OPERATION: YOUTHFUL DISOBEDIENCE

[stresstokens]

WHO: Members of the grand curfew-breaking plan!
WHEN: During the Moorecroft event.
WHERE: Various Moorecroft locales.
WHAT: A bunch of youths have gotten together to break curfew in tandem to get to the bottom of the mystery at heart of this place -- but what they find leads to more questions than answers.
NOTES\WARNINGS: Probable violence, death, emotional trauma, cursing. All the fun stuff! I'll be putting the log headers for pre/during/post-curfew breaking logs in the comments, so just hang tight while I do that, though all members are of course more than welcome to post their own logs if that suits their tagging style better.

Comments

2

[levelshift]

[Accelerator only reluctantly attends these meetings, making sure to stick around in the back silently for the majority of them. He doesn't particularly want to be here and he's antisocial by nature, but he can't really turn down an opportunity to gain information, both on Moorcroft and the other Etrayans intent on doing the whole investigation thing. He doesn't contribute very much, though it isn't because he wants to stymie the rest of the group or anything. He doesn't really have anything to add to their plans, so he's fine with taking a backseat and lending his skills when it's necessary.

The footage, however, is intriguing! It raises more than a few questions in his mind. A lot of them are about Eos, and in true nerd fashion some of them are about how they managed to acquire this data. Sue him, okay? He was raised in the most scientifically advanced city in his universe and his brain is wired for this kind of thing. He can't help being a little curious.

Much like the other meetings, Accelerator is loitering around the exit to the room the group has commandeered, leaned up against the wall with his crutch. He lets out a little sigh.]

That isn't fucking surprising. After all, she's Aurora's older sister.

[As far as artificial intelligence goes, they're pretty advanced.]

Were you able to analyze the audio from that footage?

[tinflower]

I couldn't get any. [ There's a wince as he admits that, but. ] I-- we were using what we could find in town for the cameras and they weren't that good, so I was focusing on a wider camera and stopping it from getting fucked. I didn't have time to work on the audio.

[ And therefore, attempting to capture audio wasn't a priority--it was shut off, defunct for what they were aiming for. ]

There's nothing-- 'cept in the other recording I made. [ Which maybe Accelerator already heard, and that's why he's asking, and hoping for more answers towards what the fuck that was. ] But, it didn't really last long. We'd, um, we'd need to find better materials if we wanted to try and get some good audio.

[ And time, plenty of it. But Gorgug isn't speaking as if he should be the one to do it. ]

[levelshift]

[All of that is pretty reasonable, if disappointing. If they had more to work with - more audio or video, more data in general - then they might've had a chance of figuring out what's going on. As it is, the video they've got only raises more questions.

His tone is frustrated, though that isn't directed at Gorgug.]

The stores around here are shit. [He agrees with the lack of equipment around. It seems like the stuff here is generally a few decades, maybe fifty years, behind what he's used to. Workable, but just barely.]

Asking Eos for better stuff would be too suspicious. She'd probably figure out what's going on fast.

[tinflower]

[ He nods. ] I already had some of the materials I used to protect the camera. If we wanted to try and get better audio...

[ Hm. He frowns. ] There might be something at the school? Or if anyone's at a job that could help us get equipment. [ That's the only avenues Gorgug can think of, but the latter might be tricky. ] But I don't think we'd be able to make another drone--I think we need some better way of hiding whatever we make so the bots don't go for it.

[levelshift]

An American suburban school's likely not gonna have much. Someone's work is the better option.

[At least, from what he's seen of the high school it's painfully lacking in the typical equipment one could find at the more prestigious schools in Academy City....]

Making something smaller would be possible, but with the sensors on the robots I'm betting you'd have to look on the scale of nanomachines. [He waves his hand dismissively.] I doubt there's anywhere around here that has that kind of technology available to work with. Have you thought about just hiding the damn thing in plain sight?

[tinflower]

Sure, but-- they still found everything. But I didn't try hiding anything around town, so- maybe there's spots there they won't think is weird. Maybe hiding something around a camera or inside a store?

[ Hm. There's still options. Plus... ]

I'm kinda interested if whatever we leave out there will shut off like the first cameras did. It's like whatever was out there disrupted machine--it turned it off.

[levelshift]

Or inside something that gives off the kind of signals you'd expect to see from a camera, like a traffic or security camera. Even electrical utility boxes would likely produce enough RF noise to hide one.

[He isn't sure if the companion bots here would have sensors sensitive enough to detect the difference. It could be worth a try.]

It 'hit the button and shut it off' kind of off? Or interrupted its power supply?

[tinflower]

[ Gorgug nods to the first of what Accelerator says, similar to what he was trying to express. It would be useful to check even to gather information on how well the bots target objects that are "misplaced", but also, on that last question-- ]

Interrupted-- it was recorded indoors, so it had to be some kind of electrical jammer. Maybe something about whatever was out there kills power.

[ Which would be bad for any of their electrics or using them in the future, but: ]

But the camera could've been weak--maybe there's something we can do for any others we use to give them more power. I can put some magic in them. But [ but, ] anything out there might be able to tell if there's magic too.

[ So it's not for certain an aid. It's about as tricky as any of this has been so far. But he's thinking about what Accelerator said, a kind of side thought as- ]

If we could get access to any cameras that face the streets... or find out if anything even records at night.

[ That'd be pretty useful. ]

[levelshift]

[Accelerator clicks his tongue. That isn't good, there is a lot of stuff in the world that can interrupt signals, so that doesn't narrow things down at all.]

Eos' bots might have equipment that lets them detect magic. Unless the basic infrastructure around here incorporates it, anything magical would stick out like a sore thumb.

[It does for him when he's sensing magic via its vectors, after all. It wouldn't surprise him if it was the same for the bots.

He's tempted to suggest Connor, see if he can wirelessly patch into any pre-existing street cameras that connect to a network. He could likely do it, though there's the whole legality of it when Connor is law enforcement. Plus, he isn't really sure he wants to volunteer him because of his very specific android ability. It'd be edging too close to treating him like a tool, and Accelerator isn't keen on that.]

It might not be that hard to brute force access to those kinds of cameras, if they use a fucking network.

[tinflower]

[ He nods at Accelerator's assessment with magic, knowing and agreeing. It was tricky for Gorgug, in this scenario: his understanding of technology wasn't the same as other worlds, and he had to rely on magic. Find ways to hide it, but that was turning out to be a given in this place. The companion bots were on high alert. ]

Can you do that?

[ Did they want to try it? ]

[levelshift]

Maybe. [That answer is coming without any hesitation.] When you get down to it, encryption is about math. Encoding something so it's secure isn't really complex, it's just that the algorithms that were used to do the encryption are so huge that people normally can't process them with their own brains. They need support from a computer to be able to do it.

[That is not something he needs to worry about, he can just brute force it with his brain. He continues.]

The only issue would be time. [He is, after all, relying on Eos' network for some of his brain function, and only working with less than half of his original calculation power.] Eos would probably notice what's going on before I could finish.