2019-10-27 - Tequila and the Dark Web

Summary:

Anya and Gwen reconvene at Gwen's place, so they can wade through the icky grossness of the dark web and try to find clues. And, drink some booze.

Log Info:

Storyteller: None
Date: Sun Oct 27 00:00:00 2019
Location: Gwen Stacy's Apartment

Related Logs

None

Theme Song

None

anya-corazongwen-stacy

It's the wee hours of the morning in New York, and most people are sleeping. Not so with Gwen Stacy, who's at home in her apartment — alone, given that her Dad is out of town. She's exchanged her Super-Woman outfit for a pair of comfy pajama pants and a tanktop, and she's got the radio tuned to a station that only plays groovy music, letting it play for the rest of the city through the open window (or at least, for the ten feet outside the window).

She's sitting at the kitchen table at the moment, with laptop and phone arrayed in front of her. There's a pot of coffee bubbling away, and a bunch of two-bite donuts set on the table of varying flavors. …She hasn't touched any of that so far, though. She's engrossed.


Parents are out of town, huh?

This means Anya doesn't need to go sneaking into any windows. The buzzer to the apartment rings, alerting Gwen that there's a visitor downstairs who needs buzzed in. When Anya knocks on the door, she's dressed in bright purple chucks, denim shorts, and a black t-shirt bearing the Nirvana smiley face logo, with a denim jacket over her shoulders and a patch covered backpack. Black tights are on her legs, but Gwen would easily recognize that as part of the costume she wears underneath. Her hair is a bright pink mohawk; the brunette ponytail a part of her costume, and a ruse.


The door doesn't have to be knocked one more than once before it is joyfully flung open. "Anya!" Gwen takes a step back, holding the door for Anya to enter (it's one of those weighted ones that swings closed on its own, apparently.) The apartment isn't the smallest ever, but 'cozy' would definitely be a good wrod to describe it. But, hey, if only two people gotta live in it, then what's the worry?

"I left the window open," she adds, bemusedly. "I can go close that now. …So, welcome to the humble Stacy abode. Everything in the fridge is fair game, except the piece of cheesecake — that's my Dads, and he'll turn into a tiger if someone else eats his cake."


"I love cheesecake." For a fleeting moment, Anya considers eating it, because she still doesn't like cops. She has to remind herself that this is her friend's father, and she'd hate to put Gwen in that position!

She promptly makes for the nearest table and unslings her backpack. "This is a nice place," she says. "Our place is too small for five people, but, y'know, mi Abuela and Uncle Rico are on social security, so, we have to deal with rent control places. But it ain't bad, because I get my own bedroom."

As she talks, she's pulling out a laptop, a WiFi signal scrambler, and three brown bags. One is filled with an assortment of fruits and veggies, the other is piled full with her grandmother's homemade steak fajita mixture. The third is suspiciously shaped in the form of a bottle.

Looking up at Gwen, a mischievous note enters her eye. "I nicked this from Uncle Rico." A big bottle of tequila is brought out. "Don't worry, I ain't gonna peer pressure you or anything, but, it takes a whole bottle of this shit to get me drunk now, and I don't plan on getting drunk drunk."


Gwen lets the door swing shut behind Anya, and follows her back into the kitchen. "I've always had my own room, and loads of space," she replies. "What I've never had is siblings. My Mom died when I was two, so it's just… always been me and my Dad. he never remarried, and I never got a brother or a sister. …Being an only child has its advantages, I mean I get one hundred per cent of my Dad's attention when he's not at work. …Of course, it has its downsides too, like I get one hundred per cent of my Dad's attention when he's not at work."

Gwen takes a seat at the table, looking back at her laptop for a moment while Anya is setting out her variety of goodies. As the tequila bottle comes out, an eyebrow rises way up.

"Sneaky," she observes. "Well, what the heck. Being a vigilante is illegal. Beating people up in a back alley is illegal. We're basically swimming in illegal on a nightly basis so we can be heroes, what's a little booze?" She stands up again, producing a pair of shotglasses, that she slides across the table towards the middle.

"I can't promise that stuff won't flatten me, I've… never had booze before. At least not in quantity."

The young spider plops back down in her chair, and plucks a chocolate donue to destroy in short order. "What's it like? Living with so many people."


When she learns just why Gwen lives here alone with her father, Anya's body language slows. She had assumed divorce or something, considering the divorce rate of police officers. She doesn't speak of why, though, at least not yet.

The shadow that crept upon her sneaks away at talk of booze. "Well, just be careful," she says with an eyebrow waggle. "You've got the enhanced bio-juju like the rest of us, so I doubt it'll flatten you, but, I don't wanna have to call your dad and explain… anything."

Anya opens the bottle and begins pouring two shots. "Kinda like you said, the whole one hundred per cent thing? It's kinda the opposite. Sometimes it's just noise, people shouting over each other, yelling at each other 'cause the TV's too loud and someone wants to listen to rap music, but then the metal music is too loud and drowning out the rap, and Uncle Rico can't hear the damn TV, and they're all fighting, then Abuela gets mad because she's getting a migraine, and everyone listens to Abuela, but they aren't always happy about it." She pauses to breathe, and laughs lightly. "Which is fun, sometimes. Then there're times where I feel like Abuela, and I just want everything to be quiet."


Gwen takes a moment, here, to reflect on how much her approach to life in general has… changed, since getting nibbled on by one little, allegedly radioactive, spider. A couple of months ago she would have flat refused any offer of alcohol, and now she's willing to give tequila a try in her own kitchen. She picks up the shot of tequila that's been poured for her, and holds it up to look at it, close to her nose without putting it to her lips just yet. "So… what, you just gulp it down all at once, right?" She squints at it for a moment more, before looking back up to Anya.

"Yeah, I'd rather you not have to explain anything to my Dad either. He can be… hard to explain things to, sometimes." She shrugs lightly, "Or easy. He's always been more understanding than I think I've ever given him credit for, really. Must be an only daughter thing."

Gwen giggles softly, "Your appartment sounds completely awesome, by the way. Two people is pretty peaceful, especially when one of them is out doing his job more than he's at home. I'd love to know what it's like to be falling over that many people. I'm sure it gets annoying sometimes, but at least you've always got someone there, right?"


"Uh huh," Anya confirms, and lifts her own glass of tequila as well. "This is Espolon. Good, smooth stuff, not cheap crap like Jose Cuervo, so, it's actually easier. You can totally sip it too, but for that, you're gonna want a bigger glass, and some ice."

Thinking of her home, Anya laughs aloud. "Tripping over things, trying to dodge la chancla, you know, that kind of stuff." She lifts the shot glass and says, "Salud!" before downing the shot.

Gwen lifts her shot, spilling just a little bit of it down the outside, and uhhs softly, "Salute!" And she sounds totally awkward, but it seemed like the thing to do — afterall, Anya did it. She puts the drink to her lips and, after a moment's hesitation, tips the lot into her mouth and gulps it down.

"…Wow," she comments, pressing the empty shot glass to her lips for a moment.

"So, that's what tequila tastes like. I could handle more of that." She sets the shotglass down, and mhmms softly. "So uhh… what're 'chancla'?" She pauses, "I should totally take a Spanish course."


With a gasp, Anya sets her shot glass down, grinning. "Salud, with a 'd', si?" she clarifies, and smirks. "That's what good tequila tastes like. Next time we use salt and a lime."

Shifting the bottle to the side, Anya opens her laptop and gets to logging in. "Oh, it's an old joke. Here, check your phone." Gwen's phone will receive a YouTube link.

https://youtu.be/PSicdnahJ7o

She'll allow Gwen to watch the link, bearing a knowing grin as she starts setting up her laptop to do some dirty digging.


Gwen picks up her phone, and presses the link. Anya can hear the progress of it, and Gwen spffts and just about drops the phone when shoes start flying. "…Okay, never, ever showing my Dad that video, he'll get ideas." She stands up, producing a salt shaker and sliding it to the middle of the table, before she starts rooting around in the fridge.

"I think I have a lime…" She glances over her shoulder, "Of course, you're a spider, so hitting you with 'La Chancla' must only happen when you allow it."

She eventually returns with a lime, along with a cutting board and a knife, on the assumption that the green citrus is not to be swallowed whole with the tequila. "So… where do we look?" she asks, pulling her chair around so she can sit beside Anya.


Anya is already clicking away at keyboards. She hasn't asked for the WiFi password, but she is connected to the WiFi, and there's a smug look on her face. This kind of hacking never gets old. "If dad asks what happened to his lime… carry out tacos."

Shes clearly not new to this!

"I'm creating multiple shell accounts on the dark web," she explains, while rapidly tapping at the keyboard. "They're going to appear to be coming from different parts of the world, like… y'know, Russia, Afghanistan, China, a couple from North America. You'll get two of the logins here in a few minutes, I just gotta make sure I've covered the trail so it doesn't, you know, lead any nasty people back to this apartment."

Glancing up briefly, she nudges the bottle of tequila over to Gwen, letting her do the honors. "I don't have the spider sense," she points out, "but if I see it coming, yeah, I can totally dodge 'em. But… Abuela doesn't really do that anymore." She shakes her head. "I think she felt bad about… what happened to my parents."


Two more shots are poured, and the lime gets chopped into slices. She thinks, palpably, about putting a lime wedge into one of the shotglasses, but decides against it. "I have no idea what any of that means," she admits. "I've heard of the dark web, but I dunno nuthin' about shell accounts or… anything, really, as far as I know the dark web is just a place where you buy illegal guns, Russian wives, or really, really weird pornography."

Gwen cups her chin in her fingers as she looks over Anya's shoulder. "I should get you to teach me that sometime," she mumbles. "If I can fit it into my brain." She pauses, and glances sideways at her fellow spider, "I got the same treatment after my Mom died," she murmurs, "It was suddenly like I was made of glass." She pauses, biting her bottom lip. "I… I didn't know that happened to you, Anya, I'm sorry."


"You're not far from the truth," Anya confirms, in regard to the dark web. "You can also purchase human sex slaves, vice, assassin's services… it's a real ugly place, but, if we're gonna find these Fox Force Five wanna-be's, it's the best place to start." She looks up from the computer and explains, "I'm making us fake accounts so that none of these dirty dark web users can trace us down."

She doesn't talk about her parents, as a general rule. It doesn't often come up; sadly to say, most kids just assume something fucked up happened at the border. She doesn't hide the truth, but it's not something a lot of people would want to hear.

Pausing, she turns away from the laptop, looking at Gwen. "Dad was an investigative journalist in Mexico City. He apparently blew the whistle on some cartel shit, so, the cartel killed my mom to get back at him." Her eyes drift down somewhat. "Dad came across the border illegally, but got asylum because of what happened, and we became citizens. Moved in with Abuela, but…" She looks back up to Gwen, frowning. "The cartel followed us, killed my dad in his sleep." She reaches for the shot of tequila, and lifts it. "Kinda wish one of us had been around back then, y'know?"


Gwen looks at Anya with a pained expression, listening as she explains what happened to her Mom, and then her Dad. She picks up her own shot, and leans over to clink it against Anya's. "To our parents," she murmurs, before downing the shot. "I'm sorry, Anya; and yeah, I wish one of us had been there. Or sometone like us. I ever see anyone working for any of those cartels, I guarantee you I won't go easy on them."

Looking back at the computer, she shakes her head slowly, "Nothing… nothing like that happened to me. My Dad's always gotten threats and stuff, both from criminals and sometimes from other cops. That's what happens when you arrest a couple crooked ones, I guess." she shrugs, "My Mom just… got sick. Dad never told me what happened to her, just, he took her to hospital in a rush one day and never brought her back home again. He never quite brought all of himself back home, either."

"Other question; how'd you manage to get onto our wifi so fast? I mean our password isn't like 'monkey' or '123456' or 'password' or anything."


"I don't go easy on them," Anya agrees, after downing her shot, this time demonstrating by salting her hand, and doing the old lick, shoot, stick with the chunk of lime.

"But I don't go hard on users, or even small time dealers," she continues. "The only reason we have cartels is because of this stupid 'War On Drugs'. Like, no one wants to really admit that our own drug companies created the heroin epidemic, or that the CIA created the crack epidemic of the eighties." She shakes her head. "All of those cartels would dry up if we just… legalized and regulated. And Mexico could actually make legit money off marijuana plants, but hey. I'm just a 21 year old kid, what do I know?"

When Gwen talks about her own dad and what happened to her mom, she half grins at George's bravery, half frowns at what happened to his wife. "Yeah…" she nods her head. "That's kinda what happened to Uncle Rico."

As for the WiFi password, she suddenly laughs. "Oldest trick in the book. Passive scan to get a make and model, quick log-in through the admin IP, granted my own laptop administrative access." Mischief is in her eyes. "Child's play, Gwen. Hacking into the DoD was a lot harder."


Gwen holds up her hands, "Okay, that's fair. If you hacked into the DoD, I can't imagine our apartment is much of a challenge. It's not like we keep sensitive information or anything in here, past our bank accounts." She ahems softly. "Our government kinda does have a history of being lousy," she agrees. "And really, we should just legalize and regulate. …Seems to be working for Canada with the whole marijuana thing. Well… sort of working, anyway." She shrugs her shoulders lightly. "Some countries in Europe are doing better. Makes you wonder why we can't be more like them."

She glances down at the lime and salt, before looking back to Anya's screen. Maybe in a minute. "I'm only nineteen," she acknowledges, "I dunno nothin' either." She takes a moment to destroy a glazed donut, before pulling her own computer over beside Anya's. "Okay. What do I do?"


"Exactly," Anya points out. "Which is why I just keep my fingers crossed for the Revolution."

A few more keystrokes and everything is ready. "Okay. So you are…. ShAnghai2087 and… BigDiqNRA-1106969. What you're gonna do is log into these sites here, they're just like old message boards, but they're encrypted, so you don't have to speak in code. Ask for help with a job… something ninjas would be useful for. You know? Like… hijacking a drug shipment or ripping off an armored car."


Gwen has to ask for that second login to be repeated, but she opens a couple of windows and gets to work. "Alright, I am the bad girl who wants other bad girls to do bad things," she muses. She posts requests, asking for people to hit a prisoner transport in one window, and trying to get a shipment of uranium hijacked in another. Then she starts going to other message boards, following the list Anya gave her, but making sure to stick to the same stories on each account.

"Got one hit," she reports after eating another of the little donuts. "Don't think it's our people, though. GrvDggr2909393BtchKllr — charming." She steeples her fingers in front of her. "He says he's got… friends…" she taps her screen lightly, "Not sure what all this means, but I think he's definitely claiming to have dirty cops on his payroll. Doesn't sound like Tessa."


"Don't be too sure," Anya answers Gwen. "If they're really good at what they do, they'll spew a bunch of BS. Most important thing is to find out what their methods are. Everything else is noise. Does that make sense?"

Meanwhile, Anya is working three windows simultaneously, and adding on to each of those, while keeping an eye on the shadow routes she's created for these fake profiles. Not only is she working the dark web, like Gwen, but she's got to make sure no malicious people manage to trace the source to this apartment. Which… so far, is proving to be relatively easy.


"Makes sense," Gwen acknowledges. "I've picked up stuff from my Dad and his friends — hang around as the only kid at a cop barbeque, and that'll happen — but none of them have ever done this dark web stuff. …Or at least they haven't talked about it."

"Got another hit," she adds, "I'll watch this one too. Claims he has an in with the Avengers… sorta doubting that, sounds like the BS you were on about."

Meanwhile, on one of the shadow routes, a very definite threat pops up; not a hard one to defeat, at least not for someone with Anya's skills, but someone definitely tried to send them some malicious software. It might just be par for the course on the dark web, mind you. She gets hits, too; one pereson offering naked Arabian vampires, someone demanding to know what she intends to do with the materials after they're stolen, one person who claims to work for a cartel and willing to split the take 50/50, and so on.


<Vampires? Fuck you. You ft mother fucker. Vampires aren't real. Arabian bitches? That I can deal with, you fucking cock sucking pussy.>

The one demanding to know what she does with the materials finds their chat closed. Let's see if they try to reopen it.

<60/40. Finder's fee. No more negotiations. I'm not a nr.>

Anya's got experience working with dark web types, after all. She knows the language, and sometimes, the language is ugly. She doesn't have to like it, but she knows how to work it. Meanwhile, she's splitting over to the incoming malware, and frowns. "Got bad stuff incoming. Do me a favor, freeze, close, then reopen each window, refresh it, then wipe the browsing history, in that order, each time." Anya does the same, trying to find out which of the hits between she and Gwen triggered the malware. Because that could be the sign of a real professional.


The answers Gwen gives to people are not nearly so… well versed in Dark Web lingo. She gets laughed at twice for being a total poser, and ends up blushing fiercely at some of the things she reads. "No, I'm… I'm not sending you a picture of that," she mutters.

When Anya gives the alert that something nasty is coming in, Gwen's fingers go to work, clicking and typing faster than she has all evening; she might not have much practice with the dark web, but she's no stranger to computers. "First one done," she reports, then moments later, "Second one done."

The malware is defeated, it would seem; at least for the moment. Which hit triggered the malware isn't immediately apparent.

The person demanding to know what Anya means to do with the materials is persistent; they send a message repeating the request, though the tone is… whiny.

The one offering a split of the take spews some very offensive language, before proposing 56/44. A guy's gotta feed his kids, afterall.


"God I hate the dark web," Anya remarks in concert with Gwen's words of disgust. "It's like someone took the worst parts of Reddit, threw them into a meat grinder with every skip-scap, scallywag and creeper in the world, injected it with steroids and let it get struck by lightning."

<58/42. One more counter proposal and you won't have kids to feed.>

Breathing nervously, Anya reaches for the bottle of tequila and takes a drink straight from the bottle. Some of the things she is typing causes her own spine to crawl, but she has to separate the personal from the professional. A good shot of liquor is a really good way to do just that.

<Fuck off, PIG> she sends to the whiny one. That one actually is probably a cop, and am amateur one at that. That window is closed once again.

"The Mal-Ware is gone, for now. Oh, and you can totally send a pic, Gwen, it just doesn't actually have to be yours."


Gwen blushes. Fiercely. "I… I never thought about that," she sputters. "Still feels pretty gross. I mean like, totally gross. Uber gross. Gross all the way into space." Nevertheless, she finds a picture and sends it, looking like she wants to vomit by the end of it. She beats that back with a shot of tequilla, trying the salt-shot-lime thing that Anya did earlier. She goes a bit cross-eyed afterwards, before looking back to her computer screen.

On Anya's screen, things are heating up. Mister. Split tells Anya where she can go and how to get there, before closing his window. The whiny probable-cop comes back for a third attempt, though it's possible someone is helping him now becaue his language is much more smooth.

Oh, and the malware is back, making another pass at getting into the two spiders' computers. And then a second one pops up, and then a third.

And then, for good measure, a fourth one.


"Yeeeeaaahh," Anya agrees, and the 'squick' is clear in her voice.

Her demeanor suddenly changes, and she's diverting all of her attention to the incoming malware. "Okay, one of them - one of them has to be a positive lock. Gwen, go unplug the router and the modem! Quick!" Her eyes are staring at the computer as she tries to fight the incoming worms, fingers flying like lightning over the keys.


Gwen is up out of her seat instantly, knocking over the chair in the process as she dashes out of hte kitchen, and into her Dad's office (a converted third bedroom) where the router is kept. There's no ceremony; she just yanks the cord out of the wall. "Done!" she reports, before returning at a more normal pace, and picking the chair up off the floor.

"So… I take it we got somewhere?" she inquires, sounding pretty normal, but her face has gone white as a sheet.

On the plus side, Anya can probably work out which of her inquiries it was that triggered the extreme levels of internet ire. It certainly wasn't Mr. Split or the amateur cop.


"Arabian vampires," Anya remarks coldly. "In other words… sex slaves from the middle east." She logs everything, and even grabs a note pad to jot down some IP addresses and user names, some words that might indicate a code of some sort. "They're clearly interested in vetting what kind of a person they're letting hire them, because… well, I used some language that I'd slap myself in the face for using, and that triggered not one, but FOUR malware attempts."

Anya spins around to face Gwen, her own skin more pale than its usual light olive. "So… we wait. Then, we try again, only next time… we act super professional."

Noticing her fingers are trembling, she reaches for the bottle, fills another shot for herself, and throws it back. She is far more the experienced drinker, after all.


Gwen takes another shot as well, not bothering with the lime and all that, just drinking it, before diving into some of the other snacks arrayed on the table. "That was way more stressful than… Well, some jerks shooting at us," she comments. "Never thought I'd say that, but seriously, at least with the guns we can do something about it? When there's malware coming in, well… I mean you know what to do, but I'm not exactly a hacker."

Gwen waves a chip around in the air. "So uhm. We pulled the router out in time, right?"


After smashing a donut, Anya nods her head. "Yeah, yeah. We got it in time, and I know exactly what you mean. Hacking's like… I mean, it's like you don't know how good you are, or aren't, until someone else owns you. Only this time if the wrong person owns you, you end up with your apartment firebombed."

She considers this for a moment, then eyeballs Gwen with a mischievous expression.

"Maybe next time, we should, like… hack into Hammer Industries' router, instead. Do it from there."

Take note. This is Anya, MISBEHAVING.


Gwen eats the chip, then goes back for more and sits their making little 'crunch crunch crunch' sounds for a good long moment, as she ponders. "Weeellllll," she replies at last, "We could do that," she agrees, "Or we could go sit on their roof with our laptops and actually do it from there. I mean I'm sure the Avengers aren't going to be called to Hammer Industries even if they do catch us, and they've gotta have wi-fi."

Gwen takes another chip and eats it, looking like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. She has taken note of Anya's misbehaviour; and she has, apparently, decided that a bad influence isn't always so bad afterall.

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