tesla_bot | Welcome to Tesladyne! Science while you wait.

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Welcome to Tesladyne! Science while you wait.

The door is a free standing frame on a small plywood dais at the focus of a tremendous amount of cabling and particle emitters. The whole area smells of ozone.

"Watch the step. The platform's cheaper to replace than the floor if the focus wanders."

Tesladyne's high energy (dimensional) physics area is done in early twenty first century institutional - white walls, semi-random grid of light, but varied floor tile colors. The framework is from a school of design that favors being able to clean an area with a pressure washer, The drains are a hint. Decorations are spotty. Beyond the collection of calendars with scribbled notes and the cork board spotted with envelopes and scraps of paper it's still mostly bare. The warning signs are clear, bright, unobstructed and supplemented with signs like 'Do not look in laser with remaining eye.'

There are no windows and only one door to the rest of the facility.

"Welcome to Tesladyne."

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"Nghh," groans Robo, "It doesn't rain but it pours. OK, new plan. Bob, you're still locked out of everything and stuffed in a closet until we can make sense of what's going on. That means you don't get to know what comes next."

Guess what Jordan? Everyone at the lab right now was here when the problem happened, except you. Having fun now?

No, but she will.

After they are alone, Jordan will ask the question. "What now?"

...fear that smile.

"Detective work," says Robo, "I hate detective work, with people anyway. Who ever it is they probably aren't part of the long-term employees - they know enough to actually read the README."

New hires, or a break-in with a poor briefing, but plenty of talent. Neither is particularly attractive, ah well.

"Whoever it is, is not a pro: he left a hole in the flow that we can see."

"Or, it was Bob, and this is a cover-up for himself." What about that idea?

"That is part of the reason why Bob is staying in a box where we can watch him," says Robo, "The rest of it being that it looks better if who ever did this thinks we fell for the coverup if it wasn't Bob."

Robo drums his fingers on the table for a few seconds.

"Jenkins will take the external security, and I can handle the general interviews. How do you feel about digging into the digital security side?"

Assuming it wasn't moved by messenger pigeon and thumbdrive.

"Can do it probably faster than your computers can follow" Jordan grins and nods. "Get me two terminals and a desktop standalone and I will comb over bitspace for anything amiss."

"As far as I know, the saboteur might be sabotaging even more."

"Oh that's just a professional ray of sunshine statement, right there," says Robo, "I've got a few spare boxen in some of my rooms, lets get you set up."

Jordan's going to end up in a smaller room with a couple of older monitors attached to much newer processors.

Jordan will make the needed connections, jury-rig systems, expertly bypass bugs and glitches, then sit down to start her work. "It might take a couple hours." And without waiting for a reply, she metaphorically sinks into the system, going after traces of... anything odd, wrong or destructive.

The handful of long-term lackeys that Robo had sent to do the heavy lifting and hold doors look at each other and shrug. A series of coin flips and rock-paper-scissors games decide the guard order and Jordan is left to dig into the Tesladyne systems.

If one word describes the Tesladyne systems it's legacy. Nothing is thrown out unless it stops working and even then it's usually repaired. The outer areas get the most churn - by the time you get to the internal phone exchange and the HVAC systems things are downright ancient. Possibly so old they have physical relays making and breaking the connections.

Tampering is, besides a few basic steps being taken to hide porn browsing habits on private computers, is limited to the access control systems and backups in the last four days. The later occurring only in default restore modes - no local variations are being used.

Jordan will set up redirects to send the porn-browsers to sites they are unlikely to appreciate, but focus on the job at hand... oh, mechanical, electromechanical systems deep inside.

Al very nice and curious, but, now she needs to find out from where the tampering occurred, which terminal, which times. Then she can cross-reference with security logs, cameras, the works, looking not only for where the information is, but also, where it might be.

Come on, mr. Saboteur... you must have left a solid clue somewhere, nobody is perfect.

The first sign that things aren't going to be fought mainly in the digital realm is the fact that the security wipe and restores are being done in by a script that sits waiting for calls to an unused number. A well written, highly compressed script, but a script. That would explain why the restores were sloppy.

The second is that the mechanical phone exchange is hiding where the calls on the phone system the script is listening for are coming from. After all, the connections only exist for as long as the call takes.

Smart guy... very.

But, that unused number is still connected to the electromechanical phone exchange. Which means a modem to connect to a computer to connect to the network.

Which means she can place a caller ID script of her own to wait for the next call, hidden.

Jordan spends the time until the saboteur rings getting familiar with the rest of the system.

Jordan is well into the information on the ATC system's tracking setup when the call comes in.

Seems someone wants open doors and looped videos from the VIP rooms to a secondary hanger. The shortest path goes through one floor almost straight down.

Right... there we have it. She turns to the guy at the door. "Call Robo." Jordan lets the doors unlock but no looping video.

"Smile to the camera... auntie Jordan wants to see your ugly face." Of course she's also ready to lock the doors after the culprit goes in.

One of the guards takes a radio off his belt and begins exchanging code phrases.

Meanwhile on the monitor, a skinny figure in Tesladye coveralls and a knit cap opens the door and glances around the hallway before making a quick walk down the hallway. Running might draw extra attention.

The radio is slid over to Jordan before it crackles to life again, "What do you have for me?"

"I got him." Jordan will give the location and a description. "Should I lock him in for you?"

"Between the third and forth doors," says Robo, "There shouldn't be anything useful in there."

The thief should be past door three in four... three... two...

One, zero... lock, lock.

"Got him." Jordan is not smug, no.

Smug, satisfied at a job well done, whatever. The feeling likely increases as the figure tugs at first the fourth door, then the third, then the fourth again with increasing franticness.

"Jenkins," says Robo over the radio, "I want him in one piece and able to answer questions I'm asking."

Jenkins grunts.

The capture, when it occurs is less of the traditional fight between experts and more along the lines of being tackled and pepper sprayed by a guy in a gas mask.

What? Playing fair is silly when there are other options.

There is no 'fair'. There's 'smart' and 'dumb'. Jordan is glad to see Tesladyne seems to go for 'smart'. "And one more job well-done."

"In part because nobody could plan for our latest worker," says Robo, "Good work Jordan, Without your assistance none of this would have been wrapped up with anywhere near the speed we would have needed to actually catch this knucklehead."

"I hate to ask this, but would you mind saying under the radar a while longer?"

It's a terrible thing to lose an edge.

Jordan laughs a bit. "That's one of the things I do best..." No, she does not mind. "What are you thinking?"

"Remote work," admits Robo, "Back at the bar, mostly. I'll do my best to see you involved in the finale with these jokers, or failing that video."

"Hm, it works for me, sure." It is actually better for her: a job without having to go to work.

Even if tinkering around this place is tempting. "Deal."

The bar is only loosely temporally coupled to the Earth that Robo knows at best and this lets him take advantage of that. The fact that it removes Jordan as even an accidental source of intelligence and from the line of fire is a bonus. Losing people to old age is bad enough - misadventure needs no additional chances.

"Good. Let me get the sneak thief stashed away and I'll walk you back to the door."

"When I've got something I'd like you to take a look at I'll leave it with Bar. See you around?"

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evilontheloose - 2010-12-18 09:51 (UTC) - Expand

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