Security Breach [Closed] - Printable Version
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RE: Security Breach [Closed] - saronym - 06-24-2017
It seemed to Renton that Emma and he had a fundamentally different approach to life. Whereas she seemed eager to muscle through every moment as if the passage of time itself was anguishing. It seemed so especially in the way she adrank her coffee down as if she had only a few minutes to enjoy it. Renton, by contrast, relished in everything. Which is why he had taken the extra moments to arrange himself and the menu just the way he liked. He smiled politely at the waitress, taking care to look her in the eyes and remember the name she gave him.
He asked of the waitress before she left the table, “Beth, may I please have a green tea?” He seemed even to enjoy a show civility and elegance. What a concept. They were in public.
He went back to pouring over the menu. Unblinking, unflinching while Emma verbally assaulted him. “Would you like to get a starter? I know what you’re thinking.” He snapped his fingers. “Fried green tomatoes? The dipping sauce is just -” He kissed his fingers in cheesy, stereotypical impression of an Italian chef. It wasn’t clear whether Renton had even heard her. He did and he found her desperation both amusing and concerning.
She was worried. Very worried. Which only peaked his interest in her. He cocked his head like a curious cat while he surveyed her quietly for a moment. She looked terrible. Tired or worn down emotionally or something. He couldn’t pin his finger on it. He had never really met anyone who seemed more miserable to exist than her.
It’s called self-care, sister. And guzzling coffee doesn’t count as self-care. He wanted to say.
“So.” He closed his menu and folded his hands on top again. A nice signal for the waitress that at least one in their party had made their selection. “How long have you been with the CAF, Emma? Do you enjoy what you do?” The waitress caught his eye and he gave her an apologetic number one with his finger. Just another minute.
RE: Security Breach [Closed] - SolitareLee - 06-24-2017
Emma looked at Agent Bell blandly, eyes weary and wary in roughly equal measures. Then she sighed. "I don't eat much, so a starter would probably be wasted on me, but help yourself." That wasn't an elf thing. Elves could--and needed to--wolf down food with the best of them. All her elfiness gave her was that it was significantly harder for her to starve to death, a fact which had come in handy many times in her life, and continued to come in handy now, when she had such difficulty eating. "You didn't fetch my files?" she asked dryly, looking up at him over the edge of her own menu, though she'd known what she would order before she even walked in. "I'm sure you have clearance for them." Despite herself, she found herself eyeing the dessert section. They had pies. A selection of pies.
They had a mini dessert sampler.
Maybe she could come back later and try it. She tore her eyes away from the page. "I've been working for the CAF for just over six months. Getting the job, as you can imagine, was a challenge." She let the glamour over her long, pointed ears fade long enough to make her point, then brought it back. "And yes, I enjoy my work. Enough that I'm fairly distraught over the sudden attention of both the Brigadier General and the Commander General, especially in such a negative light." She tapped idly on the corner of the menu. After the Commander General took over, the hiring policies of the CAF suddenly got a lot less human-centric, although they remained far over-represented, statistically speaking. She doubted that was a coincidence.
She'd hoped that her first meeting with him would be something a lot more neutral and a lot less 'he definitely suspects me of a serious crime.' "What about you, Agent Bell?" she asked, despite the fact she already knew the basics, having done what research she could in a few hours with little actual clearance. "You must be a much more interesting person, given that standing in your presence was enough to garner so much suspicion on my part."
RE: Security Breach [Closed] - saronym - 06-25-2017
Renton felt himself continuing to deflate interiorly. He regretted cancelling lunch with Julianna. Even if she wasn’t particularly hungry she would always share an appetizer with him. Sharing food was an important ritual in socializing for him. Renton didn’t answer as to whether he had pulled Emma's files. He just kept his face in that infuriatingly pleasant neutral smile. What he did or didn’t have clearance for or did or didn’t look into was none of her business as far as he was concerned. He gazed at her steadily while she spoke, eyes flicking briefly to her elven ears when she revealed them. A frown tugged his eyebrows towards one another but not because he disapproved - but because he didn’t know why it would have been difficult for her to secure employment with the CAF for them. He was also not impressed by her complaints because she had clearly chosen to work for the CAF despite whatever limitations she envisioned the organization had whereas he was forced to work for them.
He wasn’t feeling particularly sympathetic at the moment. Especially not when she had spoken to him so sharply just moments before.
“Thank you.” He accepted what he took to be a compliment graciously. Only he would find compliment in his own notoriety which brought him negative attention. “I do try to be an interesting person and I work hard to cultivate my legacy. It’s funny-” he said with an extra snip in his voice, “how you act as if you’re innocent when we both know you’re not. A word of advice from an expert, it’s a lot less tiring to just say nothing when you’re accused than to insist innocence. The more you say, the worse it is for you.”
He lifted a finger to the waitress to draw her over to the table. “The suspicion on my part is of course deserved.” He smiled almost perversely as if he enjoyed being suspected. Renton had after all an ego about his work and he had just pulled off one of the largest data heists in corporate history. He should have been celebrating it instead of having tense conversations with grumpy elves.
He timed that perfectly so his bragging hung over the table without explanation as the waitress arrived. “An order of fried green tomatoes for the table. And I’ll have the Cobb.” He placed his order with the waitress.
While Emma placed her order, Renton snuck his phone out to text Julianna and Owen in their group chat.
>dinner’s on me tonight
>love you <3
>have a nice dayyy
RE: Security Breach [Closed] - SolitareLee - 06-25-2017
She caught his frown when she revealed her ears, but couldn't imagine they'd actually be a surprise to him, unless he really hadn't bothered to pull her files and see her registered species. She was pretty sure she was the only goddamn elf working in the whole place; how could someone miss that? Or she supposed it could be something else entirely, but her mind tended to skip straight towards confusion or racism, as they tended to be the most frequent reasons for people to frown at her ears.
The man timed his little humblebrag to be right before the waitress arrived, so they could just sort of marinate in it. She was correct, yes? He was bragging? Well, she supposed he was a felon who had been caught, and they did say all those things about pride.
"Look," she commented, directly to his ears, while the waitress was there, specifically because she wanted to ruin his little bask. And because she wanted to remind him of what she could do, just in case it was racism that had made him frown earlier. "I'm not an expert like you. I don't really know how to stand tall and proud when under suspicion I didn't expect from people far more powerful than me." Alright, so pretty much every word of that was a lie, but there was a certain kind of person she was supposed to be here, and calm and cool under that kind of pressure was not it.
"I'll just have a bowl of the soup of the day, please. Extra bread on the side? Thank you," she said to the waitress, then returned her focus to Agent Bell as the woman walked away. "This wasn't supposed to be a thing," she informed him with a sigh. "I figured I knew enough to cover my trail, but all this?" She gestured vaguely, referring to the chaos that had erupted and the sudden attention from the higher ups it had earned her. "I wasn't expecting it. If I'm ever under intense scrutiny and suspicion again, though, I'll take your advice." She sighed, again. "Can you blame me for hoping I'll never have to, though?"
RE: Security Breach [Closed] - saronym - 06-25-2017
“Didn’t you just imply that securing employment at the CAF was difficult for you? Presumably because of extra scrutiny on you?” Renton asked with a keen kind of look as if he had struck on something. “So which is it Emma, are you accustomed to scrutiny or aren’t you? If you’re not an ‘expert’ how did you find yourself in the corporate headquarters at Armas with stolen files in your hand? Don’t they have state of the art security? Or am I to believe it was just dumb luck? Those are the kinds of inconsistencies you’re going to need to work out before you speak with Julianna and before the investigation goes underway.”Renton smiled and brushed at invisible dust on the table. He believed he was being helpful. He had been questioned up and down and backwards and forwards by aggressive lawyers and police officers and CAF investigators so he knew what kinds of questions were asked. So he was mimicking the style and adversarial nature of investigative questions.
Renton was left to assume that if she was an even half-way decent thief then she should be at least an equally as good liar. Never underestimate others is what Renton had learned the hard way in his life. So if she was crafting an inconsistent narrative, he was assuming she was doing it on purpose. She wanted to seem less competent than she was. Which were red flags to him.
Renton knew how to piece together a narrative about himself that was iron clad. And it all rested on not saying much at all. So what was he to glean from she that crafted one in which she insisted on innocence and a self-deprecating kind of incompetence?
What he needed to do was suss out whether he should, in fact, throw the potentially dangerous woman under the bus. He’d already began his blackmailing procedures with Armas so he couldn’t and wouldn’t stop that barreling train. He had an agenda that he was dedicated to.
So what was hers?
“Anyhow, you should be fine so long as you didn’t leave any traces. How did you get in and and out? Did you consider all of the security measures they have in place? Where did you get your information from?”
RE: Security Breach [Closed] - SolitareLee - 06-25-2017
Emma looked a bit surprised. Then a bit confused. Then it faded into tired, tired comprehension.
Now how to say this like a lay woman would say it...
"I think you're, uh, misinterpreting the reason it was hard for me to get a job here, Agent Bell. I wasn't flashing my ears because that's how elves flirt. I was attempting to be polite in pointing out the racial bias I had to navigate to find myself with a well-paying job in a notoriously human organization." She ran a finger along her glamoured ear, almost absent-mindedly. "That's the sort of thing I'm used to, or at least have become used to. I suppose you could call it a form of scrutiny? Racial scrutiny? I never thought of it that way, myself. But the whole, being suspected of a major crime thing... That's more your area of expertise than mine, for better or worse."
She sighed, leaning against the back of her chair. "It's flattering you think I'm skilled, considering you're a professional... or were, I suppose, since I'm sure now you live a life free of any criminal wrongdoings whatsoever. But I think being an expert would be doing what you did. Stealing something that mattered, from their no doubt extremely well-encrypted servers. I got in, yes, and then proceeded to take a single file that a secretary left on her desk." She rolled her eyes. "As much as I enjoy the compliment, not quite on the same level, yes?"
She paused as the waitress approached the table. Not because she needed to, since she'd been speaking to him directly--no need to risk eavesdroppers when you had a cooperative partner who wouldn't be a dick about it. But it just seemed more polite. Plus, they were his tomatoes.
The waitress set them down on the table, and Emma paused long enough to thank her. They did smell good. She'd never had tomatoes served quite this way... humans really would deep fry anything!
"You're asking for information without offering anything to trade, Agent Bell," she protested after the waitress had left. "I'm curious about what you were there for, too. That is what you want to know, right? Of course I think I left no trace, or at least I did, until this whole fiasco. I wouldn't have tried it if I thought I'd fuck it up immediately." She took a careful nibble out of one of the fried tomatoes, having waited to watch him have one. To make sure she was doing it right, for one, and also maybe that would be a bit less rude. She was still swiping food, though. "And obviously I'm not telling you where--or who--I got my information from. So, am I wrong? Or do you really want to know why I was in there?"
The tomato was good. The sauce was even better. She finished it with a bit more enjoyment then she perhaps should have, then leaned forward, resting her cheek on the back of her hand, elbow on the table. Head tilted, considering him curiously. "That's what I want to know, anyway. The why... and I guess the what, but that seems like the kind of knowledge that might be a bit more trouble than it's worth." No such thing.
RE: Security Breach [Closed] - saronym - 06-26-2017
If Renton was a defensive person, maybe he would have cared more that she seemed to be putting him on the spot about purportedly ‘misinterpreting’ her flash of ears. Did her being an elf have anything to do with the breach and imminent investigation? He wasn’t defensive though so he let it slide off him like all the other accusations thrown his way.He just nodded politely, kept his tea close to his mouth, and waited for her to make her point - which - he noted she failed to address his arguably more important point: that her story about herself was nonetheless conspicuously inconsistent. She was lucky he wasn’t argumentative like Owen.
Renton was left to assume perhaps she was a terrible liar. It didn’t seem that she could keep track of the threads she sewed. A spider caught in it’s own web. What could be more tragic.
She had insisted in the same conversation two opposing statements: I am not accustomed to scrutiny in a general sense. I am accustomed to a kind scrutiny. And then she was an expert - enough to break into a secure facility and be confident that she hadn’t messed up and incriminated herself. But she wasn’t an expert.
The spider tangled itself. Tsk tsk. This would never do in a courtroom.
Thank God the food was here. Well the starter. Renton went in on the fried tomatoes to give him an excuse to remain silent. Don’t talk with your mouth full, he had been taught as a child. Don’t talk was just the theme today it seemed.
When Emma reached for the appetizer, Renton was pleased for two reasons. For one, he knew his judgment in ordering them was warranted. And two, he felt it once again proved his point she was a LIAR. She had just insisted she wasn’t super hungry and ‘oh it will be wasted on me.’ But look at her go. Just gobbling up that tomato like an homage to his judgment. Oh yes, he was feeling a bit smug and congratulating himself on his accurate judge of character. His face remained that pleasant neutral mask.
Well, at least one thing about her was consistent. She insisted she didn’t fuck up. That was true as far as he could tell.
“Well-” he popped a sauce dipped tomato into his mouth. He took the time to chew and swallow before he continued. “The news will break and you’ll find out eventually. So I’ll give you a little exclusive.” He wiggled a bit in his chair, as if excited, as if he had something big to tell. Renton would just pretend she was a reporter for TMZ or something eager to get the hot scoop on him. He liked that kind of attention. “-I leaked the information about the breach. I’m holding data regarding certain financial transactions hostage upon threat of releasing these documents until they meet my demands. For fun, I also encrypted some of their most important files. I’ll give them the keys when I’m satisfied.”
He dusted his fingers delicately over the floor and then wiped greasy residue onto his napkin. He peered at his fingernails ridding them of dirt that wasn’t there. He was impeccable.
“Your turn.”
RE: Security Breach [Closed] - SolitareLee - 12-28-2017
"You what?!" Emma yelped at nowhere near an appropriate indoor voice, half-standing in shock. She immediately thumped back down, glancing around and looking abashed, cheeks tinting slightly pink. "You what?" she hissed a much more reasonable volume. "Why the f... Who th... You..." She stopped, rubbing her face. "Why in god's name did you drag me into this fucking m--" She stopped again, just as abruptly, as the wheels in her head spun to catch up with the shock he'd delivered her.
"Because you're blackmailing them, and I was there," she said slowly, voice for his ears alone. "I saw you, and we work together. I could have ID'd you, or worse, I could have been a dumbass that would have left a trail right to me, and then sold you out for leniency once I realized they wanted someone blackmailing them and not me. You had to make sure we were in the same boat, and also that I wasn't a complete idiot." She rubbed her face. "Which is... warranted. Clearly."
She sat back in her chair, sighing the sigh of the perpetually exhausted. "Fuck. Goddamnit. Fuck." She didn't appreciate this one bit, but she couldn't really fault his logic. She would have done the exact same thing if she was in his shoes. That didn't mean she liked it, but at least it meant he wasn't an idiot. She eyed him sourly. "I'm still upset," she informed him, despite the fact she sounded and looked considerably more resigned than upset. "...Glad to know I'm not the reason they found out, though," she admitted grumpily.
"Alright. Okay." She straightened in her seat. "You're blackmailing them. I don't expect you to tell me the why, although I'm real fucking curious, I'll admit. I'm assuming you've done this before? Please say yes. So the weak leak is arguably me. Or us, anyway. The concept of us as a thing that exists in the eyes of our bosses. Regardless of whether or not we had anything to do with each other, they sure think we do now, which means denying it more it will just dig me deeper into this pit." She sighed. "So we should... work on a story? Make sure we're on the same page? Then I sit back, let you do your thing, and neither of us face any consequences for the super illegal thing we both did."