not_theleader | View it, code it, jam, unlock it (for everyone)

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View it, code it, jam, unlock it (for everyone)

The upcoming tech convention has been in the news for weeks, and they've been planning for even longer than that. Marcus has already helped Sitara plaster the sides of the buildings with an eyeline to the convention grounds; Wrench has a crate full of things that Marcus can't even imagine the purpose of; and Josh has a dozen companies and fifty individual names he wants to investigate. Marcus himself has his most comfortable shoes, freshly charged headphones, and back-up batteries for the jumper and quadcopter.

He puts on his best Young Upstart clothing that morning when he heads out, grabbing a Brand Name coffee on the way to better blend in. He spends the first part of the day among the open displays set up outside the convention center. They're all open to the general public so people can see what each company has on their agenda for the coming year, and Marcus knows they'll have it all locked down as tightly as they possibly can to keep DedSec, Prime_Eight, and anyone else from getting an opening. It's the best place to start blending in, though, as well as giving them their first look at the names Josh has on his lists, and their channel is full of commentary on each display Marcus passes. He drops a few pings on networks and individual cell phones as he goes, too, starting their longer game of getting into the closed networks inside the building.

Marcus stops in front of Galilei's table to thumb through one of the display tablets, looking at the plans for some of their upcoming launches. It's all things they already know about, but his position puts Tidis's booth in scanning range, and Marcus knows they need to keep tabs on the robotics company after how they embarrassed them before.

He's just about to move on when he has Josh's voice in his ear. "Wait, Marcus, go back."

Marcus stops a little awkwardly and turns back around, smiling at the woman behind the card table as he reaches out to take a magnet. "See something?" he mutters.

"I thought..." Josh returns a moment later. "Nevermind. Keep going."

"Okay..." Marcus drawls a little but does move on, only slightly unsettled by their near brush with whatever it was.

The morning passes, and people start heading inside for the first of the panels. Marcus has no interest in the keynote, but it's one they could actually get a pass for, and he'll really take anything that will get them through the door. He falls in line behind a man a few inches taller than him, sliding into the seat next to him once they get into the auditorium.

"Snooze time," Wrench complains in his ear, and he can't help but chuckle.

"Huh?" his seatmate asks, and Marcus waves his phone a little.

"Uh, stupid meme, you know how it is."

The man chuckles, now, grinning as he nods. "Yeah, meme for every occasion, right?" He has a slight Southern accent that marks him as an out-of-towner, and Marcus adjusts a little.

"Always. You oughta see some of the ones I get in my group chats. Some of them shouldn't even see the light of day."

The other man nods again, his curly brown hair bouncing slightly with the motion. He's wearing a vest, tie, and dress shirt, but with jeans and Chuck Taylors, not that different from ninety-nine percent of the other people in attendance. "Yeah, no, I have to ban some from the servers every now and then. Sometimes you just need a break from someone taking an arrow to the knee."

Marcus laughs outright, now. "Absolutely, man. So, uh... sorry to ask, but you're not from the area, are you?"

"The accent gives it away, right?" he asks, waving a hand at Marcus when he pulls a face. "Originally from middle Tennessee, though I spend most of my time in New York these days. I have a computer repair service and teach computer science at one of the local colleges. I'm out here to scope out whatever Silicone Valley's got up its sleeve to take back to my kids, you know?"

"I do know," Marcus agrees. "I'm, uh... born and raised in the area, but I still keep an eye on what's going on."

"Good plan." His seatmate pauses, glancing toward the front of the room as the lights go down. "Well, let's settle in for whatever this is," he adds with the same amount of disdain Marcus and the rest of Dedsec have for the dog and pony show. A moment later, though, he leans over again. "David Laney, by the way. Good to meet you."

"Marcus Halloway," Marcus returns. "And likewise."

--

The keynote is absolutely the snooze fest Wrench declared it would be, but it does at least give them some new things to look into. He and David exchange a few more pleasantries on the way out of the auditorium before the other man excuses himself to "the little nerd's room".

"Alright, so what am I looking for?" he asks the party line as he drifts along with the crowd.

Ten minutes later, he's slipped "backstage" into the green rooms provided to those with presentations. He's just dodged past security when a door opens just in front of him. Marcus manages to backpedal to keep from running into the slim, half-crouched figure that ducks out of it. They have a hoodie up over their head, a half-mask not unlike his own pulled up over their nose and mouth. They register surprise when they see him - but in that same instant, they shove Marcus back and turn on their heel to sprint in the other direction.

"Shit," Marcus hisses, ignoring the chorus of concern in his ear as he struggles to keep his balance.

"That! It's the same signal I caught earlier!" Josh says over the rest of the ruckus, and Marcus fumbles for his phone, starting a trace - that cuts out a moment later, his signal blocked at the receiving end.

"Shit!" Marcus says again - but then there are boots behind him, and he turns and ducks into the open door, pulling it closed just as a herd of Umani goons go trooping past, as alarms start to sound around him. "There's someone else here!"

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Aiden really doesn't need hacking help anymore, either, Ray and Clara helping him fill out the gaps in his knowledge, these last few years. He's not as quick, in a pinch, as either of them are, maybe, but now -- well, he feels like, if everything that happened with Damien had happened now, he might have stood more of a chance. Either way, the point is that he could have found the system key on his own. It would have taken time he doesn't have, however, especially if he's supposed to be on their new friend, so letting Marcus do the heavy lifting when he's right there takes some of the pressure off.

"Got it," he mutters, something grateful in his voice, that in mind. He uses his newfound access to pull up the camera feeds, not having to restrain himself, now that, as far as the system is concerned, he should be there, and adds, "Got him, too." His shadow drifts past Marcus's door, pulling his mask up as he goes. He's going to try and separate their friend from Umeni, then lead him into a dead end, opening and closing doors as he needs to. The fact that Wrench plans on getting the security company's attention will only make that easier.

Before he does, though, Wrench pauses at Marcus's door, using the system key to open it, and pokes his head in. "So, I'm hearing 'no rocket launchers'," he starts, once he feels like he's sure he isn't going to scare the shit out of Marcus. "Which, shame, but hey. I get it."

So, he's just going to pull his gun and hand it over to Marcus. It's not a rocket launcher, just a 9mm, but the point he's making is the same. If he's going to lead Umeni on a merry chase where civilians are involved, he really doesn't need the gun. Never mind the fact that, if and when he really does he can always just pick something up from one of the guards. Still, he plans on going nonlethal. A faulty electrical box here, a burnt out transformer there. That kinda thing.

Marcus glances over his shoulder as the door opens, confirming that it's Wrench. "Yeah, sorry, man," he returns lightly. "I'll make it up to you some other time."

He takes the gun gratefully, checking the safety. He doesn't plan on using it either, but it is nice to have just in case things get a little loud. "Alright. Aiden, we'll catch up with you once we get out of here."

"You super owe me, dude," Wrench confirms, already on his heels, turning, headed back towards the door. He pauses when he reaches it, and shooting a glance back over his shoulder, adds, "But uh, Runaways rallying cry and all that. See you outside."

A brief (^_^) flashes across the mask before he bounces out into the hallway, the door clicking shut behind him.

David runs, mask pulled up snugly over his mouth and nose, telltale curls tucked neatly under his hood. He hadn't thought about the possibility of more hackers being out here despite what Andrew had warned him about the activity of half a dozen hacker grounds in the area - and that didn't even include their own allies. If he's being honest, he panicked when the other man came around the corner; he should have at least tried to pick up who he was dealing with. But then he was getting hacked and Umeni was yelling at him to stop, and, well. The point is that Andrew is going to sigh at him, but he'll have to do it after all this is over and he's checked in.

Right now, he runs, phone in hand as he dodges through the facility, heading for the nearest exit. He can still hear shouts and boots behind him - and the really worrying part now is that he's not sure all of them belong to Umeni. He taps his thumb to his screen, dodging through the next door and around the janitorial cart he almost trips over.

Seemingly all on its own, the door David ducked through swings shut lazily. A soft click follows, easily missable under the sound of voices as Umeni approaches, then a gentle, hi-pitched whine as Aiden launches a small scale DDoS attack on the system, flooding it with information until it doesn't know up from down, open from closed. The door David came through won't open from either direction, now, at least not for a few minutes, so neither he nor Umeni will be going that way.

Where one door closes, another opens, however, and so Aiden opens two -- one for Umeni, to herd them away from David and back towards Wrench, and the other for David, himself, to try and get him where he wants him.

David doesn't pay the door behind him much attention, still focused on moving away from Umeni and toward the outside. His phone flashes an alert at him, and he swears, directing the DDoS away from his own firewalls.

"Fuck," he swears when the first door he tries to open doesn't respond - but he heads through the next one and then ducks into the corner as it closes. The sound of Umeni is fading, but obviously someone else is after him, now, and he needs to find another way out.

Adjusting his mask, he turns his attentions to his phone, to the schematics of the building he downloaded earlier.

There are, according to the schematics, more than a few ways out, the building built to code with its share of fire exits. There are also a few other exits, unmarked on the blueprint, probably for employees and even more likely without carrying the risk of being alarmed, drawing Umeni's attention back towards them. Aiden plans on trying to herd David that way, not sure how good a hacker their friend is, if he is one at all. He suspects, sure, but -- no, better to take David down a path that won't end in an alarmed door, even if he doesn't plan on letting him get to that door, get outside.

That in mind, there's another soft mechanical sound, and the light over the card reader on the door he wants David to take clicks from red to blue.

David startles as the door clicks, though he doesn't move for a moment, just staring at it. "Shit," he mutters after a moment, glancing to the door he's hiding behind before he turns his attention to his phone in earnest, fumbling in his pocket for his headphones with his free hand. He brings up cameras as he slips the buds into his ears, the cord hanging around his neck.

It's then that he moves, content that no one's waiting for him behind the new door. He pushes himself up out of the corner and heads for the open door, locking it again behind himself as he heads down this new hall, opening new tabs on his phone. He needs to make some calls while keeping an eye on his own situation - he can't afford to be distracted, but he also needs to figure out who else is in the building.

Aiden lets the door David locked stay locked, it another barrier between him and Umeni and not stopping him at all, for all that he's coming at him from another angle. He lets David fidget with his phone, too, still trying to decide if he's another hacker or just a thief. If he ends up trying to phone a friend or open a door Aiden doesn't want opened, he might look for a vulnerability in his phone and try and get in to scramble it, but for now, he does nothing. This might go better for him, if he can lull David into some false sense of security -- he may not be safe here, with Umeni running around, but maybe someone is trying to help him.

He's definitely a hacker, and it should be getting obvious anytime now, as he opens a chat channel. So far, he's not saying anything, but he is looking and listening to the other chatter in the area.

He's still moving, too, still heading for one of the doors leading out of the building, hacking the next door in his path so the fire alarm doesn't go off when he pushes through it.

It's the fact that David manages to keep the alarm from going off that solidifies the idea that he's a hacker, too, in Aiden's mind. For all he knows, though, the kid's Prime_Eight or one of the various gangs' people or any number of things, so he's still fair game. They can sort it out later, once he has him pinned down, and so he shoves something nasty and loud at David's phone. If it works, well, his ears won't be happy. Shouldn't have put those headphones in, kid.

[ooc: 11 on Disrupt Comms.]

"Son of a bitch," David yelps, louder than he means to, reaching up to yank his headphones out as he stops dead in his tracks. "Fuck," he mutters a moment later, because ow - but also because whoever's after him now is another hacker.

The DedSec channel he got anything from mentioned something going on at the convention center, mentioned DedSec in the area - but if DedSec's here, then it stands to reason that Prime_Eight and the others are, too.

At least he's nearing an exit, now, and he shoves his headphones back into his pocket as he starts moving again, heading for the next door between himself and the outside.

If Aiden had let David keep listening to DedSec's channel, he might have eventually come up on it as word got around that someone else was here, too -- someone who was making life difficult for the RetrO and his friends. Someone else might have mentioned that the Vigilante was with them, too, then, and that it'd be okay, that he'd kick whoever's ass. As it is -- well, David's about to find out the latter, firsthand, anyway, as one of the last doors between him and his freedom opens and in the Fox walks.

Ridiculously branded (but still very functional) DedSec gun trained on David, phone held down behind him in the other hand, just in case, Aiden orders, "Drop it." He doesn't think he's near enough to anything David might hack and use against him, but he really doesn't want to give the kid a window and find out.

David's hand goes into his pocket as the door opens, coming up with his own stun gun. He immediately freezes as he catches sight of Aiden, though, eyes going wide above his mask. "Holy shit," he breathes. He had known the Vigilante was out here, of course, but he had never thought about the possibility that he might actually run into him.

An instant later where he overcomes that moment of starstruck awe, he raises his hands, keeping his thumb away from his phone's screen (sorry, Aiden, he's not about to actually drop it) and letting his gun hang off his finger by its trigger guard. "I'm DedSec," he says immediately. "I'm fucking DedSec. My name's Techno." He shoots a sideways glance at his gun, at the hooded figure visible on its grip.

The decal on the gun does nothing to sell Aiden on the idea that David might actually be DedSec. Anyone could throw that on something and use it to sell themselves as legitimate -- or, well, as legitimate as DedSec gets, anyway. Point is, he's surprised no one's tried it before and he's not about to put it past someone now. That in mind, and to the rest of the group listening in, he mutters, "Someone wanna vet this kid for me?"

He could do it himself, run David through the profiler and see what it kicks back, but he doesn't want to take his eyes off of him, just in case. The fact that David didn't put his phone down isn't doing much to endear him to Aiden -- nor is the fact that he pulled a gun on him, even if it looks more like one of Marcus' standard fare than his.

Either way, louder, he continues, "You don't listen real well, do you?"

"On it," Josh says over the comms - though it's only a moment later before he speaks again. "Oh. Oh, I knew I knew that signal. Yeah, Techno, New York area."

"Oh, shit, that guy I met," Marcus mutters a moment later.

"He's one of us," Josh adds and agrees.

David can't hear any of this, obviously. He's still staring at Aiden, eyes still wide, breath coming a little quick. He's still struck, but there's some fear growing, now. If Aiden decides to come at him, he's really not equipped to deal with it. "I'm not dropping my phone," he complains - and while it's obvious he's trying to keep his voice steady, he's not doing a great job of it.

"I'm gonna..." he begins - and then starts to crouch, bending to place both the gun and phone on the ground, eyes on Aiden the whole time. He straightens again just as slowly - and then nudges the phone and gun away from himself with the side of his foot.

"Better," Aiden promises absently, as David nudges his gun away. He keeps his own trained on him for several seconds even after Josh clears him, and when he finally relents, finally lowers the gun, the gesture comes with one of his usual crooked smiles, a note of embarrassment behind it. "And now you can pick those back up. My guy in the chair says you're telling the truth."

He doesn't put the gun away, however, even if his whole demeanor seems to have changed. He's not going to drop his guard entirely, only to have this kid jump him out of sheer adrenaline, having read that fear in the tremble in his voice, and they still need to get out of here. He's not going to holster his gun only to need it the second they step outside, if and when whatever Umeni Wrench hasn't managed to herd away from them just happens to wander past.

It takes David another moment to blink at him - and then he literally rolls his eyes as he bends down to grab his phone and the stun gun, tucking the former away. "I'd say something about wanting to make sure you are who you say you are, but everybody knows who you are."

He pauses a beat and then goes on. "You got a way out of here or are we parting ways?"

"I've got people who can vouch for me," Aiden tells him. Never mind the fact that, yes, his face is pretty well-known, at this point. His mugshot from the near-year he spent in jail before Lena's death has made the national news a few times since Chicago -- a step up from the grainy pictures of him, masked, that Damien threw up on the billboards downtown, once upon a time.

"DedSec," he continues after a beat. After another, he adds, "They're gonna want to talk to you, when we get out of here." He glances away, towards another door, then jerks his head in that direction as he returns his attentions to David. "Which, speaking of ... " Yes, he does have an out.

"Works for me," David returns, starting to move forward, intending on following Aiden. That's all he says for now, though, since it's probably better to hold any real conversation until they're away from the guys wanting to arrest them. "Right behind you."

Humming, Aiden turns to lead the way, albeit with no small amount of tension and while keeping his eyes on David as much as possible. Josh may have gotten Aiden to give him the benefit of the doubt, naming him as DedSec, but -- well, he knows how different the various chapters can be, Chicago's Daves and the inner circle here two very different kettles of fish. Just because David is DedSec, then, doesn't mean he immediately has his trust. Not to mention the fact that Umeni's still running around and, regardless of how much he may or may not trust David at the moment, he doesn't want him to take a bullet while he's not looking.

Thankfully, it's not long before they're outside, and slipping his gun back into its holster, he reaches up to pull his mask down. He glances back at David from under the visor of his hat. "Lose the gun and the mask."

Don't be suspicious, David.

David reaches up to pull his mask down, pulling at the collar of his shirt to better hide it. "Yeah, just a sec."

He pulls his hat off, too, tucking it into his waistband and then bending quickly forward to fluff his hair back up again, shaking it out of his face when he straightens again. He relaxes his posture, tucking his phone into his pocket, and then nods to Aiden. "Alright, let's get outta here."

He's almost a different person like this - it's probably easier to tell why Marcus didn't ping him as anyone suspicious. Clearly he's used to blending in.

Aiden is admittedly impressed, not having expected David to be so good at blending, most of the hackers he's known, most of DedSec fairly standout, but he's not going to comment on it. Instead, after a beat, he turns away, meandering down the alley behind the building and out onto the street, both entirely as though he belongs there.

"You wanna get a coffee?" he asks over his shoulder, after there a block or two away. He's really not interested in coffee; that's where they decided to meet, when Marcus was done looking around, or if everything went sideways.

David follows along after him, keeping pace easily enough while also doing his best not to look suspicious. "I would take coffee through an IV if they offered it," he agrees.

Have you ever known a hacker who wasn't addicted to coffee and/or energy drinks, Aiden?

He also recognizes that's probably where they're supposed to be meeting up, but he means it: he would love a coffee.

Aiden hums, dimly amused, muttering something about that being true of nearly everyone he knows, because yes, he knows how hackers are about their caffeine. After a beat, and louder, he adds, "I know a place a couple of blocks away."

Which may or may not be one of DedSec's hubs in the city, officially or otherwise. Either way, it's a safe space, which is why they picked that as their meeting area.

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