The Linchpin

"Look, I'm all for freedom, Bugsy, but without order, this world would fall into chaos." Ember looked around her cautiously, before she leaned closer to Bugsy. "Personally, I think this world needs to be balanced. The perfect mix of freedom and order. One cannot exist without the other. Yin and yang. As with all things, it must be controlled."

Bugsy slightly smirked when he head Embers response then nodded. He tried to take another sip of his dew, but remembered it was empty. "Now that I'm in the loop, I have to show you this weird wifi access point." He flipped opened his Ipad that he had still be holding on. His eyes widened when he saw it again. It somehow had gotten strong since he had closed it. "Here" he handed the Ipad off to Ember, "It has no name and he just keeps adding code to the itself as like.... a defense or something. When I was manly working on it, I was barely making head way."

Ember held her chin in thought as she looked over the code, and went white when she realised it wasn't her work.
"Ok, that is definitely strange! Bugsy, I'm putting you in charge of a small unit of elite programmers. You are one of the best, and since I have a business to run, I'm going to trust you. I want you to find things like this, and get rid of them. Hopefully you'll be able to track down the source." Ember was clearly unnerved by the discovery, and it was obvious that heads would begin to roll. "Looks like I'm going to have to clean house, and start from scratch. Bugsy, would you like to work for Abstergo entertainment, and be a Carrion Crow?"

Hearing this made Bugsy smile greatly. Not only did he have a chance to work at one of the biggest tech centers of the age, he also was actually going to be officially part of the crows. The strange thing is he wasn't even nerves.

"Yes!" he said with confidence. He had finally found his spot in this big world. "I'll do whatever needs to get done." he said with a slight smirk of joy.

"We've never had any initiation ceremonies of our own, but then again, we've always just been together. I suppose the closest we ever had to an initiation would be our parties, and, well, none of us are very festive given what's just happened." Ember rooted around through her backpack, and smiled as she pulled out a small black brushed steel phone, which closely resembled the Sony Xperia z4, with a picture of a crow etched just above the screen. "All our contact details details are preloaded, some numbers of people that you will get to know, various documents that you will find useful, our own IM network, and safehouses have even been marked on a custom mapping software" Ember explained as she handed the phone to Bugsy. "Remember, this phone is only for Carrion Crow business, don't use it as a personal cell."

Bugsy took the phone and just looked at it. It was much newer then the phone he had now. He nodded "Understood" he look at the phone again. He started to flip through it, looking at everything that was on it. He would have to do some more detailed examining when he got the chance and also add a software or two of his own to make it extra safe, but it would be fine for now.

"So what is our next step," The word our felt weird on his lips, but it also felt good.

"Well, I haven't set up a station for you just yet, so you can just make yourself comfortable anywhere you want, and start going through these applications for your team. Find ten or fifteen that you like, then we can run through them together to select the final few" Ember explained as she handed Bugsy a small USB disk. "Given what's happened, we'll need to stay here for a few days. There are some rooms in the lower levels, but we can all stay in the penthouse."

He nodded again, "Okay," he took the USB drive. Then stood up. "I guess I'll go find an empty office me." Bugsy turned and started walking to the door. He opened it then turned back, "Thanks again Ember," he said with a big smile then walked out closing the door behind him.

Everyone else who was still around was rushing around. Bugsy was walking a little more up right for a while. Until he started to look at more an more people, then he remembered that he enjoy not working with people. He stated to hunch again. Then he spotted a dark hallway. He walked straight to it. The lights flicked on as he went underneath them. Bugsy tried every office door with out a name on it he walked by. None were open. About half way down the hall he twisted a the doorknob of an older looking office and it open. He slowly pushed it open. The hinges squeaked as he pushed it open.

Inside was pitch black. He search for the light-switch. As he switch his hand quickly got covered in cobwebs. He finally found the switch and flicked it on. The room light up so fast it blinded Bugsy slightly. When he could finally see again, he served the room. It was a medium size room. It had one large center desk. Along the walls covered a long desk that surrounded the whole home.

"Well its a bit dusty," he said coughing a little bit, "But it is away from the rest of the floor and it does got plenty of desk room." He said to himself, "Well I guess this is my hub"

Ember let out a loud sigh before she started with her work. She read through the files of her current employees, and reviewed performance appraisals before she started to look at the data collected from every piece of technology at Abstergo entertainment. Once that was all done, she pulled out her laptop, and created a new database. She entered the details of all of the employees before she set about making a program with Delphi 7. It took her about an hour to finish everything.
"Right, let's see who gets to see another day at Abstergo" Ember said with a laugh before she clicked a button, and the program began to work through the database. Since it would take some time, Ember made her way to the roof to relax.

Bugsy walked to the center of the room and pulled out a chair. He wiped the dust of his hand and then stared down at the layer of dust that was on it. "God this room is bad," He slung he backpack off his shoulder and opened the middle poach. His hand reached in and pulled out a hand full of dust clothes of all kinds. He placed back any of the softer ones that were meant for his tech and then zipped up the his bag and throw it back on his shoulder.

He quickly dusted off the center table. His first rag was already a dark black from the white that it had started. "Well now I can at least use my laptop." He grabbed his laptop from his backpack and booted it up. It took a minute or so to log in because of all the logins. He plugged in the USB and started transferring the files over of all the applicants. There was close to a hundred. He decided it would be easier to key search then actually reading them all. Bugsy set it up so if any red flags up they would be kicked to a bad file and if they hit over half the key searches then they would be kicked to the maybes.

"I better set my auto hacker on for that code." he opened his Ipad one more time and started tapping and then he set it down with the wifi code screen again. "At least this way it shouldn't get any worse." He then looked around at the room and then pulled out a black masked for his face that he normally used on stealth mission. He tied it on "That code will be broke faster then I can clean this room."

"I suppose I could always head down and give Bugsy a hand. God knows he'll need it." Ember flicked her smoke into the ashtray, drew her hood, and wandered inside. Some gave her strange looks while others stared judgementaly. Ember didn't care what they thought, so she simply continued on her way down to Bugsy's office.

"Nice cave" Ember said with a laugh as she entered the room. With all the dust, it honestly looked like a cave. "To be honest, I think you could use a hand." A large cockroach ran out at Ember only to be squashed. "Jaysus! Mind if I call the cleaning crew?"

Bugsy turned to Ember as she walked in. His face where the mask wasn't was just cover in dust. His skin was almost black. He nodded his head in greeting. He pulled off his masked "Dear god please!'" he had been working on the room for a a good hour now and he had barely made a dent in cleaning it, "I was enjoying the peace, but this room is something out of a horror film."

He had a pile of rags on the center tap that were blackened. He sat down in the chair slumping over, "Well let's see how my toys are doing" He looked at his laptop and saw that it had kick three to the bad bin and 20 to the maybe bin. The rest didn't meet either category. "And for you" He grabbed his Ipad. The code was still at the same amount it was before.

Ember quickly called Zadkiel, and had her contact the cleaning crew. Ember took this as an opportunity to examine the code, and see what Bugsy had managed to uncover.
"It's simply not making any sense in terms of programming. Maybe it is a cryptogram? Numeric substitution?"

Bugsy turned his chair to face Ember, "You see I was thinking about those as I was cleaning, but when I was working on it before, it was just like regular code. To be honest I could only think of two things," Bugsy paused and started licking his lips "Can we get something to drink." Even though he was wearing a mask dust still ended up covering his mouth.

"Sure, Bugsy. I was actually going to invite you for a drink in any event." Ember looked at the computer, and shook her head. Zadkiel was waiting at the door with the cleaning crew behind her. "Zadkiel, set him up with a S-rank setup."
"Yes, ma'am" Zadkiel said respectfully before she raced off to get the requested items.
"Bring your stuff up to the penthouse. Keep everything safe while they clean up."

"Sounds good" Bugsy started to pack up. He slide the few clean rags back into the middle pouch. He took of his mask from around his neck and shook it causing a cloud of dust to appear. He thought hte mask in the same pouch. Next he closed the laptop and slide it into the biggest spot. His Ipad he held in his had. Bugsy slung his backpack on his shoulder and then grabbed his suit case. "Lead away."

"You know, I've always enjoyed sharing a drink with some friends. Unfortunately, Daz and Patches were shot the last time I went drinking, but they should be alright." Ember wiped her face, and sighed sadly before she led the way to the rooftop. The view of London was amazing, and Ember knew her like the back of her hand. "I never thought there'd be another member of the Carrion Crows, yet here you are. You're the only one that hasn't been in a mental institution."

Busgy Stood by the edge for a bit enjoying the view and the fresh air, "Well I guess you need one down to earth person on this team," Busgy said simi jokingly hoping to lighten up the mood. He paused for a bit. "So what about those drinks"