Best DeviantArt Pokemon Transformation Stories 2

Cryptic Pokeballs: P

by Barrel-o-TF, May 22, 2012, 2:57:52 PM

Literature / Prose / Fiction / Fantasy / Short Stories

Cryptic Pokéballs: P

Syntax Error

I yawned as I stared at the three monitors. My thumb rested on my cheekbone and forefinger jammed under my glasses as I tried to rub the weariness from my eyes. Minutes passed as I sat, keyboard untouched as I struggled to focus, struggled to remember where I was in my work. Finally I decided it was time for a tactical retreat... time for coffee.

I stood and shuffled out the door of my office. For months I'd been dealing with grief from the admins, day in and day out, sometimes encouraging, sometimes threatening, sometimes merely dull and repetitive, but always the same -

Get something done.

What had started as another opportunity to make some money had nearly become an obsession. I'd been hired by some criminal group, one of those pokémon gangs that crops up every few years, to hack into Bebe's pokémon storage system.

I scratched my scalp under my greasy black hair, wiping my hand on my pants afterward. I noticed someone down the hallway and hastily straightened the bright cyan tie I was wearing and checked to make sure I had my nametag on. Perez it read, right below the gold G emblazoned on my shirt - idiot admins even had techs like me following their dress code. Whatever, money was money.

I'd had options of course. Could've helped set up the sleep chambers for the lake spirits. Could've programmed the diagnostics for the master ball engineering project. Could've even tried to create the snag machine Jupiter wanted. But I was headstrong, too much success under my belt to know when I was in over my head.

I reached the break room and started pouring a cup into my Magnezone mug. It wasn't that I wasn't a skilled hacker, far from it. Back in the day, I was hired to hack into Goldenrod Radio Station, the Silph corporation, once even the Lavender tower (which, "BTW," isn't as bad as it sounds, I was basically just checking the obituaries).

But this was different. The various pokémon storage systems are the most secure public networks on the planet - for obvious reasons. If someone were to plant a simple tunnel script in the right spot, bang, all the world's pokémon suddenly go right into one guy's pocket.

Problem is, Bebe's system is just about the most convoluted, spaghetti-tied, clusterbang of a network you'd ever laid eyes on. The individual accounts are bad enough with their 9 digit passwords, but there is zero user administration, which means no middle management admin accounts to hack - no one to scam on the phone, no one to bug through e-mail. And the domain controllers and DNS servers are just as bad, you try to send any request at all and they respond like you're on drugs. I even tried rigging up a terminal like they use at the public centers, but getting it to authenticate is just impossible.

Once I even did manage to get into the network, but I couldn't even figure out what the hell I was looking at. Bebe, or whoever manages the damn thing, must have written her own OS, and I couldn't even identify any of the variables or extensions before I got kicked out again.

So long story short, all you cavemen who don't know what I'm talking about, I'm stumped. Have been for months. Looking at a pay cut soon. Possibly severance.

I'm getting desperate.

I sat down at my system again and shoved some of the candy bar wrappers off my desk. My three monitors stared at me as I made room for my coffee.

I needed a trojan. Just a simple trojan in that system, something to start sending me data. Once I could get a solid look at it, I could start decrypting it. But there was no entry point, no way to plant a file, and no format the system could read anyway. All this time passed and I hadn't even got past step one.

The phone rang. I blinked, feeling like I was noticing the device for the first time. I didn't get many calls, and my brain wasn't in a very cooperative mood. Hopefully it wasn't one of my bosses.

I picked it up. "Veilstone branch, IT."

"Perez? It's Sam."

One of my bosses. Sam directed a number of smaller units (i.e. grunts) working outside the facility. Somehow he'd proven himself capable of leading, which he now did behind a desk instead of outside intimidating people with his team of little... whatever critters he carries with him.

And somehow this qualified him to supervise me, apparently. Yeah, sure.

"What's up, Sam?"

"We all set for the server upgrade this weekend?"

I turned around in my chair - I shared a room with the server bank here at Galactic HQ. They were lined up behind me on a rack spilling with color-coded data wires and electrical cords. I'd forgotten all about the planned OS upgrade this weekend.

"Yeah... yeah I gotta check with the operations manager though, he might have some processes working off the database."

"What's the problem if he is?"

Sheesh... "Well, I have to shut the database server down to install the new OS. If he's using it, we'll have to put it off."

"Just move him to another server."

Idiot trainers... how can I put this so he'll understand? "Look Sam, this isn't like trading in pokémon, all right? You can't just swap one out for another whenever you want."

He started up with another ignorant response while I took the time to lament the lunacy of the situation. If it actually did work like that, I wouldn't have this fekking problem trying to hack Bebe's sys...