Xenophobia - Chapter 27

    The others glanced around at each other, not sure what to say. Illiquina watched them with an excited look that quickly dwindled.
    A moment of silence later, she buried her face back in her datapad and started pounding away.
    "I'm not sure I understand." Darrian said thoughtfully, the first one to speak again."So whoever it was that changed the info in the archives...they forgot to remove the information on the old judge's brothers?"
    "In essence." Illiquina responded with a mischievous smile, still typing furiously.
    "Wow." Ferris said stupidly.
    "Yep!" she said gleefully.
    "That seems like a huge oversight." Ferris continued.
    "Yes and no." Illiquina remarked.
    Ferris and Darrian traded confused glances.
    "What do you mean by that?" Darrian asked.
    Illiquina didn't respond.
    The silence grew louder, intensified by the incessant tapping.
    "Illiquina?" A'alan't 32 finally interjected.
    "Mmm?"
    "What do you mean?" A'alan't 32 repeated.
    "Well..." she said looking up. "whoever came through and changed the information on the judge did alter the information on the judge's brothers."
    Ferris let out a sharp, annoyed groan.
    "Then how is it any better than the judge's entry?" Ferris demanded.
    "Because they only deleted the info." she responded with a joyous grin.
    Again, they found themselves just staring at the little Cadrax.
    "How is that any different?" Ferris asked. "Or useful?"
    Illiquina's face darkened.
    "Actually, it's very useful." She quickly spat. "The judge's article was deleted and altered. His brothers only had specific segments removed and nothing else."
    "Or redacted, if you will." she added as an after thought.
    "How is that-" Ferris began.
    "Oh for the love of-! You really don't understand how your archive servers store information, do you?" she spat.
    "Illiquina." A'alan't 32 interjected once more with a warning in her tone.
    "Oh fine!"
    "Treat us as if we know nothing." Ferris quipped.
    "Like that would be hard." she snapped.
    Illiquina straightened herself up and took a deep breath, setting the datapad to the side for a moment.
    "Look: the archives are meant to store information." Illiquina started. "Meaning that, unless it has a good reason to, it doesn't simply purge information."
    "Information like 'old records', perhaps?" A'alan't 32 offered.
    "Precisely."
    "So you're saying that deleting something isn't a good enough reason to purge it from the archives?" Darrian asked, sounding utterly confused.
    "No! With multi-thread archiving, deleting something is just the beginning!" she said more excited than annoyed now. "If anything it's really just a hindrance."
    "I don't get it." Darrian said.
    "Me either." added Ferris.
    Illiquina stared at them with a look of complete derision.
    "Like I said: me know nothing." Ferris quickly shot out.
    Illiquina groaned under her breath.
    "Deleting is just the first level of the multi-thread purge in these systems. It removes the information from being readily displayed but it doesn't actually get rid of it. Unless the actual articles were altered...changed to reflect new information...none of the information in the stored backups is going to change."
    "In short," she continued. "If I can dig into the backup servers, I can pull out all of the information about our judge's dear old brothers."
    Darrian stared at the little Cadrax in awe. She was small and unassuming but she very well might be the most impressive one of the group.
    "Tha-that's incredible." stammered Darrian.
    "Damn straight."
    "What do you need from us?" asked A'alan't 32.
    "Absolutely nothing." she retorted. "Unless you know how to manually bypass 768 bit encryption or know how to plant a worm that will bypass security and draw out their database backups without triggering something?"
    "Do what now?"
    "That's what I thought." she said, scooping up her datapad.
    "How long should it take?" asked Darrian.
    "A while." Illiquina offered. "It might be worth heading home at this point. I'm going to keep working and let you know when I've made some headway. Very well might be a cycle."
    "Good luck." Ferris offered.
    Illiquina snorted and disappeared out into the hall.
        And with nothing better to do, the group said their goodbyes and made their way to their respective homes. That night, for the first time in a while, Darrian wasn't thinking of the humans or what was going on in their Sol system. His thoughts were racing with the possibilities with what Illiquina might find.

 ===

Next Chapter (Coming Soon!)
Previous Chapter
Start at the Beginning

=== 

Xenophobia - Chapter 21

    Darrian stared blearily at the screen of his datapad.
    He felt his vision fade in and out briefly, but he shook it off and continued lethargically flipping through the Consortium archives.
    Ever since the old judge had excused the councilors earlier in the cycle, Darrian had been holed up in his office. He'd considered returning home but something was eating away in him anytime he thought about the humans or the contradictory things that the old judge had said.
    Now, instead of being home, he sat in his darkened office flipping through archives older than his grandparents.
    His first attempts had been to start looking at information on the Guillae. It turned up unfruitful. The Guillae were the first race he'd ever encountered in the Consortium databases that simply didn't have information.
    No tendencies. No home planet. Nothing.
    So he started looking for anything related to the Guillae. Floramorphs. Spores. Plant people. ealliuG. By the time the double suns, Jurra and Nurra, had set on the horizon he was manually browsing through archive tags on a wild hunt to find anything that might lead him to more information.
    He hadn't found it.
    Now, deep into the evening of the cycle, he was still mindlessly scrolling through archive tags several hundred rotations old, but no longer with any vigor.
    That was when a message flashed on the right side of his screen.
    Meet us in the conference room.
    "Us?" he asked out loud.
    The message information was blank. It didn't show any sending or receiving information and Darrian had no clue as to who could be asking for him.
    If not for pure curiosity, he might have stayed in his office.

    When Darrian arrived at the conference room, he found the door shut and the display panel flashing a red "locked" symbol.
    To his surprise, however, the door 'wooshed' open of its own accord after a moment or two of standing in front of it. The 'locked' status on the door panel never changed.
    Inside, the room was dark, but he could make out a faint blue glow on the far end of the room.
    "Hello?" he asked in utter confusion.
    "In here." he heard A'alan't 32 say softly.
    Darrian stepped inside only to have the door close very suddenly behind him. He glanced back in surprise, but turned his attention towards the far end of the darkened conference room.
    There, seated at the table, were A'alan't 32, Ferris, and Illiquina.
    A'alan't 32's blue, nearly holographic body was giving off the glow he had seen.
    "Please. Sit down." Illiquina said softly.
    It was at that moment that it struck him how rarely he heard Illiquina voice any opinion recently and Darrian was shocked for a brief moment to hear her voice. She had almost become a part of the furniture for the last cycles since everything started happening and it was odd to hear her speak.
    Considering this, he settled down next to the rest of them, eyeing her suspiciously.
    "Well this is...odd." Darrian observed.
    "We knew you were in your office." A'alan't 32 offered.
    "And I had a feeling you'd come if we were just cryptic enough." explained Ferris.
    Darrian stared at them for a long moment, trying to decide if he was more annoyed or confused by this strange meeting.
    "Fantastic." he said dryly. "But what's with the cloak and dagger routine?"
    "Well..." began Illiquina.
    "Something's going on." said Ferris with a look of tired annoyance that Darrian felt matched his own.
    "Right." agreed Illiquina.
    A'alan't 32 looked at them both before shaking her head.
    "They mean with the old judge. And the Guillae." She offered. "Something's not quite right."
    "Yea." Darrian agreed slowly. "Something did feel off. But...what are we supposed to do about it?"
    "Lemme ask you this." prefaced A'alan't 32. "What have you been doing all day since you were dismissed?"
    Darrian thought back to his endless scrolling and searching along with his failure to turn up anything of worth.
    "I was looking for answers as to why the old judge seemed to care so much about the Guillae."
    The others all nodded in agreement.
    "Us too." confirmed Ferris.
    "I didn't find anything though." said Darrian with a half hearted shrug.
    "We didn't either." A'alan't 32 said. "But I think I know why."
    "Oh?"
    "What would you say if I told you that the database for the Guillae and for the old judge had been altered?" asked Illiquina.


===

Next Chapter
Previous Chapter 
Start at the Beginning

===