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It's a quiet evening at a local cafe. Totally normal. Tasty coffee and deli sandwiches, with some dessert treats in a display case. Asbolus, Mearc and Alex have either all come here by coincidence, or made plans--up to ya'll! Going to let you guys get settled, then I'll jump in.
Mearcstapa's on his laptop at a table by the window, typing up a report for a recent job. His outfit is standard for him, but for those who can see his Mien, there's a certain dullness to his freckles--less neon than usual, less brightness. Faded.
Asbolus, for his part, was emerging from the counter with a nice little veggie sandwich and a cup of tea for himself. He spared Mearc an "up for some company?" sort of look, not wanting to assume.
Alex enjoys hanging out in cafes and working on her laptop sometimes, because it lets her feel like she's actually a part of the world even when she doesn't get to interact with anyone. If she's there with a friend, like with Mearc, even if they're both working it makes her feel a little more human.
She still creeps the hell out of everyone else, so the cafe probably isn't very crowded, and she hasn't touched a single sip of the coffee she bought, but she's there.
The cafe is indeed not that full--and people are giving Alex a wide berth, side stepping to get out of the way when she orders and waits for her coffee.
Mearc fields that look from Asbolus with something of an apathetic 'sure' kind of a shrug, his freckles shifting color more sluggishly as usual toward red. "Alex, you want to meet another friend of mine?"
"Sure!" Alex says with enthusiasm as she looks up from her computer and regards Asbolus with a smile. Then she glances at the table, shifts some things over to make sure there's enough room with the cups and laptops that are already there, and gestures to a seat. "I'm Alex," she says to Asbolus with a smile.
He nodded to his fellow Darkling at the affirmation and headed his way, giving Alex a polite smile along the way. "Asbolus, pleasure to meet you. Hope I'm not interrupting?"
"Asbolus, Alex has been a friend of mine since before I moved to Philly. We both work in the security industry, but she's much more of a digital expert than I am. Alex, Asbolus is a friend who's considering pursuing work as a private investigator." That seems the safest explanation for the moment.
There is however, a couple tables over, a couple of college age girls sitting together. They have some books open and a couple cups of coffee, clearly in the middle of a study date. One of the girls--a blonde, keeps giving annoyed looks towards her study partner--a latina girl, who is looking kind of spacey and not paying very much attention.
"Oh!" Alex says like that sounds like a useful set of skills. "Hey, if you ever need some assistance for a case when it comes to digging up digital dirt, I'm pretty good at that kind of thing." She reaches over and closes the top of her laptop. "Nothing that can't wait until later. Code's not going to feel bad if I ignore it."
"What is wrong with you?" the blonde finally snaps to her friend.
"Huh?" The latina girl blinks. "What, sorry. Just having trouble focusing."
The blonde gives her a more sympathetic look. "Are you still having trouble sleeping?"
"No, actually." She laughs. "I've been sleeping amazingly. Better than I have in years. I've been listening to these ASMR videos and they put me out like a light. Here, let me send you a link, you'll love them. Might help you not be so wond up..." She picks up her phone to tap at.
The blonde rolls her eyes, but digs out her phone from a pocket.
"Ah...quite the intereresting field, from what I know." He nodded, setting his items down as he got settled at the table. "Will keep that in mind. Still looking into the specifics for licensing and whatnot, admittedly."
He spared a glance towards the girls as they talked, as he tended to with louder noises in his vicinity, but something about the phone made him go stock still, the air about him dropping a few degrees.
Mearcstapa's freckles all shift greener rather instantly, and he gives Asbolus a Look--there's a soft rustling sound that even Alex can hear, as he grimaces. "I see it too. That's...a problem."
Alex pauses the reaction in Asbolus's body language, and then the remarks from Mearcstapa, and turns to glance the direction of the girls when there's indication something might be an issue over there. Not staring, just a glance in the way that she might if they were being annoying and attracted attention.
an answer. "Who or what here is most likely to hurt me?")
When Alex calls upon her Auspex, she can clearly see that the latina's phone is glowing now with a weird bright green tinted light.
The latina taps at her phone's screen, and a few seconds later the blonde girl's phone pings. The blonde taps at the screen, bringing up a video. She tucks some headphones into her ears, to listen to a youtube video that she's pulled up.
"Yes..." he replied quietly, carefully turning his gaze back towards the pair but keeping his ears perked towards the table. "Yes it is."
"Alex, what would it take to kill the wifi in here fast?" He gives her an almost desperate look.
Alex flips the top of her laptop open and says, "on it." Her fingers fly over her keyboard as she continues to talk, quietly enough not to be overheard beyond their table. "Not that it will stop phones from just connecting to the cell network instead. I'm going to fire up the toolset I wrote to turn my laptop into a pineapple." That probably makes sense to someone, right? If only to her. "That will let me see what they trying to go to, and also reroute the traffic." These kinds of tools are usually used to snoop for passwords and such, not to stop someone from watching a youtube video, but y'know...
"Any port in a storm..." He nodded to Alex, one hand briefly lifting up off the table before he caught himself and picked up his tea with both hands, if only to keep them both occupied.
"If you find where they're going, don't watch the videos yourself. They have the signature of Someone who Asbolus and I both worked under, once. Someone we'd rather not have noticing you. Alright?" He gives Alex a bit of a Look, checking that the undertones of that message were received.
Alex moves with expert speed, managing to get in and reroute the girl's phone before the page had fully loaded. The girl looks at the screen, then wrinkles her nose and gives her friend a glare. "What the hell, Val? This isn't fucking funny! If we don't finish this project it's both our asses flunking, you know!"
The latina--Val, apparently--blinks, looking confused. "Huh?"
Alex's eyes are flitting over her screen, but not because there's any video. "Don't worry," she says. "All text over here. I'm just logging all the traffic for the time being. I'll grep it later for youtube li--someone is looking at porn in a cafe? Come on, people. Anyway," she looks up at Mearc and flashes a grin. "people are going to start getting really annoyed when they try to watch videos, but at least their phones won't think the wifi is down and just use their cell connection."
Asbolus relaxed slowly at Alex's response, allowing himself a small smirk about where they had been rerouted. "Very impressive."
"She often is. And she's someone I trust with my secrets; ask later, some place else, and one of us can explain why, but for now, I'll just say she's one of ours." Mearc glances back over at the girls, frowning. "This won't protect them for long, though. We need to do more than jam this in the long run."
"Lets just stop messing around and get this done," the blonde grumbles, clearly annoyed by having been Rick Rolled.
Val frowns, still confused but chastised enough to not argue. She sets her phone down on the table and sighs, pulling a book closer to look at, though its clear to see by anyone looking that she's distracted and dazed as the blonde starts talking about their chemistry project.
"Well," Alex says only briefly looking up from what her fingers are doing on the keyboard. "I'm currently working on spoofing a DMCA takedown notice for the youtube video, from BMG. I don't think anyone at youtube even actually checks those, they just yank the videos until someone complains and proves they're not in violation."
"The question remains of how it got there in the first place, though..." He let out a slow breath, taking a sip of his tea and letting the two tech wizards do what they do best.
"Maybe you should write it, and I'll work my magic for making it look like BMG actually sent it," Alex says as she stops typing to look up. "You've probably actually received one of these before, unlike me. Want to write something up and shoot it over to me?"
With the two working together, they're both very certain they've nailed down the wording!
Alex fires off the email once she thinks they've solidified the word and she's got a convincing forgery of their email headers. "This isn't going to stop whoever put that up from just re-uploading it, or something like it," she comments. "We're probably going to have to see if we can track down who did it, for that." She looks up at Mearc and then at Asbolus as she says that. "I'd love it if I had some idea what was going on, but I'll help even if I don't."
"Probably better discussed in a less public setting." He looked to Mearc at that.
"I'll detail it, but not in public meatspace or plaintext. It's Business, Lex. Not sure how far-reaching, but it's the sort of thing our friend Ari gets told about."
"I understand," Alex says with a nod, but a worried expression as well. She looks at her screen again and clicks and types around for a few moments, but without the same urgency now. "Just in case, I'm going to see if I can find out who the two ladies over there are. If one of our neighbors might have their hooks in, being able to track them down might be important." She looks up as Asbolus. "Think you can help on that front?"
"That I can certainely do."
Mearc nods. "Not just one, Alex. The devil we know, if you will. Hm, wonder if I can use my platform effectively in all of this, somehow."
"That's worrying," Alex says in a soft tone, understatement of the year. "I don't know, but we should definitely see if we can figure out who was behind it. I mean, I assume your neighbor doesn't tend to upload youtube videos personally, right?"
"Might be worth a try, but it may also bring you undue attention." Asbolus shook his head quietly. "I imagine there's some sort of advocate doing the work here, yes."
"Indeed. Though tech's not completely foreign to our neighbor. Think...Shadowrun." He looks down at his tea, grimacing. "The thing of it is, this probably isn't a local problem, so solving it may involve coordination. We don't know where the video was posted from, right?"
"Not yet," Alex says with a shake of her head. She's still occasionally looking things up on her computer, but also looking up to engage in the conversation. "I do know that she shared it on facebook and at least one of her friends was really into it, too," she makes a motion with her head in the direction of the blonde. "We might be able to track where the video was posted from, going back to that topic, but that would get into some much more serious hacking."
Asbolus sat back in his chair as he thought a moment, looking over to Mearc as something dawned on him. "Can think of another possible route for information, although it may be more in your wheelhouse than mine."
"Mm. I think I know what you're referring to, but I don't know how prepared I am to engage with that." He glances sidelong at Alex. "Don't do anything that'll put yourself at too much risk yet, please?"
"Of course," Alex says. "I try to avoid putting myself at risk with this kind of thing. I don't like the idea of going to jail, when dealing with purely mundane things, let alone all of the other possibilities in this case." She makes a puzzled face.
"...yeah, I can't imagine having a window in your cell would be good for your skin." He snorts quietly. "Alright, add this to my List of Situations and Problems. It's good, keeps me busy."
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