Thank you Slytherin Groupie & Darklight for my first reviews! (And a good
ones too!) It's encouraging.
The Digital Web
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --
Derrick was stymied. He'd already run down a lot of info related to Oz's story, but he was coming up empty on a few other things. Derrick was a true mage, of the Virtual Adept Tradition, masters of computers and information.
The Pride and Joy of the Virtual Adepts was the Digital Web.
The Digital Web was not the Internet, but the two were connected. It was more of an alternate reality. The Virtual Adepts considered the Digital Web to be Reality 2.0. Here anything was possible within the will and imagination of the Adept. Skill played a large part as well and Derrick was considered one of the Elite. Oh there were others with better reps, but they were glory seekers. A low profile usually meant a longer lifespan.
Someday The Digital Web would replace what the norms considered reality, but it was not ready for Prime Time yet. Sleepers (non-mages) could access the Digital Web at certain points, through the Internet of course, but they had very limited control within it. Most just thought it was a cool chat site or online BBS.
There were two ways for a mage to access the Digital Web, holistically through a Virtual Reality rig like the one in the Packs home, and Total Emersion. The true Elite could "digitize" themselves and become part of the actual data stream, leaving the physical world entirely. That was Nirvana to the VA's, and it's what Derrick was doing now. Of course, this came with its own risks.
Right now that was the state Derrick existed in. He was sitting in a node of the Digital Web of his own construction, one that he formatted to use when he was in research-mode. It was as secure as he could make it, with tons of Intrusion Countermeasures in place. Data Bots constantly scanned the outside of the node to alert him of possible danger. Even the paranoid have enemies. The node resembled a Borg sphere on the outside and the Bat Cave on the inside. Not the one from the TV show, the one from the first movie. Derrick stopped short of actually wearing a costume. He sat in a recliner in front of a console, allowing him to view the dozen or so screens in front of him. Next to the chair was a cooler with nothing but bottles of Jolt Cola.
Using the info he'd found this morning about Sunnydale from publicly accessible data stores, he decided to dig deeper. He used a backdoor into the FBI he'd hacked from those Lone Gunman lameoids, and found the fibbies did have an interest in Sunnydale. A particular office in DC, the X-Files, had all references to Sunnydale that came through FBI systems tagged for their review. He wondered why until he found that the X-Files division investigated the paranormal, which Derrick assumed was probably a Technocracy group on the lookout for Tradition mages and the like in order to hunt them down. No formal investigation yet.
Next he tagged the DEA. They had no running investigations involving Sunnydale. They had sent someone out there once based on the heightened "gang activity" but that person was pulled back after only one day. No explanation.
Then he went to the Sunnydale PD to access their systems. SPD's security was nothing like the FBI or DEA; he blew past it in nanoseconds. He cruised around their data stores, finding nothing of real interest. If there was a vampire infestation, their reports did not indicate it. Of course he really didn't think they would. The Camarilla always made sure nothing like that was recorded anywhere.
It was the morgue records that were significant. It confirmed the death rate statistics he'd found earlier. What was strange was the creativity with which the pathologists sited as the cause of death for some of the cases. Oh there were all the standards; heart attack, drowning, accidental fall etc. But there was also a high incidence of "exsanguinations" with the most improbable causes. "Fell on a piece of glass", "Wild dog bite", "Stabbed self twice with ice pick". Who the hell owned ice picks anymore?
While he was here in the SPD's records, he decided to run down the names Oz gave for this Scooby Gang of his. To broaden the search and cross reference the results, he opened up streams to the California DMV, State Board of Ed and Sunnydale Board of Ed.
First Buffy. Oz had not given her last name, but how many Buffy's could there be? Stupid him. This was California and they apparently had a Buffy on every street. Still, he didn't find any that matched the profile he was scanning for. Maybe Buffy was a nickname. He narrowed his search parameters to filter for females in Sunnydale that graduated with Oz. Then he set another filter to look at a history of violence, crossed against the SPD. Anyone dubbed "The Slayer" would probably have been in trouble with the authorities at one point.
"BINGO" he exclaimed. Buffy Ann Summers, currently a freshman at UC Sunnydale. Several arrests but no convictions. One cop in particular, a Detective Stein seemed to be paying particular attention to her. Seems a boyfriend of Buffy's mom was killed, by Buffy. It was ruled self-defense so she was never charged. Apparently Stein thought different. If anything brutal or unexplained came up, he tried to blame it on Buffy.
Derrick discovered that before Buffy lived in Sunnydale she was in LA, and was suspected of being involved in the burning down of the Hemery High school gymnasium. Stein also believed she was the one responsible for completely destroying Sunnydale High on graduation day. Conn and Krieg are going to love this girl!
Then there's her academic record. Either Buffy was the next best thing to the Apocalypse or her high school principle really hated her! Snyder somebody. She somehow managed to score a 1430 on her SAT's though. Also listed were her "known associates". "What? Was this a school record or criminal record?" Derrick thought to himself. Alexander L. Harris, Willow Rosenberg, Cordelia Chase and Daniel Osborne. Bingo again.
Willow Rosenberg, also freshman at UC Sunnydale. Strange, she was recruited by a lot of heavy hitters, why was she in a Podunk college like U.C. Sunnydale? Probably didn't want to leave her friends and family. Willow's record was clean. Model Student, aptitude for computers, even taught some of the computer classes at Sunnydale High herself. Hum, Oz mentioned she was a Hedge Mage, a Wiccan, now a computer geek too? Curiouser and curiouser.
Alexander Harris. The only police reports involved domestic disputes between his parents, who've both been through a few 12-step programs apparently. School record reflected a typical slacker mentality. No sports except for a brief stint on the Swim Team. Apparently did not go on to college. Derrick dipped into the IRS and found W2s showing he worked for a construction company.
Cordelia Chase. Father was a big player in the financial world, but got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Got nabbed for Tax evasion and lost it all. After graduation it seems she moved to LA, probably to become an actress like Oz said. Her and every other pretty face in LA. W2 says she's employed by Angle Investigations. Have to run them down too.
Then there was Oz. Again, no police record, he would probably be an average student, if he'd actually attended school. Had to repeat his senior year in order to graduate. Started at UC Sunnydale, but I guess will be listed as dropped soon, depending on how things work out.
Now for the teachers Oz mentioned. Jenny Calendar as he'd already found is the computer teacher. Clean record, lots of recommendations from other schools. No red flags there. Oops, wait, big flag, as in Death Certificate. No details. Guess that's why Willow took a stab at teaching, filling in for Ms. Calendar.
Giles must be Rupert Giles, the librarian at the former Sunnydale High. Degree in History from Oxford. What's this? A list of books requisitioned by him for the library; a number of which are paranormal in context. Oz did say he was Buffy's guide and trainer. Maybe this was part of that.
He's put flags on all of them. If anything came on them came though his constantly running searches, he'd know. It was while he was backing out of Sunnydale PD's systems that he noticed it. Someone else had been there before, another hacker. They'd left a few hooks in the system too, in order to get back in easier when they wanted.
Whoever it is was good, but not Elite. Now that he had a signature, Derrick dug further. This person covered their tracks well, things were bounced all around the globe. But Derrick was able to trace some of the incursions back to the Sunnydale High School library. Hello Scooby gang! Or should he say "Hello Willow".
Knowing that the Sunnydale High School Library was no more, Derrick rooted around again and found some recent frames had been routed to both a computer in a private residence and to the Computer Lab at UC Sunnydale. The private residence turned out to belong to Rupert Giles. The one real slipup she'd made was he managed to uncover her handle; NetGrl. "That sounds familiar." He said out loud to himself. Yet another tidbit to cross reference against existing files.
That only took seconds. The info was in one of the Data stores in the Omaha Chantry. Another VA had recently noticed NetGrl's Icon on the Web was expanding, becoming more then 2 dimensional. A sure sign that the sleeper was about to Awaken. Derrick hooked in yet another flag to alert him to when she was online again.
Anyway, knowing who this person was and what she was up to, Derrick decided to give her a hand. He went back in and cleaned up after her a little bit. He left her pipelines and back entrances intact, but firmed them up a little. Only one of the Elite, one that was purposely looking for them and expending a lot of effort to do it, would be able to find them.
On to just what a "Vampire Slayer" was. Derrick did know there were hunter organizations that went after the Camarilla vamps, but they were usually short lived. Oz seemed to indicate "The Slayer" in some incarnation had been around for a while. His search routines only yielded sparse information. He found the line Oz spouted "The only girl in all the world" blah blah blah. referenced in a 16th century manuscript on demonology.
It mentioned the Slayer and her efforts to destroy the Vampire Demons, supported only by her Watcher, capital "W". But who supported him? Another search yielded a "Council of Watchers" located in London, but Derrick could not find anything online to indicate what they watched. Well, what about offline? They sounded like a bunch of stuffy Englishmen to him, probably didn't know squat about how to protect a computer. Using the street address he found for the Council of Watchers, Derrick hacked into all the known ISP's in the London area to see if they had an account. He already had entrance points in all of the major ISPs' worldwide so it was easy.
He found they had a dial-up account with a mid-sized London company. They were offline at the moment so he couldn't get in that way. He shifted his focus to the London power grid. As long as a computer was plugged in and powered on, it was connected to a network of sorts. This network didn't normally carry data, just electrons. But what was electronic data but a series of well organized electrons?
Derrick sent his intrusion code in through the power grid into the Watchers residence. It would locate any PC's that were there and powered on. He quickly found a bunch. One was drawing more power then the others, probably a server. Come to poppa baby! This was a server alright, probably their only one judging by the services it supported. It also carried TONS of data. "Paydirt!" He shouted with glee.
Going through this interface would be too slow, so it was time for some real magic.
Derrick was a Master of Correspondence, as in the correspondence of two points in space between each other. As a Master of this art he could Teleport himself or others, and even open dimensional gates to allow travel to-and-from places. Distance to him is not an obstacle. Of course in order to do this right, he'd have to be subtle. First, through his power grid connection he ran a scan to determine the exact location of the Watcher's server. He also scanned for a human presence and found none. Derrick then opened a small Gate to the back of the server. Looking through he examined the ports and cables that were there. Seeing an open SCSI port, Derrick attached a small device to the port. Anyone looking at it would think it was a SCSI terminator. What it did though was create a wireless link between that port and a ghost port located in Derrick's construct.
With that complete, Derrick closed the Gate. Attaching a cable to his ghost port, he began downloading every bit of data on the Watcher's machine to a far larger one of his own. When complete, he'd have an exact copy of the Watcher's server. If he left the ghost port in place, the Watcher's server would constantly replicate to his, keeping them both synchronized. Even at this speed, it will still take awhile to complete the initial copy.
He popped open another bottle of Jolt and loaded up his favorite First Person Shooter game. Time to F with a few newbie's.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
TBC
The Digital Web
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --
Derrick was stymied. He'd already run down a lot of info related to Oz's story, but he was coming up empty on a few other things. Derrick was a true mage, of the Virtual Adept Tradition, masters of computers and information.
The Pride and Joy of the Virtual Adepts was the Digital Web.
The Digital Web was not the Internet, but the two were connected. It was more of an alternate reality. The Virtual Adepts considered the Digital Web to be Reality 2.0. Here anything was possible within the will and imagination of the Adept. Skill played a large part as well and Derrick was considered one of the Elite. Oh there were others with better reps, but they were glory seekers. A low profile usually meant a longer lifespan.
Someday The Digital Web would replace what the norms considered reality, but it was not ready for Prime Time yet. Sleepers (non-mages) could access the Digital Web at certain points, through the Internet of course, but they had very limited control within it. Most just thought it was a cool chat site or online BBS.
There were two ways for a mage to access the Digital Web, holistically through a Virtual Reality rig like the one in the Packs home, and Total Emersion. The true Elite could "digitize" themselves and become part of the actual data stream, leaving the physical world entirely. That was Nirvana to the VA's, and it's what Derrick was doing now. Of course, this came with its own risks.
Right now that was the state Derrick existed in. He was sitting in a node of the Digital Web of his own construction, one that he formatted to use when he was in research-mode. It was as secure as he could make it, with tons of Intrusion Countermeasures in place. Data Bots constantly scanned the outside of the node to alert him of possible danger. Even the paranoid have enemies. The node resembled a Borg sphere on the outside and the Bat Cave on the inside. Not the one from the TV show, the one from the first movie. Derrick stopped short of actually wearing a costume. He sat in a recliner in front of a console, allowing him to view the dozen or so screens in front of him. Next to the chair was a cooler with nothing but bottles of Jolt Cola.
Using the info he'd found this morning about Sunnydale from publicly accessible data stores, he decided to dig deeper. He used a backdoor into the FBI he'd hacked from those Lone Gunman lameoids, and found the fibbies did have an interest in Sunnydale. A particular office in DC, the X-Files, had all references to Sunnydale that came through FBI systems tagged for their review. He wondered why until he found that the X-Files division investigated the paranormal, which Derrick assumed was probably a Technocracy group on the lookout for Tradition mages and the like in order to hunt them down. No formal investigation yet.
Next he tagged the DEA. They had no running investigations involving Sunnydale. They had sent someone out there once based on the heightened "gang activity" but that person was pulled back after only one day. No explanation.
Then he went to the Sunnydale PD to access their systems. SPD's security was nothing like the FBI or DEA; he blew past it in nanoseconds. He cruised around their data stores, finding nothing of real interest. If there was a vampire infestation, their reports did not indicate it. Of course he really didn't think they would. The Camarilla always made sure nothing like that was recorded anywhere.
It was the morgue records that were significant. It confirmed the death rate statistics he'd found earlier. What was strange was the creativity with which the pathologists sited as the cause of death for some of the cases. Oh there were all the standards; heart attack, drowning, accidental fall etc. But there was also a high incidence of "exsanguinations" with the most improbable causes. "Fell on a piece of glass", "Wild dog bite", "Stabbed self twice with ice pick". Who the hell owned ice picks anymore?
While he was here in the SPD's records, he decided to run down the names Oz gave for this Scooby Gang of his. To broaden the search and cross reference the results, he opened up streams to the California DMV, State Board of Ed and Sunnydale Board of Ed.
First Buffy. Oz had not given her last name, but how many Buffy's could there be? Stupid him. This was California and they apparently had a Buffy on every street. Still, he didn't find any that matched the profile he was scanning for. Maybe Buffy was a nickname. He narrowed his search parameters to filter for females in Sunnydale that graduated with Oz. Then he set another filter to look at a history of violence, crossed against the SPD. Anyone dubbed "The Slayer" would probably have been in trouble with the authorities at one point.
"BINGO" he exclaimed. Buffy Ann Summers, currently a freshman at UC Sunnydale. Several arrests but no convictions. One cop in particular, a Detective Stein seemed to be paying particular attention to her. Seems a boyfriend of Buffy's mom was killed, by Buffy. It was ruled self-defense so she was never charged. Apparently Stein thought different. If anything brutal or unexplained came up, he tried to blame it on Buffy.
Derrick discovered that before Buffy lived in Sunnydale she was in LA, and was suspected of being involved in the burning down of the Hemery High school gymnasium. Stein also believed she was the one responsible for completely destroying Sunnydale High on graduation day. Conn and Krieg are going to love this girl!
Then there's her academic record. Either Buffy was the next best thing to the Apocalypse or her high school principle really hated her! Snyder somebody. She somehow managed to score a 1430 on her SAT's though. Also listed were her "known associates". "What? Was this a school record or criminal record?" Derrick thought to himself. Alexander L. Harris, Willow Rosenberg, Cordelia Chase and Daniel Osborne. Bingo again.
Willow Rosenberg, also freshman at UC Sunnydale. Strange, she was recruited by a lot of heavy hitters, why was she in a Podunk college like U.C. Sunnydale? Probably didn't want to leave her friends and family. Willow's record was clean. Model Student, aptitude for computers, even taught some of the computer classes at Sunnydale High herself. Hum, Oz mentioned she was a Hedge Mage, a Wiccan, now a computer geek too? Curiouser and curiouser.
Alexander Harris. The only police reports involved domestic disputes between his parents, who've both been through a few 12-step programs apparently. School record reflected a typical slacker mentality. No sports except for a brief stint on the Swim Team. Apparently did not go on to college. Derrick dipped into the IRS and found W2s showing he worked for a construction company.
Cordelia Chase. Father was a big player in the financial world, but got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Got nabbed for Tax evasion and lost it all. After graduation it seems she moved to LA, probably to become an actress like Oz said. Her and every other pretty face in LA. W2 says she's employed by Angle Investigations. Have to run them down too.
Then there was Oz. Again, no police record, he would probably be an average student, if he'd actually attended school. Had to repeat his senior year in order to graduate. Started at UC Sunnydale, but I guess will be listed as dropped soon, depending on how things work out.
Now for the teachers Oz mentioned. Jenny Calendar as he'd already found is the computer teacher. Clean record, lots of recommendations from other schools. No red flags there. Oops, wait, big flag, as in Death Certificate. No details. Guess that's why Willow took a stab at teaching, filling in for Ms. Calendar.
Giles must be Rupert Giles, the librarian at the former Sunnydale High. Degree in History from Oxford. What's this? A list of books requisitioned by him for the library; a number of which are paranormal in context. Oz did say he was Buffy's guide and trainer. Maybe this was part of that.
He's put flags on all of them. If anything came on them came though his constantly running searches, he'd know. It was while he was backing out of Sunnydale PD's systems that he noticed it. Someone else had been there before, another hacker. They'd left a few hooks in the system too, in order to get back in easier when they wanted.
Whoever it is was good, but not Elite. Now that he had a signature, Derrick dug further. This person covered their tracks well, things were bounced all around the globe. But Derrick was able to trace some of the incursions back to the Sunnydale High School library. Hello Scooby gang! Or should he say "Hello Willow".
Knowing that the Sunnydale High School Library was no more, Derrick rooted around again and found some recent frames had been routed to both a computer in a private residence and to the Computer Lab at UC Sunnydale. The private residence turned out to belong to Rupert Giles. The one real slipup she'd made was he managed to uncover her handle; NetGrl. "That sounds familiar." He said out loud to himself. Yet another tidbit to cross reference against existing files.
That only took seconds. The info was in one of the Data stores in the Omaha Chantry. Another VA had recently noticed NetGrl's Icon on the Web was expanding, becoming more then 2 dimensional. A sure sign that the sleeper was about to Awaken. Derrick hooked in yet another flag to alert him to when she was online again.
Anyway, knowing who this person was and what she was up to, Derrick decided to give her a hand. He went back in and cleaned up after her a little bit. He left her pipelines and back entrances intact, but firmed them up a little. Only one of the Elite, one that was purposely looking for them and expending a lot of effort to do it, would be able to find them.
On to just what a "Vampire Slayer" was. Derrick did know there were hunter organizations that went after the Camarilla vamps, but they were usually short lived. Oz seemed to indicate "The Slayer" in some incarnation had been around for a while. His search routines only yielded sparse information. He found the line Oz spouted "The only girl in all the world" blah blah blah. referenced in a 16th century manuscript on demonology.
It mentioned the Slayer and her efforts to destroy the Vampire Demons, supported only by her Watcher, capital "W". But who supported him? Another search yielded a "Council of Watchers" located in London, but Derrick could not find anything online to indicate what they watched. Well, what about offline? They sounded like a bunch of stuffy Englishmen to him, probably didn't know squat about how to protect a computer. Using the street address he found for the Council of Watchers, Derrick hacked into all the known ISP's in the London area to see if they had an account. He already had entrance points in all of the major ISPs' worldwide so it was easy.
He found they had a dial-up account with a mid-sized London company. They were offline at the moment so he couldn't get in that way. He shifted his focus to the London power grid. As long as a computer was plugged in and powered on, it was connected to a network of sorts. This network didn't normally carry data, just electrons. But what was electronic data but a series of well organized electrons?
Derrick sent his intrusion code in through the power grid into the Watchers residence. It would locate any PC's that were there and powered on. He quickly found a bunch. One was drawing more power then the others, probably a server. Come to poppa baby! This was a server alright, probably their only one judging by the services it supported. It also carried TONS of data. "Paydirt!" He shouted with glee.
Going through this interface would be too slow, so it was time for some real magic.
Derrick was a Master of Correspondence, as in the correspondence of two points in space between each other. As a Master of this art he could Teleport himself or others, and even open dimensional gates to allow travel to-and-from places. Distance to him is not an obstacle. Of course in order to do this right, he'd have to be subtle. First, through his power grid connection he ran a scan to determine the exact location of the Watcher's server. He also scanned for a human presence and found none. Derrick then opened a small Gate to the back of the server. Looking through he examined the ports and cables that were there. Seeing an open SCSI port, Derrick attached a small device to the port. Anyone looking at it would think it was a SCSI terminator. What it did though was create a wireless link between that port and a ghost port located in Derrick's construct.
With that complete, Derrick closed the Gate. Attaching a cable to his ghost port, he began downloading every bit of data on the Watcher's machine to a far larger one of his own. When complete, he'd have an exact copy of the Watcher's server. If he left the ghost port in place, the Watcher's server would constantly replicate to his, keeping them both synchronized. Even at this speed, it will still take awhile to complete the initial copy.
He popped open another bottle of Jolt and loaded up his favorite First Person Shooter game. Time to F with a few newbie's.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
TBC