What's the craic?

Sorry for being remiss with the updates, gentle reader.

After stepping out of Laurel's shower (she had put Irish Spring in there for me, I noted. Corny, as they say here, but a sweet touch nonetheless) I finished fitting the Mossberg 500 with a shorter barrel and adjusted the sling so that I could conceal it well under a decent sized jacket or raincoat. I have taken to sometimes wearing my GARDA duty jacket about town, as nobody around here in the Bay Area knows feck all what it means anyway. Anyway, it conceals this modded shotgun rather nicely.

I know, it was time to stop screwing around and get down to business with the broken computer from the compound.

I pulled the machine into my bedroom and got to work. After patching the last piece of the computer together with spare parts and jury-rigged parts I (well, ok, Aisling...) borrowed from the UC Berkeley Computer Science Department, I looked at my handiwork and expected it should hold, at least for awhile. I threw the switch and the familiar click-whirr of the hard drive kicked on. A half second later the cycle of the HD skips back and then forward erratically telling me that this hard drive didn’t have long for this world, but ordinary no mortal mind would likely have been able to bring it up to this point.

Thinking quickly, I attached the closest storage device I could find to the computer. After sifting through what is salvageable and what is too far corrupted to save, a small list was returned on the screen:

It read:

Which file do you wish to copy?
File Name Date Last Modified
compound_gamma.eml
07/11/09
2010_4th_quarter_leads.eml
10/02/10
2011_1st_quarter_leads.eml
01/03/11
cipher.xls
01/03/11
re_black□_suspic□ou□_activi□ies.eml
02/11/11
more_suspicious_activities.eml
02/27/11
gamma_schedule.xls
02/28/11
personnel_transfer_request.eml
03/02/11
re_per□ission□for_exec□tion_ord□r.eml
03/04/11
site_x_recon.eml
03/04/11

Nate took a break from (playing games/watching movies/whatever) with the youngsters and takes a look over my shoulder.

“Hmmm…cipher.xls looks promising."

(well, duh, I thought)

"...and Site_x_recon.eml might give us a lead as to where they’re going to set up next or where the next target is. The execution order is probably for Azzizza. Could it give us an idea why they executed her?"

(more importantly, evidence that they're responsible, I thought)

...I dunno, at the very least, cipher and recon."

I nodded in response to Nate, and said “I am assuming this ‘Compound Gamma’ is their name for the place we just overran.”

Scanning over the file directory, I decided I definitely wanted to copy the following, ranked in this priority order:

cipher.xls
site_x_recon.eml
more_suspicious_activities.eml
2011_1st_quarter_leads.eml
personnel_transfer_request.eml
re_per□ission□for_exec□tion_ord□r.eml
compound_gamma.eml

…those are what I would aim for as priorities.

If the machine is still intact and even if the remaining files will be severely corrupted, my secondary priorities are to recover (again in priority order, from highest to lowest):

re_black□_suspic□ou□_activi□ies.eml
2010_4th_quarter_leads.eml
gamma_schedule.xls

Cipher and Recon were obvious choices, had already picked them mentally before Nate walked in. I decided on "more suspicious activities" in the hopes that it would make references back to the original "suspicious activities", at least in summary form, and it was more recent info. Execution Order was an obvious choice for any police investigator to make. It's hard evidence. Personnel transfer request would perhaps lend insight into the group's movements, who was in charge, who was a member, etc.

Most interesting to me was what I found in the file on Compound Gamma:

compound_gamma.eml
07/11/09

J,
Research into Compound λ has revealed promising data. The compound seems to be a mixture of two separate elements, both of which seem nearly impossible to come by. The first is from a lotus flower indigenous to the island of Djerba off the coast of Tunisa. Our agents in the field of divine inquiries have ascertained these lotus are likely the same lotus referred to in The Odyssey. The second element was easier to identify as we have encountered samples in the field before. The second element is titanspawn ichor, but it seems to be extremely more concentrated. We believe that this sample could very-well contain ichor from a titanic force of immeasurable power.
Tests prove exactly what Mr. Black boasted, subjects who ingest even a single cubic centimeter per day were observed as far more pliable to conditioning. It is the council’s decision that you should continue to do commerce with Mr. Black and acquire as much of this substance as you can with the funds that will be wired to your account.
From this point onward Compound λ will be referred to as Sway.
As always; be well in God’s eyes,
GM

It was the last file I managed to salvage before I heard a loud POP and began to smell melting computer components as the screen blacked out for good.

“Laurel should check out this entry on Compound Gamma when she gets back. Chemical compound, not military compound...(I mock slapped my forehead) I am one thick headed mhic sometimes…” I said aloud to no one in particular.

“I agree” said Aisling.

“Didn’t ask you.” I quipped.

Upon returning from the road and reading the file, Laurel amended her own notes on the compound (her detailed investigation of the vials we recovered) to reflect that, if the botanical source is in fact Djerbian then it cannot be definitively concluded that the flower in question is N. caerulea and not Ziziphus lotus. Either way, she was pleased that all of her deductions were correct and that her logic was sound.

She also remarked to me with that warm California smile that makes me melt like butter, “this is tremendous work, salvaging what you did. We’re really lucky to have such a genius with us.”

I needed that. Totally made my day; I feel like a new man, or more properly, back to my old self again.