[Various, MSV Azure Wheelbarrow] Drell make poor whales.

Finding someone over the extranet wasn't as easy as the vids made it look.

This is not a wise course of action.

Especially when your more capable half wasn't entirely cooperative.

Look, I told you, I'm going to get that fucker. I was nice to him. Nice! He was stuck in a room by himself about to be set on fire and I tried to provide comfort in his time of need. It was supposed to be a good deed.
You were in a position to set him free.
It was supposed to be a good deed that did not result in my own death.

Hunting people down was theoretically easy enough, particularly if you knew some of their habits. Someone who frequents a particular extranet forum, for example, and therefore leaves a digital fingerprint on that site with every visit. An identifier of sorts.

This is not an efficient use of our time.
Sure it is. I'm figuring out how to do something new. Who knows when it could come in handy?
That is not your primary goal.
No, but if I can get some tertiary benefit from pursuing my primary goal, it's essentially multitasking. That's the height of efficiency.
Not when your primary goal is actively counterproductive.

Unfortunately, even without taking any kind of precautions, those identifiers bounced off a half dozen comm buoys and relays, at least. Following the signal necessitated tracking the original to the comm buoy and then reacquiring it after the buoy had attached a new identification code and sent it merrily on its way. All encrypted, of course, and frequently using more than one protocol.

So it's a neutral endeavor. In balance I'm not gaining or losing anything right now.
Essentially correct. You could be using your time for productive purposes.
Satisfaction is productive. I will perform my other tasks more effectively once I am satisfied.

There was also the problem of figuring out where a signal ended. If it bounced thirty times and he couldn't find a thirty-first, either he'd lost the signal or he'd found the source, and he'd not done this often enough to know which was which, at least initially.

The scientific relationship between satisfaction and productivity is tenuous at best.
I would be using much less of my time inefficiently if you would actually help.
My assistance would eliminate the need to learn the process yourself. It would turn this into an entirely counterproductive endeavor.
I never thought I'd meet a lazy geth, let alone get paired up with one.

That was basically why Jil had decided to start small, and work his way up to his actual target. By tracking down someone whose location he knew, he could figure out what signified the end of the signal rather than another redirection. Someone who also frequented a particular extranet site. Someone who'd remain helpfully oblivious, even if Jil accidentally set off some hack alerts on their omnitool.

Early geth philosophers have speculated that we may acquire certain elements of our individuality from frequent contact with organics.
...Okay? I guess that makes sense, but I'm not seeing the connection.
If I have an aversion to doing someone else's work for them, I likely learned it from the organic with which I have the most frequent contact.
I'm not going to dignify that with a response. Your philosophers are stupid.

...And there he was. Kirok. Sound asleep in his quarters, as expected. If Jil was right, this signal should have certain markers... Yes. There. Okay. Good.

Our philosophers possess the entire networked intelligence of the geth.
You heard me.

It was time to start the game. Now that all the damage to the MSV Azure Wheelbarrow had been repaired, it was time to find that fucking drell.

The Eidolon was prepared.

Quiet footsteps sounded on the paneled floor as Cerastes moved in the dark, one hand trailing along the walls beside him. The scent of wood finish was still present; he'd had all of the wooden inlays sanded and touched up over the past week - not for any particularly helpful purpose, aside from perhaps raising his morale. A recent scrub-down had also insured that every inch of the interior was pristine, bereft of so much as a fleck of dust.

Ding.

It was the sort of meticulousness that leant itself well to neuroses, but the drell couldn't bring himself to care. He cracked his neck, groaned with satisfaction, and ducked off to his left towards where his office. As soon as he breached the threshhold, a thousand monitors sprang to life, their brightness carefully dimmed so that they wouldn't blind him upon entry.

Ding.

The coffee hissed as he poured it into his cup; scalding hot, just the way he liked it. It was that little pang of pain as he took the first few sips that woke him up, much moreso than the caffiene.

Ding.

A flash of blue caught his attention. Cerastes steeled his jaw and glanced to one of the larger screens to his right.

DING DING DING.

"The hell?" he rasped. After setting the mug back down on his desk - a horse-shoed, modern-looking piece of furniture that must have cost a fortune - he leaned forward and set his fingers loose on one of the holographic keyboards. Was someone seriously trying to hack him?

"Are you seriously trying to hack me?" he snapped to a now-static screen. "Do you have any idea who you're dealing with?"

Jil'Korah did not, in fact, have any idea who he was dealing with. He remembered the strange white drell, he knew Shirin had used him to acquire some information, and he knew the strange white drell asked strange questions on the aforementioned extranet forum. That was basically all drell in a nutshell, though - eidetic memories seemed to lead to different thought processes. Jil didn't really get salarians, either.

"Okay, so if I can check a few of his more recent posts and see if they all lead to the same place, I should be able to find him... If I can do that, I can get to work on his systems," mumbled the quarian aloud to nobody in particular.

Ensemble was strangely quiet.

For fuck's sake. If it wasn't members of his fellow species attempting to either dismember him or vorcha trying to claw his face off, it was idiots like these who made it their goal to interrupt any measure of peace Cerastes attained. A deep growl emanated from his throat, low and beyond most species' audible range. The punk that was trying to hack into his database was about to get a very nasty surprise, if he had any say about it.

Even as one node after another was isolated, Cerastes' fingers whipped across the keyboard at lightning-speed. He reached over momentarily and, in a moment of hubris, took a moment to gulp down half of his current mug of coffee before returning wholeheartedly to the task at hand.

Several tetrabytes of graphic and mostly-illegal pornography were suddenly and rapidly being uploaded to the MSV Azure Wheelbarrow's servers. If the offender on the other line didn't act quickly, his or her system was about to drown in the influx of data.

Now that he had something to work with, Jil'Korah would probably do just fine. He was pretty good with tech stuff, after all, and this was ju-

Where did that come from?

Why was there suddenly porn everywhere?

The quarian was very grateful for the cutoff switch he'd installed - someone who used DDOS attacks needed something like it just to keep themselves feeling secure. Who wouldn't protect themselves against their own tricks, after all?

Still, it had started rather suddenly and he'd have to spend some time later disinfecting the Wheelbarrow's databases. Unless...

You won't help me with my project, will you at least keep the Wheelbarrow's databases maintained? There's about a terabyte of porn that got through before I cut the link.
Very well, but we will soon have a discussion on the merits of geth philosophy.
Okay. Fine.

That was going to be one painful discussion. In the meantime, though, Jil reconnected and started the process over again. That could have been a random attack, but something told him it was more than that, and it was time to apply the scientific method.

Hah.

Hey. I'm applying the scientific method. You should be pleased.
...
Very well, but we will soon have a discussion on the merits of my sense of humor.
...

Hopefully that would serve as a decent enough distraction. Now that he'd doused his unseen enemy with millions of files containing the worst the extranet had to offer, Cerastes felt confident enough to return to his defenses. As an information broker, he'd spent a fair amount of his time establishing digital defenses and the occasional bout of cyberwarfare, but it was rare that someone actually had the balls to try and penetrate his system directly. He thinned his lips at the thought - maybe coming back out of the dark so soon wasn't a good plan, after all.

"The - breach - is - proceeding," remarked the ship's VI.

Cerastes grunted and continued to type furiously, setting up one proxy after another, netting and weaving them together in an elaborate pattern. "Very well aware of that, thank you, Eidolon."

"You - are - welcome."

One of these days, he really needed to mute that thing. The drell temporarily refocused, counteracting his assailant's measures by doing the very same thing they were: cutting to the source.

Aha!

"WOO!" came the quarian cheer (again, directed at nobody in particular) as he made a breakthrough.

He'd isolated the signal! Tracking it from one buoy to another and then to another was going to be easy!

That's exactly what he did, of course; it took a few minutes but he could now reliably trace the signal and followed it across nearly forty buoys and proxies and relays and... Wait. That was an awfully familiar identifier.

Jil let the system take over the track for a minute, just long enough to pull up a visualized network map on his omnitool.

"Ohhhhhh, you bosh'tet."

Yes, the quarian had indeed isolated a signal, one which led him in an infinite loop around the same few dozen proxies, with more popping up all the time. This was going to take time to figure out, and in the meantime that bastard was going to be setting up more proxies.

On the bright side, Jil had found someone who obviously had something to protect. He still couldn't be positive that it was Cerastes, technically, but the odds were good, and the countermeasures meant he was getting close.

For the sake of all that was good and caffeinated, this hacker was persistent. After having finally slept a full four hours (in a row, at that), Cerastes was not looking forward to spending the rest of the day fending off some chucklefuck with a new extranet tutorial on proxies. The drell sighed heavily and set his defenses on loop, turning his attentions instead to the monitor that was presently focused on the front lines.

"Alright, little one, that's enough," he mumbled to himself. White fingers grazed the keys while his eyes locked on a semi see-through digital map that hovered inches from his face.

He was in absolutely no mood to do this. Deciding that sometimes, audacity truly was the best approach, Cerastes hit the hacker's router and tapped into the comms.

Suddenly, a deep, gravelly voice erupted in Jil's ear.

"It is six in the fucking morning. What do you want."

The sudden voice was enough to send Jil jumping out of his chair and looking around the room in near-terror.

"Hooooo. I found you!" came the triumphant glee as the quarian processed the situation and finally recognized the voice.

"You thought you could get away after fucking up the ship and making me work my ass off, but no! You can't hold a candle to me, hahaha!"

Completely lost in the joy of the moment was the fact that Cerastes had managed to counterhack the audio systems, which would probably have worried basically anybody else. Jil'Korah, however, was too busy taking pride in his work.

Oh.

Oh, it was this asshole.

Another sigh. Cerastes began to rap the fingers of his left hand upon the desk, his other palm coming up to support his forehead. Why. Of all the morons in the galaxy, why did it have to be an employee of his client's? Shirin would have his head if he actually did anything, but at the same time, he couldn't have some half-brained bucket clawing around in his database.

Wearing the very definition of a deadpan expression, the drell reached over to the keyboard, clacked a few keys, and sent a full-volume track of two male volus fucking each other straight into Jil's audio system.

"Please leave."

....aaaaaaaaand... there! That was it. That was all the time he needed.

Connection Established.

The blinking cursor at the top of Jil's screen was almost satisfying enough that he disconnected then and there, but the volus made a lot of surprisingly angry noises and that only reminded Jil of exactly what this fucking drell had done. Broken cameras, bent and battered ventilation systems, and shiny new covers for those vents broken into pieces flashed through his head, all needing replacement on his time.

A few more finger taps and the blinking display read:

Beginning Upload.

"You're not getting rid of me that easy! Remember when you said you were done breaking things? REMEMBER? It took me a week to fix that. A WEEK. And at the end of it I was exhausted enough to take pills from a strange asari. I'm still coughing up who knows what, and it's all your fault!"

Buy more time, buy more time...

"How droll," Cerastes droned in turn. The sound of volus mating frantically on the other line had stopped. "You're forgetting the part where your crewmates threatened to burn me to death. Did you really expect me to sit still and wait my turn?"

Another keystroke, another audial assault. The drell reconnected, this time with the sound of a shrilly-screeching husk on loop. He stressed the volume even further in an attempt to dissuade Jil's attempts, then caught sight of a flashing message on the other screen.

SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT

The clattering that ensued could be described as nothing short of "frantic". Cerastes actually shot the chair back in the process of standing; the wheels carried it into the trash can, which was abruptly knocked over by the force and spilled a myriad number of crumpled papers onto the pristine floor. Suddenly, a wormhole appeared in his files: he watched in fury as thousands of windows started opening all at once, displaying decades of information in the blink of an eye.

He froze.

There was no sense throwing a tantrum. He tried to remind himself of this while his eyelids twitched with manifested rage.

"If you do not stop immediately," he hissed, "I am going to forward a dossier on every single 'themed' club you've visited in the past five years to Ms. Vedral, including receipts for associated 'company' therein. Should we start with Curiosity?"

"You're bluffing. You have to be. There's no way you have that kind of information. Lots of people go to Curiosity, maybe I've changed my envirosuit since then!"

Uploading... 48%

It was moving far too slowly.

Even as Jil spoke, he popped open the ship command schematics on his omnitool, pulling up a list of incoming communications arrays and trying to spot the best route to block a signal. He could at the very least keep Shirin from seeing anything right now...

Besides, Cerastes was an information broker, right? There'd probably be something even more damning in his files. Maybe something he could use to blackmail him? Well, whatever. Everybody expected the worst of quarians to begin with. This wasn't an exchange Jil could lose. The worm was only partially insinuated, but it was enough to give him read access to some low-security files. He popped open the first one in the list.

"Besides, we wouldn't want Miss... Vel-minathrashtakhar Pulminathrioskatha-" oh fuck no it went on for four more names and they got worse "-Miss Vel, to find out you'd been... Okay that doesn't work. Point is though I can play rough too!"

"Ms. Parina Vel-Minastzar," Cerastes corrected, "is a secretary who has no idea that I've even got a file on her."

In truth, she was an asari prostitute he frequented every few months or so, but there was nothing on file to indicate that, at least. It wasn't a complete lie, though: said asari did tend to dress up like a secretary for associated extra-curricular purposes. Cerastes liked the heels.

His anti-virus was getting hit hard. The drell bit back a snarl and started working on a counter-measure; at the very least, he could reroute the feed to a different database and reverse some polarities and and...

Wait. There was no need for this techno jibberish.

Cerastes stood, walked over to a small black box atop the desk, and started pulling out the cords attached to it one-by-one, whistling cheerfully all the while.

"So," he began anew. "I take it you're fond of turians. The Claw Below isn't exactly an... amateur's venue."

Uploading... 72%

Too slow too slow too slow.

"Turians? Not really my thing."

As the worm spread, it was giving him access to more and more of the other ship's systems. Jil had been surprised to learn it was a ship - he'd always imagined information brokers sitting in stationary but very fancy offices surrounded by all the best tech they could afford and with plenty of buxom servants of various species' bringing them pastries. Some of the systems he was gaining access to, however, were most definitely ship systems.

Ohohohoh, sewage. He could definitely do someth- wait, he lost it. Countermeasures? Couldn't be - it was a custom worm, even the best VI shouldn't have figured it out so quickly.

Okay, must be a glitch. Airlocks? No, he didn't want to kill the drell. That wouldn't be any fun.

Aha! Climate control! A few little tweaks here and there...

Needed time, though!

"You have files on a lot of people here. I guess that's more or less what you do, isn't it? Just kind of gather things, and then not do anything with them? I'm very interested to see what you have on yourself. I bet you're the thorough type."

"Every ounce of info on me, I'm afraid, exists solely in my skull. Apologies for depriving you of entertainment."

That wasn't to say Jil didn't have access to more than most people ever saw. The structure of a man's ship could reveal much more about him than one might presume at first glance; with access to security cams, audio, and blueprints, Jil had effectively become more personally involved with Cerastes than anyone for the better part of the past decade. It was an unnerving feeling to the drell - he thrived on anonymity, and having someone invade that space was... disconcerting.

First, there was the meticulous nature of the Eidolon: it implied an obsession towards order and control.

Next was the decor of the captain's cabin. The walls were graced by two paintings alone, both original editions; he clearly enjoyed the arts, which meant he wasn't as robotic and sterile as he seemed upon first impression.

For a final and more distressing note, the camera in the corner of the armory, should Jil access it, revealed every piece of arsenal that Cerastes owned.

It was the last revelation that drove the drell away from his office. He ducked into the hall, then slipped into his cabin and snagged the pillowsheets from their place. Moments later, the view to the bedroom went dark; he was headed to the armory next.

Luckily for Cerastes, camera control was the last thing Jil'Korah was after. No, what he wanted was far more subtle, far more insidious, far harder to root out, and most importantly far more fun.

Uploading... 100%
Upload complete.

The cursor blinked at him, over and over again, and Jil couldn't suppress a grin as he punched in the final command, the culmination of his glorious plan.

Execute.

With that, the worm fragmented, storing bits and pieces of itself in every accessible system on the Eidolon in tiny, almost undetectable packages that bore little or no resemblance to the worm the antivirus software had been fighting for the past few minutes. Then, the 'mother-worm' deleted itself from Cerastes' systems, permitting his antivirus software to report its glorious success.

An interesting approach.
Aha, I thought that would get your attention.
The individual components of the virus are wholly independent, but capable of interfacing for greater control.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Ensemble. I trust you're flattered? Mind dropping the volume on his countermeasures for me? I'm starting to get a headache and I don't think I'll ever be able to look at a volus the same way again.

"Ohhhhkay, you win, I'll stop, don't worry. Just wanted to show you what I could do. You made me a deal, and you reneged!"

Sufficed to say it was a good thing the quarian didn't try the dramatic approach very often. He was terrible at it.

Speaking of dishonesty...

Jil's sudden change of heart was met with a frown. Cerastes stopped in his tracks, having just successfully blinded the camera in the armory, and squinted about with suspicious eyes. There was absolutely no way that the quarian had given up so fast; it stunk to high heaven.

"Please do not insult my intelligence," growled Cerastes. Jil had hacked into the Eidolon's comm systems - great. On the one hand, he wouldn't have to listen to the Eidolon, but on the other, now he had to listen to Jil. "What did you do?"

Heavy footsteps preceded his arrival in the office. The room was dark now; all of the screen had disappeared the instant their power source was unplugged, which left a strange absence of mechanical humming in its wake. Cerastes felt uneasy.

"If you attempt to sabotage me, your Captain will slit your throat."

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of actually sabotaging you. You're obviously useful to Shirin, and when she's in a bad mood she tends to... Not 'take it out on everybody else', exactly, but... Well. You're the information broker, I'm sure you know all this. Anyways, you wan plug your stuff back in - you did unplug it, didn't you? There were a bunch of systems I had access to for a few seconds before they dropped offline, and your antivirus wasn't that quick. Did the job in the end though! This is just a standard open comm frequency, by the way - you can shut me up any time, but I can't think why you'd want to do that. In fact, I think you and I are going to be great friends."

Right. Time to remain calm. Every ounce of anger he emitted would only serve to please Jil, and Cerastes was not one to serve. He grit his teeth in defiance to the quarian's implications, knowing full well that the other alien was about to become a serious pain in his ass.

"Is that so," he intoned, voice neutral.

The poker face returned full-force as he tentatively plugged one of his computers back in. An orange, holographic display sprung to life instantaneously, a series of binary columns flashing before his eyes. Cerastes read the language as though it was the back of his hand; he'd had far too much time to become acquainted.

Hrn. That was odd.

Jil had neglected to download the available database on the system that was active. Cerastes tongued the cut that dug into the corner of his lips, then started to plug in the rest of the computers. One by one, the same display came up - nothing. The invading virus was, for all intents and purposes, gone.

"What did you do..." he murmured to himself, scarcely a whisper. The room was heating up - he frowned again and undid the top two buttons of his shirt, exposing pearly white scales beneath. "If we're going to be such good friends, Mr. Jil," he said, louder this time, "why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself? Try and see if you can find something I don't already know."