Expiation//Elliot Alderson//Mr. Robot

[12]: Zero-Sum Game

❝ When you have control of that, you basically have control of the cell doors. ❞

Malena carelessly threw the keys on the dining table along with her purse. A loud thud following the actions. She took a momentary pause to stare at the yipping Flipper, but walked around her to the desktop computer. She leaned against the desk, crossing her arms on her chest, still hiding her face from being seen.

❝ But what these morons don't know is, it's almost impossible without any research. ❞

The tiny dog approached the next familiar person, Elliot. He obliged to her attention-seeking barking by stroking her soft fur. Upon her turning calm, Elliot stood straight again only to be faced with Isaac glaring at him. "Time to shine your cojones and get to work. Our only rule: do. what. we. say. You violate that dictate, we kill your sweetheart."

Behind Isaac emerged DJ, who in the limited amount of time inside the apartment stole a drink from the fridge. He had a playful tone now, "Yo, Isaac, how my dic-tate?"

Isaac rolled his eyes and turned to DJ, clearly not in the mood for a joke. "Shut up, bitch." But DJ kept laughing loudly at his own stupid joke.

Both of them had conveniently forgotten about the incident outside. Now acting like a member of the opposite sex didn't stand in the same room as them. Fortunately, their intense drive to appease their excitement ceasing upon entering the studio apartment. The Swede kept silent, clearly hurt by their actions.

He sauntered toward the desktop, slipping into the chair while turning on the computer. Malena turned away to avoid any sort of contact with him. As he waited for it to turn on, he looked at her, her hands uncrossing to look at something on her still cracked phone. He slyly peeked at the bright screen. The boyfriend kept sending messages. An endless stream of grey bubbles emerging on her screen. Probably apologizing. He then stared at Isaac, who took a seat on his dining table.

❝Vera's bro, Isaac. Something about him bugs me, and you know what I like to do when that happens? ❞

With the computer on, Elliot brought up a terminal on his computer that ran the btScan, which allowed him to hack the nearby Bluetooth devices by using the Kali Linux operating system. He found four options, the second to last being his target, Isaac's s5 phone.

Perfect.

This granted him access into the data stored cellphone. Just like his brother, this moron kept incriminating evidence of illegal activity unsecured in his cell phone. Elliot found the information on the entire organization—the suppliers, the network of drug dealer, every person who regularly
purchased from them, and their codes. Although this wasn't exactly what he wanted this was a blessing in disguise, for him and for Shayla. This didn't satisfy his ache of suspicion. Something was wrong with Isaac and he needed to know it. He couldn't figure it out. The answer wasn't on the phone. Fuck. Still he devised a scheme that could save their lives if necessary. He coded the information of the operation to auto-send if he didn't disable it. The police would receive the details and shut them down.

Luckily, Elliot's had time to spy and deceive his kidnappers due to his workload decreasing significantly. Darlene agreed to create malware that would give him control of the network. Unbeknownst to Elliot, she stole and dropped several "Rubber Ducky" USB drives around the police station. If a police officer plugged in the device to their system, the USB stick would allow Elliot to input keystrokes. (Type things into the other person's computer.) She even placed a survey that promised a free $100 eTunes Music Card upon completion to prompt the person into keeping it plugged in longer.

He only had the connection for a split second before getting the dreadful message...

❝Connection closed by remote host. But we had a fish. I was in. The exploit started to run and then—was it the code? ❞