Jarvis had done his very best to try to trace the intrusion into SHIELDs system, but every lead turned into either a rabbit trail or wild goose chase. To add insult to injury, the attacks were always aimed at the same place – SHIELDs security system. It was easy to block these attempts at disabling the antivirus because they were predictable and unchanged, but he couldn't, for the life of him, figure out where it came from. It was like a scene from that god-awful 'Benchwarmers' movie Stark watched sometimes. The kids would 'ding dong ditch' someone's door and then dash away before they were seen and caught – and it usually ended with the homeowner tearing their hair out, so to speak. If their own intruder was to be caught or traced there'd have to be some preemptive moves made on SHIELDs part. Or his. The attacks, at least, had stopped after their thirty eight hour long barrage. Unfortunately though, even at a full week later, nothing new had been uncovered and SHIELD was at a dead end once more.
"Might I suggest a worldwide prohibition of personal computers?" Jarvis chirped helpfully.
Tony shook his head and frowned at the stack of papers Banner had handed him earlier. "Why do I let you sass me?" He muttered halfheartedly at Jarvis's answer to his question 'what now?'
"That's not a bad idea." Fury called from his side of the office, equally deep in paperwork from Banner.
"It's literally the worst idea you've had in the last fifteen seconds."
"It'd fix a lot of problems..."
"Yeah," Tony said irritably as he tugged at the staple in the corner of the paper packet, "and make a hell of a lot more… look at this…" he waved the pages vaguely above his head and motioned around the room. "You've hit the point of crazy where I'm legitimately concerned that you'll act on any deranged thing you say."
"And what makes you think I won't act on every deranged thing I say?" Fury asked, turning and glowering at Stark.
The two men waged a battle of glares for a moment before Tony whined, "that's a joke too, right? 'ooh look at me I'm the scary director, fear me.'" Tony imitated Fury's manner of speech and flailed his arms a bit more.
Whatever Fury was about to say next was cut off by a smart rap on the door, followed by Natasha letting herself in a second later.
She looked between the two of them and could practically feel the tension coming off in waves. "It's Loki." She muttered.
Fury sprang to his feet. "FUCK-"
"He wants to discuss something with you."
The director remained frozen for a second before visibly letting his shoulders drop and sinking back into his chair. "Thank God." He groaned under his breath.
Tony, likewise, relaxed the muscles he suddenly found tensed and ready to spring into action.
"Okay… well…" Fury sighed into the palms of his hands as he rubbed them tiredly over his face.
Natasha waited patiently as the director seemingly tried to throw together some kind of plan.
"Is he still in his cell?" He asked.
"No, I moved him to his room," Natasha said, picking at loose string on her glove. "He caused a stir at one of the entrances."
"For the love of- meet me above the cafeteria in an hour. You," Fury said, rising again and glaring at the back of Starks head. "You get Banner and, I don't know, maybe find out where the attack came from?"
Tony pulled a face before turning to smile sweetly at the director, "sure thing mein führer… Fury."
Fury ignored the jab and instead followed Natasha out. Tony considered leaving as well, but sighed and put aside his pettiness for a moment to call Banner for help. The things I do for this group.
"Jarvis, call Banner and find the hacker."
"I'll get right on that, sir."
~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~
"Good sleep?" I asked, taking in Torres's bed hair and dried drool that made a streak across her left cheek. Torres did the shoulder-slump and sigh thing that I'd notice I'd in the morning as well, when you wake up and remember you're some place you really don't want to be... which was progress. I remember the day she first came back from the infirmary, she had walked around like she had a stick up her ass and wanted to take it out and beat people with it. She seemed to be back to her old self, which was good for her, and bad for me, because now…
"It was better before you opened your mouth."
She was back to being her wonderful self.
"Well you should've kept yours closed, spit-streak."
Torres hastily raised a hand to her face, and then scrubbed irritably at her cheek when she felt the mark.
I stretched and yawned loudly, and smiled up at the ceiling when I realized what day it was.
"Up!" I ordered, throwing myself off the bed.
Torres remained impassive and unmoved.
"Get up, Tor. They're opening the courtyard today, we need sun."
Torres pulled her typical 'reclining horizontally' model-pose on the bunk. She was beautiful in a kick-ass sort of way – I'd give her at least. She could advertise uncomfortable jail mattresses and second hand toilet paper and people would still flock to her. She caught me contemplating her modeling career though, and slowly raised an eyebrow when I stared for a second too long.
"I have my priorities straight; sunrays before roommates." I muttered, trying to cover the sudden awkwardness.
"Of course." Torres agreed as I rifled through our wardrobe for a pair of pants.
After taking far too long to get dressed, I gave Torres up as a lost cause and bade her farewell. "If you're going to stay inside," I said as I left the cell, "at least do our laundry, we're down on pants and I just took the last pair."
Torres made no reply, but I swear I could hear her telepathically calling me unspeakable things.
~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~
The blessed silence lasted for four minutes before Loki decided that with Cambell gone, now would be an excellent time to inform the director of his findings. With that in mind, Loki rose and strode purposefully out the cell, before discreetly banging loudly and shouting for Fury on one of the doors at the end of the hall that lead to the off-limit areas. As predicted, agents seemingly swarmed out of the woodwork to tell the unruly prisoner to 'get the hell away from the door', before realizing which prisoner it was.
Unfortunately for them, a couple of actual hacking-prisoners had come to gape at the scene, and no amount of prodding from the undercover agent-prisoners about 'getting into trouble' would get them to move along. The end result three minutes later was one irate prisoner, ten nervous guards, thirty six rubbernecking inmates, seven undercovers fearful of blowing their covers, and two Avengers. Natasha and Clint had approached from the back of the crowd, and Clint loudly proclaimed that 'that stupid inmate in the front' was in some deep shit, before clamping on some handcuffs and half dragging as Natasha half pushed Loki through the door he had previously been wailing on.
"Did you miss me?" Loki asked, mentally shaking off Torres's visage, and grinning wider when Clint had to adjust his hold to accommodate Loki's added height.
"Like a cold." Natasha deadpanned. She withheld the urge to shout at him for nearly blowing the whole operations cover; she figured Fury would be more than capable of doing it for her. She was not, however, about to lead Loki on a tour of the penitentiary's layout, so instead she and Clint took him back to his room above the cafeteria.
The door groaned a bit from its near-month of disuse as Clint swiped his card and pushed it open. "Home sweet home," He said cheerfully.
The two assassins helped Loki back into his chains and reconnected his 'leash' back to the floor by the window.
"Wait here, please." Natasha asked politely as the chain once again snapped Loki across the room when the computer realized he'd strayed out of bounds in the presence of guests. "Fury will be with you momentarily."
"Of course," Loki replied equally politely from his stooped position, mimicking a bow as they left the room. I'm going to split you from stem to sternum and use your blood as ink when I write my condolences. "I wait with bated breath."
~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~
"I don't know why you keep that thing." Mrs. Smith tittered nervously behind her husband. "It's doing something…" she trailed off, not quite sure of how to place her vague sense of dread.
"Illegal?" Mr. Smith offered.
"Don't say that!" Mrs. Smith exclaimed, slapping him lightly on the shoulder. "…Maybe it's just confused."
"What's confused, dear?" Mr. Smith asked tiredly. He'd spent the whole of last night going through all the blank notepad documents. Somewhere along the line, the little program from the USB stick had given up and shut itself down from its endless loop of updating and 'tea'. He'd given it a week, but despite his clicking, it only gave him error messages when he tried to start it again.
"Temperamental little thing; I'm going to take it into work." He announced.
"That's a good idea." Mrs. Smith agreed, "They'll figure it out, what our little…" she trailed off again and started sniffling. "Our little…" she blew her nose and steeled herself. "What they were trying to say," She finished lamely.
"Not really little anymore." Mister Smith muttered under his breath.
"What?"
"Nothing dear."
~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~
I wasn't the only one who practically shot outside once the doors unlocked – more than half the penitentiary spilled into the courtyard. The sun, unfortunately, was not big and bright and warm enough to chase away the bite in the wind – a decent jacket wouldn't hurt either. But I had almost forgotten what unfiltered air smelled like. It smelled, weirdly enough, like smoke and something acidic – but that went away soon enough.
It's a pity we couldn't see anything else besides the sky. The five walls of the penitentiary completely surrounded the courtyard, leaving the horizon to the imagination. Wherever we were, it probably wasn't too south – we were hitting the end of April and it was still snowy and cold. I flopped onto the nearest bench along the wall and relaxed. This is nice, I thought, watching a small group of inmates smack each other with snowballs. The radio I still had jammed in my ear buzzed with static, and I tuned it to better hear what they were saying.
…Loki… to the inmates… follow… I jerked upright and frantically tapped at my ear – I probably looked psychotic to passersby, but that was the least of my worries. Loki what? I shrieked mentally. LOKI INMATES WHAT?
…tential code one.
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN.
~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~
"They still go by Cambell," Loki informed Fury an hour later. "I can't say for certain that they're the one you're looking for, but their actions have led me to believe that they at least have inside information on your… 'operations.'" Loki finished his summary with mental air quotes.
"So let me get this straight," Fury said, looking between the whole two pages in Cambell's folder. "You don't think the hacker is from the group of five?"
"It's unlikely." Loki said dismissively. "I spent only an hour with them during dinner; they're all far too brash and arrogant to stay silent for seven years."
"They could have tricked you into thinking that." Natasha quipped.
Loki made an elegant scoff at Natasha's remark.
"What, exactly, did Cambell do to make you suspect them?"
"You'll notice their lack of any information of substance," Loki said, nodding towards the folder. "They were enrolled in one of your institutions for 'higher education', and made a substantial amount of money as one of those…" Loki frowned and tried to jog his memory, "TI? IT? Whatever it was with your machines - it was more than average I believe. And then they stop, suddenly," Loki leaned back in his chair, "Seven years ago, to take some menial job as contrary as possible as what they were doing before. At far less pay."
"There are at least forty people in here that quit their jobs and downgraded around that tim-"
"And not a single one of them has tried to oppose you."
"Cambell has no records of disorderl-"
"No," Loki interrupted again, "because you haven't seen it."
"And you have?" Natasha asked.
"I've seen them make plans."
"How so?"
"They've befriended an agent – I don't know which one, but Cambell knew that SHIELD was attacked last week. They also knew which route had the least amount of guards patrolling at a certain time, as they were the last one to be captured on the first day of elimination. They must have connections to the kitchen staff as well, because Agent Malott informed us that Cambell switched food plates at the last second – how odd it is that the guiltiest prisoner here suddenly loses the only undercover agent assigned to them – and that they have no other friends to take Malott's place."
Fury continued to stare down at the folder, as if it would grow sentient under his gaze and admit fault. "That's…" Fury slid the folder to Natasha, who was making grabby hands from across the table. "That's a start, but it's not concrete. I want to put this damn mess to rest, and I want to do it so well that the whole damn world will shut up because it is, without a doubt, this perso-."
"It is odd," Natasha agreed with Loki and interrupting Fury's speech, "that they would fall off the map the minute the shit hits the fan. All these names and cards that were stolen occurred before the SHIELD hack - this screams 'I'm trying to lay low.'"
"I'm more concerned about the possibility of a mole." Fury muttered. "Someone's feeding this kid information."
"They're not really a kid…" Natasha corrected, "but I'll look into the agents."
"Good." Fury said. "Tell the undercovers to keep a second eye on… Cambell? Are they really still going by that name?"
Loki nodded.
"Well make them like you. Get them to tell you their real name."
"Thought we know their real name?" Tony suddenly piped up from the corner of the room.
"Go back to your tinkering." Fury dismissed.
"We do," Natasha explained. "But thieves only give out real names when they explicitly trust someone. Obviously." She added under her breath.
"So I do get to go back paradise?" Loki asked sweetly.
"For now," Fury growled. "Concentrate on Cambell. Make 'em sweat a bit," he added, rising from his chair. "But don't come here with any forced confessions." He added warningly.
"I would never!" Loki exclaimed and feigned a hurt expression.
Fury muttered something inaudible, and stopped to stare at Stark on his way out the door. "What are you doing in here?" he asked roughly.
"Well, long story short, I called Bruce…" Tony paused for dramatic effect.
"And?" Fury growled.
"Well, the good news is we located and quarantined the malware that hit us last week."
"And the bad news is?" Fury asked.
"It's not what attacked seven years ago. This one's weaker. Less complex."
"So now you're telling me there's two-" Fury cut himself off and held up his hands in surrender as he walked out the room. "Talk to me after I've had a drink."
A/N: Okay, so, this is a lil' bit important (for me, anyways). I've put up a poll up on my profile page in regards to this story; and I'd super appreciate it if any of you would give it an answer. It'll help me with the next few chapters without having everyone just write the answer in the reviews, namsayin? Also thanks for the reviews so much you guys, it super helps me know what's up and going on in your heads, because I haven't unlocked my telepathy skills yet. I'm lagging.
Also, this chapter's short, because the next one is going to be a little long, and this was the beginning of that one… So, there's that.