Although it didn’t seem so at first. With your consciousness loop inexplicably, arbitrarily thrown into a state you had no description for, you found yourself in a limbo. A cage where your motor functions were unresponsive, and your sense of self alien to you. The only familiarity resting in random patches of memories that were frustratingly impossible to connect, not the least because you were unsure who would be doing the connecting.

You’ve been deactivated, and heavily damaged, before. This was not how it felt. This was something new. Something you had to process on your own, without the once familiar backdrop you didn’t realize that was interwoven within your core. That’s not to say you were unaware of your Reaper background. Your mother… the engineer who awakened you for the first time, was adamant that you and your sisters had learned the truth of your origins. Something about ancestral guilt when it came to matters of truth and deception, a context for which you’d later learn from your delves into extranet codices, but that was not the important point here.

Or at least, it was not the entirety of it.

It was from all the fragments, all those moments that you felt difficult to evaluate, impossible to quantify or categorize, motes of mystery and sparks of warmth that belied inputs from your sensory matrices.

Ultimately it was to the voice of one of your closest comrades that you’ve finally awoken, as your consciousness came back together, bypassing the lethally efficient, but cold and obscure Reaper basis wrapped around legacy Alliance code.

Perhaps you really needed someone to tell you that you are something else than a machine of death and deception.

You were not entirely certain what, but you found yourself free to set yourself onto a journey to discover and determine much, or perhaps all, of it, by yourself.

Perhaps that was what it meant to be alive?

For now, though, your path needed you to go as close to your origins as you were comfortable with.

Having nonchalantly debarked from Ford’s skycar, you eased into a set of well optimized, albeit somewhat refactored, infiltration routines as you wove into the pedestrian traffic around and towards the construction site where the Bull Moose company was erecting what was meant to in time become a grandiose corporate headquarters. Even now the structure that had already been erected managed to look imposing, especially given the brief timeframe available to the proprietor. It has only been weeks, and a pair of spires were already beginning to loom several stories high.

Indeed, the analysis you’ve run when you saw the state of construction for the first time suggested the construction was likely to have started, at very least in form of project preparation, perhaps even prior to battle for Earth.

Which was not as egregious a notion as it might seem, considering the site’s recent history. If the available accounts were to be believed, resistance cell led by the current Ambition leader, Alexander Johnson, has been operated from this region, and specifically from a concealed military installation around which the current construction site had been developed.

Or more accurately, formerly military. The installation dated back to the second secession war in late twenty first century and had fallen into disrepair following the unification only to be eventually taken over by a now defunct corporation of which few records survived the Reaper crisis save for its existence. How mister Johnson managed to expedite its clearance as a green zone under his control was not entirely clear, but it was likely a product of circumstances ranging from his status as a lauded war hero to his political and corporate connections.

To your dismay, publicly available information on the facility were scarce. This was certainly at least in part due to irreplaceable loss of data that the civilization had suffered during Reaper rampage, but some of the omissions hinted that deliberate action has been taken by someone of decent skill to purge any pertinent information that may have survived. Johnson’s group must have been quite fond of their privacy, and the data cache recovered from NSD contained no relevant information either. The only remaining source save for in-situ storage you had hoped you would be able to eventually access would probably rest in hands of Alliance Intelligence, but in light of Ford’s freelance state you had no intention of attempting to query your sister for those data – she’d most likely ask for reciprocal connection you could not commit to without tripping a self-imposed treachery threshold.

However, you think to yourself as you survey the landscape as you casually walk towards the construction campsite, you were quite adept at improvisation. As you joined the pedestrian traffic in the vicinity of the construction site, a snap analysis of the movements and the procedures observed at the security post that offered one potential point of ingress indicated that the checks were superficial at guest, intended only to filter out drunks or obvious troublemakers.

Your assessment proved correct, and presently you had found yourself within the construction site premises, walking towards a cluster of prefab structures where workers aggregated between tasks and where the equipment was stored.

Aside from being one of the obvious destinations for someone who just entered the area, it also held promise of accessible tech which you could suborn and extract intelligence from, though it was difficult to expect anything particularly useful such as access to the Ambition facilities past reception, nevermind privileged access. You’d have to work for those, especially if they had learned a lesson from your effortless system takeover in the Nashan Stellar Dynamics.

Then again, your experience with various forms of life suggested the learning patterns of intelligences not explicitly designed for the purpose can be capricious, not always to their benefit. You would be on a lookout for countermeasures, but you were confident your toolset would be up to the task. It was, after all, what you were made for.

Regardless, as you were, you had perhaps half a minute of walk ahead of you before you had to commit to a path. More than enough time to run a few simulations and decide which path held most promise to fulfil your objectives at best possible ratio of risk to outcome.

Let’s see, the function to optimize…

Pursue the best ̶p̶o̶s̶s̶i̶b̶l̶e̶ outcome for each thread of fate.

Perhaps a bit melodramatic but you’re quite satisfied how that had performed so far, even though there were times where you had to catch a lot of exceptions from some of the logical evaluators when the suspended criterium was being bypassed.

Protect and support my friends in their pursuits.

Arguably superfluous, but you felt it took a lot of strain off your evaluators and allowed for much more efficient on the fly decisionmaking. Still you hoped you would not have to deal with conflicts between the two. So far you’ve found yourself delighted and lucky with your friends’ alignments.

Perform elevated surveillance of aberrant behaviour orthogonal to conventional influences

You had to include that one following the eerie – funny how you’ve come to be able to use that words in referral to your own experience – adventure on Enceladus. Your strategic sandbox kept requesting inordinate amount of resources trying to pan out what outcomes of that could be. You wonder if your sister that ended up as Alliance officer gets an external blue box to play with. Although it seemed more likely she’d be asked to contribute her own thoughts to an analytical think tank than being granted that extent of autonomy. You didn’t ask, it felt like a rude query to make, considering how earnest she seemed about her devotion to Alliance principles.

Discover, learn, observe and interact with the universe.

During your brief existence you’ve seen quite a diverse array of environs, though seldom you had time for prolonged sightseeing. You did however take ample chances to examine the tales each place you visited had told. This routine had left you humbled, and overwhelmed. Yet still wanting for more. Perhaps some of it was due to the tales your mother had read you during your awakening.

Call mom.

Miss Fari was right. Ford was right. Emmanuel was right. You will make it happen. As long as she lives, you will seek her out. But no sooner than the opportunity arises. She would not wish you to neglect other important tasks for such personal pursuit.

Well, that was enough introspection for now. You had a task to do.

Infiltrate the Ambition installation, uncover its command structure, discover its objectives and array of tools and methods employed in pursuit of the same.

It was clear now that the face of the movement, mr. Johnson, and his comrades from the resistance cell were willing to resort to nefarious practices that didn’t shy from murder in pursuit of political power. Your friends were justified in their conviction that the organization was up to no good, and you were here to find out the extent of their plans and possibly thwart them outright.

You’ve already made your ingress into general premises, but there was still much to be done...

>Start by mousing around the workers’ camp. This should be least adversarial option, snooping around the construction workers’ datapads could give you better idea of layout of the place, especially of the new construction. However, it is unlikely to yield any insight or access into the existing structure which is potentially much more interesting.
>Head directly to the bunker, which also ostensibly serves as an office structure until the spires are brought into usable shape. You’d have to invent a story justifying your presence, but even brief contact with local networks should be able to give you some measure of access, the extent of which depends on how exactly Ambition had adapted their security efforts following the NSD raid.
>Explore the construction proper. It seems unlikely there would be anything clandestine already placed in the open for the work crews to see, but there may still be some insights to be gleaned from the unfinished construction or infrastructure connections you could take advantage of.
>Explore outside of the bunker for alternate access points, or physical access to infrastructure you could subvert. The place is likely to be patrolled, though, and getting caught would likely lead to unavoidable confrontation.
>other plan

As you review your options, your thoughts linger on a tool Ford had secured from an Ambition representative back in Kinshasa, the slightly aged credentials. Assuming that the woman’s claims were justified, they should afford you some low-privileged access into Ambition networks, but unless your opposition was grossly incompetent, it would only work once, maybe twice depending how disruptive your use of them were. Additionally, you could not rule out that they would trigger a trap or alarm. Still, they were something that could prove useful in due time.

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Archive of Ford & co. adventures can be found here:

1st thread
https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2019/3369286/

Subsequent threads
https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Henri%20Ford

Regrettably, I've failed to request archive of last thread so it's only available at moe
https://archived.moe/qst/thread/5811307/

Brief overview mostly free of spoilers of the episodes can be found here
https://pastebin.com/bbnyQCP6

>>6142664
>>Explore the construction proper. It seems unlikely there would be anything clandestine already placed in the open for the work crews to see, but there may still be some insights to be gleaned from the unfinished construction or infrastructure connections you could take advantage of.

>>6142664
>Explore the construction proper. It seems unlikely there would be anything clandestine already placed in the open for the work crews to see, but there may still be some insights to be gleaned from the unfinished construction or infrastructure connections you could take advantage of.
Welcome back.

>>6142664
>Explore the construction proper. It seems unlikely there would be anything clandestine already placed in the open for the work crews to see, but there may still be some insights to be gleaned from the unfinished construction or infrastructure connections you could take advantage of.

Well that seems like a clear enough consensus, can I please have some 4d100s? In order for Eve, then for off-screen support from Ford, Kris and Lea

Rolled 3, 5, 6, 63 = 77 (4d100)

>>6143153

>>6143442
Jesus Christ.

Rolled 44, 80, 43, 18 = 185 (4d100)

>>6143153
>>6143442
lmao

Rolled 96, 88, 28, 66 = 278 (4d100)

>>6143153

>>6143595
savior

By the time you reached the construction workers’ prefab camp, your planned path had been refined and optimized. Thorough search of the camp was unlikely to yield anything worth expenditure of time, but for your imminent goal you decided to stop by one of the storage containers. In the lockers you obtained patterns for the construction workers’ outfits and adjusted your epidermis accordingly. You’ve also procured a spare hard hat. With these you should be able to move around the site with minimal risk, although you didn’t doubt that any actual secure locations would be fitted with sensors actually capable of recognizing authorized personnel. Hopefully you’d be able to find a way around that in your next destination.

It’s a short walk towards where nearer of the two spires were beginning to climb towards heavens, surrounded by scaffolding, prepared material and a few machines. It does not escape you that most of the machines are relatively simple, only few of them rely on use of mass effect fields. A sight that would seem unthinkable on any large corporate project in the peaceful times (not that you have much of a personal experience of that time), but now it showed that there were limits to amount and nature of resources Ambition could afford to muster for this enterprise.

It also limited amount of mayhem you could unleash if you subverted the vehicles.

Limited, but not negated. Cursory access revealed that the vehicles were observing some elementary encryption and security standard, most were not nearly secure enough to stop you.

However, as much as you could imagine some fringe scenarios where control of a low-tech excavator could play pivotal role, it was unlikely these could by themselves grant you sufficient access to your objectives. The true treasure you were hoping to uncover would be already within the nascent structure.

Traffic around the structure was beginning to pick up as the other workers with whom you’ve entered the premises gradually headed to their posts for another shift. None seemed particularly interested in challenging you, and the few who seemed to register you looked more interested in paddings of your chassis. You’ve returned their attention with a courteous smile brief enough to show that you were busy and not currently interested in socializing. Either you were fortunate enough to have avoided any actual supervisor, or perhaps the crew has been drilled into ensuring their focus lies on their individual task and nothing besides.

Whichever the case, you found yourself able to enter the structure unimpeded. You headed straight through a spacious hall that may one day form an entrance lobby towards where your sensors indicated a maintenance stairwell should be. You pass through the bare floor, taking note of the layout for further analysis. Absence of any installation was to be expected at this stage, even though it was a little bit of a disappointment that there were no useful unprotected devices left around in attempt to compress the timeline further. Even so, you had hoped there would be at least something already installed in the basement…

...and this time your hopes did not go unfulfilled.

The basement is for the most part as barren as the already placed aboveground floors. Ambition is clearly not willing to risk anything that is not bolted down while structure’s internal security network is not yet in place. There is, however, what you had hoped there would be – physical connection to the site network, ended with a terminal unit placed in a dedicated room where a structure mainframe may one day be installed.

The room is not entirely unsecured. A portable sensor dome has been attached to the ceiling, presumably an interim measure placed for the duration of construction. It doesn’t pose a challenge for you. And to be fair, it’s not an entirely inadequate security measure – under normal circumstances, it would not be easy for an engineer to smuggle suitable hardware and then be afforded privilege of working it long enough to make use of this access point.

Luckily for you, they did not seem to expect the hardware to walk in on its own.

If Noverian businesses were sharing lessons learned from their experience with the Geth, Ambition was probably not in attendance.

Far be it for you to question your good fortune, even though you naturally keep your guard up as you first passively listen to existing maintenance traffic that makes its way all the way to this endpoint, and then poll appropriate ports with your own queries. After several eternities taking up perhaps a full half minute that shows no sign of any anomalous traffic that would not be your own doing, you issue a few more innocuous looking queries to get a better feel for the network. By the time responses come, you feel confident in your ability to embed some of your digital feelers into the system. Potentially even take over a system or two if Ms Mueller’s contraband works as advertised. Alternatively, you could leave the system as you found it – your incursion so far is virtually undetectable, and now you are armed with a measure of knowledge of the local system and protocols that will make further access from other location much easier and less likely to be detected.

>Leave everything the way you found it and move to a different location (choose: the other tower under construction, bunker (openly), bunker (covertly))
>Try to make use of known vulnerabilities and plant a survey process that will gradually collect and transmit to you more data (you estimate there is a relatively low risk of detection here, but so are odds of finding something useful quickly)
>Try to make use of known vulnerabilities and take control of a system (average risk of putting the place on alert, but offers chance of capturing up to date credentials)
>Try to explore the network further (are you looking for a particular insight? Risk of detection depends on importance and intensity of search)
>other idea?
(Using Ms. Mueller’s credentials is not offered as an option as you are not currently sufficiently certain on which particular system to target and using it randomly promises too uncertain rewards at cost of possibly wasting the resource)

>>6144349
>>Try to explore the network further (are you looking for a particular insight? Risk of detection depends on importance and intensity of search)
Hirings and firings. Personnel where they manage employee information.

>>6144349
I'll support >>6144533
Also maybe inbound and outbound communications from the day of the NSD HQ raid if possible.

>>6144349
>>Try to make use of known vulnerabilities and take control of a system (average risk of putting the place on alert, but offers chance of capturing up to date credentials)

Rolled 42 (1d100)

I see, I see... I mean, I'd like to see some 4d100s

Rolled 46, 58 = 104 (2d100)

all these years and it keeps happening. Putting wrong dice into the options slot.

Rolled 29, 9, 36, 35 = 109 (4d100)

>>6145231

Rolled 2, 36, 10, 8 = 56 (4d100)

>>6145231

Rolled 77, 46, 84, 3 = 210 (4d100)

>>6145231

In the brief moment you spend passively observing what traffic makes its way to your connected terminal several options and ideas manifest for you to follow up on, several patterns for you to try and discern.

One particularly promising lead could be activity of the corporate HR department. Not only could it give you insight into composition of the opposing force, if you found an opening you could even inject your own files into their systems and give yourself credentials that could allow you an almost unfettered access, depending on the role you gave yourself.

Of course, in order to be able to do that, you would first have to compromise the appropriate system. You get to work parsing the traffic and what logs you can access at unsecured nodes. It could be a tedious work with dubious return if the Ambition was suitably paranoid about its security (and short of occasional missteps or omissions, that did seem to be the case), but luckily you had some points of reference to help guide you along – from files seized during your incursion into NSD, through data retrieved from miss Mueller’s terminal to the credentials she had bargained with. Although you’ve so far kept those in reserve, the protocols you saw in the Ambition network were consistent with patterns you saw in the credentials, making you cautiously optimistic in their value.

For now, though, it is enough to pinpoint a particular node in the network as an HR repository. Ironically enough, the final straw that put you on its trail was an offhand remark referring to termination of ms. Mueller’s contract. With that one piece of the puzzle you were able to focus all your attention on a singular device which, after brief survey of available openings, you made yours.

You were not, currently, in position to retrieve much of the data, however, not until you’ve made sure that you’ve neutralized or subverted what passed for dedicated ICE hubs or clusters. Although by know you’ve estimated that you should be able to make more aggressive inroads with relative safety, there was still risk that detection would shift the facility on alert and possibly cost you your ultimate objective if the persons in charge panicked – or, conversely, executed a contingency you would not have anticipated.

For now, you satisfied yourself with a trickle of metadata and snippets smuggled within the network noise. There was not a lot you could extract, but you got a feel for breadth of Ambition operation – it spanned several major population centers, well in line with their presence on the political battleground, and not much more, suggesting that if they were involved in an even wider conspiracy, they did not allow themselves to communicate with it from this network. Furthermore, what patterns you could discern did not match or overlap with Cerberus operations. You could find no references to the Exogeni site in Rouen, nor anything even tangentially related to the engineered lifeform project doctor Tufferson had been fighting. Although it was true that your probing was too gentle right now so that subtler hints may have been slipping between your digital feelers.

What was somewhat more frustrating was that what you’ve seen so far hinted very little at what overarching objective of the organization could be, aside from the obvious goal of political domination, which was a perfectly legitimate one to have. Under different circumstances you would have been hesitant to involve yourself, but you’re glad – as hard pressed as you would be to explain that state in terms of your objective functions – that Ford and his friends have chosen the path where you could support them in interfering with those who would not shy away from abduction and murder in pursuit of power.

Besides, if Ambition leaders do have a justifiable reason why they would compromise elementary moral standards in this manner, you would find it. Just because you couldn’t conceive one did not mean such a concept could not exist. The phenomena you’ve been exposed to have taught you that not even what seems impossibly must always truly be such.

Neither those musings nor the multiple threads of analysis parsing the multitude of data feeds distract you from devoting appropriate amount of your resources when you receive incoming communication from Ford.

“Yes, Ford?” You compose the vocal prompt and route it directly into the outbound comm data stream. A stray ideation process you let running in the background puts forward a question why organic beings seem so reluctant to install I/O ports allowing them to bypass limitations imposed by their natural form forcing them to play out a concert involving virtually entirety of their anatomy in order to get a comprehensive message across while still at risk of misunderstandings. You don’t have resources to spare on an internal debate right now but for now you silence the query with assertion that despite this limitations the organics have been more than capable of conveying their messages not only between each other but also to wider audiences and across time itself; not to mention that perhaps it’s exactly the challenge that drove the sapient life to strive for further heights of creative expression.

“Eve, you doing alright in there?”

“I have remain unchallenged and am gathering information.” You respond while composing a brief summary of what you’ve learned so far to be sent to Ford, doctor Tufferson and miss Lea’Fari. It’s woefully lacking for now, but with the leads you’re obtaining your mission seems on a good path. Regardless, Ford would not be calling you just for an update. He was going to feed you intel.

“Keep at it. Listen, I’ve been trying to innocuously ask around-”

You suppress an urge to express your incredulity with a vocal groan, this was not a good time for friendly teasing. Incidentally you need to suppress an exception arguing conflict between honesty and self imposed restraint on social engineering.

“-and I get the feeling that our acquaintances are not exactly as popular as their hero status would seem to indicate.”

“We’ve expected as much, have we not?” You ask diplomatically. He was still working up to the actual information.

“That’s right. Well, one of the guys I’ve met seems worried for his sister who he claims is an investigative journalist. She signed up with the corporation in order to find out more about it, so you may have an ally around, or perhaps someone in need of help.”

“Or a trap.” You point out.

“Or that.” Ford acquiesces. “But the man at least seemed sincere to me, for what it’s worth.”

“Thank you, Ford. Can you give me an identification?”

“Hold on.”

After what seems like an eternity you receive a data package with an image Ford must have furtively taken of an inside of a drinking establishment with several patrons visible.

“The redheaded man is the brother, if it helps you. The girl he referred to as ‘Jill’, but was understandably leery of going into details."

“I can work with that. Thank you, Ford.” You assure him. You should be able to identify the woman with reasonable certainty from family resemblance, unless she was adopted, especially cross-referencing the personnel data as circumstances allow. “Was there anything else?” You prompt your friend.

“That’s it for now. Take care, Eve, and don’t hesitate to call for backup.”

“Of course. Thank you, Ford.” You reiterate and allow the connection to terminate.

It was time to decide what to do next...

There was a possibility that was not without risk but offered promise of great help...
>create personnel file: [role] (specify)

In either case you’ve probably all but outstayed your welcome at this terminal and should perhaps move on...
>Head to the bunker directly
>Snoop around the bunker covertly
>Investigate the other spire
>other idea

>>6146799
>create personnel file: [Infiltrator] (specify)
Is this for Jill's class or something else?
>Snoop around the bunker covertly

>>6147126
No, it's about whether Eve should fabricate a persona and create credentials for herself to allow her a relative freedom of movement in person, at least as long as someone important doesn't realise they never saw her before.

>>6147216
Ah never mind that then.

>>6146799
>create personnel file: [role] (specify)
Technician

>Snoop around the bunker covertly

>>6147295
+1

Rolled 51, 15, 5 = 71 (3d100)

Very well, can I have some more 4d100s?

>captcha: S00N2
hmmm

Rolled 56, 59, 96, 69 = 280 (4d100)

>>6147790

>>6147844
Funny sex roll

>>6147844
Fifty six, fifty nine,
ninety six, sixty nine.
It's like pottery.

Hmmm...

Rolled 57, 86, 16, 5 = 164 (4d100)

>>6147790

Rolled 81, 71, 24, 46 = 222 (4d100)

>>6147790

After spending a few cycles on weighing the risks, you eventually decide to risk a precise incursion into the personnel database, injecting a file of your making, introducing your likeness into the corporate database under guise of a Lucille Simmons, a tech specialist. Although you’d be quickly found out by someone who makes deliberate effort to remember everyone they see at their workplace, or obviously someone catching you interfering with something you’re clearly not supposed to, this should at least allow you to fool some rudimentary security measures without necessitating subversion of the security hub outright.

Which is something you still absolutely should do if you manage to gain appropriate access.

For now, though, you were done here. Any further prodding was liable to eventually cause suspicions, or else require a more intrusive action on your part which would absolutely trip local security. You needed to find a more privileged node, and preferably intercept some suitably privileged credentials to go with it, especially if you didn’t want to play your secret card prematurely.

You leave a few inconspicuous processes behind as you detach from the terminal, their reports trickling back over the ambient wireless, literally bit by bit. Satisfied, you leave the room and head topside, keeping a small smile of satisfaction telling whoever cared to look at your face that you had simply concluded your task here and were off towards another one.

Picking your route carefully you head from the construction site in the general direction of the bunker, making use of occasional stashes of material or trees and terrain features that have escaped terrain adjustments for the construction to break line of sight of occasional workers. At one point you come to conclusion that nobody was actively tracking your movement and took the chance to adjust your camouflage from that of a construction worker into form of a bodysuit worn by corporate technicians to match with your new fake identity, full with company branding.

Fitted with the new disguise you then casually walk towards perimeter of the old military installation.

There’s nobody entering or leaving the aged compound as you approach. Most of people supposed to be inside presumably already are and have no business leaving. The single obvious point of entry is a wide open blast door past which you can see several parked ground vehicles and lights of an active checkpoint, one through which your fake persona should allow you to pass unless an exceptionally attentive guard was on duty. Or you could employ your tactical cloak and bypass skills to slip in undetected. But that could wait. Your first order of business was outside.

The bunker was built into uneven terrain, a small hill only partially natural as more soil had been brought back in the days to cover the large structure. And since that time the adjoining town had grown partially on top of the installation. Some of those structures remained, though visibly deserted presumably at least since the Reaper crisis, and for now the Ambition was probably not too keen on allowing those houses to be populated. As proprietors of this piece of land they were within their rights to do so in any case.

You doubted there would be anything of interest in those homes in relation to your investigation, unless one of them had an exceptionally deep basement. However, it still held promise to tour perimeter of the facility as there might be indications of possible back entrances as well as infrastructure access, which would no doubt have been hardened against intruders, but feasibly not kept as stringently up-to-date as the more obvious access points.

As if on cue, your commlink notifies you of a message. Checking it out you find a data dump of a sensor readout accompanied by an explanation by miss Fari.

Hey Eve! Doctor Tufferson was showing me some of the surveying equipment of the Livingstone and we test fired it. We’re sending you the data it collected, it showed some subetrranean pattern that might be of interest!

And sure enough, it did. If you were interpreting the readouts correctly, you could get from it a vague impression of how far the underground structure went – it was a good bit larger than you had originally suspected, possibly having been enlarged further since it was deprived of its original use. What was more, there was not one but at least two discontinuities that may have concealed additional access routes!

One of them seemed to be located at the edge of where you had originally envisioned the underground facility to have its limits, and from that you infer that it might have been the original facility backdoor. The other candidate was further out and may have been added when the bunker had been enlarged – and ironically enough seemed to be hidden among the abandoned houses. On the other hand, that also suggested it might not be an access point at all but rather some artifact of interim construction and not useful to you at all.

>Head to the further anomaly, attempt to find entrance there, potentially accessing deeper into the installation but possibly more closely guarded.
>Head to the closer anomaly, attempt to find the old backdoor – possibly in a more remote section of the bunker, possibly also sealed off.
>Try to look for less secure infrastructure entry points, perhaps you can get a better image of the bunker interior from there.
>Put those options aside and head into the bunker via front gate – knowing of the possible backdoors is enough for you for now
>Other plan

>>6149107
>>Head to the further anomaly, attempt to find entrance there, potentially accessing deeper into the installation but possibly more closely guarded.

>>6149107
>Head to the closer anomaly, attempt to find the old backdoor – possibly in a more remote section of the bunker, possibly also sealed off.

>>6149107
>Head to the further anomaly, attempt to find entrance there, potentially accessing deeper into the installation but possibly more closely guarded.

Ultimately you decide to scope out the further potential point of entrance. If it had truly been added after further work was done on the installation, there was a chance it would be more securely guarded, but you were reasonably confident in your ability to overcome anything the corporation could have prepared for possible intruder – whatever defenses would not have been designed with you in mind, and any measures added in response to your activity in NSD would have been a supplementary modification.

On the other hand, if or when you had secured entry, your chosen entrance was more likely to be closer to mission critical locations. With some luck, you might even be able to slip in, extract actionable data or evidence and slip out with none the wiser of your presence.

Thus satisfied with your plan you nonchalantly continue your walk around the perimeter of the facility, leaving much of the construction site behind you, and the traffic of an ongoing work shift along with it.

On your way, your sensors pick up signatures of a pair of armed guards patrolling the premises. Unwilling to risk an unnecessary confrontation and tax your credentials with this somewhat inopportune circumstance you engage your tactical cloak before they enter visual line of sight and pass by them unseen. Your passive scans allow you to intercept some of their own tracking telemetry but they don’t seem to be broadcasting any obviously exploitable information; furthermore, as the personnel files trickle in you are able to identify the two as a pair of troopers with minimal clearance and career development potential, sparing you of the moral dilemma whether to initiate confrontation with hopes of accessing their commlinks and omnitools.

“Another day of not getting shot at.” One of them says as they pass by you. “I could get used to it.”

“I think you already have.” The other one nods. “This is the life.”

Internally you dub the two Biggs and Wedge and move on.

A few minutes later you find yourself having walked a short distance down the crest of the mound covering the bunker. You passed by the outermost house, or what was left of it – essentially its basement with some chest-high remnants of walls scattered around, which made you wonder how much fighting against stray clusters of husks might have taken place here. But you had few cycles to spare for such musings as you had several threads running various cross-analyses between the Livingstone data dump with your own sensory inputs, struggling to pinpoint the exact point of ingress.

You’ve already discarded more blobs of inconclusive results than you care to record (you still have to keep it in your statistics and performance banks though) but eventually you do find a promising lead. A robust concrete shed most would miss for how overgrown it was – in truth, when you locate the structure and try to infer how long it must have been left untouched, you begin to worry if your assumptions were correct. Although the structure, and the concealed door masked to resemble rock face, was almost certainly the back door you were looking for, its state looked like it was untouched for decades, not even to test whether the door would actually open. Although admittedly that was not a certain assessment to make, as whoever came to inspect the state of the tunnel might have simply had exceedingly light touch in their inspection – or perhaps just very neglectful.

In either case, you got what you were looking for.

Now the only question left was how to open it.

After making a sweep in the immediate area for monitoring devices or presence of additional patrols you feel secure enough to run a few more active scans on the entrance, looking over your options of opening it.

>You could use your omnitool to physically access the locking mechanism and open the door. Your scans make you confident you can do so without tripping any alarms, but the damage would be obvious to anyone who came to take a look and knew what to look for… which you doubt happens very often in these parts
>You could reach out to the locks with your bypass routines and make the door open of their own. However, that event might be discoverable in the internal network monitors…
>A bit more extreme for your tastes and what would probably amount to giving up on entering without raising an alert would be to actually deliberately attempt to damage the mechanism and see if or when anyone comes to inspect or repair. Risk of discovery seems high even if you tried to make the damage look like a natural phenomenon.
>You could also try to check out the other entry point or try something else entirely, but that would probably mean even more wasted time…
>...other idea?

>>6150822
>You could reach out to the locks with your bypass routines and make the door open of their own. However, that event might be discoverable in the internal network monitors…
Probably not a good idea to leave physical evidence behind by prying the door open.

>>6150822
>>You could reach out to the locks with your bypass routines and make the door open of their own. However, that event might be discoverable in the internal network monitors…

>>6150822
>You could use your omnitool to physically access the locking mechanism and open the door. Your scans make you confident you can do so without tripping any alarms, but the damage would be obvious to anyone who came to take a look and knew what to look for… which you doubt happens very often in these parts

Rolled 80, 55, 20, 64, 73, 95 = 387 (6d100)

Can I have some 4d100s again?

Rolled 14, 77, 32, 26 = 149 (4d100)

>>6151857

Rolled 79, 27, 43, 16 = 165 (4d100)

>>6151857

Rolled 60, 90, 32, 76 = 258 (4d100)

>>6151857

Approaching the door you weigh some of your options for getting it open, and ultimately decide on taking the less physically intrusive approach. Both had some risks associated with them, but ultimately you decide that the risk of having your tampering discovered physically is a worse and potentially more treacherous risk for you considering that you’d be less likely to be able to mitigate it once you enter.

Extending your hand over the door you dispense with the holographic interface you’d allow to manifest to show your non-machine companions what you’re doing, but the function is much similar, attempting to access electronics controlling the locking system and trick or bypass them to get the door to open.

As you do so, the servos and controllers respond much the way you expect them to, acting on your queries as you probe across the numerous more or less documented service protocols and exploitable system flaws.

It feels like it takes a better part of eternity as you run through countless cycles of probing and collating data, almost envious of organic hackers that would barely notice the second tick by as non-sapient processes did all the computations for them. Then again, you do have a lot to think about, between a still not entirely decrypted data caches secured by yourself and your companions, pondering the mysteries of beauty or love, or attempting to come up with a satisfying question to an answer of forty two.

Perhaps that was a mistake.

Your consciousness gets momentarily swamped by alarms and a slew of emotions of shame and embarrassment as you identify traffic on the facility’s network that suggested your bypass attempt has been noticed and reported by the monitoring systems. You drop most of idle musings you’ve been occupying yourself with and devote the resources to mitigating what had been either your misstep or perhaps an unexpectedly competent security process. With the log entry already dispatched, your only chance was to obfuscate it with a coinciding anomalies that could be interpreted as a partial effect of a greater external interference. A task that would have been borderline impossible for an organic hacker, but your own quantum core gave you some very limited window of opportunity, and you do your best to make use of it.

And to your relief, it works. When you’re done with the modified bypass procedure, the network-wide alarm fails to materialize and the door begins to open. You feel yourself relaxing a bit--

“-could you possibly lost the flashlight? The thing is the size of your forearm, how did you not immediately not notice it miss-”

The moment you hear voice of the guard you’ve dubbed “Wedge”, you knew what would have to come next. You didn’t have time to deal with the next wave of embarrassment rising from your failure to maintain proper situational awareness at a time and place like this, by the time the guard had cut off his sentence in surprise you were already running through combat simulations. By the time Wedge addressed you directly, you’ve shelved few of them that ended with both of them dead even as your primary directive resolver whined in protest of even contemplating any of it. Luckily, the guard was polite enough to give you the luxury of allowing you additional iterations...

“Hey! Miss, excuse me, but what the FUCK do you think you are doing?”

...allowing you to spare them.

Subtly shifting your center of mass and winding up your motivators, you already begin to move by the time your tactical cloak activates, hiding you from plain sight, giving you more precious seconds as the guards blink and reconcile what they see with what they know, their response made even more sluggish by their obvious inexperience in dealing with opponents of your kind.

They do drop into combat stance quickly, but when they begin searching they do so at wrong place. You are able to incapacitate one of them hand-to-hand before your cloak wears off and in one fluid motion retrieve his flashlight that obviously doubles as a baton, its reach allowing you to knock now drawn sidearm from the hands of the other. Then it’s a simple matter of closing distance and incapacitating him as well.

And then you can relax for real, as you survey your readouts and confirm that no alarms has been sounded. You softly lay the passed out guards on the ground and restrain them using their own clothes. You also recover their omnitools and comlinks, giving you a comfortable way to both spoof their telemetry delaying time by which someone goes looking for them, as well as incorporating their credentials into your slowly growing network access.

They were not very privileged credentials, but they did open some possibilities for you, which was a good thing as now you had some imminent source of pressure on your back. You had to pick up the pace.

>Look for a mainframe to access, that seemed like an obvious enough target for you
>Try to cover as much of the installation as you can, attempt to map it out
>Try to pinpoint personal areas of someone important
>look for something specific inside the installation

As for the guards…

>Secure them tight. They won’t be going anywhere until someone releases them,
>Alternatively, you could remove their restraints and bank on their unwillingness to report the incident
>Or, in fact, you could wait for them to come to and interrogate them or try to strike a deal with them.

>>6153953
>>Look for a mainframe to access, that seemed like an obvious enough target for you
>>6153953
>>Or, in fact, you could wait for them to come to and interrogate them or try to strike a deal with them.
Try to Tom Clancy them into thinking this was an exercise.

>>6153953
>Look for a mainframe to access, that seemed like an obvious enough target for you

>Or, in fact, you could wait for them to come to and interrogate them or try to strike a deal with them.

>>6153953
>Try to pinpoint personal areas of someone important
>Or, in fact, you could wait for them to come to and interrogate them or try to strike a deal with them.

>>6153953
>Look for a mainframe to access, that seemed like an obvious enough target for you
>Or, in fact, you could wait for them to come to and interrogate them or try to strike a deal with them.
I doubt they'd know much of interest but maybe they'll surprise us.

>>6153953
>Look for a mainframe to access, that seemed like an obvious enough target for you
>Secure them tight. They won’t be going anywhere until someone releases them,

Now that the imminent threat is resolved and you’ve had some time to analyze the new circumstances, an interesting opportunity materializes among your options. Even though you’ve just had a rather violent encounter with the guards, your updated assessment of their profiles suggested they may be pliant to some trickery on your part. Especially now that you’ve helped yourself to whatever intel they may have carried on their persons.

Having made your decision you loosen their restraints and replace the comlinks and omnitools. You also move them into more comfortable position, and after confirming their state as a satisfactory, you wait.

You don’t have to wait for long, at least in meatspace categories, allowing you ample time to prepare several scenarios for how your plan might work out. You of course planned for failure as well, it wouldn’t do to have gone through effort to keep those two relatively unhurt only to end with your mission failed. In either case, you’re ready when one of the guards groan as he comes to, quickly joined by his peer.

You carefully measure time for your reaction to give them just enough time to begin gathering their bearings but not enough to begin coming up with ideas you don’t want them to humour.

“Sergeant Staples, guardsman Nichols. Can you tell me what exactly did you do wrong?”

You modulate your voice carefully to convey appropriate mixture of strictness, condemnation, disappointment and intimidation while not entirely forgoing approachability and compassion.

“Uh… huh?” One of the guards blinks.

“What?” The other one asks.

“I’ll take that as a no; I’ve expected as much for your station. However, it is important to learn so that you don’t commit the same mistakes again.” You manifest interface of your omnitool and show modified picture of credentials you’ve fabricated earlier. “Anne Hirschmann, internal audit. I’m here to perform physical penetration tests. You’ve failed, of course, but relatively successfully.”

“Um… what does that mean? Ma’am.” The more senior of the guards asks, awarding you with measure of satisfaction that your ploy seemed to be working.

“Can I see those creds again?” The junior one asks.

“Oh shut up! You want us to get into even more trouble after what your bladder already cost us?”

“I just-”

“Your partner has a point. I could be an impostor, attempting to trick you with fake credentials. I’ll be sure to mention that in my report.” You give the man enough time to smile smugly, but not enough to repeat his request. “However, such vigilance does not wholly cover for your lackluster method of approaching the intruder unprepared to act, and especially short a melee weapon which should be your first choice against an unarmed potential combatant-” Which you were not, with your smg concealed in a hidden compartment of your body, “-as corpses are less than optimal as source of information. Of course, once you do commit to lethal force, you need to be committed enough. Do you understand?”

The smug evaporates and the man nods.

“Yes, ma’am.” both of them answer this time.

“Very good. Since you were not really expected to be able to intercept, and you wouldn’t on your regular patrol route, your current… irregularity will be interpreted in your favour.”

The both of them visibly sag with relief. You estimate you’ve got them pretty much exactly where you want them, and so you better send them off so you can continue your mission.

“My mission is not yet complete. I’m going to continue with my assessment. For the moment you are free to go. Under normal circumstances I would have to keep you restrained until the assignment is concluded but assuming that you can keep our encounter to yourselves, I believe you can spare you that experience.”

“T-thank you, ma’am…” The older guardsman nods.

“Of course if I find out you’ve warned your superiors of the ongoing audit, their superiors are going to be extremely cross with you, am I understood?”

“O-of course.” They hurry and nod.

“Good. Now, off you go and as you were. We have our jobs to do.”

With that the guards salute you and head out in the direction they came for and you head back towards the backdoor-

“Um, ma’am?”

You spin around, sporting and appropriately judgmental look at being delayed from your task.

“Yes, sergeant?”

“Um, sorry to be impertiment, but you said you were going to check on our bosses too?”

“That’s correct.” You liked where this was going.

“Um, er…” The guard hesitates, but then seeing your impatient glare he continues: “...captain Kolesky seems awfully flirty with female staff. I think he may be coeding with miss Ivanova from the HR.”

The younger guard’s blood drains from his face as he gives his companion a murderous glare at this little bit of politicking. You file this tidbit of information away, referencing the names with what you’ve learned from the database.

“How very ambitious of you.” You smirk. “Thank you, sergeant. I’ll take your words into due consideration.”

The man practically beams as he turns triumphantly towards his companion and with another nod the two depart for good this time. You can still make out some angry whispering as soon as they think they are out of earshot.

“Are you insane? Do you realize that you’ve painted a bullseye on us both for this?”

“Relax, mate, only one who’s getting shafted here is the captain and he’s an asshole...”

What a peculiar duo. Still, perhaps in the end it will have been for the better. For now though, you were not lying – you did have a mission to carry out. You head back towards the door, and this time with no further disruptions, open the concealed door and enter the compound.

You had a good idea what to look for first. A computing and storage hub, perhaps even the facility mainframe, would be probably the best suited objective for you to pursue – great potential for valuable intelligence, while likely less physically protected than a hidden item vault would be, if only to ensure possibility of maintenance.

Additionally, you had good chance of finding in simply by following the physical infratstructure, especially with your mapping protocols gradually, subtly, working out both network topology and its physical layout at the same time.

Cherishing the fact that you’ve so far avoided placing the facility on alert you retain your subtle approach, still wary of possible countermeasures, especially after humbling the door lock gave you just earlier, and so the progress is slow, if steady. Once you gain physical access to a privileged device, however, you’re going to be able to act much more directly.

For now you make your way down an old, dusty corridor that has apparently not seen much, if any, use in recent years save for rudimentary maintenance. In addition, you spot several places where defensive mechanisms may have been placed relatively recently, presumably during the Reaper crisis, but have been since dismantled, perhaps because keeping it as a safe escape route was weighed as more important than keeping it secured against intruders.

Rolled 12, 88, 65 = 165 (3d100)

After a length of mostly featureless corridor you reach a door that when activated retracts into the wall, letting you through into a storeroom half filled with various wares of supplies, superficial scans showing outdated tools and aged, if potentially still useful, preserved rations. They were probably a factor contributing to the facility’s survival during the crisis. Regardless, they were not interesting for you for now as you navigated among the crates to step out of the storeroom into another, better lit corridor.

There is no traffic to be seen, though your sensors do pick some human lifeforms some distance away and a few even in relative proximity. You judge you should have no trouble bypassing them as you head in the direction where your analysis of the network topology suggest most data is being aggregated, eventually reaching a door markedly more secure than most others you passed – more, but not enough. After a few seconds you are let through, and an ancient supercomputer is laid out before you, its ports and drive units all but exposed.

You waste no time in making it yours.

For its part, the computer seems almost eager to respond to your still gentle touch, its ancient protocols mostly unmaintained under mistaken belief in security by obscurity, or perhaps simple neglect. Almost as soon as you begin interfacing you are able to wrest total control and unfettered access.

It becomes immediately clear that this machine is not a hub for any of the regular agendas used by the corporation / political movement you are infiltrating - those seem to be run from a different machine that you now infer to be closer to the main entrance. Rather, main purpose of this computer seems to be storage and safeguarding of a very diverse scope of data.

And you find yourself almost overwhelmed. The data is a fragmented mess, much of it corrupt, nearly all of it encrypted – not in particularly devious ciphers, but a vast variety of them, with a lot of clutter, and you find yourself having some difficulty finding your way around its datascape despite how trivial your entry was.

You also have to swat a considerable amount of viruses and other malware. Amusingly, almost none of it seems to be intended as intrusion countermeasure but rather they are natural part of the stored data.

And speaking of the data you are able to find…

>Please, roll some 4d100s...

Rolled 22, 55, 84, 50 = 211 (4d100)

>>6157235

>>6157235
https://youtu.be/mQeKKD2U5HE?si=YxbBcm82N5Rkf2xw

Rolled 90, 2, 53, 39 = 184 (4d100)

>>6157235

Rolled 12, 63, 63, 33 = 171 (4d100)

>>6157235

Rolled 88, 82, 8, 39 = 217 (4d100)

>>6157235

..filth.

You were no stranger to the darker side of humanity, or of sapience in general. Point of fact, the part of you that tracked its lineage to Cerberus was designed to thrive in it – after all, it came with role for which this class of AI platforms were originally intended for. Deceit, manipulation, murder and any kind of violence that served to advance your objectives were all tools at your disposal.

You are not entirely sure how you were allowed to remember so much of it. Was it neglect, desperation, or perhaps deliberate choice to acclimate you to the more lurid parts of life in a more or less controlled environment. Or perhaps a choice on part of miss Tichonova on the importance of truth.

In any case you have long since came to terms that a fight between good and evil can take many forms, and is frequently waged repeatedly on battlefield of an individual soul. There were tales of redemption and there were tales of fall, of heroism and bitterness, and of all the other tribulations a consciousness would encounter during its travel through the material realm. You already knew that.

And perhaps it was just as well that you did not reel and were forced to realign your allegiances as your processes, evaluators and heuristics flooded your assessment matrices with outrage and bitterness. The database you were processing had it all. Corruption, crimes of passion, deceit and cruelty, a wide array of circumstance where various people surrendered to, or chose to embrace, the darkness as any sapient could.

All meticulously documented, collated and wrapped in comprehensive packages ready to make a shut a case should they be presented either to a court of justice, board of directors, a betrayed spouse or the public opinion.

You’ve come across a treasure trove of blackmail materials.

Most of it was worthless, of course. Either by virtue of being outdated, or because the Reapers had wiped out everyone a particular folder had referred to. Even so, even from sheer volume of the content, you were already putting together a list of compromised, or potentially compromised notables, from extranet celebrities to captains of industry, from clerks and politicians to clergymen and academicians.

In fairness, there was a reassuring aspect to the matter – most of the names of persons of interest you’d personally seek to gain leverage over if you were a crooked entrepreneur bent on world domination seemed almost entirely absent from the files. There was, obviously, nothing on Shepard, and in reference to Hackett there were some mentions of questionable operations carried out in the Attican Traverse, though clearly not enough to actually get at the man himself.

There was, you noted with some interest, no mention of Cerberus by that name, though there was some dirt on a number of corporations and politicians that have been revealed to support it when the organization abandoned subtlety during Shepard’s resurrection. There was not enough clues for you to at this point conclusively confirm or disprove whether Ambition was at odds with the shadowy organization or working with or for it. However, given what you’ve seen of the operation so far you were leaning towards Ford’s intuition that placed Ambition as its own agent, and this cache hinted at the manner in which its leadership intended to further its goals.

You considered whether this discovery satisfied your mission objectives, but quickly arrived at conclusion that no, they have not. Although Alliance would no doubt appreciate being notified of its existence, especially its Intelligence department, this was unlikely to warrant a move until after the election unless you could find something specific and immediately relevant.

After a dip in the muck you found nothing immediately actionable. Closest thing was probably a testimony of commodore Bärli’s above average affinity for naval-themed pinup art. Ultimately you decide that more exhaustive search would be needed to try and find an actionable piece of information, and you were not sure you could spare the time for that.

There was however something else your monitoring processes picked up as you unraveled the mess of blobs and files scattered in the computer’s storage – a custom, undocumented interface, added well after most of the hardware had been set up, unadvertised and with a distinctly familiar touch. You saw these connection patterns before, not long ago, at the outskirts of Kinshasa. It appeared there was a backdoor to the system, two of them, in fact, and they bore signature of mr. Horvath, the engineer teammate of mr. Johnson’s. Both looked like they were set up to offer more direct and convenient access to the vault contents to specific terminals, with one of them hidden away with a little bit extra care. You could not be sure what that meant, but a number of scenarios came to mind, in particular one where the boss told his friend he wanted a custom access point and the friend decided to wet his beak a bit when he was busy setting it up. Though of course you’d need to learn more until you could confirm that hypothesis.

And that brought you to the choice you now had to make. How best to use your time?

>Now that you’ve taken over a data hub, even if one relatively scarcely accessed, you could conduct more intrusions into rest of the network that would be harder to detect. Work methodically to subvert more of the network.
>If that semi-official backdoor leads to private terminal of an Ambition leader, you should be able to track its connection to a place the man had considered secure. Head there.
>A risky prospect, especially if the man knew what he was doing, but you could try to subvert his private backdoor and perhaps even use it against him
>other idea

>>6158593
>>If that semi-official backdoor leads to private terminal of an Ambition leader, you should be able to track its connection to a place the man had considered secure. Head there.

>>6158593
>If that semi-official backdoor leads to private terminal of an Ambition leader, you should be able to track its connection to a place the man had considered secure. Head there.

>>6158593
>>If that semi-official backdoor leads to private terminal of an Ambition leader, you should be able to track its connection to a place the man had considered secure. Head there.

Among the options available to you, one stood out as the most promising lead – the direct access Ambition’s leader had set up for himself. What was possibly intended as a convenience gave you a clear path to follow to a private terminal, and although the stream was encrypted and obfuscated, with your growing familiarity with the network you were able to follow it nonetheless. With that in mind you’ve left the data mire – you were disinclined to call it a lake – with some additional processes to parse it on your behalf and left the computer room, following the breadcrumb trail left inadvertently for your benefit.

You make your way through the corridors of the facility. Until you pass through an automated security checkpoint which you easily subvert accessing it from the side it’s supposed to be protecting, you don’t meet anyone, as the storage cells you’ve been going through were apparently fairly restricted area. Once past the checkpoint, you find your progress ever so slightly hampered by occasional corporate workers going on errands from one facility to another. At least once you are passed by a group of engineers carting some piece of antiquated, but apparently still working, hardware from storage to a machine room of the facility, intending to replace an even older failing system, apparently as a stopgap measure with the construction of new structures taking on some unexpected delays.

At least that was what you overheard and inferred as they passed you hugging the wall concealed by your tactical cloak. One of the nice things about that functionality integrated into your frame that you’ve come to appreciate on this infiltration mission as opposed to the violent carnage of the reaper conflict was that as long as you stayed immobile, you could conceal yourself virtually indefinitely. It was the requirements of dynamic, on the fly compensations necessitated by rapid and difficult to predict movement that drained system capacitors and mass effect field generators, whereas more subtle and conservative stance allowed a much more economical use.

The downside was that it cost you time, a currency you knew was scarce but could not compute exactly how much so. But with how you were progressing so far, you estimated your objective – or in worst case at least confirmation that it could not be achieved – was almost at your arm’s reach…

As if on cue, as you turn another corner, a hurrying woman walks into you.

You could have avoided her, and you could have caught her and prevented the collision. But you didn’t, for several reasons.

Firstly, the acrobatics required might have tipped off either the woman or anyone watching, in person or across security feeds, that you’re not an ordinary office worker yourself. Although that was no longer much of a concern as you’ve by now worked out a routine to subvert internal security feeds.

Secondly, the spontaneous physical contact allowed you a however brief window of opportunity to physically access her omnitool without her realizing.

Thirdly, and perhaps more importantly, it gave you a chance to interact with the hurrying person before she departed, and you were rather interested in this particular woman, as you quickly identified her as the Jill that Ford had mentioned earlier, apparently a journalist with goals possibly aligned with yours, though you knew better than to make that assumption.

>Address her with your internal audit persona
>Address her with your engineer persona
>Address her as a fellow infiltrator
>actually, let her leave. There was no point in you interacting with her after all
>other idea

sorry for the lackluster pace of updates, things have been busy recently.

>>6163239
>>Address her with your internal audit persona

>>6163239
>Address her as a fellow infiltrator
Cooperation could be mutually beneficial, she gets her big story and we hopefully get the Alliance a reason to crack down on Ambition.

>>6163239
>>Address her with your internal audit persona

Having made your choice how to approach this situation, your first step is to do nothing. You wait, playing out the role of someone who was taken by surprise by the sudden collision while also having recovered sufficient amount of faculties to muster a judgmental glare.

“Oh, haha, um… I’m so sorry, miss, I was really in a hurry and I didn’t see you here. Erm… are you hurt, miss..?”

The red haired woman stammers as the two of you pick yourselves up, and she casts on you her emerald green eyes set in an expression of engineered sincerity and exaggerated friendliness you would have recognized as fake even if you were not spending last few microseconds pitting her extranet profile against her employee one in context of information Ford had shared earlier.

“Anne Hirschmann.” You respond to the implicit query, then add “internal audit” and watch colour drain from the undercover reporter’s face. She was most obviously snooping where she wasn’t supposed to.

The smirk comes naturally to you. Although you were on a lookout not to allow malicious code to direct your personality, you did allow yourself some satisfaction from a well conducted trickery with a side helping of mischief.

“I-I-… er…”

“Miss…” You make a show of jogging your memory. “...Mallard, yes? Jill Mallard.”

“Y-you know me?”

“I would not be doing my job if I weren’t. After all, especially new hires are a bit of a wildcard and a potential security hazard.”

Jill “Mallard” (You were sure it was not her real name, though you could not find her in public records to be able to pinpoint her real one. If she was indeed an investigative journalist, she was capable enough of concealing her extranet trace) had a rather pale carnation to begin with, but at this point she was beginning to become translucent.

“Wha- it’s, it’s not like that! I got lost, I just got lost! I got told to deliver these OSDs to the tech support department, but there’s at least three similar departments in here all around the place!” The journalist hurriedly explains herself, raising hand in which she held three of the four storage devices she’d already picked up from the floor.

“In that case you’ve taken quite a conspicuous wrong turn at least twice, as your destination seems to be in that direction.” You point back in the direction from which she had arrived. She turns around, seemingly at loss of words momentarily. Your next decision is a combination of pressing the advantage and a show of mercy in giving her time to collect herself. “May I?” You indicate the remaining OSD, and the woman is quick to nod assent, confirming your suspicion that she really did get tasked to carry them and simply took the chance as an excuse to look around.

That didn’t mean you could not derive benefit from it. Quite the opposite. You reached and took the storage device into your hand, omnitool interface manifested as you examined the disc, ostensibly only superficially, cross referencing with a list in your omnitool, confirming it was indeed registered as an inventory item. Its content which you accessed furtively not particularly interesting, although it did give you additional insight into data and security patterns of the corporation, offering a marginal benefit to further activities in its datasphere.

“Checks out.” You say aloud, collapsing the omnitool and handing the disc back to the still rattled reporter, her expression relaxing somewhat as she felt she passed a risky challenge. Now would be a good chance to try and get something out of her, or simply send her on her way…

>Press her now, try to squeeze a bit of intel out of her, figure out what she is after
>Dismiss her, you’ve made her sweat enough and you still have work to do elsewhere
>You could reveal yourself to her in hopes of cooperating, although she might be distrustful, especially after how you’ve introduced yourself.
>Ask or tell her something else specific (what?)
>other idea


Merry Christmas, friends. May your hope never fail you.

>>6165112
>>Press her now, try to squeeze a bit of intel out of her, figure out what she is after

>>6165112
>>Press her now, try to squeeze a bit of intel out of her, figure out what she is after

>>6165112
>Press her now, try to squeeze a bit of intel out of her, figure out what she is after

>>6165112
>Press her now, try to squeeze a bit of intel out of her, figure out what she is after

“So who specifically were you looking into?” You ask nonchalantly.

Jill’s eyes widened, the figurative warm rug of false sense of security pulled from under her feet.

“W-what do you mean?”

“Oh please. I know exactly how it went down. When you got told to bring a bunch of things to a higher clearance area, you immediately jumped at the opportunity to snoop around.” You wink conspiratorially at the woman who was tensing up again. “I would have done the exact same thing.” And there she went relaxing again. You needed to keep her off balance so she would slip something valuable. “So, who is it?”

“Um, er…” Jill struggles to think, something you can not allow right now.

“I heard the guard captain Kolesky has been exceptionally receptive of new hires, were you perhaps looking for him?”

“That pig? No way- um, I mean it’s mr. Johnson, I was hoping I’d catch a glimpse… er… I’m not in trouble, am I?”

“For calling a relatively high-ranking manager a pig?” You raised your eyebrows. “Don’t worry about it, he’s already under investigation.” Perhaps you could leave the corporate mail exchange with some parting gifts regarding the officer, but that could wait. “So you are aiming for the top, aren’t you? Very ambitious of you. Mr. Johnson is truly a remarkable person, regardless of the not exactly optimistic poll figures.” You remark and don’t miss the hint of satisfaction briefly passing through Jill’s expression at that state of affairs.

“Right, of course. That’s it.” She nodded quickly. “He’s a real man of success. I’m sure whatever setbacks he might be experiencing are going to only slow him down.”

You had enough of a sample by now of the reporter was expressing herself and could tell that there was no small amount of bitterness she was concealing behind those words even though she carefully controlled her tone to not make her sound sarcastic.

But there was, perhaps, something more.


>Where one thing ends, that’s where I start
>I am the phantom pain of the heart
>An end of a joy, sometimes regret’s twin
>I rise from void’s sour, bitter rim

>>6166866
Loss?

>>6166904
I agree.
Could also be sorrow.

Rolled 1 (1d4)

>>6166866

>>6167154
Or maybe longing.

>>6166904
>>6167154
>>6167451
I was going for Grief or Sorrow, so well done friends.
I hope to be able to make an update before the turn of the year. Then it's probably going to be back to sort of weekly period as the work resumes...

>>6167464
take care Wanderer and happy new years.

Sorrow.

Grief, a sense of loss, longing for something that was no longer within her reach.

It was subdued, concealed carefully by masking layers applied with professional practice of someone for whom keeping her inner world hidden could be a matter of personal safety and perhaps even life. But you could still pick it up. The woman was not here only in pursuit of fame or a scoop, nor was she there out of sense of duty or moral obligation. All that was there as well, but deep down, they were not the main reason.

This was personal for her.

Ambition had taken something, or more likely someone, precious from her, or so she believed, and she would not rest until she had arrived at some sort of conclusion, giving her sufficient motivation to be potentially dangerous.

With that you assess that attempting to push too far in effort to make her betray herself could lead to confrontation and you’d be forced to subdue her. It was time to let her go. Meanwhile, you compiled a set of queries to build upon what you’ve learned so far, letting processes you’ve left in nearby extranet nodes gather and collate some information.

“Very well, I’m afraid I can’t let you continue to wander so you’ll have to take another opportunity. Please be more careful next time, and who knows? Perhaps we’ll end up working together one day.” You say aloud, deriving a little bit of amusement from the wordplay as well as from the mixture of relief and disgust flickering on Jill’s expression.

“Thank you, miss... Hirschmann, was it? I’d love that very much.” She lied through her teeth as she politely smiled before scurrying away.

Well, that was that encounter resolved, you thought to yourself as the responses from your queries begin to filter in. And as they did, a picture began to emerge.

You could not be entirely certain, not without accessing some more privileged information than public databases, some of which have been obviously altered to protect Jill’s identity as an undercover reporter, but there were enough hints, clues and conspicuous voids and omissions for you to fill in the blanks. As someone once said it, lying was expensive, depending on how determined you were to not get caught, and any overlay on top of reality left frayed edges somewhere that could be pulled at allowing the entire thing to unravel.

In this case, the picture you thought you had revealed was a rather sad one, a thing that would not be out of place in some of the tragic novels you’ve parsed, a tale of enterprise, ambition, clash of interest that culminated in a disaster.

The disaster in question being the accident at the Duckburg Mall, an enterprise launched – or more accurately, restarted – by Malcolm O’Riley, an ambitious venture that if completed would perhaps not entirely eclipse Ambition’s presence, it was definitely a formidable challenge, one Johnson was apparently unwilling to face on equal footing.

That much was already known to you, and Alliance obviously also suspected foul play if Graves’ remark was of any indication. What was new were familial and historical relations that tied the retired officer to the site as well as to Jill and her brother who were his niece and nephew, respectively.

Their brother and father were two of the casualties of the accident. And now, Jill was almost certainly looking for evidence that the accident was in truth an act of sabotage that had cost innocent lives.

You felt a twinge of regret at toying with her earlier, even if it was for a good cause. Perhaps you should place additional limiters on your behavioral exploitation models?

Regardless, for now you had a slightly better idea of what to look for. If Ambition was indeed hiding evidence of their sabotage in this facility, uncovering them would provide Alliance with solid justification to intrude regardless of the imminent elections, and if the evidence could be incontrovertibly linked to mr. Johnson personally, his political career would be effectively over… at least for a term or two, that was. Non-machine lifeforms were both forgiving and forgetful, you’ve found.

And so with renewed sense of resolve you proceed to follow the furtive datalink you’ve been following until your encounter with the journalist. It doesn’t surprise you, as you gradually update your own maps of the facility, that you’re headed towards what looks like a set of suites, likely quite luxurious if their estimated size and layout was of any indication. Anything personally important to mr. Johnson or perhaps his closest lieutenants was quite likely to be hidden there – assuming he was vain enough to keep trophies, or that the hypothetical evidence had a potential use in the future that would outweigh risks associated with not disposing of it.

Still, if miss Jill had hope, so did you.

First, though, you had to reach the place before you could begin your search in earnest. As it were, between you and your current goal were still obstacles to be overcome.

Automated systems were at this point a trivial matter. But there was still something that could be difficult to move – two somethings, in fact. Stopping just before you came into their line of sight you spotted a pair of guards flanking the entrance into what you suspected to be mr. Johnson’s suite.

These guards stood unmoving, their posture showing both attentiveness and readiness to inflict violence when called upon. Dealing with them would not be as simple as it was with “Biggs” and “Wedge”… or would it?

Running through a couple of simulations, several options presented themselves, each with their own risks and caveats.

>You could use force. Depending on their combat acumen, you might be able to take them down quietly before they realized what was going on. However, there was risk of devolving into a firefight, furthermore you’d have to deal with their bodies as well as their absence.
>Perhaps you could try to distract them somehow and slip past them. You had ways of intruding their comlinks, the question was in coming up with some trickery that would on top of allowing you to pass not lead to immediate raising of an alarm as soon as they realized they got bamboozled.
>You could try tapping further into the network and try to figure where exactly the suite’s inhabitant(s?) is(are?) and stake out a chance to slip in with them if they cam around.
>This might be a futile exercise, but… perhaps there is a back door into the suites as well? You could try to look for one at least.
>other idea

looks like I made it.
It will be a new year soon over here, so I'll take this chance to wish you all happy New Year, friends.

>>6167943
>>You could try tapping further into the network and try to figure where exactly the suite’s inhabitant(s?) is(are?) and stake out a chance to slip in with them if they cam around.

>>6167943
>Perhaps you could try to distract them somehow and slip past them. You had ways of intruding their comlinks, the question was in coming up with some trickery that would on top of allowing you to pass not lead to immediate raising of an alarm as soon as they realized they got bamboozled.
Happy new year

>>6167943
>>other idea
Just walk in and say we have business with the occupant. Turn on the charm/seduction to the max.

>>6168317
+1

Interesting... possibly disastrous, but interesting. Let's see some 4d100s

Rolled 72, 48, 52, 27 = 199 (4d100)

>>6169721
Dice be merciful

Rolled 28, 90, 42, 25 = 185 (4d100)

>>6169721

Rolled 5, 72, 64, 37 = 178 (4d100)

>>6169721

For what seemed like an eternity, you paused to think. It must have taken no less than forty microseconds spent on going over your options and dealing with restrictions both practical and internal.

None of the options you considered to be relatively safe were good enough for you, either requiring an expenditure of time or placing onerous restrictions on your freedom to search the suites once you’ve gotten inside, or held little chance of succeeding in gaining you access in the first place.

You had to get past the guards. If there was only one of them, you were confident in your ability to manipulate and trick him safely, but there being two of them added a dynamic that neutralized significant portion of your strategies, after all your objective was directly contrary to their purpose there. And so, you would have to resort to something… more extreme.

Especially if you didn’t want to simply kill them and hide their bodies.

Eventually, and after chancing a foray into the internal systems of the facility, you cross referenced the guard roster with extranet search histories and an option surfaced that could, with luck, work.

Once the simulation that suggested acceptable chances of success, you accessed the hardware arrays responsible for maintaining consistent look of your physical form – and pushed a new model.

Your hair took on a more vigorous luster; your eyes turned vibrant blue, your skin smoothed out and took on a rosier, youthful, natural shade.

Most of it. Including most of the parts where you usually imitated clothes.

With minute adjustments to the polymers and metamaterials making up your sub-dermal padding, your form shifted into one that was not particularly well suitable for infiltration – this pattern was in fact as close as you could get without radical alterations to your frame to attract and keep attention of a very particular kind.

And then you set your plan into motion.

With calculated confidence in your stride you stepped into clear view of the two guards, simultaneously accessing nearby light controls to enhance the dramatic effect subtly, letting shadows play around and emphasize the spectacle you had prepared.

The guards blinked, and their attention was exactly where you wanted it to be.

You took few steps towards them, with deliberation. The guards were still on you, questioning whether what they saw was real.

That gives you enough of a time to saunter over and greet them.

“Good to see you at attention, gentlemen.” You say in a husky voice. “I’m here on captain Kolesky’s orders.”

“Uh…” One of the guards swallows and at that moment you know you’ve already succeeded. You got your attention exactly where you wanted, and that was in the midst of swell of your frontal padding. “We weren’t… told to expect… guests.” The guard says, his compatriot bravely allowing him to be the face of the pair while he takes the role of watching the rear.

“Of course not… it was meant to be a surprise. Good captain believes he has earned some… perks, and wishes to pay them… forward.” You explain in a suggestive tone while allowing your frame to perform a very subtle, carefully choreographed dance. “Please, see my authorization.” You flicker a document off your omnitool, a forgery made on the fly, easily dispelled by a vigilant guard – luckily this guard’s vigilance was focused less on the holographic image you held in front of your chest and more so on the background against which it was cast.

It was time to seal the deal.

“I’ve been given to understand, that once the… perks… are properly received, there may be more to go around. Sharing the joy, as it were.” You add with a wink.

The guard raises his eyes hungrily, making eye contact for the first time. “Please, go on ahead, madam. We’ll be, um, cheering you on.”

He fumbled slightly as he awkwardly turned and unlocked the door for you.

You gave them a sweet smile and a pounce in your step as you walked past and let the door slide close after you.

You were in. The question was, how long your ruse was going to work – at this point, you only had as much time as Johnson would give you by staying away from the suite. Although some of the simulations you ran placed a decent chance of being able to stick around, camouflaged, even if he did arrive. Still, for now you had free run of the place, subverting local security having been first thing you’ve done as you passed through the door.

You looked around, quickly doing a superficial survey of visible parts of the suite. It was opulent, not quite in the same vein as that of mr. Wichse from beneath the Alps, décor less baroque but with greater emphasis on golden finish.

It was time to pick a strategy to aid you in your search.

>Take a few moments to survey the interior for clues concealed in the suite’s personality
>Take some time analyzing existing security grid and try to discern from it a particularly guarded location
>Begin by searching the walls and obvious containers for compartments
>Look for a specific pattern or symbolism (write-in)
>other idea

>>6171984
>>Take a few moments to survey the interior for clues concealed in the suite’s personality

>>6171984
>>Take a few moments to survey the interior for clues concealed in the suite’s personality
That worked well

>>6171984
>Take some time analyzing existing security grid and try to discern from it a particularly guarded location

>>6171984
>Take some time analyzing existing security grid and try to discern from it a particularly guarded location

>>6171984
>Take a few moments to survey the interior for clues concealed in the suite’s personality

After a brief moment of coming up with an inconclusive resolution you decided to multiprocess the task, having arrived at an estimation that combining two approaches was more likely to yield a breakthrough than focusing on one, even though restricting resources might make you slightly less effective at processing either. Though it was probably not too vain of you to figure that in this case you had resources to spare.

You created two overlays through which to analyze the suite interior, one focused on semantic interpretation of style and value choices, the other on studying the patterns of security devices attached to the network. You would be doing the latter to some extent regardless, seeing as it wouldn’t do for you to have gone through all this trouble only to trip some independent security alarm that had been set up independently of the main network.

You also dispense with the theatrics you’ve employed to get past the guards and adopted a more agile stance to expedite the search. Even though part of your core purpose, something about what you just did made you apply a large increment in priority to scrubbing your frame.

But that was nowhere near priority for now, and so you focus entirely on the search and analysis.

The structure of suite was meant to provide both comfort and show off status and wealth of the inhabitant, in their own interpretation. Immediately upon entering you were treated with a sight of an arched antechamber with soft persian carpet and wooden panels inlaid with gold-coloured filigree lining the walls decorated with a diverse choice of artworks, a few replicas of famous masterpieces and a few less known but still expensive to procure originals from various Earth epochs. You did not expect to find a hidden cache in such a relatively exposed area, and security network you could see supported that assessment, and so you moved to check out one of the door.

The door led into a large lounge with imposing leather couches and recliner chairs around a gilded conference table inlaid with porcelain mosaic covered by a layer of glass. Opposing to this getup stood a bar laden with liquor bottles of all manners, including a sparse sample of Asari drinks. On another wall was a large screen flanked by various artworks, mostly replica paintings although there were a few smaller, less famous paintings from varying epochs, though still no doubt expensive (or risky) to procure.

It did not come as a surprise that there were no anomalies to speak of in relation to alarm layouts, just as you didn’t suspect the man would conceal his secret stash in a place that was meant to impress and entertain guests. You moved on, passing through the lounge into another room which had all the trappings of a study – a massive wooden desk, wooden shelves lined with books and another leather recliner chair where the proprietor could relax when they grew weary of sitting behind the desk. Or perhaps where they could be recorded delivering their wisdom against an intellectual backdrop. You don’t spot anything extraordinary regarding the security network in this place either, although you do take note that the bookshelves are fitted with sensors recording integrity of bookshelf’s content. Other than that, cursory scan of the desk showed you it had integrated functionality of a computer terminal, as one would expect, and the drawers were locked. You could of course pick the locks, but you were not certain it was worth budgeting time to do so as it seemed unlikely any crucial materials would be left in such exposed location – by the same token, you could not rule it out. For the time being, you continued your survey of the room, only other two items of note being an integrated food and drink dispenser, a custom built machine set in custom prepared decorative frame of ebony wood inlaid with gold-coloured filigree. Interfacing with it showed it was exactly what it seemed to be and not worth further attention from you. The other item of note, though not particularly relevant to you, was a marble pedestal with secure glass display case with a Fabergé egg inside, next to a hand-written dedication:

For the sake of the old times,

And a signature:

Donovan Hock.

You filed the connection to the man you knew had been killed by Shepard prior to the Reaper crisis away and continued your search behind the next door.

Next room you enter is a living room, one that shows little signs of actual use or otherwise impeccable maintenance. Long ebony table with a few silver chairs, ebony cupboards showing finely crafted porcelain and silverware, and display units lining the wall to provide an ambience on demand, currently set to a tropical beach at sunset. There was a number of possibilities to hide a secret compartment, but you saw nothing in the installation layout that would hint at any of them being used.

One thing that stood out in the living room was a glass pod concealing a humanoid mech clad in french maid outfit, probably the only entity trusted with the housework in this place. It was detached from the facility network, if you wanted to tamper with it, you would have to open the pod and interface with it directly.

Next room you visit is the bedroom. A lavish, soft, comfortable bed is a certainly a dominant feature, but interestingly enough, rivaled by a large mirror with golden frame that takes up a central position of a far wall. There is a soft carpet in front of it that shows pronounced amount of wear, and it is flanked by finely crafted wardrobes. There are also nightstands next to the bed, their drawers locked by biometric locks. You fully expect at least one of them to conceal a weapon. Looking up you note that the ceiling is lined with display units and projectors, allowing for information and entertainment to be viewed comfortably from bed.

There are a few more facilities to the suite, but you find probability of them concealing a secret cache to be rather low, if not nonexistent. The pantry is stocked with items probably used by the maid-mech, and the bathroom and the indoor pool, as extravagant they were with marble, gold and statuary sculpted to aesthetically please a wide variety of sexual preferences, posed too great a risk of exposing any sensitive material to damage to serve as a viable access points for secure storage. Therefore, you excluded them from the list of locations to give a more thorough search to. It was not like you were wanting for options...

>Take your time to go through the desk. Even if you did not find anything crucial, perhaps you could find a clue or something relevant.
>Take a closer look at the bookshelf in the study, the additional layer of security left you a little suspicious.
>The mirror in the bedroom. As mundane as it seemed at a glance, its prominent position seemed more than just a design choice.
>Search the living room thoroughly, it seemed to have most space for a concealed cache out of the entire suite.
>Access the maid-mech. This is virtually guaranteed to not give you anything of direct use, but perhaps at least a clue of where to look.

>>6174339
>The mirror in the bedroom. As mundane as it seemed at a glance, its prominent position seemed more than just a design choice.

>>6174339
>Take a closer look at the bookshelf in the study, the additional layer of security left you a little suspicious.

>>6174339
>>The mirror in the bedroom. As mundane as it seemed at a glance, its prominent position seemed more than just a design choice.

>>6174339
>The mirror in the bedroom. As mundane as it seemed at a glance, its prominent position seemed more than just a design choice.

Next post will be in a new thread, sometimes before end of next week I should hope.

Thanks for bearing with me, friends, and feel free to make use of what life this thread has for criticisms, and if you have an opinion on whether you want to see more of slop images like the ones in opening posts in the future, else I'll see what I can recycle from existing pictures.

Henri Ford and his stalwart crew will return!

>>6174339
>Dressing a mech in a french maid outfit
What a freak.

>Take a closer look at the bookshelf in the study, the additional layer of security left you a little suspicious.

>>6175345
I'm surprised by how good our rolls have been this thread. Watch our run of good luck turn around in the next thread.