[Last Hope] 19 – The Meeting, Part 1

[A/N: Changed Hacking and Lockpicking and combined them into a single new skill, Rougery, the act of doing something a rogue would typically do in fantasy. Things like breaking into stuff, being a bastard, identifying good loot to yoink from the enemy or your own party members, the usual, also, do let me know if any of you have ideas for a 30th skill, as I'd honestly rather have an even number instead of an odd total for each skill. Perhaps a skill named Steward? To represent leadership, economic management, business, deals, etc.]

[Seven Days Later]

Each day, I dedicated myself to my apprenticeships, and every night I worked on my other projects, getting only about six hours of sleep each night. I did this all because I had a plan. If everything went as planned, I could remove Father from his throne of power and bring about a change in leadership for the Institute.

With all the power at my fingertips, I could initiate a takeover if I wanted. I had a backdoor through Father's terminal and the wider Terminal Network used by the Institute. I could shut down every Synth in the Concourse without issue or even take direct control of every Courser currently active and deactivated in the SRB with a push of a button, activating Administrator Privileges and reprogramming the Coursers and every other Synth in the Institute to follow my orders. But I chose not to do that.

However, what I did do, regardless, was add a small, hidden piece of code into the core of all the Synths and Coursers. This code would let me take complete control if I spoke to them in sequence. I doubt anyone would guess or see this code because I've hidden it very well within their programming. I also disguised it so it looked like a simple beginner's program that blended into the web. It was mostly a backup and last resort, just in case someone tried to use Synths to harm me.

I won't deny that part of it was just me being lazy. I was only ten years old, not yet a teenager— or pre-teen, but I didn't care to note the difference, if there was any. I doubt the Institute would back me if I revealed myself now, given my age and the fact that many consider me abhuman because of my mutation; it's best to stick with interacting through my Specter Alias.

Besides, if I ever did want to take control in the futue and become evil, it would be trvially easy to do with what I had control of because of the horrible digital security of the Institute, not baring the Code Defender, there was not one single good digital security measure taken, for god's sake, his Terminal, outside of being protected by Code Defender, has only one four digit password you have to get through to be able to access the institute's entire Terminal Network with administrative access.

It pained me not to fix it, but I left it as it was and focused my mind on other things that held my interest at the moment. More specifically, I sent another email, this time to Virgil, the head researcher of the hidden FEV Program, and also pulled up a schematic of the teleporter in the Institute's possession.

You see, if I could figure out how it works, and maybe even improve it, perhaps I could lessen the power shortages the Institute was facing each time they even dared to use it, while also using the SRB's network to order a Courser to find Kellogg and assist him in his orders to the best of its abilities, even to the point of self-destruction if it meant keeping Kellogg alive.

Sure, Kellogg likely wouldn't like it, but I did not care. Kellogg was going to be my primary surface asset for the next few years until I could go up myself, so he'd have to deal with it. 

As for the risky nature of sending out one of the Coursers, I erased the logs, and if anyone did find it, they'd get blocked because they didn't have administrative access, access that only the leading Director of the Institute would have, and would likely keep people from asking questions, that is, unless they brought it straight to Zimmer. Still, I doubted that would happen with how bafflingly incompetent everyone in this place was.

Speaking of which, the meeting was drawing near, where I'd invite every single one of the Institute's directors and Virgil, excluding Father, of course, to a chatroom to talk. I was not expecting much from this chat, but I hoped to find out who amongst them was so incompetent as to let Father remain in charge. Essentially, I wanted to identify the loyalists and those who were not, while also trying to influence the Directors' thinking and possibly encourage them to consider demoting 'Father' and electing a new Director to replace him.

I didn't have much hope of that happening, at least not for a while, but I did want to see where they stood, so as much as I didn't want to play the game and dance, I lied to myself, I would do it anyway.

So, paying attention to the time, I worked, and a few hours later, the time came. I then opened the new application I had developed a few days ago and uploaded it to the respective terminals of all who were going to be joining this chat.

[The Specter Has Joined the Chat]

[Director Zimmer Has Joined the Chat]

[Director Benet Has Joined the Chat]

[Director Plourde Has Joined the Chat]

[Director Ben Has Joined the Chat]

[Director Biggs Has Joined the Chat]

[Head Scientist Virgil Has Joined the Chat]

[The Specter: Welcome, everyone, to this little meeting, and let me start it off by saying: I am disappointed. I am incredibly unhappy with each and every one of you who have sat back and watched as our Institution has stagnated for decades under the leadership of 'The Father' or 'Shaun,' for those of you more familiar with the man.]

Immediately after sending the first message, I watched as all their names appeared above the text box, indicating to everyone that they were typing.

[Director Zimmer: How dare you? Who is this? Answer me right now!]

[User: Director Zimmer has been temporarily muted for one minute]

With that new message, everyone stopped typing, allowing me to type out something else before the others could say anything more.

[The Specter: Now, I believe it's time we had a nice and civil talk.]