Sigma Session

[LuniasM]

On any normal day, Apartment Room 205 would have been empty, its rooms echoing with silence. On a normal day, leftover coffee would sit in a pot by the stove, its heat slowly stolen by the cool morning air that pours in through an open window. This, however, was not a normal day.

Promptly at 3:17 PM, a girl - brown hair soaked by the rain - burst through the door. She shut it quickly behind her, the noise resonating down the hall, and rested against it from inside. As she caught her breath, shaky hands fumbled with a coat zipper and retrieved from its depths a single flash drive. She let out a soft laugh - moments later, the girl took a seat in front of an ancient desktop computer. Now powered up, the relic blew dust out of an air vent on the side and sputtered to life.

By 3:20 PM, Tess Midain logged onto Pesterchum under the handle machiavellianCrusaer for the first time in weeks.

-- machiavellianCrusader [mC] began pestering midnightVigilante [mV] --
mC: i think i just
mC: managed to pull off
mC: what very well may be
mC: THE BEST HEIST EVER!

[midnightVigilante]

Fynn had only been awake for close to an hour and a half. The only real of perk of no schooling of any kind. He could sleep as long as he wanted. And that was usually late into the afternoon. Taking care of the horse and the chickens took an hour. Now he was making himself something to eat. Judging by how well the cabinets and fridge were stocked his mom had been there while he was out.

His pesterchum was alerting him to a message when he walked into the living. Quickly, Fynn made his way over to the desk his computer was on. He placed his sandwhich aside before typing a reply.

mV:Heist? Thats stealin isnt it?
mV: I thuoght that was a bad thing to do.

[LuniasM]

Tess laughed as she read Fynn's response - he could be so funny sometimes!

mC: weeeeeeeeell...
mC: it's not really stealing
mC: if the other person doesn't
mC: actually LOSE anything right?
mC: i just copied a program
mC: from his computer.
mC: it's not like I took
mC: anything valuable.

[midnightVigilante]

Fynn sighed out loud as Tess replied to him. She was nice enough, but she weirder him out sometimes.

mV: If yup say so. I guess
mV:so.......
mV:what program is it unyway?

[LuniasM]

Tess glanced through his reply, sipping coffee while she read. She pulled out her headphones and turned on music to drown out the rain, then opened the flash drive's folder.

mC: the files says it's
mC: sburg.exe. I think
mC: it might be a game?
mC: have you heard of it
mC: anywhere before?

[midnightVigilante]

Fynn only had pesterchum open. He ate his sandwhich as he waited on Tess. He thought for a minute before replying again.

mV: The only games I know of aer World of Worcraft, Final Fantasy, Pursona, and Call of Duty

[LuniasM]

Tess looked out at the rain drumming against her window. The clouds obscured the sky, dark tendrils creeping towards the horizon. It had been a while since it rained this hard, and days like this one were the worst.

mC: well, you know more
mC: than i do, at least.
mC: don't these usually come
mC: with some sort of instructions
mC: or something like that?
mC: i must confess, i
mC: don't really have any
mC: experience with this.

[midnightVigilante]

mV: Moest gaymes do come with baysic instructions.
mV: But thats only if you buy the gayme.
mV: Not copee it from sum one elses disc.

Fynn looked down to the right hand corner of the screen to check the time. Only 1:30 in the afternoon. It's not like he had anything to do later. Time just seemed to move to slow.

[LuniasM]

Tess stared at her screen, confused. From the hacker's conversations, she could swear that everyone downloaded and copied games like that!

mC: well, i supppose we
mC: could just start playing
mC: and learn as we go
mC: right?
mC: i mean, how hard
mC: can it be?

[midnightVigilante]

Fynn shrugged, forgetting Tess couldn't see him. There really wasn't any harm in that. It would be like playing a used game that hadn't had the instruction booklet when you bought it. The game couldn't be that hard anyway. And if it was, he'd just stop playing.

mV: I gess theres no harm in that. When do yuo want to start?

[LuniasM]

Tess was about to reply when an idea hit her - if that hacker could get encrypted files of the net, maybe other hackers could decipher the game! There could even be a hidden cheat code or something! That thought, at least, had merit. Besides, it'd be worth it in the end. Tess began typing once more;

mC: well, as soon as
mC: possible, of course!
mC: but hold on for a bit,
mC: i've got an idea >:D

[midnightVigilante]

mV: Sprite, I will be here waiting. Fri not to task two long."
Fynn opened firefox to check his email and neopets.

[LuniasM]

mC: ?:

-- machiavellianCrusader [mC] ceased pestering midnightVigilante [mC] --

Tess spent a few minutes staring at the screen, trying to decipher the strange text. Eventually she gave up - "I don't have time to waste!" - and decided to find a hacker who would be willing to test his skills. While she didn't know any hackers, she did know someone who might...

-- machiavellianCrusader [mC] began pestering celestialLegacy [cL] --

mC: oh oooooriiiiiin!
mC: hey, are you there?
mC: come on, i don't have
mC: all day, you know!

[solarOrigins]

==> Be the Hacker

For once Rook wasn't permanently planted in front of his computers on a Tuesday afternoon. His messenger client was pinging, if it were a phone it would be practically off the hook by now.

The red head came back a few minutes later with a take out bag and sat down, expecting to pick up a quick campaign or two before finishing up his classes for the day, only to be surprised by a wall of red text from an unfamiliar chumhandle.

He leaned in to read before deciding whether to block the user or not.

[LuniasM]

-- machiavellianCrusader [mC] began pestering scintillatingEntity [sE] --

mC: hello there, is
mC: this the right person?
mC: i was referred to you
mC: by a friend of mine,
mC: celestialLegacy, who
mC: said you were a
mC: pretty good hacker.
mC: is that correct?

[solarOrigins]

--scintillatingEntity [SE] is now an active chum!--

SE: Wow, um, hold on a minute okay?
SE: You're typing way too fast for me to catch up and I just came back from lunch.

Rook paused to finish reading what had already been posted and gave a little sigh.

SE: I prefer to think of myself as a programmer, but yeah I guess I'm a hacker too if you want to look at it that way.
SE: It is a two way street after all.
SE: So what do you need anyway?
SE: What can I help you with?

[LuniasM]

mC: well, I just managed
mC: to acquire a copy of
mC: a game called sburg.
mC: unfortunately, there are
mC: no instructions included.
mC: would you be willing to
mC: make a deal?

"Great, another slow responder. Is this gonna be a thing?"

[solarOrigins]

Now that he was caught up it was easier to resond.

SE: Yeah, I could take a crack at it.
SE: What are you willing to deal?

[LuniasM]

"Much better. Maybe I misjudged the guy?"

mC: quick on the uptake,
mC: i like that!
mC: here's what i was thinking
mC: you hack the game for info
mC: and cheats or whatever,
mC: and we'll give you copies
mC: of the game in return.
mC: we might even decide
mC: that you could join us
mC: if you're up for that!
mC: so, whaddaya say?
mC: y/n ?

[solarOrigins]

Rook hummed thoughtfully to himself, stoking his chin.

SE: I never turn down an invite to a game.
SE: Send me the files and I'll see what I can do.
SE: Depending on how complicated the programming is, you may not get results until the end of the week.
SE: I can, however, give you hourly updates.
SE: Is that alright?

[LuniasM]

"The end of the week?! That's waaaaaay too long - oh well, it's still a fair trade for insider info."

mC: well, let's hope that
mC: it doesn't take that long.
mC: you've got yourself a deal,
mC: mister.....?

[solarOrigins]

SE: Rook.
SE: Like the chess piece.
SE: Go ahead and send the file and I'll get started on it as soon as I finish my lunch here in ten minutes or so, then I can give you an estimate of what we're looking at.

[LuniasM]

mC: well then, mr rook,
mC: it's only fair that i
mC; tell you mine in return.
mC: the name's Tess.
mC: and as promised

-- machiavellianCrusader [mC] sent scintillatingEntity [sE] sburg.exe --

mC: here's the game file.
mC: it should have two
mC: folders - server an client.
mC: think of them as your
mC: personal game files.
mC: i can send another if
mC: something goes wrong.
mC: talk to you later, Rook!

[solarOrigins]

Rook clicked download and nodded to himself.

SE: Says it'll take about thirty minutes to download
SE: since my computer always runs things about five-ten minutes faster, I'll have your estimate in about twenty, right after I eat.

Rook leaned back in his chair and grabbed his Jack in the box bag. It was Taco time.

[raunchyJanitor]

It was nearly four pm when Lyra Magoon returned from an arduous day at school. Classes were over two hours ago, but she always stayed behind for after school tutoring. They always needed volunteers, and while she wasn't really being paid to help out, she was more than willing to extend her knowledge to her class mates. Today, however, she was more than a little aggravated by her colleagues' antics.

Marching through the apartment she shared with her guardian, she took note that her aunt's purse was not hung up on the coat rack, meaning that she must be still under training at the hospital. Typically, Lyra would dive straight into homework, but knowing that she had some time to herself, instead, she decided to vent about her relatively crummy day to anyone who was online.

In her room tastefully decorated with posters of smiley dolphins of the HIGHEST of JPEG quality,
the red headed girl melted into the cushioned back of her worn computer chair, slumping into the indent left there by the multitude of instances she had taken this exact same seat. She absentmindedly began to run her tongue through the gap between her upper central incisors, her freckled cheek squished against her palm in a gesture of semi-concentration as her other hand dragged her mouse across her plucky killer whale mouse pad to click on pesterchum.


-- hadalpelagicLibrarian [hL] began pestering barbieGurrl [bG] --

HL: Not sure if you're there or not, but I just need to get this out there
HL: Okay, so like, this morning, we were watching this video in my bio class on deep sea critters and as you can imagine, I was pretty psyched
HL: And it would have been even cooler if not for the all important rule that my class mates can't take anything seriously
HL: But I was sitting next to this girl who would not stop immitating children hearing about cooties for the first time as soon as the video showed a saccopharyngiformes
HL: Like I wouldn't complain about it if she wasn't making it such a big deal
HL: Get a grip, yes, gulper eels are a thing, shoosh, other people are trying to watch this
HL: Well, technically I have the DVD of this video at home and I almost have the narration memorized by heart, but that's not the point
HL: The other students are just as bad
HL: We are old enough to drive around and hit people with our mechanical bulldozers
HL: How are we still giggling about deep sea fish that resemble sperm?
HL: Anything that relates to genitalia = insta giggles
HL: HAHA penis HAHA

As Lyra furious typed out the word "penis," she couldn't help but give out a snort.

HL: Okay, so it is kinda funny, but you know what I mean
HL: It's not really material of solid gold that should start a full on hyena symphony of whoops and whollops
HL: You know what I'm saying?

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