Snake 5.4

January 19, 2011, Brockton Bay, 5:14 AM

It took me more time to find and download the required whitepapers than to absorb them. Overall it netted me quite a few levels in Electronics, Physics and Hardware but the levels were not my goal. I had gained enough understanding of all common memory storage systems to attempt the next level.

I dove into the scan of Coil's phone, located the memory chips, then started zooming till I could discern the individual transistors. Zooming in and out a few more times it didn't take me long to figure out which one was charged and which one wasn't. As soon as I had read the first 32 transistors, I got a subskill called Memory Interface. I was expecting it, after all, the AI does this every time I learn books from a memory chip. Within moments I had a copy of the whole flash memory of the phone. I went one step further, I focused on the RAM chips too, it failed the first time, then I focused again with the hardware architecture of SDRAM in mind, I had a copy of its RAM content too.

Great, I had the data, but how to send it to Taylor? If I would message the files to Taylor mentally, she wouldn't be able to open them, I tried using Memory Interface to write it to a real chip directly but construct complexity constraint would not let it work. Time to try another idea, I began downloading more whitepapers, this time on all kinds of interface ports and their handshaking and data transfer protocols, then on most of the common file formats for text, images, video, audio and so on.

While I was busy searching and downloading, Taylor came back home and happily reported that one potential rapist and two muggers were behind bars, and some armed gang members 'had wet their pants when the fear of Swarm was put into them'. Even without support from Gamer's mind, her emotional control was well enough that I really couldn't tell whether she mentioned these things so casually just to freak me out or not.

Calvert soon woke up, freshened up, logged into his Coil server and started reading reports hacked from PRT and BPPD on the cape and business scenes. He went through reports on the Boston capes called the Travelers (sent from Accord) and then spent considerable time going over the reports of Maker and Swarm, both PRT and the PD had amassed quite a few case files, cellphone and cctv clips on the both of us. What joy.

He also spent some time reading reports on Fortress and what drew my eye was him looking at a video clip of Maker and Glory Girl flying out the front door of our house, then Glory Girl flying back in. Then Aisha leaving our house, thankfully her face wasn't visible as she went the other way. Finally there was Glory Girl and Panacea leaving the house, Taylor and me seeing them off at the door. Well, oops?

Anyway, there was no need for immediate action, I knew he was monitoring us. He was already aware of my interaction with the Dallons when dada was attacked. Good thing that the camera clearly shows both Maker leaving and me at the door after that. It would have to do. Calvert read through the rest of the reports then made a call that raised my hackles.

"Tattletale."

...

"Your... friend, seems to have an unusual number of connections in the cape world."

...

"Should I be worried?"

...

"The new tinker is of particular interest. I'm sending you some data, give me your analysis no later than today afternoon."

...

"See that you do."

This could get tricky. Aveek/I immediately got a text from one of Lisa's burner numbers to meet at the boardwalk cafe in an hour. I confirmed it. I was done downloading all the whitepapers by then. I got on to absorbing them with 3 extra multitask minds running. Also messaged a quick update of the developments to Taylor.

It took me less than an hour to absorb the whitepapers and protocols. Calvert was staying home today. I figured he'd mostly keep his Coil activities in his spare timeline unless they were actionable.

I switched primaries and went on to the next experiment. I created a construct micro-USB connector and plugged it into my phone. Then pushed some mana into the construct to create and sense electrical signals in the pins, but routed the intent through the AI, pointing at the PC to phone handshaking protocols, it started drawing a steady stream of mana and I got a message from the AI that the handshake was successful. Final step - I pointed at the file transfer protocols and sent the flash memory dump file from Calvert's phone to copy to my phone. It started copying.

New skill created: Mana-Computer Interface... Mwahahahahahaha!

January 19, 2011, Brockton Bay, 10:32 AM

Armed with a VM emulating Calvert's phone, Taylor got cracking making her rootkit. Meanwhile Aveek/I was already at the cafe, sipping at a steaming chrysanthemum tea, waiting for Lisa. She arrived shortly, tail in place, we held hands and engaged in idle chitchat, she even asked me some overt questions about Maker. All the time, we were tapping away in Morse Code.

'COIL WANTS INFO ON MAKER'

'GIVE. DIMENS. FX TINKER. NO SWARM'

'PROVIDE TODAYS PATROL ROUTE? HE WILL AMBUSH'

'YES'

'OK'

We parted soon after. Calvert got a call, possibly the tail updating him on Lisa's activities. He seemed content. He also received Lisa's analysis in a few hours. She did well, giving him enough info but nothing of my real abilities. Not that she knew about the Gamer powerset to begin with.

Calvert soon began making calls, bloody bugger arranged a hit on me!

January 19, 2011, Brockton Bay, 11:35 PM

I'd spent the rest of the day training the Mana Computer Interface and Construct resolution, I needed to go below 15nm to be able to replicate his dongle. I had tried to read it's memory but it was not any standard filesystem at all, stupid tinkertech. It even had some nonstandard electronics in it which wouldn't make sense until I got scans of it while in operation. I also took a bit of time to prepare a personal gift for Coil.

Swarm and Maker/I were out for patrol, we knew exactly where Coil's ambush was set up. As soon as we got within 3 kilometres of the place. Taylor confirmed that they were there, three plants were waiting on a street while a whole team of his tinker-rifle mercs were spread around in nearby windows and roofs. As we advanced further she even told me of a sniper about 300 metres away from the spot.

We split our routes, I headed along the route Lisa mentioned while Swarm circled around. Her role was surveillance only for this gig. As soon as I was in visible range, Coil, sitting in his pyjamas on his bed, got a text that the target had been spotted. I prayed he didn't move from his spot, because I wouldn't be able to shift my peephole on him without switching primaries.

Within moments I got a precog scan alert. My gift came into play - a custom anonymity protocol response for his precog scan. I possibly would never know how it exactly played out in his precog timeline, but he sent an abort mission in the present timeline and the guys did nothing as I passed by.

Within a minute, Coil's social reading changed, he was suddenly radiating massive amounts of fear and worry. Good, the gift worked. He hurried off to his desktop. I had to stop at a rooftop to switch primaries and shift the peephole. He drafted two mails, one to Tattletale telling her to get more data on Maker but avoid any confrontation between Maker and The Undersiders at all costs. The second mail was to Accord, telling him that Coil was ready to have the assets transferred.

As soon as he sent that second mail, his threat level rose from ? ? to ? ? ? ... What the fuck? Who was this guy?! I resolved to take him down as permanently as possible as soon as I had an idea of what the assets were, and got a quest with a huge XP reward!