Re: LAST. THING. STANDING. [S!1][ROUND ONE: TELEVISION LAND]
12-08-2011, 07:52 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Sanzh.
Agent Winston fell face first onto the ground, following his leap through the television. He looked around quickly-- he was in an police office of some kind, judging from the police officers further away. Anywhere else, the fall would exacerbate the injuries from his recent concussion, but for now that injury was practically unnoticeable. The narrative of this channel didn’t need Winston spending a week recovering from an injury, not when there was an unresolved plot-line to tie together. He stood up, looking at a few of the LAPD officers gathered around him.
“Gentlemen, I trust you know what this is.” Winston brandished an FBI badge, immediately distracting the assembled policemen from the fact that he had just fallen out of a television. Winston continued to speak.
“Yes, gentlemen, I’m afraid this is now a federal case. Hopefully I won’t have to involve myself too heavily, but an agent was lost in the line of duty, and as such the government will need to make sure we get to the heart of the matter. Now, I trust I have your cooperation?”
For a few seconds, the assorted officers remained still, trying to comprehend what had just happened. This case had gone federal. A kidnapper in medieval armor had transitioned from a comparatively simple triple homicide case to a matter of national security. The assorted officers quickly double-timed their work. Agent Winston settled for getting a mug of coffee. As the coffee machine worked, he was approached by a technician-- one of the countless technological masters of the strange and confusing realms of the Internet.
“Sir, I was told to report to you about the case...” His words awkwardly trailed off, as though he wasn’t certain just how to end this sentence.
“Yes. Talk to me, uh...”
“Jenkins, sir. I operate the mainframes we use in our investigatory work.”
Agent Winston took this mockery of the past ten years of personal computer development completely seriously. “Alright, Jenkins, show me what’s going on.”
“Well sir,” Jenkins walked over to a conspicuously over-sized monitor, pulling up some horribly-designed but aesthetically impressive applications, “we’ve got a program designed to monitor criminal activity over the Internet. Ever since this homicide case came up, we’ve been, uh, getting a lot of weird activity. Here, take a look at this.” Jenkins pulled up a large, high-resolution map of Los Angeles, splotched with red and white marks.
“What am I looking at here, Jenkins?”
“See those red splotches?” Winston nodded in response. “Those are criminal IP addresses-- usually they’re using thirty-two bit IPP240 encryption protocols, so we can’t get a solid read on them, but we can ping them to get a more accurate location. Now, this is the map as of ten minutes ago.”
Jenkins loaded another image. Los Angeles was inundated with red-- the satellite image of the city looked as though an artist from above had poured buckets of red paint down from the heavens. Winston gasped.
“Yeah, this can’t be a coincidence. None of our usual software can track this activity, there’s just too much for our servers to handle. Even after the latest round of upgrades, we still didn’t have the bandwidth to manage this.”
“Is there anything else we can go off? Bank account numbers, usernames, something?” Agent Winston probably knew less about what he was talking about than the ostensible specialist, but he couldn’t help but be caught in the moment.
“Actually, hang on...” Jenkins pulled up another application. “Here we go. Ever since this case started we’ve seen a new username come up on a lot of IRC channels-- Machinebird.” His attention turned to the federal agent, whose eyes had widened in shock. “Uh, sir, are you alright?”
Agent Winston started to put things together. This alien, only moments after she had left, had somehow managed to cut her way through the ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department. “How dangerous is this thing...” He muttered to himself.
“Sir?” Jenkins expectantly gazed at Agent Winston.
“Jenkins, can you isolate that IP address? Work your magic? I don’t know who you were after before this went federal, but let me assure you-- this Machinebird is the real mastermind, I can assure you that.”
“Sir, uh...” He began to trail off before he caught Winston’s stern gaze. “I’d have to make a PHP database just to decrypt it, and even then they’ve got to be cycling through at least a hundred IP addresses, not to mention proxies...”
Winston brought himself closer to Jenkins, looking at him eye to eye. “Jenkins.”
“...Sir?”
“Innocent lives are depending on you. We need to find Machinebird. Have I made myself clear?” Jenkins gulped before nodding an assent.
“Good. Keep me posted, I’m going to be on the streets. You’re doing good work, Jenkins-- don’t let us down.”
And with that, Agent Winston left, leaving Jenkins to sort through the convoluted mystery of the Internet that this channel offered.
”Sweetie, what are you doing?”
Ablendan Blake experimentally read aloud the new cue that had been painted onto another wall. He had just entered the kitchen, having passed through a thoroughly trashed living room. He felt the light touch of fabric against his foot, and looked down to see a torn up apron and floral print dress. He heard a loud clatter and turned his attention to the kitchen’s inhabitant.
His apparent wife-- at least, the spouse this channel had assigned to him-- was a feathered humanoid, with noticeable metal protrusions throughout her body. One of her arms seemed to be completely covered in metal, and was clumsily grasping at a metal box, rotating it to see it from a variety of angles. She moved the object to her other arm, using her metallic hand to crush and pull away the metal exterior, the hand functioning similarly to an over-sized can-opener. It was only as she tossed the now-useless covering that she noticed Ablendan had entered.
“Honey, shouldn’t you be--” Ablendan began to speak, his voice hoarse from years of dis-use.
Kriok interrupted. ”Don’t bother with the prompts. The cue I’m supposed to be reading is telling me how I can explain this disaster, and something else about how glad I am to see you’ve returned from the office safely. Neither of those lines of conversation fit my current priorities; no doubt you have your own goals to pursue.”
Ablendan was taking aback by her response-- part of him expected her to not even respond but just launch an attack on him, as so many others had. Part of him hoped that she would-- his hunger had been sated, and he couldn’t draw forth those reservoirs of animalistic fury that came with starvation. She could defeat him and bring him that final rest he so desired. However, as long as she remained neutral, he could indulge his curiosity. He began to speak, un-used to the sound of his own voice.
“Who.. are you?”
The avian scowled at the question. This was, after all, the contestant described as a horrific abomination. Even with the business suit, he was still unsettling. She wasn’t interested in maintaining particularly close contact with him-- if anything, she would enjoy redirecting him to another channel and allowing her to pursue her work in private. She calculated a response before beginning again.
“I am another one of the abducted. You no doubt recall the time spent in a cage, presented before that teeming crowd. I was there as well.”
Ablendan tilted his head. While he did recall his moment trapped in the cages, along with mentions of a death-match, he was far too absorbed in his own hunger to notice any other abducted. He experienced a few moments of insight-- who had he missed as he remained unsatisfied and distracted by his hunger? How many other abducted were there? Were they as interesting specimens as himself and this avian?
Could they bring him the finality he wanted? If not, would they serve his hunger? Would their final moments--
His private moment of solace was interrupted by Kriok leaving the kitchen. A cue card appeared on the wall, apparently a prompt to tell Kriok that she forgot to finish cooking the roast. He examined the oven, looking for the food mentioned. The oven remained empty-- clearly, the household had has veered incalculably far from the pre-planned routine of this idyllic domestic comedy. Out of the corner of his eye, Ablendan could almost see the sky flicker and cringe in irritation.
He entered to see the dining room table covered in a variety of objects-- an assortment of metallic objects and tools, wood pieces taken from the garage, pieces of jewelry, the toaster she had wrecked, light-bulbs-- the variety of items was impressive.
“What are you... doing?” Ablendan asked, his raspy voice painful for both speaker and listener.
“Building.” Kriok’s reply was terse as she picked up each item, examining it and analyzing its composition, before setting it down once again.
“Building... what?”
Kriok nearly began to say that she was constructing a high-density capacitor array to power some of her more complicated tools, but she caught herself before she continued. Even if though he likely lacked any comprehension of science, it wasn’t necessary for him to learn just what she was working on.
She noticed a prompt behind him. She tried her best to smile at her assigned spouse before beginning.
“Sweetie, don’t you need to pick up Junior from baseball practice? After all, us women-folk can’t be trusted behind the wheels of an automobile.”
The disgust in her words was almost palpable.
Ablendan Blake had no interest in children, but he did pick up on some of the sarcasm lacing Kriok’s words. He was satiated enough to be willing to drop the issue. He quietly backed away, exiting through the broken-down door. He looked out into the expanse of grey-scale suburbia.
For an animalistic killer such as him, there was no better hunting reserve. When the hunger once again overcame him, he would truly feast.
Agent Winston fell face first onto the ground, following his leap through the television. He looked around quickly-- he was in an police office of some kind, judging from the police officers further away. Anywhere else, the fall would exacerbate the injuries from his recent concussion, but for now that injury was practically unnoticeable. The narrative of this channel didn’t need Winston spending a week recovering from an injury, not when there was an unresolved plot-line to tie together. He stood up, looking at a few of the LAPD officers gathered around him.
“Gentlemen, I trust you know what this is.” Winston brandished an FBI badge, immediately distracting the assembled policemen from the fact that he had just fallen out of a television. Winston continued to speak.
“Yes, gentlemen, I’m afraid this is now a federal case. Hopefully I won’t have to involve myself too heavily, but an agent was lost in the line of duty, and as such the government will need to make sure we get to the heart of the matter. Now, I trust I have your cooperation?”
For a few seconds, the assorted officers remained still, trying to comprehend what had just happened. This case had gone federal. A kidnapper in medieval armor had transitioned from a comparatively simple triple homicide case to a matter of national security. The assorted officers quickly double-timed their work. Agent Winston settled for getting a mug of coffee. As the coffee machine worked, he was approached by a technician-- one of the countless technological masters of the strange and confusing realms of the Internet.
“Sir, I was told to report to you about the case...” His words awkwardly trailed off, as though he wasn’t certain just how to end this sentence.
“Yes. Talk to me, uh...”
“Jenkins, sir. I operate the mainframes we use in our investigatory work.”
Agent Winston took this mockery of the past ten years of personal computer development completely seriously. “Alright, Jenkins, show me what’s going on.”
“Well sir,” Jenkins walked over to a conspicuously over-sized monitor, pulling up some horribly-designed but aesthetically impressive applications, “we’ve got a program designed to monitor criminal activity over the Internet. Ever since this homicide case came up, we’ve been, uh, getting a lot of weird activity. Here, take a look at this.” Jenkins pulled up a large, high-resolution map of Los Angeles, splotched with red and white marks.
“What am I looking at here, Jenkins?”
“See those red splotches?” Winston nodded in response. “Those are criminal IP addresses-- usually they’re using thirty-two bit IPP240 encryption protocols, so we can’t get a solid read on them, but we can ping them to get a more accurate location. Now, this is the map as of ten minutes ago.”
Jenkins loaded another image. Los Angeles was inundated with red-- the satellite image of the city looked as though an artist from above had poured buckets of red paint down from the heavens. Winston gasped.
“Yeah, this can’t be a coincidence. None of our usual software can track this activity, there’s just too much for our servers to handle. Even after the latest round of upgrades, we still didn’t have the bandwidth to manage this.”
“Is there anything else we can go off? Bank account numbers, usernames, something?” Agent Winston probably knew less about what he was talking about than the ostensible specialist, but he couldn’t help but be caught in the moment.
“Actually, hang on...” Jenkins pulled up another application. “Here we go. Ever since this case started we’ve seen a new username come up on a lot of IRC channels-- Machinebird.” His attention turned to the federal agent, whose eyes had widened in shock. “Uh, sir, are you alright?”
Agent Winston started to put things together. This alien, only moments after she had left, had somehow managed to cut her way through the ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department. “How dangerous is this thing...” He muttered to himself.
“Sir?” Jenkins expectantly gazed at Agent Winston.
“Jenkins, can you isolate that IP address? Work your magic? I don’t know who you were after before this went federal, but let me assure you-- this Machinebird is the real mastermind, I can assure you that.”
“Sir, uh...” He began to trail off before he caught Winston’s stern gaze. “I’d have to make a PHP database just to decrypt it, and even then they’ve got to be cycling through at least a hundred IP addresses, not to mention proxies...”
Winston brought himself closer to Jenkins, looking at him eye to eye. “Jenkins.”
“...Sir?”
“Innocent lives are depending on you. We need to find Machinebird. Have I made myself clear?” Jenkins gulped before nodding an assent.
“Good. Keep me posted, I’m going to be on the streets. You’re doing good work, Jenkins-- don’t let us down.”
And with that, Agent Winston left, leaving Jenkins to sort through the convoluted mystery of the Internet that this channel offered.
”Sweetie, what are you doing?”
Ablendan Blake experimentally read aloud the new cue that had been painted onto another wall. He had just entered the kitchen, having passed through a thoroughly trashed living room. He felt the light touch of fabric against his foot, and looked down to see a torn up apron and floral print dress. He heard a loud clatter and turned his attention to the kitchen’s inhabitant.
His apparent wife-- at least, the spouse this channel had assigned to him-- was a feathered humanoid, with noticeable metal protrusions throughout her body. One of her arms seemed to be completely covered in metal, and was clumsily grasping at a metal box, rotating it to see it from a variety of angles. She moved the object to her other arm, using her metallic hand to crush and pull away the metal exterior, the hand functioning similarly to an over-sized can-opener. It was only as she tossed the now-useless covering that she noticed Ablendan had entered.
“Honey, shouldn’t you be--” Ablendan began to speak, his voice hoarse from years of dis-use.
Kriok interrupted. ”Don’t bother with the prompts. The cue I’m supposed to be reading is telling me how I can explain this disaster, and something else about how glad I am to see you’ve returned from the office safely. Neither of those lines of conversation fit my current priorities; no doubt you have your own goals to pursue.”
Ablendan was taking aback by her response-- part of him expected her to not even respond but just launch an attack on him, as so many others had. Part of him hoped that she would-- his hunger had been sated, and he couldn’t draw forth those reservoirs of animalistic fury that came with starvation. She could defeat him and bring him that final rest he so desired. However, as long as she remained neutral, he could indulge his curiosity. He began to speak, un-used to the sound of his own voice.
“Who.. are you?”
The avian scowled at the question. This was, after all, the contestant described as a horrific abomination. Even with the business suit, he was still unsettling. She wasn’t interested in maintaining particularly close contact with him-- if anything, she would enjoy redirecting him to another channel and allowing her to pursue her work in private. She calculated a response before beginning again.
“I am another one of the abducted. You no doubt recall the time spent in a cage, presented before that teeming crowd. I was there as well.”
Ablendan tilted his head. While he did recall his moment trapped in the cages, along with mentions of a death-match, he was far too absorbed in his own hunger to notice any other abducted. He experienced a few moments of insight-- who had he missed as he remained unsatisfied and distracted by his hunger? How many other abducted were there? Were they as interesting specimens as himself and this avian?
Could they bring him the finality he wanted? If not, would they serve his hunger? Would their final moments--
His private moment of solace was interrupted by Kriok leaving the kitchen. A cue card appeared on the wall, apparently a prompt to tell Kriok that she forgot to finish cooking the roast. He examined the oven, looking for the food mentioned. The oven remained empty-- clearly, the household had has veered incalculably far from the pre-planned routine of this idyllic domestic comedy. Out of the corner of his eye, Ablendan could almost see the sky flicker and cringe in irritation.
He entered to see the dining room table covered in a variety of objects-- an assortment of metallic objects and tools, wood pieces taken from the garage, pieces of jewelry, the toaster she had wrecked, light-bulbs-- the variety of items was impressive.
“What are you... doing?” Ablendan asked, his raspy voice painful for both speaker and listener.
“Building.” Kriok’s reply was terse as she picked up each item, examining it and analyzing its composition, before setting it down once again.
“Building... what?”
Kriok nearly began to say that she was constructing a high-density capacitor array to power some of her more complicated tools, but she caught herself before she continued. Even if though he likely lacked any comprehension of science, it wasn’t necessary for him to learn just what she was working on.
She noticed a prompt behind him. She tried her best to smile at her assigned spouse before beginning.
“Sweetie, don’t you need to pick up Junior from baseball practice? After all, us women-folk can’t be trusted behind the wheels of an automobile.”
The disgust in her words was almost palpable.
Ablendan Blake had no interest in children, but he did pick up on some of the sarcasm lacing Kriok’s words. He was satiated enough to be willing to drop the issue. He quietly backed away, exiting through the broken-down door. He looked out into the expanse of grey-scale suburbia.
For an animalistic killer such as him, there was no better hunting reserve. When the hunger once again overcame him, he would truly feast.