Jordanna Morgan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jordannamorgan) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fan_flashworks2021-05-20 06:57 pm
jordannamorgan) wrote in fan_flashworks2021-05-20 06:57 pm
Entry tags:
Blood Blockade Battlefront: Fic: Debugged
Title: Debugged
Author:jordannamorgan
Fandom: Blood Blockade Battlefront
Characters: Steven, Leo, Klaus, Zapp, Yurian.
Setting: Anytime after S02E06.
Rating: PG.
Length: 860 words.
Summary: A cyberattack on Libra headquarters ends up all wet.
At Libra Headquarters, it was an astonishingly uneventful Tuesday.
Klaus von Reinherz hunched behind his desk, intently focused on a game of internet prosfair. Steven Starphase sat across the room, going over case files on his laptop. Leonardo Watch and Zapp Renfro bickered over a video game on the sofa. Gilbert Altstein stood unobtrusively with his tea tray, waiting to be needed. Outside the window, the occasional normal and unconcerning roar or crash that was typical to Hellsalem’s Lot could be heard; but overall, it was the first genuinely peaceful day Libra had seen in weeks.
…Until the moment just past noon when all of the electronics in the room crashed simultaneously.
“What the—?” Steven muttered in surprise, as the screen of his laptop flashed an eye-searing shade of green before going black. Half a second later, Klaus stiffened and recoiled from his own monitors, while at the same moment Leo and Zapp uttered noises of confusion over their handheld FlayStation consoles.
No one needed to be told that this abrupt confluence of malfunctions was a sign of something serious. Libra’s private network was far and away the most secure in the city.
“We appear to have a breach,” said Klaus, calmly but swiftly. “Gilbert, please use the emergency landline to contact Yurian. Any interference should have immediately triggered a manual disconnect of Libra’s systems from all outside networks, but the sooner we pinpoint the external source of this attack—”
“Uh, guys?” Leo interrupted tremulously. “…I don’t think the source is external.”
Turning, Steven had only a brief moment to see that the younger man’s all-seeing eyes were fully open and activated. His head swiveled quickly back and forth, looking first at Klaus’ computer, and then at the back of Steven’s now-abandoned laptop. Then his gaze suddenly shifted in another direction, as if following the movement of something invisible to the rest of them; and in an instant, Steven realized that this was exactly the case.
“…I’m really sorry about this!” Leo exclaimed preemptively—and snatching up a paperweight from Klaus’ desk, he hurled it at the head of a fire sprinkler protruding from the ceiling.
Steven could have sworn that the ensuing downpour of water was accompanied by a split-second flash of light.
“…Yup, you guys got a bug alright,” drawled their security technician Yurian twenty minutes later, using a handheld microscope to examine a drop of water he had collected from the inch-deep flood on the office floor. “Or rather, a whole swarm of near-literal bugs. You wanna take a look?”
Steven was the first of the sopping-wet Libra agents to step forward. Ugly memories of a fast-evolving horde of crane flies were still uncomfortably recent in his mind, but he steeled himself and cautiously peered into the microscope. The motionless specks suspended in the water were definitely insect-like in shape; but even at that scale, there was no mistaking the metallic silver sheen of their bodies.
“Nanites,” Klaus concluded over Steven’s shoulder, without even needing to look.
“Got it in one. There’s a few different models on the black market, designed to physically infiltrate and harvest data from computers that are too well protected to hack remotely.” Yurian rubbed his chin. “I thought we even had this place sealed tight against that, but it looks like somebody found a hole. …Guess I’ll be spending the next week or so tracking down your soft spot.”
“That’s one hell of a nasty kind of spyware,” Zapp grumbled, dourly wringing out his jacket.
“You guys are just lucky this was a cheap model that isn’t waterproof. If they hadn’t been shorted out by the sprinkler, they would have found a way out of the building, and gone home with whatever load of data they’d managed to extract.” Yurian glanced at Leo, who was skulking in the corner with an oddly guilty look. “You’re really sure none of ’em made it to the window?”
“Yeah. I saw them come out of Mr. Klaus’ and Mr. Steven’s computers. I wasn’t sure what they were, but when I realized they were headed for the window, I knew I had to stop them somehow.” Leo squirmed and reluctantly raised his head, water dripping freely from his chin and the ends of his soaked hair. “I’m so sorry I ruined your computers!”
Klaus smiled gently. “You have nothing to apologize for, Leo. This damage is recoverable. Our backup systems will ensure that no data is lost, and the physical hardware can be replaced—but we could not have undone the harm if the nanites had escaped with our most classified information.”
“You’re still gonna buy me a new FlayStation,” Zapp muttered under his breath, but Steven was close enough to nudge him less than gently.
“Looks like those eyes of yours saved the day once again,” Steven assured Leo. He exchanged a knowing glance with Klaus, and then smiled in turn at their rookie agent. “Come on. Let’s leave Yurian to his work and go dry off—and after that, I think you’ve earned a good hot lunch to warm you up.”
Somehow, it was all too satisfying to see Leonardo’s hesitant smile.
2021 Jordanna Morgan
Author:
jordannamorganFandom: Blood Blockade Battlefront
Characters: Steven, Leo, Klaus, Zapp, Yurian.
Setting: Anytime after S02E06.
Rating: PG.
Length: 860 words.
Summary: A cyberattack on Libra headquarters ends up all wet.
At Libra Headquarters, it was an astonishingly uneventful Tuesday.
Klaus von Reinherz hunched behind his desk, intently focused on a game of internet prosfair. Steven Starphase sat across the room, going over case files on his laptop. Leonardo Watch and Zapp Renfro bickered over a video game on the sofa. Gilbert Altstein stood unobtrusively with his tea tray, waiting to be needed. Outside the window, the occasional normal and unconcerning roar or crash that was typical to Hellsalem’s Lot could be heard; but overall, it was the first genuinely peaceful day Libra had seen in weeks.
…Until the moment just past noon when all of the electronics in the room crashed simultaneously.
“What the—?” Steven muttered in surprise, as the screen of his laptop flashed an eye-searing shade of green before going black. Half a second later, Klaus stiffened and recoiled from his own monitors, while at the same moment Leo and Zapp uttered noises of confusion over their handheld FlayStation consoles.
No one needed to be told that this abrupt confluence of malfunctions was a sign of something serious. Libra’s private network was far and away the most secure in the city.
“We appear to have a breach,” said Klaus, calmly but swiftly. “Gilbert, please use the emergency landline to contact Yurian. Any interference should have immediately triggered a manual disconnect of Libra’s systems from all outside networks, but the sooner we pinpoint the external source of this attack—”
“Uh, guys?” Leo interrupted tremulously. “…I don’t think the source is external.”
Turning, Steven had only a brief moment to see that the younger man’s all-seeing eyes were fully open and activated. His head swiveled quickly back and forth, looking first at Klaus’ computer, and then at the back of Steven’s now-abandoned laptop. Then his gaze suddenly shifted in another direction, as if following the movement of something invisible to the rest of them; and in an instant, Steven realized that this was exactly the case.
“…I’m really sorry about this!” Leo exclaimed preemptively—and snatching up a paperweight from Klaus’ desk, he hurled it at the head of a fire sprinkler protruding from the ceiling.
Steven could have sworn that the ensuing downpour of water was accompanied by a split-second flash of light.
“…Yup, you guys got a bug alright,” drawled their security technician Yurian twenty minutes later, using a handheld microscope to examine a drop of water he had collected from the inch-deep flood on the office floor. “Or rather, a whole swarm of near-literal bugs. You wanna take a look?”
Steven was the first of the sopping-wet Libra agents to step forward. Ugly memories of a fast-evolving horde of crane flies were still uncomfortably recent in his mind, but he steeled himself and cautiously peered into the microscope. The motionless specks suspended in the water were definitely insect-like in shape; but even at that scale, there was no mistaking the metallic silver sheen of their bodies.
“Nanites,” Klaus concluded over Steven’s shoulder, without even needing to look.
“Got it in one. There’s a few different models on the black market, designed to physically infiltrate and harvest data from computers that are too well protected to hack remotely.” Yurian rubbed his chin. “I thought we even had this place sealed tight against that, but it looks like somebody found a hole. …Guess I’ll be spending the next week or so tracking down your soft spot.”
“That’s one hell of a nasty kind of spyware,” Zapp grumbled, dourly wringing out his jacket.
“You guys are just lucky this was a cheap model that isn’t waterproof. If they hadn’t been shorted out by the sprinkler, they would have found a way out of the building, and gone home with whatever load of data they’d managed to extract.” Yurian glanced at Leo, who was skulking in the corner with an oddly guilty look. “You’re really sure none of ’em made it to the window?”
“Yeah. I saw them come out of Mr. Klaus’ and Mr. Steven’s computers. I wasn’t sure what they were, but when I realized they were headed for the window, I knew I had to stop them somehow.” Leo squirmed and reluctantly raised his head, water dripping freely from his chin and the ends of his soaked hair. “I’m so sorry I ruined your computers!”
Klaus smiled gently. “You have nothing to apologize for, Leo. This damage is recoverable. Our backup systems will ensure that no data is lost, and the physical hardware can be replaced—but we could not have undone the harm if the nanites had escaped with our most classified information.”
“You’re still gonna buy me a new FlayStation,” Zapp muttered under his breath, but Steven was close enough to nudge him less than gently.
“Looks like those eyes of yours saved the day once again,” Steven assured Leo. He exchanged a knowing glance with Klaus, and then smiled in turn at their rookie agent. “Come on. Let’s leave Yurian to his work and go dry off—and after that, I think you’ve earned a good hot lunch to warm you up.”
Somehow, it was all too satisfying to see Leonardo’s hesitant smile.
2021 Jordanna Morgan