Captum: The Story So Far - Part 1
September 27th 2952
The Cobro Force have a headquarters on ArcCorp, the floors 115th through to the 119th floors of the IO North Towner building that once used to be occupied by the Shannon & Chad Explorative Services. A move that cost Cobra more creds than he’d like to admit to anyone publicly. On the 116th floor there is offices for the officers, conference rooms, kitchens, and even a communications server room which routes all encrypted Cobro Force traffic through these servers from the Stanton Comms network before being forwarded to the Cobro recipient. The server room is like any other filled with racks upon racks of server blades each with flickering lights like its Christmas, and as you enter your ears are filled with a gentle buzz or hum that is paradise for anyone that needs white noise to fall asleep or relax. Given the nature of the servers and the importance of it, a Cobro is often put on duty to monitor the servers in that room and ensure any faults, change or important comms is dealt with swiftly.
The operatives on duty in the server room at HQ call it ‘sleep duty’ when they have server room duty. With the normal operation of these servers sees them only having to deal with mundane operations that barely taxes the processors above 15% there is little for one to do. No action, no fear of death in anyway, just monitoring the servers for hardware issues or abnormal server traffic. Quite often, operatives seek out ‘sleep duty’ as a means to earn creds while they mess around on their Mobi or simply sleep through the shift, but the true task of the shift is not to be ignored. Ensure the servers never fail and report any abnormal traffic. If anything happens, report it to the Reds… But as I said, nothing happens…
Easy day.
It’s Jon-Luc’s shift tonight but Jon-Luc is one of the rare few that actually hates ‘sleep duty’. A person of action, he’d rather be out in the verse, healing Cobro’s or fighting bounties. The thought of being cooped up in a hot room with nothing to do for a few hours is borderline torture but, as it’s his rotation to sit in that room he puts up zero fight & does not protest, simply understands the duty and turns up for work.
Over two hours into the shift and Jon-Luc is already several levels past boredom, if a Red (a Cobro Force Officer) came into the room right now and offered mop duty, he’d take it. At least that way he’d be moving from room to room. To pass the time he is scrunching up post-it notes and trying to get three pointers into his 3 empty coffee cups, each set at varying distances away from him. Something he is now getting exceedingly good at given that the farthest cup is now half full of post-it notes and only a handful on the floor around it. He lines up another shot, leaning back in his chair both for added comfort while he shoots and to add difficulty to the shot, he goes to throw but something stops him mid release, there’s a change in the ambiance of the room.
He turns to the normally quiet humming servers that are now spinning up, like they are collectively all working on the meaning of life or some other complex computing that is obviously not a day to day ‘sleep duty’ operation.
He immediately turns to the server interface terminal, “finally something to do” he utters to himself while logging in. ‘A communication has been received, not something that would usually cause such a stir so why are the servers spinning up and working so hard now?’ he thinks to himself. “Utilisation at 63%”.
RECEIVED TRANSMISSION 09:16 SET
RECEIVED TRANSMISSION 09:26 SET
October 1st 2952
My fellow Cobro’s
As I’m sure some of you have noticed, there were a couple of comms messages leaked into community recently, and while we did not purposely withhold this information, we did not see it wise to go public with this information as we are still currently trying to decipher its content & origin.
As to what we know currently, we are certain that the messages came from within the Stanton system and we believe the messages came from a Cobro Force member. However, it is unclear at this time exactly whom the messages are from as while the encryption key was included in the messages & indeed found to be one used exclusively by the Corbo Force, the messages themselves are clearly & severely corrupted.
The Cobro Force Technical & Engineering department are currently working with the two audio file/messages to try and restore them but given how damaged the files are, this may take some time. We can also say that no family members or other Cobro Force members have come forward to report anyone in distress or even missing right now, so this leaves the two audio messages as the only clues to work on at present.
Once we have gathered further information on the origins and true purpose of the messages, the Corbro Force will act accordingly.
For now with these files out in the public eye of our community, if you are able to gain any insight to the origin or purpose of these audio files, please contact Corbin_Jones to help solve this mystery but we ask that you please do not incite panic and do not spread rumours to be fact as this can severely hamper the efforts of the current ongoing investigation.
We will endeavour to keep you updated with the investigation as we learn more.
Thank you all.
Fochs
October 2nd 2952
Corbin_Jones has been brought in and set up an office adjacent to the server room to lend aid to the situation and at the very least, liaise with UEE officials. Corbin had worked closely with the UEE Advocacy as the Cobro Force liaison during the Xeno Threat attacks from Pyro and the blockades by the Nine Tails, not to mention the Bounty Hunters Guild that have a close relationship with the Advocacy too. Cobra thought his connections could prove helpful if any more information was gained from the files.
Corbin_Jones: “How’s it going Fochs?”
Fochs: “Well we have good news and bad news and I’ll go right ahead and give you the bad news first.”
Corbin_Jones: “okay”
Fochs: “Well, we know who the messages are from”
Corbin_Jones: “Really?”
Fochs: “Fuck yea!”
Corbin_Jones: “Wait, why is that the bad news?”
Fochs: “Because after five days work, that’s the only new info I have. We’ve been able to clear up the audio files a little bit and my guys are about to upload those to the main cloud shortly but yea, that’s all I got for now except for the 14 days bit”
Corbin_Jones: “shit… okay that was the bad news…. what’s the 14 days about and what’s the good news?”
Fochs: “Well, this hardware we’ve got is just not gonna cut it anymore, but I’ve had approval from Cobra to update them and get some next gen stuff in here. That should help repair the audio files and then some….. but the stuff doesn’t get here for another 14 days.”
Corbin_Jones: “FUCK!”
Fochs: “Fochs”
Corbin_Jones: “Right…. Who are the messages from?”
Fochs: “DeadBolts”
Corbin_Jones: “DeadBolts huh…. Well we can’t sit on our hands for 14 days Fochs what do we do in the mean time?”
Fochs: “Honestly, I’d call in those chips with the Advocacy guys, press on those people you got downstairs to lend us a hand, at the very least they can start the work on DeadBolts as a missing person”.
Files uploaded to the Cobro Force Community Public Feed
Audio File 1 SEPT.27.2952.0916SET_CCT_Enhanced
Audio File 2 SEPT.27.2952.0926SET_CCT_Enhanced
October 3rd 2952
Sitting just a room just adjacent from the server room in a small office, Corbin has just finished typing out an announcement for The Cobro Force at a terminal. He hits send, and the announcement lets the Cobro community know that due to the work of Fochs and a few others, the identity of the message sender is now known, DeadBolts a Cobro Force member. The send button doesn’t have time to stop flashing before Corbin leaps from his desk with purpose, marching to the IO North Tower elevators. Pressing button 41, he heads for the Advocacy offices who occupy several levels of the building starting at 38 and ending at 51.
The doors to 41 open and its bustling with people chattering, Mobi’s chirping and people crossing paths like there is a race to get to the other side of the room and everyone has a different side to get to. Corbin wades through the horde and gets to the reception desk where a familiar face waves him though as the desk clerk presses a button to unlock a door.
Passing through the door Corbin is greeted with a sizable chuck of what would be the rest of this floor level. Its outer lining of the floor is lined with offices while there is cubicles in the middle of the room. However in the dead centre of the room lies a large holotable, much like what you’d find in the briefing room of a Javelin Destroyer class ship.
In each cubical there was a head bobbing in and out of them, some hands are waving other people down with important updates on cases Corbin knows nothing about, other hands are filled with paperwork or datapads with info Corbin knows nothing about. He can hear agents using demanding tones and strong voices across the comms on their mobiglas using their position as Advocacy to demand results while some make promises to fix issues, all seemingly fighting to get info on the cases assigned to each of them. From what he could gather on the short walk, none of the agents were working on a shared case, they all had their own case loads.
It’s busy in this office, this certainly was not the place you’d come to for ‘sleep duty’.
Corbin would need to get to the rear of the room, to the office of Michael Dorn. Michael waves to invite Corbin in, the office is square with windows on 2 sides and solid walls on the other 2, the windows behind Michael’s desk overlook part of ArcCorp shopping area & from these windows you can clearly see the doors to Astro Amada, while the windows in front of the desk look inward to the building, looking into the cubicles.
“Close the door” Michael says, as Corbin pushes the door shut, all of the glass both front and back frost up to an almost opaque white, with only the movement of people very close on the cubicle side being seen and even then, just as a shadowy blur, the effect also cancels out the noise as the almost deafening sound of all the commotion in the cubicle area drops to almost nothing.
Michael doesn’t even make eye contact with Corbin before he speaks, continuing his work at his workstation as he talks like Corbin is an interruption to his day “What ever this is Corbin I don’t have time, I’ve got 3 agents call in sick and 7 cases I have to now oversee so make it fast but I’m not promising anything”. Corbin sits down on the chair in front of the desk, after all the cooperation the Cobro’s have done over the years, a personal invitation by a Advocacy representative was given. “Should you you ever need the help of the Advocacy then you only need ask” was the words promised, promised by one Michael Dron. “Okay I’ll just turn around and tell Cobra that not only will we hold off the next time Orison is under siege, which he hates getting involved with by the way, but we’ll also be pulling out of the system to a more…. cooperative one, I’m sure that will help lower your workload, I’m sure the higher ups will love the loss of our donations too…. oh and I’m also sure given what I’m here for, Cobra would likely come to your office himself…. that went so great last time, I’m sure you’d love a repeat visit…” Corbin said. Cobra had once been to the 41st floor to visit another Advocacy agent. The agent in question had stopped a Cutlass black in a routine stop and did a scan and though there was a little discrepancy with the owner tags that should have resulted in simply a fine, the agent instead opened fire and destroyed the Cutlass and the pilot. At the time the Regeneration technology had just been in use around the UEE for mere weeks and many citizens had not yet saved an imprint. The Cutlass pilot was Vega. She and Cobra had just saved their imprint that day. You can fill in the rest of what happened that day on floor 41.
The air goes silent with Michael stopping dead in his tracks thinking about what this would mean for the Advocacy if yet another org pulled out of the CDF initiative, not to mention the state the offices were left in after Cobra visited, as well as an agents face. “Look Corbin that threat is only gonna work so many times and the Advocacy has made both private and public apologies to Cobra for that incident” Michael changes his tone to a more submissive one and as he is about to say another word Corbin says “We have got a Cobro missing, DeadBolts. Now while this might not be anything new for you or even us, we have been severely hampered by the fact that one of the relay stations corrupted the transmission to the point its taken us five days to even find out who sent the message. Now I don’t wanna point fingers here but its your job to make sure the big four operate those things within the minimum standards set by the UEE and not to mention, the Cobro Force made a more than generous contribution to the Empire not only to show our dedication, but to also help refit the comms system in Stanton. Now if you’re telling me that I should have our legal team, talk with your legal team and….” “okay, okay, okay” Michael interrupts “What do you want?” Michael tone changing from submissive to frustrated, Corbin slowly leans forward in the chair “I want you to get two of your best agents on the case to screen the comms systems, I want you to start a missing persons case and don’t give me any of the waiting the standard 28 days bullshit and I want you to talk with the other corps…. we want access to the Stanton Comms array”
October 3rd 2952
