Wires without Traces (Ashley!)

[Mia Keystone]

”Come on girl, you’ve still got it in you.”

Kaylee was getting slow. Mia groaned and chewed absentmindedly on her lip rings as her eyes skittered over the number of windows that were popping up and closing. To a passerby, the windows were closing too fast for the human eye to read, but Mia wasn’t even paying attention to the visual cues. Her mind was chasing through the images faster then the computer could bring them up.

The lag was starting to be costly. She’d almost been caught backtracking out of the New Yorker’s online archive. The New Yorker of all things. It was time for a serious upgrade. All Kaylee’s files were backed up on numerous external hard drives and the two other computers Mia kept in her room, so in essence, she wouldn’t be loosing anything...

Mia’s fingers twitched on the keyboard, and with a small jolt Mia pulled her mind out of the stream of data and back to reality. The last window, a detailed map of the major english facilities in England, winked out of few. ”Fuck it,” Mia snapped, gaining herself a few odd looks from nearby students. She just glared back until looked away from the tiny girl in bright purple jeans and a black and white checked hoodie. For someone who was about the same proportions as a fairy, Mia knew how to get people to back off.

One hand absently mussed up her short hair as the other ran quickly around Kaylee’s screen as Mia did a quick cool down job and cleaned out the beginnings of a nasty virus some hack of a hacker and tried to plant. Maybe it was revenge... Mia had been known to ruin a few reputations when it came to the online world.

It wasn’t her problem if people tried to poke their noses where they weren’t wanted. No one tried to hack Kaylee without getting a nasty surprise planted by a very vengeful teenager who saw writing viruses as an art form every bit as complicated and fulfilling as any painting.

[Ashley Shaw]

The student lounge. The place Exie Yates had been faffing around with Twilight, and learning to relax with him. Yes, there were few memories in this room, most of them came from stealing paper and accidentally taking pencils and sharpeners. Ashley wasn’t to sure about what he was doing here. He was bored, and he still had no way of getting his parents signature so he could move in with Natasha and Mayu. He really wanted to. Ant was cool, a great friend, and May was sweet and supportive. They were his family as far as he was concerned. His parents didn’t want him anymore. They abhorred him. It was also likely that if he left Vermont or The Hammel Institute, he’d be caught by his brother or sister. They wanted to kill him no doubt, and he understood why perfectly. They had lost their friends because of him, and he had yet to pay.

Ashley’s eyes were drawn to a girl, a laptop in her knees. Was that thing a touch screen? If so, he had to try it out. He’d never used one before, and he’d always wanted to. Kind of like a small child wanting to go on a swing. Ashley paused and thought about this. Should he just walk up and say hi, or sneak up on her like he did with Exie? In fact, she could have been sitting in the same place. Wow that was weird.
Ashley walked up to the girl, her hair was short and she had a lip piercing. Ashley flinched. He could never do something like that. He could probably get a tattoo, but not a piercing. Ouch no. He looked at what she was wearing and smiled. Wow, that was cool. Bright jeans and checked hoddie. Now that was cool. The black haired boy sat next to her, taking a peak at her laptop.

“That’s a fine piece of technology you got there,” he said with a smirk, crossing his legs. Ok, maybe a little to directed toward an inanimate object, but at least he wasn’t being a weirdo like he was with Exie. That shit just didn’t go down with the ladies very well. At least he thought it didn’t.

[Mia Keystone]

Mia froze, then turned slowly to glare at whoever thought it would be ok to a) sit near her and b)look at Kaylee. A quick up and down for identification. Subject Shaw. He was in her history class. Always seemed to stick around during the holidays. Nothing of interest had been flagged but Mia had only run a basic search. "Kaylee's a 2003 Sony VAIO SR17, with a Pentium three processor, 700 MegaHurtz and twenty Gigabytes of RAM. She's almost 8 years out of date." Mia said slowly, as if speaking to an idiot. "She's a solid machine. Unless you were being sarcastic. In which case, do not speak ill of Kaylee or I'll kneecap you."

Ok, so maybe the guy was kind of cute, if you liked guys with almost the same haircut as you had. He had pretty nice eyes. But, unless he was very good at hiding it, he was wired with veins not copper wires, which meant chances were Mia and he would not click. Unless he wanted something... and had something to give in return.

Pleasantries aside, the girl blew up to get rid of the stray hair that had fallen in front of her left eye while she was coding. "Can I help you, Shaw? I haven't done the history homework, if you want answers or anything." There was a reason no one else had moved into the booth with Mia, despite the lack of space around the lounge. And Mia was not keen on people she didn't know getting too close to Kaylee.

Shit! Mias eyes widened and she slammed Kaylee's lid down. One of her longer hacking jobs was still on screen, and while it was just a black window filled with green numbers it was clearly not a normal facebook page. "You saw nothing, right?" she said slowly. "Just a pet project. It's nothing serious."

[Ashley Shaw]

That was not the reply Ashley was used to. The laptop was a what? She’d lost him at ‘SR17’ for sure. After that he’d gone blank. Damn it he was so far behind on technology names. Wait, did she say the laptop was called Kaylee? She’d actually named a pile of metal? That was weird beyond even his standards. Perhaps he could just let that slide for once. He didn’t need any one harassing him this time in the day. It was almost 10:30. In a few minutes he’d probably have his own one minute silence. He could have sworn he was turning Christian, with all the praying he did it was insane. Mayu wouldn’t like that one bit, as a strict atheist who practiced Wiccan magic. That was a weird take on things to Ashley.
She brushed a hair from her eyes and addressed him by his last name. Oh he knew who she was now! This Mia, from her history class! Ash paid more attention to the register than to the class. He hated history. It was depressing. Witch hunts, slavery, crusades, repressed women. It made him want to cry in shame. God sure as hell did not bless American.

“Oh shit! The homework!” Ashley cursed as she reminded him. He’d never done a piece of history homework in his life, and now he might get a detention. That was the last thing he wanted! Gave him less time to prepare for May’s birthday. He still had to get his stuff ready for the move. Had Mayu even told Antosha yet? If not, they were in serious trouble. Deep shit with Ant was not a good idea. He was seven foot tall and was genuinely scary.

“Uh, yeah. I saw nothing,” Ashley went along with her. She was obviously a machine based meta, if she could code that well. It was hard for people to guess Ashley’s, even if they knew his love for science knew no bounds. He did frequently destroy water troughs the school used for water and alkaline metal tests. He usually did something retarded with the substances to break everything the labs had to offer.

“So, you were coding a virus?” Ashley said suspiciously. He was a scientist. He knew how to counter viruses and he knew how they worked. He never thought technology science would come in handy, but he doubted any science could help if she was, indeed, a hacker.

[Mia Keystone]

A quick glance was all Mia needed to see the surprise register on Shaw’s face when she talked about Kaylee. He (wisely) had chosen not to comment. Sure, some people found it weird she had a name for her computer, let alone a girly one like Kaylee. But it fit. Kaylee had kept running even when it was just on the scape bits and pieces Mia had had to tape together from Radio Shack, before she learnt how to hack and drain bank accounts. The big ones that didn’t notice the few thousand a year that were going to a “charity” called Merging International Alliance. A bit obvious, maybe, but so perfect.

Sharp black eyebrows rose like arrows over stoney eyes as Mia continued to stare at Shaw. She had an unnerving habit of doing that, like she was doing some sort of viral scan. ”Twenty bucks for a 500 word essay, 50 for 1000, 120 for a presentation. Cue cards are extra,” she said flatly, eyes, flicking back to her computer. ”Cash only. You could have just asked outright, you know. Who tipped you off? I’m trying to avoid the whole teacher accusation thing.” They were easy enough to find online, or at least, to commission.

Slowly, Mia opened Kaylee up again and checked the progress. Her mouth twisted into a crooked smile, and she grinned appreciatively at Ash. It was the first completely non hostile expression she’d shown the boy, and she looked a lot more like the 17 year old girl she really was, rather then some sort of android type creature. ”Something like that. Creates a random number simulator that creates pop up windows from a site classification of my choosing. This one needs tweaking, I’m setting it on a timer, to be sent to a particular target who I know for a fact has installed a random ip number account. You want to commission one?”

[Ashley Shaw]

Wait, she was asking him for money? To do an essay? Hell no! He‘d take the detention. This girl seemed to be a little off cue anyway. A computer programmer it seemed close to. Her power was quite obvious to spot by what she was doing with her laptop. And did she seriously think it was old? If it could do everything it was doing now, then it couldn‘t be that old. Mia seemed eager to get money out of him though, diving into prices for different things. He could do it on his own. Or, enough to get him out of his detention at least. He wanted to be home so he could pack to leave for May and Ant‘s. This girl was interesting though, she seemed to know a lot, possibly someone with quite a few secrets, trivial things. Nothing to big or life changing. Like she constantly searched lockers or stole from classes or skived.
Ashley listened as she described what her massive code did. To be honest, he didn‘t understand anything she was saying. He specialised in chemicals, not machines. He should have realised that, save himself a lot of thinking.

“Why‘d you need one?” he asked, raising an eyebrow and tilting his head to one side, “doesn‘t seem to do much damage if it just makes a random window pop.” Ashley wondered why the hell she didn‘t just send the guy a big virus, she could probably hack through Norton anti-virus if she tried. Well, that‘s what he picked up anyway. She looked damn cool, as was her skill to jump on things you could do yourself. He‘d write an essay in three minutes straight, with consequence of spelling and grammar errors.

[Mia Keystone]

Silence was usually a no. Now Mia was getting confused. What was he doing here? Did he want something else from her? Shaw, Shaw.... she hadn’t done his file yet... she’d get on that straight away. It was pretty clear she was losing him with the tech talk though. ”Ok, so you don’t want an essay, you don’t want a virus... You just wanted to talk?” she was being sarcastic. Very sarcastic. People didn’t just sit down and talk to Mia Keystone without a reason. People thought she was a bitch. It was generally assumed she was a bitch. The vote was in and she was a bitch. So why was he hanging around?

Mia smirked, then shook her head slowly. ”Shaw, shaw, shaw, you lack imagination. Picture a classroom, with all us students typing away as the teacher, in this case, that new english dude, walks around to check we’re not facebooking or whatever you guys do. Then, suddenly, a window pops up, right when the teacher is behind you. And as soon as you close it, another one pops up to take it’s place.”

With a satisfied smirk, Mia raised one eyebrow. ”Now imagine the windows are all for sites offering homosexual orientated bestiality.” She paused a moment to let the image sink in. ”Isn’t that more fun then just shorting out a hard drive, or wiping a few files?” With a shake of her head, Mia scratched absently at the space invader tattoo on her wrist. ”And people think computer hackers don’t have any imagination. Thinking outside the square, it’s what it’s all about.”

Enough chit chat. The smile fading, Mia turned sharp eyes to the boy still sitting beside her. ”Look, we’ve gone to school together for about four years now, is there a reason you’re talking to someone most of our year level refers to as either the ice queen or a cyborg?”

[Ashley Shaw]

Yes, he didn‘t want an essay. But, did he really want to talk? Damn that was hard. He was thinking. Spend twenty dollars on an essay or spend twenty minutes talking to a maniac? The choice was hard, and if not a little stressful. She was the school troublemaker, yet he didn‘t seem to mind the company of someone who was known to make your IT lessons a complete hell. They should ban her from any kind of computer, give her an Apple Mac. They couldn’t create or be invaded by viruses. That was an idea and a half. Well done, Shaw, you actually got something right for once. Ashley took note of her sarcasm, and shook his head. Then he listened to what she had to say about this window glitch. It seemed to be a real pisser. For one Ashley hoped she wasn‘t targeting it at him, jeez. If she had given his login a glitch like that, who knows what he‘d do. Anything that involved sex generally made him go bright red, and generally fuck up his day. Ha. I made a joke. Ashley thought about that, hoping to hell she didn‘t do that to him now. If she did… well, he couldn‘t do anything of the likes.

“That is an excellent point,” Ash said, leaning back on his chair, making eye contact with the computer geek. The mean, vicious, bitchy computer geek. Damn she was one mean, lean geek machine with attitude. Damn straight he‘d be in trouble if he got on the wrong side of her.
“Who is it for anyway?” he asked, tilting his head to one side, nodding toward the screen.
“I sure would hate to be them.”

[Mia Keystone]

He looked a little scared now. Good. Scared was good. Scared people did not try to mess with you or your stuff. It was a pity Shaw hadn't made the Mac joke out loud: Mia might have laughed at that one. Both at the joke and at how easy it was to bypass Mac security. When he met her eyes Mia cocked an eyebrow, looking sceptical.

He wanted her to just tell him who it was for? "I have this thing against incriminating myself in front of people, dude," she said flatly, still keeping their eyes locked. Having the tiny technopath call you dude was a good sign; it meant she didn't think you were a total waste of space. "But this guy needs his head deflated. That's all I'm going to say about it." She grinned again, and, in an unusual display of (kind of) niceness, offered an olive branch. "You're in english with me this semester I think," she may have pulled the timetables from the system... "keep on your guard, yeah? It'll be a good show."

Looking back at her computer, Mia began tapping out keys again. He had not answered her question. She asked again, eyes not so much as flicking from Kaylee's screen. "So, you going to tell me what it was you wanted from me now?"

[Ashley Shaw]

Ash didn’t want to keep this staring contest up. It was awkward against the likes of the infamous virus master, Mia Keystone. If there was one thing you didn’t do with her, it was stare at her. Her eyes could kill you… well, not really. But Ashley would have preferred not to be staring at her. That made him think… the why had he kept eye contact with her, anyway? It was a bit stupid of him, defiantly. Oh yes, lock eyes with a girl who could make you technology nightmares come true! Fantastic idea, she might just be able to read your mind while you at it. He shook himself out of that. No, she couldn’t read minds. But her power was much more useful than his. His was as useless as a tape in 300 years time. Bloody useless. He could-he thought- make her pay him to power her laptop if it lost a lot of battery. Hell, she wouldn’t pay! She’d beat him with a bamboo cane. Ouch that would hurt.
Ashley, rather on alert, took the olive branch. Urgh. He hated olives. He placed it next to him, looking back at Mia, nodding as he confirmed his place in the English class. Wait, keep an eye out… was she going to bug the teachers computer of something? Oh god that would be funny, please do it! It was then she looked away and asked him what he wanted. Ash shrugged and sighed.

“I have no idea,” he laughed, crossing his arms and sitting forward, “I was just lonely, and I also need a favour, but I won’t be paying until you agree and get results.” Ashley had changed his tone, becoming much more serious. He needed her to track a certain piece of technology if she could. It would be a great asset to his survival if she could do that for him. It was a do or die. His brother would be up soon, and then things would go down.

[Mia Keystone]

(OOC: um, to offer an olive branch is like a peace offering. she's not actually trying to give him a bit of a tree)

He was lonely so he talked to her? Must've been desperate... then Mia's ears perked up. A favour, eh? That was interesting. A favour he'd pay for, and something pretty urgent too, if his tone was anything to go by. Mia turned to face him fully, eyes now alert. He didn't seem the type to want text answers, which was good because those required her to go undercover and she was starting to think most of the teachers knew to look out for walking pot plants, or new 'pizza delivery' girls. It was hard to go undercover when they knew your face but she still tried, damn it.

"I'm listening," she said slowly, her fingers now tapping against the table. "What is it, how much for it, and just how illegal will this be? Don't skimp on the details," she added, frowning slightly. "I don't like finding out on the job you 'forgot' to let me know something important."

She hadn't done commission work in a while, and she was actually pretty curious. He didn't want a virus, he didn't want an essay... Someone at school he wanted to annoy, or find out about? If this was just some jealous boyfriend stunt she would be extremely unimpressed. He'd made it sound interesting... it had better deliver on that promise.

[Ashley Shaw]

((I’m not familiar with that term O.o DON’T JUDGE ME ^^ - reverses-))

Ashley nodded at her. Ok, first he had to know if it was possible. She had to access Apple in order for this to work, and if she couldn’t do it, he was screwed. Almost literally. He kind of regretted saying he’d pay, but he’d said it now. Ok, what price should he offer? $200? That sounded reasonable to him, but he wouldn’t go over $600, he had things to do, such as buy shit loads of wrapping paper for Christmas. Wait... he didn't need that much. He wasn't wrapping up a giant cake or a bike or anything like that. He was kind of looking forward to this Christmas though, hopefully it wouldn’t be gate crashed. If it did, he’d have some major explaining to do. He prayed it didn’t come to that. Although when he prayed, bad things usually happened. He ran a hand through his hair and heaved a sigh. Ok, start explaining big guy! You may want to leave out some of the details, you don’t know what this girl could do with anything secret you have.

“Ok, first things first, if you can, I need you to hack into Apple’s files, iPods. I need you to track down the one under code of 5339,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t ask to many questions. That would be really bad for him if she did. The reason wasn’t really something he liked to discus. Mia might be a little unhappy that it wasn’t a virus coding. Apple’s never got viruses, unless Mia could design a code that would infect their technology. It would be hard though. What if she couldn’t do what he asked? What if it was out of her range? He stopped the questions from flooding in. What if she just straight out wouldn’t do it?

[Mia Keystone]

Frowning slightly, Mia tapped a few keys and shook her head slightly. "You want the contact info from purchase on the database or what? Ipods aren't wireless, there's nothing to track unless they've got an active Itunes account and even that wont tell you much because people don't store shit on an Ipod other than music."

Seriously, did he just want a name? Because that was horribly boring. "Look, Apple's a bit annoying to get through but I can. But what the hell am I supposed to be looking for?" He'd managed to answer practically none of her questions... good start. "And I don't need to know the details if you don't want to tell me but it would be, you know, helpful to know if I'm messing with something major or if it's just some small time thing."

Mia'd traced plenty of people based on online purchases but was that even what he wanted? Did he want to steal a song from someone or what? It was all getting sort of confusing, but still a commission job meant money which meant more stuff for her. "If you just want a name and address it'll be about $150, depending on how hard it is too access. But come on dude, I can't hit a target in the dark."

[Ashley Shaw]

Ok, numbnuts, what’d you want our friend Mia to do, you’ve got the idea, but no explanation goddamn it! Ashley wasn’t doing to well in wording an idea spontaneous to it’s conception. He was thinking probably a bit to hard, not listening to Mia’s prices. Hell, could she even do what he asked her? She’d have to get into satellite territory. Up there in the Ozone. He winked almost, shutting one eye and concentrating. Could she do it? Could she not? He was struggling to figure it out.
He took a deep breath when he thought he’d gotten the right wording and proceeded to explain. If she couldn’t accomplish this, he’d be running through a field of draculoids while being blind, and that was not only something dangerous, but only possible in a fantasy world, with lasers and shit. He laughed a little and recovered.

“Ok, I need you to find out when Rael J Shaw last used the internet on his iPhone, and yes, it is very important because if I don’t know where he is, I might as well be digging myself a grave,” Ashley had said to much, he continued straight away, trying to answer some more of her questions. He flashed back through his memories, what had she said? What had she asked? He couldn’t extract any more questions… well that was shit. It seemed like she had trouble with tracing iPads and that shit. Fuck it all. He might as well get himself a gun and call it safe if she couldn’t or wouldn’t do this, he’d still pay here to keep her mouth shut of course- about Rael. $1’500 would be all he could afford, he needed the rest for if he wanted to get pissed.

[Mia Keystone]

Mia was waiting, raised eyebrows and all. She’d already opened a new folder, and with a glance she was ready to turn on the audio recording program. She’d get text down too but getting the audio was always important. ”Rael J Sahw,” Mia murmered as the words appeared on her screen. She didn’t need to type, and this way she could keep her eyes on the Shaw in front of her.

Relative? Must be. Tracking job on families? Not uncommon.[/b]

”You want his last location?” Mia asked, not even blinking at the rather dramatic comment about graves and digging. ”Or does it have to be via iTunes? I can track someone easily if I’ve got their name. Bank details, credit cards, medical bills... something about iTunes really important?” What he was asking was hard, but not impossible. Would take a while if she really did just have to rely on iTunes though...

Mia frowned, checking her notes and looked back up. ”He a relative? It’s important; there’s more then one Rael Shaw in the world but they won’t have the same family details.” Her eyebrow arched and she looked away from Kaylee. ”And if he is family, I’m guessing you two don’t get on very well.”