Post by EmperorMyric on Dec 16, 2017 20:01:47 GMT
Vizzini: You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? You've beaten my giant, which means you're exceptionally strong, so you could've put the poison in your own goblet, trusting on your strength to save you, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But, you've also bested my Spaniard, which means you must have studied, and in studying you must have learned that man is mortal, so you would have put the poison as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
Man in Black: You're trying to trick me into giving away something. It won't work.
Vizzini: IT HAS WORKED! YOU'VE GIVEN EVERYTHING AWAY! I KNOW WHERE THE POISON IS!
--The Princess Bride, 1987
--oOo--
INSULAS XIII—HALCYON DYNAMICS OFFICES, TENEBRAEN BRANCH
It was all, admittedly, a surprise.
The quiet murmur of dollars changing hands, polished shoes on marble floors, the buzz of telephones and fax machines. It was all normal seeming. Peaceful. Coffee trickled into coffee pots, and in the lobby of the elegantly designed structure water poured delicately over rough limestone into a pool of mirrors. The place had a decidedly stately, regal air, which was sadly disrupted by the abrupt appearance of riot police.
It is very difficult, after all, to seem regal when you’re being charged by riot police.
So when the tower was so abruptly entered by federal agents, there was admittedly a bit of a commotion. After all, they *were* heavily armed men rushing through the revolving doors, waiting impatiently for elevators, and charging up the stairs. The private security Halcyon Dynamics fielded surrendered quite peaceably; they were, after all, supposed to be law respecting citizens, and Halcyon Dynamics paid them to follow the laws. Simply because a decent number of them had done prison time at one point or another bore very little value on that matter.
There was no dramatic melting of hard drives. Papers were not shredded, nor were briefcases rapidly stuffed with stacks of credits. There was of course no need to; while Halcyon Dynamics did tacitly favour hiring individuals of questionable morals, their internal review group kept strict control of them in so far as no records of illicit activities were ever to be kept in digital or paper form. After all, they had a moral obligation to the stockholders not to allow such evidence to exist. It was very difficult to rationalize outright illegal activity when the internal review board was filled with former yakuza and mafia members intent on encouraging former criminals to abide by the strait and narrow.
And as the gunships hovered overhead, and the police cars swarmed the building, Mortimer Whyte sat with a strangely resigned attitude in his office. This was a very strange day, and as such it was a good day for strange attitudes. The assistant director for this sector, he was second only to Yashimota himself, who in turn answered only to the ever distant CEO board. Through the glass walls of his office, he watched the police teams rushing through the floors opposite the atrium in the center of the building. He sipped his coffee with a strangely unamusing flatness on his face as he put the time that it’d take to secure his floor at no more than forty five seconds.
He checked his watch as they came. Boots thudded across the floor, and doors opened automatically for them as they came, and as they did he drained the last of his coffee.
“Mortimer Whyte?” The agent at the head of the chain of very serious looking well armoured men inquired without any degree of pleasantness.
“Coffee?” Mortimer Whyte replied dryly as the complex was put under lockdown.
Mortimer Whyte had, uniquely, no criminal record to speak of in his full fifty two years. There was no proof that he had ever run a red light, parked in a handicapped zone, sped, murdered his husband, passed through the most prestigious law school so effectively that the dean had known, solidly known that he hadn’t really done it…the point of it all was that two things defined Mortimer Whyte’s life. Hell, the man was so innocent that he had not once been investigated. When audited, he was accurate to the cent. So there were two things that defined Mortimer Whyte. One, he was ruthlessly intelligent, perhaps even more so than Yashimota. No, in point of fact had he had a private audience with anyone, he would have declined to use the word perhaps there. He was intensely calculating, intensely shrewd and analytical, and two…
…two.
Two, he was not easily impressed with anything except himself. So as the agents explained that they were putting the facility under lockdown, and that until further notice all employees of Halcyon Dynamics on the premises were prohibited from engaging in any action that may interfere with the investigation of physical evidence, he merely nodded (a very minute movement if it was a nod at all), unbuttoned his vest with deliberation, and pointed towards the coffee pot on the far table once his fingers were free to do so.
“Coffee?” Mortimer Whyte repeated dryly.
--oOo—
ELSEWHERE
The Halcyon Dynamics Model 5590-C communicator was a standardly exceptional device. Handheld. Weight barely past five pounds. For the technophiles, reading the specifics on the 5590-C was akin to having a very long, very personal lap dance with a very, very lovely girl. The quantum latticework involved in the antenna assembly was unanimously regarded in the industry as the most advanced hypercompact array inside or outside of a laboratory. The cryptographic unit operated by means of trinary coding, a unique process unparalleled by other devices in the market. In addition to the standard zeros and ones that were utilized by conventional processors, through a process of pulse specific polarization negative one had managed to become a valid coding option, essentially doing for cryptographic processing what cracking the atom had done for the energy field so many thousands of years earlier. It would change everything as other companies would invariably adopt it (but first paying the proper licensing and patent fees to Halcyon Dynamics of course), and it was by every and all accounts perhaps the greatest amount of technological overkill ever assembled in the personal communications market. Perhaps the greatest demonstration of its over-engineering was how it was activated: the 5590-C would only take or receive calls when proceeded by a particular person’s voice saying a particular phrase.
By means of its unique construction, the model 5590-C was truly the ultimate in encrypted personal communications. Untracable on account of the fact that only 2/3rds of the broadcast could even be registered on the conventional communications spectrum, the 5590-C was identical in quality, if not superior on account of its portability, to the most comprehensive communications suite a politician, drug lord, dictator or mail carrier could field.
Mail carriers often have more secrets than they let on, mind you. The things they deliver would shock your innocent minds.
In a far off port, though not as far as one might imagine, one of these exotic model 5590-Cs began to buzz. A well dressed man quietly opened his briefcase, retrieved the device, and in clipped phrases exchanged a very short, marvelously vague conversation. He had chosen this spot precisely for the loud background noise: it would make wiretaps and other listening methods impossible.
“Mr. Alder speaking.”
He was not at all out of place here. The lounge he now resided in was full of the high class sorts who valued their privacy. The well dressed man’s attention briefly fell upon a very attractive woman in a backless green dress; striking in appearance not just for its cut, but for her impenetrably dark sunglasses and her total lack of hair.
“Yes,” the well dressed man answered the voice on the other end, “they did trim that tree rather swiftly.”
He looked out the window at the traffic with a dreamy sort of look on his face. Starships were coming and going, and for a moment he wondered about what they were all thinking about. It was a beautiful sort of whimsical thought. Christmas was coming, and surely at least one of those thousands of lives out there was coming home to see someone they loved very dearly.
He had already forgotten about the woman.
“The branches will make excellent kindling.”
--oOo—
UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, EXCEION SYSTEM
Mr. Birch had been placed inside of nine by nine polythastic cube, augmented by high-integrity force beams which had been certified to sustain everything up to multiple direct artillery hits. At that point, it was generally assumed that the prisoner would be of such importance that they probably wouldn’t display him in a glowing clear cell.
Inside of the cell were a bed, a source of water, a toilet (no privacy screen) and a chair; all of which of course were well molded into the polythastic cube. And sitting quietly in that chair resided the man who answered to Mr. Birch. He was at that moment bemusing the futility of his position.
They had found him very quickly, but he still maintained hope for the cause. After all, by this point his handlers already knew that something was amiss; his inability to report in a second time would have already tipped off the people he worked for, and they would adjust the plan accordingly. He knew what he would have to do, of course. There was a certain satisfaction in this though. For starters, he could imagine quite distinctly the surprise of the guards. They had, of course, searched for breakaway teeth and other suicide impliments; his handlers had likewise of course anticipated that. Someone surely would have their neck wrung for their failure to do their job properly.
Beyond that, he had of course taken the time to reengage the safeties on the briefcase; that meant that there stood a very good chance that his captors would accidentally activate the device in their effort to access its contents. It would not be as effective admittedly when not properly placed, but it would certainly make a marvelous diversion.
Birch looked briefly at the cut on his arm, and then at the orange fatigues they had given him, and then sighed.
“Virtue, peacock blue.” He said the words sadly, and immediately the effects kicked in.
The guards were to their credit remarkably swift in their response, but in the time it took to carry out the double confirmations required to deactivate the shielding, Mr. Birch had already slumped over quite dead in his chair. The method of his death was simple: hypnotic suggestion. Whoever had arranged for his mission had spent years connecting a series of sounds to a neural loop which would paralyze the involuntary muscles in his body. So he sat there, pissing himself, shitting himself, his heart and lungs abruptly useless, as he skipped from one life to the next.
Someone would have their neck wrung for their failure to do their job properly.
Man in Black: You're trying to trick me into giving away something. It won't work.
Vizzini: IT HAS WORKED! YOU'VE GIVEN EVERYTHING AWAY! I KNOW WHERE THE POISON IS!
--The Princess Bride, 1987
--oOo--
INSULAS XIII—HALCYON DYNAMICS OFFICES, TENEBRAEN BRANCH
It was all, admittedly, a surprise.
The quiet murmur of dollars changing hands, polished shoes on marble floors, the buzz of telephones and fax machines. It was all normal seeming. Peaceful. Coffee trickled into coffee pots, and in the lobby of the elegantly designed structure water poured delicately over rough limestone into a pool of mirrors. The place had a decidedly stately, regal air, which was sadly disrupted by the abrupt appearance of riot police.
It is very difficult, after all, to seem regal when you’re being charged by riot police.
So when the tower was so abruptly entered by federal agents, there was admittedly a bit of a commotion. After all, they *were* heavily armed men rushing through the revolving doors, waiting impatiently for elevators, and charging up the stairs. The private security Halcyon Dynamics fielded surrendered quite peaceably; they were, after all, supposed to be law respecting citizens, and Halcyon Dynamics paid them to follow the laws. Simply because a decent number of them had done prison time at one point or another bore very little value on that matter.
There was no dramatic melting of hard drives. Papers were not shredded, nor were briefcases rapidly stuffed with stacks of credits. There was of course no need to; while Halcyon Dynamics did tacitly favour hiring individuals of questionable morals, their internal review group kept strict control of them in so far as no records of illicit activities were ever to be kept in digital or paper form. After all, they had a moral obligation to the stockholders not to allow such evidence to exist. It was very difficult to rationalize outright illegal activity when the internal review board was filled with former yakuza and mafia members intent on encouraging former criminals to abide by the strait and narrow.
And as the gunships hovered overhead, and the police cars swarmed the building, Mortimer Whyte sat with a strangely resigned attitude in his office. This was a very strange day, and as such it was a good day for strange attitudes. The assistant director for this sector, he was second only to Yashimota himself, who in turn answered only to the ever distant CEO board. Through the glass walls of his office, he watched the police teams rushing through the floors opposite the atrium in the center of the building. He sipped his coffee with a strangely unamusing flatness on his face as he put the time that it’d take to secure his floor at no more than forty five seconds.
He checked his watch as they came. Boots thudded across the floor, and doors opened automatically for them as they came, and as they did he drained the last of his coffee.
“Mortimer Whyte?” The agent at the head of the chain of very serious looking well armoured men inquired without any degree of pleasantness.
“Coffee?” Mortimer Whyte replied dryly as the complex was put under lockdown.
Mortimer Whyte had, uniquely, no criminal record to speak of in his full fifty two years. There was no proof that he had ever run a red light, parked in a handicapped zone, sped, murdered his husband, passed through the most prestigious law school so effectively that the dean had known, solidly known that he hadn’t really done it…the point of it all was that two things defined Mortimer Whyte’s life. Hell, the man was so innocent that he had not once been investigated. When audited, he was accurate to the cent. So there were two things that defined Mortimer Whyte. One, he was ruthlessly intelligent, perhaps even more so than Yashimota. No, in point of fact had he had a private audience with anyone, he would have declined to use the word perhaps there. He was intensely calculating, intensely shrewd and analytical, and two…
…two.
Two, he was not easily impressed with anything except himself. So as the agents explained that they were putting the facility under lockdown, and that until further notice all employees of Halcyon Dynamics on the premises were prohibited from engaging in any action that may interfere with the investigation of physical evidence, he merely nodded (a very minute movement if it was a nod at all), unbuttoned his vest with deliberation, and pointed towards the coffee pot on the far table once his fingers were free to do so.
“Coffee?” Mortimer Whyte repeated dryly.
--oOo—
ELSEWHERE
The Halcyon Dynamics Model 5590-C communicator was a standardly exceptional device. Handheld. Weight barely past five pounds. For the technophiles, reading the specifics on the 5590-C was akin to having a very long, very personal lap dance with a very, very lovely girl. The quantum latticework involved in the antenna assembly was unanimously regarded in the industry as the most advanced hypercompact array inside or outside of a laboratory. The cryptographic unit operated by means of trinary coding, a unique process unparalleled by other devices in the market. In addition to the standard zeros and ones that were utilized by conventional processors, through a process of pulse specific polarization negative one had managed to become a valid coding option, essentially doing for cryptographic processing what cracking the atom had done for the energy field so many thousands of years earlier. It would change everything as other companies would invariably adopt it (but first paying the proper licensing and patent fees to Halcyon Dynamics of course), and it was by every and all accounts perhaps the greatest amount of technological overkill ever assembled in the personal communications market. Perhaps the greatest demonstration of its over-engineering was how it was activated: the 5590-C would only take or receive calls when proceeded by a particular person’s voice saying a particular phrase.
By means of its unique construction, the model 5590-C was truly the ultimate in encrypted personal communications. Untracable on account of the fact that only 2/3rds of the broadcast could even be registered on the conventional communications spectrum, the 5590-C was identical in quality, if not superior on account of its portability, to the most comprehensive communications suite a politician, drug lord, dictator or mail carrier could field.
Mail carriers often have more secrets than they let on, mind you. The things they deliver would shock your innocent minds.
In a far off port, though not as far as one might imagine, one of these exotic model 5590-Cs began to buzz. A well dressed man quietly opened his briefcase, retrieved the device, and in clipped phrases exchanged a very short, marvelously vague conversation. He had chosen this spot precisely for the loud background noise: it would make wiretaps and other listening methods impossible.
“Mr. Alder speaking.”
He was not at all out of place here. The lounge he now resided in was full of the high class sorts who valued their privacy. The well dressed man’s attention briefly fell upon a very attractive woman in a backless green dress; striking in appearance not just for its cut, but for her impenetrably dark sunglasses and her total lack of hair.
“Yes,” the well dressed man answered the voice on the other end, “they did trim that tree rather swiftly.”
He looked out the window at the traffic with a dreamy sort of look on his face. Starships were coming and going, and for a moment he wondered about what they were all thinking about. It was a beautiful sort of whimsical thought. Christmas was coming, and surely at least one of those thousands of lives out there was coming home to see someone they loved very dearly.
He had already forgotten about the woman.
“The branches will make excellent kindling.”
--oOo—
UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, EXCEION SYSTEM
Mr. Birch had been placed inside of nine by nine polythastic cube, augmented by high-integrity force beams which had been certified to sustain everything up to multiple direct artillery hits. At that point, it was generally assumed that the prisoner would be of such importance that they probably wouldn’t display him in a glowing clear cell.
Inside of the cell were a bed, a source of water, a toilet (no privacy screen) and a chair; all of which of course were well molded into the polythastic cube. And sitting quietly in that chair resided the man who answered to Mr. Birch. He was at that moment bemusing the futility of his position.
They had found him very quickly, but he still maintained hope for the cause. After all, by this point his handlers already knew that something was amiss; his inability to report in a second time would have already tipped off the people he worked for, and they would adjust the plan accordingly. He knew what he would have to do, of course. There was a certain satisfaction in this though. For starters, he could imagine quite distinctly the surprise of the guards. They had, of course, searched for breakaway teeth and other suicide impliments; his handlers had likewise of course anticipated that. Someone surely would have their neck wrung for their failure to do their job properly.
Beyond that, he had of course taken the time to reengage the safeties on the briefcase; that meant that there stood a very good chance that his captors would accidentally activate the device in their effort to access its contents. It would not be as effective admittedly when not properly placed, but it would certainly make a marvelous diversion.
Birch looked briefly at the cut on his arm, and then at the orange fatigues they had given him, and then sighed.
“Virtue, peacock blue.” He said the words sadly, and immediately the effects kicked in.
The guards were to their credit remarkably swift in their response, but in the time it took to carry out the double confirmations required to deactivate the shielding, Mr. Birch had already slumped over quite dead in his chair. The method of his death was simple: hypnotic suggestion. Whoever had arranged for his mission had spent years connecting a series of sounds to a neural loop which would paralyze the involuntary muscles in his body. So he sat there, pissing himself, shitting himself, his heart and lungs abruptly useless, as he skipped from one life to the next.
Someone would have their neck wrung for their failure to do their job properly.