A Devil of a Job

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Karl the Mad
 

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Re: A Devil of a Job

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Charles looked like he was having fun, if the toothy grin and the companionable slug to the shoulder he gave Three was any indication. "Hauser, howzabout ya rides wiv' Kramps 'ere, aye? Keep 'im comp'ny 'n shit." Preston looked alarmed, but sighed glumly and turned toward the demon, resignation written over his face.

For her part, Mary approached her bike and hopped aboard, smirking as it gunned eagerly to life. She glanced at Aislinn's cycle, and the smirk grew challenging. "Race ya," she dared, revving the engine some more.
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Re: A Devil of a Job

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When the roane heard Jameson's dare, she rolled her eyes and got on her bike. "Rain check, Adrenaline Princess," she replied, putting on her helmet. She started it up and left the parking lot without another word.

Kramp's behavior and the seriousness of the case had deflated her sense of adventure and competition. Aislinn could have fun with the best of them, but Mary's earlier demeanor had not given her the most positive impression of the retired cop.
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Re: A Devil of a Job

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Three was silently grateful that Jenkins' car didn't offer extra space for Oberon's wetworks buffoon, even if he couldn't keep a bit of an envious glance from leaving him as the Fae and Preston took off in the Mustang that had been rented. The demon didn't exactly look like he didn't give a shit about traffic rules, but he certainly took his turns as aggressively as possible. In any case, he seemed to know exactly where to go.

A few corners away from the pub, luck had it that most of everyone's vehicles occupied the front of the light's queue. Krampus drove with an arm slung over the side of his door, the stereo blasting Led Zepplin's Whole Lotta Love, the demon seemingly trying to out-scream Robert Plant. Judging by the looks he was sending to Hauser, he was trying to egg this rather obvious introvert into the kind of sing-along someone of his persuasion wouldn't have easily produced. At best, Three ended up tapping the song's beat on the side of the door without being too conscious of it.

As ever, the demon was receiving quite a few peeved glances from people who probably hadn't signed up for a massive earful of Progressive Rock. Thankfully, the Christmas Devil turned the stereo off as he braked in front of the pub in a fairly cavalier fashion. If he hadn't been so exasperated, Aidan could have admitted he could only dream of being able to parallel-park like that during his lifetime...

As much of a mundane as he still technically was, Three wished he had a means to project himself forward and send a rather big mea culpa to Winters. Either Krampus would turn the usually quietly satisfied atmosphere of the Harp & Blackthorn into a fraternity hazing, or he'd test the practitioner and gang leader's ability with hexes and curses... The back of his neck suddenly itching, the best he managed to subconsciously produce was a vague sense of his presence. Winters would momentarily feel as though the city's formerly controversial soldier were looking at him from over a shoulder, only seconds before his establishment's door would open and let the group in.

Three's projected presence would have felt wordlessly apologetic to Winters, while his actual appearance would look very much like a man who was wanting to say something along the lines of I can't possibly express how sorry I am, right now.

As for Krampus - he didn't leave much of a warm-up period to the owner and current barkeep. "I got a question!" he started, just short of shouting the words, before half-skipping and half-bounding forwards, landing on one of the stools and giving the counter a little slap. "Well, actually a couple.

First, though - Whatcha got that's really bad for hangovers? Then, what I wanna know is if you've experienced any sleepless nights, lately. Something like, oh, I don't know - a lack of preternatural visions or, um, the sense that someone's tied a knot in it."

There was a pause, followed by uproarious laughter - which itself was cut short. "I mean in your connection to the local mojo. Not your manhood. 'Cause I, y'know, don't care about that."

He then looked over a shoulder. "Oh, and all the kiddies here would probably like something. My treat."

There was a pause, during which he gave Winters a sharkish grin. "Call me Kramp. I'm, uh, a tourist."
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Karl the Mad
 

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Re: A Devil of a Job

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Far from rising to the bait, Preston gave Kramps a bland glance and turned away, sort of curling up on himself and slipping a pair of ear buds into his ears so he could avoid the noise. He ignored the demon and the wild ride the whole time, although one could assume he was blogging about it on his little smartphone. Charles, on the other hand, had a souped-up ride as opposed to Kramps' stock rig, and took a great delight in an impromptu street race. He knew where to go too.

Unfortunately, they all found Mary waiting impatiently for them to show up, her bike parked in front of the old Inn. She'd blown past Aislinn and taken a lot of short cuts and obscure jumps, to make it well ahead of the others. "Took ya long enough," she remarked neutrally, turning to stride on in.

------------------------

Despite the artificial fog surrounding his sight, Jimmy Winters was not, as it were, entirely bereft of it. The Harp & Blackthorn was not the only place he could commune with the spirits; had he not, after all, been doing makeshift and impulsive divination for over two hundred years, as part of his mastery of long-range marksmanship? Not a simple matter, not by any means, but on-the-spot foresight was almost a specialty of his.

Ergo, when the Harp was impeding him, he went for the Cathedral, and for the guidance and advice of Father Curran. Curran was one of the few men he trusted completely, who knew the whole story of his life and his countless bloody adventures. With his aid and in the hallowed hall of the great church, Jimmy could see more; not everything he needed, of course, technology was not all that blocked his sight.

But he saw enough.

Therefore, when the Krampus burst into his Inn all full of vim and vigor, ready to raise Hell and prove his superiority, Winters was not in the least surprised. "Right on time," he remarked calmly, already putting a large stein full of something golden brown and dark on the bar, right where the demon would sit. "I know who you are, Krampus." He glanced beyond him, saw the others filing in, and with a friendly smile greeted them all. "Your warning was helpful, Aidan, but unnecessary; I knew who would show up at this hour." As the others came in and sat down, he placed their drink of choice before them, almost before they knew they wanted it themselves.

"My Inn is bugged, this I know," the old man went on, placidly. "You lot have come to rescue me, yes? I had already thought to sweep the premises, but I had the strangest thought simply to... leave them be, as it were. Sooner or later a band of gallant fools would show up, and lo! Here you are." He grinned and poured himself a cold glass of milk. "You are of course free to start your search at any time... but do sit down a spell, have your drinks, tell me everything. We're in a tavern, are we not?" Preston had a chilled can of High Life and a glass of clamato; Charles found himself with a bottle of scotch and a clean glass; Mary had been about to order a strawberry daiquiri, but it was already in front of her.

"What if we're in a hurry?" Mary asked, sipping her drink. "People are dying, you know."

"And yet you found time to come to the aid of an old man," Winters countered gently. "People die every day, in every corner of our world. Yes, sometimes it is tragic and easily avoidable; yes, oftentimes something must be done about it. Young, old, rich, poor... death does not play favorites." He glanced at Charles, then at the Krampus. "If you wish to entertain us with your posturing, Devlin, by all means do so. But don't break anything valuable, or hurt any of my customers, or I will personally deliver the bills of reparations to your boss."

As it happened, the other customers had already cleared away, leaving the vigilantes with the bar almost all to themselves. Only a very old man engrossed in the day's papers, and two younger fellows from Jimmy's gang, remained sitting there. The atmosphere was still casual and hospitable, but there was an edginess to it now that always came with the arrival of Law. And like it or not, vigilantes or not, Three and his associates were Law, of a sort.
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Re: A Devil of a Job

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Three settled with a simple bottle of water. Drinking on the job didn't feel right.

"The Harp is one thing, mister Winters," countered Three. "It's obvious. We'll check it out, but I'd like to request permission to review your residence. That's the least obvious spot for lots of practitioners - their Holy of Holies. The one spot where you'd probably welcome a bit of a break from foresight. Who's to say someone would have tried to capitalize on that?"

He shrugged. "You're a mage, but you're a man, first and foremost. For everything you'll have seen, there's something else you'll have missed. It's part and parcel of being human, and it's where we come in."

"I'll rephrase, then," continued the Krampus. "Is there any spot in your own digs where you're positively sure someone else couldn't have blinded you? Some place where there's no shadow of a doubt that you can't be reached or exploited? Because that's where I'd look first. The Harp - this place? Everything we'll find here is probably part of some preliminary work, one of a first few attempts to block you off. A beta test of sorts."

A few additional sips, and Drake left the counter, tracing an apparently lazy gaze across the premises. His field of expertise had never been security detail or risk assessment, but he'd seen a few DIY microphones hidden here and there during his time in the Middle East. Griffin Securities' privacy shields were a little more advanced, of course, but the activation process was the same: stick it in place, flip a switch.

Digging into his pockets, he fished out something Nigel had contributed to their arsenal early on; a rather simple, if very handy EMF range finder.

"How old is this place, exactly?" he asked Winters. "I'm asking in case you used copper plumbing in places. Copper and electricity tend to work together to create low-frequency EM fields; which would throw my readings off a bit. Ais; can you check for wards, in the meantime? I'd see if there's anything hidden in the doorframes or on the undersides of a couple wooden slats... Check for loose floorboards."

As he moved away, Aidan quickly texted an update to Tam, telling her they were all in Renton's best-known Irish pub...

* * *

Once she'd reach the pub, Tam would find that the place had indeed been vacated, leaving her and her colleagues to mostly work unimpeded. That didn't stop the jukebox from working, however, or Winters from seemingly standing vigil behind the bar.

"Great - hey, Tam," hurriedly replied Three. "Listen, I'm checking for GrifSec dongles and I've got Aislinn checking to see if there's any assisting ward work hidden in the corners..."

He momentarily looked back to Jimmy. "Mister Winters, could you please show miss Zainall to your Utilities room? Try and check out the plumbing for odd noises, Tam, specifically anything that might sound like someone hid something in one of the place's U-junctions. Check for Paradise tech, too, just in case - a lot of your stuff never shows up on the electromagnetic scale. Maybe we're not looking at the theft of a shipment from London, but at some attempt to reverse-engineer the privacy shields from London..."

* * *

Katherine would have been working for about forty-five minutes longer, having been granted access to the bills of sales and lading that the company emitted before exporting its goods. However, she'd soon receive another direct phone call from Travis.

"Hey, Kat? Do me a favor and find a recent workstation - someplace that'll let you directly plug your phone in, no recharge wires required. I'm finding a few red flags in the project files architecture... I can't give you the exact file number yet, but someone has stolen a small shipment of privacy dongles, but not enough to support our theory. Just two modules, not even though to cover your average bedroom. My guess is they were slipped in with another shipment so someone Stateside could dismantle and reverse-engineer them.

I've got some access protocols here that look like they might let me see if the blueprint files were copied or duplicated, but I can't check it out on my end. The connection has to be direct. I need to patch your phone into that compatible computer's Ethernet protocols."

There was a pause. "The catch is the state-of-the-art rigs won't be anywhere in Accounting or Shipping, and Griffin might be one of our allies, he won't willingly let us access his microfactory. No amount of I-am-an-attorney bullshit's gonna work. So - I need you to fade out. Get off the corporate cordon and find some way to get down to the Shard's basement without being spotted by security. I can push the place's blueprints to you and try to be the Morpheus to your Neo, but I can't guide you past guards I can't see."

Another pause. "The Boss was listening in, and he's nodding at me. You get caught, and Wyvern's going to pounce on GrifSec with charges of criminal negligence - along with generous settlement terms. Nigel is a friend of ours. We don't want to stick you behind bars, but we don't want to lose his support, either. The more I'm parsing this through, the more it feels like someone's facilitating Michael's progress, helping him along. I have to put you through this gauntlet to get more info - and it sure feels like that mystery person is expecting you to drop the ball."

And a third lapse, this time in evidence of Travis' furious pace. "I'll get the rest of my guys on casting a net. Ten to one it's either someone in Ruthven Corp or Ruthven himself. A down-on-his-luck industrialist pushing resources at a serial killer so that the blowback takes out a leading competitor... Seems like classic Ordo Dracul asshole tactics to me."
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Karl the Mad
 

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Re: A Devil of a Job

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Preston and Mary finished their drinks and got right to work; Mary was specially trained in bugs and both arming and disarming them, and Preston had experience with that kind of stuff due to the lifestyle he led. Charles gave Aidan a hand as well, although part of him wished there was more action coming their way soon.

As for Jimmy, he pursed his lips in thought. "This building predates the American Revolution by a few years, although I didn't come into its ownership until after the First World War. Prohibition was a great boon to my fortunes, believe it or not." He smiled at that. "But it's been thoroughly modernized; everything is up to the latest structural codes, and our connection to the Centennial Tree is sound and undisturbed. It was built to last, you know, nothing slipshod and no corners cut anywhere." Pride was distinct in his voice as he spoke, and one could assume he had reason for it. "I can assert that the Cathedral has not been tampered with either, although I hear the murderer managed to use its bell tower for his schemes?"

"So it seems," Charles explained. "Fella tagged th' security systems with lasers, 'r somethin' like 'at."

"Such a pity," the old man replied, shaking his head. "That a house of the Lord could be subverted so... Curran must be devastated." He poured himself another glass of milk, and regarded them more sharply. "But my house, you say? I'm not sure about that. I can't allow all of you in there, naturally. Mister Drake and Miss Jameson, I suppose."

By the time Tam arrived, the only ones left in the bar not investigating were Jimmy's men, and the old man at the far end of the bar. He regarded them all with disdain and continued perusing the paper, ignoring them completely save for when he needed another drink. "Harry can show you the utilities better than I can," Winters asserted, nodding at one of his boys; he was a thickset and slightly older man with black hair and a weathered face, dark blue eyes peering up at Tam with jaded indifference. "He's a plumber by day, even."

Harry shrugged and turned to lead Tam out, bending down to retrieve the bag of tools at his feet. "This way, miss," he said, with the voice of an irregular drinker.

-----------------------

Away in London, Katherine sighed in resignation. "Any reason I can't just borrow Traynor's desk while you work your magic?" she asked. "She'd have the access we need, right?"
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Re: A Devil of a Job

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Three nodded. "I get that, but you didn't specifically answer my question. Do you think there's any chance you still have copper plumbing around?"

As he spoke, however, the EMF detector let out a shrill bit of a whir as he passed near a restored and fairly antebellum light fixture. Poking around and wincing as his hand touched the fixture's hot bulb, he came out with a small white disc with a slightly raised center and a single blinking LED. The minute humming and pulsing of competing magic was so weak as to be skipped by most practitioners, evidence of the fact that a microscopic amount of via had been made to surge along the object's printed circuits in a cyclical route - acting as both emitting force and power source. Judging by the almost wafer-thin appearance and the dusty, if originally white finish, this was the real deal, and not a reserve-engineered copy.

"Well - there's one, in any case. Wouldn't be too hard for someone to come in here, grab a brewski, sit down and wait for a moment where people's eyes are turned away to just drop this in at arm's length."

He pointed at the pub's flatscreen TV. "Wasn't there a game, a few weeks ago? I remember driving past here and seeing ads for reduced prices during a Manchester United broadcast..."

As serious as he was, he couldn't quite repress a smirk. "I'm guessing there's more soccer fans in town than I thought. If I wanted to stow something in one of this place's nooks and crannies, this is when I'd do it. Max crowding, lowered attention from whoever here acts as the local watchdogs."

Still, he kept working as he talked. Oberon's envoy, however, had long since guzzled his pint down in a single pull. "If this is GrifSec tech, wouldn't this be pretty fucking disparaging to the local Invisible Man? I mean, I wouldn't wanna be caught with lax security procedures and someone using my shit to kill kiddies..."

Three grunted as he briefly rested a knee on a leather-upholstered seat to try and prop himself at the height of another buzzing fixture. "It would be. I'll trust the Wyvern Duet to figure something out in that department, but I'm thinking someone stands to gain from the distraction. Someone who doesn't mind if he happens to run afoul of Oberon. Like a vampire, a lich, an Infernalist or some sort of other really old, really powerful type. Someone who doesn't have much to lose and a lot to gain."

Krampus blinked. "How is killing kids a distraction?
- Guy's using Nigel's tech. Nigel's security looks lax, the severity of the associated crimes is despicable, ergo Nigel's name gets dragged through the mud. I'm the competitor who provided the loon with the opportunity to arm himself for his little crusade, so I stand to gain from that. The Two Stooges at GriSec London were convenient access points with easily manipulable motives and desires. Not quite patsies, but something close to it."

Three didn't think to mention Winters. For one, it would've been in incredibly bad taste and two, the man didn't fit the profile of a company-destroying ruthless type. The magic-assisted former sniper's relationship with the locals was far too personal to deserve or fit the Ruthless tag.

* * *

"You can try," allowed Travis, "but I'm not seeing anything from my end. No record of copied files, no recent back-door access... The two idiots from earlier are part of a black hole of stupidity in the floor's IT department schedule. Traynor's office is kosher, though. I'm not seeing any sort of forced entry or easily recognizable exploits."

He could almost be heard shrugging. "Give it a shot if you think it's worthwhile. It's not like you've got a timestamp on your flight back home. My money's still on the basement's secure server. If I were there with you, I'd already have slipped on my fake electrician's jumpsuit and cap to put a tap in place with the building's main fiber-optics line and I'd have that info right here and now."

The rat sighed and produced some kind of nonchalant mouth-popping sound. "Either way, you're my Obi-Wan Kenobi, right now. I can't go any further without you picking and opening up a target for me to search through."
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Re: A Devil of a Job

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"So, we're also looking a manipulative geezer that's also a competitor with Griffin," summarized Aislinn, still keeping an eye out for any peculiar sore thumbs that served as wards. "Who are his company's major rivals?" she asked.
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Re: A Devil of a Job

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"Ruthven Corporation," Preston said immediately. "Ruthven's an Ordo D-Dracul himself. If he is involved it's j-just the sort of convoluted bullshit an OD would t-try."

"He's right," Mary remarked as she walked by. She wore gloves and had already picked out and deactivated several bugs, dropping them into a bag as she went along. "I'm surprised he hasn't made the news with some dumb scheme or other yet."

-----------------------

"Fine," Katherine muttered, standing up. "I don't carry costumes around though, and I doubt I'd get away with wearing a maintenance outfit; my face is a lot more recognizable than yours." She pulled a small earpiece out and connected it to her phone, then put the phone in her pocket and plugged the piece into her ear. "Going mobile."
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Re: A Devil of a Job

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Three kept working. "I know it sounds like we're putting our eggs into the same basket, but it really fits. We don't need to look too far to see where Alex Ruthven's greed took us. Without his paying off Rupert Isaacs and packing him off to Paradise on a Yakuza cruise, we wouldn't have Chimeras around. Or our nice governor or Greg fucking Rendell, for that matter..."

Krampus lightly tapped the counter and gestured for another huge stein. "Okay, sure. That works. Now how the Hell do we tie Michael to this guy?
- That," admitted Three, "I don't know yet. Katherine's off trying to find where and when GrifSec got tapped, we'd need a second pair of hands to look for transaction records in Ruthven's private expense accounts. You don't spend time and money head-hunting for a malleable nutcase on company expenses, it'd be too obvious."

For a while, he thought about asking Preston to see if his seldom-seen people could arrange for something, but the fact that he was now regularly working with them struck him as making that unwise. Depending directly on Hauser's resources would have painted a giant target on the kid's back, something which he wasn't ready to subject Preston to. Especially if the peeved victim of their potential skulduggery happened to be a centuries-old depressive vampire...

Drake winced as he burned himself on a particularly incandescent bulb. Still, he looked more thoughtful than bothered as he looked back to Jimmy. "Mister Winters, I don't suppose you've arranged for your own ShadowNet connection, did you?"

This was a bit of a cheeky rhetorical question, seeing as anyone with some money and decent reasons could buy access into the Deep Web info market Arthur Holden had built. This data-based polyp of sensitive data that would make Wikileaks look like a third-grader's science assignment was rated up there with Silk Road, as part of the Web's Most Wanted. The faster the Internet went, the more old architectures were abandoned. Most old server farms were scrapped, but a few denizens of the Deep Web tended to run on painstakingly self-managed setups, cobbled together from the dregs of yesteryear's Internet.

Once you had the money, all you needed was a secure browser. Obviously, none of the 2010s preferred surfing solutions were supported by the ShadowNet. The network's own modified browser was part of the entry fee, essentially.

* * *

"Alright," replied Travis, once he heard the telltale shuffling sounds of the earpiece being rubbed against her skin. "Now, assuming you want to try out Traynor's office first, you can't just ask her. We haven't been contracted for a security assessment and I don't think you want to sit around while Aldergard explains the prupose of legally-mandated forced intrusion. Nigel would just nod his head and give us the green light if he were here, but I can't get a hold of him."

He sighed in thought. "What we need is a distraction. Something that'll get you in her office without being spotted. I'm doing a SIM card check to track her down..."

A few nervous seconds passed. "She's right around the corner. You've got forty seconds by my count. Go to the coffee-making machine against the wall, there, and make yourself a cup. Then hug the wall, hurry forward, take a hard left and watch for scalding joe. The closest bathrooms are three hundred meters away; that gives you precisely thirty-two seconds to sit your ass in her chair, plug your phone in and let me do my work. I just hope that California silicon you had lodged in my brain's ready for this..."
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