Hoist the Colors: The Black Flag

[Kirill]

//engaging sequence
//tiers one through seven are unlocked
//suppressing security programming
//security programming offline
//locating file
//file found
//downloading file
//download complete
//reinstalling security parameters
//security programming online
//disconnecting

Slowly, his eyes slipped open, his mind receding from the net as the world around him came into view. The room was dark, the black of the furniture shapeless shadows. The only source of light was the electric glow of Svetlana’s laptop from across the room, the monitor dimmed to an almost undetectable luminescence. Her fingers tapped softly at the keys while she worked, her frame hunched over the desk as she narrowed her sharp, green eyes on the screen, the dim light reflecting on the frames of her glasses.

He left her alone, enjoying the silence of the moment as he closed his eyes again, letting his mind wander through the essence of the information that flowed all around him. He could feel it, like a living pulse that the wide world needed to go on. Information was power. It was the blood that kept the modern world living, and it was all at his fingertips. Just a solitary moment of silence, a little concentration, and he could immerse his mind into the greatest collection of knowledge in the entire world, all of the internet as his disposal.

That, however, was a titanic sort of task. Monumental. A mammoth undertaking. To immerse himself into the web would be to open himself up to all of the information across the globe at once. Every node of every server, every packet that travelled along the information superhighway, all bombarding him at once, passing through him in an instant, an infinite number of files, bits, bytes, and beyond; more information than any one mind could ever hope to process, only to be repeated again the very next instant, in a continual stream, forever.

Something like immersing himself into the web was going to be delicate work, requiring far more of his concentration than he dared to expend on his task. The world around them was in an uproar. Groups all over the city were going to war with one another. Deaths were in the hundreds. There was no telling if, or when, Veil Towers might be dragged into one of these little turf skiffs, and if it were to happen, he would need to be cognizant of the world around him. He would need to know the threat, in order to protect what was important to him.

As things stood, their little apartment was safe. Between him, and his wife, nothing, and no one, besides Svetlana, made its way in or out. There were alarms on the doors, set to alert him at the first sign of an intruder. It was a tense situation, but nothing compared to the things he had undergone before he had come here to Canada. This was casual; a walk in the park.

He checked his watch, only narrowly cracking a lid to peer at its face in the dim light. Reanna wouldn’t be home anytime soon. Most of the night was open to him. He supposed he could check on the task list, to be certain that none of the more high priority jobs had gone unnoticed.

If not, he would find time for something a little more… recreational.

There was always chaos to be sown. Perhaps he and Svetlana could work over a local business, or maybe even a government page. Stealing from the locals was such easy work, it was almost not worth logging into their servers. Maybe he should plan something more… big time. Maybe he should look into something more… international.

Nothing screamed chaotic like international cyber espionage.

[Kirill]

War, of course, was the most rational choice, the most devastating form of chaotic outburst that could come to mind. Nothing sowed discord like war. Though, if they wanted that, there were many ways to go about sparking conventional warfare. What he was after, however, was a more cybernetic arena, a battle of wits against the world’s most brilliant coding minds. Test the strengths of each of their skills, to battle with programs and codes, rather than destroying one anothers’ persons with guns and explosives.

Cyberwarfare has always had a more effective reach than more conventional means. From your desk, a coffee shop, a wall-mart bathroom, you could bankrupt entire countries, completely obliterate any online records of individuals all over the world, break down civil engineering across any number of infrastructures throughout the entire planet. You could attack just about any part of someone’s life, someone’s home, from anywhere in the world in as subtle or as spectacular a fashion as you chose. It all factored down to your skill, and your determination. Kirill lacked in neither.

A cursory glance at his subordinate told him she was busy, delving deep into whatever project she had shouldered and was going to be lost in its workings for the foreseeable future. That meant he was likely to be doing this on his own. He moved to the front door, looking up into the corner where the walls met the ceiling of their apartment and waved, his expression dour as ever before he turned to speak to Svetlana over his shoulder in a deep, rich Russian that was likely to be lost on most, if not all, of the rest of the floor’s inhabitants. “I’m going out. I’ll likely be back in a few days. If you need me, I’ll probably be at the coffee shop most nights. Public address and all. Stay out of Iskra’s way, if you don’t want to wind up in the morgue.”

Without another word, he pushed through the door with his shoulder, the heavy, reinforced slab of solid oak swung soundlessly on well oiled hinges, and slipped shut with only the sound of the latch falling into place with a solid click. On the other side of the door, he heard his wife’s home security system repriming itself as he dipped his hand into the pocket of his long, heavy leather trench and flicked a crumpled, well-worn pack of cigarettes from the deep darkness and palmed it easily, a tap of his thumb sending a single filterless tip shimmying from the torn mouth of the pack. Bringing it to his lips, he clamped lightly and pulled it free, shoving the pack back into his pocket and lighting the cigarette with the lighter in his opposite palm.

His face, washed in the orange glow of the flickering gout of flame from the lighter, twisted into a look of concentration as he urged the cigarette to catch flame. The instant it was so, he snapped the lighter shut and shoved it back into his pocket as well. He glanced from one end of the hall to the other, before choosing to follow the east corridor, as was his custom, to the elevator on the north side of the building. The brass button for calling the lift was well worn, the Towers home to dozens of families, all of them coming and going often, particularly after hours. Steely eyes lifted to the dial above the doors, indicating that the car was on the fourth floor. He had a minute to wait.

He sighed, smoke billowing from his lips as he glanced around the small space between the two apartments against the wall opposite the elevator, and pressed his back to the cool, hard surface as he glanced at his watch. The night was plenty young, so he had all the time he needed. He wasn’t going very far, anyway. A public access point, any public access point, would serve his purposes just fine. The closest was the restaurant across the street, but that was just a little too close, if some hotshot out there was able to find their way through a tracer to his actual location.

Not like it would really matter if they did. He was able to pick up and abandon an access point with little to no warning, and there was absolutely zero physical evidence to connect him to any kind of computer activity. No hard lines, linked into any computers with any kind of memory drives. There was nothing for anyone to confiscate, no real countermeasures that could be taken against him, no sorts of viruses that would really have any effect on him. No, he was cyber espionage’s wet dream. He let his lips curl into a smile as the door finally dinged, the doors swinging open and a young blonde stepping off the elevator, pausing to chatter with the woman that had appeared as if out of nowhere at his elbow.

He eyed the woman with dark hair that had, somehow, slipped up to him without his notice. She was a vampire, that much he knew, and the woman she spoke to wasn’t. So far as he could tell, she wasn’t, that is. He slipped past them and onto the elevator, where the dark haired vampire placed her hand on the door’s stop, keeping it from shutting as she nattered on with the human girl. The blonde laughed, and the vampire smiled, finally stepping into the car and letting the door shut. “Sorry.” She muttered to him as he snubbed out his cigarette, tucking what was left behind his ear. The vampire turned to him, and tipped her head back to look up into his face. “Ground floor, I guess?”

She lifted a hand and pushed a slender digit into the ground floor button as he gave her a grunt of affirmation. She winced at his abrasive nature, and decided to ride the rest of the journey back to earth in silence. She looked at him once, her bright, blue eyes filled with questions as she looked like she was about to say something, before she fell silent and shook her head, instead. It was probably for the best. He watched the dial in silence, watching the floors count away slowly, the two of them standing alone in the small car.

After what felt like an eternity, the doors opened and the small twig of a vampire dashed out and into the lobby, practically vanishing into the shadows. Skittish little thing, he thought to himself as he plucked the cigarette from behind his ear and placed it between his lips. He nodded to the night doorman and slipped out into the cold street. Boots crunched against what was left of the snowy crust that had coated everything for weeks, the heavy material gaining purchase with little effort as he flicked his lighter open again, letting the little flame lick against the burnt tip, the tobacco catching in an instant and the lighter returning to his pocket with a flourish of his hand.

He tipped his head into the wind, shielding his eyes from the harsh, sharp lash of powdery snow blown by the arctic winds. He reached his hand into his pocket again and pulled a plain, black ball cap free and placed it over his head to keep the snow from his eyes while keeping his hands free. His hand lifted to the scarf around his throat and pulled it up over his face, both concealing his identity from the public that might take it upon themselves to recognize him, from somewhere, and shielding himself from the cold bite of the wind. At least, it appeared that way, anyhow.

As he walked, he concentrated on his phone, connecting to the web through its connection, collecting seemingly unimportant data from all across the world, pulling files from countries across the globe as he sought information that might prove useful in instigating an exchange of attacks, something that might allude to valuable, protected information.

There was a lot. The question was, which information did he wish to pursue? Who did he really want to piss off?