-(=RWBY=)-
Chapter 19
-(=RWBY=)-
The elevator ascended the high-rise condominium building at a slow but steady pace, giving Jaune all the time in the world to look into the mirrors that covered the inside of the lift, and take in the strange sight that was himself.
The man staring back through the looking glass had black hair that stuck up in a wild, untameable mess. His irises were dark, and his eyes themselves were disarmingly wide, and framed by unfashionable military-style glasses. And rounding up the picture was a full beard, extending from above his lips to all over his chin.
The disguise had taken some effort to assemble. Temporary hair dye from a beauty product store hid his distinctive blond locks easily enough, and it was the work of a few seconds to slap on the fake beard he picked up from a costume shop. His eyes, however, had needed far more work, from the insertion of the coloured contact lenses, to the use of eye tapes to pull his eyelids up and change the very shape of his eyes, and to the fitting on of spectacles. The eye tapes had been particularly troublesome – women in Mistral used them to give themselves double eyelids, which were apparently considered more beautiful, but Jaune found their use little more than an unpleasant bother.
Regardless, Jaune had to admire his own handiwork. He looked nothing like himself, which was precisely the point – for he was about to embark on a series of utterly illegal actions, and all in public view to boot.
The elevator dinged, as it arrived at its destination on the twenty-fifth floor.
Jaune stepped out, and began pacing towards his target's apartment.
It was still early in the morning, well before seven, and his target was all but certain to still be at home and abed – a fact he confirmed, when he reached out with his aura sense, and located a civilian's weak and unmoving aura signature within the apartment he was approaching.
He came to a stop in front of his target's apartment.
Needing to avoid the clamour and obvious damage from physically breaking down door – and yet lacking any appreciable skill at lockpicking – Jaune had only one option.
Calling upon his semblance, Jaune gave an almost lazy wave of his left hand.
A flash of intense heat vaporized the lock within the door, and also left the surrounding wood aflame.
Not wanting to set the apartment, or the building afire, Jaune directed his semblance towards extinguishing the flames that had begun eating into the door.
Only then did he push down upon the door handle, and make his way into apartment proper.
His aura had been full – he had skipped some training that week, just to ensure he was at full power for this day – but his semblance still had that deeply inconvenient limitation, where even minor uses of it drew upon a significant fraction of his reserves. Hence, instead of letting all that excess aura go to waste, Jaune summoned a small flame into his left hand, to light his way for the next minute or so.
From the harsh light of his summoned flame, Jaune could see that the apartment was a well-appointed place, from the smooth marbled floor, to the stylish modern furniture, to the ornate pendant light fixtures suspended from the ceiling.
It was a far more attractive residence than his own rundown flat, at any rate, and Jaune gave an impressed nod – before making a beeline for the bedroom.
The woman who was his target was fast asleep in bed, and despite his instinctive distaste for what was to come next, Jaune was not so squeamish as to shirk from doing that which needed to be done.
After putting down the briefcase he had been carrying in his right hand, Jaune strode forward. Calmly, he hauled the woman up by the neck; and before she could scream, he had stuffed a piece of cloth into her mouth.
"Mmph! Mmph!"
Ignoring the woman's muffled screams – and the futile punches and kicks she landed against his aura-enhanced body, Jaune pushed her back into the bed, and held her face down with one leg even as he used both hands to unwind some duct tape, with which he bound the woman's mouth shut.
Having eliminated the possibility of his target screaming and alerting the neighbours, Jaune proceeded to bind the woman's hands behind her back, and to similarly tie her legs together – before using an excess of duct tape to secure her limbs to her body, and her body to the frame of the bed.
Only once all that was accomplished, did Jaune turn his attention to finding the object that was the entire reason for his being her in the first place.
After turning on the lights, Jaune started a swiftly and methodological search, and it did not take much time at all for Jaune to locate the woman's wallet – and to fish out the Vale Bureau of Investigation employee identity card nested within.
The cerulean-coloured card was his ticket to breaking into the VBI's headquarters downtown – in the first step of his complicated plan to secure Blake's victory in the election that was rapidly upon them.
Jaune might have previously been successful at persuading the Schnees to provide virtually unlimited funding for the Belladonna campaign, but elsewise nothing else had gone to plan.
The Belladonna name had not been as magical as hoped, and fewer faunus than expected were choosing to support Blake. Her opponent, meanwhile – an older faunus with experience doing charitable work and community organizing in the district – was proving a more formidable political operator than Corsac Albain had anticipated. All this added up to a situation where Blake was ten points down in the opinion polls; and with the election only a day away, there was virtually no chance for Blake to make up ground – unless some drastic measures were taken.
Watts had said as much, when giving Jaune his latest task.
You need to engineer a significant publicity triumph for Miss Belladonna, and soon.
Failure was not an option, and it was that pressing need to help Blake win her electoral campaign that had led him here – that had made him follow a woman back home from her office, before attacking her in her own bedroom in the darkness of dawn.
Jaune could hardly fail to notice that such was the behaviour of a deranged stalker – but he could live with the discomfiting similarities, so long as it served the all-important cause of infiltrating Salem's inner circle.
Pocketing the stolen VBI employee identity card and picking up his briefcase, Jaune left its still-struggling owner bound and gagged within her bedroom, and headed back out of the apartment.
With the card secured, Jaune was no longer in much of a rush. At a sedate pace, he left the condominium grounds, and made his way towards the commercial district and the central business district at its heart.
Over the long walk and extended train journey there, Jaune had the opportunity to turn his campaign-winning plan over in his mind, and examine its flaws from every conceivable angle.
And there were a lot of flaws there, Jaune could not deny. That was inevitable, for a plan so ambitious that it had, as its first step, the successful infiltration of Vale's domestic intelligence agency – and which required, in follow-up, some high-wire persuasion and stage-managed terrorism.
It was still early – barely seven – when Jaune arrived at the central business district, and it would be another two hours until office hours started, and until the denizens of the white-collar world started pouring into their offices and skyscrapers.
Jaune found a cafe across the street from VBI headquarters, allowing him to surreptitiously watch the entrance of the building even as he got some breakfast down.
The stakeout was boring – excruciatingly so – but one hearty breakfast and two hours later, the expected wave of employees finally came, as smartly-dressed men and women began filling the pavements and spilling into their office buildings, VBI headquarters included.
As nine o'clock came and went, and after the flood of office workers finally ebbed, Jaune made his move.
Jerking out of his seat as if he were surprised by the time, Jaune plastered a grimace across his face, and snatched up his briefcase. He then began walking forward at a fast pace – like a man in a rush; like someone late for work, and who was not looking forward to the inevitable telling-off.
He crossed the street, and walked through the entrance of VBI headquarters, into the spacious lobby that dominated the first floor of the building.
Security was tight, as was to be expected of a building that housed an intelligence agency. People heading in had to walk through a full-body metal detector, even as their bags and items were put onto a conveyor belt that fed into a bag-scanning x-ray machine. Beyond this security area was the waist-high automated turnstiles that controlled entry into the building proper; and beyond even them was the lift lobby, and the numerous elevators that employees could take to get up to their offices.
Jaune spared a nod for the pair of security guards manning the metal detector and x-ray machine, even as he placed his briefcase onto the conveyor belt of the x-ray machine. He also extracted his wallet and spare scroll from his pockets, and put them into a small plastic basket that joined his briefcase in its journey into the belly of the x-ray machine.
That done, Jaune then smartly stepped through the metal detector.
The machine remained silent, as expected; Jaune was indeed carrying nothing that could set it off. For the task he had to accomplish today, he needed no weapon but his wits, and no tool but his silver-tongue, and he meant to see things through without having to resort to violence.
Collecting his items after they were disgorged without incident from the x-ray machine, Jaune then headed towards the automated turnstiles.
Withdrawing his stolen VBI employee identity card, Jaune tapped it on the turnstile's electronic scanner.
A beep sounded, and the turnstile retracted its barriers – allowing Jaune to walk through.
Step one, done.
Jaune hadn't quite believed Junior, when he had consulted the gang leader on how he could infiltrate VBI headquarters – and when the big man had assured him it was as easy as stealing a little plastic card. Of course, Jaune did believe Junior now, even as he could not help but think that breaking into the headquarters of Vale's domestic intelligence agency ought to have been harder.
An empty elevator was awaiting Jaune at the lift lobby; getting on, he selected the sixteenth floor.
His target was a Frederick Felt – a VBI intelligence officer working on counter-terrorism; specifically, the human supremacist variety. Junior's information brokerage had been invaluable, in identifying the target – but for what was to come, Jaune was on his own.
Once the elevator reached the sixteenth floor, Jaune made his exit.
The lift lobby he walked out into was surrounded on all sides by clear glass walls, with a single set of access-controlled glass double doors being the sole way out to the rest of the floor.
A reception counter – manned by a young lady not that much older than Jaune – lay beyond the doors.
Jaune pressed the bell on the intercom, to draw the woman's attention, and when she looked up, he raised a hand in friendly greeting.
She buzzed him in without fanfare, allowing Jaune to push open the door and enter.
"Hi. I'm John from the IT department, here to resolve some tech issues. I'm looking for Agent Frederick Felt – may I know where he sits?"
"Down this hallway – all the way – and then turn right into the office at the end."
"Thank you."
Jaune gave an appreciative nod, before following the woman's direction to his destination.
His carpeted floor was soft beneath his feet, as Jaune set an unhurried pace while making his way to the office at the end of the corridor.
When he arrived at his target's office, Jaune saw that it was – like all the other offices he had passed – fronted by an translucent, access-controlled glass door.
Seeing as how politely requesting his way in had worked so far, Jaune had no reason to try anything different; pressing the intercom bell by the door, Jaune waited for someone to come to him.
He did not have to wait long. After less than a quarter of a minute, the door opened, to reveal a VBI agent with a dishevelled appearance and dark circles around his eyes.
"Yes? May I help you?"
The man was curt, and seemed in a hurry to get back to his own work, and so Jaune obliged, by getting to the point.
"I'm John from the IT department, looking for Agent Frederick Felt –"
He did not have the chance to finish, before the tired-looking VBI agent was beckoning him in without fanfare.
The office area they walked into was large, and housed rows upon rows of cubicles at which men and women worked – the very platonic ideal, of the modern office environment.
"Follow me."
The nameless VBI agent led Jaune through the maze of cubicles, until they arrived at a particular desk, where a blond-haired man in his late-twenties was rubbing his chin and looking at his computer screen, deep in thought.
"Fred. A techie's here for you."
The man – Frederick Felt – glanced up.
"Hmm? Oh, thanks a lot, Jack!"
The blond man gave a sunny smile to his colleague, who nodded in reply.
"No problem."
The VBI agent that had brought Jaune here left without another word, leaving Jaune alone with his target.
Still smiling, Fred Felt stood, and offered his hand to Jaune, who took it for a brief handshake.
"So, what's up?"
Felt appeared to have an easy-going personality, which Jaune was glad for; someone more prickly could well be less cooperative, and make the whole mission harder.
Regardless, Jaune wasted no time, in beginning to weave his web of lies.
"Agent Felt, I'm John, from the cyber-security team in IT department. I have bad news, I'm afraid – your computer, and all your accounts on the various governmental databases, have been hacked, and the information on them compromised."
The blond man blanched
"What? But how? Are you sure?"
"I'm sure, Agent Felt. Our systems detected that your computer and your accounts were being accessed remotely this morning, and while the intrusion was soon stopped, this was not before some data was transferred out."
The man's face paled, even further.
"That's... not good.
Jaune shook his head, gravely.
"No, it's not. But we can fix it. The first step is to secure your computer and your accounts against further breaches – and that means changing all your passwords and then letting me run a few malware removal programmes. Meanwhile, my team is tracking the provenance of the hack, and will do our best to find the people responsible – though you must understand that there is no guarantee that we can recover the stolen data before it can be further transmitted."
From his briefcase, Jaune withdrew an official-looking form, and placed it on the table by Felt.
"I know paperwork is boring, but I need you to sign here, here and here –"
Jaune pointed out the empty signature lines on the form.
"– to acknowledge that you have been notified of the security breach; to consent to undertake emergency remedial action recommended by the relevant infocomm technology professional, which in this case is myself; and finally, to acknowledge that you have be advised that there is no guarantee that any stolen data will be successfully retrieved before further transmission"
The form was, in truth, but a fake document that Junior had helped rustle up – though it looked real enough, from the VBI letterhead, to the font and formatting, to the document serial number at the bottom of the page.
From the Malachite twins' gossip, Jaune knew that Junior ran a side-business providing fake transcripts to rich but under-qualified kids, who wanted to get into huntsmen schools of their choice. And as Jaune watched a highly-educated elite VBI intelligence officer put his name and signature the fake form, Jaune could not deny that Junior was – for all his absent morals – admirably good at his job.
Once Felt was done signing, Jaune plucked the document off the table to put it back into his briefcase. Jaune didn't need the form per se, signed or otherwise, but providing it helped solidify the deception that he was a legitimate VBI employee in the IT department – thus helping to persuade the target to follow his instructions.
"Let's begin with changing passwords. I need you to systematically change all your passwords – not just for this computer itself, but for all your accounts on the various governmental databases you have access to, like the terrorist screening watchlist. I'll be using these new passwords to authorize the relevant diagnosis and malware removal programmes later, so you need to tell me what they are. Obviously, you'll need to change these password a second time after I'm done, and so for convenience's sake I suggest switching all your accounts to the same dummy password for now, and then changing to your actually desired passwords only after I'm done."
Felt nodded, but his indecision was clearly written across his face.
"Right... and what dummy password would you suggest?"
Jaune had one in mind, and said as much.
"How about... Goodwitch fights Goliaths for glory, no capitalization and no spaces? As a tip, your passwords should generally be like that – very long and hence hard to hack via brute force, where hackers submit multiple passwords until they get the right one; but also catchy and easy to remember. In contrast, shorter passwords that use a complicated mix of letters, numbers and symbols are pretty terrible – they're easy for hackers to brute force, but also difficult for humans to remember."
Jaune spoke confidently, and projected a real sense of expertise – even if in reality he knew nothing of cyber-security save for what he had learnt after reading through some articles online and watching some informative videos.
All the same – in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man was king, and the truth of that old adage was proven here, where Jaune's target was even less knowledgeable about computer security than he was.
"Sounds good."
Looking highly impressed with the basic piece of advice Jaune had just provided, the man proceeded to change the passwords on his computer to the improvised Goodwitch tongue-twister.
Things were progressing well, and once more Jaune felt it was almost all too easy – though that self-indulgent feeling dissipated when his mission actually hit first roadblock.
As Agent Felt navigated through his intranet browser to get to the next database he was to change password for, a security message popped up.
It would ordinarily have been unexceptional and anodyne, but right here, right now, it was virtual dynamite. Crucially, it warned –
Never tell anyone your passwords! If a fellow VBI employee – even an employee of the IT department – requests any of your passwords, they might be a spy or a hacker! Report them immediately to us at the IT department, via the following email and number.
Agent Felt turned around, a look of perplexed apprehension levelled at Jaune.
"So we aren't allowed to give out our passwords, even to techies? Then – and I'm sorry to be blunt – but should you be asking me for them? I know you're trying to fix my computer's security problems, but c'mon man, I hope we aren't cutting corners or anything – that could get both of us into more trouble."
Even before Agent Felt was done speaking, Jaune was already nodding along, to acknowledge the concern.
"A fair question."
Jaune didn't think Felt was starting to suspect him as a hacker or a spy – but there was a risk of the agent deciding not to follow his instructions, or even to demand some written authorization from a higher-up.
This was a complication Jaune was keen to avoid, and so, without missing a step, he replied,
"IT department policy isn't rigid – what's permissible depends on the situation. Ordinarily, you should never give your password away – since that raises the risk that you'll get hacked. But once you've been hacked, the priority is to re-secure your computer and your accounts – and that requires the IT department to have your passwords. Obviously, in such a scenario, you won't be punished for being cooperative."
Jaune finished giving the reasonable-sounding explanation, and as he did so, he was gratified to see that Agent Felt was already looking less apprehensive.
"So. Shall we continue?"
Jaune gestured at the laptop, and Agent Felt nodded in acquiescence.
"Sure, sure. Just wanted to check that we weren't violating organization rules or anything. My boss is a stickler for rules, and has been on my case recently for not doing things by the book – and I don't want to make it too easy for her to fire me, eh?"
If that was a joke, it was a rather unfunny one – but Jaune laughed politely all the same. Agent Felt, meanwhile, turned back to his laptop, and dismissed the security warning. He then proceeded to open the password-changing page for the latest database –
– except a redirection was somehow triggered, bringing them to a page that was not the intended destination.
The intranet page featured a cyber-security quiz, of all things; as far as Jaune could surmise, the system was forcing all users to complete the quiz before they could change their password.
Agent Felt evinced no surprise at the appearance of the quiz; clearly he had come across its like before.
Without complaint or delay, the man began doing the quiz; he answered question after question, until he came the very last one on the page.
That one, however, seemed to baffle him – so much so that he turned to Jaune for advice.
"This question is asking about the Vacuon prince scam... and why it's effective at scamming people out of their money. But it's not, right? Who falls for such obvious fraud?"
His curiosity somewhat piqued, and needing to answer Agent Felt's query, Jaune leaned in, to better read the quiz material in question.
And once he did so, he could not help but comment, wryly,
"Ah. But many people do get fooled – because it is effective."
It was the classic internet scam – a Vacuon prince promising the victim a significant share of a large sum of money, if only the victim would advance him some money, with which he could access his secret bank accounts containing his massive inheritance.
Seeing Felt's surprise over his assessment, Jaune continued elaborating.
"The whole Vacuon prince story is ludicrous, of course, and these emails tend to be written in terrible English to boot – but that's exactly the point. The hacker doesn't want to be too convincing – that only reels in a lot of decently discerning people who will eventually wise up and reject the scam offer, even after the hacker spends significant time and effort trying to convince them. Hence, it's more profitable for the hacker to set up such a patently obvious scam – so only the most gullible end up replying to the email, which creates a high success rate for the hacker's subsequent attempt to persuade the victim to part with their money."
Once more, Jaune knew nothing about the topic of cyber-security, save for what he had picked up from briefly surfing the web. As before, however, his victim knew even less than he did – making it easy enough for Jaune to seem knowledgeable, despite being little more than a layperson himself.
Agent Felt, meanwhile, was nodding grimly, in what seemed like almost begrudging admiration for the low cunning of hackers.
Now knowing the secret behind the scam, Felt could answer the quiz's last question correctly; and he did so, choosing the right answer of 'The Vacuon prince scam is effective because it's unbelievable.'
Only once that was done was the quiz complete – allowing the password-changing webpage for that database to finally load.
With a few taps of his keyboard, Agent Felt changed the password for this account – and after that, there was but one password left to alter, albeit for the most important database yet.
Felt opened the homepage for the terrorist screening watchlist, and Jaune watched, with quiet satisfaction, as the agent opened the relevant password-changing page –
– only for him to hesitate, his fingers stopping abruptly but a few strokes into the process of typing in his old password as well as inputting the new.
"Actually..."
Jaune was not liking the fresh doubt he could sense in Agent Felt's words; and feeling some resignation at the appearance of yet another problem, he prompted the man to continue.
"Yes?"
The agent did not speak for a while; instead, he was frowning at nothing in particular, and absorbed in thought.
When he finally turned and look up at Jaune from his chair, his eyes were creased by doubt; furrowed, by apprehension.
"Well, I mean... now that I think of it, this all feels very strange. The last time I was having computer trouble, I called up tech support and the guy they sent over used his administrator password to access some backend programmes and then did some changes to fix the problem. So why don't you do the same?"
Felt was frowning sombrely, and Jaune could feel his trepidation rising.
The man was starting to get suspicious, and any failure to adequately answer the question would only intensify those suspicions – and risk the man rejecting Jaune's whole web of lies, and refusing to provide cooperation any longer.
Fearing the collapse of the mission, and seeing no other good options, Jaune was forced to reach for a truly audacious lie.
"The reason, Agent Felt, that I'm not using an administrator password to simply access your computer and your various accounts, is that we've recently changed our IT security policy. Low-level tech officers like myself are no longer provided administrator passwords, or given extensive powers over the whole system. Recent research has shown that when it comes to cyber-security, an organization's tech support people in any organization are some of the biggest weaknesses. Have you heard of social hacking?"
Agent Felt shook his head. The man clearly knew nothing of the concept – but then again, the exact same had been true of Jaune up till yesterday, when Watts had suggested it as a possible method he could use to infiltrate VBI headquarters.
"Social hacking is using psychological manipulation to get people to divulge confidential information – in short, attacking the people, rather than the computers.
"You probably already know about phishing. Hackers like to send emails that look like they're from a legitimate organization, to get you to divulge sensitive information – maybe they pretend they're your bank, asking you to 'update' your expired online banking password.
"Or, a hacker can scrap the web and your social media for basic information like your birthday, and other kinds of innocuous-seeming information like what businesses you've been recently ordering things from. Then they can go further, maybe calling the bookstore you ordered a book from last month, and scamming them into providing more confidential information – a hacker could pose as you, pretend to be ordering another book, and ask the bookstore to repeat back to him your address or email or scroll number, just to 'confirm' they're correct. Then, with such confidential information in hand, they can fool other businesses into thinking they're you, and do a lot of mischief.
Agent Felt held up a hand, and interrupted Jaune.
"Look, man, that's all very interesting – and terrifying – but I don't see the point."
"I'm getting to that. It's not just ordinary people or customer support officers that get scammed in this way by hackers – IT folks get fooled, too. A hacker could pretend to be an employee and call tech support, and tell them that they're having trouble accessing this legitimate-sounding website. The tech support employee might then try to go to the website, to see if it's a problem with the website or a problem with the employee's computer – except to get into the website, you have to click a link that actually gives the hacker full control of the IT person's computer, and hence the whole system."
Jaune gestured strongly with his hand.
"So now do you see? Why the VBI is limiting what passwords and powers tech officers like myself have access to? How this helps to prevent hackers from getting too much access to the VBI computer system, in case any single tech officer foolishly gets compromised by social hacking?"
As he finished delivering his lengthy explanation, Jaune watched Agent Felt's face carefully.
It was audacity bordering on insolence, for Jaune to try assuage the man's suspicions via explaining the very method he was using to steal secret information from the VBI – for of course social hacking was what he was doing, right now. He was manipulating Agent Felt into handing over access to his computer and various governmental databases that Jaune could otherwise never hope to compromise.
Such a brazen approach would not have been Jaune's preferred option, but he couldn't think of similarly plausible explanations for why he was not – as could reasonably be expected – using his administrator passwords to navigate his target's computer and fix the relevant problems.
And if his target still harboured suspicions – well, Jaune had a final card to play.
Agent Felt, in any case, looked conflicted – torn, between being impressed by the explanation on the one hand, and his still yet extant doubt on the other.
It was the latter that won out, in the end, when the man's eyes widened perceptibly, and he exclaimed,
"Actually, how do I know you're not a hacker yourself? Trying to do all that social hacking on me, to give up my passwords?"
Jaune laughed.
He let his mirth pour out, even as he shook his head – as if he couldn't believe what he had just heard; as if what had just been said was the most moronic idea possible.
Agent Felt clearly didn't appreciate being laughed at, with annoyance flashing across the man's face – so Jaune allowed himself a final chuckle, before launching into the final part of his performance.
"Yes. Yes, Agent Felt, you got me. I'm not a VBI employee that works here."
Jaune took out from his pocket the VBI employee identity card, and flashed it in front of Felt's face.
"Instead, I'm a hacker that chose to walk into VBI headquarters, for some reason, and risk arrest for no discernable gain. I'll also made the target sign a form –"
Jaune retrieved the fake document from his briefcase, and waved it about in the air.
"– because hackers are of course famously scrupulous about paperwork. Oh yes, and for good measure, I'll generously explain my evil plan of social hacking to my target, so he's on guard."
Jaune sighed.
"Or, and I know this sounds crazy, Agent Felt – but maybe I really am a VBI tech officer here to help you after your computer got hacked."
Pausing for a bit, Jaune let the suggestion sink in – before resuming his assault.
"But you can believe whatever you want, Agent Felt."
Putting the fake document back into his briefcase, Jaune took a step back, and made as if he was about to leave.
"It's no skin off my teeth. I did my job, and informed you of the security breach – as you so kindly acknowledged when you signed the form. If you don't want to follow my instructions – well, that's on you. You can go and explain to your boss and to the director of the VBI himself on why you refused to perform the emergency remedial action needed to fix the breach. And if the hackers aren't just random anti-government activists breaking in for fun and games, but actual terrorists who want to know which cells are being watched, so they can better plan attacks without interference – well, the blood is on your hands, sir."
Jaune turned, to leave, and –
"Hey, wait! Come on, man."
He had to make a real effort not to smile smugly, as Agent Felt called out to him.
Jaune turned back, to glance coolly at the man.
Felt looked apologetic – indeed, embarrassed – as he used a coaxing tone to say,
"Chill out. I was just asking – didn't meant to offend you. I appreciate that you're here to help me."
The mockery had worked; for indeed, the truth – that Jaune was a would-be hacker trying to steal information from the VBI in broad daylight – just sounded absurd when spoken aloud and vocalized.
Between having that absurdity thrown in one's face, and the guilt tripping over perhaps letting the terrorists get away – Frederick Felt was, in effect, being emotionally coerced into abandoning his suspicions.
Jaune had to admit; he was good at this – good at weaving half-truths and half-lies, and at manipulating others into acting the way he so desired.
That was how I deceived Watts into believing that I was betraying Beacon... and how I fooled Adam, into trusting that I had abandoned humanity for the faunus.
Perhaps if he had been a better person, he would have felt discomfort at being so consummate a liar –
– but lying was the least of his crimes.
Agent Felt was still awaiting his reply; more than happy to play the bigger man, Jaune extended an olive branch himself. Taking a deep breath, Jaune then said,
"Alright. Sorry I blew up a bit. It's been a stressful morning for me. Let's just finish this up, shall we?"
Felt nodded eagerly.
The man sat, and quickly changed the password for the final database.
And that was the signal for Jaune to bring this phase of the plan to a close.
Jaune activated his aura. A quick scan of the surrounding area with his aura sense – along with a glance at the empty managerial offices at the end of the row – confirmed his target.
Then, concentrating, he drew upon his semblance, and –
! ! !
A great burst of fire blew out manager's office, fire ripping through wood and walls and glass and doors, to send debris spiralling out into the open air, even as a wave of heat billowed out through the wider office.
A second later, the fire alarm started wailing, and the sprinkler system started raining water down.
Soon after, cries of fear and shock went up all around the office, and the panicking began.
"What the hell happened?"
"Jenny? Alex? Were she in there?"
"No, the assistant directors were out for a meeting, but what –"
"Is anyone hurt?"
"We need to –"
"ENOUGH!"
Jaune's roar tore through the clamour, and at once everyone had quietened down, and turned around, to look at him.
A huntsman needed a powerful voice, or so Professor Port always said. It was an insight the veteran huntsman would oft circle back to, in between his inane bouts of boasting. Jaune could see the sense in the advice – for it was otherwise impossible to take command of panicking civilians during a Grimm attack, and to organize their evacuation.
It was the same here; only with the uproar quelled, could Jaune speak – which he did so, now at a more normal volume.
"Listen to me. That was probably a bomb, and who knows if there are more of them in the building. We have to evacuate, quickly but calmly. Leave your things –"
Jaune shut Agent Felt's laptop, and then threw his briefcase on top of it – to emphasize the point, of course, but also to protect the sensitive electronics from the spurts of water even now raining down from the ceiling-mounted sprinklers.
"– and don't bring anything; carrying items only delays the evacuation."
Uncertain silence met Jaune's pronouncements, and no one moved to leave.
Jaune could only shake his head in disgust.
"Are you all going to stand around and wait to die? MOVE!"
His roar was accompanied by a more physical kind of encouragement, as he grabbed Agent Felt by the arm and shoved the man violently towards the exit.
That broke through the inertia of the crowd, and all at once everyone started fleeing towards the door.
Jaune did not follow, instead ducking into a cubicle where he could not be seen; there, he waited silently, as the crowd poured out.
And it did so, with admirable swiftness. In less than a minute, Jaune found himself alone in the office.
Time was of the essence, and so Jaune moved quickly and efficiently.
Reopening Agent Felt's laptop, and accessing it using the Goodwitch tongue-twister that was the new password, Jaune then used a cable to link the laptop to the external data drive that he had been carrying within his briefcase
He proceeded to access Felt's files as well as the various governmental databases, and to download all the information within them into his data drive – a process greatly aided by a scripting program he ran from the drive itself. Junior had gotten one of his associates with coding to create the script for him – it helped automate the execution of various repetitive tasks Jaune would otherwise have to manually carry out, thereby saving him a significant amount of time.
Still, the process was not quick, and as Jaune waited for the data transfer to complete, he browsed the terrorist screening watchlist. He looked out for human supremacists – for people who could potentially be interested in attacking a Faunus Justice Party rally...
... or, at any rate, who could be suborned into doing so.
There was a lot of information to go through, and for now Jaune did only a relative cursory scanning; he would have the chance to take a slower and more detailed look later, once he was out of this building.
One person on the watchlist stood out, however. This person that the VBI was keeping an eye on, for suspected human supremacist ties, was a certain Ellen Nevrand – the rapier-wielding huntress whose team Jaune had attacked during the airbase raid, and who had confronted him angrily in the basement of Junior's bar two weeks ago.
Jaune noted her as a top contender, and continued looking through the files.
Long before he had gotten to the end, however, the data transfer process completed itself, which was just as well, because –
Jaune could sense four aura signatures – four huntsmen – in rapid ascent up the building's main stairwell.
They were almost certainly from the fire department – which, like the military and the police, kept huntsmen under contract. Aura-capable individuals were an invaluable asset when it came to firefighting, for a sufficiently skilled huntsman could scan a building with their aura sense, and locate the people still trapped inside – and of course, even a mediocre dust mage could put out massive fires through the liberal use of ice dust.
Keenly aware that the huntsmen were almost here, and that he was out of time, Jaune quickly disconnected his external data drive, and stuffed it down the front of his briefs – a disgusting act, but also a necessary one, for he could not carry a briefcase, or be seen to be carrying one, come the next part of the plan.
With a wave of his hand, and an application of his pyrokinesis, Jaune immolated Agent Felt's laptop and his own briefcase – just in case he had left behind any fingerprints on them that could be used to identify him.
The initial fire in the manager's office had long been put out by the sprinklers, but now Jaune drew heavily upon his semblance once more, to set the wider office afire. And, for good measure, he also sent fire screaming through the rest of the floor – as well as through the already evacuated floors above and below.
Black smoke – so heavy it made seeing almost impossible – started billowing out everywhere and nowhere. And though his semblance protected him from the scorching heat, it was no defence against choking to death on smoke. Jaune hence moved – swiftly and adroitly – taking off his shirt and wetting it by breaking the water dispenser at the corner of the office.
That done, he wrapped the wet cloth around his face, and picked up the fire extinguisher located right next to the water dispenser itself.
It was time for him to do some firefighting – or at least pretend to.
As he retreated towards the centre of the building, where both the lift lobby and the primary stairwell was located, Jaune shot some half-hearted bursts of fire-suppression foam at the burning offices all around.
He timed the speed of his retreat perfectly, and arrived at the floor's lobby area just as the huntsman team arrived.
Jaune must have made quite the sight – a topless, masked man wielding a fire extinguisher, and attempting to put out a raging fire clearly far beyond the capacity of one man with one extinguisher to put out.
"What the hell are you doing? Get out!"
Upon seeing Jaune, the tall huntsman leading his team shouted at Jaune, and in response, Jaune called back,
"I'm ex-huntsman! Was trying to put out the fire, save some computers with important counter-terrorism information on them – but then new fires in new places keep springing up! Like a dust mage is attacking us!"
The huntsmen were shocked – their emotions plainly visible to Jaune's own keen aura sense – and that shock led them to trade glances, and words.
"Those fires on the fifteenth and seventeenth floors that only just sprung up –"
"Could definitely be a dust mage."
"Shit."
Meanwhile, in a credit to his professionalism, the leader of the huntsman team did not allow the distressing new information to distract him from his first priority – getting innocent civilians out. To Jaune, he snapped,
"Get out of here. Ex-huntsmen or not, this place isn't safe for someone without proper protective equipment."
Jaune did not have to be told twice. Leaving the professionals to their job, Jaune sprinted for the stairwell.
He raced down the stairs, and descended the building at a rapid pace.
In no time at all, he was on the ground floor – and not even particularly out of breath.
Finally able to remove his shirt-turned-mask from his face, Jaune used it to wipe down the handles of the fire extinguisher – again to avoid leaving behind any incriminating fingerprints. Then, he shrugged his wet shirt back on, and walked out into the lobby of VBI headquarters.
There was quite a crowd, and Jaune had to push through to get out of the building itself.
As he strode out back upon the open streets of Vale, Jaune allowed himself a self-satisfied smirk – it was a plan well-made, and well-executed, and he took pride in carrying out a mission in which no one had to be hurt.
Of course, there was a building burning down behind him – but all things considered, this was some fine work he had done this morning.
Now all he had to do was perform equally flawlessly for the rest of the day; there was no margin for error, and certainly no do-overs.
After all, this was an assassination that he was planning – and all the world would be watching.
-(=RWBY=)-