The Gideon Factor
Part Four
First, Zari thought, they had to decide how far to go with Gary. Despite all the shit the Legends gave the Time Bureau employee, he was a genuinely good guy and Zari didn't want to cause any permanent damage. She was fairly certain that he would go along with the plan because even though his job would be in jeopardy, he'd been all-in with the last couple of adventures he'd helped with, and really, he owed the Legends crew for dealing with the Ava clone situation. Plus, she had access to his work computer and planned to make it impossible for him to say no. Nothing a little light blackmail can't handle.
In the Cargo Bay, a series of glass, cylindrical display cases spanned the length of one wall. In the cases were the suits worn by the Legends when they went on combat-related missions. Ray's exosuit, Sara's Canary suit, Nate's Citizen Steel suit, and a display area for an assortment of weapons that both Sara, as a former assassin, and Nate, as a historian, had collected during missions. In Zari's opinion, it was getting out of control, but the two had admittedly collected some pretty gnarly equipment.
Nate had set out three of the green and blue striped beach chairs that were stored in the Cargo Bay following Mick's Aruba beach trip. Zari crossed the room to the vacant chair and gingerly lowered herself down, her laptop in one hand and her wine glass in the other. She felt ridiculous sitting in the woven chair on the high-tech time travelling ship, but figured it was better than being propped up on one of the metal storage containers. Zari kicked out her sweatpants clad legs and got settled.
"Okay," the woman began, "I'm already in the Time Bureau system and I've located Gary's work computer. I've also used an email he sent to his personal address to grab his home network IP address. His personal network has surprisingly good security, so it'll take me a couple minutes to gain access there." Zari sipped her wine and glanced at the two men, Mick in black sweatpants and an oversized gray hoodie, Nate in navy blue basketball shorts and a white T-shirt. Neither paid much attention and, instead, tossed a hard, rubber ball back and forth.
Mick tossed the ball and simply said, "Porn." As though the word were a fully-developed suggestion. Oddly enough, and to the slight chagrin of the hacker, the suggestion made perfect sense.
"Yeah, okay," she said. "How about I plant a hidden file of hentai porn in his work computer that I can release to the Time Bureau message board with a trigger command?"
"Yes!" Nate cheered, though Zari wasn't sure if it was in response to the idea or because he made a diving save with the ball. She decided the exclamation applied to both and got to work on her laptop. The process was easy as she zipped a file of animated porn that took her approximately five seconds to locate on the internet. She hid the file, set the trigger command, and returned to the man's personal network.
She was impressed by the layered security and her estimation of the 'Time dweeb' jumped a notch. She even encountered an imbedded warning system that she was certain the man had coded himself, based on the cleverly concealed appearance of ' va $harp3 1s my Qu33n' in the complex code. It took her a bit, and she finished off the glass of wine as she let one of her own, personally coded executables work its magic. Finally, she was able to access and explore the man's personal computer.
"Okay, let's see," she mumbled to herself as she clicked through the normal findings and files one would expect on a personal computer. Zari did take a moment to flip through the content of a shockingly funny memes folder and made a mental note to compliment him on his varied collection. Solid code and signs of a sense of humor, she mused. She found herself starting to wonder if there wasn't a relatable human beneath the thick coating of awkwardness Gary was shrouded in.
Then she found the perfect thing. It didn't go too far but was something she was sure the Time Bureau employee would care about greatly. After a few clicks that allowed her to place a virus associated to the application, Zari was satisfied they had enough to convince Gary to go along with their plan.
Zari closed her laptop and quickly realized as she stood that she'd been drinking for hours now. She leaned against the metal container closest to her, letting the cool steel on her bare forearm stabilize her and glanced at her companions, who were also relatively drunk at this point. For a moment, she considered putting off the Gary grab until the following day, but her standard red wine drunk response came to mind, "Fuck it." Some of her best and worst decisions came after a bottle of red wine.
As Nate made the next pass, Zari smacked the ball out of the air. "Alright, guys, you're up."
Nate reached behind his lawn chair and grabbed an off-white, rectangular device that looked like a large cell phone from the early 90's. The communications device had a series of gray buttons with letters and numbers on them, plus a small screen that took up the top half of the device that would allow the user to see who they were talking to. It worked much like a portable Skype machine. Nate had always wondered why the Time Bureau didn't simply issue cell phones to its employees, but he knew it operated on a closed system and figured something extra was required for the device to work through both time and space.
Thankfully, Ray was able to clone the device and the Legends were now able to access the Time Bureau's communications network. "I had Ray program this thing so that it would route our call through Ava's device to mask us. That way, we know he'll answer." Nate keyed in the number and code for Gary and waited, a smirk on his face as he knew 'Girls' by Beyoncé played on the receiving end.
Gary's face appeared on the Legends' comms unit after only two rings. Groggy and confused, the thin-faced man fumbled to fix his thick-framed glasses and peered into the screen to find Nate's gaze staring back at him. "Wha-wha-What in the world?" Gary faltered. "You're not supposed to have access to this network! How did you get my code? What is going on?!" Gary squinted into the bright light his device emitted to illuminate his face, the room dark behind him. Then, to the surprise of the three Legends, a woman's face could be seen in the background.
"Gary, honey, who is it? It's late and you know I can't sleep without you," the mystery female said. The crew looked at each other in shock. Suddenly, all three of the teammate's faces were visible to the Time Bureau employee, as each strained to get a look at the woman clearly in the dweeb's bed. Helpfully, the woman leaned closer to the thin man and into the light of the device.
"She's hot," offered Mick, helpfully. Zari pushed the large man's head out of the way to get a better look. "Holy Hell," she whispered. In the corner of the screen, to everyone's surprise, was the face of a beautiful blonde woman who had a real Captain Marvel look about her. Slightly elfin features with long hair, shaved on one side, and full lips currently set in a pout.
"It's just work, Sugarfoot, you go back to sleep. I'll be back in just a minute," he offered over his shoulder. "Sugarfoot?!" Nate commented, to receive a scowl from the employee. The blonde woman leaned forward to kiss the man's cheek and went back to bed as Gary stood and moved to an adjoining room. "Now, what do you guys want?! It's the middle of the night!" Gary repeated his earlier question, and the Legends could clearly see the man open the fridge and remove a carton of almond milk, taking a drink straight from the container.
"This will be easier if you come over here," Zari offered. "In fact, come here now. We need you to do something for us and it's best if we don't talk about it over comms," she stated sternly. "And before you say no, I have a virus attached to your WoW character application."
The man's face dropped. "You wouldn't."
"I don't want to do that to you, Gary. I can clearly see how much love and time you've put into crafting the strong and gallant Thor. So, just hop on over here, we're in the Cargo Bay. It won't take long, and then you can get back to… Sugarfoot." Gary replaced the carton and closed the fridge. He nodded, terminated the comms session, and a portal appeared in the Cargo Bay seconds later. The Legends could briefly see into the Time Bureau employee's kitchen, a large and modern style with a white marble-topped island behind the man, and the mystery of Gary the Time dweeb continued to grow.
Gary stepped through the portal, pushed a button on his watch, and the portal closed behind him. He took a moment to glance around the Cargo Bay, noted the beach chairs and scoffed. "This feels like a real off-the-books kind of operation. Where's Sara? What do you guys want with me?" Gary asked as he started to fidget slightly.
Gary was slightly taller than average, with a narrow, but not unattractive face. He had dark eyes and short, dark hair that was currently quite unruly due to late hour. While the Legends were used to seeing the Time Bureau employee in his government-issued navy-blue suit, he was currently clad in silk pajamas with gray and blue vertical stripes, buttons up the front of the long-sleeved shirt, and loafer-styled slippers. Zari took in the man's appearance and realized that, combined with the information she'd recently realized about the dweeb, he wasn't entirely unappealing. In fact, for a certain kind of woman, he could be considered a good catch even. A type of woman very different than herself, but still, she kind of liked the guy and was glad he had a shockingly hot woman in his bed.
"First of all," Nate began, "this is our operation. Sara's not available. We need you to do a couple things for us." Gary fiddled with the hem of his pajama top with one hand and raised the other in an awkward gesture.
"I mean, Director Sharpe briefed us on the woman you want to free to help with Gideon, and while it's incredibly unfortunate that your AI was stolen, the Time Bureau has every intention of retrieving her on your behalf. We have the situation mostly under control, and I'm sure that Director Sharpe will contact you with any assistance we may require from your particular set of… skills," he concluded, proud of himself for the steadiness in his voice. "So, again, I'm not entirely sure what I can do to help with… whatever this is."
"Look," Zari started firmly as she slowly advanced on the slight man. "Even if your team, by the grace of Allah, were able to get to Gideon's location on Nanda Parbat, you wouldn't be able to touch Gideon's AI core without one of the totems." Gary looked perplexed and Zari continued. "Gideon is maintained in a spherical brace of sorts that requires one of the six totems to be able to transport her without, well, disintegrating. Norah Darhk was able to transport Gideon because she had access to the Water totem. As far as I know, the Time Bureau has access to zero totems," she took another step in Gary's direction and the man slowly moved back, his legs bumping into one of the beach chairs.
"Which means," Nate picked up the thread, "that your team would have to develop a transport to replace the totem or ask us for help anyway."
"So, unless you want me to annihilate Thor the Noble, or sic Mick on you," Zari gestured with her thumb over her shoulder and sensed the large man take a step forward, "then I suggest you reconsider helping us out." With that, she backed away and the thin man scrunched his face in deliberation.
"The Captain would have let me at him by now," Mick grumbled and stepped toward the smaller man. Gary instinctively took another step back and abruptly found himself in the beach chair, surrounded by three rather imposing Legends looking down at him. "O-o-okay," he stuttered, "what do you need me to do?"
Nate walked a few steps to his Faygo and Jack, which he claimed tasted like a grape tootsie roll, though why that would be a selling point, Zari wasn't sure. "We need a badge and access codes to the East Wing of the Time Bureau office," Nate stated calmly, despite the crestfallen look on the man's face.
"Oh no," he whined, "you are going to try to break her out! Oh, the Director is going to be so pissed! I can't. It's too much, she'll kill me! Or even worse, she'll hate me!" The Time Bureau employee's love for the Director was widely known, even to Ava herself, but he was harmless about it and so it was overlooked as just another Gary quirk. "You don't understand, Nyssa al Ghul broke the timeline repeatedly and the Director freaked out more than normal. There's something about the anachronism that she takes very personally, and I haven't figured out what it is yet. I can't be responsible for that." Despite his meek tone in that moment, his face showed strong resolve.
Mick killed another beer, dropped the bottle in the beach chair behind him, and moved toward the seated man. Gary flinched and raised his hands in front of him, "I'm sorry!" he proclaimed, "I'll help in any other way, I promise." Zari reached out and stopped Mick, who growled in response. "Just let me hit him once, Z, I promise I won't kill him."
"No, no," she said. "He's not wrong to try to fight us on this one. It's just that there is no other way." Zari stepped forward, the man flinched again. She squatted down in front of him. "Listen, there's one thing I forgot to mention," she started smoothly as she tilted her head and rested her forearm on the arm of the beach chair. "I've placed a solid TB of hentai porn on your work computer with a remote trigger that would release it to the Time Bureau message board. I truly feel bad, sort of, for that, but this is the only way we get Gideon back. You're going to help us." Gary gasped. Zari made direct eye contact with the man, hoping the seriousness in her face and severity of her threat would save her from having to let Mick beat the employee.
"How in the world…" he started.
"How isn't important." Zari interrupted. She leaned slightly closer to the man. "You're going to help us. Right?"
"Uh, yep, yes, it seems as though I am," he sheepishly replied, defeated. "I can get you a badge and the access codes. The access codes for that wing change daily, so I won't be able to provide them until tomorrow. How will I get them to you? I can't necessarily zip over here without being noticed, Director Sharpe will be suspicious." Zari doubted the validity of that statement but had an alternative method anyway. She stood and turned to receive a high five from a clearly drunk Nate.
She turned and leaned against a storage container that faced Gary, her legs crossed at the ankle, as one hand caressed the gold chain that held her Air totem just below the hollow of her neck. "Sara is going to be at the Time Bureau office tomorrow morning. You'll bump into her and put the badge and list of codes in her jacket pocket."
"Oh! Like a Shady Sands Shuffle," Nate said. "I always wanted to learn how to do that! Fallout is awesome!"
Gary looked slightly terrified, mouth askew. "How in the world am I supposed to do that?! Director Sharpe will catch me!"
"No, she won't," Zari countered. "Cause Mick here is going to show you how it's done."
Gary looked terrified. Nate found the idea hilarious. Mick just grunted, shrugged, and set down the last beer of the six-pack.
"Okay, here's what you do…" Mick began the lesson, always up for a challenge when it came to his second-favorite art form.