Chapter Text
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Alternative Angel – Part 01
“Hey Jesse, I’m heading out to get a burger. Want to come?” Brennan asked, walking up behind the young molecular.
Without even looking up from the computer terminal, Jesse shook his head, his fingers flying across the keyboard. “Not right now. I’m a little busy right now.”
Brennan gave him an odd look. “I’m a little worried about you. You spend all of your spare time at that computer. What are you doing that’s so important?”
“That’s none of your business,” he snapped, turning to face the older mutant.
“Jeez, sorry. I’ll go without you, then.”
“You do that.” Jesse heard Brennan leave before turning back to the screen, reading what was displayed there.
Digi_angel: Is everything ok there?
He typed in his reply.
Synergy: Yeah, just my friends getting on my case for spending so much time on the computer.
Digi_angel: It’s somewhat worrying to me, too, that you always seem to be here, but at the same time it’s nice to have someone to talk to.
Synergy: You’re an interesting person.
Digi_angel: Even though you know almost nothing about me?
Synergy: You always have interesting things to say.
There was a pause before the reply scrolled across the screen.
Digi_angel: Really?
Synergy: One thing I’ve noticed about you is that you have a lack of self-confidence.
Digi_angel: I don’t interact with people much.
Adam walked into the room. “Jesse, we need you.”
He looked up from the screen. “Can it wait?”
“No, it can’t. Finish up whatever it is you’re doing there and come out and join us.”
Jesse sighed and turned back to the computer. Synergy:Look, I have to go. My friends need my help with something.
Digi_angel: I understand.
Synergy: You’ll be here later?
Digi_angel: Yes. I have way too much spare time.
Synergy: Right. I’ll see you later.
He signed off and closed down the program, getting up off the chair. He walked out to join the other members of Mutant X. “What was so important that it couldn’t wait?” he asked grumpily.
“You’ve been spending too much time at the computer,” Adam scolded.
“Why does everyone keep ragging on me about that? It’s not hurting anyone.”
“No, but it’s turning you into a recluse,” Emma pointed out.
Jesse glared at her before turning back to Adam. “So what’s going on?”
“Proxy Blue has been saying things about a series of electronic vandalism, low key hacking and the like, but lately it’s been escalating to openings in security systems, power outages in major office buildings and embassies, and even the odd electronic theft. Again, nothing big has been stolen, just small amounts of money, but there’s concern than it could escalate even further. The latest company that’s been attacked is a robotics corporation called Jascom. We need to find whoever’s behind this and stop them before that happens.”
“Wouldn’t that best be accomplished from where I was earlier?” Jesse asked him.
“I want you and Emma to go check out the site of the latest bit of vandalism. I’ve already diverted Brennan from his burger hunt to the same place.”
“Right. We’d best get going then,” he said to Emma. “Should we take a car or the Helix?”
“Might as well take a car as the location is in the middle of downtown,” Emma told him as she picked up her jacket. “The Helix is kind of conspicuous.”
In response, Jesse grabbed a set of car keys and picked up his jacket, heading for the garage. Emma gave him a strange look before following him out.
They saw Brennan parked in front of a large skyscraper in the middle of the downtown area. Jesse parked the car right behind him and both he and Emma got out, joining Brennan on the sidewalk.
“So where do we start?” Brennan asked. “Can we make this fast? I’m starving!”
“Adam wants us to get access to one of the computer terminals and see if we can trace the vandal. I can get us in. Jesse, you have a look while Brennan and I keep an eye out for any trouble.”
Jesse nodded. “Right. Let’s get this over with then.”
Emma led the way with Jesse and Brennan in tow. Brennan turned to the younger man. “What’s with you, man? Normally you’d be all over this sort of thing.”
“I have a few things on my mind lately,” he replied, sounding distracted.
Emma walked right up to the front desk and used her gift on the guard to convince him to give them access to the building. Brennan shuddered, hoping that he’d never be in a position where Emma would ever have to mess with his head like that. It was very disturbing to watch and he had no urge to know what it felt like.
The three of them went up and elevator to the twenty third floor. Jesse phased them into a room that required a key card to get into. He sat himself down at a terminal and started to work, his fingers flying across the keyboard. Brennan and Emma stood to either side of the door just in case someone came in.
“I’m in,” Jesse declared a few minutes later. “Let’s see what we can find.”
“Adam says to look at the logs for the end of the business day and for between two and five in the morning.”
“That gives me a good starting place,” he said as he typed a new sequence. “There’s something for the first time period, but it looks harmless, like someone was just poking around, looking at files.”
“What files?”
“From here, they look completely random.” Jesse looked down at the computer. “This thing has a burner in it. I’ll copy them so that we can have a look at them later. Now, let’s have a look at the next time index.”
“Make it quick, Jess,” Brennan advised. “I think I hear someone coming.”
“No pressure,” Emma added.
“Whoa! That’s weird.”
“What’s weird?”
“I’m just going to make a backup of all this so I can go over it later, but this doesn’t make any sense. There’s no pattern to any of it.” He highlighted the files in question and made a copy onto a blank disk he found sitting in a box nearby. “Come on, hurry up,” he muttered at the screen.
When the disk popped out he grabbed it, pushed the button to slide the CD-Rom drive back in, stuck the disk into a clear jewel case and put it in his jacket pocket.
“Jesse?” Brennan asked. “I’m done. Emma, can you sense anyone in the rooms beside us?”
“No.”
“I’ll phase us into one of those and then out into the hallway,” he said, getting up and moving to the left wall, putting his hand on it. He exhaled and the wall phased, allowing them to pass through it.
The room they wound up in was very poorly lit. There was a bluish glow on one side of the room. They went towards it, hoping that it would help them see a little better. The glow turned out to be a tall cylinder with a human-like figure inside, hooked up to a breathing apparatus and life support system. Closer now, the figure was a young woman wearing what looked like a bathing suit, surrounded by an unidentifiable liquid that bubbled every so often. Her shoulder length hair fluttered around her. Her eyes were closed. The blue glow the cylinder gave off made it impossible to determine anything about her coloring or race.
Jesse went to the monitor beside the tube. “Whoever she is, she’s alive, but these vitals look like she’s either in stasis or a coma. I don’t know enough about this to tell which.”
“I’m not registering a lot of brain activity, but the liquid around her is distorting my perception of her.”
“Could that be why you didn’t sense her earlier?” Brennan asked.
“Quite possibly. We should get out of here.”
“We can’t just leave her here!” Jesse exclaimed.
“We don’t know what pulling her out of that tube will do to her. For all we know, she might not even be in any danger. They could be trying to save her life. We can come back later and try and figure that out, but what’s important right now is getting that information back to Sanctuary to try and figure out who’s behind these attacks,” Brennan said. “Just phase us out of here.”
“But-“
Emma put her hand on Jesse’s shoulder. “We’ll tell Adam about her. Maybe he knows something. Ok?”
The young molecular nodded reluctantly and phased through the wall, checking to see if there was anyone out there. Seeing that it was all clear, he gestured for the other two to follow. They hurried back down the elevator and out to their cars.
“Are you two heading right back to Sanctuary?” Brennan asked outside on the sidewalk.
“I am. Emma?” Jesse turned to give her a questioning look.
“Actually, I might join you for that burger, Brennan,” she said. “I’m getting a little hungry.”
“Ok. I’ll let Adam know when I get back.”
“Why don’t you come with us, Jess?” Brennan invited. “You should eat something.”
“I think there’s some chili left over from last night. I’ll just eat that.”
“Assuming that Shal or Adam hasn’t eaten it yet,” Emma reminded him.
Jesse shrugged. “There’s lots of stuff to eat in Sanctuary. I’m not really picky that way.”
“Right,” Brennan said, rolling his eyes. “Your loss, I guess. We’ll see you later.” He and Emma got into his car and took off, leaving Jesse standing alone.
He shook his head and climbed into his car and starting the engine. As it ran, he took the disk out of his pocket and turned it over. His mind was on the woman in the cylindrical tank as he put the disk back in his pocket and headed back to Sanctuary.
Who is that anyways? What is she doing in there? Is she ok? I want to help her, but Brennan’s right about this. We don’t know anything about her. She could even be dangerous. I wonder what Adam’s going to say about that?
“Brennan was right,” Adam was saying as Shalimar walked into the computer room where Adam and Jesse were.
“Right about what?” she asked, leaning against the wall.
“They found a woman in some sort of stasis tube. Jesse wanted to pull her out, but Brennan figured it was a bad idea,” Adam explained. “I wouldn’t mind having a look at it later, but there are more important things to deal with than that.”
Jesse slid the disk he’d made into the CD-Rom drive and opened the files. “None of these files seem to be of any importance.” He indicated a few with his finger. “These ones were accessed towards the end of the business day from an outside user. The others were all accessed at around 3:27 in the morning.”
“Could you trace the user?” Shalimar asked him.
Jesse shook his head. “No, there wasn’t enough time. Brennan heard someone coming, so I copied the files and we took off, but I think I can access the database from here.”
“I’d like to have a look at those files,” Adam said. “Maybe I can find something to explain why they were singled out.”
Jesse popped the disk out and put in its case before handing it to Adam. “Good luck. I’d rather work on finding the person responsible.”
“This is definitely more your thing anyways,” Shalimar commented. “Where are Emma and Brennan?”
“Getting something to eat,” Jesse replied, settling in to get to work. “They’ll be back later.”
“Right. I’ll leave you to this, then.” She clapped him on the shoulder before walking out of the room.
“Goody,” he mumbled to himself. It took him a few minutes to gain access to the company’s database, but it let him in without any trouble. He reopened the files he’d looked at earlier and looked at the list of users who’d opened them in the time periods in question. There had been some access to them during the business hours, so he ignored the ones that had been internal. There was one external IP address. He set the computer to trace the source.
A flashing icon on the bottom right corner of his screen caught his attention. He clicked on it.
Digi_angel: You busy?
Synergy: How do you always seem to know when I’m here?
Digi_angel: Just lucky I guess. Besides, you’re always on here.
Synergy: I’m kinda busy at the moment.
Digi_angel: Anything I can help with?
Synergy: Unless you know a faster way to trace an IP address than the way I’m using right now, no, not really.
Digi_angel: I know very little about how computers work. It’s odd, but I’m the most technologically illiterate person I know
Synergy: There’s nothing wrong with that.
Digi_angel: You’d be surprised
Synergy: Probably, but, then again, I don’t really know that much about you, as you constantly remind me
Digi_angel: You know, I’d really like to tell you more, but I’m not entirely sure if I can trust you. I don’t know much about you, either, but you seem like a nice person
Synergy: Glad to her it. On days like this, I really feel like a nerd.
Digi_angel: I don’t think you’re a nerd. I can guarantee that you spend less time on the computer than I do.
Synergy: Really? How can you spend that much time on the computer and not know much about them?
Digi_angel: Again, I don’t know how much I can trust you
Synergy: So why don’t we meet for coffee and we’ll talk? Learn about each other and such?
Digi_angel: That’s not possible.
Synergy: Why not?
Digi_angel: I’m not capable of leaving my home by myself
Synergy: You’re handicapped?
Digi_angel: In a manner of speaking, yes
Synergy: You could have said something earlier. Or did you not trust me not to react badly to that?
Digi_angel: I feel a little guilty, but yeah. That’s right
Synergy: I’m not exactly what you would call normal either. Don’t worry about it.
Digi_angel: I feel much less guilty now. But I’m keeping you from your work. Page me when you’re not busy, ok?
Synergy: It’s really not that big a deal. It’s almost done anyways
Digi_angel: Coo
Synergy: Damn!
Digi_angel: What?
Synergy: The IP turned up as a dead end. How’s that possible?
Digi_angel: You’re asking the wrong girl, Synergy
Synergy: So you are a girl. I’d wondered about that.
Digi_angel: And this changes what?
Synergy: Nothing. It just explains a lot about you. I have to go. My friends need to know about this.
Digi_angel: Right. I’ll be on for quite some time, so page me whenever.
Synergy: Will do. Bye.
Digi_angel: Bye.
Jesse got up off the chair and headed straight for Adam’s office. Adam looked up as he walked in. “Find anything?” he asked.
Jesse shook his head. “In a manner of speaking. The IP address of the user turned up as a dead end. It hasn’t been assigned to a computer. I’m not sure how this is possible. If it hasn’t been assigned, why is it that it was in use?”
“Is there any other way of trying to track this person?”
“I need to know more about those files. Did anything come up?”
Adam sighed. “It’s very frustrating, but no. If there’s a connection between them, I haven’t been able to find it. Mostly, they’re just personnel files, a couple ones on some prototype machines the company’s developing, and some on business deals. The personnel files don’t match up with the people on any of the projects or those involved in the business deals. The deals have nothing to do with the projects.”
“Earlier, you said something about electronic thefts,” Jesse said slowly. “Maybe this is how the thief starts out. Poking around at random files to pick out a target. Perhaps whoever we’re looking for is looking to divert funding from a project or sell information on one of those business deals.”
“Or blackmail one of those employees,” Adam added, sliding the disk out of his CD-Rom drive and handing it back to Jesse. “That sounds plausible. See what you can come up with on these files. I’ve copied them to my hard drive, so take your time. I’ll see if my sources have anything in the meantime.”