The Year of The Raven

[Jarven Zexxel]

Jarven was working hard in the Computer Lab on the restricted third floor of the Dragon Palace Casino. He was putting the finishing touches on the bare bones network skeleton template that he had in mind. At the same time, he was multitasking his brain to jot down ideas for his Data World Immersion Capsule onto a nearby datapad

and absorbing specific data from the Holonet to increase his knowledge of and skill for hacking, coding, and computer science. It's amazing what you can learn on Youtube.
He waited patiently for Jen, intent on the work in front of him.

[member="Jen"]

 

[Jen]

Truth be told, Jennifer loved the Dragon Palace. Even if it had become less stylish over the last couple of months and even if a lot of the atmosphere that was once here was gone, it was still home. Sort of.

At the very least, they still had some great facilities and Jennifer was sure to use them when needed. For the next week or so one of the smaller entertainment rooms had been reserved. In the small darkened room a large holo-screen was seen mounted on the wall, repeatedly playing various low budget holo action movies as background noise. Various comfortable couches were placed in the room around a rather large glass table that was already stashed with various empty soda cans, a half filled whiskey flask and a few other things such as a used ash tray from which cyan smoke from a forgotten and half-finished cigarette gently hovered towards the ceiling of the small room.

In close vicinity to the the holoscreen a rather large metal square stood, various computer parts inserted into it and hundreds of cables seen connected to both the wall, but also a few of the datapads there were lying randomly on tables and couches in the room. In one of the couches Jennifer lay, eyes closed and with a cæmel cigarette hanging in the corner of her lips, supported by two fingers who held it in place, the elbow resting on the back of the couch.

She sighed; letting a cloud of cyan smoke fly from the place she was relaxing. She had already used a whole lot of time on this server and she had already encountered various weird things in the code for the server that just did not make sense to her. So after having pressed a few buttons and yelled at a few guards she hoped that Jarvan would have gotten her message and show up soon enough. He for one needed to explain why he was filling the server with some weird simulation of sorts.

[member="Jarven Zexxel"]​

 

[Jarven Zexxel]

Jarven looked up. He didn't understand why she was so late! He looked down at his datapad and re-read the message. Bollocks! He was supposed to be meeting in a different room! He quickly saved, gathered, and stored his equipment and work in a satchel, tossed the satchel over his side, and ran out the door. He was on the third floor and right outside the door was an overview of the cavernous Casino. In front of the rail was a very sturdy stripper pole that reached all the way to the ceiling. He jumped over the side, grabbed the pole, and slid down to the second floor level. He stopped, got over the ledge and quickly walked to the right room.

He entered and started setting up nonchalantly. On one of the tables, he noticed a list of things that Jen likely hadn't been able to figure out about Jarven's plans. He greeted her. After they had a proper introductory period (in which she could say what she liked), he launched into his explanation of what she had listed.

"Let's see here...Ah, these little pieces that seem useless are what I call EXO bytes. It's true that they stay dormant and take up space. There's a lot of them, but they're really small. When something foreign enters the network, they are alerted to the presence and swarm to it. Once they find it, they will attach to the foreign program. Now, think of them like white blood cells, because once they attach, they start to null the program and freeze it. A few of these EXO bytes will have little to no effect on the foreign program, but when a large amount of them swarm, they cover it up really nicely. The covered program can still move around, albeit much slower and ineffective. A signal is sent out like a chorus from these EXO bytes and it notifies both you and I to the presence. We can either then study the foreign program and/or send a kill command. When this kill command is sent, the EXO bytes start decomposing the program. The amount of time it takes will depend on the nature of the program. Now, multiple foreign programs might invade simultaneously. This would require more EXO bytes to combat the flow, and the presence of more EXO bytes would take up more space and processing power, reducing our effectiveness. However, these EXO bytes have a "hive mind" of sorts which allows them to adapt to the current threat. Once it does that, the EXO bytes will create a wall and dissolve any future programs of the same coding that were slated for destruction by us. This means that less EXO bytes are needed and it can free up our space and power again, returning us to max efficiency. However, the EXO bytes will only remember how to combat a specific type of data until it needs to fight another kind of data. That means that the memory and easy countering mechanic is temporary and single-minded. Anything the EXO bytes can't handle, we'd have to handle."

Jarven took a deep breath, realizing how long winded he had been. "Any questions or shall I continue?"

[member="Jen"]

 

[Jen]

“That… Actually seems pretty rational. For once. A nice approach to an anti-slicing program. Pretty imaginative as well.” Jennifer said from her still resting position in one of the couches she filled up. She took a quick drag from her cigarette, waving it a bit about as she blew out a cloud of cyan smoke to indicate that she was going to talk in a second. “So what about that animation thing you’ve been going on about non-stop? I’m more concerned about that one really.”

She smiled slightly, grabbing her sandro laptop that stood on the table nearby in one hand, swinging it onto her stomach from her lying position on the couch, trying to find the snippet of code she was mentioning and after a second she got it. “Ah yea, tha’ one.” She would say, pointing towards it with her cigarette as she with a few clicks got a screenshot of the coding program up onto the large holo screen that stood in the room. As Jarvan would hopefully start to explain she disconnected herself from the program and started to type a bit on her sandro while listening to Jarvan.

[member="Jarven Zexxel"]​

 

[Jarven Zexxel]

"Oh, well, the animation that I used earlier was an example of the work I had gotten done so far. I wanted to showcase the amount of data I had put out to give them some hope." said Jarven.

[member="Jen"]

 

[Jen]

“Aha…” Jennifer said slowly in response, the slight grin that formed on her face almost heard in her voice. She still had things to get in there. Into the code. Save guards so to speak. It was…. Dangerous what she was about to do, but she had used a lot of time on making sure it seemed as inconspicuous as possible. It simply looked like a part of the rest of the code and it even served some functions in there, it was not just a filler.

She typed a few times on the keyboard of her Sandro, the code slowly transferring itself into the command unnoticed and placing itself among the thousands of lines. It did not look like much, simply being a tiny sample of a larger piece of the code. It would take some time for it to upload itself as it went through various "ghost channels" of sorts. But it will be there eventually.

She slowly leant back in the couch, taking a long drag from her cigarette, casually speaking up afterwards. Distraction or not, she was still curious “So, Jarvan. How did you get into the Ravens anyway?”

[member="Jarven Zexxel"]​

 

[Jarven Zexxel]

Jarven didn't notice [member="Jen"]'s shenanigans because he wasn't looking for detrimental intentional effects from his own co-worker. One could only hope that it wouldn't have negative consequences in the future (Epic Foreshadowing?...).

"Kiera Ticon met and introduced me to the Red Ravens. It wasn't so much a matter of me joining the Red Ravens. When she found me, I was nothing, so the Red Ravens simply took me in."

 

[Jen]

Her head moved a bit in what must have appeared as a few slow nods from her position in the couch, done in an effort to show a reply. Soon after another long drag was taken from her cigarette as she typed a few more things onto her sandro. Slowly she placed the laptop like datapad on the couch besides her, tapping out of the uploading screen before she removed the cigarette from her mouth, letting the cyan colored smoke curl over her tongue and out into the heavy air of the room they both sat in.

She leant back in the couch, now sitting, her eyes staring into the roof as they peacefully followed the trail of smoke as it made its way towards ceiling. “Huh. I see. N’ then you and Patricia hit it off? Or how did that happen?” She smirked slightly, looking over towards Jarven from her place at the couch. Anything to keep him distracted. Obviously she would help with finish off the rest of the work, make sure all protection, software, hardware, whatever was up and running, but it was still important to get this…. Extra security uploaded.

It was unthinkable that Jarven wouldn’t come across the code at some point, however. the test of it all would be if he would be able to figure out what exactly it meant, after all the commands that enabled the “extra security” were well hidden. But considering that Jennifer was still learning, there would be some indicators to what it really was.

If gone unnoticed or simply not repaired the backdoor in the code would allow Jennifer or any other person who had direct knowledge of it to access the mainframe of the data network and delete everyone’s admin permissions and adding yourself to the list. From there the server was yours and until someone manually shut it down you would be able to do whatever you wanted to with it.

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((Puzzle time! So since I recon Jarven is very good at slicing and things related to that, I think you should be able to ask four questions which I’ll have to answer. Of course, this is ooc’ly and it reflects Jarven’s expertise. Shall we say you have until Thursday to complete it? I promise you. It isn’t too hard if you take a close look at it. You’ll need a pen and paper and a calculator (preferably a phone, hint)! Use your questions wisely. To start you off on the right path, if “decoded” it spells out two words. Just message me on skype when you figure it out, you can also ask the questions there. It's very straight forward. Don't think too deply about it.))​

[SIZE=10pt](500*2+1265) and (4000+225)[/SIZE]​

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[member="Jarven Zexxel"]​