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xp_logs2004-12-11 12:52 am
x-gambit.livejournal.com) wrote in xp_logs2004-12-11 12:52 am
REMY'S ELEVEN: The Con Game Gone Bad
Everything comes together for the teams.
"You see, Eammon, I never trust a good thing. You know why? There's always a hook hidden in it. Deal of a lifetime? No, no, scooter. Always believe in what you do yourself. Anyone hands you something, hand it right back. There's always another way to take it later." Arcade was pontificating in the casino lounge, a richly appointed bar that had massive windows opening up to the gambling floor below. "That's what they're all down there for. A good thing. And what will they go back to Ohio with, chief? Bupkus."
"That's all very interesting, Jacob." Remy said dryly. "But you still haven't gone over the security plans for your auction. If Magneto comes himself, instead of sending more of his greatly stupid lackies, you're going to get an i-beam in the head for your efforts."
"The building will be suppressed."
"And when he hits it with a fuel truck?"
Arcade barked a laugh. "See, I like that, Eammon. That suspicious mind. It--" Arcade paused as his cellphone rang. Very few people had the number for it (which Remy had acquired during the shuffled in the office by swiping it for a few minutes), and all of them he recognized. Arcade thumbed the button and raised the phone.
"Yes?"
"Arcade. I represent the Brotherhood of Mutants. You will surrender the data you have collected to us, or else we will demonstrate the control we have over your operation. You have thirty seconds to think it over." said the man on the other end, his voice rendered genderless and identityless by a vocal distorter. "Do not think that you control the situation. You do not."
From his place on the couch in the safehouse, Haroun held up one finger . The finger was over his Blackberry, which had a pre-configured message waiting to be sent. All he needed to do was press the SEND button to start the chaos at Arcade's casino. "Who is this?" Arcade said, more puzzled than angry. No one had dared try this sort of thing with him, especially considering the massive electronic and computer protections the casino possessed. If they thought that they could bluff him, they were about to learn that they were deadly wrong. "Look, motherfucker. I don't care what you think you're trying to pull, but you are messing with the wrong man."
"Twenty seconds." said the androgynous voice. "You still have a chance to surrender the data to us. Mutants are the future, Mr Lowenstein. Do the right thing. Give us the data."
"Tell you what, sport. Why don't you bring your little ass around here and I'll make sure to give you actually what you deserve, huh." Arcade grinned like a shark. This little bastard was so out of his depth here. "You want the data? It's for sale tomorrow, chief. You and your college buddies can club together your pocket change and maybe be able to afford a drink. Because you continue this conversation, I'm going to make sure that prison is a relief once we've finished."
"Look out onto the floor, Mr Lowenstein." said the voice, as Haroun's finger descended upon the SEND button. "Watch what you have brought down upon yourself. Contemplate it very carefully, human." He then hang up the phone and laughed richly.
***
Wanda yawned and shifted on the chair in front of the slot machine. She'd been bouncing back and forth between games all day and had finally settled for simply jumping from slot machine to slot machine. Reaching up, she touched her earrings and waited for one, or both, of the boys to get back to her.
"And we are live in three, two, one..." Forge gave the thumbs-up to Doug, sitting across from him in the expensive suite, and flipped the toggles that brought their secure communications online. Doug's idea for piggybacking the signal on the casino's existing communications network had been brilliant, but the frequency-hop encryption was all Forge's doing. They could recite the phone book over the net, and the casino security staff wouldn't hear anything other than background noise.
"Trigger and Nutsy are online, how's it going, Maid Marian?" Forge rolled his eyes at the codenames Remy had assigned them from Disney's Robin Hood.
"Oooooooone'o'clock, and allllll'swell..." Doug said, snickering. At Forge's irritated glance, he shrugged. "What? I have -sisters-. Watched a lot of Disney growing up." Not that he was going to admit to liking the movie, at least, not to Forge. He cracked his neck and rubbed it. "Seriously. I'm in. I've got views on all the slot machines, and control on half a dozen triggers for video poker. " He tapped a few keys and grinned. "And if Trigger here can put down ol' Betsy for a few minutes and get the specs, we'll have connect to the roulette wheels too. They've got software driven random spin-speed functions, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what the hell's moving the wheel itself."
"...I detest that name but other than that, it is going," Wanda murmured quietly, pulling the lever on the slot machine again. Nothing. Drat. "I hear we have to cause a bit of fun down here, boys. Since I am working with two geniuses, let's have a go at this. We need some big distractions on the floor tonight."
"I see slots set to level 1 payouts approximately every seven minutes on Row Six..." Forge said, looking at the wide-screen plasma TV he'd hooked up as a monitor. "That just won't do. Level seven payouts, now THERE'S good fun." Level Seven, of course, was the three-bar jackpot. Of course, the instant that one hit, the casino's IT department would be up in arms looking for the bug. Which is why Forge had triggered the other payoffs to the IT internal ticket system - every time they tried to change the system, another random slot machine would pay off big.
"Roulette wheels are set to - hey, these are seriously broken!" he shouted. "I cannot believe they'd have the audacity to set the odds at 1.25 to 1 for the house. That's just not fair." Forge let the amused sarcasm creep into his voice. "Let's hope everyone picks up on the fix here. Bet big on red, folks, for the lady." A few more keystrokes, and the roulette wheels wouldn't be landing on black for the rest of the night.
"While Forge is doing that, Doug I need you to tell me which one's near the exit are about to hit. We need a bit of milling around, I think. I am near exit 5 in the corner, find me three that are heavy, I'll see if I can see the strings from here." Wanda concentrated and slowly turned on her power. She had been training to do this. To only see and not affect, in order to not bring up the bright red rings around her hands.
Doug hrmed thoughtfully and dropped a few windows off his screen. "Hey, we want mass chaos on the floor, right? Crowds, mayhem, dogs and cats living together, that sort of thing?"
At Forge's nod, and Wanda's quiet 'yes.', he pulled another window up. "Then give me a few. I want to trigger the slot machines to payout on a set of timed object triggers. Hit the ones by the -doors- first, get more people there, so that when Maid Marian sets off the sprinklers, we'll have a traffic jam."
He bent his head over the keyboard, and went silent, fingers tapping out a few dozen lines of code
rapid-fire. After a moment, he straightened back up, stretched and rubbed the back of his neck. "That should do it. If I did this right, it'll also hit the roulette tables and video poker and no one in that room is going to be able to move very fast for at least a few minutes. I just need the word."
Forge smiled. This was better than rigging the fire alarms at his old high school, or scamming an ATM. This was big-scale wide-screen cinematic mayhem. "Machines are set to hit level 2 jackpots in the next two minutes. By exit five..." Forge checked his list and clicked a few keys. "The third and fifth ones on the left. Ten pulls from... now."
Taking a deep breath, Wanda slowly opened her mind to her powers. She wanted to do this carefully, to see and watch but not affect. Yet. There had been some long training sessions to try and see if she could tone down the hex rings glow. "Oh yes, I see them...I think I have an idea." Her mind was already alive with all the chaotic possibilities that she could do. "I hit the slot machines near the exits as you boys are hitting some of the other games. Once the lights of those machines start, and the people start crowding, I'll hit the sprinklers _and_ play around a little with the chandelier. Can someone kill the lights then, make it look like a short?"
"Your wish, fair maiden, is our command." Forge pulled up his backdoor login to the city power grid. While the casino's internal power network was protected tougher than Fort Knox, they still had to get their juice from somewhere. And the casino floor was on an entirely separate grid from the rest of the hotel and building.
"That's all Trigger's domain. I'm no electrical engineer." Doug answered. "Hey,you think we could set the auto shufflers to start eating cards?" He figured, in for a penny, in for a pound. If they wanted mayhem, it might as well cover -ever- single area of the floor.
It wasn't like this wasn't going to look suspicious anyway.
"Hold on to your hats, my 'merry men', it's about to get a little...hectic down here." There was a slight flare around her wrists, partially hidden as she leaned over to pick up her purse. The strings she reached for were fat and blood red, perfect to play with. As people pulled the levers down, one by one the figures on the machines added up to a big one. And the resulting clamor, as one by one they went off, was enough to get everyone's attention.
"You know, we really should be Little John and ... anyone except Nutsy and Trigger. We're the good guys here." Doug said. "I'm on the trouble tickets. It'll give us a delay on them rebooting anything else, give us a little more time to play." Re-routing the IT's monitors wasn't half as difficult as it could be. A switch in port numbers here, a flipped character in a password hash there, and ... "trouble tickets routed to dev-null. They're good, they'll probably have it back up in a few, but for now, we're golden."
"And we have activity from the bug squad!" Forge announced as he watched his monitor on the IT trouble tickets go crazy. "Damn, they're good. They've figured out something's up and are already rebooting the slots on those lanes. And they've picked up on the roulette problem." Forge wiped a line of sweat off his forehead.
"Time for Sherwood to go dark," he announced. At the nod from Doug, he pulled up the power grid window.
"Marian," he intoned dramatically, "bring the house down."
"As you wish." With all the attention focused on the slot machines pouring out money, and the people running towards it, Wanda simply reacted and lashed out. These strings were a little harder to see so she simply went for the ones from the sprinkler heads. Near by, an ancient, heavy-set man decided that the rules of the casino did not apply to him and lit up a cigar and the smoke drifted upwards towards the more sensitive than normal sprinkler. With a wail, the fire alarms went off and the ceiling opened up with a down pour of rain.
This was not something she normally tried to do with her powers. One after another after another. Normally, it would be almost impossible but Wanda knew she had to pull this off. Determined, she gathered herself together and pushed her powers, feeling something give slightly to give her just enough power, enough control to do what she wanted. Lashing out again as soon as
the water hit her, she aimed for the chandelier, to the bulbs that hadn't been set right when they were changed last. With a hiss and rapid explosions, twelve lights exploded, sending down a shower of hot broken glass. "_Now_," she gasped, "do it now."
With a flourish, Forge typed out commands that would trick the Las Vegas Power Authority computers into thinking that the casino no longer existed, thus shutting down power to the floor. As the green connection lines disappeared on his screen, he could see the security cameras go black. "Whoops," he announced, "we're blind down there now. Time to mambo on out of there, mama."
"You did not just... " Doug rolled his eyes. Christ, Forge was good, but damn if the kid said some stupid stuff sometimes. "And... crap." He smacked his forehead and swore. "Forge? I need secure phone out -now-. Power going out will mean the security system's likely to send out an automatic distress call. We have to intercept that now, or the -real- cops are on our ass."
"Bouncing phone connections... security call intercepted. Routing through ID spooler, pinging back to the local PD's Telex net to get an identifier, giving them some John Denver hold music... three two one and-"
The phone on the bed next to Doug rang, cueing a smile from Forge. "You're on, sport."
Doug leaned back in the chair and picked up the phone, answering with a low growl. "Excelsior Hotel. Security. This is Jim." He paused, obviously listening to something on the other end. "Yeah, some idiot lit up a cigar on the floor. Nothing to worry about." He barked a short laugh, nothnig like his normal chuckle and continued. "Never a dull day. Sprinklers ate a couple of cameras, power cut off because of the circuit breakers. We're already back up. Geeks down in IT are fast. Should be, with all the cash they get tossed.'
After a few more moments, he hung up the phone and twitched. "I feel -dirty."
Laughing a little, Wanda stood up from her chair. "And this is Lady Marian signing out. I will see you boys in a while." Turning, her hands twitched. The crowd was going to be impossible to maneuver through. Unless, of course, something were to happen. Still on the rush from pushing her powers, she peered into the stringers. There. Strong, enough on the chaotic side to actually cause some ruckus but
nothing dangerous.
Quietly, she slipped through the crowd as the young man with in the wheelchair suddenly tipped over, having been knocked off balance in the dark, knocking people into the rest of the crowd and some into the machines themselves. Wanda squelched the sudden feeling that she could do _more_ and forced herself to be content with what they had accomplished.
***
Arcade slowly raised the phone back up to his ear. "You have my attention." He said through gritted teeth. "But if this is just some fuck around, I will make sure that you die for weeks, bublah."
"If we were just fucking with you, you would be dead right now, Mr Lowenstein. That should be sufficient to show you that the Brotherhood means _business_. Bring the key to the warehouse on Wabash and Lake. Eleven PM. You bring the key, we will bring you the money we've just removed from your vault.
"Now I know you're talking bullshit, scooter. If anyone of you even got near my vault, alarms would be screaming to high heaven." Arcade said, cocking his head to Ms Locke, who turned and walked towards the command centre to check it out.
"I believe your minions will be able to confirm that what I say is true." said the electronically-masked voice. "Wabash and Lake. Be there." Haroun cut the connection with a grin and a slow stretch.
***
“What the fuck is going on in my casino!” Arcade screamed at his employees in the privacy of the central command room. The chaos on the floor had been maddening, but nothing compared to the losses in the vaults. Even the unruffled Locke was stunned when the feed on the camera had gone back to real time, and the sight of the blown door and the missing stacks of cash were revealed.
“Sir, we’re trying to determine what—“
“Shut up!” Arcade yelled. “I want answers! Not what you’re trying to do with your dick in your hand. Ms Locke, how did they get into my system?”
“The system is closed, sir. The only way they could have possibly gotten in would be by using a direct terminal or acquiring a port passcode from someone on the security team.”
“There was no direct terminal, Mr Lowenstein. My teams haven’t recorded even a blip in the facility security around the terminals they’d need to get that level of access. Someone sold out the codes, sir. It’s the only way.” Chambers added, and caught Arcade’s chilling look.
“Less than forty people have the right codes for that access. I want you to start digging, and when you find someone that’s a fuzzy in their actions of the last few days, start with the torture. I want to know who let my system get ass raped!” Arcade turned back to the monitors. “What about this madness on my floor? Locke?”
“No idea what could have caused the system issues. Or the power loss. The generator should have kicked in immediately.”
“EM pulse.” Remy said from his position off to the side.
“Not possible, sport. I’ve seen the movies too. This whole building is EM shielded.” Jacob said.
“Yeah, but shielded from the inside?” Remy said, and almost smiled as the other shoe dropped. “Magneto could have done it from the washroom without any effort. Mucks up all the electronics, power supply; hell, that chandelier was likely blown from the surge.”
Remy waited as they considered it, mulling over the idea of the mutant starting the chaos. It was a nice simple explanation and fit all the circumstances better than a complicated series of betrayals and attacks. Remy let all of that sink in few a moments, before offering the final twist.
“His bitch Mystique is a shapeshifter and one damn good hacker. She could have penetrated Mr Chambers’ secure areas and started locking out the systems. Once they’ve got access, it would be simple for Magneto to just waltz in an set everything up. Mr Lowenstein, I think the Brotherhood is serious. They want that data, and Magento’s not interested in paying for it with his own money.”
“One hundred and twenty million, sir. That’s what we had in the vault.”
“Fuck.” Arcade snarled and banged the table with his hands. “Alright, Mr Chambers, put a security detail together. Eammon, you’re now on the clock. I want my money back, and the motherfucker that grabbed it.” He pulled the encryption key he’d taken off of Amanda from his pocket and looked at it.
“Then,” Arcade said, his eyes glittering cruelly. “I’m going to give him the files and the key, but not in the way he’ll like. Motherfucker can shit code for life after.”
"You see, Eammon, I never trust a good thing. You know why? There's always a hook hidden in it. Deal of a lifetime? No, no, scooter. Always believe in what you do yourself. Anyone hands you something, hand it right back. There's always another way to take it later." Arcade was pontificating in the casino lounge, a richly appointed bar that had massive windows opening up to the gambling floor below. "That's what they're all down there for. A good thing. And what will they go back to Ohio with, chief? Bupkus."
"That's all very interesting, Jacob." Remy said dryly. "But you still haven't gone over the security plans for your auction. If Magneto comes himself, instead of sending more of his greatly stupid lackies, you're going to get an i-beam in the head for your efforts."
"The building will be suppressed."
"And when he hits it with a fuel truck?"
Arcade barked a laugh. "See, I like that, Eammon. That suspicious mind. It--" Arcade paused as his cellphone rang. Very few people had the number for it (which Remy had acquired during the shuffled in the office by swiping it for a few minutes), and all of them he recognized. Arcade thumbed the button and raised the phone.
"Yes?"
"Arcade. I represent the Brotherhood of Mutants. You will surrender the data you have collected to us, or else we will demonstrate the control we have over your operation. You have thirty seconds to think it over." said the man on the other end, his voice rendered genderless and identityless by a vocal distorter. "Do not think that you control the situation. You do not."
From his place on the couch in the safehouse, Haroun held up one finger . The finger was over his Blackberry, which had a pre-configured message waiting to be sent. All he needed to do was press the SEND button to start the chaos at Arcade's casino. "Who is this?" Arcade said, more puzzled than angry. No one had dared try this sort of thing with him, especially considering the massive electronic and computer protections the casino possessed. If they thought that they could bluff him, they were about to learn that they were deadly wrong. "Look, motherfucker. I don't care what you think you're trying to pull, but you are messing with the wrong man."
"Twenty seconds." said the androgynous voice. "You still have a chance to surrender the data to us. Mutants are the future, Mr Lowenstein. Do the right thing. Give us the data."
"Tell you what, sport. Why don't you bring your little ass around here and I'll make sure to give you actually what you deserve, huh." Arcade grinned like a shark. This little bastard was so out of his depth here. "You want the data? It's for sale tomorrow, chief. You and your college buddies can club together your pocket change and maybe be able to afford a drink. Because you continue this conversation, I'm going to make sure that prison is a relief once we've finished."
"Look out onto the floor, Mr Lowenstein." said the voice, as Haroun's finger descended upon the SEND button. "Watch what you have brought down upon yourself. Contemplate it very carefully, human." He then hang up the phone and laughed richly.
***
Wanda yawned and shifted on the chair in front of the slot machine. She'd been bouncing back and forth between games all day and had finally settled for simply jumping from slot machine to slot machine. Reaching up, she touched her earrings and waited for one, or both, of the boys to get back to her.
"And we are live in three, two, one..." Forge gave the thumbs-up to Doug, sitting across from him in the expensive suite, and flipped the toggles that brought their secure communications online. Doug's idea for piggybacking the signal on the casino's existing communications network had been brilliant, but the frequency-hop encryption was all Forge's doing. They could recite the phone book over the net, and the casino security staff wouldn't hear anything other than background noise.
"Trigger and Nutsy are online, how's it going, Maid Marian?" Forge rolled his eyes at the codenames Remy had assigned them from Disney's Robin Hood.
"Oooooooone'o'clock, and allllll'swell..." Doug said, snickering. At Forge's irritated glance, he shrugged. "What? I have -sisters-. Watched a lot of Disney growing up." Not that he was going to admit to liking the movie, at least, not to Forge. He cracked his neck and rubbed it. "Seriously. I'm in. I've got views on all the slot machines, and control on half a dozen triggers for video poker. " He tapped a few keys and grinned. "And if Trigger here can put down ol' Betsy for a few minutes and get the specs, we'll have connect to the roulette wheels too. They've got software driven random spin-speed functions, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what the hell's moving the wheel itself."
"...I detest that name but other than that, it is going," Wanda murmured quietly, pulling the lever on the slot machine again. Nothing. Drat. "I hear we have to cause a bit of fun down here, boys. Since I am working with two geniuses, let's have a go at this. We need some big distractions on the floor tonight."
"I see slots set to level 1 payouts approximately every seven minutes on Row Six..." Forge said, looking at the wide-screen plasma TV he'd hooked up as a monitor. "That just won't do. Level seven payouts, now THERE'S good fun." Level Seven, of course, was the three-bar jackpot. Of course, the instant that one hit, the casino's IT department would be up in arms looking for the bug. Which is why Forge had triggered the other payoffs to the IT internal ticket system - every time they tried to change the system, another random slot machine would pay off big.
"Roulette wheels are set to - hey, these are seriously broken!" he shouted. "I cannot believe they'd have the audacity to set the odds at 1.25 to 1 for the house. That's just not fair." Forge let the amused sarcasm creep into his voice. "Let's hope everyone picks up on the fix here. Bet big on red, folks, for the lady." A few more keystrokes, and the roulette wheels wouldn't be landing on black for the rest of the night.
"While Forge is doing that, Doug I need you to tell me which one's near the exit are about to hit. We need a bit of milling around, I think. I am near exit 5 in the corner, find me three that are heavy, I'll see if I can see the strings from here." Wanda concentrated and slowly turned on her power. She had been training to do this. To only see and not affect, in order to not bring up the bright red rings around her hands.
Doug hrmed thoughtfully and dropped a few windows off his screen. "Hey, we want mass chaos on the floor, right? Crowds, mayhem, dogs and cats living together, that sort of thing?"
At Forge's nod, and Wanda's quiet 'yes.', he pulled another window up. "Then give me a few. I want to trigger the slot machines to payout on a set of timed object triggers. Hit the ones by the -doors- first, get more people there, so that when Maid Marian sets off the sprinklers, we'll have a traffic jam."
He bent his head over the keyboard, and went silent, fingers tapping out a few dozen lines of code
rapid-fire. After a moment, he straightened back up, stretched and rubbed the back of his neck. "That should do it. If I did this right, it'll also hit the roulette tables and video poker and no one in that room is going to be able to move very fast for at least a few minutes. I just need the word."
Forge smiled. This was better than rigging the fire alarms at his old high school, or scamming an ATM. This was big-scale wide-screen cinematic mayhem. "Machines are set to hit level 2 jackpots in the next two minutes. By exit five..." Forge checked his list and clicked a few keys. "The third and fifth ones on the left. Ten pulls from... now."
Taking a deep breath, Wanda slowly opened her mind to her powers. She wanted to do this carefully, to see and watch but not affect. Yet. There had been some long training sessions to try and see if she could tone down the hex rings glow. "Oh yes, I see them...I think I have an idea." Her mind was already alive with all the chaotic possibilities that she could do. "I hit the slot machines near the exits as you boys are hitting some of the other games. Once the lights of those machines start, and the people start crowding, I'll hit the sprinklers _and_ play around a little with the chandelier. Can someone kill the lights then, make it look like a short?"
"Your wish, fair maiden, is our command." Forge pulled up his backdoor login to the city power grid. While the casino's internal power network was protected tougher than Fort Knox, they still had to get their juice from somewhere. And the casino floor was on an entirely separate grid from the rest of the hotel and building.
"That's all Trigger's domain. I'm no electrical engineer." Doug answered. "Hey,you think we could set the auto shufflers to start eating cards?" He figured, in for a penny, in for a pound. If they wanted mayhem, it might as well cover -ever- single area of the floor.
It wasn't like this wasn't going to look suspicious anyway.
"Hold on to your hats, my 'merry men', it's about to get a little...hectic down here." There was a slight flare around her wrists, partially hidden as she leaned over to pick up her purse. The strings she reached for were fat and blood red, perfect to play with. As people pulled the levers down, one by one the figures on the machines added up to a big one. And the resulting clamor, as one by one they went off, was enough to get everyone's attention.
"You know, we really should be Little John and ... anyone except Nutsy and Trigger. We're the good guys here." Doug said. "I'm on the trouble tickets. It'll give us a delay on them rebooting anything else, give us a little more time to play." Re-routing the IT's monitors wasn't half as difficult as it could be. A switch in port numbers here, a flipped character in a password hash there, and ... "trouble tickets routed to dev-null. They're good, they'll probably have it back up in a few, but for now, we're golden."
"And we have activity from the bug squad!" Forge announced as he watched his monitor on the IT trouble tickets go crazy. "Damn, they're good. They've figured out something's up and are already rebooting the slots on those lanes. And they've picked up on the roulette problem." Forge wiped a line of sweat off his forehead.
"Time for Sherwood to go dark," he announced. At the nod from Doug, he pulled up the power grid window.
"Marian," he intoned dramatically, "bring the house down."
"As you wish." With all the attention focused on the slot machines pouring out money, and the people running towards it, Wanda simply reacted and lashed out. These strings were a little harder to see so she simply went for the ones from the sprinkler heads. Near by, an ancient, heavy-set man decided that the rules of the casino did not apply to him and lit up a cigar and the smoke drifted upwards towards the more sensitive than normal sprinkler. With a wail, the fire alarms went off and the ceiling opened up with a down pour of rain.
This was not something she normally tried to do with her powers. One after another after another. Normally, it would be almost impossible but Wanda knew she had to pull this off. Determined, she gathered herself together and pushed her powers, feeling something give slightly to give her just enough power, enough control to do what she wanted. Lashing out again as soon as
the water hit her, she aimed for the chandelier, to the bulbs that hadn't been set right when they were changed last. With a hiss and rapid explosions, twelve lights exploded, sending down a shower of hot broken glass. "_Now_," she gasped, "do it now."
With a flourish, Forge typed out commands that would trick the Las Vegas Power Authority computers into thinking that the casino no longer existed, thus shutting down power to the floor. As the green connection lines disappeared on his screen, he could see the security cameras go black. "Whoops," he announced, "we're blind down there now. Time to mambo on out of there, mama."
"You did not just... " Doug rolled his eyes. Christ, Forge was good, but damn if the kid said some stupid stuff sometimes. "And... crap." He smacked his forehead and swore. "Forge? I need secure phone out -now-. Power going out will mean the security system's likely to send out an automatic distress call. We have to intercept that now, or the -real- cops are on our ass."
"Bouncing phone connections... security call intercepted. Routing through ID spooler, pinging back to the local PD's Telex net to get an identifier, giving them some John Denver hold music... three two one and-"
The phone on the bed next to Doug rang, cueing a smile from Forge. "You're on, sport."
Doug leaned back in the chair and picked up the phone, answering with a low growl. "Excelsior Hotel. Security. This is Jim." He paused, obviously listening to something on the other end. "Yeah, some idiot lit up a cigar on the floor. Nothing to worry about." He barked a short laugh, nothnig like his normal chuckle and continued. "Never a dull day. Sprinklers ate a couple of cameras, power cut off because of the circuit breakers. We're already back up. Geeks down in IT are fast. Should be, with all the cash they get tossed.'
After a few more moments, he hung up the phone and twitched. "I feel -dirty."
Laughing a little, Wanda stood up from her chair. "And this is Lady Marian signing out. I will see you boys in a while." Turning, her hands twitched. The crowd was going to be impossible to maneuver through. Unless, of course, something were to happen. Still on the rush from pushing her powers, she peered into the stringers. There. Strong, enough on the chaotic side to actually cause some ruckus but
nothing dangerous.
Quietly, she slipped through the crowd as the young man with in the wheelchair suddenly tipped over, having been knocked off balance in the dark, knocking people into the rest of the crowd and some into the machines themselves. Wanda squelched the sudden feeling that she could do _more_ and forced herself to be content with what they had accomplished.
***
Arcade slowly raised the phone back up to his ear. "You have my attention." He said through gritted teeth. "But if this is just some fuck around, I will make sure that you die for weeks, bublah."
"If we were just fucking with you, you would be dead right now, Mr Lowenstein. That should be sufficient to show you that the Brotherhood means _business_. Bring the key to the warehouse on Wabash and Lake. Eleven PM. You bring the key, we will bring you the money we've just removed from your vault.
"Now I know you're talking bullshit, scooter. If anyone of you even got near my vault, alarms would be screaming to high heaven." Arcade said, cocking his head to Ms Locke, who turned and walked towards the command centre to check it out.
"I believe your minions will be able to confirm that what I say is true." said the electronically-masked voice. "Wabash and Lake. Be there." Haroun cut the connection with a grin and a slow stretch.
***
“What the fuck is going on in my casino!” Arcade screamed at his employees in the privacy of the central command room. The chaos on the floor had been maddening, but nothing compared to the losses in the vaults. Even the unruffled Locke was stunned when the feed on the camera had gone back to real time, and the sight of the blown door and the missing stacks of cash were revealed.
“Sir, we’re trying to determine what—“
“Shut up!” Arcade yelled. “I want answers! Not what you’re trying to do with your dick in your hand. Ms Locke, how did they get into my system?”
“The system is closed, sir. The only way they could have possibly gotten in would be by using a direct terminal or acquiring a port passcode from someone on the security team.”
“There was no direct terminal, Mr Lowenstein. My teams haven’t recorded even a blip in the facility security around the terminals they’d need to get that level of access. Someone sold out the codes, sir. It’s the only way.” Chambers added, and caught Arcade’s chilling look.
“Less than forty people have the right codes for that access. I want you to start digging, and when you find someone that’s a fuzzy in their actions of the last few days, start with the torture. I want to know who let my system get ass raped!” Arcade turned back to the monitors. “What about this madness on my floor? Locke?”
“No idea what could have caused the system issues. Or the power loss. The generator should have kicked in immediately.”
“EM pulse.” Remy said from his position off to the side.
“Not possible, sport. I’ve seen the movies too. This whole building is EM shielded.” Jacob said.
“Yeah, but shielded from the inside?” Remy said, and almost smiled as the other shoe dropped. “Magneto could have done it from the washroom without any effort. Mucks up all the electronics, power supply; hell, that chandelier was likely blown from the surge.”
Remy waited as they considered it, mulling over the idea of the mutant starting the chaos. It was a nice simple explanation and fit all the circumstances better than a complicated series of betrayals and attacks. Remy let all of that sink in few a moments, before offering the final twist.
“His bitch Mystique is a shapeshifter and one damn good hacker. She could have penetrated Mr Chambers’ secure areas and started locking out the systems. Once they’ve got access, it would be simple for Magneto to just waltz in an set everything up. Mr Lowenstein, I think the Brotherhood is serious. They want that data, and Magento’s not interested in paying for it with his own money.”
“One hundred and twenty million, sir. That’s what we had in the vault.”
“Fuck.” Arcade snarled and banged the table with his hands. “Alright, Mr Chambers, put a security detail together. Eammon, you’re now on the clock. I want my money back, and the motherfucker that grabbed it.” He pulled the encryption key he’d taken off of Amanda from his pocket and looked at it.
“Then,” Arcade said, his eyes glittering cruelly. “I’m going to give him the files and the key, but not in the way he’ll like. Motherfucker can shit code for life after.”