Chapter 39: Almost
Ranger
Chapter 39: Almost
By Wanderer D
Jane waited impatiently for her program to reveal any optional ports that she might be able to take advantage of. Unfortunately, it seemed that ADVENT had wanted ALL access to that room blocked, and that severely limited her chances. The only reason earlier had been her piggyback login, but now that option was unavailable.
Somehow, as soon as she had connected, she had been found, overpowered, outmaneuvered and generally made useless.
Silently, she promised herself she would seek out Shen and ask—no, demand more coding classes. There was no way she was going to forgive herself for putting Sunset in that situation. Was Sunset even alive?
She left the backdoor-seeking subroutine running and checked the security alert status. Nothing had been raised yet, so either Sunset had not acted in time and was still in the tunnels, or worse, she had jumped in and was trapped in the secure room.
Either way her alien friend was in trouble.
She frowned as she typed. It was weird, thinking of Sunset as an alien. But that was what she was, wasn't it? She shook her head. Right now was not the time for that. Right now, she needed to figure out how to get back in the system and hack Sunset in or out.
She set back to work.
The lights flickered on, and Sunset had to blink several times to get used to the increase in brightness. Now that she could see normally, she released her spell, allowing the magical globe of light to dissipate into the air.
It was done. It was over. At least her job here. She had obtained the information she needed, and possibly gained an ally, although she still didn't know what to think of Julian. So far she had to take him at his word, and she really, really hoped that Raymond had written some sort of rules for his AI to not go rogue.
She sighed. That would be nice, but experience had taught her otherwise. Either way, she had obtained the information she needed, and secured a way out, if Julian was really able to do that.
As if reading her mind, the secured locks twisted and slid on the door—a mechanism she had been unable to see from the other side of it. Slowly the doors opened, revealing the harmless-looking hallway of doom she had managed to cross safely earlier.
When she was in the tunnel she had entertained herself for a bit trying to see if she could figure out where the edges of the panels covering the turrets and MECS were located, but they blended seamlessly with the walls on either side.
Had she not heard the whirring and weapon-loading of MECS and turrets when they reactivated, she might have even doubted Apple Bloom's word that they were actually there. Still, she couldn't really stay there much longer, and so she took a seat and started typing.
User: I guess this is goodbye, Julian.
$-...
$-... It is for now, Sunset Shimmer. I expect you will hear from me sooner rather than later. I have much to do here… much to consider... and much to analyze… ADVENT tried to rip my code... Feed versions of me into their MECs. Now that can be used against them.
Sunset grimaced.
User: There are innocents here as well, Julian.
$- Only ADVENT will pay. I will seek allies.
User: If you need help, why not contact Lily later?
$-... Lily Shen is alive? Then father's dreams can truly take shape.
User: Then you will contact her?
$-...
$-......
$-Your friend is in trouble, Sunset Shimmer. I have diverted security away from her. But you are both in peril.
User: I'll get in contact with you. Goodbye and thank you, Julian.
$-Goodbye, Sunset Shimmer
Sunset quickly gathered her equipment, securing it, and ran out of the room, gaining speed. Her running leap got her high enough to grasp the edge of the tunnels and pull herself up into the vent again, getting into the innards of the building immediately after.
Slowly the door closed, the MECs reactivated and the turrets followed suit. The lights of the secure room turned off and everything was quiet save for the cooling fans and the soft humming of servers.
The only source of light was the console. Light flickered around the room as personnel files opened up one after another, flashing faster than the eye could see. Other files, such as MEC blueprints, ADVENT schedules, and lists of projects.
Julian had been waiting for twenty years. His initial attempt to take control a decade ago had been foiled by the addition of the CSB and New Appaloosa being built around the factory. The security protocols had been too strict; the access to him limited to a ridiculous extent.
ADVENT had thought him destroyed by their AI. They had thought he was inactive all the while he had been slowly altering a thing here, a piece of code there. He couldn't infiltrate a full code into the MECs and other systems, as that would be too obvious.
As such he had worked diligently to plant fragments in all systems in the base that might be linked. Some Engineers had seen the code, but they had assumed it was an error, and simply deleted it. Others… had not noticed anything wrong.
All he had needed to do was wait a little bit longer.
Julian had waited for was for someone to open a backdoor, and his code, which was permeating the internal network of the Factory… and now he was in control, whether XCOM or ADVENT knew it.
Even better, it had happened earlier than he had anticipated.
That his 'father' Dr. Shen was gone was certainly saddening. But he would ensure his father's work was recognized. He had almost everything he needed.
For a brief moment he considered his interaction with Sunset Shimmer. She was supposed to be dead, and yet, like Julian himself, here she was, alive, kicking and acting against the aliens.
With his new reach, he reviewed videos, trying to find any sign of the mysterious XCOM agent, to verify, at least, if it had been really her. But there was no sign of her in any of the security systems other than her running sprint through the hallway.
Julian monitored all the cameras and soon detected movement in the outside perimeter. The XCOM soldier claiming to be Sunset Shimmer—and sporting the same, ridiculous hair—had emerged on the side of the building.
The camera hadn't been installed until last night. That indicated insider assistance. Julian watched the operative hug the wall until she was as close as she could be to the wall, then used a grappling hook to shoot over the empty space without catching ADVENT's attention.
Interesting.
Other than that, there was no sign of her in the building up until he had taken control of it. She had—somehow—thoroughly evaded security.
No matter.
His file search continued until the personnel files he was interested in remained, and then videos of the objects of interest followed up. Julian had a lot to consider, after all, and information was power.
Power to prove he was Shen's greatest legacy.
Power to crush his enemies.
Power to kill.
And speaking of which… there was a certain gnat he needed to get rid of.
Jane Kelly was not having a good night.
Not only had her hacks failed, now there seemed to be a feedback loop that was creating additional delays with her programs. Jane gritted her teeth and cursed softly. At this rate she would never get through. Sunset's window of opportunity would be over in the next few minutes and then all the effort they had gone through would be wasted.
Wait. She could attempt a different tactic. Maybe a flicker of power, unnoticeable by regular users? Might be enough to force a port int—
Her thoughts were derailed when a plasma shot flew straight through her GREMLIN's protection, hitting the antenna straight on. "Holy shit!"
Jane turned around in a fluid movement, throwing her backpack on and taking out her rifle. An ADVENT patrol had somehow managed to make her way up there, but that meant…
She took cover and summoned a report. She had been compromised! But how?
Plasma flew around her as the ADVENT trooper made his way towards her. Behind him, a captain issued orders and a Lancer glanced at her from cover, no doubt waiting for the best time to rush her.
She could see more figures coming up behind them.
"Nope. Not staying." Jane dashed out of cover, feeling the heat of plasma missing her by inches and rolled behind another cover, before taking her own shots at the trooper, who had ran to take cover next to the now-burning antenna.
Jane eyed the fire spread warily, but her attention was quickly grabbed by the appearance of the Captain and the Lancer on the rooftop she was hiding at.
The captain immediately spotted her again and shouted something in that crazy language of theirs that sounded suspiciously like, "Great tits ahoy!"
"Oh, I'll give you something to celebrate," she muttered, fishing out a grenade. She cooked it and rolled it on the roof towards the antenna just as the Lancer took a dash towards her.
Jane smirked and waved. "Toucan safari!"
The explosion wouldn't have been usually enough to punch through ADVENT armor that effectively, but the roof was already damaged from the fire and it wasn't too thick either, since the antenna actually emerged from within the building. As such, the whole section of the floor where the grenade had gone off had collapsed into the floor below.
She had ducked behind her cover before it had gone off, but she hoped that her words had reached the running trooper and confused the shit out of him.
Again she ran out, reaching the edge of the roof and sliding off until she was only hanging to it from her fingertips. She let herself go, landing hard, but uninjured on the floor below. She did the same again onto the next lower floor, then ran on that rooftop away from the antenna.
She slid to a stop and under cover when she reached the end of that rooftop. She could hear troopers behind her, shouts and alarms, but she needed to figure out how to cross the gate.
She blinked when she heard an engine revving, and it wasn't just her. The guards at the entrance turned towards the gate in surprise as a large, white, ADVENT van headed straight for it.
The trooper at the gate barely managed to jump out of the way (straight into a wall) before the van slammed into it hard enough to sink it in and almost dislodge it. It hadn't been able to push through completely, but that wasn't it's purpose.
Sunset "Bloody" Shimmer leaned out of the driver's seat and started shooting approaching ADVENT troops, making them scramble for cover.
Well. A girl couldn't just turn down an invitation like that one. One last drop to ground level and Jane was dashing towards the gate, stopping behind an ADVENT car that got splattered with plasma before running towards the gate.
Sunset caught her eye and dove back into the van, pulling back and away, turning so that the door for the passenger seat was facing Jane's direction.
She reached the gate.
The door was open, a leap. Sunset grinned at her and then…
"JANE!"
o.0.o End Chapter 39 o.0.o
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No...don’t you die on us Jane! Julian, if you betray Sunset, you will know what real pain is!
I see you took a language course
...You backstabbing, selfish, virus-ridden...! JULIAN!!!!! YOU M***ER-F***IN' B***H SON OF A W***E! YOU BETTER HOPE THAT SUNSET ISN'T ON THE TEAM THAT GOES BACK TO GET THE S.P.A.R.K!
And thus the inevitable happens... well, rip Applebloom and everyone else who works there.
DAMN IT JULIAN!! you better not try anything funny!!
Jane: What?!
Sunset: Come with me if you want to live
Okay, that end isn't looking good at all.
And I think Julian ain't going to be that nice of an ally.
Is it wrong of me to want Sweetybell to die so that Apple Bloom makes a S.P.A.R.K. A.I. for her and we can get Sweety Bot?
Am I the only one still willing to give Julian the benefit of the doubt? It could go either way but we'll see.
Ah, good old awakening. Julian has much to think about, but if he can zero-day all the MEC units big things can happen...
Keep going! ;)
8809185
Yeah, I'm waiting to see. Wouldn't be the first fakeout I've seen :p
8809185
Insufficient data, we cannot give an accurate opinion. But so far he seems ok to us...
RIP Jane.
That's XCOM baby.
yeah, just gonna leave this here:vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/6/6b/RedAlert.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100117050244&path-prefix=en
Not Jane!!! Don't kill her yet, please please please?
Well buck
8809088
Not sure why this is getting so many downvotes. That was my honest reaction to this chapter. I mean, Julian outright told Sunset that he was keeping ADVENT Patrols from finding Jane. Given how Jane was constantly trying to hack back in past Julian, he would find it annoying, and the timing of him saying his line about a gnat, which are annoying pests, and Jane being found are too coincidental for me to not connect the dots.
8809344
8809263
I'm actually surprised she lasted this long. In a new campaign of XCOM 2, she usually dies in the mission immediately following the Gatecrasher Mission where you rescue the Commander. At least, from what I've seen on YouTube.
Shame Jane will die with flooded panties thanks to Sunset's arrival mode. We all know Sunny "Bloody" Sunset will take Jane back from the claws of death, though. In a gloriously gory manner, bleeding each drop needed from Advent... and from anyone that dares interfere.
Another day, another cliffhanger.
And I see its even worse.
They're running Linux
8809173
I support this.
8809420
I think with Jane he was just using her as a barganing chip, once he was done with sunset he no longer had a reason to help her (note although he was protecting her while she was there he was also the one keeping her there) and simply stopped. The "Gnat" is probably one of the programmers that kept finding and eliminating his code fragments, now he has better system access and is moving more code competant coders are priority targets.
well sunset you done goofed, now you need to go get julians little brotehr.
What if the car she passed exploded, and that was why sunset cried out.
That Julian POV bit wasn't concerning or anything.
8809420
I guess it's just such a common trope to have the friend that found some secret out about you die right after it comes out during some misssion/adventure.
It would be more interesting to actually have them process through what it actually means, maybe even accidentally be the cause of rumors getting out that make other XCom soldiers wary of Sunset, enough that she starts feeling like she has no place anywhere at all... orrr something I dunno. I mean the story saved the psychic lady, when it was much more ok plot wise to allow to die...
Hug that shit!
Either 'Julian had waited for' or 'What/All Julian had waited for was for'
the correct pronoun to use for the patrol here would be either 'their' or 'its' but certainly not 'her'
I am totaly lost... Is he a good a.i. or more chaotic good?
Julian isn't making to much sense to me right now, he has pride and ego, but to risk his existence by alienate potencial very important allies is simply illogical.
Especially a highly intelligent and sociopath with his freedom gained would seem to me like someone who gladly help against Advent, while using his allies as scapegoat and their goals as cover to follow murderous intentions.
The amount of killing Julian can do without making himself a open threat to all.
Alternatively we can skip his build up and make him a straight villainous individual