Private Luxury, Lies, and Other Technical Failures

[Ana Rix]

Ana laughed softly, shaking her head.

"If we solve this, I'll commission you to make me a masterpiece with at least three straight lines." She glanced over at him with an amused smile. "Maybe even four if the budget allows."

The humor faded naturally as her attention returned to the datapad. She rested one hand lightly beside it, not on the screen itself but close enough to steady it if needed. The diagnostic information she'd uncovered had already told her one important thing: whoever built the security expected brute force. That meant the answer probably wasn't hidden behind the login prompt at all.

"All right," she murmured. "Let's stop treating this like a locked door." Her fingers moved deliberately across the maintenance interface, bypassing the authentication page entirely in favor of the system logs and file allocation records. She wasn't looking for filenames or documents yet. She was looking for patterns. What had been accessed recently? What partitions had unusual activity? Which areas of storage were disproportionately large for their stated purpose?

Her eyes narrowed as the metadata began to assemble into something more coherent.

"There..." she said quietly, pointing to a cluster of entries. "Whoever encrypted this was careful about the files themselves, but they couldn't hide that they existed. Metadata always tells a story." She continued tracing the relationships between timestamps and storage blocks. "Let's find the shape of the information first. Once we know what we're dealing with, then we can decide the safest way to get inside." She looked over at Jack with a small, confident smile. "If this is as important as we think it is, I'd rather spend another five minutes reading the footprints than five hours cleaning up after a mistake."

Jack Sheltrak

 

[Jack Sheltrak]

Ana Rix

He gave her a look at it. "Yes but for the moment of looking the data over, I can only go with what you find and the longer it takes the more chances it is discovered and changed or there could be a second attempt and failsafe in all of that. Worse if it was something meant to be caught to distract from a whole other scenario happening." He said it while sitting there but was looking over a few of the things with the datapad. "Political circles move fast and commerce can move faster, assuming they managed to get the clawdite to a cell there is a chance she could have a lawyer there right now working on her release."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana's mouth tightened slightly as Jack laid out the possibilities, because unfortunately none of them were unreasonable. "Politics and laws," she grumbled under her breath. "Someone steals sensitive information, runs from security, leads us halfway across the district, and somehow there's still a possibility she'll be comfortably walking out the front door before we finish figuring out what she stole." She shook her head, then glanced around the interrogation room and seemed to remember precisely where she was. "Which is, of course, a wonderful and necessary legal system that I respect completely."

The faintly guilty smile she gave Jack lasted only a moment before her attention returned to the datapad. He had a point about time, and she'd already learned enough about the device to justify moving forward. She returned to the maintenance interface and the storage map she'd uncovered, following the cluster of recent activity rather than attempting to defeat the authentication layer directly. The files themselves remained encrypted, but the allocation records gave her something tangible to pursue. If she could isolate the relevant partition without triggering whatever waited behind the login system, she could work on extracting the information rather than fighting the security surrounding it.

"All right. Less admiring their security and more finding out what they're protecting," she murmured. Her fingers moved with greater purpose now, tracing the storage blocks associated with the suspicious entries and testing whether the maintenance environment would permit her to duplicate them into an inactive portion of the device's memory. She wasn't trying to decrypt anything yet. First she wanted a copy she could afford to damage. "If I can duplicate the encrypted partition without waking the authentication system, we get something much more valuable than access. We get a version I can make mistakes on without destroying the original."

Jack Sheltrak

 

[Jack Sheltrak]

Ana Rix

Listening to her as she explained more of it and showed him the work she was doing to get into it so that he would be able to see what the information was. he was not entirely certain but he gave a nod of his head. "Alright." He said it and was checking the comlink to learn what he could about the clawdite and the security officers who were going. Reports from the gathering were mostly quiet and for the moment it seemed like no one noticed or was making a problem which could mean either they didn't know or they were not worried. One of those was better but the other could mean that they wanted to have it handled privately.

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana glanced up when Jack reached for his comlink, watching him check it for a moment before a small crease appeared between her brows. Given everything they had just discussed about the room, she wasn't entirely surprised if whatever connection he managed was unreliable at best. "You may want to step outside for that," she pointed out, nodding toward the door. "Remember, part of the reason we picked this room was because the walls are thick and the signal barriers are still installed. If they're doing their job, not much should be getting in or out of here."

She gave him a faint smile before returning her attention to the datapad. "Which is wonderful for me and considerably less useful for anyone trying to make a call." If Jack wanted reliable information about the Clawdite, he'd probably have to leave the interrogation room long enough to establish a proper connection. Ana was comfortable remaining behind with the recovered device. At this point, she was unlikely to notice much of anything beyond the screen unless something started smoking.

Her attention settled fully back onto the storage map she'd been working through. The goal remained to isolate and duplicate the suspicious encrypted partition without disturbing the authentication system protecting the original. She carefully followed the allocation records she'd identified earlier, checking each relationship before committing to the next step. "Go find out what they're doing with her," she said, already slipping back into her concentration. "I'll keep working on this. With any luck, by the time you come back, I'll have something more interesting for you to look at than encrypted storage blocks."

Jack Sheltrak

 

[Jack Sheltrak]

Ana Rix

He gave her a nod as he rose up and moved. slipping out of trhe door and finding a place to speak on the comlink before he was seeing Donovan and the others. "Any news?" He asked the man as he was going and Donovan gave a shake of his head. "None yet." The man spoke while Jack was walking around but got through on his comlink. The woman having arrived. "We don't have much from her, there was a team of lawyers here from Tyferra before we had even arrived. Must have been on standby in case they were needed and we are not getting much else." Jack gave a nod of his head as he stood near one of the windows and it was opened enough but he mostly was breathing in the scents of the city for some fresh air and then double checking other holonews reports in case there was anything.

 

[Ana Rix]

With Jack gone, the interrogation room became pleasantly quiet. Ana barely noticed the change after the first few moments. Her attention had narrowed completely to the datapad resting on the table in front of her and the storage map she'd managed to expose through its maintenance interface. The suspicious partition was still there, sealed behind encryption, but she wasn't interested in breaking that encryption yet. First she needed something she could safely work with. She carefully directed the system to duplicate the relevant storage blocks into unused memory, keeping the operation entirely within the device rather than attempting to transfer anything elsewhere. If the security routines were watching the authentication layer, there was no reason to wake them by knocking on the front door.

The progress was painfully slow, and Ana resisted every temptation to hurry it along. She watched the diagnostic information instead, checking for unexpected processes, sudden changes in power consumption, or anything else suggesting the datapad had noticed what she was doing. Nothing changed. No warning appeared. No authentication counter incremented. The original partition remained untouched while its duplicate gradually assembled elsewhere in storage. Only when the process completed did Ana finally release the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "That's it," she murmured, a small smile appearing as she verified the copy against the original. "Now you can be difficult without being dangerous."

Working from the duplicate changed everything. Ana began examining its structure rather than its contents, looking for the seams between the encrypted archive and whatever software had been used to create it. Encryption could conceal information, but the program responsible still needed instructions for interpreting that information once the correct credentials were supplied. That meant there had to be something she could learn from the surrounding architecture. She followed those relationships patiently until a pattern emerged among the file headers, enough to suggest that the archive wasn't one enormous collection at all. It had been divided into several distinct datasets, each protected separately.

Ana leaned closer, curiosity sharpening as she counted them. Financial records appeared to occupy one section, communications another, while several smaller archives remained impossible to identify from metadata alone. She wasn't inside yet, but for the first time she could see the shape of what they had recovered. "Okay," she whispered, tapping one finger thoughtfully against the table rather than the screen. "Now we're getting somewhere." Jack had been right about the urgency. Whatever the Clawdite had stolen wasn't a single document. Someone had assembled a collection, and Ana intended to find out why.

Jack Sheltrak

 

[Jack Sheltrak]

Ana Rix

Jack continued to walk through the station as he was getting information and Donovan stopped him only for a moment while they were going. "So good news?" He asked it and Jack shook his head. "Not sure yet, she is still getting into it." He said it and Donovan was moving as he looked over some more of it and spoke. "Hmmm that is strange." Jack was looking at him forr a moment and his comlink shut off. "What is strange?" The man was going and checking as the pair of them could see the receptionist was there still packing but another security officer was there. "Someone activated the privacy grid." The man spoke as he was there. "We were trying to leave and it blocked us in. Communicaations are out."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana noticed the change before anyone came back to tell her. The diagnostic display on the datapad remained exactly as she'd left it, but something beyond the device shifted. A small indicator on the interrogation room's control panel changed state, followed seconds later by another. She stopped working immediately. Her hands came away from the datapad, leaving the duplicated partition untouched while she turned her attention toward the room around her.

"That wasn't me."

The privacy grid had been one of the reasons she'd been comfortable working here, but Ana certainly hadn't activated the entire system. She rose from the chair and crossed toward the door, testing the controls rather than immediately trying to override anything. No response. She tried again, then glanced toward the communications panel and found exactly what she suspected. The room hadn't simply become isolated. The station had.

Ana looked back toward the datapad sitting innocently on the interrogation table. The timing was difficult to dismiss. She had successfully duplicated the encrypted partition and begun examining its structure, and now someone or something had activated a system capable of trapping everyone inside the building and cutting communications. That didn't necessarily mean the two were connected, but she wasn't inclined to believe in convenient coincidences.

"Jack?" she called toward the door, raising her voice enough that there was at least a chance of being heard outside. She didn't touch the datapad again. Instead, Ana remained near the controls, studying the privacy system for anything that might tell her whether the activation had originated locally or remotely. "Please tell me someone out there accidentally pressed the wrong button."

Jack Sheltrak

 

[Jack Sheltrak]

Ana Rix

He could hear her and looked at Donovan as he spoke. "Ah I was hoping that had been you by accident." He said it while he was looking and moved over with her in the room. "We are trying to get it turned off but the system is locked down." He said it while looking at Donovan and the officer came back. "It wasn't ours, it is disconnected. Power is coming from an outside source but scanners are going wonky. Says there is twelve more signatures that us in here." He said it and Jack looked at him for a moment. "That seems offly spaced, usually you would think it would read everything uniform and double or triple per person."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana stepped back into the interrogation room when Jack joined her, leaving the datapad exactly where it was on the table. Hearing that the privacy system wasn't even drawing power from the station immediately pushed the encrypted files down her list of concerns. Someone hadn't simply activated an old security feature. They were powering it externally, and that meant whatever was happening had been deliberate from the beginning. "Then we have a bigger problem than the datapad," she said, looking toward Donovan. "If your privacy grid is physically disconnected and something outside is powering it, someone knew this building well enough to bring an old system back online."

The twelve additional signatures bothered her even more. Ana glanced around the room before looking toward the ceiling, thinking through Jack's observation. "You're right. Random interference shouldn't be that neat," she said. "If the scanners were simply malfunctioning, I'd expect noise. Duplicate readings, signatures appearing and disappearing, values that don't make sense. Twelve distinct signatures sounds more like they're being given twelve things to see." Whether those things were actually people was another question entirely.

She crossed to the room controls again, but this time she wasn't trying to disable the privacy grid. Instead, Ana pulled up whatever diagnostic information the aging panel would still provide and began looking at the incoming power itself. "Don't trust the scanners for now," she warned. "Someone has already demonstrated they can manipulate at least one system in this building. Until we know otherwise, assume they can manipulate others." Her fingers moved through the available readings, looking for where the external power entered the grid and whether the activation had propagated from a single point or several.

Only then did she glance back toward the datapad. The timing still bothered her far too much to ignore. "And nobody touches that," she added, nodding toward it. "I made a copy of the encrypted partition just before this started. Maybe that's coincidence, maybe it isn't. Until I know which, I'm treating the datapad and this lockdown as part of the same problem."

Jack Sheltrak

 

[Jack Sheltrak]

Ana Rix

Jack looked at her and he gave a nod of his head to the dangerous datapad as he turned to Donovan. "Gather everryone we have." He said it and the man looked as he was checking it but went out and Jack went to go and look at Ana. "I don't like this, the security officers before it cut out said that there were people already waiting for the clawdite at the station they had but no more information once the screen went up. If whatever is on the datapad is that important then we have a problem as there is no way of them being convinced that we might not know what is on it. At least if the scenarrio goes bad and they are wearing masks. No masks is going to be worse."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana's expression tightened as Jack explained what he'd learned. Lawyers waiting for the Clawdite was one thing. Someone locking down the building shortly afterward was another, and she didn't particularly enjoy imagining how closely the two might be connected. "No masks is worse because it means they aren't worried about us recognizing them," she said quietly. "Either they expect to leave without consequences, or they don't expect us to be in a position to identify anyone afterward."

Her gaze moved toward the datapad before returning to Jack. "And you're right. We can't convince anyone we haven't seen what's on it. We chased their operative, recovered the device, brought it somewhere private, and then spent time with it. From the outside, that looks exactly like we already have the information." Whether she'd actually decrypted anything was almost irrelevant now. Anyone willing to go this far probably wasn't going to accept her word that she'd only mapped the contents.

Ana moved away from the datapad and closer to Jack, suddenly far less interested in finishing her work than understanding what was happening around them. "So I think we stop worrying about getting inside that for the moment," she said, nodding toward the table. "We know the data is still intact. Right now I want to know who locked us in, where that external power is coming from, and whether those twelve signatures are actually people."

She glanced toward the doorway Donovan had disappeared through, unease settling more firmly into her expression. Ana wasn't a fighter, and she had no intention of pretending otherwise. "And Jack?" she added, lowering her voice. "If this does turn into the part where blasters come out, I'm going to need you and the officers handling that. I'll deal with anything attached to a circuit board."

Jack Sheltrak

 

[Jack Sheltrak]

Ana Rix

He looked at her with a nod. "You are not wrong though if I am going to be shot at or threatened for something... I do like to know what it is for. Matterr less of curiosity then just principle." He said it offering it more or less as a justification for it. He was looking at the room but didn't say to go and do it when Donovan arrived with the receptionist. "There is not much, Maeve and me and Hal'a left already." He said it and Jack was looking voer what else they had but the four of them being there. "No cells are being used?" Donovan thought about it and shrugged. "Shouldn't be but if there was a drunk or small incident they might have." He said it and Jack was moving with him towards the cells as there was one other sitting in there and Donovan lifted a screen from the wall. "Not much, picked up for vandalism and they found a weapons a block away."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana followed a few steps behind Jack and Donovan, although Jack's comment earned a faint smile from her. "I can understand the principle," she admitted. "If someone is going to threaten me over something, I'd at least like the courtesy of knowing why." That didn't mean she intended to return to the datapad immediately. Whatever answers it held could wait until they knew whether the building itself was about to become considerably more dangerous.

The discovery that only four of them remained in the station wasn't particularly comforting. Ana had assumed there would be more security personnel somewhere in the building, but apparently the transition to the new facility had left this one even emptier than she'd realized. When Donovan mentioned the possibility of someone still being in the cells, she followed them toward the holding area, her attention shifting immediately to the lone occupant when the screen was raised.

"Vandalism and a weapon found a block away?" Ana repeated, looking toward Donovan. "Was the weapon actually connected to them, or was it simply nearby?" Under ordinary circumstances she wouldn't have given the distinction much thought. These weren't ordinary circumstances. Someone had activated a disconnected privacy grid from outside, their scanners were reporting twelve unexplained signatures, and now they had discovered someone else trapped inside with them.

She looked toward the prisoner again, studying them without moving closer to the cell. "When were they brought in?" she asked. The timing mattered more to her than the vandalism itself. If the arrest had happened well before any of this began, it might mean nothing. If it had happened shortly before the Clawdite ran from the summit, Ana was going to become considerably less fond of coincidences.

Jack Sheltrak

 

[Jack Sheltrak]

Ana Rix

Donovan looked at her and spoke. "Not entirely sure, he ran and in pursuit the weapon was found. It could be something he tossed or it could have been there and they just stumbled upon it. We are waiting for lab results to see if his fingerprints were on it." Donovan spoke though while he was looking over everything else. It gave them a better look as Jack checked on it. "Well that is not a yes or a no but usually if they run it doesn't mean they are completely deranged and as dangerous. More fearful of getting caught."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana glanced toward the man in the cell, and Jack's observation struck considerably closer to home than she would have liked. Running didn't necessarily mean someone was dangerous. Sometimes it simply meant getting caught carried consequences you weren't particularly interested in facing. She had done her share of questionable work over the years, and there had certainly been occasions when putting as much distance as possible between herself and the authorities had seemed like the most sensible course of action.

"Running doesn't prove much beyond the fact that he didn't want to be caught," she agreed. "I've run from people before, and I'm hardly what anyone would call dangerous." The admission slipped out easily enough before Ana realized precisely who was standing beside her. Her eyes shifted toward Donovan, and there was a brief pause. "For entirely reasonable circumstances that don't require further investigation."

She offered the officer an innocent smile that probably wasn't helping her case before turning her attention firmly back toward the prisoner. The last thing Ana needed was for anyone in this station to become curious enough to start digging through her history. There were slicer jobs, questionable clients, systems she'd entered without anything resembling authorization, and enough other activities that explaining herself could become a very long evening.

"Anyway," she continued, perhaps a little too quickly, "until the lab tells you whether that weapon actually belonged to him, I'd rather not assume he's part of what's happening here." She glanced toward Jack before looking back at Donovan. "When was he brought in? If it was before everything at the summit happened, I'm considerably less interested in him. If it was around the same time, then I think we should at least ask a few more questions."

Jack Sheltrak

 

[Jack Sheltrak]

Ana Rix

Jack gave her a nod of his head when he was looking at Donovan who shrugged."He was here before I got in today so likely last night. If it can be helped they would have usually sent someone to pick him up but we are still technically operational just with a bare minimum of people." He was saying it while Jack looked from him to AAna and shook his head. "Likely not involved but if all things are cut off from the screen there is the danger and likelihood that any information isn't coming through either." He was walking back but they would have to be abel to make a note of the man in the cell and then they would have to make a note to wait. "Alright so the smart decision would be to wait and hope the problem solves itself or failed check ins results in other stations coming here. Usually those plans never work."

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana gave the man in the cell one last glance before following Jack back toward the others. If he'd been there since the previous night, she was willing to put him fairly low on their list of immediate concerns. There was always the possibility his presence meant something, but right now they had far more obvious problems demanding their attention.

"Waiting for someone outside to notice we've stopped checking in assumes whoever did this hasn't planned for that," Ana said. She glanced toward the dead communications systems as they walked. "If they can power the privacy grid externally and interfere with the scanners, making another station think everything here is perfectly normal might not be particularly difficult."

She sighed softly at Jack's observation and gave him a resigned look. "And I've had about enough experience lately with plans that involve waiting for problems to solve themselves." Ana wasn't eager to confront whatever might be outside, but sitting quietly until someone else decided what happened to them didn't appeal to her either. "Let's go back to the controls. If that external power has to enter the building somewhere, there should be a physical connection to the privacy grid. Maybe I can trace it without needing the scanners."

A faint smile appeared as she added, "And if that doesn't work, we can always try your plan and wait for rescue. I'd just prefer it as Plan B rather than Plan A."

Jack Sheltrak

 

[Jack Sheltrak]

Ana Rix

"Plan E." He corrected for a moment. "PLan A never works, plan B is mostly hope it is a glitch, plan c is walking out, plan d is oh god oh god we are all going to die and plan e is keep calm and let it settle itself." He said it with a look at her that was oozing complete seriousness before they were going to be able to head off. He was looking over it as Donovan came up and looked at him. "Not funny man." He looked at him and offered a small nod of his head. "Fair." Still the system was there as he sat back in one of the seats and the signals had not changed nor had the privacy screen. "Where outside would they need to tap in to activate it?" Donovan was looking at him. "There is a power station that would have normally been used to house it away from the main building. A little weays off between the motorpool and the old labs that they had."