Chapter 186: 186
I then left them to their own devices and went towards my room. Kaley told me that she’ll visit her mom on the other house that they occupied and Zeus followed her. There’s still a couple more hours before the broadcast so I went to Ken’s house and called Kris and Jared over.
“Time to talk about Ana.” I thought to myself.
“What’s up dude? The people at Woodlands are still chill and they don’t seem to be doing anything, yet. I rarely see them come outside but they would come out a few times to get supplies.” Ken said while busy flying the drone for a routine check.
“Yeah, we need to talk about something.” I replied.
“What are we doing here Sky?” Kris asked.
“Is this about the hacker chick?” Jared chimed.
“Chick? Hacker? What?” Ken and Kris said in unison.
“The story is that someone managed to get inside to Jared’s phone when we went to a run before. Well, it was caused by me since I connected to a network broadcasting in the Pulo Area. The person already knew me and she wants to have a partne-” I was cut off.
“Wait, wait, wait! Hand me that phone!” Ken exclaimed as he started to fiddle with it.
“Hmmm, I can’t seem to find any trace of this getting hacked from the surface I might need to w-” then the message pops up again.
[It’s supposed to be that way. You can only get to me if I wanted you to.]
“Shit.” Ken said.
“This is the person you’re talking about?” Kris said.
“Yeah, she goes by ‘Ana71’. She contacted us earlier at the supermarket.” I then explained the whole story.
[Are you the three here who could at least understand our language?]
“Yeah. Just us three.” Jared gave me a look but I gave him a look as well and he understood almost telepathically.
“We’re not sure about Tatiana yet but I think she could do something similar to what we could do. Better not reveal all of our cards from a stranger. She doesn’t sound like a bad guy but it pays to be cautious.” I thought to myself.
[Our agreement, when is the fastest time you could accomplish your end of the deal?]
I then noticed that Ken started on tapping silently on his keyboard trying to locate where this person is coming from. I thought it was useless but it isn’t bad to try. I could already see from his monitor where the signal is coming from is getting scrambled and it shows that she’s coming from different countries. However, I think she’s near us and just don’t want to be found out.
“Well, there’s a few cell towers close to here and instead of stretching them out as far as it could reach, I think I want the things we would be making to stay in a stable range so that the signal is stronger. I’ll print out an enclosure from a 3D Printer in which to place the Raspberry Pi modules first with the panel and the other things needed and it could take a bit of time considering how much we would be making. How far do you want us to reach?” I said.
[As far as possible.]
“I wanted that too but only the record for the City Hall here is not much of a payment in that project of yours that you want finished.” I replied.
“Getting her limit on how far she wanted it to reach can give me a general idea of her goals and the general direction on where she is.” I thought to myself.
[Wait. How far could you reach then?]
“I have about a few thousand of them.” I said flatly.
“Wait, w-what?!” Kris exclaimed.
[…]
“Yeah.” I replied.
“Why do you have so much of them dude?” Ken was shocked as well.
“Well it got really popular before. I tried to make a mining rack for them before but turns out beefy GPUs are obviously much better. I have several boxes of them lying around somewhere.” I replied.
“Now I can’t understand what you guys are talking about.” Jared chimed.
“Well that part about mining is not important right now but even if I have a lot of them, I can’t cover everything with them and we’ll run out soon enough. Do you want me to head for the Bulacan area or more in the cities?”
[Not important. I want them to reach wherever I can’t reach.]
“Which is?” I asked.
[That’s not something I’m comfortable in telling you. I think you wanted to get my general direction to locate me.]
“She’s good. But not that good, her saying that means that she’s close and not from another country.” I thought to myself.
“Well you already know where we are and that just sounds unfair to me. We’re basically risking our lives for an optional way to get what we wanted. I believe you heard what I said before. You need us more than we need you. I just can’t pass up a skilled person such as you and all I wanted is another addition to my team.” I replied.
[What if I delete the records from the City Hall? I can still access them and erasing everything there would make me the only source of everything that you needed.]
The atmosphere suddenly got tense but I started to chuckle.
“Great threat, much wow. If you do that, then you’ll lose the only chance to get what you wanted. I’ll only need to make a phone call to shut the power in this island group. Well, the power here will be gone in a few more days I’m not sure. I doubt you could do anything without any power and even if you could remotely turn the servers on from wherever you are, it won’t turn on without any electricity and we’re back to square one. You have your copy of what we need and we only need a little bit of time to get what we wanted. Even if you managed to destroy everything, it’s just a minor inconvenience. It would only take us a bit more time in finding everything and filtering people. I’m not sure on your situation over there but I doubt it’s any good if you’re needing the help of my group. Think of a better threat next time and don’t even think of messing everything up in my place. I’m telling you, we’re the best chance you get and it will benefit you more if you try to trust us.” I said.
Jared’s phone was not receiving messages for a moment and one finally pops up.
[I still don’t trust you, yet. I’ve been burned many times and I still have some reservations. What you said to me are still words and I want a few things to get accomplished first before we move onto other things. However, I apologize for threatening you. It’s a mistake on my part if we’re trying to make some sort of partnership.]
I made a soft sigh and said, “That’s understandable. I’ll look forward to that.”
I was surprised to see another batch of files sent to the phone and another message popped up.
[That’s for the other information I could I could hear from your group about the cult and etc. It’s only 5% but I think that it’s enough payment for that.]
“Thanks.” I replied and she went silent again.
“I think I like her dude.” Ken muttered.
“Hah! You know she could still hear us, right?” I said.
“I don’t give a f.u.c.k. IF YOU’RE HEARING THIS CONTACT ME! I’M GONNA TURN OFF THE FIREWALL ON MY PC!!!” Ken shouted.
Kris was pursing his lips on the side but I think he’s having the same opinion with Ken.
“Oh boy.” I thought to myself.
Kris and Ken then volunteered to make the design for the enclosure but I told him that I would need to see it first before we go through with it. It shouldn’t have any small gaps and it should be a tight fit. It should look inconspicuous since not all the time we would be able to place them above the cell towers. We have huge cell towers on select places here but there are small ones atop residential houses which are contracted by other mobile companies. It’s much smaller and only about a few tens of feet compared to the large ones.
I showed them the parts to make our device and they each went on their own to make their desired design.
We were just waiting for the broadcast to start but a few of our people came to find a few of us and told us that some of the houses has no electricity but the water is still running.
“Shit. The power here started to get cut off. We still have several panels that we got from Wilcon’s Depot and it is fairly easy to install them with the inverters and the batteries. It’s enough for lighting and the fans but I’m sure you know our protocol for lights in the evening.” I told the people who had some concerns.
“Another daily necessity removed from the list. How long would water last then?” I asked myself.