Alright, so I did not in fact fall off the face of the planet, (though I really would have liked to). I am so very sorry for taking so long with this chapter, my entire life was completely consumed with papers by the end of the semester and left me absolutely no time to write, but I'm back on track now and cranking out as much as I can over the break for this, Occam's Razor, and some new stuff I'm starting work on, (so watch for me!) Thank you again for the reviews and for reading, this chapter is a bit longer than the others, but hopefully just as funny.
Two quick things. One: For those not reading Occam's Razor, Francheska Biddle is Relena's personal assistant; she is serving in this role as her Parliamentary Internship during her time at the University of the Earth Sphere Unified Nation where she is majoring in Government and Political Affairs and Computer Programming. She was accepted to the University a year early due to her incredible skill with computers.
Second: Make sure you read my note at the very end!
Enjoy!
Mutually Assured Destruction
Chapter Nine – Close Range Warfare
Tynan
- - - - -
"I was wondering why he was suddenly so interested in all the drugs we had in the lab. He really put that in your food?"
"He must have Sally, it's the only explanation that we can come up with."
"Unbelievable. Boy, does that guy have balls . . . and I want them in a jar on my desk."
"You're in then?"
"Of course I'm in, Hilde! Do you really think that I'd let them get away with breaking into my lab to steal things and using them to drug my friends?"
"Oh, that's so sweet of you Sally."
"Sally, we're going to need the access you have to Preventers in order to accomplish this."
"You guys have a plan already then?"
"Yes . . . well once I convince Francheska to commit a federal offense we will."
- - - - -
Quatre nodded automatically to the chauffeur as he held the black limo's door open and climbed inside. Ordinarily he would have taken the time to relish in the fresh air and beautiful scenery of Brussels, but for the time being his mind was consumed by far more pressing issues.
Duo had sent him the pictures of what they had done to the girls . . . and there was no way that Dorothy didn't at the very least suspect that he had had a hand in this; damage control was a must. She had not been returning his phone calls and a combination of guilt and fear had driven him to arrange a business trip to Earth in order to try and locate Dorothy to plead for mercy in person.
- - - - -
Relena looked at Dorothy in a state of total shock, "He actually came to Earth of his own free will knowing that you're plotting his slow and painful death?"
Dorothy nodded to her from her seat opposite Relena's desk, "If nothing else he deserves points for bravery."
"There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity." Sally quipped from her perch next to the window as she grinned in a twisted way, "He's certainly made things easier for us, that's for sure."
Relena shook her head, "I'm not sure that I'm comfortable doing something like this to Quatre," she turned to Dorothy, an imploring look in her eyes, "Really Dorothy, it wasn't his fault, I'm sure he never would have helped the boys if he knew what they were up to."
"That doesn't matter!" the blonde woman snapped, "What matters is that he did and now he must face the consequences."
Hilde raised her hands as if she were surrendering, "Hey, no problems on this end." Sally nodded in agreement.
"Excellent." she turned back to Relena, "Now then, if you will have Miss Biddle join us, I believe it's time for us to get started."
Relena let a small sigh escape her lips as she began to page Francheska over the intercom. Behind her, Sally removed her palm pilot from her back pocket and began paging through it, "Alright, Wufei's in a meeting with Une this afternoon, but he'll be at the Academy until then so he probably won't notice until it's too late."
Hilde nodded, "And Duo and Heero have their weekly meeting with their teams all afternoon, they won't be back in their offices until at least 3:00."
"As for our dear Mr. Winner," Dorothy purred, "we don't need to worry about when he is or isn't out of his office, so we can get to him whenever it is convenient."
Just as Dorothy finished her sentence there was a knock on the door of Relena's office and the tiny figure of Francheska Biddle entered, "You wanted to see me Miss Relena?"
Relena smiled at the young woman pleasantly, "Yes Francheska, you see my friends and I are having a little problem here that we need your help with."
- - - - -
Duo cautiously peaked his head around the corner, but was almost knocked over as Heero pushed past him. "Duo, they're not hiding here waiting for you."
The braided man righted himself then quickly caught up to his friend, "Hey man, you can be all reckless and stuff if you want but I'm telling you, when we least expect it, BAM!" he smacked his hands together for emphasis, "that's when it's going to happen."
Heero shook his head as they approached the conference room where their teams were waiting for them, "I think you can consider yourself safe for the next few hours. Somehow I doubt that the girls have managed to brainwash one of your subordinates into attacking you when you walk through that door."
Duo's eyes got wide for a moment, possibly due to the fact that Heero had (kind of) just made a joke, "I'm just saying, I wouldn't put anything past them."
- - - - -
"Miss Peacecraft, are you sure that this alright, ma'am?"
"Francheska, we have Sally's clearance level, she's allowed access to all of this information."
"She's allowed access to all of these passwords?"
"How did you –"
"That is what you're after right? Agent Yuy and Maxwell's passwords?"
"And Agent Chang's."
"Wow Relena, you were right, this girl is good."
"How did you know that we were after their passwords, Francheska?"
"You asked me to log into their department's server, locate their static IPs, and find what the key sequence of the first command they typed into their units were after the computers were turned on; that would be their passwords."
"Yes well . . ."
"You're lucky that they happened to leave their computers on in standby mode while still plugged into the Preventers mainframe while they're at work or I wouldn't have been able to pull up this information. I've got to say that Agent Yuy's was particularly difficult, he seems to have some sort of a program that encrypts whatever he types so that the actual sequence of keys can't be immediately determined."
"But you figured it out."
"Yeah . . . it think so anyway, it should be one of those three that I wrote down, you'll have to try them all and see what works. I also routed this computer so that it located the other IP address that had that e-mail account you requested Miss Catalonia; you were right, Agent Maxwell's computer did have a link to it in his address book."
"I must say Miss Biddle, I'm impressed."
"Thank you Miss Catalonia, but this kind of stuff is actually really easy if you already have access to the mainframe."
". . . yeah it looks like a piece of cake."
"So . . . would all of this have anything to do with that day your desk drawers were glued shut and then all of your office furniture being attached to your ceiling, Miss Peacecraft?"
"Do you really want the answer to that, Francheska?"
"Right. Wasn't here, didn't see it, couldn't have stopped you."
- - - - -
Ahmed looked up from the paperwork before him at the sound of his computer beeping to notify him that there was a new e-mail message waiting for him. Beside him Abdul's computer had emitted the same noise and the other man was already clicking the window open in order to read it, "Hey, it's from Master Quatre on Earth!"
Ahmed smiled to himself, reasoning that the entire Magunac Corps had received the same message; it was so kind of their young master to check in with them while he was away on business. As he opened the message he did not even hear the startled gasp that came from the man next to him.
However, he immediately emitted his own as his eyes came to rest on the contents of the e-mail from their beloved master.
- - - - -
Wufei set his cup of coffee down on the table and removed his laptop from its case, pressing the power button and waiting for it to boot up. He glanced down at his watch; Commander Une would be arriving for their meeting in a few minutes, leaving him enough time to set up the presentation of the plans he had spent months crafting.
Ducking under the table he found the necessary cables and began plugging them into the back of his computer; from the affirmative beeping sounds now emanating from it he knew that the images on the laptop's screen were now being displayed on the larger projection screen behind him without even having to look. No sooner had he finished and stood up than the small conference room's door opened and the Commander entered.
Wufei couldn't help but smile to himself, proud of his work and pleased to finally be presenting it to his Commander; he was certain she would take his recommendations and all him the leeway his was asking for.
However, this notion was suddenly less certain as his eyes came to rest upon her face and confused and horrified expression that it bore. Her eyes were going back and forth between him and the screen behind him, leaving Wufei very confused. She hadn't even seen his presentation yet, how could she be reacting like this?
Carefully, he took a step toward her, "Commander, is there something wrong?"
If it was possible her eyes grew even wider as she turned her body to face him, her voice sounding almost strangled as she finally spoke, "I-is there . . . Is this some sort of a sick joke, Chang?!"
Wufei felt himself unconsciously take a step back gripped by bewilderment as to what the cause of her outburst might be. "Commander . . ."
But before he could utter another word she had closed the distance between them and placed a hand on either side of his head, forcing it to turn around and look behind him . . . and immediately caused the blood to drain from his face and his voice to falter as he looked at the image being projected from his laptop and onto the screen.
- - - - -
"Okay, but what I'm saying is that it's been like five days since we left them on top of that roof and they still haven't tried to get us back yet."
"Hn." Heero rolled his eyes and continued down the hallway in the direction of his and Duo's offices after leaving their meeting, his braided friend in step beside him, ranting about their war with the girls. Duo had been becoming increasingly paranoid over the last five days apparently under the impression that Dorothy might be waiting around any given corner with either a sniper riffle or a cream pie with his name on it. On some level, Heero could sympathize; he knew that they really had ticked the girls off, but at the same time as Duo pointed out it had been five days without any sort of retaliation.
"I mean what could they possibly be planning to do to us that they need this long for?" The braided Preventers agent sounded beside himself, as though this situation was one of complete hopelessness that would surely result in the end of his life.
Heero took a sip of the coffee he was holding as they continued to walk. "Duo, don't you think that it's possible that they've just given up?" But even as the words left his mouth he realized that he didn't even believe them.
"Well how would we know?!" Duo practically yelled as they came up on Heero's office (Duo apparently planned to follow him in as usual), "Unless that's part of their plan; to drive us crazy waiting for an attack that's never going to come!" Without warning he seized Heero by the shoulders, a crazed and desperate look on his face, "What if this never ends?! What if Hilde never speaks to me again?! What if I can't ever go home and I'm stuck at your place for the rest of my life."
Heero couldn't stop his eyes from widening at the prospect of having Duo as a permanent roommate; it was one thing for his friend to sleep on his couch for a bit while they waited for the hostile situation at his usual residence to subside, however . . . "Duo, it will be fine."
The Japanese man pushed the though out of his head followed by Duo's arms from his shoulders and then the door to his office, the last in a fashion that might suggest that it had committed some sort of personal offense against him. Duo was right behind him as he stalked to his desk, taking a seat and opening his laptop. While it began to boot up he turned back to Duo, still talking.
"I mean not that living with you isn't a blast and everything, but your place is like in the middle of nowhere –"
"It's twenty minutes out of downtown, Duo."
"Yeah and that's twenty more that I could be sleeping!"
Heero rolled his eyes and turned back to his laptop, punching in the password without even looking at the keyboard, then reaching over to grab his coffee, Duo still ranting. He turned back to his computer, with the intent of checking his e-mail, but stopped dead in his tracks.
". . . like, do you think we need some sort of official cease-fire kind of thing? 'Cause, Hilde's had free reign of that house for like three weeks now and I'm not gonna go back there just to be bombarded with all the traps she set up and . . ." Duo trailed off as he looked over to Heero who was sitting in front of his laptop with a look on his face like he had just been told that he was being permanently reassigned to training new recruits in Antarctica.
Duo approached him slowly, suddenly gripped by dread as he gradually pieced together that something truly horrible had taken place. Heero was still in a state of shock, his mouth hanging open leaving the impression that he was completely dumfounded by whatever it was displayed in front of him; the color was beginning to drain from his face and his eyes had gone as wide as they could get. More than anything Duo was taken a back by the fact that whatever this monumental tragedy had been, it seemed to be coming from Heero's computer.
He tentatively put a hand on his friend's shoulder, who did not react to usually unwelcome contact. "Heero, buddy, you alright man, you – " but the words died on Duo's lips as he looked down at Heero's laptop and immediately discovered the source of Heero's silent hysteria.
The usually blank desktop image had been replaced with . . . a much more colorful one. In its place were two people wearing, well Duo supposed that the strips of fabric didn't really count as costumes per say, but if their hats were any indication they were supposed to Romans of some sort. In all honesty it didn't really matter as they seemed to be . . . other things on their minds at that moment. However, the actual image was inconsequential, it was the implications that really mattered.
The girls had hacked Heero's computer.
"They put porn on our computers?!" To Heero's astonishment Duo's face split into a huge grin, "Man, I wonder what I got!!!" Duo's smile however faded at the sight of the glare he was receiving, "I mean uh . . . well, I'd better go see what the damage is." he responded in a most unconvincing voice before practically running out of Heero's office and down the hall in the direction of his own leaving Heero to his thoughts.
They had hacked his computer. HIS computer. He, the man who personally designed the firewall for his department's mainframe, who had never once failed to obtain digital information he set out for, who had practically founded the Counter-Cyber Intelligence Division of Preventers, who had once obtained the Prime Minister's bank account numbers while drunk when Duo had bet him to; his computer had been hacked by three women with no particular knowledge or skill in the area. No, this couldn't be right, there had to be another explanation for how they had done this –
Heero's thoughts were cut off as Duo entered his office again, laptop in hand this time and opened the slim electronic device, pressing the button for it to power up then typing in his password, "Man this is great, Hilde never lets me keep this stuff in the house but now she's left it all over my computer."
The Japanese man looked at his American friend in a state of disbelief, only shaken from it as Duo's face contorted into one of confusion immediately followed by repulsion and let out a noise that was somewhere between a groan and a yell, "Awww dude!" He turned his head from the screen and pushed the computer to the edge of his lap, "Mine's covered in dudes!"
Had the circumstances been different, Heero might have found humor in this spectacle, but as things were all he could do was shake his head at Duo and walk back to his desk to try and deal with however the girls had done this. Was it a virus? No, they wouldn't have risked compromising the Preventer's mainframe. How the hell had they gotten access it all of this in the first –
The phone rang on his desk and despite the fact that he was really in no mood to speak to anyone he picked it up, ignoring the noises and ranting coming from Duo's direction, "This is Agent Yu –"
"Yuy, do you have any idea what those women did to my computer?!?!" Heero had to hold the phone away from his ear in order to keep himself from going deaf due to Wufei's yelling; the Chinese man however continued at a volume loud enough for Duo to hear as well, "It's covered in pictures of naked women doing the most repugnant things to each other! The tastelessness of these images defies simple explanation, I swear to God –"
"How come Wufei got girl porn and I got naked men?!" Duo sounded as though this was the greatest miscarriage of justice the world had ever seen.
"Duo shut-up."
"But I –"
"Shut-up, Duo" Heero held the receiver back up to his head to try and listen to Wufei, who had not stopped talking.
". . . practically every file I open, something else even more revolting than the last pops up that I have to delete and –"
Heero's head snapped up, "Wait, what?"
"I said that these pictures are some of the most vile and depraved things I have ever seen in my life and they only get worse as –"
"No!" Heero snapped at him, "What do you mean about the files?"
Wufei did not answer immediately, instead he just sniffed before responding, "Yuy have you tried to look at anything on your computer yet? They inserted these pictures into just about every file that I've opened or modified in the past month."
Heero lowered the phone from his ear, as Wufei continued to rage about how the girls would have even found pictures such as these. That, however, was not important; what was important was that every file on his computer now had to be checked to see when it had last been accessed. He turned to look back at Duo who was pouting next to his computer and shrugged to himself thinking that despite all of this he could be worse off and mentally noting never to personally offend Hilde Schbeiker.
- - - - -
"I feel like that was almost too easy."
"Yes, well that's the beauty of this little plot, Hilde. They never would have seen it coming. And even now I'm sure they think that we somehow managed to hack into their computers rather than simply going to their offices and carrying out this little operation from there."
"On some level, I really can't blame them. I mean, would you ever think that someone was going to come into your office with your password and physically hide porn all over your computer?"
"No, I'd assume it was a virus."
"Exactly, Miss Relena. They could set up the most secure firewall and the nastiest virus protection and whatever else they could come up with, but if someone were to actually go to their computer and do mess with it, none of that would matter."
"How did you actually get into Quatre's hotel room and to his computer, Dorothy?"
"Well it was simple really, once Francheska determined what room he was in at the Plaza I just introduced myself to the concierge and told him I had a meeting with Mr. Winner. The dear man took me right to his room and told me that Mr. Winner would be returning shortly and to make myself at home."
"And you sent that e-mail to the entire Magunac Corp?"
"Brilliant wasn't it?"
"A little sick, but yes, I suppose so."
"Ladies, I think we have to talk about preparing ourselves for what could be coming our way. We violate their precious laptops, they're going to be out for blood."
"Especially once Duo sees what I put on his."
- - - - -
"So after you drugged them and left them on top of a hotel roof, they got onto your computers and covered them in porn?"
"Affirmative."
"And now you need my help to get back at the three of them?"
"Four of them."
"Who else?"
"Sally, when I went back through the mainframe's log, I found that her clearance codes were used an hour before our computers were accessed."
"Looks like she figured out that you were the one in her lab, huh Wufei?"
"She is a cunning and wise opponent, we should not underestimate her."
"We shouldn't underestimate any of them. They didn't do any harm to the computers; they just hid pictures in various files. They did this just to show us that they could."
"And you three think that what you're proposing is a rational, well-calculated, proportional, response to this."
"Of course it is! You should have seen what I've been cleaning out of my hard drive!"
"Hmm. And you're sure they won't expect this?"
"Our only weak point is Quatre, they got him too but he seems to think that he deserved this and begged us not to retaliate."
"You think that he'd try to jeopardize the mission?"
"I wouldn't put it past him to attempt to warn them. We'll have to make sure he doesn't find out."
"Well then, all things considered this plan is a bit over the top for a situation like this, but I could see where you would have need for someone with my skills."
"You're in then?"
"I'll be in Brussels tomorrow."
"Thanks Trowa, I knew we could count on you buddy."
"As always . . . so what's the plan?"
-
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Alright everyone, as we can see here this has officially gotten personal and things are about to come to a head, (finally!). The lines are being drawn, sides are being taken, and that means everyone. So the question is: Who do you wantto win and who do you think deserves to win? Who's gotten the best of the other and how? Let us see where your loyalties truly lie . . .