[Plot] Detective D: Web of Truth

[Diego Zapata]

He stroked his chin in thought.

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DetDee99> Actually, how risky *is* getting into the student records?

[Natalie Denisov]

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Unknown> To do it well and cover my tracks? Pretty difficult. I'll have to make it look like it's someone else doing it, someone with a technopath, because I have to assume they'll have ways to look for that tampering. Only a couple of potential sources of those, so I have to minimally crack them to make it look like they're the ones doing the hack in case it's discovered. It'd be easier if I could get close to the servers the records are on, but my normal access doesn't work anymore.

[Diego Zapata]

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DetDee99> Unfortunately, I think now we do need to see what's in their files and, maybe more importantly, our own files.

As he chatted, he thought to check the net for any connection between Lippincott and the prince guy harassing Katarina. It wasn't quite a hunch, he was just covering his bases.

[Natalie Denisov]

Somehow the message managed to convey a sigh without actually including the word.

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Unknown> Okay. This might take some time.

[Narrator]

As he chatted, he thought to check the net for any connection between Lippincott and the prince guy harassing Katarina. It wasn't quite a hunch, he was just covering his bases.

No direction connection between Lippencott and Prince Alex, but he had visited Eastern Europe several times in recent years on various government trips -- Symkaria, Transylvania, Europa, Latveria, Rupistana...

[Diego Zapata]

He looked for news articles about the trips, particularly the Symkaria one.

[Natalie Denisov]

Natalie, in the meantime, was busy bouncing requests between servers, creating a tangled web of nonsense that vaguely pointed fingers at Russia without anything concrete. With that done, she starts trying to worm her way into the school's systems to attempt to retrieve the student records.

[Narrator]

He looked for news articles about the trips, particularly the Symkaria one.

Nothing in specific popped up; boring routine diplomatic trips don't tend to make headlines, much less from mid-tier bureaucrats.

The trip to Latveria is a little more interesting in and of itself, as DOOM DOES NOT NORMALLY HAVE VISITORS, but again, there wasn't much specific news coverage of the event.

Natalie, in the meantime, was busy bouncing requests between servers, creating a tangled web of nonsense that vaguely pointed fingers at Russia without anything concrete. With that done, she starts trying to worm her way into the school's systems to attempt to retrieve the student records.

Under normal circumstances, when she had to try to poke access at things without people knowing, this was much tougher. The advantage of no longer having a robot in charge of the school, however, was that the security wasn't as up-to-snuff as it had once been -- or, at least, the proverbial locks hadn't been changed. It wouldn't be too difficult for Natalie to worm her way in, and she soon found herself with user access, at the very least.

This would almost certainly tip someone off, though her attempts to cover her tracks would at least obfuscate the problem.

[Natalie Denisov]

User access would at least let her peruse the files and with her memory, a look was almost as good as a download. It might not be whatever hyper secret files they might be maintaining, but it'd have to be good enough for the moment. She starts by querying Tereza's file, then Sam's and Vivienne's, then the prefects' files, working her way out in a web that played into the Russia charade.

[Diego Zapata]

Out of ideas, Diego waited for an update from Natalie.

[Narrator]

User access would at least let her peruse the files and with her memory, a look was almost as good as a download. It might not be whatever hyper secret files they might be maintaining, but it'd have to be good enough for the moment. She starts by querying Tereza's file, then Sam's and Vivienne's, then the prefects' files, working her way out in a web that played into the Russia charade.

Most of the files were roughly what you would have expected, and similar to what they would have been under ASHLIE's regime. Their class schedules, roommates, special accommodations for their powers, etcetra.

For Tereza and Sam, though not Vivienne, there was also extensive notes from their power training sessions. Notes and exact measurements on "Subject 4203" (Tereza) and her precise strength, the exact temperature to which she could lower things. Extraordinarily precise values for "Subject 3201" (Sam) and her ability to alter her mass and density, notes on the rates of spread and range of telepathic suggestions. Each came with a list of precisely what had defeated them in each training session, with notes on how those could be avoided in the future; suggestions for alterations to the training regime to help, say, isolate a werewolf's weakness against silver and help them fight through the pain. Each also had some genetics notes attached, something about the precise expression of the X-Gene in question? It was all fairly advanced and outside of Natalie's specific area of expertise. But all the students she flipped through seemed to have those same kind of genetic markers noted and cross-collated; telepaths marked with similarities and differences, shifters, energy generators, etcetera. There was quite a lot of work being done here, actually.

The same sort of information was available in the prefects' files; it seems they were not immune to getting beaten down regularly in power training. The genetic profile section for Quinn, Ghost and Zandra, however, also included some kind of notation for some sort of treatment? They seemed to have been administered....something redacted on a regular basis, with alterations in dose and frequency as the semester had worn on.

That was not present in Will's file; he wasn't receiving the treatment. What Will's file DID have that the others didn't was some kind of massive series of attachments, terabytes and terabytes of data, some of it being actively updated as Natalie peaked.

[Natalie Denisov]

She had no room for terabytes of data, so she sampled the most recent collections of data to get a feel for the type of data and moved on, touching the files of some of the students outside the conspiracy like Wanda, Chase, and Vic to make it look like she was casting a wide net in her information grab. While she did that, another process spun up, trying to piece together context around the redacted sections on the prefects' files to see if she could determine a bit more about the 'treatment'.

[Narrator]

The most recent data from Will's file was a video feed of a protest going on on campus, filmed from the side of the quad.

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"Oh, great, the wrigglewart is here.  I guess that proves there's always room for Jell-O"

a voice was heard from just off camera.



There wasn't enough in the files to try to get a grip on exactly what the treatment was -- that information wasn't accessible at her current level of access, and in fact might not even be stored digitally at all. The timing was a little interesting, as it seemed to mostly synch up with a full round of power testing classes for the majority of the student body -- a round of tests, and then a 'treatment'. That could be a coincidence, as a bi-weekly testing regime isn't a particularly unusual period of time, but the fact that the few variations in the treatment cycles also seemed to match students missing their allotted power training courses for one reason or another provided another piece of circumstantial evidence that there was a connection there.

[Natalie Denisov]

She started extracting herself from the system. Better to not push right this minute, let them think it was a preliminary hack and focus on closing off that avenue to open up other vulnerabilities.

Once she was out of the system.

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Unknown> I've got nothing but bad news.
Unknown> They are treating the prefects with *something*. Coincides with some students missing power training and is on roughly the same schedule. No idea what it is.
Unknown> There's also some sort of video feed attached to Will, going to take a stab that what he sees, the admin sees.

[Diego Zapata]

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DetDee99> Holy shit. And the rest of us?
DetDee99> Also, that's some creepy Big Brother shit.

[Natalie Denisov]

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Unknown> Pretty detailed information on our power training and limitations, looks to be taken from power training classes. Also some notes about what I think are genetic similarities between similar powers.
Unknown> In the process of trying to recreate the files I've seen from memory.

[Diego Zapata]

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DetDee99> So...  L's starting to look like a mad scientist. Or at least an unethical one.
DetDee99> Too bad your memory isn't evidence.

[Natalie Denisov]

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Unknown> Downloads can be traced because they *go* somewhere.

[Diego Zapata]

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DetDee99> Then do you think you could get that digital evidence to X-Corp when the time comes?

[Natalie Denisov]

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Unknown> I can do my best.

[Diego Zapata]

Diego sent out a message to Sam, for telepathic dissemination, describing what they uncovered to the rest of the Resistance. He also advised not overreacting to said information as it could tip their hand.