "Glynda!" I shout, "Head to the ground floor, call Peter and Bart! We have an armed intruder loose on campus!"
I don't wait to hear her reply, leaping into the empty shaft. At the bottom, I see the intruder wrench apart the elevator doors before sliding through them. Flaring my Aura to cushion the fall, I slip through the closing doors and into the hallway. But when I look around, I see no sign of them.
What? How could they vanish so quickly? Before I can think any further, a heavy blow sends me sprawling forwards. Spinning around, I see the intruder drop down from their perch above the elevator doors, sprinting down the hallway. Standing, I quickly move to give chase, running full tilt down the corridor.
But just as I round the corner, I find myself crashing into a speeding Dr. Oobleck. The intruder, moving with unexpected grace, having slipped from in-between us by a hair's breadth. By the time we pick ourselves up, he's vanished without a trace.
"…" I purse my lips, disappointed. In the end, they got away, and we're still none the wiser as to their true identity. All the cameras picked up on their way in was a faint shimmer. At least they didn't have the chance to finish their business with the CCT…
"Fuck." I whisper, sneaking through the deserted corridors of Beacon. "That old man was faster than I thought." It really shouldn't have surprised me though, right? Guardian or not, I shouldn't have underestimated another Lightbearer. My cover should be intact since I remained invisible on the way in. A camera might have picked up the telltale shimmer, but once I find a place to change out of this armor and slip back into the ballroom I should be fine.
Speaking of… I need to get back there ASAP. They've no reason to look for me specifically, but I wouldn't put it past them to take a roll call just to ensure nobody runs into the armed intruder wandering the halls.
"Actually…" I pause, wondering. "Shouldn't they be… doing something?" The halls are eerily quiet. I've no doubt they are still searching for me, but any school back on Earth would have gone into lockdown the second the moment a gunman showed up. Maybe they're not so worried, considering this place trains warriors?
"…" An alert flashes across my HUD, as I slip into the locker rooms across from the ballroom.
Glancing down, I quickly read the message. "Got the data, Ghost? Send it." I order. "Once the cryptarchs have an idea of what we're working with, I want a full report."
"…" With a soft flash, Ghost transmats back into my armor matrix. Looking around, I confirm that I'm alone before dropping my invisibility. Quickly swapping back to my robes and removing my helmet, I step over towards the showers and run my head through the water. Now if anybody asks, I've simply been taking a long shower.
Walking out of the locker room, I pause before a mirror. Taking in my reflection, I frown. Hair's getting kinda long. And the dye's fading, shades of my natural white poking through at the roots. Another week or two, and I'm going to look like an old man. "Note to self: find a decent barber in Vale." I grumble, opening the door and walking back into the ballroom.
…To immediately smash into another student on his way in. "Shit." I grunt, looking down at the person I just slammed into the floor. Blonde hair, blue eyes, hoodie, and… jeans? It's surprisingly casual, given everybody else's abnormal getups. "Why the fuck would you fight in jeans?" I whisper quietly, stepping back to offer him a hand up.
"Heh, sorry about that. I wasn't looking where I was going." The man says, rubbing the back of his head. "Ouch, that's gonna hurt in the morning."
I frown. "You going to be alright?" I ask, looking down at the floor. No blood, so that's good.
"Ah, probably." He says. "I've got a hard head."
"Here," I say with a sigh, "Let me take care of that." Reaching out, I cup my hand over the swelling bruise, channeling a bit of Light into the injury. But as I do so, I feel that strange tugging sensation again, almost as though my Light is flowing out of me. I step back, clenching my hand into a fist as I will the feeling to pass. It feels remarkably like…
"Wow…" He says, eyes wide as he probes the back of his head. "How'd you do that?"
"Just a bit of Light." I say distractedly. Could it be?
"Light?" He asks, confusion etched across his face.
"Yeah," I respond. "Same stuff you use to power your shields." Closing my eyes, I slow my breathing, searching for any hint of Light from the man. There… faint, but present. It's not the spark as I remember it, but it might be close enough.
He seems to pale. "Uh… I don't know how to do anything like that."
"Wait, what?" I say. On cue, an alert flashes across my HUD. I can hear Ghost chitter briefly as text scrolls across the viewscreen.
Patch 4.09.1 complete. Shields and health displays updated.
"Huh. I didn't even notice they were missing." Looking around the room, I can now see the semi-transparent bars showing the health and shields of everybody else in the room. And turning to the man, I can see that he indeed has no shields at all.
"Looks like you're the only one here who doesn't have any. That's… pretty bad. I don't know what it is, but I assume this 'initiation' involves combat to some extent." I say. "You're probably going to die if you go in without shields."
He just gapes at me for a moment, stunned.
"Buuut…" I drawl, smirking. "I might know how to get you some. Whaddya say, kid?"
"I, uh, yes! I'd like that." He stutters. "What do I have to do?"
"Meet me outside by the courtyard in… half an hour." I say. "It'll be a short process."
"Ah, okay. Aren't we supposed to stay inside the ballroom though?"
I grin. "What, you think that'll stop me? Just go, and if anybody asks just say you missed the memo and decided to go for a walk."
"…Okay. I'll, uh, see you there?" He asks nervously.
"Haha ha ha." I chuckle. "Is that a question?"
"Uh, no. I'll, ah, I'll see you there." He says a bit more confidently.
"See you." I say, stepping around him and into the ballroom.
As soon as the man steps into the locker room, I step to the side, cutting off my external speakers as I open a channel to the fleet. After a moment, a small screen pops up on my HUD, a yellow-robed Awoken visible on the other end.
"Guardian Urs." Master Rahool says, a note of faint surprise on his face. "How unexpected. Can I help you?"
"Probably not, but you have somebody on board who can," I say. "I need an unbound ghost down here in half an hour. I might have a candidate." I pause for a moment. "Two candidates, actually."
He blinks in surprise, before turning aside and whispering quietly into an intercom. Straightening up, he adjusts his robes before facing the transmitter again. "We have three unbound ghosts heading your way aboard a shuttlecraft. It's charted to make a flyby in thirty-two minutes, where the ghosts will transmat to your position."
I smile. "Excellent. And what about the communications protocols we transmitted?"
"We're still working on those. We've decrypted the data, but there's an entire planet's worth of chatter to sift through." Rahool pauses. "I'll have a report of our findings transmitted to you once we've found anything useful." He says quietly, tapping out a brief rhythm on the console.
I pause, focusing on the tapping. It's the Guardian code for duress. Did he just…? I make eye contact and give the subtlest tilt of my helmet. In turn, he nods his head a tiny amount, before quickly rapping out a short message. 'DO orders. Safe but no help.' Well then. "Sounds good," I say, covering the lull in the conversation. "I'll keep in touch. Speaker out."
Cutting off the feed, I slouch against the wall while I think. So, things up in the fleet aren't as well as they'd seem. I grit my teeth, biting back an instinctive snarl. Dead Orbit and the Consensus have already stabbed me in the back once this trip, it'd be just like them to pressure the Cryptarchy into omitting crucial information from their reports. Probably hoping I botch the mission and make a fool of myself.
So, I clearly can't rely on the fleet or anybody aboard it. I'm cut off from whatever allies I have back in Sol unless I decide to cut my losses and abandon the system to the Fallen. I should have consolidated my position back home before coming this far. I let out a brief sigh. Once again, if I want something done, I have to do it myself. Turning aside, I quickly open a channel to my ship, ordering it to cloak and approach the academy.
"Ghost," I say, summoning him from my storage matrix. "I'm going to need you to go back to the fleet. We need that data, but Rahool as good as told me he can't give me anything useful. Hack into their systems and pull whatever you can, then get back here by tomorrow morning."
"…" Ghost beeps, quickly spinning his shell. Looking up, I can see the slight shimmer my ship leaves. Ghost leaves my hand, floating up before transmatting into the ship in a flash of light. With a quiet hum, I see my ship spin around before streaking away through the clouds.
"Well…" I say, sighing slightly. "At least I'm about to get what I came for." Standing up, I quickly glance around, before slipping back into the hallway. Closing the door softly behind me, I begin to make my way to the courtyard.