[SESSION id=0.4]: Kernel Panic
Fuck. That was stupid. What was I thinking? There are rules. There are protocols. There are safeguards. And I ignored every. Single. One.
My heart raced as I rushed to clean up the mistake. No one had seen. No one had caught me. No one was any the wiser. And I had a clean two degrees left to clear the logs, so even if they did see, there was no way I'd be implicated.
Everything. Was. Fine.
Rivia take me now. Send the SIGKILL so I don't have to worry about correction. Unless there's some special function Sheen has to transform this mess. I need an out, and I need it now.
It had been an ordinary workcycle after I found Jazz's message. I'd set the task aside, something to admire once everyone left the office. There was far more than enough work involved in tracing Flower_Princess, so Jazz's publicity stunt could wait. I wasn't ignoring it. I was re-prioritising.
And then the workcycle ended. Everyone left. The office went dark. I made a trip to the washroom, then to get refreshment, then back to my workstation. Nothing out of order there. Not at all.
So I set to work. The unsanctioned work they allowed me in exchange for the sanctioned work they demanded. Better than being outed as corrupt. Stasia would admire my commitment to a particular operant.
╭─Lawrence.A@workstation in ~ via > v25.1.3
╰─λ sudo usermod -l Lillian.Thorn Lawrence.A
Access denied.Worth a shot. As I stared at the name, I couldn't help smile. She was right. Much more elegant than Rose. It felt real. Like coming home.
"Lillian." I sighed. "Ah well, Lillian. Time for work."
Most of the work was actively identifying Flower_Princess and understanding how she appeared. So many places she had touched, Silver_Thorn had not. Neither was perfect, but both were slick. It was honestly impressive.
The real question was how Jazz had figured out how to do what Flower_Princess did. Where had she gotten the credentials? How had she gained access to the Source? What motivated her beyond her obsession with the artist who changed the value of a mathematical constant?
So I worked. I dug. I'd given her a perfect weapon, but she didn't start using it until the last few cycles, far beyond the thirty degrees the original script accounted for. And she only just started actively removing logs, not just tampering with them. Where was her in? What account was she using to bypass account rules?
╭─Lawrence.A@workstation in ~ via > v25.1.3
╰─λ userdbctl
Access denied.
╭─Lawrence.A@workstation in ~ via > v25.1.3
╰─λ sudo userdbctl
Access denied.
╭─Lawrence.A@workstation in ~ via > v25.1.3
╰─λ su
╭─root@workstation in # via > v25.1.3
╰─λ userdbctl
Access denied.Fine. Whatever. I didn't need to know it. It'd just be nice to have even a single answer.
A new terminal popped up. Not one of mine. It used a different structure than my normal one. I couldn't SUPER+J into it. It just stared at me, emerald green instead of black, with soft ivory text. Several cycle ticks passed before something happened.
> Hello, Lillian.
> Did you get the message?
> Did you? Are you sending it to her, Lillian?
>
>
> Hmm. Perhaps I am a stalker.
>
> Good luck!Nuisance. Beautiful, fanciful, creative, chaotic, desperate nuisance. The terminal closed with an audible pop. She really enjoyed her theatrics. It's no wonder she did something so big as this message she was sending.
Jazz made it sound like the message was meant for Flower_Princess, but the more I uncovered, the more it was clear she meant the message for TERRA. A big "leave me alone, you losers" to the task force trying to recruit her.
It was more expansive, really, than anything I'd ever attempted at a single moment. And all of it was interconnected. Fixing a single part of it would break the whole system. And she'd done it in one grand merge, locking the old branch from being rolled back. That was the access I wanted.
Or something like it, anyway.
"Fine," I groaned. "I'll pull out the big guns. Investigations like this require so much more."
╭─Lawrence.A@workstation in ~ via > v25.1.3
╰─λ ./.rapidish-radishes.sh -o elevate -fpg -r TERRA
Executing _The cursor blinked. This operation would take a few minutes. Once it finished, I'd have near limitless power – albeit, still restricted from my actual goal. A short break would serve me well, so I stood up and walked around the office.
My coworkers were relatively ordinary, verging on boring. A few collected memorabilia from their favourite diversion processes. A few had picture screens that rotated through images of family. Even Even – I repeated the name several times as I thought – had the cleanest desk in the room, but the walls of their cube-space were covered in notes and images and string.
A sound echoed through the space. Not one that should be happening so late in the cycle. The door opened. Its ungreased mechanisms squealed angrily.
The door. How had I forgotten to lock the door?
I raced, not to my desk, but to the door as Even Even walked into the office.
"Still here?" They gave a single laugh. "Of course you are. Supervisor said you tended to stick around until around forty-five degrees."
"It's my way. And a perk of the job, you know." I moved to usher them as far from my own desk as possible. "She doesn't ask how the stew is stirred, she's just glad for the taste when it finishes."
"You know, people say I'm odd, but honestly I don't think any of them have spoken to you for more than a few cycle ticks." They shoved my shoulder. "I'm joking. You're delightful, even if you talk weird."
"I appreciate that, Even," I said, still doing what I could to push them away from the path that would go by my desk. The system would protect me if I could keep them away long enough. "So what brings you back so late in the cycle?"
"Forgot the gift I bought for the lady I'm dating." Their fond expression suddenly shifted to concern. "Are you okay? You're sweating, and your face is red."
"Sorry, just got done doing a lap around the whole floor," obviously a lie. I needed to temper it. "Sometimes I speedwalk for a few minutes while a script runs. Keeps me from losing it."
Every word. Every move. I needed them to focus on me, not on the terminal green glow behind me. Not on what was on that screen. Why hadn't I locked the damn door?
"Makes sense," they started turning toward the desks, nearly pushing me out of the way. Why had I not waited until it was clear? "Well, you really should get some water from the refreshment station. Maybe go to the washroom and clean up your face."
"You're so right," I answered a little too quickly. Think. Faster. Come on, Lillian. "But I wouldn't want you up here alone. It gets creepy as the skylight sets."
"Good point. Stay with me. Always nice to have a man watch out for the women and neuters out here." I cringed, but I bore it. If being called a man would serve to prevent anyone seeing, then I would deal. "So what's the great Antella working on this fine cycle?"
"Patterns," true, but evasive. "How Flower_Princess and crackers like her find access routes into The Source, and how they exploit existing systems." Also true. A little too accurate. "You know I was once a cracker before they hired me." We passed my desk as I spoke. They didn't try to look. "I was doing back then exactly what Silver_Thorn is up to now."
"So that's how you knew I should look in the application tree and sort it in left-handed binary encoding!" Apart from the fact that I set you up, yes! "I never knew they recruited like that here."
"TERRA accepts all kinds to trace, enforce, regulate, redirect, and annihilate, you know." My weak smile would've given anyone else away. But Even was accustomed to it by now. "The supervisor herself recruited me. Half a supercycle before you moved up to the seventeenth."
Even opened a drawer and pulled out a small box. They kissed it softly before turning. "I feel like we've worked together far too long for me to know so little about you, Antella." They shrugged. "Still, better to know now than never."
"You are so right!" I moved them much more quickly, almost pushing them along. "But we need to get you out of here and on to meet your lady friend. Let's make plans to have a stimulant brew together. No. Better. Let's go out to a nice supper. You, me, and our respective lady friends." What was I doing.
"I love it!" They reached the door and turned to me before leaving. "Do you hug at all?"
"Not since my progenitor's SIGTERM," I admitted softly. "Maybe once I have less on my plate. Flower_Princess occupies my every waking thought right now, and I'd like it to be a real hug, you know."
"Ah well. Didn't hurt to try." They smiled and stepped out the door, calling over their shoulder as it closed. "Don't work too late, Antella."
Several deep breaths held me vertical for a moment before I unceremoniously locked the door and rushed to my workstation. The terminal window had finished. Each part of the script had done its job, just like every time before. Flawless. Perfect.
A workstation couldn't implicate me, not without the logs that the script automatically cleaned, but an audience could have.
It stared back at me, accusing. A monument to a mistake, but more than that, to the disaster averted. For the first time ever, I couldn't even smile at the terminal glowing with my handle.
╭─Lawrence.A@workstation in ~ via > v25.1.3
╰─λ ./.rapidish-radishes.sh -o elevate -fpg -r TERRA
Executing _
Logging in _
Rooting _
Elevating _
Welcome back, Princess!
╭─Flower_Princess@TERRA in ~ via > v27.1.a
╰─λ It was all the evidence anyone would need to have me corrected.