After Manx and Barman left, Ran went to his own room and Omi went tork. "I'll start with a search on the Preventers and then a search on
Lily Banks. I'll have to run some encoding before I can do a search on
Kyra Banks. I doubt Kyra will work with us if she finds out that we werunning a search on that. I doubt she wants her last name to be linkeith Kyra, so that search probably won't be successful, anyway. Ken, caou go to the library and see what Who's Who and those types of books havn Lily Banks? If she's as wealthy as Barman says then she ought to be ihere somewhere."
"Who died and made you leader?" Ken asked, half-jokingly.
"Persia," Omi answered with unusually dark humor. "Youji, I need yoo search that disk we have that has some OZ records. See if there is anention of Lily Banks, Kyra, or the Preventers."
"I have plans tonight."
"I'm not getting stuck with all the work this time. If you skip-ouhen I'll tell Ran that you've been hitting on Aya-chan."
"Stop being such a baby. I'll do it," Youji conceded and opened thaptop.
Omi turned back to the big computer and loaded his own personaearch program. It was equipped with a low-level hacking program to alloim to search databases with some encryption. It could also link intearch programs on individual websites. As the search program ran, Omegan to locate some of his favorite hacking programs and then got up tet himself some pocky and some coffee. He would probably be sitting theror a while.
In the end both of his search program's special features turned out to becessary. After discarding results for over an hour, the only promisinention of the Preventers was on a website belonging to the ESUN. All thahe program could tell him was that the search engine for the ESUN haound the name "The Preventers" in the internal database of the UN. Thacking program had been able to access the search results. It could not,
however, open the file. But it was interesting to discover that the
Preventers seemed to have some connection to the ESUN.
Omi linked onto the ESUN search program and looked at the security on thages where the Preventers were mentioned. "Kuso, I'm going to have tobble together a special program to enter the site and another to decodnd interpret this. They'll probably know that I was there," homplained.
"Stop whining. Do your best to hide your presence. As you said,
Kyra probably wouldn't be too happy if she found out that we were checkinp on her and her organization," Youji answered, still annoyed that he waissing his date tonight.
Omi quickly cobbled together a program to get him into the documents.
When he got to the documents, five in all, he discovered a mess oumbers, kanji, kana, romanji and characters that he didn't eveecognized. Some of them looked like Arabic though. "Kuso," he commented.
He would have to string together many programs to interpret he symbols anetermine what language the page used. That was the problem with multi-
national organizations. Using pieces of many other programs and linkinhem together with new series, Omi developed a program to decode the site.
He had even had to find access some new translation programs to create hirogram. The program ran for a while without success.
As Omi worked to search the Internet, Youji searched the OZ records.
Neither Lily, Banks, Countess of Gurn, or the Preventers had produced anesults. The only search left was Kyra. Entering her name into thearch program he had developed for the disk, he waited for the results.
Surprisingly, there was a single document containing the name Kyra. Huickly located the document. It was a prison record from an OZ base on an
L2 colony.
The initial entry, dated December 16, 193 A.C., recorded the capture of hirteen- or fourteen-year-old orphan named Kyra who had been trying tneak into an OZ base. No last name was included in the report. It seemehat she had been orphaned so young that she did not remember her lasame. The captive was described as 5'3" and 115 lbs. with dark brown haind eyes. She was suspected of having rebel sympathies but was so younhat she could reveal nothing useful.
There was only one other entry in the log. This entry was dated February
29, 195 A. C. The entry noted that Kyra had escaped from prison. Twuards had been overcome in the process and it was suspected several otherad aided in Kyra's escape. However, nothing could be proven and nharges were brought. Kyra was not intensely pursued because she waeemed of little importance. She was not recaptured.
"Hey guys, look at this," Youji called to Omi and Ran. "I found a mentiof someone named Kyra in this OZ data. I can't tell if it was her though.
It's some street brat who was captured while trying to break into an OZ
base. The age is right, but it's on an L2 colony. I doubt an Englisristocrat would be hanging out on some penniless colony."
"An English aristocrat might not, but spy might," Omi commented, readinhe log over Youji's shoulder. "It's says she was suspected of havinebel sympathies."
"It would make sense that Kyra got her start with the rebels during thar," Youji added.
"What happened to her?" Ran asked in a quiet voice.
"She escaped," Youji answered.
"That's quite an accomplishment!" Omi exclaimed.
"Barman and Manx both seemed to respect Kyra greatly. She is likelapable of the escape," Ran commented.
"At thirteen?" Omi asked.
"She was not deemed important, so she was kept in a low-security area,"
Youji informed them.
"I guess for now we can assume it was her," Omi said with a shrug, goinack to his programming.
"Hey guys, I'm home!" Ken called from the entrance to the room. "I founuite a bit on the 'Countess of Gurn' in the library. It seems she iuite well known." Under one arm, Ken carried a manila folder that waell filled with copies. "Most of them are society pages from variouewspapers. There is little in this but confirmation that Lily Helena
Banks is the Countess of Gurn and some information of her holdings. I diind this biographical sketch though. It seems that Lily's parents werilled in a terrorist attack when she was fourteen. After that she went tive with her mother's family on the L4 colony. It seems that, in additioo being an English aristocrat, she is the child of the eldest daughter ohe Winner family. The Winner family is originally from the Mid-East buostly lives in the colonies now. They own almost all of the L4 coloniend are incredibly wealthy. They also fought the Alliance's dominance ohe colonies. Although fought is probably not the best word as the famils pacifist. Lily lived with them until her 'coming out' a little afteer seventeenth birthday, then she come to earth to experience societere. This was just after the first Gundam attack. It's rumored that their of the Winner family fortune, who just can into his inheritance thiear, was disinherited for a time because he fought with the rebels. Somven say that he was a Gundam pilot. The timing might not boincidental."
"Kyra certainly seems to have some interesting connections," Youjommented.
"We have a record here that places someone named Kyra in an OZ prisouring the time Lily was supposedly on L4. The records could have linked
Lily/Kyra with the rebels, if it was the same person, but if she was on L4
then I guess it wasn't," Omi informed Ken.
"I don't know. The Winner family consists of thirty daughters plus thhildren of some of them. It would be difficult to confirm whether or not
Lily was there. Especially if she put in an occasional appearance to keep the charade," Ken replied.
The others were done, but Omi had yet to produce any results. He haeally given himself the hardest job. But as Ken and Youji's findings weriscussed, trickles of files began to appear. Omi quickly saved the fileo disk, not bothering to look them over. He then noticed, shocked, thaome of the documents he had managed to reach were being recoded before hould load them. "Shit, someone's actively blocking me."
"Can they trace you?" asked Ran, who had been quietly watching.
"I don't know. I don't think so," Omi replied in a strained voicrying to back-up the firewalls surrounding his system and download thiles at the same time. Suddenly the program stopped working entirely.
"Shit, I've got to disconnect before they find me. No one should have beeble to stop my program that fast." Omi downloaded one last file before iisappeared and disconnected. "Shit," Omi cursed once he was out.
"Someone at the ESUN is unbelievably good."
"They can draw on the resources of the entire Earth's Sphere," Youjointed out. "It's not really surprising that there is someone better thaou out there."
"True," Omi admitted and turned back to the computer to analyze thocuments he saved. The first document was a proposal that funding for the
Preventers be funneled through a Mars Terra-forming project. "Look ahis. The Preventers are being funded by the ESUN."
"That would explain why they're so interested in protecting worleace. Can you tell if they are a department of the ESUN?" Youji asked.
"Not from this. They are getting at least 50 million American dollars frohem. That's large sum, but it wouldn't be enough to fund a departmenhat could take out the Mariemaia Army. On the other hand, this is onlne payment. They could be getting more from other funnels in the ESUN.
Or they could be getting money from other organizations or people. I jusan't tell from this information. Some other documents, I'll check them."
Omi pulled up the next document that mentioned the Preventers. It was anternal memo stating that the Preventers were worried about event around X-
18999. It was dated shortly December 23, 196. "The Preventers arefinitely reporting to the ESUN," Omi announced.
"I would expect so, if they are receiving such a large sum of monerom them," Ken remarked.
"Could the Preventers be the enforcement arm of the ESUN? As nice as
Vice Foreign Minister Peacecraft's ideas are, those who want power aren'ust going to bow down to the idea of 'absolute pacifism'," Youjommented.
"It's quite likely, but I doubt that Relena or her hard-linroponents would accept that type of compromise," Omi answered.
"I don't know. She seems to have altered her stance on force. Thinbout her speech during the Marimaia uprising," Youji responded.
"True, it's definitely something to consider," Omi concluded and wenack to his computer to see if the last document shed some light on thssue. He opened the document. It was short and to the point.
We wouldn't respect you if you didn't try to do your own research,
but we suggest you wait till you talk to Kyra.
The Preventers
"Shit," Omi cursed feelingly. "Look at this." Youji tipped back iis chair and looked over Omi's shoulder. When he read the message, hasn't quite sure what to say.
Ran walked over and glanced at the screen. "Did they trace you?"
"I don't think so. I wasn't on there for that long. I'm checking righow." Omi quickly pulled up the data on his protection programs. "Damn.
They were only three reroutes away from discovering the location of thinit. I put over twenty reroutes in there, all protected. I was only ohe site for perhaps fifteen minutes. I didn't know anyone could work thaast. At best I could have gotten through twelve of those reroutes in thamount of time. He got nineteen. I'll have to rebuild the safeties before
I do anything else." Omi quickly began typing, loading other programs fron encoded disk that had been sitting on his desk. Most people would havust found some school papers on the disk.
"How long will it take?" Ran asked.
"To completely replace the system will probably take a couple days.
Although, if any of you were willing to help it could go much more quickly.
I already have written several programs. I'd just have to reconfigurhem slightly. But for tonight I'm just going to partially rebuilefenses. I'll have to avoid sensitive sites." Omi continued to work ae spoke and quickly put in two new reroutes.
* * *
In another part of the city a boy leaned down and put his arms around thhoulders of another boy sitting in front of a laptop. "So, was it them?"
"I couldn't complete the trace," the other boy said in a calm tone.
"What?" said the first boy, the glow of the laptop highlighting hiurprise.
"The protections were too extensive."
"I guess Kyra wasn't kidding when she said these guys were good."
"Kyra's usually accurate about competence."
"Yeah, she is. The meeting tomorrow ought to be interesting."
"Aa."
* * *
"I say that the best way to get information on Kyra is to wait until theeting tomorrow. If she really wants us to work with her, she'll have tive us some information on herself. So far all we have is a little familistory, some guesses and the information that the Preventers have somovernment connection and a damn good hacker," Youji said.
"You're probably right. Besides, I don't want to risk someone infiltratinur computer system," Omi replied.
"We'll stop the search now. We can obtain more data once we have met hend have more information," Ran stated.
"Sounds like its final," Ken affirmed.
"We'll all need copies of the data collected so far," Ran asked.
Ken quickly removed a set of papers from his folder for Ran and handethers to Youji and Omi. Youji and Omi printed several copies of thittle that they had gathered and handed them aroun. Ran took all thapers and left silently. The three remaining assassins looked at eacther. "I guess we just wait for that phone call," Ken said, summing uhat the others were thinking.
"Aa," the other two agreed.
Lily Banks. I'll have to run some encoding before I can do a search on
Kyra Banks. I doubt Kyra will work with us if she finds out that we werunning a search on that. I doubt she wants her last name to be linkeith Kyra, so that search probably won't be successful, anyway. Ken, caou go to the library and see what Who's Who and those types of books havn Lily Banks? If she's as wealthy as Barman says then she ought to be ihere somewhere."
"Who died and made you leader?" Ken asked, half-jokingly.
"Persia," Omi answered with unusually dark humor. "Youji, I need yoo search that disk we have that has some OZ records. See if there is anention of Lily Banks, Kyra, or the Preventers."
"I have plans tonight."
"I'm not getting stuck with all the work this time. If you skip-ouhen I'll tell Ran that you've been hitting on Aya-chan."
"Stop being such a baby. I'll do it," Youji conceded and opened thaptop.
Omi turned back to the big computer and loaded his own personaearch program. It was equipped with a low-level hacking program to alloim to search databases with some encryption. It could also link intearch programs on individual websites. As the search program ran, Omegan to locate some of his favorite hacking programs and then got up tet himself some pocky and some coffee. He would probably be sitting theror a while.
In the end both of his search program's special features turned out to becessary. After discarding results for over an hour, the only promisinention of the Preventers was on a website belonging to the ESUN. All thahe program could tell him was that the search engine for the ESUN haound the name "The Preventers" in the internal database of the UN. Thacking program had been able to access the search results. It could not,
however, open the file. But it was interesting to discover that the
Preventers seemed to have some connection to the ESUN.
Omi linked onto the ESUN search program and looked at the security on thages where the Preventers were mentioned. "Kuso, I'm going to have tobble together a special program to enter the site and another to decodnd interpret this. They'll probably know that I was there," homplained.
"Stop whining. Do your best to hide your presence. As you said,
Kyra probably wouldn't be too happy if she found out that we were checkinp on her and her organization," Youji answered, still annoyed that he waissing his date tonight.
Omi quickly cobbled together a program to get him into the documents.
When he got to the documents, five in all, he discovered a mess oumbers, kanji, kana, romanji and characters that he didn't eveecognized. Some of them looked like Arabic though. "Kuso," he commented.
He would have to string together many programs to interpret he symbols anetermine what language the page used. That was the problem with multi-
national organizations. Using pieces of many other programs and linkinhem together with new series, Omi developed a program to decode the site.
He had even had to find access some new translation programs to create hirogram. The program ran for a while without success.
As Omi worked to search the Internet, Youji searched the OZ records.
Neither Lily, Banks, Countess of Gurn, or the Preventers had produced anesults. The only search left was Kyra. Entering her name into thearch program he had developed for the disk, he waited for the results.
Surprisingly, there was a single document containing the name Kyra. Huickly located the document. It was a prison record from an OZ base on an
L2 colony.
The initial entry, dated December 16, 193 A.C., recorded the capture of hirteen- or fourteen-year-old orphan named Kyra who had been trying tneak into an OZ base. No last name was included in the report. It seemehat she had been orphaned so young that she did not remember her lasame. The captive was described as 5'3" and 115 lbs. with dark brown haind eyes. She was suspected of having rebel sympathies but was so younhat she could reveal nothing useful.
There was only one other entry in the log. This entry was dated February
29, 195 A. C. The entry noted that Kyra had escaped from prison. Twuards had been overcome in the process and it was suspected several otherad aided in Kyra's escape. However, nothing could be proven and nharges were brought. Kyra was not intensely pursued because she waeemed of little importance. She was not recaptured.
"Hey guys, look at this," Youji called to Omi and Ran. "I found a mentiof someone named Kyra in this OZ data. I can't tell if it was her though.
It's some street brat who was captured while trying to break into an OZ
base. The age is right, but it's on an L2 colony. I doubt an Englisristocrat would be hanging out on some penniless colony."
"An English aristocrat might not, but spy might," Omi commented, readinhe log over Youji's shoulder. "It's says she was suspected of havinebel sympathies."
"It would make sense that Kyra got her start with the rebels during thar," Youji added.
"What happened to her?" Ran asked in a quiet voice.
"She escaped," Youji answered.
"That's quite an accomplishment!" Omi exclaimed.
"Barman and Manx both seemed to respect Kyra greatly. She is likelapable of the escape," Ran commented.
"At thirteen?" Omi asked.
"She was not deemed important, so she was kept in a low-security area,"
Youji informed them.
"I guess for now we can assume it was her," Omi said with a shrug, goinack to his programming.
"Hey guys, I'm home!" Ken called from the entrance to the room. "I founuite a bit on the 'Countess of Gurn' in the library. It seems she iuite well known." Under one arm, Ken carried a manila folder that waell filled with copies. "Most of them are society pages from variouewspapers. There is little in this but confirmation that Lily Helena
Banks is the Countess of Gurn and some information of her holdings. I diind this biographical sketch though. It seems that Lily's parents werilled in a terrorist attack when she was fourteen. After that she went tive with her mother's family on the L4 colony. It seems that, in additioo being an English aristocrat, she is the child of the eldest daughter ohe Winner family. The Winner family is originally from the Mid-East buostly lives in the colonies now. They own almost all of the L4 coloniend are incredibly wealthy. They also fought the Alliance's dominance ohe colonies. Although fought is probably not the best word as the famils pacifist. Lily lived with them until her 'coming out' a little afteer seventeenth birthday, then she come to earth to experience societere. This was just after the first Gundam attack. It's rumored that their of the Winner family fortune, who just can into his inheritance thiear, was disinherited for a time because he fought with the rebels. Somven say that he was a Gundam pilot. The timing might not boincidental."
"Kyra certainly seems to have some interesting connections," Youjommented.
"We have a record here that places someone named Kyra in an OZ prisouring the time Lily was supposedly on L4. The records could have linked
Lily/Kyra with the rebels, if it was the same person, but if she was on L4
then I guess it wasn't," Omi informed Ken.
"I don't know. The Winner family consists of thirty daughters plus thhildren of some of them. It would be difficult to confirm whether or not
Lily was there. Especially if she put in an occasional appearance to keep the charade," Ken replied.
The others were done, but Omi had yet to produce any results. He haeally given himself the hardest job. But as Ken and Youji's findings weriscussed, trickles of files began to appear. Omi quickly saved the fileo disk, not bothering to look them over. He then noticed, shocked, thaome of the documents he had managed to reach were being recoded before hould load them. "Shit, someone's actively blocking me."
"Can they trace you?" asked Ran, who had been quietly watching.
"I don't know. I don't think so," Omi replied in a strained voicrying to back-up the firewalls surrounding his system and download thiles at the same time. Suddenly the program stopped working entirely.
"Shit, I've got to disconnect before they find me. No one should have beeble to stop my program that fast." Omi downloaded one last file before iisappeared and disconnected. "Shit," Omi cursed once he was out.
"Someone at the ESUN is unbelievably good."
"They can draw on the resources of the entire Earth's Sphere," Youjointed out. "It's not really surprising that there is someone better thaou out there."
"True," Omi admitted and turned back to the computer to analyze thocuments he saved. The first document was a proposal that funding for the
Preventers be funneled through a Mars Terra-forming project. "Look ahis. The Preventers are being funded by the ESUN."
"That would explain why they're so interested in protecting worleace. Can you tell if they are a department of the ESUN?" Youji asked.
"Not from this. They are getting at least 50 million American dollars frohem. That's large sum, but it wouldn't be enough to fund a departmenhat could take out the Mariemaia Army. On the other hand, this is onlne payment. They could be getting more from other funnels in the ESUN.
Or they could be getting money from other organizations or people. I jusan't tell from this information. Some other documents, I'll check them."
Omi pulled up the next document that mentioned the Preventers. It was anternal memo stating that the Preventers were worried about event around X-
18999. It was dated shortly December 23, 196. "The Preventers arefinitely reporting to the ESUN," Omi announced.
"I would expect so, if they are receiving such a large sum of monerom them," Ken remarked.
"Could the Preventers be the enforcement arm of the ESUN? As nice as
Vice Foreign Minister Peacecraft's ideas are, those who want power aren'ust going to bow down to the idea of 'absolute pacifism'," Youjommented.
"It's quite likely, but I doubt that Relena or her hard-linroponents would accept that type of compromise," Omi answered.
"I don't know. She seems to have altered her stance on force. Thinbout her speech during the Marimaia uprising," Youji responded.
"True, it's definitely something to consider," Omi concluded and wenack to his computer to see if the last document shed some light on thssue. He opened the document. It was short and to the point.
We wouldn't respect you if you didn't try to do your own research,
but we suggest you wait till you talk to Kyra.
The Preventers
"Shit," Omi cursed feelingly. "Look at this." Youji tipped back iis chair and looked over Omi's shoulder. When he read the message, hasn't quite sure what to say.
Ran walked over and glanced at the screen. "Did they trace you?"
"I don't think so. I wasn't on there for that long. I'm checking righow." Omi quickly pulled up the data on his protection programs. "Damn.
They were only three reroutes away from discovering the location of thinit. I put over twenty reroutes in there, all protected. I was only ohe site for perhaps fifteen minutes. I didn't know anyone could work thaast. At best I could have gotten through twelve of those reroutes in thamount of time. He got nineteen. I'll have to rebuild the safeties before
I do anything else." Omi quickly began typing, loading other programs fron encoded disk that had been sitting on his desk. Most people would havust found some school papers on the disk.
"How long will it take?" Ran asked.
"To completely replace the system will probably take a couple days.
Although, if any of you were willing to help it could go much more quickly.
I already have written several programs. I'd just have to reconfigurhem slightly. But for tonight I'm just going to partially rebuilefenses. I'll have to avoid sensitive sites." Omi continued to work ae spoke and quickly put in two new reroutes.
* * *
In another part of the city a boy leaned down and put his arms around thhoulders of another boy sitting in front of a laptop. "So, was it them?"
"I couldn't complete the trace," the other boy said in a calm tone.
"What?" said the first boy, the glow of the laptop highlighting hiurprise.
"The protections were too extensive."
"I guess Kyra wasn't kidding when she said these guys were good."
"Kyra's usually accurate about competence."
"Yeah, she is. The meeting tomorrow ought to be interesting."
"Aa."
* * *
"I say that the best way to get information on Kyra is to wait until theeting tomorrow. If she really wants us to work with her, she'll have tive us some information on herself. So far all we have is a little familistory, some guesses and the information that the Preventers have somovernment connection and a damn good hacker," Youji said.
"You're probably right. Besides, I don't want to risk someone infiltratinur computer system," Omi replied.
"We'll stop the search now. We can obtain more data once we have met hend have more information," Ran stated.
"Sounds like its final," Ken affirmed.
"We'll all need copies of the data collected so far," Ran asked.
Ken quickly removed a set of papers from his folder for Ran and handethers to Youji and Omi. Youji and Omi printed several copies of thittle that they had gathered and handed them aroun. Ran took all thapers and left silently. The three remaining assassins looked at eacther. "I guess we just wait for that phone call," Ken said, summing uhat the others were thinking.
"Aa," the other two agreed.
