The Menace: Plan E(lectromagnetic pulse)
[The following takes place after The Menace: We Seek Information and before The Menace: Come the Calvary]
Alastor still had time, before he had to leave for the Main Island and pick up his Calvary. Time enough to have a conversation with Dustine, while Josie slept. Stepping back through the elevator into the Hub Alastor put his hands behind his back. “Need to talk with you.”
She took note of his posture, and quirked her head slightly in curiosity. "Alright, what about?"
“Privately.” He nodded off to the side of the Hub. “If you don’t mind.”
A thin eyebrow raised, but she nodded and she moved over to a tucked away alcove where those on overwatch could fix up a pot of coffee or tea for the long nights. When he entered, she pulled a curtain over and closed them off from the rest of the Hub area, giving them privacy and some good sound absorption. "Ok, I admit you have my curiosity." She commented softly, leaning against the counter, arms crossed.
“First, some admittance. You and Josie need to remember someone on your crew now has some exceptionally good hearing. Might want to keep your agenda conversations under a private comm channel.” He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms as well. “I know the two of you have an agenda, but I also trust the two of you to not question it. But I did hear about you guys talking about Darrow Industries some months back, and the ‘various items on your list you want him to develop’. Cybernetics, I’m going to guess, considering who Darrow is.”
Dustine's face fell into neutrality at his comments, and didn't speak for a fair amount of time before finally giving a curt nod. "It is. His company is probably the best there is in the field."
“Yeah but still not my point.” He tilted his head to the side. “Has anything in your list been developed, or prototyped that can deliver a localized EMP, as well as a viral payload via a high powered wireless transmission?”
She thought about it, her eyes seeming to lose focus as she considered what he was requesting before coming back to herself and shaking her head. "Not that we're aware of. You can make an EMP bomb easily enough, and on the cheap, but there hasn't been an attempt to really focus on creating something that can deliver a regular yield of EMP to a target. And as for a viral payload, definitely not. The technology doesn't exist that will deliver such a payload. You'd need to build in a hacking algorithim, and that's typically a very custom job. Even Stuxnet required a hard connection to infect its target. If anyone might be thinking about making such a device, it might be the Chinese or DARPA."
“Or SHIELD.” He crossed his arm, “SHIELD was, theorizing a weapon that could do that. But, it hadn’t gotten past a theoretical stage. It was, intended to counter my division, or Stark, or Hammer, or anybody really who built exo suits. The way suits operate is very wireless. Because of this they have very powerful anti-malware capabilities. A localized EMP though, could in theory short out the system, and wireless systems reboot faster than security suites. I would rather override that Hulkbuster, than fight it.”
Dustine brought up a hand to hold her chin, eyes narrowed in thought. "Josie's capable of generating a localized EMP, but right now there aren't any devices that are mass produced for that purpose. We could probably rig something up. Problem is, most hardware, especially those made for combat, are hardened against EMP. I would be shocked if Stark didn't have that as part of his suit designs. So the yield would have to be pretty strong to short out a suit like that."
“About twice or more the yield of one of our standardized EMP Grenades. It’ll never shut the suit down but it will cause a system reset or sputter. Like how our hardened implants still get static from EMP. It’s because of how the suits operate, they can resist EMP but because they need to be able to absorb solar energy, or other forms for power, as well as wireless transmissions EM surges can happen.”
She continued to hold her chin, finger moving slowly back and forth as her mind calculated yields, capabilities, equipment. "We could probably get something built and mass produced with that kind of yield. A crank to build up the charge, an activation stud, and then an impact sensor to set it off. But that would take time we don't have. We'll have to jury rig something...something that can build up a charge..."
She snapped her fingers, looking up at him. "We could use the emergency flashlights, the ones made to build up a charge as you shake them."
“Sounds suitably Macgyver like, I like it.” He closed his eyes and thought for a few minutes, “I can get close enough if necessary, or Josie. Both of us have the reaction speed and reseliance to do that, her more so than me by miles tho. But if that thing is Active, we will need an anti-ExoSuit weapon, which is small and not going to weigh us down. And those are, well, theories and this. The smallest thing we do have, is the Mark II’s canno, the Mark IX’s Bunker Buster, and an ARC with FSDS DU round. And well… I liberated my ARC, but only one of those rounds.”
"I can work up a virus that could take down a suit, or at least put it into a lockdown mode. It's getting it transmitted that's the tricky part." She rubbed her chin once again before sighing. "A wireless signal could be jammed, or simply disabled. It's not reliable. You'd be better off having physical contact with the target and transmitting it via an electrical pulse. If the EMP shorts it out, that will buy time to close the distance and grab hold. The systems will be rebooting, but as you pointed out, the on-board firewalls will probably still be starting up. Can your suits transmit by an electrical pulse?"
“Yeah. So can the ISIS armor, its arms can emit an EMP and Electronic Pulses to override computer systems. Since I’ll be taking the ISIS it might be best to do whatever you plan to do with it.” He shook his head, “Maybe we can up the yield too, of its EMP, if our device fails me and Josie can double tap it… worse case scenario.”
"I would rather you both tackling the thing." Dustine admitted. "I can rig the virus to install faster if it detects more than one source is pushing it. Like a Bittorrent or sorts. It's the best I can come up with. BP will have to walk our armorer here through modifying the ISIS, I'll be busy working up the malware." She gave him a small smile. "Preferably so it doesn't get the idea of turing around and coming back at you."
“I doubt it could get past the anti-intrusion algorithms Alice installed before she left but it would probably be a good idea for it to not do that.” He stepped off from the wall, “I think that takes care of that though. And next time, be a bit quieter with the talk, or just include me in the conversation. Been around long enough.”
"That time is coming, but we'll talk about that later." Was all Dustine said on the matter as she pulled the curtain back and headed for an available holotable, the glow brightening as she approached.
“So I keep being told.” Alastor thought to himself as he followed her out and turned towards the lift. If he left now he’d still be a bit early for the arrival of the others but that’d be better considering how small the airfield they would be at was. Still, even though he does trust em it doesn’t feel right, in the pit of his stomach, that the boss ladies keep things from him. Never has.
