Difference between revisions of "Summary:Legion: Skin Deep"

They walk through the building, which likeslooks very modern and welcoming. There are toys every where, including arcades, Legos, foosball tables, beanbags, tire swings, and treat stations. J.C. just complains about the security. Stephen points out key-cards but J.C. argues that people would prbably hold open the door to the people behind them. As they walk into the meeting, a guard holds open the door for them, proving J.C.'s point.

The engineers Stephen meets with explain their technology: they are making use of the human body as a way of storing a lot of information in a really compact manner. They say that storing works fine, but the problem has been reading and writing the information. One of their teammates, [[Panos Maheras]], had been working on a delivery mechanism involving viruses. His virus worked, but had the potential to be used in a dangerous manner. Their problem, however, is that Panos is now dead,. heHe stored his researchedresearch in his body, and now his corpse has been stolen.

J.C. continues to complain about security as they walk to Panos' office. Garvas, one of the engineers, continues to fill Stephen in on the details of the case. They finally reach the office, and StepheStephen's aspects get to work. Ivy quickly deduces Panos was Greek (probably second generation), and after he gets Stephen to shift some papers, Tobias tells them Panos was a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_culture maker], Ivy noting he went to lots of conventions. J.C. points out a rubber wedge on the floor which Panos would have used to keep his door from automatically locking. Stephen notices Open Source related stickers on the desk. Tobias gets him to have a look at Panos' computer (which is not password protected), finding he talked a lot on various technology forums. Using all this, Stephen can confidently say that Panos wouldn't have sold the company out - he'd have posted everything online over selling information to other companies. Stephen requests the list of rival companies, along with the coroner's report, including photos of the body, details on how the corpse vanished, and contact details of Panos' friends and family.

Stephen puts the cryptography book on text-to-voice and sets it to 5x speed, listening to it while having a long shower. After having breakefastbreakfast, he gives Elsie,his Homeland Security contact, a call. He wakes her but she is still willing to check up on I3. Stephen then tries to call the coroner's office, though only getting to voicemail. He gets a text reply from Elsie, verifying that I3 was on lock-down. Shortly after Stephen leaves with his team (Ivy, Tobias, J.C., and Audrey), J.C. informs them that they are being tailed. Audrey asks Stephen if he wants to try some hacking. When he agrees, she writes down some instructions for him to follow. First he manages to get the last 4 numbers of Zen Rigby's credit card by calling up the restaurant and pretending that Zen was his wife and had used the wrong credit card to pay for her meal. Getting the last four digits, and the bank, he calls the bank's credit card fraud prevention number, claiming that his wife's credit card and mobile had been stolen. He checks what number they have on file for her, telling them that that was the number of the phone that got stolen. Having got Zen's mobile number, he asks which rival of I3 J.C. thinks she works for. J.C. tells him that it would probably be Exeltec, being the most desparate. Stephen downloads an app on his phone, and sets it up to make him appear as Nathan Haight, owner of Exeltec, when he makes a call. He uses the app to call Zen's number. When she answers, he signals Wilson (who is driving) to honk his horn. After hearing the horn over the phone, he hits a button on the app to imitate static, saying something, knowing it will be too distorted to hear. Zen tells him, presuming he's Nathan, to stop bothering her. The result of this is that they know they are being followed, and they know the company Zen is working for. J.C. says they should break into Exeltec's offices. Stephen says there's other ways of finding out what they know, starting to formulate a plan.

Stephen finds a dark-haired kid in the drivers seat. Stephen gets into the back of the car. He asks where Zen is, but he quickly works out the kid has no idea about who Zen is, guessing instead that the kid is [[Dion Maheras]], Panos's younger brother. Stephen puts his gun away, and walks Dion to where Wilson had parked the car. After both entering the car, he asks Dion why he was following them. He explains that he thinks I3 stole the body, and he knew Stephen had something to do with the company, having seen pictures of him getting into a car with Yol. Stephen explains that I3 doesn't have the body, and that he is just trying to recover the corpse. He tells Dion that he needs him to stay in the car while he talks to the Coroner.

Stephen enters the medical complex, and knocks on [[Liza]]'s door. [[John (Legion)|Her secretary]] lets Stephen in, telling him that she's waiting for him, but that she's not excited though. She tells him she's got nothing for him. He refers to the missing body, but she tells him it's not her problem anyway, that he should ask the morgue about it. He pushes harder, knowing he needs Liza to let him in. He asks about the police, if they're are involved, and then pushes harder, reminding her about all the paperwork, interruptions, and meetings that'd be involved in the investigations. Eventually, he bribes her with an offer of an interview. He lets her chose who conducts the interview. She accepts the deal, but only if the interviewer gets as long as they want, to which Stephen grudgingly agrees. Liza takes him to the morgue, opening it up, and givengiving Stephen 15 minutes to have a look around. He looks around the room, and then lets his aspects get to work. He asks Liza if one of the workers could have been bribed, but she doesn't think so, continuing on to say Security says no one came in overnight. He asks who else was in that day. J.C. says they need to fingerprint the place. Stephen asks if the police has done forensics, but Liza says this case isn't high enough on the priority list. He then asks about security cameras, at J.C.'s prompting. Tobias tells Stephen they're going to need Ngozi, their forensics expert. J.C. gives her a call, and then they use a video call to get her advice remotely. Stephen walks around with the phone, scanning everything. Having scanned everything, they check the other draws, but Panos's corpse isn't in any of them. Ngozi then gets Stephen to scan the obvious contact points around the room. When looking at the door, Ngozi spots duskdust marks on the floor, indicating that tape had been used. Stephen gets some tape and puts a strip over the same spot, and leaves the room. The door shuts with a thump, but doesn't lock, allowing Stephen to enter without use of a key-card. Now knowing how the thief entered, they leave the morgue to go speak to the security officer.

Ivy questions whether its a good idea to break into Exeltec. J.C. and Stephen say it's their best option. Stephen notice he had a missed call from Yol, and calls him back. Yol is frantic, as the feds have tripped something on Panos' system which wiped it, leaving only a message saying he'd already released his infection. Stephen checks whether Yol had followed his instructions. He had, or set things in motion, but was unsure if he'd be able to finish. At that point, the call is interupted, and Stephen assumes Yol's phone has been taken from him. J.C. tells them that they should get moving, but Stephen is worried he has missed something, because there has been no sign of Zen. Waiting and thinking, he realizes there may have been more to Zen's ambush, and checks where she had grabbed him, finding out he had been bugged, so she had heard everything he'd said since the ambush. He thinks back to remember if he had said anything about his plan aloud, but is confident it was only in the email he had sent. Taking advantage of the fact Zen doesn't know he's figured out he has been bugged, he starts calling various informants for news outlets in an attempt to create a media frenzy around Exeltec's involvement in the I3 affair. His aspects are concerned that he is making Exeltec desperate, and thus dangerous. In response, he writes some instructions for Wilson, knowing that his aspects will catch on to his plan. It begins to dawn on them, with Audrey liking and Ivy still of the opinion it is very dangerous. Giving the instructions to Wilson, he asks to drive the car. After a bit of coaxing, Wilson lets him do so. Stephen gets in the drivers seat, with Dion entering the passengers seat, and they take off. J.C. receives a call from Kalyani - Arnaud has information. He and some of the other aspects have worked out that Yol has been lying to them still - Panos' research was progressing too well for it to have been shut down. However, his research is not at a point where it has a cancer threat. Kalyani then introduces her husband, which frightens Stephen. This hasn't happened before, and it's a sign to him that he's loosinglosing control. Stephen pulls into a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denny%27s Denny's] to get an omelet as an excuse to spend some time thinking.

Four days later, Stephen is waiting in the White Room (the hole in the roof now patched) for Audrey. She walks in, dressed in a blue swimsuit, and gives him a sheet of paper. They had found two things on the USB. The key to the data on Panos's body as well as a second file. After taking awhile to realize the quote on the USB (1 Kings 19) was the passphrase for a private-key cryptogram, they had finally gotten access to the file. It was a note from Panos to his brother Dion, explaining that he'd stored data in the DNA of bacteria on his hands, which would have spread to others as he shook hands with them. He explains that he's left the key to the data to Dion so that he can choose if he wants to release the data to the world or not. Stephen discusses with Tobias what to do with the USB. He decides to put it aside, and get it mailed tito Dion when he graduates, but intends to check what the data was, to make sure it isn't dangerous. Stephen notes that it is funny that the whole time they had been looking for the data, it had been on everyone one they'd met, and that Panos had even left them a clue in one of the slogans he had put on the wall - Information for every ''body''.

[[Category: Legion|*+2]]