07-27-2013, 07:53 PM
Jaxen kept to himself the rest of the night. He stayed out of public view for the most part. Excluding the one time this impromptu cover was nearly blown by some drunk idiot stomping back to the "servants dominion" demanding something which Jaxen said he'd fetch immediately, only to take the quickest route to a broom closet and stay there. At least long enough for the drunk to mumble out of audible range.
As this truly was an impromptu ordeal, he had no programmable ID cards. Wallet, yes. Blank swipes, no. Which required lifting one from another server. Which only increased his curiosity. What kind of crystal museum made servers swipe badges just to take a piss in their own bathrooms? Very curious.
Luckily, he did have the Wallet on hand. While he studied the engineering renderings earlier, there were surprising discrepancies between those digital files and what was staring at him square in the face. Like the men's bathroom he was currently touring. He was on the second floor, in the back of the building alongside those stairs leading down to the kitchens. According to the plans, the wall at which he was now staring should be shared with an old boiler room. Part of the system cleaned out and overhauled during the next-to-last round of the building's renovations. A boiler which should not be in operation. However, the Wallet was picking up magnetic frequencies consistent with the thrum of electrical equipment. Heavy electrical equipment. What the fuck was behind this wall?
In the hallway outside, if there was ever an entrance to the room it was now completely obliterated by new drywall and fancy wallpaper. Not one to be thrown off the scent idly, he ended up taking his time, all the while looking busy of course, and scoured the other areas of the floor for similarly configured magnetic disturbances.
He eventually figured out space in question was flanked by two load bearing walls. Which was odd to have configured in such close quarters unless--of course--they were bearing something really heavy upstairs. Which of course meant he had to find his way upstairs. About midnight he used his freshly swiped server's badge to let himself into the private residence of whatever heir was lucky enough to squalor in Baccarat billions now sucking down high-quality smog of inner Moscow. It was well after midnight by then and whoever lived up here had retired for the night. Or passed out. Or flat out wasn't there at all, and Jaxen was hardly worried about being caught.
The thrill of shock, however, tore through his veins when he realized what was up here. A bloody elevator. The doors were sealed tight, though, and the dim lights of a control panel glowed alongside. It was severely advanced. There was a QR reader to start the system. Likely upon verification it powered up the touchpad for keycodes. Then if that wasn't enough, which actually it wasn't, there was even a slot for blood samples, which meant a fucking DNA reader!
He turned around. A slow circle to study where he was. Somebody lived here, with a private elevator that skipped at least two floors. As there was no where to go up. It meant only one direction. Down.
The basements.
All thoughts of crystal figurines fled his mind.
Jaxen left the elevator behind. He had no hope of hacking something like that without adequate preparations and he was literally flying by the seat of his pants here. Yet he wasn't going to leave empty handed. The thrill of having to know carried him stealthily downward. Until he was back in the kitchens area, seeking clues around the same load-bearing walls behind which thrummed that same magnetic signature consistent with electronics. That meant the elevator shaft was riddled with security. Lasers. Motion capture software. Facial recognition cameras, likely.
His skin crawled uncontrollably. He had to know what was in the basements. He remembered passing muscle and guns when he first arrived, and understood now their presence. Though it was foolish to try for that entrance. If it was guarded, it was the obvious way in. And Jaxen never did what was obvious.
He searched the dark, freshly cleaned kitchens, thinking. From his time out back with Hood, he knew there were no usuable windows. There was no crawl space. There was no way in, but there had to be a way out. If only for keeping with fire code. Going through the floor itself? Another staircase?
Elevator shafts--There had to be a way to access the electrical. The building was constructed before such things existed, after all. Which meant the walls were bound by the limits of the decade the place was erected. If there was a way to access the electrical from inside, that meant there was a grid box somewhere, and that meant it could be shut down. He eventually found the panel in question, flipped open the door and stared at the sleek switches reminiscent of fuses, but the longer he stared the more he knew it was not going to work so easily. Such things always triggered alarms.
He was sweating by then, not even having realized it from all the excitement. And undid the top few buttons of his shirt, shrugged off the jacket, wadded it up and placed it beneath one of the enormous gas grills. The next time the chefs turned it on, the jacket -- and all DNA -- would be instantly incinerated. Strange how so much fire was so easily contained.
The fresh air instantly made him feel cooler, and the refreshed memory lit a brilliant idea. Elevator shafts required proper air moving equipment to provide smoke control in the event of a fire. Pressurized shafts allow firefighters to make use of shafts, but the systems were also used for the case of evacuation. And where someone could evacuate. Someone could infiltrate.
Which meant, he had to start a fire. It'd give him a few minutes, but the depressurization would shut down in anticipation of evac-teams. The elevator itself would freeze in whatever position it was in, and Jaxen could easily shimmy down a wall. Bouldering was one of his hobbies, after all. And excellent practice for his main extracurricular activity.
He pulled a newly acquired zippo from his pants pocket, tossed it in his hands along with a handsomely amused smile, and flipped it open a few times. "Thank-you, Mister White,"
he said to himself. With the mall-cop's handy little zippo, the fire itself was easy to start. Smoke along the proper sensor immediately triggered silent alarms, but Jaxen was prepared. The second the thrumming of electronics silenced, he slipped into the shaft, zippo safely back in his pocket, and fingered his way down half a level to land atop the elevator itself, situated at basement level.
Heart pounding, he peered at the tower of darkness looming overhead, waited about a minute, then shimmied through the hatch and dropped inside. In Fire Escape mode, the depressurization made it possible to split the doors apart with his fingers, enough anyway that once began, they automatically opened all the way. Jaxen grinned victoriously and checked out what he'd discovered.
Into the middle of a shitstorm.
They of course knew he was coming. Not immediately, but those silent alarms were unusual to say the least. The Atharim weren't idiots, afterall. But right then, waltzing into a dragon's hoarde of Kremlin stolen jewels couldn't have shocked him more. Everything he knew about security pretty much disintegrated from his mind.
It was a brightly lit, wide open room. White-walled and new. Nothing at all like a dusty basement. Three guys in street clothes looked up, firearms aimed straight at his chest. A blink of an eye and Jaxen spun out of the door's entrance just as they started to close and the men opened fire. The crack of bullets embedding into the back of the elevator shook his ear drums until the fully sealed doors cut off the sound.
Too shocked to even give himself time to panic, he put a foot on a rail and jumped as hard as he could, gripping the edges of the hatch, swinging hard to get momentum, and kicked up with enough force to pull himself on up, just as the doors opened once more. He barely got his feet out of the way before rounds shot up in the space he literally just occupied.
From there he had no idea how he managed to climb so fast, nor where the strength came to do so eaisly. Yet it seemed like a millisecond later and he was scrambling back into the darkness of the kitchens. But the men in this building weren't idiots. Another pair were already running up.
The lights suddenly flipped on and Jaxen didn't take the time to look. He squinted, ducked and rolled. A moving target was harder to hit than a sitting duck after all. But these guys were good at their jobs. Not military! Not devils! What the hell were they!?
He had a decent head start, but he wasn't going as fast as he thought he ought to be running. But there wasn't time to consider why. He made it to the door he'd taken earlier when meeting Hood in the back. All evidence of their previous conversation was gone by now, but as soon as Jaxen hit fresh air, he accelerated. The fence across the garden was too high to climb. But the gate was fucking locked! Locked! He fumbled for his picking case from his jacket, but realized he didn't have it. Just the bloody wallet in its holster. Duh! He hadn't actually meant to break in this place tonight! Just check it out. Fuck! This is what happens when breaking from the plan.
He heard them coming. Heard the voices. All the way from across the garden, he fucking heard them getting close. He looked around, for some way up and over the wall. But it was impossible to jump. Even for him. "Shit!"
He ripped at the lock in frustration, and to his bloody luck, the thing fell off in his hand.
There wasn't time to consider the impossibility of that. But Jaxen went with it.
He threw the broken thing to the dirt and ran for it. Ran for his life.
<small>((Hood's zippo stolen with permission))</small>
Continued at Laying low
Edited by Jaxen Marveet, Jul 29 2013, 11:38 AM.
As this truly was an impromptu ordeal, he had no programmable ID cards. Wallet, yes. Blank swipes, no. Which required lifting one from another server. Which only increased his curiosity. What kind of crystal museum made servers swipe badges just to take a piss in their own bathrooms? Very curious.
Luckily, he did have the Wallet on hand. While he studied the engineering renderings earlier, there were surprising discrepancies between those digital files and what was staring at him square in the face. Like the men's bathroom he was currently touring. He was on the second floor, in the back of the building alongside those stairs leading down to the kitchens. According to the plans, the wall at which he was now staring should be shared with an old boiler room. Part of the system cleaned out and overhauled during the next-to-last round of the building's renovations. A boiler which should not be in operation. However, the Wallet was picking up magnetic frequencies consistent with the thrum of electrical equipment. Heavy electrical equipment. What the fuck was behind this wall?
In the hallway outside, if there was ever an entrance to the room it was now completely obliterated by new drywall and fancy wallpaper. Not one to be thrown off the scent idly, he ended up taking his time, all the while looking busy of course, and scoured the other areas of the floor for similarly configured magnetic disturbances.
He eventually figured out space in question was flanked by two load bearing walls. Which was odd to have configured in such close quarters unless--of course--they were bearing something really heavy upstairs. Which of course meant he had to find his way upstairs. About midnight he used his freshly swiped server's badge to let himself into the private residence of whatever heir was lucky enough to squalor in Baccarat billions now sucking down high-quality smog of inner Moscow. It was well after midnight by then and whoever lived up here had retired for the night. Or passed out. Or flat out wasn't there at all, and Jaxen was hardly worried about being caught.
The thrill of shock, however, tore through his veins when he realized what was up here. A bloody elevator. The doors were sealed tight, though, and the dim lights of a control panel glowed alongside. It was severely advanced. There was a QR reader to start the system. Likely upon verification it powered up the touchpad for keycodes. Then if that wasn't enough, which actually it wasn't, there was even a slot for blood samples, which meant a fucking DNA reader!
He turned around. A slow circle to study where he was. Somebody lived here, with a private elevator that skipped at least two floors. As there was no where to go up. It meant only one direction. Down.
The basements.
All thoughts of crystal figurines fled his mind.
Jaxen left the elevator behind. He had no hope of hacking something like that without adequate preparations and he was literally flying by the seat of his pants here. Yet he wasn't going to leave empty handed. The thrill of having to know carried him stealthily downward. Until he was back in the kitchens area, seeking clues around the same load-bearing walls behind which thrummed that same magnetic signature consistent with electronics. That meant the elevator shaft was riddled with security. Lasers. Motion capture software. Facial recognition cameras, likely.
His skin crawled uncontrollably. He had to know what was in the basements. He remembered passing muscle and guns when he first arrived, and understood now their presence. Though it was foolish to try for that entrance. If it was guarded, it was the obvious way in. And Jaxen never did what was obvious.
He searched the dark, freshly cleaned kitchens, thinking. From his time out back with Hood, he knew there were no usuable windows. There was no crawl space. There was no way in, but there had to be a way out. If only for keeping with fire code. Going through the floor itself? Another staircase?
Elevator shafts--There had to be a way to access the electrical. The building was constructed before such things existed, after all. Which meant the walls were bound by the limits of the decade the place was erected. If there was a way to access the electrical from inside, that meant there was a grid box somewhere, and that meant it could be shut down. He eventually found the panel in question, flipped open the door and stared at the sleek switches reminiscent of fuses, but the longer he stared the more he knew it was not going to work so easily. Such things always triggered alarms.
He was sweating by then, not even having realized it from all the excitement. And undid the top few buttons of his shirt, shrugged off the jacket, wadded it up and placed it beneath one of the enormous gas grills. The next time the chefs turned it on, the jacket -- and all DNA -- would be instantly incinerated. Strange how so much fire was so easily contained.
The fresh air instantly made him feel cooler, and the refreshed memory lit a brilliant idea. Elevator shafts required proper air moving equipment to provide smoke control in the event of a fire. Pressurized shafts allow firefighters to make use of shafts, but the systems were also used for the case of evacuation. And where someone could evacuate. Someone could infiltrate.
Which meant, he had to start a fire. It'd give him a few minutes, but the depressurization would shut down in anticipation of evac-teams. The elevator itself would freeze in whatever position it was in, and Jaxen could easily shimmy down a wall. Bouldering was one of his hobbies, after all. And excellent practice for his main extracurricular activity.
He pulled a newly acquired zippo from his pants pocket, tossed it in his hands along with a handsomely amused smile, and flipped it open a few times. "Thank-you, Mister White,"
he said to himself. With the mall-cop's handy little zippo, the fire itself was easy to start. Smoke along the proper sensor immediately triggered silent alarms, but Jaxen was prepared. The second the thrumming of electronics silenced, he slipped into the shaft, zippo safely back in his pocket, and fingered his way down half a level to land atop the elevator itself, situated at basement level.
Heart pounding, he peered at the tower of darkness looming overhead, waited about a minute, then shimmied through the hatch and dropped inside. In Fire Escape mode, the depressurization made it possible to split the doors apart with his fingers, enough anyway that once began, they automatically opened all the way. Jaxen grinned victoriously and checked out what he'd discovered.
Into the middle of a shitstorm.
They of course knew he was coming. Not immediately, but those silent alarms were unusual to say the least. The Atharim weren't idiots, afterall. But right then, waltzing into a dragon's hoarde of Kremlin stolen jewels couldn't have shocked him more. Everything he knew about security pretty much disintegrated from his mind.
It was a brightly lit, wide open room. White-walled and new. Nothing at all like a dusty basement. Three guys in street clothes looked up, firearms aimed straight at his chest. A blink of an eye and Jaxen spun out of the door's entrance just as they started to close and the men opened fire. The crack of bullets embedding into the back of the elevator shook his ear drums until the fully sealed doors cut off the sound.
Too shocked to even give himself time to panic, he put a foot on a rail and jumped as hard as he could, gripping the edges of the hatch, swinging hard to get momentum, and kicked up with enough force to pull himself on up, just as the doors opened once more. He barely got his feet out of the way before rounds shot up in the space he literally just occupied.
From there he had no idea how he managed to climb so fast, nor where the strength came to do so eaisly. Yet it seemed like a millisecond later and he was scrambling back into the darkness of the kitchens. But the men in this building weren't idiots. Another pair were already running up.
The lights suddenly flipped on and Jaxen didn't take the time to look. He squinted, ducked and rolled. A moving target was harder to hit than a sitting duck after all. But these guys were good at their jobs. Not military! Not devils! What the hell were they!?
He had a decent head start, but he wasn't going as fast as he thought he ought to be running. But there wasn't time to consider why. He made it to the door he'd taken earlier when meeting Hood in the back. All evidence of their previous conversation was gone by now, but as soon as Jaxen hit fresh air, he accelerated. The fence across the garden was too high to climb. But the gate was fucking locked! Locked! He fumbled for his picking case from his jacket, but realized he didn't have it. Just the bloody wallet in its holster. Duh! He hadn't actually meant to break in this place tonight! Just check it out. Fuck! This is what happens when breaking from the plan.
He heard them coming. Heard the voices. All the way from across the garden, he fucking heard them getting close. He looked around, for some way up and over the wall. But it was impossible to jump. Even for him. "Shit!"
He ripped at the lock in frustration, and to his bloody luck, the thing fell off in his hand.
There wasn't time to consider the impossibility of that. But Jaxen went with it.
He threw the broken thing to the dirt and ran for it. Ran for his life.
<small>((Hood's zippo stolen with permission))</small>
Continued at Laying low
Edited by Jaxen Marveet, Jul 29 2013, 11:38 AM.