Light The Fires [Part One]

[metalicarus]

Who| Sigma and a his own wits
What| Sigma has some important information to get to 13 and the Capitol at large. Unfortunately, there's some security to get through
Where| A Capitol Technology center on the opposite side of town
When| Evening
Warnings/Notes| Riddles and puzzles

The Technology Center is practically deserted this late in the evening. Workers have left and the public doesn’t come here, especially not recently. It could very nearly be considered abandoned if it weren’t for the few lights left on and the small rotation of guards dutifully doing their rounds.

The shadows and general distraction of the state of the nation make it easy for the gamemaker to sneak into the building, his clearance gaining him his initial entrance. Surely no one would even think twice about someone so important being in the building, but being sighted might not be the best idea either, should any questions arise. Either way, his travels into the heart of the building are uneventful, allowing him to slip into the central technology room without real incident.

Inside, he’s greeted by an array of dead monitors and a few lit towers showing some of the computers and systems are still on, despite the state of the rest of the building. One of these monitors flickers to life with a simple button press and the Capitol’s emblem flashes onto the screen along with box for a password.

>ACCESS PUBLIC BROADCAST:
>CAPITOL-WIDE
Password:

Comments

[futilecycle]

Sigma slinks into the building as though it were a part of his evening routine, painted with a priestly serenity, not a touch faster than he needs to be. He wonders if he will be the only person to appreciate his ability to hold an expression - inside his head, the Doctor is screaming. Ever step inside the complex is a resignation onto death, taking him farther and farther from the Initiate. In one room, he meditates on a goodbye to Phi that she will never hear. In another, he thinks of what he has left unsaid between him and Luna. By the time he reaches the central technology room, he's running out of ways to apologize to everyone.

He approaches the terminal and stares into the saltwater pool of a screen, white logo on black background, cold as ice. This was it. Here was what would make Albert and Jet's sacrifice worth the high price - Sigma rests his hands gently on the surface of the keyboard.

Before he could decipher the password, it would be best to disable the cybersecurity - what use would an access code be if there were ten Peacekeepers on his ass the moment he started sniffing for it? He'd brought a friend with him, a neat little virus he thought would give him some intimate time alone with the broadcast computer. Sigma unscrews the cap to his cybernetic lens and removes the first chip he had concealed there. From man to machine, it sinks into the tower without protest. Sigma had been in his position long enough to learn how Capitol computers worked, and how they did not. With a few backdoor commands, he couldn't break into the yolk of the drive, but he could certainly coax it to run something external.

He hits the keys like a pianist striking ivory, the steady precision of his cybernetic hand gaining him time he could not have hoped to keep with flesh and blood. With a flourish, he blesses the Capitol with his own sort of biological warfare, harmless to humans but a pox on machines. Ideally, the security system would quietly stand aside - worst case scenario, the room would shift into an ironclad lockdown.

[metalicarus]

For a moment, it seems like it's working. The system opens up to Sigma like a flower in bloom, willing to give over all of it's secrets. Just as the screen Sigma is looking for flashes into view, it's gone again, replaced with black. It would almost seem as though the screen went dead except a peculiar question mark stands proudly in the middle. A defender.

In green text, the firewall declares it's name: N.Y.G.M.A. And then a message written in that same sickly green.

Ah-Ah! You didn't think it'd be that easy, did you?

First: a puzzle

The screen flashes a blinding white and then dims again, now with a 4-digit box awaiting a passcode. Below the box lies a series of numbers as Sigma's only clue. 947, 634, 185. The clock is ticking.

[futilecycle]

Sigma's shoulders relax when he thinks he has the firewall under his command, cracking his knuckles to begin the marathon that programming his password-cracking bots would be. An automatic and unnecessary gesture, for his cybernetic fingers had no need to be warmed up, but it was one of the few things that made him feel human. The Gamemaker is ready to lay his fingers on the keyboard again, ready to make tonight mean something for all of history, when everything goes black. Sigma recoils instantly - he strains to think of where he could have made a mistake. What was the bug that had doomed Panem? What hadn't he accounted for?

Then the infernal insignia.

Sigma stares, slack-jawed, at the message scrawled across the screen. A puzzle. They had to be fucking kidding him. They had to be FUCKING KIDDING him! It's everything Sigma can do to stop from screaming - his face warps in rage, gentle hands shrinking into fists. His voice is a hiss, but venting makes him feel less like pounding something to dust. "..What? No. No fucking way..!" He examines the numbers in white-hot rage, fake fingernails piercing his palm, thankful no one is around to view his meltdown. He was plenty content with creating puzzles, but thought if he'd had to solve just one more, it would be a lifetime too soon. "You've got to be shitting me! Fuck you!" Not exactly words fit for a laureate.

The worst part was that he thought he'd seen those numbers before, or at least something uncannily similar. Of course his mentor had introduced him to her work - of course she had gone over every trap and trick and puzzle, expecting him to memorize how the pieces fit together. If Sigma hadn't paid attention to her then, it would have meant the end of the world, as it does now. These numbers don't seem to have any mathematical significance. But in the context of a world that knew his past...

Was a hunch worth risking everyone's lives? In this moment, he knew how a twelve year old girl felt in the face of a flamethrower - it was between a miracle or death. It didn't matter how easy or hard the riddle was, there was simply no rational thought when your world stood on the edge. There was only fate. Vision tunneling, Sigma cautiously types in his answer. Akane had expected her participants to add those numbers. Would they?

1 7 6 6

[metalicarus]

The screen turns that same shade of obnoxious green the question mark had been and then goes black again.

Correct.

Words spell themselves out across the screen, offering up the next riddle for Sigma to solve.

I can hurt you unbearably and can’t be touched. What am I?

A cursor flashes a line below the question, waiting for the answer.

[futilecycle]

Sigma doesn't know if he is amazed or relieved that his hunch was right. Either way, he's angry - someone knew he was coming. Someone had set a trap for him in the form of a puzzle only he could solve, unless another infiltrator had a talent for underthinking a question. It wasn't the fault of whoever had constructed this farce, but his own. It meant he had not been careful enough.

But now that his place in history has been locked down, he may as well see it through to the end. Reigning in his temper, Sigma reads the next question. He puts a finger to his chin pensively - all told, his first thought is a virus. Too small to touch, but could bring down a giant, as he had learned in the Arena. Still, a virus was, if unrealistically, tangible. He thought that there might be a more abstract answer than that one. Well, it was something to consider...

Another thought hits him. Something not even he could touch, with all his expertise and power, something that had hurt him more than anything else in the world... Sigma remembered every agonizing second he squandered, every instant he spent with a book instead of his baby, every moment he got smarter while his brain rotted away. The job of living. 45 years to waste, 45 years to keep himself occupied with a job he hated. Tick, tock, one billion times.

Time

[metalicarus]

Once again, the screen flashes green like this whole thing is simply a game and not a bid to hack into a powerful system.

Correct.

New words scrawl across the screen, a new riddle, although this one seems a bit different from the others.

How do you make suit pants last?

[futilecycle]

Here was a tone whiplash if there ever was one. Sigma stares at the screen as incredulously as he had the first puzzle - seriously? The fate of this world hinged on his ability to answer a joke? He wonders if this was how his participants felt when they found the scratch-off pinup in the first round of his Nonary Games. Of course, such a cute woman could not go unappreciated, so Sigma still felt justified.

Blessedly, Sigma is the pungeon master. -Actually, that title properly belonged to Phi, who dished out puns much better than he did. Unfortunately Sigma lacked a sense of humor when it came to other people's jokes. It's with a similar disdain that he punches in the answer. Nice try, buddy. Think an old man like him hasn't heard that one before?

Make the jacket first

[metalicarus]

The screen once again flashes it's green and then goes black as the firewall goes down. In a few short seconds, the computer's inner workings are laid bare for Sigma to use.

Including the Capitol-wide broadcast system.

[futilecycle]

Sigma sighs, closing his eye in relief. Beautiful. The Capitol was his, now, puzzles be damned - and fuck whoever had put him through that. This stint had shaved several years off his hastily shortening life expectancy.

He had considered leaving a message for Panem, considered jumping ship and searching for amnesty where ever he could find it. Considered rallying the people who might not know just how doomed their country was. He considers it now, in a broadcast room where Panem had no choice but to listen. His finger hovers longingly over record.

But this was not his story.

He’d come here with a mission, to give Albert and Jet the leverage they needed to turn the tide. It was his duty to spill the secrets sleeping under concrete so that they were out of the Capitol’s hands. If he blew his cover now, it would completely invalidate what they had done so he could get here. Besides, there was still so much more he had the potential to do, as the Rebellion’s friend in a high place. Wasn’t there?

Sigma removes the second chip he had concealed behind his cybernetic lens and sinks it into the computer. As he watches the information disseminate, it is the first time Sigma thinks he might have accomplished something wholly worthwhile in his life. As their message is broadcast, Sigma’s porcelain face cracks into a smile - so was born a universe where they might see peace.