The Deadman

Seeing the look of the island gave Kato an unsettling feeling.

If the other places still had their old looks resembling old architecture, without the sterilized look of the upper platforms of Lux City, then Haven, the Island City of Wisteria, was built to protect and endure even tidal waves and tsunamis.

The Island itself was in  the middle of the pacific ocean and was prone to typhoons and volatile weather, but on good days like this, the Island City was made. A three layered seawall that reduces the waves into smaller ones. With the innermost layer serving as the harbor and port of the city.

The airport came into view as the aerial transport broke through the clouds. The aerial transport landed on the field. Kato handed over his documents, waited for them to be processed before taking his leave, not caring about whether Ben Hanzo would go or not.

The airport was full of vessels and airships that were tasked to carry tons of shipping containers and were stacked on the airport.

Outside of the airport. The buildings of the city were on full display. From the information that he had learned while coming to this city. The buildings of Wisteria were built with the idea of letting the water move through along a path of least resistance if there is a massive wave coming, allowing the water to move freely along a path with least resistance.

Reinforced concrete and metal. Windows were waterproofed and did not allow a drop to leak out of it. The roads were built with the idea of efficiency while above the city he could find projections that resembled that of a skyway where some of the AV’s are following. If turned on his augmented reality viewer. He could see that there were markings and signs digitally made to allow better positioning.

Of course, on the streets he was able to see street signs and markings that told where they were in the city. There are a lot of terminals on the side of the city that allow them to access the city’s local network.

The local network of the city was a directory of places that he could visit and facts about the city. Most of the facts made it clear that they didn’t have to answer any inquiry. Rules and laws were displayed and they even recommended that a law application be installed on their personal devices. Among the one thing that got his attention the most was the ads that tried to persuade anyone to sign up for their military service and join their nation. In exchange for a four-year military service that will educate the individual into becoming a Wisterian Citizen.

‘Playbook’s familiar, too familiar. Guess every Island city that tries to make themselves as some ‘Haven’ always ends up being drafted. Understandable, but still, you don’t have a choice but know how to wield one. Full of surveillance and monitoring. That’s a corp-owned haven for you. Always have a trade.’

Kato took his eyes off and followed the GPS to the embassy that he was going to report. The way there was quiet, full of officers who were watching people, both local and foreign roaming the city. The city makes use of trams that carry people and on-rail systems that take a traveler to their destination.

The Embassy District was located in an area that seems to be on top of a small island, separated from the City. The building he entered had the star spangled banner flying proudly on it alongside the Wisterian flag.

The interior of the office is decorated to maximize service. There were only two people in-charge of the front of the desk. He wasn’t here for any of that service, so he directly called the agent that was going to be helping him in this island nation.

The man in question, Jayden Peraza, was a man of average height. Black hair, black eyes, with a formal suit with the american flag pinned on the breast pocket.

“Mr. Peraza. Old Steel says that you can help me.”

Peraza stares at him.

“Ah, Mr. Lores. I heard you're representing our interest in this city for a while. I take it that you have gotten a good look at the city?”

“I have.”

He smiles. He leads Kato to the basement by elevator. It took about three minutes before they got onto the floor. Peraza led him to a private place. Kato tuned in to his all-senses and felt no hostility in the area. Outside of the room, he saw an object used for monitoring. Kato sat across the table while his palms were flat on the table.

“Sir Strato had already informed me of your role here. I have to say that I was expecting more of a friendlier face.”

Kato didn’t reply. His face remained focused. Peraza couldn’t get a beat on Kato. He didn’t have much of a way for expression. Not to mention the data he got from others didn’t mention he’d be so stiff. Peraza’s trying to find the right words to convey. He opted to be straight to the point.

“The conference should be two days from now. We are working within a short timeframe here.”

He displayed a projection on the wall behind him. Snapshots of the port, and places that are clearly heavily guarded with little no chance to enter. One of the places was encircled.

“That’s the data center of the city. It’s grasping at straws trying to find anything noteworthy, but this city’s systematic. They tend to prepare for everything, so it’s best to assume that they have been informed of the program plan distributed by the higher ups.”

“So you have nothing to give?”

“This is Wisteria. It’s hard to find any information without the authorities finding out. Their… monitoring system is beyond us. Honestly, we are quite ashamed to say that we have nothing to give.”

“Hard to believe that.”

“We have other information regarding the other nations, but most of it is something you’d find on the net.”

Kato sways his head before standing up. He carried his luggage with him outside. Peraza raises his voice.

“Are you going to try something?”

“Maybe. Any hotels nearby?”

“We have the embassy’s hotel. You can find your place on the top floor there. I’d tell them while you’re on your way there.”

He threw a smart drive.

“That’ll give you access to the DB that we have here. It isn’t much, but you need to understand that we have little to give here on this island.”

Kato got into his hotel room and placed it aside. He checked the personal terminal found in the room. He plugged his deck. Then booted the operating system that he had installed. He ran a systems check on the smart drive, found the bug on it, and had it disabled.

The local network of the city was full of traps as well. He didn’t have time to have it checked, but even the app they were offering on their local network had a surveillance and monitoring system that could sniff him out. It reminded him of some of the low-level systems that he had the displeasure of learning how to crack.

He managed to get into the local network, but most of the data he found inside their DB were nothing more than complaints of overworked programmers, and requests to update the current local network and more budget in regards.

Kato did notice that there are a lot of conversations about how the data center needed a new security update after an attempted intrusion. He started acquiring lists, getting their addresses, and finding where they live through the local map. Of course, direct information or intel might not mean much to them, but his previous occupation where there was no centralized government, and he had to follow leads by person. Most of the time, he had to find email accounts, read through the emails, and find a thread that would get him a tidbit of information.

He went outside of the hotel.

And checked on the socials of the programmers working on the local networks. Where they checked in and where they were going. He found one of them in a Café. Drinking a cup of coffee while staring at his personal laptop.

Kato entered the café. He got himself a cup and sat behind the programmer, remote controlling with his deck, and keylogging his credentials. Kato found it strangely funny that the habit of saving their accounts and passwords on their browsers never really went away.

After mining the programmer’s account. He moved to the next person, harvested their accounts, and spent the afternoon roaming around, sightseeing, while avoiding the eyes of the city that were recording his steps. Kato found himself on the seawall, observing the pacific ocean that was  populated with ships and all kinds of vessels. Wisteria had become this stop where the world’s ships would take shelter.

Kato went back to his hotel. He gathered the accounts, made a list, and then sorted the accounts that were active. Most of their emails are complaints, nonsensical conversations, and file transfers that are placed in a compressed file. They even left behind source codes, an update, and even exports of their database that was compressed.

Inserting the smart drive on his deck, he used the embassy’s local servers to handle the computing to sort out the files, and get a bead on anything that might provide him some information on the data center.

They had some sort of union that were rather united in their woes. He found their group chat, used one of the accounts, and read their documentation, and studied the list of bug and errors and exploits found in their system.

Even the notes left behind in the source code were full of the developers commenting on the missing lines of code. Sorting through the in-house framework they were using. He made a note of the database connections, the routers, and copied the encryption key that were using.

Kato opened his IDE, and started modifying his crackware to automate the process for him. He had learned a lot from his time as a combat engineer, and then learned from one of the best Riggers he knew.

Being able to do this was his way of life. It was how he earned his bread. It had been a long time since he had done this method and he was surprised how he could still do them as if he knew it by heart.

Scanning the whole slew of information. Creating the crackware needed to penetrate their data center. One thing for sure was that there’s a data connection that they were using other than the data center. If he wanted to access this stream of data, then he would need to have direct access inside the data center.

Of course, as usual, if he could help it, he’d have to find the credentials that would allow him to have access to their local network and the channel they use to send notifications, messages, emails, and announcements.

It was easier to find the people who are using the accounts than to spend time penetrating their network. If he had time, perhaps he might have spent the week being thorough. Nonetheless, he could at least get from their emails and conversations that they were waiting for a certain test that might disrupt their local network. How this ‘test’ would require an update in their security and force them to request funds from their government in order to handle the repairs that might be needed by this test.

What is this test? How it will relate to the movements that they are doing and how connected it is to the tons of korium they gather made Kato wonder.

Still, it wasn’t enough to spook Kato from moving. Besides, his job here was to know about their plans, not act on them. Nonetheless, if it comes down to it, he might as well make sure that they don’t get to it if it was detrimental.

Stopping maniacs from turning an awful world into a worse version of it was an old job that he was familiar with.