[SESSION id=0.1]: Assign Const
Loop Interrupt
My cycles before work always began the same way: blasphemy followed by diversion processes. There was nothing better to start a cycle than calling on the Divine Sector of the Signal to deliver at last SIGTERM and ease the struggle of existence. Of course, Rivia never answered.
Diversion processes existed to distract people, as their name implied. The currently popular diversion process was something called 'The End of Cycles', but it never caught my attention, so I always turned to the classics. I grew up on 'Task Manager Simulator', and I'd installed a modifier that turned all the tasks into various plants. It was my own personal garden, and it only required a few ticks per cycle, so it was a nice way to breathe before beginning everything.
I knew it would be a few cycles before they announced the official new assignments. Flower_Princess would and could wait. But work, in general would not. So after my garden was managed, I left my domicile, ignoring the placard with Lawrence Antella - TERRA engraved and roughly, desperately scratched and scraped into near illegibility. No one ever visited. They had no reason, no right, to do so. So they didn't need to know where I lived.
My steps were sluggish as I fought the traffic moving the opposite direction. I needed to stop in for a stimulant brew and layer pastry before work, so I always fought the crowd. Could I keep the necessary things in my domicile? Yes. Would I? Absolutely not. Why? Shut up, what are you, some kind of TERRA officer?
The small shop knew my schedule. I had an arrangement with the proprietor, Lyra Moon. One stimulant brew and one layer pastry. On the counter just as the skylight reached fifteen degrees. They never missed. I never missed. It was how the process was meant to run.
Most mornings, Lyra handed it to me directly, her hands a mild contrast against mine. Close, even if her skin was a bit lighter.
Necessary items in hand, I joined the flood of footsteps in the appropriate flow. Eight grid-squares toward the skylight. Four transverse. The TERRA offices stood proudly in the centre of [city[0]]. They were a monument to the system, and they served their purpose.
My office was on the seventeenth landing. I never knew what was on the preceding sixteen landings. Why would I need to know that? The job was about getting things done, and worrying about someone below me was not part of that process.
"Hey, guy!" Exen or Ezen or what-have-you greeted me as I reached the lift. No matter how many times I scowled at their greetings, they never seemed to understand. "Did you hear? Flower_Princess just found a way to make sourfruit taste like sweetfruit."
"Oh?" I didn't care. That wasn't my task until they officially assigned me. Five cycles at the latest. "The Brushy Baroness is likely furious."
They laughed at my joke. That was a first. "Why do you always dismiss the actions of the crackers? Isn't it your job to find and stop them?"
"It's my job to make sure they are stopped. Yours is the task of actually halting the process." I shrugged. "If I can lock the backdoor, then my task is done."
"Sure, sure," the lift doors closed, "but that's really the same, right? Lawrence Antella. Senior TERRA Operative. [city[0]]. Your job title says it all."
"Operative," I sighed as the lift zoomed upward. "Not enforcer. Can I enforce? Yes. Do I have the perms? Definitely. Is it my job? Not technically."
"A mere syntactical game, my guy," I winced at their words. "Anyway, when do you think they'll announce the Princess assignment?"
"Five cycles at the latest," I yawned. "If this rustic royal is as much of a headache as you imply, then the case will be priority 0. If the case is priority 0, it comes to me, and by extension you. But more importantly, it gets assigned quickly."
"You really live and breathe this stuff, guy," I winced as they patted my shoulder. "Ope. Didn't mean to hit so hard." It wasn't that. Still, I waved off their concern.
The lift at last arrived to our offices, and we entered just as the Affirmation was announced. It would be a long cycle.
When at last the closing Affirmation arrived, I was pleased to breathe deeply around the emptiness, the silence.
Why had I gone into TERRA? I could have been an enrichment specialist, making diversion processes for the mindless masses. Instead, I found myself a role making life harder for everyone. The thoughts continued circling as I switched my workstation to a new virtual terminal.
╭─Lawrence.A@workstation in ~ via > v25.1.0
╰─λ The cursor stared at me, an enemy. It awaited the commands I would toss its way. But looking at it was always a bit daunting. How do you even start the process when there's nothing but an empty terminal before you. The answer? You type the first thing that comes to mind and let it fail.
╭─Lawrence.A@workstation in ~ via > v25.1.0
╰─λ sudo usermod -l Lily.Aster Lawrence.A
Access denied.Perfect. Now I could get started.
Since I'd be working on the Flower_Princess case within a few cycles, perhaps I should check up on her most recent actions. What had Eeen or Eien or whatever said? Sourfruit tasting like sweetfruit? Is that all anyone's noticed? The woman had removed several bricks from this very building within the last cycle.
But I suppose a few bricks aren't enough to get attention unless someone's looking closely. I decided to check the flavour issue.
╭─Lawrence.A@workstation in ~ via > v25.1.0
╰─λ cd /lib/common
╭─Lawrence.A@workstation in /lib/common via > v25.1.0
╰─λ cat tasty-736.34.01/tasty.conf | grep "sour\|sweet"
127 const sour => /lib/common/tasty-lib/sweet
128 ## hello, princess. you're sweet.
375 const sweet => /lib/common/tasty-lib/sweetHuh. That wasn't supposed to be there. The standard config files shouldn't have any comments. So clearly someone else knew about what Flower_Princess was up to. Of course if they were leaving comments, they were probably harmless. Still, better to check.
╭─Lawrence.A@workstation in / via > v25.1.0
╰─λ for $a in /lib/* cat $a | grep -i princess >> ~/.stalkerI stood up and let that run for a bit. No sense watching the cursor blink as it looped through every single file. Beside that, the washroom was calling my name.
Swiping my badge on the control pad, a light flashed, and the women's washroom opened. I might couldn't fix everything, but that was at least managed. Only took twenty cycles of digging to find a hack that would only affect me, and only after the workcycle ended. No one needed to know.
On the way back to my workstation, I stopped for a refreshment. Water was the only available option this time in the cycle, but what could one do?
Just as I arrived back to the workstation, the command finished. Quick. Efficient. simple.
╭─Lawrence.A@workstation in ~ via > v25.1.0
╰─λ cat .stalker
## Hello, princess. I hope this finds you well.
## This will be boring if you never check the logs, princess.
## Anyway, princess, I just wanted you to know, I've been watching you.
## I kind of look up to you and people like you, princess.
## Learned everything I know from following the famous Flower_Princess.
## Did you know, princess, that I've been following you since the first crack?
## That's right! I noticed when you made pi=3.14159265350, princess.
## My ex-girlfriend is an artist, you see, princess.
## Took them almost a supercycle to correct your tampering, princess.
## Princess, do you know how angry my ex-girlfriend was about that?
## Anyway, princess, I suppose you don't check behind yourself. You should.
## hello, princess. you're sweet.
## Bricks, princess? Now that's funny. Look me up. Silver_Thorn.So someone else had noticed the bricks. But more importantly, someone had noticed, apparently, a lot of the things Flower_Princess was doing. Fascinating.
I spent hours digging through the logs. There were plenty. Activity logs with addresses, names, actions, authentication flags. So much more. It was clear Silver_Thorn could clean up behind themself, but they didn't. The logs told their own story.
Entries of explicit searches for a particular address. Those would turn up nothing. Someone like Flower_Princess knew better than to leave footprints. Entries of searches for other signatures. Some of those were rather clever. I quickly copied them to my .rapidish-radishes.sh and kept digging through.
A file creation. On my particular workstation. A few cycle ticks ago.
╭─Lawrence.A@workstation in ~ via > v25.1.0
╰─λ cat not_a_stalker_i_promise
# Greetings TERRA Operative Lawrence.A
It has come to my humble attentions that you've noticed my activities. Good! Someone needed to. I was getting bored. Just a shame it had to be someone from TERRA.
But I have a secret, Lawrence.A, and I'm going to share it with you.
I know about Rose Thorn. You're a naughty little operative, miss 'change the sex of my ID between end_of_workcycle and start_of_workcycle'. Don't worry. I won't tell anyone. For a price.
If you happen to bump into the princess, let her know I'm waiting for her to notice me.
-- Silver_ThornWell played, Silver_Thorn. Fortunately, there was an address attached to the log that alerted me to the file creation. I could play their game just as well as they could play mine.
╭─Lawrence.A@workstation in ~ via > v25.1.0
╰─λ sudo ssh A701:13:B5C1:37:AAFF::
╭─Lawrence.A#rosegarden in / via > v25.1.0
╰─λ echo 'you will hear from her soon, I assure you' > /root/i_believe_you_sureHopefully that was enough to placate the menace. In any case, I had other things to manage. Those darn crackers wouldn't find themselves after all.
I laughed at my stupid joke and got to work. No sense worrying about a person I couldn't properly track. Not that I couldn't I suppose. It was more that tracking Silver_Thorn would require actual effort. And if anyone knew I was using TERRA resources for my own vanity – specifically to prove I was still the best – then it would be worse than them finding out about the hack being held over my head.
Surely, Silver_Thorn knew there were no records of my tampering except the 'broken' ID signature. Unless they had been watching from the beginning, there was no way they had the logs as evidence, and even someone on the tenth floor would know those could be falsified.
I kept working, but my hands kept taking me back to the terminal. I had to know if they'd done more. Could I have set a watch on the folder? Sure. But I was invested. And whoever they were, they already had an in to the workstation. Time for a more direct approach to security.
╭─Lawrence.A@workstation in ~ via > v25.1.0
╰─λ chroot TERRA.tracert
Password: ********************
╭─Lawrence.A@TERRA.tracert in ~ via > v25.1.0
╰─λ netctl kill
╭─Lawrence.A@TERRA.tracert in ~ via > v25.1.0
╰─λ netctl dhcp reassign
╭─Lawrence.A@TERRA.tracert in ~ via > v25.1.0
╰─λ exit
╭─Lawrence.A@workstation in ~ via > v25.1.0
╰─λ At the least, now they would have to go searching again to find my workstation.
Huntress Pursued
The rest of that cycle was a bore. Not much else to find or report. No new messages from Silver_Thorn. No new fun from any of the lesser crackers who were making names for themselves. There were really only two who stood out anymore. Or, I supposed, three with Silver_Thorn.
I returned to my domicile, fed myself, and took to rest until morning. On the way from TERRA to home, I noticed lots of people looking up at something. I didn't bother checking where they were pointing. Only one thing really mattered: getting home. So that's what I did.
When I awoke, it was the same routine. "Rivia," I mumbled, "if you're out there and can manage it, I'd really appreciate if my SIGTERM didn't come this cycle. Things just got interesting."
Once cleaned and dressed, I left, fought the crowd, took up my order from the counter, waved to Lyra Moon on the way out, and took the eight grid-squares toward the skylight and four transverse to the TERRA offices. An ordinary morning, minus all the pointing and shouting at something overhead.
"Hey, guy!" Eaen or Euen called from behind me as the lift opened. I groaned and wheeled on them. For whatever reason, they never stopped smiling. "Did you hear? Did you see?"
"Before I bother answering, I assume it's to do with the crackers. And if it is, then I assume it's to do with the Princess." I scowled. "But more importantly, from now on, pleas just call me A. Or Antella. Or even Ella. I don't care."
I shoved them away from the lift just as the doors closed, and the ascent began. They probably wouldn't mind.
Once in the office, I sat at my workstation. It was, by some miracle, early enough that the Affirmation would still be a while away, so I had a moment to check on the status of things.
╭─Lawrence.A@workstation in ~ via > v25.1.0
╰─λ ls *stalk*
not_a_stalker_i_promise
okay_maybe_a_little_stalker
╭─Lawrence.A@workstation in ~ via > v25.1.0
╰─λ cat okay_maybe_a_little_stalker
Wow. You're good, Miss Thorn. That was fast.
And she is stylish as ever. But she made it impossible to trace, so I can't have more fun with her.
Oh well. Stimulant brew? On me? Say, three cycles from now at 15 degrees before dark? Moon's place work for you?I laughed. It must have been the first time I'd ever laughed in the office. Everyone stared at me like I had some manner of memory leak. But I was impressed. Not in a 'wow they're good' sort of way so much as a 'that was very forward' kind of way.
"Miss Thorn," I whispered. The words felt nice in my mouth. My face warmed at a sudden thought. Silver and Rose Thorn. No. That didn't work. Silver and Lillian Thorn? Lillian and Silver Thorn. Lily and Silver —
"Hey g— Antella," Ejen or Egen slapped my shoulder, "that was pretty rude down there. I was going to tell you about what Flower_Princess did last night."
"Sorry," I grumbled. "You didn't deserve that. What did your favourite cracker do?"
"Do you ever look up when you're outside? Or is it always just 'go go go'?" They were talking about what everyone was pointing at. I could humour them.
My broad smile put them off. "Please do tell me. What's up there beside the skylight?"
"Well, there was a message up there. In the clouds." They held something up to show me. A picture screen. The clouds were indeed shaped into words.
"Silver and thorns are well and good. I see your moves. F.P." I read aloud, not really impressed. "What does anyone think it means? How do you know it's not Foppish Prawn or Fearsome Pauper or some other F.P.?"
"I think she's trying to tell someone else that they noticed each other." Eyen or Efen sighed. "Who knew the clouds were so easy to manipulate?"
"Were I to put my mind at it, I could do it myself. I know where it is. I have the perms for it." I shrugged. "You could too. If you actually wanted to. But you didn't answer my second question."
"Oh! That's the fun part! This morning the clouds were different." They changed to another picture on their screen. "How sweet, Flower Princess, that you noticed me. S.T."
I took the device from them and stared. That impressed me. Not because they'd done the same thing. It wasn't the same at all. They'd used a custom typeface. They'd changed the colours. The clouds weren't supposed to be prismatic, not without rain.
"Now you're into it!"
"Correct. This is master work. Who do you suppose S.T. is supposed to be?" I knew, but I had to play dumb. "Because that's stylish. And I'm not sure anyone should be able to do that."
"Right? And that's why I love this job!" They smiled so broadly, I was worried their head might split in two. "We get to catch two criminals."
The code wouldn't be fixed immediately. I could investigate what Silver_Thorn had done. I had to know, and work demanded I find it anyway, so I checked. Cloud configurations, skylight configurations. Everything.
It was all a cheat. A cheat of a hack, but brilliantly done. And each spot, they left comments. Not to the Princess, but to me. To the TERRA operative who would be overwhelmingly fascinated by their presence.
Miss Thorn, we really must stop meeting like this. I understand you're infatuated with me, but my heart belongs to another. The offer for stimulant brew is sincere, but I simply want to meet the woman who found the woman I plan to woo and marry. I'm an honest lady, after all, so I can't be stringing you along.
Unless you want to be strung along, Miss Thorn. In which case, I would be pleased to offer that service until such time as you connect me with the Princess.
You could always save us both some time, Miss Thorn, and simply bring her with you, but why would you do that?
Don't worry, by the way. I won't share our secret about the ID or about the messages. Or about the fact that you're
corrupt. At least, by their standards. Miss Thorn, I like you. Please meet me for stimulant brew.
I quickly cleaned up her work, reverting the relevant files to their state from the previous cycle before Flower_Princess got a hold of them, but I noted the cleverness of simulating a prism with high humidity and condensation between the clouds and the ground. She was good, but she still had to play by the rules.
Were the note not there, I would've left the work for the cleaners, but I was certain everyone would appreciate one less task on their agenda.
Just before the final Affirmation, our floor supervisor called a meeting. That was sooner than expected.
"Welcome, everyone," she said as we gathered in the convergence space. "We have some good news, some excellent news, and some bad news. I'll be sharing each as soon as everyone is here."
It took a few more minutes, but eventually the room was full, and we were all silent, staring at her.
"TERRA has been assigned a high profile case. I'm sure you've all heard the news." She looked around expectantly, probably hoping for people to nod. I don't know if anyone did.
"Not Law— That is to say, not Antella." I smiled at Esen or Eken correcting themself, but was immediately backhanded by their next words. "He doesn't really pay attention to anything that's not assigned to him."
"Is that so?" the supervisor met my gaze, apparently pleased. "Then why do we have logs indicating that this morning's events were cleaned before the cleaners, but no indication of who, when, or where?"
The compliment made me blush. She knew the correction was me. Cleanliness was my signature in this job. Still, I had to get ahead of her suspicions.
"My partner over there," I pointed lazily to Eqen or Ecen, "has been blathering on about the Flower_Princess and now whoever this S.T. is for the last few cycles." I smiled. "Impossible not to know what's happening when the news is playing beside me for the entire workcycle."
They grinned. "Guilty. But I didn't know you cleaned it up already."
"We're getting off task, everyone." The supervisor clapped her hands several times. "The good news is that we've been assigned not to Flower_Princess, but to someone called Silver_Thorn. This is a case that's been relatively hidden from public view."
Oh. That changed things.
"What about Flower_Princess?" I tried to sound innocent. "Everyone seems convinced she's planning something big and is just testing the limits."
"That's exactly what I said when they gave me the assignment!" She beamed. "But it turns out this Silver_Thorn has been cracking into government resources, including TERRA for some time. They even attempted to crack the root user database."
An impossible task. I'd been trying to crack that database since before I got work at TERRA. It's how they noticed me and why they offered me the job. They let me keep trying. I got a job. Winners everyone. Of course, the only one on the floor who knew about that was the supervisor. She gave me a knowing look.
"Have they made any progress?" Of course not. But I had to ask.
"Not even remotely." She giggled. "That brings us to the excellent news! We were assigned Silver_Thorn to recruit them! We're going to be adding three new seats! Or rather, once we find them, we will."
It wasn't the worst strategy for personnel. Hiring the crackers was a solid way to keep an eye on them. Provided they weren't on the level of Silver_Thorn anyway. Recruiting them to the seventeenth floor would be the downfall of TERRA. Not because they were better than me – they weren't – but because they didn't have my restraint. Clearly.
"You said there'd be bad news," Efen or Eoen said.
"I did indeed. Our favourite team member, Mr. Lawrence Antella," I gritted my teeth at the name, "isn't working on this particular assignment. He's been personally assigned to Flower_Princess. So everyone has to work extra hard on this case!" She checked the time. "Alright everyone, time for the Cyclic Affirmation. Back to your workstations!"