MA-20 (Patreon)

Been lagging behind with MA. Here's chapter twenty.

I felt like an intruder at the offices of Lord Mallory, even though I’d put in some very late night before. This was a different situation, we were on a nefarious mission to do nefarious things against nefarious people.

“Do you feel nefarious?” I whispered, as the elevator dinged and we stepped into the lobby of LMI.

“Totally,” Karyn whispered back. We both wore dark pullover shirts and black leggings, though she looked far more fetching in hers than I did in mine.

“So how do we do this?” I said, using my prox-key to open the door to the back offices where Stephen Fisher and I both had our workspaces.

“I don’t know!” Karyn said. “You’re the ex-hacker.”

“Yes, but that was back in Visual Basic days!” I whispered back.

“Why are we whispering?” Karyn said.

“Because they have surveillance cameras on all areas?” I said.

“Won’t the fact we’re dressed all in black and whispering alert them to our nefarious activities?”

I sighed. “Jesus, just stay here. Call me on your mobile and use your earpiece. We’ll stay in constant contact through the mobile call.”

“Can’t they trace that?” 

I shrugged, “Probably.”

She called my phone and I answered, putting the earbud in my ear. “If the elevator starts moving let me know,” I said.

“Over!” she replied.

“You’re supposed to say ‘Roger.’”

“But your name is Robbie!”

I sighed. “I think we might be the worst criminals in history.”

I made my way through the hall and down to my office. Just another gal needing to put in a late night at the office. I opened my door, then went to my workstation and logged into the network.

I knew they had virtual safeguards in place as well as physical, so I couldn’t just ‘hack the network.’ I needed physical access to his workstation in order to run my little cracker program. Problem was, our prox keys weren’t keyed to each other’s offices and there would be an indelible virtual record of what we were doing.

I looked up at the ceiling and realized it was just ceiling tile. If this body had been 20 years younger, I might have been able to slip through the crawlspace above the tile, and into Stephen’s office next door but those days were long behind old Joyce.

Logging onto the network, I checked my email. Nothing too unusual, we were reviewing current policies, looking for upcoming trends, assessing blanket renewals in favor of targeted…

I saw an email from Stephen. I clicked on it.

From: <Stephen Fisher, sfisher@lmi.net>

To: <Joyce Reagan, jreagan@lmi.net>

Subject: Please see Enclosed.

Attachment: 1 DZ_9384.png

Joyce,

Your attention is needed on an important matter. Please click the link attached and process in accordance with company policy. If you have any questions or wish to pursue this matter further, please see me in my office.

W/r

SFisher.

 I clicked on the Attachment. A man’s penis was flagrantly displayed at full mast. It had gray matted pubic hair and I could tell it was from Stephen’s office by the pictures on the wall of his wife and kids.

“Bastard.” I said.

“What?” Karyn responded. I’d forgotten about the earpiece.

“Stephen sent me a dick pic.”

She giggled. “Your first!”

At one point, Karyn had received over 100 dick pics to her public email address tied to her social media accounts. I’m not exactly sure what possesses men to send pictures of their genitalia at random to women, but it’s a sickness with no apparent cure. We always flagged them as inappropriate but they never stopped flowing into her inbox.

“So?” Karyn said, in a soft voice.

“What?”

“Well, how does it look?”

“Jesus, Karyn, like a cock! How do you think it looks?”

“Well, is it all wrinkly and small or is it…”

“I think he might have taken a blue pill.”

She giggled again. “Aww, he loves you!”

I hit the reply button, then with a second thought, I clicked on ‘blind carbon copy’ and selected the ‘all staff’ group.

From: <Joyce Reagan, jreagan@lmi.net>

To: <Stephen Fisher, sfisher@lmi.net>

BCC: <All Staff, allstaff@lmi.net>

Subject: Please see Enclosed.

Attachment: 1 DZ_9384.png

Mr. Fisher,

I find the enclosed document to be lacking in many ways in both form and function. Please seek out professional assistance for further consultation on the matter.

Joyce

I clicked ‘include attachment’ and hit the send button.

“What are you doing, I can hear your nails typing.”

“I replied and broadcast it to the entire company.”

She screamed. “You didn’t!”

“Shhh, woman. You’re going to get us caught!”

I was angry. With righteous indignation, I pulled up a telnet session and opened a command prompt. I knew more than I let on to Exmuritious about virtual systems. There’s always an underlying language to the top layer of applications used by a company. If you know the ins and outs of the language the machines speak, you can do just about anything.

I ran a scan against the system security server, and found several open ports. They’d be encrypted, of course, for specific applications tied to those ports. After running a packet capture, I was able to classify the application and discover the network protocols they used. I was then able to create a remote shell utilizing the same packet structure as the sending program, and I attached the cryptographic hash from the last sent packet.

Bingo, I was in. Launching the remote shell, I was able to access the building management software, and found the proximity lock sub-tabs.  I associated Stephen’s office location with my proximity lock, then got up and went out into the hallway.

“Any movement on the elevator?” I said.

“Nothing!” Karyn whispered back.

I used my prox lock on Stephen’s door, and it opened silently.

Ugh, I could see the chair he’d sent the dick pic from and forced myself to sit down at his workstation. Getting into his computer would be tricky; Lord Mallory had a strict three strikes and you’re locked out password policy. He’d told me the name of his kids, his wife, his dogs…but I didn’t have time…

I looked over his desk, and opened one of his drawers. On a post-it note, was a 15 character phrase: D@ddyWantsMilk!

“Jesus Christ.”

“What?” Karyn said in an urgent whisper.

I entered the phrase into his computer and his desktop sprang to life. “He had his password in his fucking desk drawer.”

She giggled again. “This is fun!”

I scrolled through his files and folders. After inserting my drive into the proper slot, I quickly copied anything that might have to do with the project. Luckily, he was an organized person so it wasn’t difficult to find by the keyword; Ambition. After a few minutes, I had everything I thought we could use, and I shut down his workstation, but not before I heard a ping from his email.

From: Exmuritious Forrester CEO Lord Mallory Inc

To: sfisher@lmi.inc

Subject: Re: Please see enclosed

Come to my office.

X

After that, there were what looked to be dozens of replies to my response. I gave a small grin, then quickly darted out the door. After turning the lights off in my office, I found Karyn in the front foyer.

“Well?” she said.

“Mission accomplished!” I said, holding up the drive. The elevator dinged right behind me and the door opened.

Karyn and I both looked at each other, alarm on our faces. Exmuritious Forrester stepped out of the elevator.

“Well, well, well, Ms. Reagan. You’ve been a busy girl tonight, haven’t you?” he reached out and plucked the drive from my hand.

I slumped as he walked past us. “Follow me, please.”

I considered making a run for it, but he had a security detail with him. Karyn looked at me, her eyes wide and I could tell she was worried.

I shrugged and we followed him into the offices.