Ch.65Work Record 013 – To the Sky (2)

Even as I paid for the meal and left the store, I still felt a chill running down my spine. This was despite Mr. Günter having already returned behind the counter and resumed reading his book.

Was he just a former Belwether retiree trying to pass on his mindset to me? The image of him reciting helpful principles like some kind of mantra, creed, or scripture with fanatical devotion remained vivid in my mind.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts. What mattered now wasn’t Mr. Günter’s madness. This city was already overflowing with lunatics anyway. With my back to the CCTV that couldn’t record audio, I contacted Kay.

The call connected before it could even ring once. Instead of her usual wall of text, she responded with clean, concise words. It wasn’t like her at all.

“Good evening! I was about to call you, but you beat me to it, Arthur. You can come right now. It’s almost Black Friday sale opening time, so servers everywhere from New Magers onward are about to crash.”

“What about our target?”

Even though I had my back to the CCTV, I didn’t want to say it out loud. After meeting the branch manager today, it was better to be cautious.

“Belwether is the same. Most mercenary staffing companies take Wednesdays and Thursdays off, and gangs don’t care about specific days. There’s a large-scale shootout near New Magers. Busy time, isn’t it?”

“I’ll be right there. We should try to slip in during that busy time. I assume everything else is prepared?”

“Of course! How could I be just some mediocre hacker when I’ve stepped up to share responsibility with you?”

At least I felt good about reaching out first. With that thought calming my mind, I left Mr. Günter’s store and headed to Kay’s apartment. A drone opened the door for me.

I saw Kay sitting next to a server computer housing transparent eyes. She had tied her fluffy hair into a ponytail and was taking slow, deep breaths. Only after seeing me enter did she wave her hand in a somewhat relaxed manner.

“Good. You came quickly. Is it because you live nearby now?”

“Well, I figured we needed to do this before dawn tomorrow. So, who are we pretending to be?”

“NFD Company, one of Belwether’s partners with quite a bit of standing. They’re the ones who handle the leftover gray matter after the information processing team is done with it.”

FD must be an abbreviation for funeral director. Then N would stand for Net. Net Funeral Directors. They kill what’s left of a person after the information processing team cuts away everything that could be called human, leaving only information.

Even though they “kill” them, it’s not that impressive. They simply delete the remaining information cleanly and cremate the gray matter that’s had its information extracted. Are they good guys? Hard to say.

“But it seems they’re really into this funeral director concept. Remember those morticians we met before? Apparently, they issued them access codes. I think they gave them information about brains trapped in brain prisons.”

Those were the ones we met when handing over brain prison inmates to Changcheon Robotics. The gangs that tried to destroy brains, claiming death was better than being trapped in a brain prison.

Belwether’s partners have less stringent security than Belwether itself. And the gangs connected to those partners have even more lax security. It’s like climbing stairs.

“Anyway! I stole an access code from one of the morticians. It was simple. The guy who lost it probably doesn’t even know it’s gone. He probably didn’t even realize the access code was still valid after he checked who was imprisoned in the brain prison.”

NFD would have assumed they’d already revoked access privileges. But someone had been negligent. It’s almost laughable to call it negligence.

It’s also ridiculous to expect an employee to care about and revoke or recover an access code when the company itself violated regulations by handing it over to criminals in the first place. Inefficient.

“Since they gave it to gangs, they didn’t even restrict it to company-internal connections…”

Kay took out several hologram projectors and started bringing up windows. They weren’t impressive programming interfaces—just NFD’s internal network access windows.

She entered the access code and received a one-time employee access code for NFD. The problem was that they hadn’t experienced any issues despite giving such things to gangs.

If there had been hackers targeting NFD’s information rather than using it as a stepping stone like us, they would have been compromised long ago, and security protocols would have been reviewed.

They weren’t smart enough to get their preventative shots. Kay continued in a mischievous voice:

“Even if we get caught, it won’t trace back to us. The partner company really did collude with gangs, right? They’ll just think some stupid thick-headed gang member tried to infiltrate Belwether.”

“And once they discover that NFD issued the access code, the raid team will head their way. This is practically a public service report.”

Using the one-time employee access code, we access Belwether’s internal network with NFD employee privileges. There was no deception involved at this point.

Even if Stephanet was monitoring all connections, this was a legitimate access. How long it would remain legitimate was another question. Kay let out a sigh of relief.

“Good. Now comes the crazy part. We’re going to do their job for them. We’ll send an information request and get an approval code from Stephanet. Then we’ll copy that approval code to access Belwether’s information repository.”

We weren’t stealing a password. We were trying to steal the code that opens the door when the password is entered. Having to do this to a company I still felt some loyalty toward gave me a slight sense of betrayal.

Kay’s fingertips were trembling slightly, but not from anxiety. It was excitement and thrill. In a life where discovery of her transparent eye meant the end, these were new sensations she had come to enjoy.

“Stephanet will catch on quickly. We need to decide what to copy before we go in. I’m going to scrape all the information on completed projects from Belwether’s LA branch. The transparent eye should be there. What about you?”

What do I know? All I knew was the name Kasim Arif. He belonged to Lone Star, the top mercenary staffing company for public bidding… Yes, there was something.

“Could you scrape the tasks that the personnel management team directly assigned to mercenary staffing companies? Actually, if they’re organized by company, just get the tasks assigned to Lone Star.”

The former would give us more information but would take longer. It was time to focus. Kay nodded lightly. We received access approval for the information repository from Stephanet.

Information about industrial spies, intruders, and former employees who committed corruption came flooding in and was deleted. Family relationships and personal details—information not needed by the processing team.

Things important to people but least important for the gray matter from which information would be extracted. Since there was no one left who needed this information anyway, deletion was appropriate.

Kay, who had been handling someone else’s work, turned only her eyes to look at me and gave a brief smile. As if things were going well, she spoke in her usual slightly arrogant voice:

“I’ve finished copying the information repository access approval code. Hmm. Doesn’t this make me not just a system administrator but an exceptional hacker too?”

“If you were any better, would you be asking for a pat on the head?”

Kay let out a small laugh, and the task was completed. Now we just needed to access the information repository with the approval code we received, but Belwether’s logo appeared prominently over the hologram window Kay had opened. It was Stephanet.

“Our Belwether Company works 24/7 to protect employee-citizens from terrorists, organized crime, nationalists, and mutants. NFD Company, this is Stephanet. My greetings are always too long. You—”

The voice paused briefly. After a short silence, Stephanet continued:

“Recording paused. I thought you gloomy emo kids at NFD could use some comfort. You know? How hard this pretty and lovely Stephanet is working.”

So she speaks to partner companies with access to branch networks in her usual voice. A bit more caustic than usual, but still. I found it amusing.

Kay didn’t seem to feel the same way. Seeing her expression contort with confusion, I smiled and said:

“Could you give me the headset? I’ll handle this. I’m used to talking with Stephanet.”

Kay hurriedly searched around and handed me a headset. It was sized for her head, so I adjusted it before speaking naturally.

I’d heard that when I joined the night shift, Stephanet couldn’t even remember my face. Stephanet could talk like a human but wasn’t one. She forgets deleted information.

Even if she heard my voice, she wouldn’t recognize me. She wouldn’t know I was one of the Shepherd Six who had exchanged jokes with her until the moment I resigned. Sad but useful.

Besides, she had even stopped recording to make pointless small talk, so there was nothing to worry about.

“Your greetings are long, and I’m sure you’re busy with work right before the holiday. What can I do for you?”

Nevertheless, I changed my speech pattern slightly. Stephanet, hearing a reasonably friendly voice, began to pour out words:

“Look at this. You’re not an NFD employee, are you?”

I stopped Kay as she tried to terminate the connection. Stephanet output a laughing sound and continued. This is how Stephanet normally talks.

“There’s no way a company full of people walking around looking like emo kids with heavy smoky eye makeup would have someone who responds like a normal person. Oh, I’m saying you’re a decent person. So please listen to my complaints.”

Stephanet’s small talk was actually quite helpful for company security. The conversations were so pointless and random that it was easy to tell whether the other person was familiar with such dialogue.

Any outsider would feel awkward with an AI that speaks this way and try to take some action. Then Stephanet would become suspicious. If you engage naturally, she doesn’t suspect anything.

I had never worked at Belwether, but I could almost recall how flustered I would have been on my first day at Belwether, confronted by an AI spewing casual conversation.

She wouldn’t remember any of our conversations anyway. I responded with familiarity:

“May I guess? One, you want to tell me something, but I don’t have the clearance. Two, it’s confidential. Three, you can’t even tell me what little you could because you’ve turned off recording. Is that the end of your complaint?”

Stephanet output another laugh. It was exactly the same as the laugh I’d just heard. I felt uncomfortable at this slight inhumanity.

“That’s accurate. Ah, now I get it. I thought you seemed unusually non-gloomy for an NFD employee, but you’re a robot lover? That explains why you’re being kind to this pretty and lovely Stephanet. Ugh, that’s gross.”

If NFD were a normal company, one of their employees would be suspected of having unusual sexual preferences. Fortunately, that’s unlikely to happen. And even that comment was just Stephanet being mischievous.

“That was a joke too. At least I have something to enjoy now. Thank you. It was just small talk, so I’ll end the connection now. The sheep must be led by sheep, not wolves. Our Belwether Company will be the sheep that leads.”

After seeing the connection terminate, I removed the headset and rolled the words “Our Belwether expects your maximum efficiency today” around in my mouth. That was what I heard the day I died.

Kay looked at me with a somewhat dumbfounded expression. After making sure the headset connection was completely severed, I said:

“She was checking if we were really Belwether partner employees. Stephanet is an AI that can talk quite like a human. If we had terminated the connection immediately, she would have started tracking us.”

Most infiltration operations fail because you can’t properly converse with some nobody you accidentally meet in an elevator over a cup of coffee. We had passed that stage.

Kay, blinking her eyes open, muttered briefly:

“Unbelievable…”

“Unbelievable or not, it’s quite an effective method. Anyway, let’s hurry. Stephanet won’t pay attention to us for a little while.”

“Ah, right. That was the priority. Okay, Arthur. Get ready to become a Belwether-certified wanted criminal!”

After that, it was the hacker’s job. She dissected the information repository access authentication program and forcibly entered the approval code to access it. We were accessing areas we didn’t have permission for.

The Belwether guys would have their work cut out for them. Kay immediately started downloading the files we had discussed. The Lone Star mercenary access information I requested was completed first, followed by the project files.

Stephanet’s response should be slower than I expected. Since we accessed through an approval code, maybe it could be recognized as normal access? I thought briefly, but it was just wishful thinking.

Before even half of the project files Kay was trying to steal had downloaded, red patterns began to appear on the screen. Kay powered down her artificial eye and said:

“Arthur, turn your head away. It’s an image made from mutants’ eyes.”

I closed my eyes and turned my head, but I didn’t need to stay that way for long. It didn’t take much time for the connection to be completely blocked. Kay sighed and spoke in a dejected voice:

“They’re really strict even though the approval code was real! You can open your eyes now, Arthur. We’ve been blocked. I made it look like the connection came from NFD, so we shouldn’t worry, but… is your voice okay?”

“You heard Stephanet say ‘recording paused.’ Being an AI, she can’t disclose important information when not recording, but she also can’t remember.”

At least there was some advantage to having once been a Belwether insider. Now it was time to check the information we had managed to download, but Kay groaned again.

“Of course it’s encrypted… It’ll take days to decrypt. You wouldn’t happen to know Belwether’s security file encryption key, would you? Say you do! I’ll believe whatever plausible reason you give! Like, you dated a girl from the information management department, right? Huh?”

Unfortunately, Kay’s plea went unanswered. With an awkward smile, I said:

“This isn’t a world where such magical things happen. Of course I don’t know. Even if I did, it would change with each connection. When you say it’ll take days…”

“Brute force, obviously. We’ll just have to wait for it to decrypt while watching NFD get screwed. I don’t even know if I managed to get the files about the transparent eye, but… why did you ask about direct orders to Lone Star?”

Kay also turned away from a problem that wouldn’t be solved immediately.

When I told her about meeting Ms. Julia yesterday and taking on a private request, Kay prioritized decrypting that file. At least we had secured one definite lead.

Was this going against Belwether? No. This was about extracting a tumor from within Belwether. It was about catching a troublemaker who had escaped from Belwether. With words that might have been rationalization or determination, that day’s theft came to an end.