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 Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2012 2:48 am
Promotions were interesting things. Transfers from small outposts to a main base? Even more interesting. New office. New quarters. New-
PASSWORD DENIED
-log in errors...
Elite Agent Harvard stared evenly at the red text and "X" on her computer screen. Not to be deterred, she keyed in her system login details again, this time at a slower pace to ensure no errors on her part. She manually used the computer's mouse to click the button reading "Sign In," rather than pressing "Enter" as she had done before.
PASSWORD DENIED
Obviously, this was not user error. This inconvenience would also need to be remedied. "Stanford."
From a stuffed chair located in the far corner of the office, a pile of small throw pillows shifted until a fluffy Furret head poked out. Seeing that Harvard was pushing away from the desk to stand, the long Pokemon made short work of freeing itself of the impromptu nest, shaking out its ruffled fur, and scampering over and up the back of the chair to wrap expertly like a scarf around the back of his trainer's neck. Sometimes, it was good to be a runt.
A short trek later, the duo arrived at their destination: the tech department.
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Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2012 3:10 am
The members of the sub-divisions collective known as the tech department would have been insulted to hear they were only the second most dangerous area of the base. They had lasers. They had robots. They had armed vehicles and remotely controlled botnets and - since the installation of their new head - marshmallow gun wars on Tuesdays.
Then again, none of these things were likely to gain sentience and rebel against their creators - or at least, not as likely as the cloned legendaries incubating one floor below. So however the off-hours debates might rage over which department would win in a fight, it meant Harvard's way wasn't barred by the same draconian security as it would have on floor 3B.
Robots and lasers and things that went boom still demanded a fairly high level of clearance, though, and so there was the matter of the door. It was a sturdy metallic affair, opened by a keycard swipe on the side, and to it someone had taped a printout of a road sign bearing the silhouette of a wizard and the words 'YOU SHALL NOT PASS.'
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Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2012 3:30 am
Harvard eyed the warning, meaning her otherwise emotionless expression now included slightly squinted eyes. Gandalf. Cute. There didn't seem to be any other obvious means of entry other than the keycard reader, however. Seeing no harm in trying, Harvard pulled forward her own keycard and gave it a try.
DENIED
Of course. She tried once more, this time in the opposite direction, but was met with the same results. Stepping back, she scanned the immediate area. There was a vent leading into the air ducts overhead. Surely, Standford would have no issues with fitting through. However, at this level of the base, Harvard reasoned there was sure to be an extra layer of security, air ducts included. And if there wasn't, then she would be seeing to it that such measures were added. Stepping back to the door, she stood in front of the narrow window. Maybe someone would notice her out here while she skimmed through some contact listings in her Rocket Dex.
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Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2012 3:43 am
While Harvard was consulting her Rocket Dex the elevator doors opened, this time for a thin, tallish man with sandy blond hair and a blue t-shirt that read 'THE ANGELS HAVE THE PHONE BOX' in bold white lettering. He was consulting a sheaf of papers as he ambled out of the car humming some snatch of tune to himself, and might have ambled right into the elite had the shiny Umbreon trotting at his heels uttered a warning "Bree!"
"Huh? Oh-" Person at twelve o'clock. The blond came up short, then took a step back to get out of the woman's personal space. "Whoa, sorry. Didn't see you." He nudged his sliding glasses back up his nose and took a better look at who he'd almost run into - nobody familiar, he would have remembered someone with a fur-collared uniform. "Need something?" This was the sort of thing you asked unknown people waiting outside restricted areas.
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Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2012 3:56 am
About the same time that the Umbreon gave a warning, Stanford had half propped himself up by the front legs and issued his own warning trill. Harvard turned as Hayes finished backing up. She quickly sized up the stranger that had spoken. "Yes. It seems my login info is not working," she answered plainly, almost sounding bored by this point. There was work to be done, and the longer she stood around here talking to sci-fi referrences, the longer she wasn't upstairs getting that work done. She shut her dex and tucked it back in its holster on her belt. "I was hoping someone down here could assist me."
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Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2012 4:13 am
The man blinked in mild surprise. "New transfer?" he guessed; he had a mellow mid-range tenor and spoke in a casual way, dropping the ends of syllables here and there. "IT requests go through Filing now, but." He shrugged and held out a hand with a friendly smile for both woman and Furret. "I can take a look at that if you want." As he indicated her Rocket Dex, his Umbreon came to a stop by his feet and tilted her head to study them, slitting her golden eyes.
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Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2012 4:22 am
Harvard neither confirmed nor denied the transfer guess. IT... right. She probably should've known that. For a moment, she looked blankly at the offered hand, then back up at the man. Whoever this man's department supervisor was must be a joke to not only allow employees to be out of uniform at the workplace, but to allow joke t-shirts in the uniform's place as well. Still, she needed access to her computer. His body language so far didn't suggest hostile motives or a reason to believe he was anything other than a member of Team Rocket.
What the heck, why not. Pulling out the requested device, she handed it over. "Thank you. I would appreciate that."
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Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 2:21 am
The blond met her eyes briefly with an amiable smile before he took the device and flipped it open, flicking rapidly through its menus with an expert hand. "Huh," he muttered, brow creasing faintly. He looked from the screen to Harvard, studied her face a moment, then looked down again.
It was unlikely - highly unlikely - that an infiltrator would get this far, but a mole had been planted once before. He hadn't always thought like this; before, it had been someone else's call, someone else's responsibility. Unless he was directly assigned to something or his team, it wouldn't be on his head - but these days the entire department was his team, so.. everything was on his head, really.
Not the best place to be.
"Just hold on a sec," he muttered, and clipped Harvard's 'dex to his jeans waistband while he flipped open his own and scanned through a list of contacts. Finding one, he raised the sleek device to his ear. "Yeah, hey. Duncan?"
The blond half-turned away from the elite, gaze roving across the ceiling tiles. "Can you cross-check someone in the database for me? Harvard." Pause. "Yeah. Like the school. Yeah. No. Her login's not working." He laughed. "Supposed to be." Another laugh. "He's working."
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Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 2:47 am
Harvard crossed her arms as she waited. Usually prided herself in her high levels of patience and tolerance, but honestly. She had work to do, and standing around listening to a Whovian chit chat on the phone wasn't on that list. Not to mention she'd been up most of the night trying to setup the aquarium in her new office, and even that wasn't wanting to work right. With a somewhat forced polite smile, she quietly coughed an "ahem?"
"I'm... sorry. If it's too much of a problem, I'll take it up to Filing like you suggested." She ended with holding out her right hand in request to be given back her Dex.
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Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 3:53 am
"Breon," the Umbreon flicked an ear.
Harvard was given an apologetic smile and a mouthed 'sorry' but not her 'dex before the blond's attention went back to the conversation. "Oh, yeah? Yeah, do that. Sweet; thanks." He snapped his 'dex shut and did some shuffling of it, Harvard's, and the papers under his arm while his Pokemon looked on.
"Looks like your promotion didn't get fully processed," he explained and offered the woman's 'dex back to her. "Duncan's updating your permissions and reactivating your login, but you'll need to reset your password. Congrats, by the way," he added, hand remaining out for a possible shake. "I'm Hayes."
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Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 4:07 am
Ah, so that explained the holdup with the login. She seemed a little thrown off by the tech talk. On a normal day, she would've been able to keep up just fine, but so far her transfer seemed to be just one thing after another. "O-oh... Yes. Yes, thank you... Hayes." The name was said somewhat awkwardly, almost like it wanted to be a question. Harvard hastily accepted the return of her 'dex with an apologetic smile of her own. She took a breath to compose herself, and shook hands after a brief pause. "Elite Agent Harvard," she said by way of introduction. Short and professional. And curt. "New head of Security."
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Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 4:25 am
"I heard," Hayes grinned, giving her hand a brief shake. He didn't salute. "Sounds like we'll be working together a lot. C'mon in - you can meet the guys in Surveillance 'f you've got a minute." So saying, he took a half-step toward the door and fished in his jeans pocket for a standard-issue keycard, which he swiped through the reader.
As it beeped green, he blinked at the sign taped to the door. "Heh," he muttered, and held the handle down so it wouldn't relock while he carefully peeled the printout off, tape and all.
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Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 4:40 am
With a nod, Harvard followed after the tall man. As they walked, her head turned a minimal amount on her neck, the woman relying mainly on eye movements to take in their surroundings. The living scarf across her shoulders, however, was lucky to not be giving himself whiplash. Idly, Harvard asked, "Do you also work in security, Mr. Hayes?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 3:20 am
The department was.. not lively, but busy, all sleek surfaces and industry. The dress code seemed somewhat relaxed here; though everyone they passed was in uniform, there were collars undone and gloves tucked in belts - or rather, hastily done-up collars and fumbled-on gloves as techs spotted an unfamiliar ranking agent heading their way. They all seemed to acknowledge Hayes in some way, either by nod or "Hey" or in some cases salute, which just made the blond grin and laugh on his return greeting while his Umbreon trotted along beside him, head held high like she owned the place.
"Not really," the Rocket replied. "I did some work on the perimeter defense but it's mostly software architecture and papers these days.." Hayes paused to stick the Gandalf sign on a door labeled 'AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.' "Was security your thing at your outpost?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 3:54 am
So many people not in proper uniform... She had to wonder if their supervisor knew of such behavior. "Yes. I transferred into the department there as a grunt." Not one to brag or give unnecessary details, that was it for the response to that question. Mentally, she was tracking the locations and quantities of each door, window, and vent, as well as doing a brief analysis of each person. There wasn't much notable difference among the people she could see, though, other than uniform or how much sleep they had gotten the night before.
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