[ Oh, Tony. Oh, Tony. If there's one thing Aberdeen likes, it's a person with no sense of personal boundaries — which given the fact that that's what she is, is certainly a case of like attracting like. Part of her bristles in the most superficial way to know that her 'conversation' with Spock has been compromised, but a larger part of her is impressed.
Her response is short and to the point. And in her own way also sent along with intentions of seeing what his reaction will me. ]
[ tony laughs aloud once she replies back. she could have mentioned what it was. or any of its applications and instead she pointed out that the conversasion he got it from was private. he said he was good and that was his proof. ]
there was no reason for that to be private. besides, i did imply i was very skilled.
[ Aberdeen hadn't needed proof — his code was there, on the network, she'd brushed up against it — but it'd be a lie to say she wasn't a little satisfied in having it. She's rather fond of transparency, really, if only because she's incapable of honoring anything but. If Tony Stark can hack her encryptions, then so be it; it simply meant that he'd earned a perch from which to peer down and pick through her life. ]
who is the exception?
[ The other five are debatable though i lean more toward no with the exception of one, he had said. His opinion suddenly has more weight than it did a minute ago. ]
[ it's his way of showing off. a part of him still wanted to pretend that he was the only person who could hack into anything and that showing that he could is a good thing. he likes peering at everyone's lives. and if he takes a bit of a thrill out of getting past the most complicated encryptions, then sue him. ]
001 » 106. i might be wrong, but at the moment, unless given proof, anyone who can make an encryption that i like may be defined as a skilled hacker. most of the encryptions are shit, but you know that.
i didn't mind his that much. it's not a fantastic one, but it's better than most.
[ there's a few seconds between that message and his next one. ]
your list any bigger? assuming you have one and didn't just ask that for kicks.
[ Now this is Aberdeen, attempting to pull Tony's code apart to see how it works. She's not being subtle about it in the least, though she is terribly efficient and systematic at it. This is a woman who doesn't do this for shits and giggles, this woman is a professional.
She knows he's watching and that she continues regardless is a sign of something. Something complicit maybe.
[ he looks at the numbers for a bit before trying to hunt them down. some of them were on his no list, but others had actually...slipped his mind. he frowns when he sends his text back. ]
|a| + |t| ≠ 10; |a| + |t| > 10
[ it's simple and he assumes she'll know what he means by it. miscalculation on his part, not hers. but c'est la vie. ]
[ she's good. he'll give her that, but tony wants to see how quick she is to think on her feet. his normal reaction time is a little slow, but he attempts to make subtle adjustments to his code that would normally trap a person if they're pulling it apart.
trying to over-complicate his code to see if she'll still believe it's the one he's been using everywhere or if it's the one he's using just for her once he notices she's pulling apart his code.
try to get to the bottom of it, aberdeen. earn his respect. ]
[ First thing Tony might notice is that as soon as he starts tweaking the code, she's head down and the first part of his message is lost — or perhaps ignored — completely. Aberdeen is nothing if not focused and when faced with a challenge that she is actually invested in (which she is), nobody and nothing has a hope in prying her attention away from it.
Aberdeen isn't Cambridge but, in truth, she's secretly always wanted to be. Which is why she spends so much time firing bombs and taking digital hits from Cambridge in her spare time. It's an exercise in shoring up what discrepancies there are (and there are quite a lot) between an honest to goodness technopath and simply a hacker. Aberdeen's used to fluid, used to things changing in real time, used to huge swaths of code up and reversing itself just as much as she's used to the tiny shifts that would be normally written off as coding errors.
She may not be a technopath, but with her head down and something to prove, by god she comes close sometimes.
Instead of pulling the code apart she starts taking the extra strands of run sequences and begins stringing them together and re-embedding them. Ticking timebombs. Trojan Horses.
[ a random desire to have jarvis helping him, pointing out things he might miss pops up when he sees that she's stringing his run sequences together. it's not one he wants to really deal with right now. (he has pepper and a kind of replacement rhodey, he doesn't need jarvis.)
he doesn't get to do this that often, but when he does, it's fun to him. if only because he can do something that constantly proves that he's good at what he says he is without someone being annoyed that he's doing it.
he gives a low whistle, though. impressed at the actions before tossing in loops that look they're endless but aren't. he won't touch what she did, but he'll add some streams of code that look innocent but if she does a damn thing with them will break the code.
i'm not being subtle, aberdeen. try and trip him. he dares her. ]
[ Being able to hack a thing is one thing. Being able to take what you know based on said hack and use it to understand how your opponent evolves is something else entirely. While Tony may outstrip Aberdeen in the former, she certainly is no slouch in the later. Which means that instead of getting caught in the loops that he lays down for her, she slips through them neatly, as lithe and as lean as one could ever hope to expect, leaving more snares in her wake: terminate triggers, runtime errors, the blue screen of death (sometimes she has a sense of humor; it's never productive, though).
That Tony gives up tells in his code is good, but what's better is that Aberdeen is trying to learn how he goes about tripping someone if he's the one looking to cause a tumble. Granted, these are particular circumstances happening within a situational bubble, but the rules haven't changed. It's still a zero-sum game. What one person gains, the other loses — each manevuer happens at the cost of revealing some part of one's self: strategy, skill, thought process.
She drops a message into the code, scattered (however deliberately) among the logic sequences. ]
diminishing returns.
[ Meaning that there'll come a time in this back and forth where the effort being made by one or both of them will fail to outweigh what they ultimately glean from it.
[ he's become reliant on having someone else checking his work, as much as it pains him. he almost misses several of the snares she leaves for him. indeed, some of those runtime errors are so nice that he practically didn't realize they had been there.
he's trying not to make this exactly what he does when trying to trip someone up because he thinks this is a test or something where she investigates what exactly he can do. he likes showing off, but he's not about to show his entire poker hand to someone. still, he knows bits of this are definitely what he'd do. maybe not in the same order, but still the same.
he tosses in a few of everything she's already tossed in with one blue screen of death that looks like it's been a part of the code all along before adding his own message among the logic sequences. ]
i'll scrap the code when it gets too bad.
[ meaning he'll stop when he wants to. not a second before. it's a warning and gesture of respect from him all at once. she's enjoyable to do this with. ]
[ Ego, Aberdeen thinks but she doesn't mind ego, not when it's deserved. Cambridge has an ego large enough for the both of them, which was fine if only because Cambridge — when not hindered by the ship or stasis — is as good as two Aberdeens combined. Here, on Tranquility, their keel is a bit more even, though to be quite honest, a gross difference still remains. There is part of Aberdeen that's secretly satisfied with that, though she isn't one to go sharing that sort of information; and part of her doesn't even realize that this is the case at all.
It's easy enough to recognize work around of her own runtime inclusions being worked around and reintegrated elsewhere in the code. Aberdeen almost trips over that extra blue screen tossed into the mix but instead, seizes upon it, rewrites it so that it's rigged to explode burst packets of corrupted data if not opened up and rewritten again. She's banking on him tiptoeing over it, like the last one.
(Evolve. Adapt. Use what's given to you; it will keep what else you have in your hand hidden.) ]
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text; encrypted 100%
Her response is short and to the point. And in her own way also sent along with intentions of seeing what his reaction will me. ]
that was private.
text; encrypted 100%
there was no reason for that to be private. besides, i did imply i was very skilled.
there's your proof.
text; encrypted 100%
who is the exception?
[ The other five are debatable though i lean more toward no with the exception of one, he had said. His opinion suddenly has more weight than it did a minute ago. ]
text; encrypted 100%
001 » 106. i might be wrong, but at the moment, unless given proof, anyone who can make an encryption that i like may be defined as a skilled hacker. most of the encryptions are shit, but you know that.
i didn't mind his that much. it's not a fantastic one, but it's better than most.
[ there's a few seconds between that message and his next one. ]
your list any bigger? assuming you have one and didn't just ask that for kicks.
1/2 text; encrypted 100%
001 » 026
001 » 032
001 » 033
001 » 061
001 » 200
action;
She knows he's watching and that she continues regardless is a sign of something. Something complicit maybe.
Take that as you will. ]
text; encrypted 100% | 1/2
|a| + |t| ≠ 10; |a| + |t| > 10
[ it's simple and he assumes she'll know what he means by it. miscalculation on his part, not hers. but c'est la vie. ]
action;
trying to over-complicate his code to see if she'll still believe it's the one he's been using everywhere or if it's the one he's using just for her once he notices she's pulling apart his code.
try to get to the bottom of it, aberdeen. earn his respect. ]
1/1 action;
Aberdeen isn't Cambridge but, in truth, she's secretly always wanted to be. Which is why she spends so much time firing bombs and taking digital hits from Cambridge in her spare time. It's an exercise in shoring up what discrepancies there are (and there are quite a lot) between an honest to goodness technopath and simply a hacker. Aberdeen's used to fluid, used to things changing in real time, used to huge swaths of code up and reversing itself just as much as she's used to the tiny shifts that would be normally written off as coding errors.
She may not be a technopath, but with her head down and something to prove, by god she comes close sometimes.
Instead of pulling the code apart she starts taking the extra strands of run sequences and begins stringing them together and re-embedding them. Ticking timebombs. Trojan Horses.
I see you, Tony. Let's see who'll trip first. ]
action;
he doesn't get to do this that often, but when he does, it's fun to him. if only because he can do something that constantly proves that he's good at what he says he is without someone being annoyed that he's doing it.
he gives a low whistle, though. impressed at the actions before tossing in loops that look they're endless but aren't. he won't touch what she did, but he'll add some streams of code that look innocent but if she does a damn thing with them will break the code.
i'm not being subtle, aberdeen. try and trip him. he dares her. ]
action;
That Tony gives up tells in his code is good, but what's better is that Aberdeen is trying to learn how he goes about tripping someone if he's the one looking to cause a tumble. Granted, these are particular circumstances happening within a situational bubble, but the rules haven't changed. It's still a zero-sum game. What one person gains, the other loses — each manevuer happens at the cost of revealing some part of one's self: strategy, skill, thought process.
She drops a message into the code, scattered (however deliberately) among the logic sequences. ]
diminishing returns.
[ Meaning that there'll come a time in this back and forth where the effort being made by one or both of them will fail to outweigh what they ultimately glean from it.
It's a warning of sorts. ]
action;
he's trying not to make this exactly what he does when trying to trip someone up because he thinks this is a test or something where she investigates what exactly he can do. he likes showing off, but he's not about to show his entire poker hand to someone. still, he knows bits of this are definitely what he'd do. maybe not in the same order, but still the same.
he tosses in a few of everything she's already tossed in with one blue screen of death that looks like it's been a part of the code all along before adding his own message among the logic sequences. ]
i'll scrap the code when it gets too bad.
[ meaning he'll stop when he wants to. not a second before. it's a warning and gesture of respect from him all at once. she's enjoyable to do this with. ]
action;
It's easy enough to recognize work around of her own runtime inclusions being worked around and reintegrated elsewhere in the code. Aberdeen almost trips over that extra blue screen tossed into the mix but instead, seizes upon it, rewrites it so that it's rigged to explode burst packets of corrupted data if not opened up and rewritten again. She's banking on him tiptoeing over it, like the last one.
(Evolve. Adapt. Use what's given to you; it will keep what else you have in your hand hidden.) ]
aggressive.