Ted watched Brinus astutely while he traced out and laid new cables along the halls’ ceiling of the group home. It was morning, and he had a lot on his mind. Ted’s staring did not help his pace or his mood. He huffed.
“Hey Ted, don’t you have something better to do?”
Ted smiled. “Nope.”
Brinus pinched the top of his nose, dropped the cable from the ceiling, and climbed down the ladder.
“Listen, I gotta lay this high bandwidth wire and calibrate the mainframe and every system interface individually.”
Ted stepped over to Brinus and picked up the cable from the ground. “It looks like fun to me.”
“Well, it’s work. Now go.” Brinus took the cable back from Ted and continued inserting the wire into the ceiling, sliding and taking down tiles and plates to allow himself access.
Ted remained and Brinus could feel his searing stare into the back of his head. With a heavy grunt, Brinus climbed down the ladder again. “Here,” he said, shoving a wad of wire into Ted’s arms. “If you’re gonna bug me, you can at least be helpful. Now what you can do is untangle this.”
“Oh,” Ted responded then began tugging and pulling on the cable. “Why are you so irritated today?”
Brinus climbed back up the ladder and pulled another panel from its place. He clipped the wire into the rest of them orderly and precisely. “My boyfriend is in the hospital. He’s hurt pretty bad.”
“I’m sorry to hear that about your friend. I’m sure he’ll be ok.” Ted said innocently, not knowing the depth of the damage to Harper’s condition.
“Yeah, well, I was going to go visit him today but I have an appointment to meet with the Navy recruiter after all this today. They wonna do testing for intelligence and all that.”
“Here ya go,” Ted said.
Brinus had to look twice from the ladder before climbing down. Ted had untangled the cord in record time and presented it to him.
“Hm, thanks.” Brinus took it as a surprise.
“Why don’t you cheat?” Ted said and Brinus raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, cheat the tests. The intelligence test still has definitive answers. The test is pretty long though, and is graded more on the mistakes than the correct answers under the time limit. If you know ahead of time, you can prepare for the exact questions.”
Brinus stood and thought. “How can I do that? This here is a Navy office I’d be hacking into.”
Ted smiled. “I know the one, it’s just an office the Navy is renting while they’re recruiting here, then they move on to another area once they have all that they think they can get.”
“You’re pretty smart for a kid.” Brinus praised him and that made Ted smile widely.
“Ask me about Alligators.”
“We both know I ain’t gonna do that.”
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The day was waning when Ted and Brinus decided that hacking into the group home’s data centers from the outside and then sending a signal rerouting from the inside to the recruitment office wouldn’t work as well as they had hoped. Brinus didn’t know how to gain the extra computing power to combat the existing default security system on the recruitment servers. The access from a communications panel on a random wall wouldn’t cut it.
“This here is gonna be more difficult than I thought.” Brinus sighed and rolled his head back. “The group home's systems – even with all my improvements – still ain't enough to overpower a basic security system.”
Ted had some input. “Perhaps if we get into the office here and go straight from the source. I know where they keep the servers here.”
“Well, are you a handy little Vendalfi army knife? Take me to 'em.”
An overbearing woman’s voice came to them, it was Crystal Waterfall. “Taken to what?” She asked.
It surprised the boys, thinking she had overheard them discussing their hacking job.
Brinus thought quickly on his feet and replied. “I’m still tryin' to update and upgrade the system. There've been some attacks on the system to gain personal information from your residents. Bank information, doxxing stuff, all that's pretty important. Certain we ain’t wantin' that.”
“Well, carry on then. We’re expecting more residents at the end of the month. Make it quick.” She pulled the keycard to the server room from a loop with several cards on it. “This will gain you access to the server room. Ted can show you where it is.”
She walked away without knowing that that was their plan anyhow, and she had just helped them. They would’ve had to break in, but luck was on their side.
“C’mon, let’s make this quick. She’s likely gonna check up on us.” Ted advised, and Brinus nodded.
“If we're successful in this, you can tell me all 'bout alligators”
Ted shook his head and smiled. “Oh, that was earlier, now I’m interested in big cats. Particularly the huge ones.”
Brinus rolled his eyes and picked up his tools. “Not now; let’s move.”
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
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The server room was dark with little lights blinking on the consoles and machinery. The gentle warm hum of the computers was familiar and inviting to Brinus. He felt that being in this tight and intimate place made him feel the vulnerability of all the systems of the group home. The smell of hyper-silicon and the subtle burning of dust on the laser processors brought back memories of Brinus’s early training days.
“That’s more like it,” Brinus said, smiling at the sights and smells of the server room.
Ted curled his nose and repulsed at the odors. “Smells like ozone.” He complained.
Brinus sidestepped through the thin spaces between the servers to get to the master mainframe. Brinus knew which one it was despite it looked like all the others. It had a certain whirr about it. From his pocket, Brinus produced his TriQuarter.
Ted was surprised at the sight of it. “Oh my Earth Greek Gods! That’s a Syndicate TriQuarter!”
“Yup!” Brinus confirmed it. “It’s standard issue to all Syndicate members.” Brinus started tapping away to connect his device to the mainframe. In a moment, it connected while Ted began another info dump.
“Did you know TriQuarters have a quantum entanglement communication system? No matter where you are in the universe, they can talk to one another in real-time.”
“YES!” Brinus snapped. “Now, help me by being quiet fer a moment, I need to think.”
Ted was quiet as told but shifted around as his neuro-divergent brain couldn’t contain its information. He needed to be in the group home. Brinus couldn’t imagine how he would be in a common polite societal environment. He wouldn’t last a moment with a customer, but he would be useful to the Syndicate if he were a member.
His Triquarter pinged and showed that it had made a successful connection. He studied the information and found that there were still discrepancies and the data wasn’t entirely coming through well enough to complete the hack.
“Shit.” Brinus cursed. “My TriQuarter doesn’t have enough power to compensate for the data load, let alone battle some kind of AI operation involved.”
“So? Just use more power.”
“That’s my thought exactly.” Brinus acknowledged. He switched over to the phone call app and made a connection with Long Ho.
His TriQuarter hummed a few times before Long Ho had picked up.
Unfortunately, Long Ho was rather busy. Medusa’s goons were making him pay for his disobedience. One of the goons picked up Medusa’s TriQuarter from a table of his personal effects and held it up to him while he was tied to a chair in a dark secluded basement room. His face was bloody, but the goon didn’t care. Blood smeared across the TriQuarter’s illuminated screen.
“This is Long Ho.” He rasped out and sounded beaten up and exhausted.
Brinus asked with concern. “It’s Brinus. Did I catch you at a bad time? Were you asleep?”
“No,” He said. “I’m just beat. What’s up?”
“I’m tryin' to hack and I need some extra power on my TriQuarter. Can I get the access codes to the Syndicate’s main processor unit?”
Long Ho spat blood before replying. One of his teeth had been pulled just moments before the call. “Sure. The code is 246Alpha. I’ll send it to you and give you access.”
The head goon in the gang that was punishing him tapped away at the TriQuarter and sent him the codes on his behalf.
“Thanks,” Brinus said when he received access, then hung up just as quickly. “Ok Ted, we ain't got much time cuz the Syndicate processor often shorts out TriQuarters with an overload of data.” Brinus sighed. “Man, I hate that there fuckin' guy. I’m lucky he helped me out. He beat up my boyfriend, he’s the reason he’s in the hospital.”
“I’m so sorry to hear about your boyfriend.” Ted gave his condolences.
“Thanks. I would feel a lot better if somebody beat the shit out of him. But, ya know, one can only hope.” He tapped away with his TriQuarter and finally gained access. To his surprise, he was met with another AI. “What the fuck?” He cursed. “The recruitment office's got a whole AI implemented. This here's gonna be difficult as hell.”
“Easy,” Ted said, and Brinus raised an eyebrow. “You have help. You have me.”
Brinus thought for a moment. “Oh! If you can distract the AI, I can work around that to gain access.”
Ted nodded and immediately went to an adjacent console and began typing away. Within a minute, Brinus saw the effects of his distraction, and indeed, was able to gain access.
“I’m in.” He told him. “But there’s a problem, there is nothing here, literally nothing. The office is cleaned out!”
“Oh,” Ted said and continued typing away at the console. “That sucks.”
Brinus tilted his head. “What are you doing? You can stop now.”
“Nah, I’m on a roll.” Ted continued his work, and to finally make him stop, Brinus pulled a connecting cord from the back of the console. “Hey!”
“We need to go. Now.”
“But I was enjoying telling the AI about Calgori Swamp Boophies.”
Brinus pinched the bridge of his nose again. “Shut up about frogs and let’s get out of here before Ms. Waterfall catches us.”
“Ok,” Ted said. “You owe me a listening ear.”
Brinus grumbled. “Unfortunately.”
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The recruitment center was vacant aside from another kid probably a little older than Brinus. He waited in the lobby on a stiff chair and listened to an unnecessarily loud ticking clock. He wanted to get this test over with. He was smoking his nerves away the most he could while ruminating over what he might have done wrong, or at least differently, with his hack throughout the day. Ted was helpful but wasn’t the most focused individual. However, Brinus did offer a listening ear. He learned all about Boophie Frogs from not only the Calgori Swamps but the Earth Toads as well.
A receptionist called Brinus’s name and he responded. “Yeah?”
“You can come back for your appointment now.” She said.
With a last thought, he crushed his cigarette in an ashtray and headed for the office. The only test he could think of was that the test itself was actually on paper. The archaic process and grading system must take ages, but the Navy likely only wanted the best of the best.
The recruiter had him come into his office, and gestured for him to sit in a much more comfortable chair.
“Mr. Helios.” He said sternly. “I see that you wish to join the Navy?”
“Yes, sir,” Brinus replied with courtesy and respect. He figured it would be better to get into the habit.
“Very well. Let’s begin the psychological, intellectual, and IQ tests.” The recruiter shuffled a stack of papers and ordered them with a tap on the desk. Brinus’s suspicions of the archaic paper method were correct.
However…
“The test had been completed. Well done.” He said.
Brinus was confused and didn’t understand. “Sir?”
“Yes, you have already completed the test. To hack the office WAS the test. You showed excellent resourcefulness, teamwork, adaptation, and manipulation of advanced systems.” Brinus was surprised and fist-pumped the air. He was also ecstatic that he had received high marks and a passing evaluation. “However, you still don’t meet the age requirement. You still need to be 17 to enter the Navy. If you show improvement next year with skills like this, you will be a shoo-in for sure.”
Brinus’s spirit was in a mixer, he had done very well, but still didn’t qualify at the moment and had to wait a whole fucking year. Through gritted teeth, he accepted the terms despite making him angry and frustrated. “Thank you, sir. I'll come back next year.” The tone in his voice was telling of his mood.
“It won’t be as long as you think.” He said. “You can come in on your birthday if you wish. March 25th, right?”
“Yes, sir,” Brinus confirmed.
“Well, see you next year, cadet.” The sound of that made Brinus feel welcomed. They both stood and shook each other’s hands.
Brinus left the office feeling accomplished and hoped to earn the privilege of joining the Navy. He would hone his skills further than they were, and hopefully gain a title. The evening was still very young and wanted to visit Harper to tell him the good news.