Tuesday, 11 June 2013, 1:25pm ESTOOC Note wrote:It doesn't seem like this should need to be said, but just in case: The hard drive mentioned in this post is a secret. Your character cannot hack into it. Your character cannot find it. Your character does not even know it exists. Unless I personally, specifically, OOCly tell you otherwise, your character cannot mention or interact with this object or its data in any way.
Dex had a table to himself in a quiet corner of the Moonlight Lotus Café, where he sat steadily typing away on his laptop. There wasn’t much he was expecting to get done during his lunch break today, but he’d identified a couple of IP addresses last night that seemed likely places to uncover a new vampire or two. “Know Thy Enemy” and all that.
The first system he broke into was a bust…mostly. He found an interesting image from a traffic cam, but unfortunately it didn’t show anyone he wasn’t already aware of. The second had a promising-looking video file, which he downloaded to a thumb drive. Viewing it would have to wait until later, though, since a quick glance at his watch told him he needed to head back to work. Grabbing his things and leaving a tip, Dex made his way out the door and back into the mundane world.
Tuesday, 11 June 2013, 8:10pm EST
It had been a long day. One of the servers at Nycticeius Industries crashed pretty spectacularly about twenty minutes after he’d returned from lunch, and the rest of the day was spent recovering data and restoring the network. Dex hadn’t really wanted to stop at another cybercafé before heading home, but there were a few more systems to check, and tired or not, he’d be a fool not to take advantage of the daylight hours he had access to. True, he could just do his hacking from home…but why risk some unexpected event leading the police (or worse) to your door, when it could lead them to a public terminal instead? By the time he’d finished his cyber-snooping for the day and finally come home, it was almost 8 o’clock.
At least the fantôme doesn’t seem to be around yet this evening, he thought as he sat down at his computer. Some sort of French-speaking spirit had made itself at home here recently, and while it didn’t seem to be acting in any really threatening manner, Dex typically preferred his home unhaunted. So, he thought, plugging in his thumb drive, let’s see what creatures we’ve uncovered today.
His finds were mostly disappointing. He’d add them to his steadily growing database, but with only one exception so far, they were all familiar faces, just getting caught by new cameras. He almost quit to take a nap before remembering the video file from lunch. All right, fine, he thought a little grumpily, let’s see what I wasted my time pulling from this system….
The video started simply enough. It appeared to be from an ATM camera…from one of the ATMs at the bank in Wickbridge, from the looks of the crowd. The video had to run for a couple minutes before he saw what he’d been waiting for: The slightly stomach-turning scene of one of them having a meal. The vampire was across the street from the bank, and a little difficult to make out, but it was there, biting into a living person like they were a pouch of Hi-C.
C’mon, Dex thought. Walk a little closer. Turn toward the camera. Just gimme something I can work with here.
Almost as though it heard him, the creature left its victim to wander off in a fresh bout of Harper Rock Syndrome, and decided to cross the street to use the ATM. It was a new face, and yet it seemed strangely familiar. It was something just out of reach, like a half-forgotten dream. Dex was sure this face was new to him, but he just couldn’t shake that sense of déjà vu. The vampire in this video just looked so much like Dex should remember it from somewhere. It was a strange feeling. Why, this creature looked almost like….
Robert Pratt.
“That son of a *****,” Dex muttered, very irritated. They’d only met a year ago, but somehow since then Dex had completely forgotten Pratt’s face. Oh, sure, he remembered their encounters well enough, but somehow he’d managed to conveniently forget every identifying feature of the vampire calling itself Robert Pratt…until just now. Seeing Pratt on his computer screen was enough to shake off whatever power had clouded Dex’s mind…and Dex had no doubt it was something supernatural. His memory was better than that, and this little bout of forgetfulness was much, much too convenient for Pratt to have just gotten lucky.
“Well, Bob,” Dex said aloud, as he transferred the video to the backup hard drive where he stored copies of all the vampire-related files he’d acquired online, “that’s certainly an interesting little trick you have there. I wonder how well it works on someone who keeps labeled, recorded evidence for future use.”
Dex returned the drive to its hiding place, and went to his bed to hopefully get a couple hours sleep before heading out on his nightly errands. Perhaps I should fight fire with fire, he thought to himself as he drifted off to sleep. I wonder what name the Fae have for Mr. Robert Pratt….