Caesar Gonzalez
Location: La Hacienda
Skills: N/A
Of course it was getting worse. It
had to be getting worse. That paranoid bitch and her "gift" to one of her few legitimate cousins was going to fry out her system, even as she mechanically speedtyped command after command, putting out as many Intrusion Counter Countermeasures as she possibly could as fast as her meat and bone hands would allow. Thalia wished she could type at the speed at which she thought, as her brain was working a lot faster than her body would allow So many ideas she could throw at this problem. But, as the old saying went, "You can wish in one hand and shit in the other; see which one fills up first". Well, given those as her choices, it seemed that little Liam answered her query just a little while earlier. If she could open up this particularly nasty piece of programming, she could retool and rewrite enough sections of the code as to make it inert. It was her thing, coding. But that took time she didn't have. Oh yeah, her system was about to get gutted. Her only silver lining was that she kept much of her good stuff on flash drives and other externals. But still, this was a prime machine that she sunk a lot of time into. It would be a massive pain in her ass to have to format the whole damn thing, or worse, find a replacement.
But she wasn't going down easy. It just wasn't in her. Thalia prepared to hammer out another few lines, maybe try to open the virus itself to view exactly
what the hell this thing was. It was a calculated risk, but it...
...didn't matter whatsoever. The screen flashed BLUE. Yes, that BLUE. So sorry, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Go directly to fuckit. Then something odd: The outline of an emoji taco materialized pixel by pixel and began to laugh and shake and piss Thalia off to the point that she stood angrily, reaching underneath her jacket to the back of her belt. She pulled a Glock and thumbed off the safety with a single, fluid motion. The barrel snapped toward her compromised computer in a deadly, matte black arc, hovering for a half second to receive confirmation from its sights before potentially unloading half of the magazine in an expression of blind, impotent rage.
But she didn't. The Laughing Taco (a name she swore to use if she ever opened a bar or a strip club) began to walk around her screen waving a pistol about, causing Thalia to cock her head to the side like a very puzzled Border Collie. F..o...r...k......i...t.......o..v...e...r...... appeared on the screen above the taco, along with a prompt to enter a password. "There's a level of
damnit I want to express." she said with forced calm. Nonetheless, she tucked her pistol away and sat back down in front of her machine. "Okay..."
The lady had a fondness for the spicy stuff on her tacos. Might as well give it a go. Determinedly, she keyed in the letters: H-O-T-S-A-U-C-E.
Down Below... Caesar took a modicum of spirit lift, thanks to the music playing around him and the dancing of his highly extended family. His face did not actually show anything except for the same grizzled expression that he always seemed to have. He looked down to the Mariachi group playing. They were rather contemporary in style, not wearing big, floppy sombreros like one might notice playing for parties or on the street. Come to think of it, Caesar was certain that he'd met the guy before he joined the Gonzalez clan. Yes, he'd skewered this man with a knife from a few meters away. He remembered now, it had been about fifteen years back. Hmm... It was funny how things worked out sometimes. Now they were as family.
The Mariachi was something of a badass in his own right, and though he might lend moral support to the cause Caesar set himself toward, the older man knew that he would not assist. It wasn't required of him; every man must seek vengeance for himself on his own terms. It just happened that he was able to with deep pockets and government connections. And other family members that shared bereavement with him. The music was stellar, though. Fitting to the moment and enough of an entertaining distraction, if only for a couple of minutes. But all things must end, and after a short time the difficult decision had to be made - do we stop, or do we play another song?
J. Keystone
Location: Queensguard R&D Industrial Complex: Receiving
Skills: N/A
Quite the Rouges' Gallery of the elite and influential, complete with high representation in government, law enforcement, and media. One might expect the Juno members, but not the heavy male presence. Though they did have a fondness for blackmail and extortion as a means of control. Briefly, Keystone wondered what Juno had on these people, particularly the Police Commissioner. If he were there strictly voluntarily, that was one thing, but if he was on the hook for something, getting him off of it could be highly beneficial to everyone.
Keystone noted the man who had turned his back. By itself, it meant nothing. Perhaps there was something to it, though. He spoe into his comm, quietly indicating the man to see if anything could be discovered, else just get good images of the guy and look into him in a bit. And maybe it was just company loyalty (such as it was), but the big man took a measure of offense at the presence of that
Wentworth guy. Truth be told, his presence made him more than a touch wary. The guy likely knew Keystone's profession better than he did; not on a ground level, kicking of much ass manner, but all of the areas in which he was not experienced or facing a steep learning curve. A good part of him wanted to obliterate the man's face with a single, powerful smash of his ham-sized fists, protocol be damned. That was probably not the best course of action, however. Might be damned satisfying. It did raise questions about why he was there, though. Could he be compromised? Might his presence mean that MSS was in danger of losing their contract with Queensguard? Could this be a setup? He did wish that Caesar was there. Or a more prominent business intellect.
The big guy put in an order through his comm for a bolstered physical presence, complete with electronic sweeps on bottleneck points. The camera crew might be problematic in this regard, though without actual knowledge of the event, their contract holder crippled them somewhat. Again on his comm, he put a task to the staff present,
"Basic security protocol, then. An' find out if Ms. Queensguard's got any special instruction on 'er lit'l soiree, yeah? Don't want me trousers 'round me ankles when somethin' unexpected goes off." 
