Starring:
Summary: Kory and Micah discuss security for the Listmates.
Date It Happened: May 3, 2008
Like Neo, Only Cuter
The Deveaux Building - Kory's Apartment
Kory left word with Cam about a week and a half ago. And Niki probably a week ago; Kory needs to talk to Micah when Micah has a minute.
The apartment's foyer is still full of construction materials and lots of wikipedia pages fun-tak'ed up on the walls. But the kitchen is already done, and Kory's been baking cookies. So when she opens the door to greet him, the warm aroma of snickerdoodles and chocolate chip cookies greet the young man. "Hey, Micah. Good to see you. C'mon in! Did Cam tell you I'm thinking about getting an X-Box?" Pleasantries first. It's rude to get right down to business.
Stepping through the doorway, Micah smiles at the myriad of pages tacked up on the walls. "Still getting sorted out, I see." he offers, nodding in response to her question. "Yeah, he told me. If it were me, I'd for for the X-Box 360. Better graphics and high definition capabilities." But that's just him.
"Well, yeah. You're gonna love this. I asked my landlord and he okayed me to build a secret passageway and an escape hatch." Which is cool and exciting, but business. "C'mon in the kitchen, we can eat. I made pizza." She didn't order it in. She made it. "And thanks for the recs. I figure you'd know."
Micah only knows about the 360 because he has one. Gift from his dad. "I've got one at my place if you want to see it in action." he offers, as he starts to follow her. "How did you know I wanted pizza?" he asks, grinning cheekily. It's only his favorite food in the whole world. And the food of geeks. "Sweet. Where's it going to lead to? The roof?"
"You're a boy. You're a geek. You're a teenager. Pizza is kind of the 'well duh' answer to 'what should I cook' in that circumstance," Kory assures Micah with a grin. The pizza, warming in the oven, is heavy on the cheese and the meat, though it also has onions and mushrooms on half, in case Micah turns his nose up at those.
"Probably not the roof," Kory says, with a chiding tone. "Come on. What happens in the horror movie when the heroine runs up the stairs from the bad guy?"
As if Micah would turn up his nose at anything. Well, maybe the vegetables his mom keeps trying to get him to eat. But on a pizza…never! "Well, you got me there." he grins, looking thoughtful for a moment. "The stairs flatten and she ends up sliding back down towards the bad guy?"
"Or she gets cornered and killed. Or she gets cornered and the hero has to save her," Kory rolls her eyes. "So I'd like my escape hatch to actually help me escape." She slices a generous piece of homemade pizza for him and sets it on a plate. "I haven't got soda. I've got milk, juice, that kinda thing, and of course water."
"That too. So…this escape hatch?" Micah ponders, watching and grinning as the slice is set in front of him. And of course…it immediately distracts him from his train of thought. "That looks delicious. And milk is fine." he adds, taking a bite of the pizza. "Whomderfuhs…" he comments, forgetting his manners and talking with his mouth full.
"Yeah," Kory elaborates, going to get a full jug of milk from the fridge and pouring it into one of those old school BK Star Wars glasses. Yep. Geek girl. She grins as he talks with his mouth full. That's a fine compliment. "Glad you like it." She settles to a slice herself with a glass of grape juice.
Micah is never disappointed when visiting Kory. Seems she always has some sort of geeky item each time that he hasn't seen before. And the BK Star Wars glasses are no except. "It's great." he compliments, taking a swig from the glance and rotating it with his fingers. "Nice. Boba Fett."
"Yeah, I never thought I'd get the whole set, but flea markets and garage sales are the best for that. Moms never realize what their obsessed sons have." The glass is in good shape; she washes it by hand.
Okay, time to get down business. "The escape hatch is actually partly why I want to talk to you. Did Cam get into detail about what I wanted to see you about? Or your Mom?"
Micah nods his head as he munches happily on the pizza, which is about halfway gone now. "I would be upset if I had a set and my mom gave them away." As she mentions the hatch and the subsequest question, he shakes his head. "They didn't." But then again, he's used to not knowing the details of something before going there.
"Yeah, but I have no way to give it back to the original guys, so I at least try to treat their treasures as they would have," Kory says, looking almost wistful that there are all these geeky guys out there pining for lost Burger King glasses. "No? Okay, here's the deal. I'm gonna be needing a secure net connection. Way, way secure. And Cam tells me nobody's better than you. He says you're like Neo. Or maybe like one of the Jeffries brothers."
*cough* *hack* Micah almost chokes on a bite of pizza as mentioned is made of what she's needing from him. "Cam said that about me?" I mean, Micah's good and all, but a secure net connection…he hasn't quite tried anything like that yet. "I mean, I can probably come up with something that will work for what you need, yeah…but I've never done anything like a network before. It's all been me going into networks."
Kory blinks, alarmed, until Micah reveals he can talk. At which point she settles back into her seat and lets Micah have a minute to compose himself. "'Like Neo' were his exact words," she confirms. "Well, if you can get in anywhere, you can keep people out, can't you?"
"Well, yeah, I can." Micah admits, having done it at least once. Though not on purpose. "But I haven't really done it because my mom didn't want me getting wrapped up in anything bad. Until…..recently." At least he admits that lately he's been doing more things that cross the grey area.
"She told me you've been helping her," Kory clarifies, so he doesn't have to dance around keeping his mother's secrets. "I'm working on the same project, kind of. A little bigger. See, I've been given a job. We have to stop Pinehearst, or the world is pretty much …" There really is no way to say this without sounding theatrical; she's tried. Kory takes a deep breath, shrugs, and finishes her sentence, "…doomed."
Well that just makes it a whole lot easier. "Yeah, she's been having me research alot of Pinehearst stuff. Records, systems, etc." he admits, downing the last bit of crust. "I knew it was bad, but not that bad." And it's clear he's interested in helping as he sits up more in the chair. "What can I do to help?"
"I've been asked to get people together. Talking. Sharing ideas on what to do. How to stop them. But talking in person like this isn't really secure. Somebody could be eavesdropping," Kory explains, hands going up to encompass her enormous new apartment. "Somebody invisible. Or telepathic. Somebody with super-hearing. So many ways. But in dreams, not so much. But if we need to communicate during the day, I can't just hope everybody's asleep. So for that we need Micah.net."
"Micah.net?" Micah asks, laughing quite a bit. "I like it. But…" he pauses, mulling over the suggestion for a moment before deciding to run with it. "I can't keep people out of systems I'm in forever. It's limited to how long I'm online. However, I can keep them out of a system of my design for as long as needed." If you get what he's implying.
Kory beams. "The nickname just came to me," she explains. "And well, design shouldn't be a problem. The lawsuit from that thing with the stalker? It came with a great deal of money in the settlement because his mom didn't want the embarrassment. Plus, my landlord isn't charging me near what this apartment is actually worth." Kory twists her face into an odd expression; clearly she thinks less of Leslie's mother for putting her embarrasment over her own son's well being. But the expression is quickly subsumed by the affectionate smile as she mentions her landlord. "We can go to Best Buy or whatever and you can tell me what you want or need. Or I can just write you a check."
Oh the myriad of thoughts running through Micah's head right now run the gauntlet far and wide. "You don't have to do that if you don't want to." Micah says, a mischievous gleam in his eye. "I do have my own sources of money." Albiet, not a 'legal' means, but will do in a pinch. "I can have you the specs tomorrow. With a list of everything needed to do exactly what you're proposing."
Oh, does he now? Kory's own eyes twinkle right back. "Well, it's only fair. I want my own setup here at the apartment to be at least as good as what you're setting up the micah.net on. I'm gonna have to keep track of all the information we find on Pinehearst. And firewall it hard to keep it safe on top of that. Though some of what we discuss will be going to Sophie. My Brain Trust. She's a literal, living memory bank."
Micah nods quickly. "I would have insisted on that anyways. If it's going to access Micah.net, then it'll have to meet the specs I set as well as a few little personal 'tweaks'." He'll leave it open to inquiry on that if she deems necessary. "I've got a couple of contacts online that I trust and know aren't part of the Pinehearst mess, who I'm sure can get me the latest security hardware that isn't even available to the public yet."
"Excellent. Let me go grab you the list and you can see where we are on people I've spoken to. I've still got a lot of dreamwalking to do." She mentions her own ability casually, figuring if Cam couldn't keep the list secret from Niki, he probably also didn't keep her ability secret from Micah. "But yeah, if they find out what I'm the center of — now you know why I need an escape hatch. Hiro was thinking an elevator, but I want something a little more low tech, because if they cut the power, what good is an elevator?"
"Yeah. Maybe a dumbwaiter instead?" Micah suggests, as the wide grin on his face clearly shows that Cam did indeed share the secret. "I'll do my best to make sure you're shielded from them at least on the Net."
"I thought about that. I'm not sure Hiro's English is strong enough to grasp the concept. I will have to see if I can find plans for one online somewhere." Everything is online, confidence of this is writ large in her wide eyes. "I know you will. This world is enough of a mess as it is without Pinehearst making it worse."
Micah hadn't considered that, given his little contact with Hiro. But he's already considering other ideas. "Yeah, there has to be other alternatives. I'll keep a look out too." His head nods solemnly at mention of Pinehearst. "From what I've uncovered helping my mom, I agree that they need to be shut down for good. But some of their systems are too well protected that I'm having a hard time getting into them."
"If you can point me at people who work for Pinehearst — especially if you know where they live — I can …take care…of…that…!" Kory's eyes brighten and her smile widens as it strikes her as how significant an application for her ability this is. "All I have to do is show up looking like somebody's chubby aunt or a tiny flying elephant or a supermodel with fried chicken to get them to tell me about their jobs, or their computers." It probably won't be that easy, but it's a step in the right direction.
"I'll see what I can pull from Pinehearst's records the next time I'm on their system." Micah says, easily conveying that should be quite soon in fact. "It's neat how you can do all that. I bet between the two of us, there's a lot we could do to stop them."
"Count on it. If you let me know when I can expect to find you sleeping, I'll visit you in your dreams to keep you and Cam on top of what's going on. I'll bring Sophie with me, because like I said, she's our walking backup. Kind of like another Keanu movie, now that I think of it." She wraps up the spare pizza for Micah and Cam to share, because she made plenty. Side effect of not sleeping much. "Let me get you my logon handles…"