The Liberation Paradox

Just Enough Rope

Marcio

16:28

(4hrs, 40min before the last shuttle leaves Distortion)

What could be taking Danny so long? Marcio glanced nervously at the clock. It had been over two hours now since Danny had disappeared into Mika Claire's apartment. The faux electrician's absence had been noted and now an exhaustive search of the entire secure zone was underway to find him. Daniau's enforcers were everywhere, looking in every corner of every room. They were now openly carrying their large autoplasma rifles. What's more, since Marcio had been the last one to see the "electrician," he was now under much more suspicion himself. Mr. Miles had even pulled him out into the hallway for questioning. Marcio had played stupid, swearing that he'd left the electrician up in the canteen on the 15th floor and hadn't seen him since. Mr. Miles seemed to accept this story, but only tentatively, allowing him to resume his work under a cloud of suspicion.

Back at his terminal, Marcio was starting to lose his mind with worry.

Had Danny abandoned him? Had this all been a ruse? Had he been tricked into helping Danny get past security and into the building? Marcio felt foolish now at how easily he'd given Danny the location of the data upon which his own life depended. Had Danny stolen the stolen data from Marcio? Something told Marcio that doing so would appeal to Danny's sense of irony. Danny was a conman, after all.

But if Danny had only been interested in the data, what was all that about with Mr. Daniau's safe? Was all that just a ruse to make Marcio trust that he, Danny, wasn't interested in the data but the money which he claimed was within the safe? Danny couldn't open the safe without Marcio's help bypassing the QSP scanner. But then, how did Marcio really know that safe even had such a device? The whole point of quantumscale processors was that they were sub-atomically small and easily concealed. Nothing on the outside of the safe indicated the presence of a QSP scanner. Marcio had nothing but Danny's word that the safe even had a QSP scanner. Had Danny retrieved Mika's phone, cleaned out the safe by simply entering the mechanical combination, and left with everything? Was Danny on a shuttle to the starhopper at this very moment laughing at the poor, stupid nerd he'd left twisting in the wind?

Marcio was certain he could feel an ulcer forming in his stomach. He poured himself another cup of coffee.

And then, as if all that wasn't enough, Marcio was having to endure withering glances from Sky. Though the junior tech had obviously suspected him for some time, Sky now knew that Marcio was the culprit who'd stolen Mr. Daniau's accounting data. But why didn't Sky turn him in? He must be looking for more evidence. There was a difference between knowing something and being able to prove something. Marcio could only assume Sky was giving him rope and hoping he'd hang himself with it.

It may literally come to that, Marcio thought darkly.

The only upside was that now Sky himself was also under increased scrutiny. It was Sky, after all, who'd initially called the "electrician" out and had agreed to be responsible for him. When Mr. Miles had questioned Marcio, he'd also called Sky out into the hallway for questioning. It had been several tense minutes for Marcio as he'd worried that Sky would inform on him, but apparently he hadn't. After being questioned by Mr. Miles, Sky had just reentered the room and resumed his work at his terminal. Marcio enjoyed a temporary relief as neither Mr. Miles nor any of the enforcers under his command paid any particular attention to him. The relief was only temporary, however, as Sky stared menacingly at him over the tops of his terminal displays.

After Marcio had first returned to the server room, Sky had tricked him. Marcio had nearly let slip to Sky how many layers of encryption he had protecting the data. Marcio felt really stupid for having fallen for such an obvious trick. He really wasn't cut out for all this cloak-and-dagger stuff. Now that Sky was definitely on to him, he had to be extra careful. As soon as Marcio had sat back down at his terminal, the first thing he'd done was check to see if Sky had set any kind of monitoring program to spy on him while he'd been gone.

It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.

And Sky was definitely out to get him. Marcio's healthy dose of paranoia had payed off right away as he quickly found a hidden monitoring program on his terminal. He had nearly just deleted the program, but then he though better of it. Instead, he edited Sky's spy program to show only whatever video he told it to show. As the exnet was offline due to the lock down, Marcio did a quick search of the video selections available on the in-house servers for guests of the Paradox Hotel. He found a perfect one, just for Sky. It was an interracial bit of smut featuring a virginal Gonian girl at the center of a group of unkempt Estrellan men. The film was odious on its own merits, but it would be extra offensive to a Gonian Nationalist like Sky.

Enjoy the movie, you racist douchebag.

With Sky's attempts to spy on him thwarted, Marcio then accessed Daniau's creeper cam network. He spent most of the next couple hours worrying as he watched both the front and rear exits from Mika Claire's apartment for Danny. He couldn't see inside of Mika's apartment itself, as that was one of the few areas not covered by the creeper cams. He watched Daniau's goons move meticulously through the entire secure zone conducting their search. He saw no sign of Daniau himself, but that was nothing unusual.

He also worked on trying to set up the back door into Sky's data pad just in case Danny hadn't betrayed him after all, but he knew it was likely a futile effort. Setting up the back door was proving harder than he'd expected. Since he was trying to hack into the personal data pad of a fellow hacker, he had to be careful. Sky had set up all kinds of traps and anti-hacking mechanisms on the data pad

He watched, he waited, and he hacked as he pretended to work. He hoped it wasn't all in vain as yet another hour passed. On the cameras, Marcio watched as Mr. Miles entered Mr. Daniau's personal apartment. Several minutes later, both men emerged together.

That's when the hammer really started to fall.