Dismal Angel 2010 - Episode 12

Chapter 2:  New Software

          Kitty Pryde pushed the buzzer outside of the door of an apartment building in the bad side of Bayville, she kept her head low, eyes hidden behind dark glasses and her hair was hidden beneath a curly blonde wig that the women members of the X-Men had used in the past for undercover operations.

          "Yeah," came the reply through the buzzer, and Kitty leaned forward to it, "it's me."

          "Password, babe, password," was the response that followed.

          Kitty rolled her eyes at the buzzer, "you know its me, why do I need a password?" she asked, she pressed her shoulder against the wall and sighed, she had a large pizza box tucked securely under one arm, the heat seeping through the cardboard right through to the sleeve of her denim jacket.

          "You could be anyone," came the response, a suspicious tone lacing the voice.

          Kitty couldn't blame the man inside the apartment for being cautious.  He'd been involved in many illegal activities although his favourite of these was hacking.  He was right, she could have been anyone, and it was only natural for him to ask for a password.  "Pizza delivery for Mr Stephanopaulos," she said disdainfully, "extra cheese, extra pepperoni, no anchovies and no peppers."

          A loud buzzing noise alerted Kitty, and she pushed the door open and let herself into the murky hallway, she made her way up the stairway, the pizza still under her arm.  Door 12 on the third floor opened as she approached the top of the stairs, and Ryan Bloom stared out from the small gap, his dark eyes suspicious.

          Kitty approached the door, she lowered her glasses so he could see it was her, the door opened all the way and she slipped in, closing it behind herself, "here," she handed him the pizza box.

          Ryan accepted the pizza box, "you suit blonde."
          "I look like a bimbo," Kitty uttered, she glanced around the apartment, the place was in a shambles, the walls were painted a dark colour which Kitty couldn't distinguish – because of bad lighting – if it was brown or green.  The windows had been blacked out completely with paint and only tiny slithers made their way through from the very edges that had been missed.   There was barely space to move between piles of computer equipment, and garbage, "you seriously need to clean, I bet you have rats."

          "That's okay, I like animals," Ryan cracked, "so, Kitty, what did you come for, anyway?" Ryan asked. "When you called you weren't too specific," he sat down at his computer desk, three monitors were placed in three different locations on the desk, there were two keyboards between piles of CDs.

          "I need advice," Kitty said, she said, she sat on a space on a sideboard that was set against the wall, she crossed one leg over the other and watched as Ryan opened the pizza box and took out a large slice.

          "About?"

          "I'm trying to hack into a highly protected server," Kitty stated, "I can't tell you what it is exactly, all I can tell you is its government, and it's essential I get in."

          "You should be able to hack into government servers with the software and hardware I sold you," Ryan responded, mouth full of pizza.

          "You'd think," Kitty took the dark glasses and the wig off, "except this is a little more complex, its top secret, its something I don't even think the public know about, and if they do, then me and my friends must be the only ones who don't know," she explained.

          "So what's the problem?"

          "Because it's top secret there are no listings for systems administrator and without knowing who the systems admin is I can't get in," Kitty answered simply.  "I've tried various things, but nothing's working."

          "Can you break the password and cipher?" Ryan asked, he began searching through a pile of CDs on his desk, still munching on his pizza, the box sat precariously on his lap.

          "Yeah," Kitty answered, "I always get stuck when I get to the voice authorisation," she answered.

          "How much cash you got on you?" Ryan asked.

          "Ryan, I'm your brothers ex-girlfriend, I've bought MORE equipment and software from you than anyone, I'm your best customer, can't you just cut me some slack, just this once?"

          "Kitty, you should know that in life, nothing is free," Ryan smirked, his dark eyes glittered from behind his silver rimmed glasses.

          Kitty looked at him.  She was unsure of Ryan's exact age, he was probably a year younger than herself.  He was a loner, and barely ever left his apartment, which explained his pale complexion.  He might have been handsome if his hair didn't hang to his shoulders in greasy curls, and he didn't hide his dark intense eyes behind glasses that only made his face look longer than it was already.  "I don't have much cash on me, about thirty bucks and that's it."

          "Software I got will cost you an even thousand," he stated, "or no deal."

          "Ryan…please…this is important, someone's life is at stake here, did I tell you that?" Kitty asked softly, "my best friend's guy's life might count on this…"

          "Kitty, I'm sorry, but I don't give freebies.  A thousand is a reasonable price for this type of software."

          Kitty winced, "I…I can't ask for more money…"

          "Ask for money?" Ryan raised his eye, "What, you got someone gives you money or something?  Loan shark?"

          "No, its not that, just…a friend…" Kitty tried to shake off Ryan's inquisitive nature, "look, can't you just help me out just this once?  I'd owe you big time…"

          "Owe me what?" Ryan asked with a smirk.

          "Not THAT," Kitty folded her arms with a frown.

          "Not even just a quick one?"

          Kitty sighed and yanked her jacket off, "fine."

          Monet St Croix was standing behind the body of students who were also on the Muir Island trip as they were in the research centre in one of the low security genetics laboratories listening to Dr MacTaggert give a speech about the X-Gene.   It was nothing she hadn't heard before, and she certainly had no interest in hearing it again.  She could have found several more interesting ways of spending a perfectly good week and none of them involved learning things that she felt were – to someone with her advanced intellect – child's play.

          She knew exactly why the students had all been shipped off to Muir Island although she'd neglected to let anyone know this.  Monet was perceptive enough to know that beneath the faces of the instructors, there was fear.  Something big was kicking off.  Something to do with Remy LeBeau.  She wasn't positive why she knew, but she knew.  It was almost as if the information just dropped into her head.

Monet understood why the other students had been sent away – if something was going to happen, it might be soon, and the students who were less than capable of handling themselves shouldn't be where they could be easy targets.  Monet understood this one hundred percent…but the one thing she couldn't understand was why they'd sent her with them. 

          Monet was growing weary of the instructors babying her, they seemed unable to accept the fact she was not an ordinary sixteen year old and that they had no right to treat her as such.  She felt wasted and unappreciated, and was beginning to question her attending the institute.  She had no problems controlling her powers of strength and flight, and independently she'd studied several fighting styles of various different nations, combining them to become an impressive warrior.

          Monet felt she'd have been an asset to the X-Men even at – what the Professor had always deemed – 'a tender age'.   But it seemed there were no plans for this until she was eighteen, and even then, she wouldn't be on the full X-Men team, she'd be a probationer puppy-walked by two instructors.  It would be very humiliating, she decided.  And then to be one of the X-Men and always be under someone else's leadership?  The very thought left Monet cringing.

          "Monet, are you paying attention?" Dr MacTaggert asked.

          "Of course," Monet said lightly, she swept her long silken black hair over her shoulder and pretended to feign interest.  She felt that slight headache coming on again, perhaps a little more persistent than the one from yesterday.  Yesterday, the pain had only been in the very centre of her forehead, now the pain had increased there, and two new independent aches seemed to have established themselves at each temple.   She pressed two fingers to each temple and tried to concentrate on what was being said, but the words seemed a blur for a moment and it almost seemed as if everyone around her were speaking at once.

          "Monet…"

          The headache lifted suddenly, but not completely, it still left her with the dull throbbing, although now concentration became much easier, and Monet became aware of the hand of Sean Cassidy upon her arm.  "Yes?" she asked, she looked at him, a little startled.

          "Is something wrong?"
          "Just a headache," Monet assured.

          "You should maybe lie down, you've gone very pale," Sean admitted, his expression sincere.

          "I think I will lie down…try and clear my head," Monet nodded, and took off without saying another word.

          Kitty Pryde couldn't believe instead of searching for Remy or trying to help find out what was being done with Hank McCoy's research she was playing video games with Ryan Bloom.   She couldn't believe that Ryan was making her stay here to play video games – that was his deal.  She realised it must be terribly lonely 'working' from home and never having a social life.  But she hated the fact she had to pay for his misfortune by spending time she felt she didn't have.

 Still, if her company was enough to make Ryan Bloom give her the software for free, she was all for it.  Guilt still heavily consumed her though.  What might Remy be enduing at that very moment as she sipped her soda, ate popcorn, and tapped madly at the gamepad of Ryan's old Gamecube.  Four hours had passed, and she was beginning to realise despite how ever good the outcome of this may be, she was still wasting valuable time.

"Y'know, Ryan, I gotta go soon…" Kitty tried to sound quite sad about it but she was desperate to get out of the dank apartment.  She really had to use the bathroom and she dared not enter his – there was always a weird smell in the hall where the bathroom door was located and she reckoned it might have been coming from there.

          "C'mon, Kitty, you never just hang out with me," Ryan said, "you used to date my brother for gods sake, you could at least treat me as more than just your local illegal software supplier."

          "I know, that, I know," Kitty whined, "Its just...I have so much work to do back home…" she explained sincerely, "Important stuff…"

          "Like?"

          "Sorry, Ryan, it's classified," Kitty put down the game controller, "But I've spent four hours here, and…I had fun," she lied, she hadn't been having fun at all, she'd spent every minute of those four hours wondering if anyone might have found something out at the mansion yet.

          Ryan sighed and got up, "fine," he picked the software up off his desk and tossed it over to her, "log in with password breaker and elliption curve decipher, then load this."

          "What is it exactly?" Kitty asked, she examined the name written on top of the CD-R.  In bold black letters it stated 'Pentothal  v1.0'.

          "You could kind of call it a virus if you like…I prefer calling it a kind of 'drug'.  It'll fool the server into telling you all kinds of information.  It got it's name from the drug by the same name – that stuff can be used as a kind of 'truth serum'," Ryan spoke so passionately about the software.

          "But won't I need the systems admin to get in before I can do that?"

          "As long as you can break two passwords this should do the trick, just run it, and type in the command 'cd usr', hit return, then type in 'authorise' then 'console' and it should break you into the console quite easily."

          "And this is guaranteed to work?" Kitty asked, she grabbed her jacket from the couch she'd flung it on and slipped it on.

          "Yes, but like the real drug, it doesn't work for long, so you have to be fast in running it and getting in," Ryan nodded, "Hey…can…I maybe ask you out some time?" He asked sheepishly, "I've always had a kind of crush on you…"

          Kitty felt suddenly squirmish and wanted to get out of that apartment as soon as possible, "aw…I'm sorry, I'm kinda in a relationship…"

          "You are?" Ryan asked, looking crestfallen.

          Kitty chewed her lip, "didn't I ever mention my boyfriend Kurt?  We've been going out since we were like…sixteen," she said, she deliberately failed to mention her relationship with Kurt had been on and off again since it had begun and that she was not currently with Kurt at all.  But hey, this was information he probably didn't have any hope of finding out.

          "I understand…" Ryan sighed.

          Kitty stepped towards the door, "thanks, Ryan, you're the best," she said, she held up the CD, and then left with one last smile of appreciation.