Chapter 237
Xena’s POV
“He’s not here tonight, Jimmy explained. “He’s been monitoring the cameras we set up at the tunnel entrances. Kid’s a computer genius though. If anyone could hack into a phone company, it’d be him.“.
“Where is he?” I asked.
‘Set up in the basement with about six monitors,” Bastian said. “He’s been tracking everything since we sealed the tunnels. Paranoid as hell that they might try to dig them back out.”
“Smart,” Ryder nodded. “We should talk to him.”
“The thing is,” Keir spoke up, even if we get into the phone company systems, how do we know which numbers belong to Alpha Wiley? They could be under any name.”
I’d been thinking about that too. “We start with the territory address. Every phone company has to have a physical address for service. Even if the account names are fake, the location has to be real for them to run the lines.”
“And if they’re using cell phones exclusively?” Novak asked.
“Then we look for patterns. Heavy data usage in that area, multiple lines registered to the same fake addresses, billing information that doesn’t add up.” I was getting excited talking through this. “Plus, if Galen’s as good as you say, he might be able to cross- reference with other utilities. Electric, water, internet providers.”
“Galen could do it,” a young warrior I hadn’t met yet spoke up. “I’m Drake, by the way. And Galen’s taught me some basic stuff. Phone companies aren’t as secure as you’d think. They’re more focused on keeping people from stealing service than protecting customer information.”
“How long would something like that take?” Ryder asked.
Drake looked thoughtful. “Depends on how deep we want to go. Getting basic account information? Maybe a few hours. Getting detailed call logs, location data, cross–referencing with other services? Could take a day or two.”
“We don’t have a day or two,” William said. “Not with everything that’s happening.”
“Then we start with what we can get quickly,” I suggested. “Basic account info, recent call logs. See if we can identify any patterns or important numbers. Then we dig deeper from there.”
“I like it,” Ryder said, finishing his last slice of pizza. “It’s proactive instead of reactive. We’ve been playing defense this whole time.”
The warrior who looked oldest among them leaned forward. “If we find the location, we still have a considerable amount of explosives left over. We could move within hours. I have some that were mainly prepared for the tunnels but went unused.” When he spoke, he looked directly at Ryder.
“Good,” Ryder stood up, his Alpha authority filling the room. “Drake, go get Galen. Tell him to wrap up whatever he’s doing with the cameras and get up here. We’re changing strategies.”
“Yes, Alpha, Drake jumped up immediately.
Tll contact Penelope and Ama to start working with Galen on the hacking.” Ryder said.
We spent the next several minutes discussing what it would mean to break into the phone company and how to do it. William stepped out of the room to call Ama.
1/2
Chapter 237
“…this can be done remotely. We don’t need to get into the lines to eate problems, Ryder was saying.
“Is that true, Luna?” Novak asked. “We don’t need to sneak into the phone company’s business premises and place something on the
wires?
“What have you been watching, Ocean’s Eleven or something?” I tried to joke. “No, we can accomplish everything without leaving
here.”
“Hopefully Galen can pull it off,” Ryder said.
That reminded me. “William! Did you reach Ama?” I quickly contact him through our mind link.
On the phone with her, why?
“Galen needs a separate IP address. So it can’t be traced back to this group.”
“Okay, I’ll tell her,” William said before cutting off the communication.
“Luna!” Bastian called out loudly.
“What? Sorry, I was just making sure William told Ama that Galen needs a different IP address to do this.” I hadn’t been listening to their conversation at all.
“No problem. I was asking about the information we get. We should receive phone numbers or a list of locations with service. How do we decide which place to attack?” Bastian asked a reasonable question.
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