Disney's Tinker Bell in Storybrooke
A Disney Fairies / Once Upon A Time Crossover
Season 1, between episodes 7 and 8
STORYBROOKE, MAINE
The curse made everyone afraid of her. That was how it was supposed to work. Everyone in Storybrooke was intimidated by Regina. The only person whom the residents feared more was Mr. Gold, the wealthy pawn broker. He practically owned the town, financially speaking. That didn't bother Regina since even he was under the spell of the dark curse she had cast. Valerie Kensington, though a problem daughter for Claire, was also afraid of her.
The girl in that hospital bed wasn't Valerie Kensington. She showed no fear when threatened. Instead, she went toe to toe with Regina and threatened her in return. There were no crocodiles here in Storybrooke, but that fierce determination was just as bothersome. Somehow Valerie had been able to free herself from the curse. Regina wondered if it was the physical trauma that interrupted her magic. Something in the way the human brain, or rather the fairy brain, worked that had changed during the motorcycle accident and got in the way of the curse, not allowing it to suppress her identity and memories.
Regina knew at this moment that any trial or hearing would put forth enough evidence to prove Valerie's statement. That she was now someone else. If the judge sided against the girl it would look suspicious and Emma Swan would personally become involved. Simply stacking the deck at the municipal level was no longer enough. She had to find some way to prevent critical evidence from finding its way into that courtroom.
The real problem was Dr. Hopper. He had stood up to her at the collapsed mine. She could no longer manipulate him through threats. His testimony would be strong. She needed to find the physical evidence that would back up the claims of the town's most respected mental health professional. The mayor spoke with Dr. Whale. She learned that the Kensington girl had two MRI scans done of her brain. One showed different activity from the other. Very different. Enough, perhaps, to give credence to what was obvious. Valerie was no more. Vidia had returned.
Regina had to find those scans and destroy them. Make them look as if the hospital had made a mistake. The problem was that the hospital kept digital copies. Simply having them disappear wasn't going to be easy. Those files would likely be protected. Unless…, unless they were lost due to a computer problem. Now that would be believable. Even Emma Swan wouldn't have reason to start snooping around if it was a simple computer error.
Regina sought out and found the hospital's on site network administrator. She asked him questions about how data files were stored at the hospital. Specifically, files kept on patients, like x-ray images and MRI scans.
"Well, we have a server room," he told her leading her there. "The hospital utilizes a RAID 50 storage system with striping and a redundant, off site backup for all mission critical data."
"What does that mean, exactly? RAID 50 with striping?"
He began by saying that RAID stood for Redundant Array of Independent Discs. RAID 50 meant RAID 5 plus RAID 0. "That just means that multiple RAID 5 arrays are nested in RAID 0 configuration." The administrator showed her numerous on site RAID array cases each of which housed multiple physical hard drives. "Rather than filling up each drive one at a time," he said, "some data, called blocks, are written to each drive in the array in stripes. When the stripe reaches the last drive in the array, the server goes back to the first drive and writes a new set of stripes across all the drives. During each pass, one parity stripe is written for redundancy. That redundancy stripe changes drives with each pass."
"Why bother?" Regina asked him.
"If a hard drive fails, that data would be permanently lost. However, in a RAID 5 array, if a hard drive fails, a new drive is inserted into the case and all the lost data can be rebuilt using the parity stripes. This is called fault tolerance." The system administrator spoke with pride in his voice. "Then each of these arrays is nested into a RAID 0 structure. This allows us to extend the striping across multiple arrays. Each of these hard drive cases gets its own parity or redundancy stripe, but data is written in stripes across all the drives in every case."
The man pointed to a wall with cases stacked in racks to about six feet in height. These computer racks were filled with RAID hard drive cases from top to bottom. If she understood him correctly, data was added to each hard drive in a small piece. Then one drive in each of these cases got a parity or backup stripe. Data was continually written from one case to another. Each case getting one parity stripe so that each case or array could stay functional even if one drive failed.
"The RAID 5+0 arrays are maintained for different purposes," he said. "It is how we set it up. One RAID 50 is for accounting, another for patient files, another for employee data and payroll, another for inventory and so on and so forth. We also contract to a third party company to transfer copies of all mission critical data to an offsite facility. In the event of a system wide failure, such as a computer virus that damages our files, we can recover a full back up as soon as these computers are cleaned and made ready."
Regina realized just how daunting this task would be for her. She had not counted on this. To erase that critical data she would need a specialist. Someone who could infiltrate this system and delete the files without being caught or exposed. That person would also have to track down the offsite backups and delete those files as well.
There was one more bit of useful information she was able to get from the hospital's network admin. Storybrooke General only performed an incremental backup each night, not a full as that would consume time and internet bandwidth. An incremental backup only copied files that had changed since the last time the system had its files copied to the offsite storage location. A full only occurred at the end of each month.
"When do these incremental backups begin?" she asked him during their tour of the network facilities.
"They start at one in the morning," he said. "They usually last until about four or five, depending on how much information is being copied."
"Thank you," she told the system administrator at the end of the tour, "you've been most helpful."
Walking out the door to her car, Regina grabbed her cellphone and placed a call. "Hello, Sydney? I have a job for you. I need you to find someone. A person with a very special skill set."
~O~
"Who was that person?" Vidia asked her tinker friend.
"That's the mayor," she answered. "Regina Mills."
"I don't like her one bit," Vidia sneered. "If I wasn't shackled to this bed I would have shot her straight up into the sky and dropped her like a ro...," Vidia sighed. "Right, I'm human. I don't have my wings."
"Don't tangle with her, Sis," Tink said to her immediately. "She'll make your life miserable."
"Humph. She doesn't know me very well," Vidia asserted. "I'll fairy slap that stupid grin off her face the next time she comes near me."
Tink looked rather confused. "Fairy slap?"
"Yeah, I heard someone say it on that TV box up there," she said pointing to the mounted television set. "I just inserted 'fairy' for that female dog word that the queen doesn't want us to use."
Tink had to stop and think about it for a second. "Oh, I get it. You want to bitch slap her. Trust me, half the town wants-."
"Hey! I thought we couldn't say that word? That it was a bad word," Vidia protested.
Tinker Bell leaned in and whispered, "What Mom doesn't know won't hurt us."
"O-okay."
"You wouldn't believe half the stuff I get away with when Mom isn't looking," Tink confided in Vidia.
"I'm not sure I want to know. Not now, or ever," Vidia replied. Then she changed the subject. "Can you get these shackles off? If I need to use that inside outhouse again I'll be stuck to this bed."
"I can try and call Deputy Swan. Maybe she'll take them off," the blonde replied.
"Can't you undo them? You're the tinker fairy. Start tinkering."
"Val, I can break and fix a lot of things, but locks is not one of them," she answered. "Besides, if I did. If I even tried, I would end up wearing a matching set. Why not just use a bed pan?"
"Bedpan?"
Tinker Bell showed her a large bowl shaped like a toilet seat. It took her a few seconds, but Vidia quickly put two and two together. "Tinker Bell," she groused, "I am not going to use that thing out here in this bed when there is a perfectly good indoor outhouse in that little closet over there. NOW GET THESE THINGS OFF OF ME!" she demanded, holding up her hand with the cuffs.
"Okay, I'll see what I can do."
~O~
When Tina walked out of the room she was harshly greeted by an intimidatingly large Hispanic man sitting in a chair stationed next to Valerie's door. The man was so tall and so big that even in his chair he was almost as tall as Tina standing up. The visible part of his arms were thick with muscles and his neck showed every blood vessel near the skin with perfect clarity.
To Tina he looked like a Latino Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator. Only bigger. And meaner. And less friendly. This bear of a man was wearing an orderly's garment and had a scowl on his face as if it had been chiseled there permanently.
"What do you want, little girl?" he asked with a snarl. His voice resonated with a deep baritone.
"Uh…, my sister needs to get those handcuffs taken off," Tina said to him, her voice breaking with fear as she spoke.
"Does she need to use the bathroom?" the large man replied.
"Not yet, but she might."
"Then the answer is no," he said curtly. "I only let her out of those cuffs when she's ready to pee, poop or shower. That's it."
"Uh, who asked you to stay here? By the door I mean."
"Deputy Swan," he answered. "I'm also here to make sure she doesn't run away, neither. Now does your sister need to use the bathroom?"
"Nope," was Tina's quick reply.
"Then she stays in her handcuffs," he stated flatly.
"Okay," Tina said with a smile that read please don't kill me, Mr. Giant Man! Please! Please! I'm too young to die!
Back inside the room, Valerie looked up at her and asked, "Well?"
"It's taken care of," she said.
"Great. So take them off," Val said happily.
"No just yet. But trust me, it's taken care of. " Tina then sat down in a chair that was farthest from the doorway. She wrapped herself in her own arms and began to sway back and forth. "I'm going into my happy place," she muttered. "Torx 15 screwdriver. Nail gun. Replacing spark plugs. Fixing broken table lamps. Working for Marco."
Valerie gave her a funny look and said, "What in Never Land are you doing, Tinker Bell?"
"Just staying in my happy place. Feeling better. Much better."
~O~
Claire pulled into the hospital parking garage. Trotting to the entrance she was nearly run over by an expensive, imported automobile. "Watch where you're going," the driver yelled at her.
"I'm sorry Madam Mayor," Claire said to the furious woman in the car. "I'll be more careful next time."
"Next time? Where have I heard that before?" Regina said, railing against the mother of two. Her anger was palpable and every word she spoke dripped with venom and contempt. "You keep saying you'll do better next time and yet here we are. If you were a better next time Mrs. Kensington none of this would have happened. Valerie would have been a better daughter. She wouldn't have run away from you and she certainly would not have had an accident and be in the hospital faking an identity crisis to keep out of jail. I'm putting all of this on you, Claire. This mess is all your fault. Now get out of my way. I've been inconvenienced by your stupidity enough this weekend."
Claire recoiled as she was being berated. The tongue lashing the mayor gave her was harsh and, as far as Claire was concerned, seemed unfair. Valerie was a grown woman. An adult by every standard. Her decisions were her own. Yet Claire was so afraid of this woman that she dare not open her mouth in her own defense. "Yes, mayor. I'm sorry."
She shuffled off into the hospital, looking every bit cowed.
~O~
Regina was on her way home when she received a cell phone call. The caller ID read Sydney Glass.
"Hello, Sydney," she answered.
"Good news, Regina," he said through the phone. I have your man. Just say the word and he'll make anything you want on a computer disappear."
Regina smiled a victorious smile. "Well done, Sydney. Tell him tonight at one o'clock the hospital begins an incremental backup. He can start work then."
"Yes, Madam Mayor," Glass replied. "And don't worry. It'll be just as you wanted, like an accident. No one will even know he was there."
Oh boy, now what does Regina have planned for our favorite fast flyer? Let's hope Vidia is ready for it. Hang around and see.
I tried to remember all that RAID 50 stuff from memory, but had to go to Wikipedia to refresh my ancient knowledge. My apologies if I got anything wrong.
And at least now we know what Tina's happy place is.
Thanks for reading.