Let's Talk Security

Romi · Aug 13, 2018

Had she not realized? No, apparently not, and when she seemed to relax, Jude made a point of quickly clarifying.

"Officer Genovese is... uh, me. From this dimension. Older, obviously. He's my guardian as well."

It was going to be confusing no matter what, but he was pretty sure by this point she knew he and Broen were from another dimension... right?

Jude sat quietly, listening to her explanation. Random attacks. Threats by dirty cops. Criminal gangs. Jude's face darkened as she explained, considering as she gave the offer, all but holding it out for him. To just walk away. No repercussions.

But the very thing that made Jude run out and try and become a hero back in his home world wasn't going to let him just walk out.

So he settled for something else.

"Do you swear it's not something you're involved in, or behind, or anything like that?" Jude said, watching her closely.

Zora · Aug 13, 2018

"You are from another dimension...?" Zora said in slight awe.. her mind racing at what he said, as an image of Broen suddenly popped in her mind and now she clearly understood why Broen was so good at everything he did.

"And Broen is too, no?" she asked Jude, already knowing the answer, also thinking that her bodyguard and her should spend a little more time talking instead of fucking each other into the ground regularly - as Broen would so delicately put it.

At Jude's question, Zora sat down again in her chair and shook her head, "The short version is no. I am not behind anything. Not intentionally anyway. Let's just say I was at the wrong place at the wrong time and discovered things that I wasn't meant to know." she told Jude truthfully. Deciding not to tell him too much in case he decided to simply walk out the door. She didn't want him mixed up in this any more than he had to be, and the less he knew the better.

@Rom

Romi · Aug 13, 2018

Jude nodded, confirming what she'd said. He didn't super like telling people things about Broen when he wasn't there (assuming he wasn't, you know, hiding in her desk), but to a certain extent this was his thing as well.

"Yes. A world with heroes and villains and all that. I'd tell you about if it you like, but for the most part it's pretty similar."

Jude nodded along, listening as she explained. Simple enough. Wrong place, wrong time. Wrapped up with the wrong people. It happened a lot. More than he'd ever like, or admit. But it was simple enough, and she didn't seem to be lying.

"Being honest, I'd rather not lie to officer Genovese. If you haven't, you should really, uh, talk to him about that. Especially the dirty cop bit." He'd want to know, he was pretty sure. But he didn't want to give her the wrong idea, either.

"But I'm not going to walk out on this. This is kind of... what I did. Back at home. This kind of... stuff. So I'm not going to be bothered by the risk I might have to tip my toe back in."

Zora · Aug 14, 2018

"Yes, I would love to know more about where you came from, I'd enjoy that very much..." she told him very truthfully, fascinated by the idea of there being other places like the one they were living in now, but with superheroes and villains. The whole idea seemed surreal and yet she knew it had to be true.

Zora just nodded and frowned slightly. She knew Jude was right, Broen had said pretty much the same thing, but she was scared and she knew things pointed to her in a very direct and obvious way. She even had begun to wonder if the rumours and everything else had been a set up - a way to get her there.

She really did not know what to think any more, and she knew it was exhaustion mixed with fear and paranoia. She had, like one person, she could fully trust - and that was only because she was paying him handsomely... and her fears, when she was alone at night, would often run into would someone offer Broen more, and would he accept? And the funny thing to all this is that she did trust Broen, fully, but the fear was still there, and she wished it weren't.

"I wish I could, you do not have to lie to him, I will not ask you to either," Zoraida stated, feeling a headache and the tension coming on, "but for now, I can't. ... That part, I will leave out, if you need to confirm that I'm not lying, you can ask Broen, he knows the truth." she said with a tired look.

"I am glad to hear that you want to stay on," Zora said gratefully, "And I will try not to complicate things between Officer Genovese for you. Give me time, that's all I ask for to sort things out..."

@Romi

Romi · Aug 14, 2018

Jude had a complex and deeply hypocritical relationship with the police. In his world, vigilante superhero justice had been, to a degree, the norm. As long as they played by the rules, they wouldn't be arrested for it. They'd be held accountable for things like property damage to a limited extent, but if they nabbed a villain, that villain stayed nabbed.

So Jude and his team had worked with the police. And the government. And the government's super-secret equivalent of a three letter agency. They'd been very firmly on one side of the law.

In theory.

In actuality, they'd played by their own rules more often than not. They'd almost been charged with treason. They'd hid great big secrets. He'd known what his dad was for ages, and he'd never once thought about telling the cops.

So while the right thing to do would have been to run back to Officer Genovese and telling him everything he'd just learned, it wasn't what Jude was going to do.

"I'm fine with giving you time. Since security is a concern, I'll keep that in mind. I'm going to write things down as minimally as possible, and before I go I'll leave the relevant information for the rest of the day on your desk. That means, at worst, someone would only get the next twelve hours. If you have a desk safe, I can put all the existing materials in there once I've finished reading them--things like business cards--and otherwise can just mentally reference so that, again, there's nothing to see. That way you have it as a backup."

Zora · Aug 14, 2018

"I do have a desk safe," Zora said, relieved that for now, Jude was not going to be running back to Officer Genovese with anything. She had some time before things started to heat up again.

"But it's surrounded by runic magic. I need to show you how to first get past it safely," she told him with a smile at this. She had not used runes in years, wasn't even sure she still knew how, but had decided to try after the Marie betrayal, and she found that she could - at least very simple ones like small protection spells.

"And I have been thinking about this, about a way to guard information that has to be left in plain sight. Have you ever used codes or even shorthand?" she asked Jude with interest. "It does not need to be anything too complex, but it might help safeguard things a bit more," she suggested thinking of a few codes they could use some complex, others quite simple.

@Romi

Romi · Aug 14, 2018

Magic. Technically speaking, Jude had the capability, just hte same as everyone else, but... well, to say he didn't have much interest was kind of understating. Magic dealt with primal forces, and those primal forces tended to be fickle. They had minds of their own.

Jude already had enough minds for one person.

"I've used verbal codes and passwords, but I don't have any experience in a proper shorthand language. If you show me one, I can memorize it and work with it automatically - it might be easier that way."

He could certainly come up with one, or research and find one that was pre-existing, but the issue was about Zora's ability to keep up. His memory was a boon there, but it wasn't like it was something he could share. Making a code of a high level of complexity wouldn't help if he was the only one who knew it.

Zora · Aug 14, 2018

"Well, my family is or has always been a bit paranoid with information and family secrets." she confessed, "And before technology and stuff, they were big on using codes and cyphers... stuff from the 16th century especially... mainly the Bellaso cypher and the Ave Marie code."

"Although, I am not sure either is good for what we need it for specifically... I'll look around for something new maybe." she said trying to think of other cyphers they might be able to use,
"I'm a quick study in problem-solving, so learning a new code won't be too hard... it's only hard if you don't know the rules to solving it," she added with a chuckle. She was actually happy she had hired Jude. She had a good feeling that they'd work well together.

@Romi

Romi · Aug 14, 2018

They'd just have to find a code, and then things would be quick and easy. It'd probably irritate Broen, but wasn't that just an added perk?

—-

The final solution, worked out by work on Wendesday, was a mix. Zora swapped between several languages while talking with Jude, with Jude simply replying in English. He made few notes, keeping things almost entirely mental, and what notes he gave her were in their own code, incomprehensible without the keyword Zora had picked. It was, reasonably speaking, more security than any one person needed... unless they maybe had some kind of organized crime group after them.

In which case it was fairly justified.

Jude was pretty confident that if someone was going to get Zora's schedule, they'd have put more work into the entire thing than they'd have had to put to just kill her in the first place.

He'd finished going through her files, dropping more or less everything Marie had done into the safe, and then he'd locked it back up and effectively forgotten about it. He didn't need it. Anything he was done with could just get shredded and burnt.

Zora · Aug 14, 2018

As they walked back from the long lunch and break together, Zora was curious about what had gone down at the center with that girl, Minnie, and Jude. "So what happened with you and that pretty blonde girl back there? A bad date or something?"

@Romi

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