[IC] Empire City: Dawn of Heroes (Lydyn & carsgovroom)

[lydyn]

Friday 27th, 2037, 2:03 P.M.
Zenware

”What the-?” Nora push herself away from the computer as it suddenly fluttered and was left void of life. She had been in the middle of monitoring suspicious activity within the network and something caused it to blink and shut down, the suddenness of it catching her off guard - she didn’t even get a chance to understand what caused it. Groaning in frustration, she flew off of her chair and walked briskly to the one next to her, which had been left a while ago.

Most people just chalked it up to some amazing hacking skills and even her boss didn’t question her methods as they got results, but it wasn’t uncommon for her to magically log on to other locked machines and start working from there and in this case, it was needed. Mostly just typing out of the need for illusion, she focused her innate power to squeeze by the logon and start the trace again. Within moments, she found that one of the employees was trying to do their own hack and steal minor, barely noticeable amounts of money from their accounts.

’You’d think in this day and age, we’d have better protection against things like this.. Ugh..’ she thought as she quickly logged back out, letting the hacker think he’d gotten away with it. She looked outside the window for a moment and found her target; one of the new guys named Matthew. Well, he was probably going to jail.

Taking a more causal approach to her office, she slipped inside and rung the phone, first for security. They’d be here in a few moments to pull him aside and investigate the claims while she dialed the number for the IT section. ”Yes, I’m sorry - I know you guys are busy, but my computer just.. Randomly shut down.. And pushing the power button doesn’t do anything. Maybe a short?” She could only guess as they reassured her that someone would be up to check up on her computer.

Well, there was only one thing to do really, so she sat back down in her seat and looked out the window. To the on-looker, it looked like she was just bored and waiting, but honestly, she was thinking of her more important duties at night. She knew there were corrupt cops, but now the commissioner? She was still trying to figure out what she’d do ...

[lydyn]

~Stupid Double-post.~

[carsgovroom]

"Miss Jones?" Was that a familiar, agitated tone she was hearing say her name over the noise of the rest of her fellow IT nerds chattering into their phones or to each other? God she hoped not. She had gone the whole day without Gordon whining or berating her for no reason, and she didn't need him to ruin her it's-Friday-and-it's-almost-the-weekend buzz. But she wasn't that lucky where Hank Gordon was concerned. She leaned back in her desk chair a bit more, propping her feet up on the desk surface. The position radiated an aura of "please leave me alone." Maybe if she pretended she hadn't heard anything he'd go away...

"Jones!"

Or...not. Felicia's blue eyes flickered and her gaze rose from the stray string she had noticed on her skirt to the annoyed glower of the boring looking man peering at her from over the wall of her cubicle. "Yes, Gordy?" she said, her tone taking on a passive, polite tone that she had developed specifically for talking to her manager. "What can I do for you today? Please..." She made a vague gesture towards the tiny space inside of the cubicle, "step into my office."

As usual Gordon wasn't amused by her charm, perhaps the one person in this whole floor that wasn't. He didn't like her, Felicia knew that, though the exact cause of his disdain remained a mystery. It couldn't have just been her sarcastic charm, since he had been giving her a hard time ever since the moment she had set foot into the IT office on her first day. Maybe he was just jealous of her skill. Maybe she strongly resembled a girl who had rejected him in high school. Maybe she'd never know. Whatever. All that mattered was that she did her actual job so well that he couldn't fire her without a bullshit reason. Not when she was one of the most proficient technical support officers in the building. A fact that probably haunted him all night long. That thought brought a smile to her face. "I told you that Floor Twelve's computers needed a new software installed," Gordon began with his "you spit in my coffee" expression.

"And I installed it. On every computer in every office on Floor Twelve. Right before I took my lunch break." Felicia managed not to sound too smug about it. She twisted a little in her chair, bracing her elbow against the arm rest and rest her chain on her hand as she smiled at her boss. "Anything else I can do for you, Gord?"

"Yeah. One, stop putting your feet on the desk." Gordy used a pencil to edge her combat booted feet off of the desktop and Felicia caught her balance while making a face. "Two...I've told you to dress more professionally."

Felicia looked down at her clothes. So maybe the boots weren't exact office wear, but the black tights and the crisp white blouse worn under the sleeveless black floral dress made her look rather sharp, she thought. Looking back up at him she shrugged. "I'm wearing a dress."

Gordon twitched. "And thirdly...an office upstairs is having computer problems. Go do your job for once, Miss Jones. And try not to embarrass this department." He tossed her a slip of paper with the floor and office numbers scribbled onto it before he turned away, not seeing Felicia's scowl, and walked off down the hall of cubicles towards his own office. It might not have been a cubicle but it wasn't much bigger or impressive. But that's what IT was, despite the fact that the company depended on them so much. It was small and underwhelming.

The young woman sighed a bit as she pushed away from her desk and stood, stretching for a moment before smoothing her dress and running her hand through the lower layers of her coppery hair. The front layers of her shoulder length mane were pulled back into a bun that was secured with a yellow pencil. Felicia looked down at the little green alien bobble head sitting by her monitor and flicked it so the head wobbled. It made her smile. She then started the trek through the maze of cubicles, smiling and greeting a few of her coworkers as she passed them, before she found herself alone in the elevator, ascending to the top floors where the important people of Zenware worked their trade.

"TGIF, right?" she said to the empty elevator, leaning back against the wall and letting out a sigh. It had been a long week of upgrading, programming, and making office calls to work out rather simpler bugs and viruses, and getting home for a nice weekend sounded refreshing. Not that she was finished working once she got home, of course. But her second job, her night job, was a bit more fun than installing software into a bunch of computers. A lot more fun, actually.

Felicia didn't actively remember getting out of the elevator and finding the office she'd been sent to, but suddenly she was standing outside of the door. She took a moment to straighten her dress again before reaching up to knock on the door. "Someone called for IT?" she called through to the office on the other side.

[lydyn]

Friday 27th, 2037, 2:21 P.M.
Zenware

Nora's attention perked as she heard the voice through the door, and as if she somehow acquired super vision, tilted in her chair and tried to look through the inch wide gap. She could only get a glimpse of a black dress, but it satisfied her curiosity enough to turn her lips into a small smile and nod lightly. "Yes, please come in. My -" she paused just for the briefest of moments to take in the sight of the beautiful redhead. Even though it wasn't long enough to truly examine the woman's figure, the contrast of red and black made her smile a little more, if for nothing else but the good taste in color matching. "- computer kind of, uh.. just.." continuing with a light wave to the computer tower, "decided to take a nap?"

She had always been a smart-ass, especially when putting on an act. That was what most of this was, this whole job - an act. She didn't need the money because she usually hacked criminal back accounts and if nothing else, that was all that a job was usually for, so you could earn a living. Instead, she used it as a front, an allaby, in case the worst ever happened with the city's police department. Side-stepping to get out of Felicia's way, she decided to causally and politely pull her phone out. In a sense, she was purposefully trying to avoid any further friendly conversation. These days, she was tired of being close to people, and it was only for the best that she had no connections or her enemies might use that against her.

Sliding a finger across the touch-screen and glancing up to give the woman a friendly smile, she went to work at clicking a couple applications at random, giving the illusion of playing with her phone. She was approach enough for questions, but deliberately gave off the vibe that she wasn't going to go out of her way for chit-chat either. As the redhead (which she admitted more than once that she absolutely adored about other women) went to work, Nora went about hacking through the net for her next target. With her previous hacking knowledge and a few blackmarket programs from the underground, she was able to hack into systems with only a few touches and her background gave her the ability to understand any issues that came up. It been difficult with the increase in security to slip in - the criminal element was catching onto the fact that someone was hacking them. Though she did wonder at times if it was because of this hacker Gemini or herself, but regardless it made it harder overall and she didn't exactly want to scare them off before she got to them.

[carsgovroom]

It only took a moment for the person in the office to respond, and at the sound of a female voice Felicia paused. Her lips flickered into a pleasantly surprised smile before pushing the door open and stepping inside. Her blue eyes swept the office momentarily, and she took the opportunity to appreciate the way offices were supposed to look opposed to her cramped cubicle and Gordon's closet. Then they found the source of the call and voice and Felicia's smile went a little wider. It was wrong but she had assumed the call had come from a man, and she was happy to discover that it was not the case. Still she hadn't expected someone so...young. Someone that couldn't have been much older than she was. Nor had she been expecting someone so attractive.

The woman was taller than Felicia, though that wasn't very shocking since the only people who were shorter than her were either twelve years old or younger. And there were probably some twelve year olds that were taller than her. The woman had brown hair, a lovely face, and an air of professionalism that Felicia herself should probably embody more often in the office. She was quiet for a moment as she looked at the other woman, blaming it on the shortage of young women in the IT department, then she smiled and allowed herself a small laugh and nod in response to the woman's statement. "Happens to the best of us. Usually at the most inconvenient times, right?"

The woman moved out of her way and Felicia stepped forward until she sunk down in the office chair. For a moment she wanted to settle back like she would in her cubicle, just to see what it felt like in a proper office. But she restrained herself. It would look unprofessional, not that she usually cared very much, but in front of this woman she did. She wanted to...impress her. Maybe. Felicia looked up at her, noting the phone in her hand before speaking. "I'll take a look. It's a pretty common problem, so it shouldn't take too long..." The woman had busied herself with her phone, clearly not one for small talk, and Felicia got the message. She turned her gaze from the woman to the computer and got to work.

True to her words it did not take long. Felicia wasn't sure if she was so good at this job because of her legitimate college training, or her secretive illegitimate training with Jason. Maybe it was a mixture of the two. But after diagnosing the problem of software that was either old, faulty, or not installed properly it was a relatively quick and easy fix. The only arduous tasks were waiting for the software to uninstall and waiting for the new software to install. She thought about striking up a conversation to pass the time, but decided against it. The woman didn't look completely unapproachable, but she didn't look like she wanted to engage in mindless chatter, either. So Felicia waited until she booted the computer up in Safe Mode and a few minutes later she cleared her throat to catch the woman's attention.

Felicia was grinning, unable to not feel at least a little pleased with herself, and she rose to her feet and nodded at the monitor, the screen restored to whatever the woman had been doing earlier. She took a couple of steps back from the chair, giving her room to sit back at her desk. "Well you're back to normal now. It was a software issue. Either it was bad or it wasn't installed into the system correctly. Pretty common, actually. I installed a new software and made sure everything was set up properly. So you shouldn't be having this problem again, Ms..." Felicia trailed off, smiling expectantly as she waited for the woman to give her a name. She supposed that if she really wanted to know what her name was she didn't need the woman to tell her. But that was...rude. And creepy. And Felicia had to draw the line somewhere.