M
Melia
Guest
Original poster
Matt still had the peeling remnants of a sunburn he'd obtained for the few short days before that he'd taken a jaunt down to South America. The trip had ended up being double purposed because one of his servers had gone down and he'd needed to go do some repair work on it. Unfortunately it had been a relatively central server for some of his accounts and it's brief demise had set off some suspicions from the NSA. As would any flickering and halting stop to two major accounts that had caused somewhat of a data block in that one spot. A Hoover Dam of data, so to speak. So now they'd been watching him more closely and he'd had to do some rather illegal things to get himself off their watch lists.
So that was his main purpose for going down there, but the other was to set up a second base. He re routed part of his networking to the new base to redirect attention and get things back online as fast as he could. He trusted no one but himself to do this kind of work, unfortunately and so that meant he had to take mini vacations to the locations of his server hubs to keep them in working order. This one had gone out due to a particularly violent thunderstorm, as were apt to happen in those tropical locations.
Matt also had a few server hubs across Canada, Norway, India, Japan, Iran, Turkey, and elsewhere including a very low amount in the United States due to how damn snoopy they were. More than anywhere else, for certain. But randomness was key and it would also seem a bit suspicious if he didn't have some bases there. Look for the hole in the data and that too could be evidence against him.
It had taken a few weeks to get that under control after some very dangerous hacking into national security and the secretary of defense. Minor adjustments to fingerprint data, change the spelling of his name. In some places completely remove himself but that was risky. He never knew who might be obsessively watching him and taking physical paper notes instead of just computer data. Eventually his name and account numbers started dropping off of watch lists all together.
His hand was doing much better now as well. He still struggled with some motor movements of his ring and pinky fingers and occasional numbness that came and went. But those were his least important fingers and so he counted himself very lucky. He was happy to do away with the sling though he wore an elastic brace now to help him with movement. It seemed if he took pressure off his palm he lost the ability to move those two fingers at all.
He'd decided it would be a good idea to keep Kristie close. After all, someone would have to be able to keep his accounts going after he left. Someone had to be able to take care of Mr. Howard for all that he was doing for Matt. Who better than her, who seemed to have similar paranoia and knowledge of the way the government worked? And so he decided to keep her in close contact and slowly their friendship grew to be more genuine.
He hadn't yet let Kristie in to show her everything involved with those accounts. That would be for later. For near last, in fact, before he left.
She knew about his visits to Howard Enterprise at this point but had yet to ever join him. He hadn't exactly invited her. But he had never said she wasn't welcome to join him either. He had always just assumed that she had her own goals and agenda to attend to on her own time while he had his own. So it was a surprise to see her waiting outside the door of Mr. Howard's office today. The sun was shining bright now, as summer was present and it made her red hair shine prettily. He grinned at her as he parked his bike next to the door.
"Hey!" He greeted her as he pulled his bike up along the tall steel wall of the hanger. "Yknow, he locks that door ever since I started showing up. We have to walk round to the main entrance and get a visitors pass. Are you here to see what I get up to during my days?" He grinned infectiously and hopped off his bike, knocking the kickstand down. Despite Mr. Howard locking this door, it was still far easier to leave his trolley and tote down here and access it from the inside of the building than lug the box through the maze of hallways that was the main administrative building and through the hubbub of the hangar to get to Mr. Howard's tiny office that had a much much easier access. It was terribly inconvenient.
So that was his main purpose for going down there, but the other was to set up a second base. He re routed part of his networking to the new base to redirect attention and get things back online as fast as he could. He trusted no one but himself to do this kind of work, unfortunately and so that meant he had to take mini vacations to the locations of his server hubs to keep them in working order. This one had gone out due to a particularly violent thunderstorm, as were apt to happen in those tropical locations.
Matt also had a few server hubs across Canada, Norway, India, Japan, Iran, Turkey, and elsewhere including a very low amount in the United States due to how damn snoopy they were. More than anywhere else, for certain. But randomness was key and it would also seem a bit suspicious if he didn't have some bases there. Look for the hole in the data and that too could be evidence against him.
It had taken a few weeks to get that under control after some very dangerous hacking into national security and the secretary of defense. Minor adjustments to fingerprint data, change the spelling of his name. In some places completely remove himself but that was risky. He never knew who might be obsessively watching him and taking physical paper notes instead of just computer data. Eventually his name and account numbers started dropping off of watch lists all together.
His hand was doing much better now as well. He still struggled with some motor movements of his ring and pinky fingers and occasional numbness that came and went. But those were his least important fingers and so he counted himself very lucky. He was happy to do away with the sling though he wore an elastic brace now to help him with movement. It seemed if he took pressure off his palm he lost the ability to move those two fingers at all.
He'd decided it would be a good idea to keep Kristie close. After all, someone would have to be able to keep his accounts going after he left. Someone had to be able to take care of Mr. Howard for all that he was doing for Matt. Who better than her, who seemed to have similar paranoia and knowledge of the way the government worked? And so he decided to keep her in close contact and slowly their friendship grew to be more genuine.
He hadn't yet let Kristie in to show her everything involved with those accounts. That would be for later. For near last, in fact, before he left.
She knew about his visits to Howard Enterprise at this point but had yet to ever join him. He hadn't exactly invited her. But he had never said she wasn't welcome to join him either. He had always just assumed that she had her own goals and agenda to attend to on her own time while he had his own. So it was a surprise to see her waiting outside the door of Mr. Howard's office today. The sun was shining bright now, as summer was present and it made her red hair shine prettily. He grinned at her as he parked his bike next to the door.
"Hey!" He greeted her as he pulled his bike up along the tall steel wall of the hanger. "Yknow, he locks that door ever since I started showing up. We have to walk round to the main entrance and get a visitors pass. Are you here to see what I get up to during my days?" He grinned infectiously and hopped off his bike, knocking the kickstand down. Despite Mr. Howard locking this door, it was still far easier to leave his trolley and tote down here and access it from the inside of the building than lug the box through the maze of hallways that was the main administrative building and through the hubbub of the hangar to get to Mr. Howard's tiny office that had a much much easier access. It was terribly inconvenient.