Big Dog Toys:

Terry couldn’t believe the day she had. The wrong parts had been sent and it wasn’t her fault. The client decided he didn’t want the build he had commission. Some of the bills she knew she paid on time hadn’t posted yet. When she called to find out why they hadn’t posted. The company said they hadn’t received the transferred of the money. When she went and checked the receipt, it showed the money had been accepted and called the company back. She printed up the receipt and fax them.

She managed to get them straighten out and figured someone must be messing with their systems. Terry looks around the shop to make sure everyone was gone and begin locking up all the doors and cutting things off that should had been turned off. She hears the doorbell ring. She walks to the customer door and spots Elizabeth standing there waiting for her to open the door.

“How has your day been?”

Elizabeth comes walking in and Terry locks the door behind her.

“Crappy. It’s been one of those days around here.”

“Well, it’s going to get better then. How has your guest been?”

“I haven’t heard a thing from her, since I talked with her around lunch time. She’s been very quiet. What did your boss say to do with the truck?”

“Store it somewhere safe for now.”

“Well, I do know of a place we can store it. It’s an old R&D office building for sale. We’ve been thinking about acquiring the building because it has more space then this garage. I still have the keys to the place.”

“That’s sounds like a good place to hide the box truck. Did you learn anything new about our other guest?”

“No, all I did learn was she had to leave England because she was in some sort of trouble for killing some people and sending a few to the hospital and that they deserved it.”

“That’s all my boss knows as well. There’s no other information about her. All we know is she came from England and that’s all. It’s like she came out of nowhere a year ago. That’s when she made her first appearance.”

“Well good luck trying to get any information out of her. You need to ask your questions a certain way or she won’t answer them. Hopefully, she is still in my apartment.”

Terry and Elizabeth walk up the stairs case to Terry’s apartment over the shop. The door was still lock. Terry opens the door and walk in and spot Aylin sitting right where she left her. Her coffee mug was sitting in front of her and she had her eyes closed.

“Is she asleep?”

Terry was standing nearby watching.

“I don’t think so.”

Elizabeth kneels beside Aylin. She gently shakes Aylin’s good shoulder.

Aylin opens her eyes when she felt herself shaken.

“Please don’t touch me.”

“Sorry, I was trying to wake you up.”

Aylin looks at Elizabeth and a smile appears on her face.

“I remember you. I remember talking to you before I went nighty-night.”

Terry walks over and picks up the empty coffee cup and put it in the sink.

“That was me. Aylin...”

Aylin waves her finger back and forth “it’s Mad Hatter Aylin or just Hatter.”

“Okay, Mad Hatter Aylin. Would you join me and Terry at the table so I can stop kneeling, please?”

“Okay.” Mad Hatter Aylin stands up off the floor like it was nothing and walks over to sit at the table.

“Would you care for something to drink Elizabeth and Hatter?”

Terry looks over at the other two women.

“Do you have a Pepsi or coke?”

“Pepsi.”

“That’s fine for me. How about you Hatter?”

Elizabeth looks at Aylin.

“Hot tea please.”

“Hot tea it is, then.”

Terry brews some hot tea for Aylin and grabs a Pepsi for Elizabeth and hands it to her.

“Thank you, Terry. Hatter, what city in England we’re you born at?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay, let me ask you this question then. Were you always called Mad Hat Aylin or Hatter?”

Aylin tilts her head to the side to think about that question.

“I don’t remember. There’s a big dark space where I can’t remember anything except being in pain all the time.”

Aylin’s facial expression starts to change to sorrow and she starts to mumble something very low. Elizabeth leans forward to hear better, but is unable to hear anything. Aylin goes back to her normal expressionless state. Terry sits down near Aylin and places her tea in front of her.

“Thank you, Terry.”

“You’re welcome Hatter.”

“Hatter can you tell me who you were stealing that truck for and why?”

“Joe the Boss sent me to steal it, because he wanted it. I don’t ask why, I just do.”

Aylin takes a sip of her tea. It was the same as before. She had watched Terry make it so she knew it wasn’t poisoned or spiked.

“He didn’t tell you why he wanted that truck?”

“Nope! I don’t ask questions. I just do what I am told to do.”

“Do you have anything else to wear beside what you have on?”

“I don’t wear anything else, except this. This is all I own besides some vans.”

“Vans as in more than one?”

Terry looks at Aylin when she says that.

“Yes. I own seven vans total. I live in them.”

“Okay, that is something new.”

“Hatter, would you be able to work with me and Terry?”

“On what?”

“Going after some bad guys. There are some bad guys we need to go after.”

“What’s in it for me?”

Aylin was looking at Elizabeth when she asked that question.

“What do you want?”

“I don’t know, what are you willing to give me for helping you?”

“How about we clear your criminal record with England for a start?”

“And?”

“Well, you’ll be working with me and Terry here. What else do you want?”

“A favor for later. I’ll work with you two for a favor to be honor later?”

“Okay, I don’t see why not.”

“Here is what we have to do.”

Elizabeth starts informing Terry and Hatter what she was told by her boss.

Eruption Communications Anika Jaager Office:

Morgana comes rolling out of the elevator along with her friend Troy Percival. The two of them have worked together on a few jobs. So, she knew what Troy could do. He was good, but he wasn’t in Gloria’s class. They head down to Anika Jaager’s office. Arthur had said to report to her when they arrived.

“Shigeko, it’s good to see you again. Is your boss lady in?”

“She’s expecting you Morgana and Mr. Percival. I think you have your work cut out for you this time around. I hope you don’t mind the hotel I booked for you and Troy.”

“It’s fine Shigeko. Most companies wouldn’t have done what you did.”

“She’s right about that Ms. Shigeko. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now into the lion’s den I send you.”

Shigeko holds the door open for Morgan to roll in, followed by Troy.

Anika looks up from her desk. She had been working on some paperwork.

“Morgana, it’s good to see you again. I hope your flight up here was okay.”

“It was fine Ms. Jaager.”

“Good, because I have a task for you and Mr. Percival that I figure will take some time. I need for you to dig through Mr. Arnold Bridges office
computer and tell me what you find please. If you need special access to anything, let me know and I’ll get you the access.”

“Has any one mess with his computer since you dismiss him?”

“Not that I know of. I had his ethernet cable disconnected from the wall so no one could go in and use or erase his computer. I also had his office sealed.”

“Well, I am going to need to clone his hard drive and work with the clone. That way if you need to take him to court or file charges against him. The lawyers he gets can’t say we tamper with the hard drive and planted evidence on it.”

“Well, you do what you have to do to it and keep me inform about your progress.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“I’ll have security escort you to his office.”

Anika presses a button on her phone “Shigeko, can you have Mr. Lucero report to my office please?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“While we wait for Mr. Lucero to show up. I believe you submitted a proposal to me Morgana on handling all of our IT security, even though we have an IT department.”

“Yes ma’am, what we would be doing is monitoring the traffic flow in and out of here. Also, handle problems just like this when you dismiss employees or trying to gather evidence to prove they have broken company rules. It’s more of a monitoring job, but you won’t have surprises like this popping up.”

“I’ll need to run this by the CEO and the owner of the company.”

“Another advantage of hiring us Ms. Jaager. Is we can help you to hire the right people for the IT positions here at the company and holding training classes to help improve the skills they already possess. A lot of HR managers or managers in general really don’t understand what an IT person can do and what their job should be. What questions to ask during an interview.”

“All good arguments and I’ll pass that information along to the CEO and the owner.”

A knocking sound interrupted what Anika was about to say next.

“Enter.”

Keven Lucero walks in and notice a young lady in a wheel chair and a young dirty blonde gentleman sitting in front of Ms. Jaager’s desk.

“Mr. Lucero, I want you to meet Ms. Morgana and her companion Mr. Percival. I would like for you to accompany them while they are here going over Mr. Arnold Bridges computer and office. Give them what access they need to do their job.”

“Yes ma’am. Do you want me to stay with them or leave them on their own?”

“I would prefer if you remained with them Mr. Lucero. Have Mrs. Winter take over your duties while they are here.”

“Yes ma’am.” Lucero knew why he was being assigned. This way he could back their story if they find something and verify it wasn’t planted.

“I guess we better get to work then.”

Troy Percival stands up from the chair he has been sitting in. Morgana and Troy follow Mr. Lucero down to Mr. Bridges office. Before they do anything to the computer, Troy breaks out a camera and takes pictures of everything. He takes pictures of all items connected to the computer any programs still running. After they take pictures of the computer and everything around it. Morgana hooks a device to the computer that only allows her to read the contents of a hard drive in read only mode and she goes over the computer making sure there aren’t any nasty surprises.

Troy takes a scanner out and start scanning the room and picks up a wireless spot in the room itself.

“Mr. Lucero, can you get me a ladder please?”

“Sure, but why?”

“There’s a wireless signal coming from inside this room and most of the times people hide them up in the ceiling.”

Lucero goes and gets a ladder for Troy and brings it back into the office. He sets it up and Troy climbs up and pushes one of the ceiling tiles aside and uses the scanner to pin point the wireless access point. At first, he didn’t see it, but he spots it tuck up against one of the rafters.

“I found the unit Morgana.”

“Can you disconnect it or scan what the signal is?”

“Yep and you won’t believe this either.”

Troy couldn’t believe a cellular device had been added to it so a person could call into the unit and access it. He knew a few hackers that could do this type of work. Morgana was one of them. He has seen her construct one for a job they did.

“I can tell you this. It’s been heavily modified. Whoever, did the work on it knew what they were doing.”

Troy climbs back down the ladder. He was holding the unit in his hand.

“Would you say it was put here to spy on the CIO or was the CIO was using it?”

“Oh, he was using it. This wasn’t put here to spy on the company. He was remotely using it to access things here at the office without going through the company security measures. I found a cable connected to a small switch connected to another cable.”

“So, he was remoting in and accessing the company’s network without the safe guards to pick-up his activities.”

Morgana was looking over towards Troy and Mr. Lucero.

“Yep, did you find anything on his company desktop?”

“Not much. There are a few things he did here, but he must have been using another device. Most of the stuff is company related, except for a few sites.”

Troy picks up the ladder and takes it over towards the ceiling where he traces the hidden cable and switch. He connects a cable from his company laptop to the switch and starts breaking in.

“Holy crap. I don’t believe this.”

“What you got Troy?”

Keven was wondering as well and walks over to see for himself.

Morgana wheels over to look for herself. On the screen were satellite images from a NASA and Government satellite in orbit.

“How did he manage to hack NASA and several different Government satellites? What is he planning and for what purpose?”

“That is a good question.”

All three couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

“We better inform Ms. Jaager about this.”

The next thing they hear is an explosion outside and the building shaking from it.