Ask Plot Coruscant Crossing Party Lines

Pidge Batana

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Pidge agreed with the droid. She could slice, but she couldn’t materialize data out of thin air. She needed access to the correct systems. Typically with medical systems, the security was so advanced it could only be accessed by computers in the facility linked to patient information. She had done it at her old medbay for months, mostly for curiosity’s sake. She had never gone so far as to blackmail. Just knowing things gave her a rush that no spice ever could. That why she did what she did. Or at least, that used to be why. Now it was higher stakes. Still thrilling, but ten times as dangerous. She had found companionship and excitement in her work, so recently, the rush had become more of a bonus.

“I could have another sudden bout of brainrot if we need to get in quick. They won’t keep me in the waiting room, and once the exam room is empty, I can take a look at the computer. Better yet, you can assign yourself to ‘treating’ me, claiming to be a resident droid. If you want to go a subtler route, we could be touring interns.”

The Twi’lek looked to the droid. He was logical, but she was creative. She could come up with plans, he could determine the safes. She felt her heart quicken with the excitement of their new mission.
 
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It0

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The repulsortaxi abruptly swung out of the skylane to a chorus of honks and pitched shouts before swooping towards a nearby landing pad. As Pidge settled their fare with the Gran cabbie, It0 exited the backseat and surveyed their new surroundings. They stood at the outer rim of a large elevated courtyard. The complex was abuzz with activity, staff, patients and visitors walking to and fro across its finely manicured grounds. At its center, an enormous monolith of glass and chrome dominated the view, it’s exterior reflecting the cityscape of Coruscant with a dazzling brilliance. A scrawl of digital lettering slid endlessly across the upper floors in a brazen red font: ‘BACTAMAX MEDICAL FACILITY’.

Transaction complete, Pidge emerged from the taxi and the pair watched it rejoin the congested traffic crawl overhead. It was only the Twi’lek and the droid now, with Vipe opting out of the deceptive effort. It0 calculated two, a presumed doctor and their patient, would arouse less suspicion in any case.

As they approached the facility entrance, an ambulance hovered to the curb where it sat idling. The driver stepped out and strode into the lobby on some unspoken task. His fellow EMT, a Tholothian wearing a bored expression, reclined in the passenger seat. Not far from where they stood, a delivery repulsortruck navigated towards an unseen loading dock at the buildings rear. Before them, an expansive lobby area was visibly behind a set of broad glass doors. A check-in desk was manned by various droids and staffers who bustled about busily. Directly across the lobby an Iktotchi in ballistic gear manned a small security station. Miserable would-be patients dotted the waiting area.

“I must say,” It0 remarked as they approached the massive structure. “This facility IS a far cry from its counterpart on Nar Shaddaa. In my opinion, the lack of graffiti and scorch marks take away from its inherent charm.”

Replicating a resigned sigh, he swung his cranial towards Pidge, his photoreceptors bright and enthused.

“Well Ms. Batana, how best to proceed? Is a sporadic case of Brainrot Plague still our method of entry? Or is there another tactic you wish to employ?”

@Pidge Batana
 

Pidge Batana

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The medical facility was, like the rest of the district it resided in, top tier. The sidewalks were practically sparkling. The glass front of the building revealed the intake area of the emergency department. There were five bays for ambulances, three of which were open, that lead directly into the treatment center. A security and check in desk curved around the back wall of the area. Chairs and benches were set up in neat rows. A droid rolled around offering water and hand sanitizer. An aquatic tank was set up so patients could watch squid while they were waiting. Now they just had to get in. “Let’s go with brainrot. I rather enjoy getting to dramatically collapse.”

Pidge walked past the security guards at the doors, making sure to look wobbly and miserable. As soon as the doors slid open, she was greeted by the overwhelming smell of cleaning products and rubbing alcohol. The fluoresce lights and sterile environment reminded her of her days as an emergency medic... well actually her nights. She scanned the room to see if the usual suspects were still the same. Most extremely serious injuries were brought in by ambulance and it was rare to see anyone hanging onto life by a thread in the waiting room. A rodian looked petrified as he cradled a perfectly healthy looking child who coughed occasionally- the concerned parent. A man stood in the corner, eyes bloodshot, the stench of spice hanging in the air around him- the narcotics seeker. The woman explaining all her mild symptoms to the nurse saying it could be a deadly case of a duracrete slug bite- the holonet searcher. Pidge didn’t know for sure, but she had enough experience to have the hunch. She also knew what would get her back into the exam room right away.

The paid strolled up to the desk.
“Pidgelle Batana. A coworker of mine was recently infected with the Brain Rot Plague and I haven’t been feeling quite myself lately. This is my personal med droid. He recommended I seek immediately help. It all started yest-“ The Twi’lek suddenly went completely limp and collapsed to the pristine tile floor. She started convulsing slightly, just for some extra effect. The desk attendant who had clearly already written her off took a second to gawk before frantically calling a few medics over to take her back.

Two staff quickly arrived with a crash cart and stretcher. They pulled on gloves and masks just in case the woman did truly have what she claimed before checking her breathing, heart rate, and lifting her onto the stretcher.

“Patient in Pod 2! Program in an exam order, Leslie.“ Pidge, who was still ‘unconscious’ could only guess what was happening but one of the nurses had apparently already left and the other had just finished scheduling the exam for the next available medic. As soon as he left as well, Pidge cracked a smile and opened her eyes. “We’re in”
 

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Security doors and pristine hallways slid by in an endless parade as they were rushed through the hospital’s interior. It0 followed the hovering gurney and committed the route to his flash memory. Brainrot was a highly contagious and highly lethal disease, making it optimal for their purposes. The BactaMax medical staff would be sanitizing and donning protective gear moments after leaving the medical pod.

The Twi’lek had put on a truly inspiring performance. It0 had encountered a few instances of Brainrot Plague during his residency, though it was the less lethal Type B. Nevertheless, Pidge’s twitching collapse was quite reminiscent of those poor unfortunates he had encountered back then. Still, the conundrum remained, what would they do now? Even provided the requisite time, It0 doubted highly that patient records would be accessible via a triage console. Such data would be segmented off. Whatever course of action they decides upon, time was of the essence.

“Very convincing Ms. Batana!” It0 remarked, photoreceptors already scanning the hallway outside. “I recommend you slice into the console without delay. Standard infectious disease triage response in a medical facility of this grade is under five minutes. The necessary records are likely considered cold data at this point. There’s a high probability that they’re in a on premises datacenter of some sort. If you can find the location of their on-site datacenter we should head that direction. Generally such archival content is only accessible locally. We’ll need to sort of some kind of security auth--they’re coming!”

It0 slid the pod door open and stepped partially into the hall. Shooting Pidge an over the shoulder glance, his visual array beamed with urgency. A trio of scrubbed doctors strode towards the pod, the 2-1B intersecting them as they approached. He threw his manipulators up in mock-alarm.

“I’ll distract them as long as I can!” he slid the pod door shut and Pidge could hear his shrill, alarmed cry. “I was wrong Dr! Quite wrong! It’s Type A! Far more contagious than I thought…”

@Pidge Batana
 

Pidge Batana

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Pidge took immediate advantage of the distraction It0 convincingly began. His vocal box truly did produce a very concerned sounding yell. Hopefully the medical staff would need to put on more protective gear, and if she was lucky, they would take the time to call in a contagion specialist. She just needed a few minutes.

The Twi’lek was inputting information into the computer as soon as she had seated herself in the repulsor- chair. She didn’t even need to forge an account. The output of the information was channeled through a network accessible on the main page. This feature was meant to simplify filing systems for the med center, doctors could input information into the patient system, or into a temporary file if they were treated on location and sent away. However, it was also very convenient for finding the central databank for patient records. She unencrypted the signals transmitting to Patient_Records_Room. It was a short range signal, meaning the room they were looking for was in the same building, likely on the same floor. Eventually, after, a bit of fiddling, she pulled up a file of a map for visitors and found unlabeled rooms. There were five, but one was likely a temperature control room, and two more appeared to be breakrooms, located next to the staff kitchen. That left two rooms, one down a hall and to the left, the other next to the elevator.

“It0- You blend in with this environnent perfectly. What do you say you offload the pertinent files while I buy time being sick. Then you can come back, I can be miraculously healed, and we can head somewhere to decipher it?” She gestured to the map on the screen, but quickly had to exit it and jump back onto the cot as two medical staff entered, covered head to toe by a protective suit.
 

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The pod door slid open and a retinue of doctors in encapsulated protective suits. They paid little attention to It0, brushing him aside and beginning their cursory examination of the unfortunate on the table before them. Brainrot was a fortuitous choice when it came to fabricated maladies, as very few of its indicators were visibly apparent. Its symptoms were, at a glance, largely behavioral. There were of course invasive tests that could reveal the presence of the virus, but with any luck the medical droid would return before such prodding became a necessity.

“Have you blown a fuse?” one of the helmeted physicians barked, “Don’t just stand there! Bring us a plasma testing cart!”

“I beg your pardon sir?” It0 replied primly.

“Blasted droids! What’s your designat--”

“Dr. Tillis!” his colleague interrupted. “She’s seizing again!”

Excusing himself from the room, he made his way out of the triage center and navigated down a series of pristine, if bustling, hallways. The facility was indeed a popular one for residents of Coruscant seeking medical attention. Repulsor-gurneys and physicians shared space with staff and visitors. So far as It0 could determine, the clientele maintained a general appearance of affluence. Well nourished and groomed, whatever ailments brought them to BactaMax, poverty played little role.

Accessing his databanks memory of the map Pidge had briefly pulled up, he quickly made his way towards the series of rooms she had indicated. Here the crowds dwindled and he found himself in a barren stretch of corridor. As suspected, the occasional staff member filtered in and out of what were a pair of breakrooms. The door beyond however, was curiously unlabeled and buzzed with a low and constant thrumming.

The droid approached the door and found it locked, its accompanying security panel blinking obstinately. Running the probability of his successfully slicing a security door in a facility of this caliber, It0 found the results less than favorable. Yet there was little alternative. He had been readying his scomp link cord when the door abruptly opened and he found himself faceplate to face with a reedy, balding human in a work uniform.

“Pardon me.” It0 said, shuffling forward. The human stopped him in his tracks, one hand on the 2-1B’s breastplate.

“Hold on now.” he commanded, eyeballing the droid suspiciously. “What business could you possibly have in here?”

“Dr. Trillis sent me to pull past medical records for a newly arrived patient.” the droid replied, wondering if snapping the organic’s arm off at the cuff would raise too great a ruckus.

“Dr. Trillis?” the sentient repeated, “Why wouldn’t he just call the archivists? Why send a droid down to cold data storage? That's not procedure. I'd better call administration..."

"Yes, perhaps that's best. Dr. Trillis may have been mistaken. After all, I did detect a high level of stress in his vocal analytics.” It0 stated flatly. “Though I suppose it stands to reason. Brainrot is highly infectious and the patient had spent some time in the hallways prior to being seen. As an airborne pathogen its quite likely a fair amount of guests and staff are already unknown hosts. And Dr. Trillis did mention locking down the facility before the virus spread beyond what he deemed ‘acceptable losses’.”

The workman blanched and half-scrambled, half-fell past the 2-1B before disappearing down the hallway at a tear. It0 proceeded into the cold data storage and found himself in a darkened datacenter. Long rows of server stacks stretched into the distance, a millions points of link-lights twinkling rhythmically. Locating the central node’s console, he wasted no time in jacking in. The datastream was immense, but sluggish. These were records that were seldom accessed.

The archivists had done the lionshare of his work for him. The senators name was linked with several separate cases. In several cases the presumptive children had been terminated, but at least three had been carried to term. Compressing all the relevant data into a single file, he began the extraction procedure.

The console flashed a severe crimson.

“/UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS...
/SECURITY PROTOCOLS ENGAGED…”


“Scrag!” he exclaimed, jerking his scomp link free.

@Pidge Batana
 

Pidge Batana

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Pidge began to convulse violently again as It0 slipped out of the pod. A nurse grabbed her arm and jabbed a needle in to draw blood. Another doctor, barely visible under a tinted face shield and protective suit, shone a bright light into her eyes to check pupil dilation. Pidge had done these examinations herself and new that after a few more checks, she would clearly be negative for brainrot and completely healthy otherwise. One couldn’t fake certain symptoms. Still, the longer she could hold out the better. Because brainrot was so contagious, it had to be dealt with thoroughly.

The plasma testing cart was rolled into the pod by a medic who looked terrified and quickly exited again, leaving the trays of electro scanners, swabs, injections, breath regulators, and temporary ports. Sensors were applied to her lekku, shoulders, chest, and wrists. The readout of her vitals was steady, besides the quickening chirp of Pidge’s heart monitor. After a few seconds of confused silence, the doctor whose name tag read ”Trillis” cleared his throat.

“Well, Miss Batana, I am happy to inform you that you tested negative. However, your behavior has been concerning and perhaps you have another malady. I will call a psychologist and have a few more tests run. Do you have a history of nervous conditions? Please take a seat in the waiting room until we have a room open for further diagnostics.“

Pidge knew Dr. Trillis knew nothing was wrong. He likely thought she was attention or drug seeking. At least her true motives were hidden. She took a seat near the desk. Apparently, the attendant was not yet informed of her perfect health and shifted away slightly. Just as the attendant he’d resettled, noticeably further from the Twi’lek, her com pinged. With an annoyed look -staff were always overworked, thought Pidge- she dialed in. The contents of the message was difficult to pick out among the hustle of the room, but the teal Twi’lek managed to catch snippets.
“Security Breach... privacy violation... administer lockdown”.

It would not have taken the two brains of a Cerean to deduce what had happened. Pidge pulled on her mask to scramble her voice to outsiders and spoke through her com to It0.

“We need to get out of here. Just take the nearest exit. I will meet you outside.“
She walked quickly towards the glass doors, her head down, only for her path to be blocked by a security guard.
@It0
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It0

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“We need to get out of here. Just take the nearest exit. I will meet you outside.”

Pidge’s voice was thin and painfully distant filtered through the comm. As It0 hurried from the datacenter, he analyzed the data stream he had managed to pull. Of sufficient size to be the necessary files, but without analyzing it he couldn’t be sure. And this was neither the time nor the place.

“Hey! You there!” a voice rang out down the hall. It0 turned to see a pair of security guards break into a run towards him.

To his right, a swelling crowd of hospital staff had emerged from the break rooms and kitchen, nervously eyeing the strobing alarm lights that pulsed overhead. The medical droid scuttled towards them.

“Evacuate! Evacuate!” he cried, shouldering his way through the sea of bodies. “There’s been a Brainrot contamination in the Triage Ward! All sentient staff must evacuate!”

Shouts of alarm and panic sprouted around him and quickly the bodies surged forward and around him as terrified staffers fled the hospital in the opposite direction of the source of the outbreak. As It0 rounded the corner, he glanced back in time to see the security guards pressing uselessly against the tide of fear-stricken employees.

Turned around and disoriented the 2-1B unit soon found himself wandering through the deserted hospital cafeteria, still warm lunches and cups of caf steaming from the tabletops. At the rear of the great glass enclosure was an exit and he wasted no time. Slipping out and circling back towards the hospital’s entrance, he only hoped the Pidge’s escape had been as straight-forward and that they had successfully procured the data they needed.

@Pidge Batana
 

Pidge Batana

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The guard had clearly expected to kindly but firmly tell the Twi’lek woman she had to stay for the time being as a breach was being investigated. He had definitely not anticipated the woman to run up and hug him. “Ra’x, I’m so glad you came as soon as you heard. How could I ever cope with brainrot alone?” Pidge let go of the stunned and panicking security guard and dashed out the door. The poor man was probably dreadfully confused as to who R’ax was, not to mention highly concerned he had just contracted brainrot from this random stranger. The Twi’lek didn’t stick around to answer his questions. She turned into a maintenance alley before the guard could process the events enough to pursue her.

A steady drip drip drip echoed between the close walls. Splashing through the mystery spillage flooding the alley, Pidge jogged towards a rather lost looking It0. She had spotted him easily, the only being meandering about while a mob of terrified healthcare workers evacuated. She wondered what the droid had done to make them leave. He was certainly quite creative. Still, that was a discussion for another time. Looping her arm around the droid’s manipulator, she directed them to an unmanned speeder. A few credits were inserted into the slot, and the engine jumped to life.


———
The Upper District Archives and Research Center for Coruscanti History’s marble floors sparked. The softly glowing shelves of data lit the vast building with a page blue light. The ceiling was so high it disappear in a grey haze and the shelves of data nodules towered. A repulsorpod hovered three meters up as a Duro in scholarly robes perused the section on Natural History Files- Authors H to P. An older woman, smartly dressed in a suit was cataloguing material. The quiet, thoughtful atmosphere of the place, although foreign to Pidge, was calming. She settled by a computer in a secluded nook and motioned for It0 to follow. “Ready to begin a scandal?”
 

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It0 lowered his vocabulator setting accordingly in response to the muted atmosphere of the research facility.

“It’s now or never Ms. Batana.” he remarked as he connected to the computer and began the data offload. With any luck, the incriminated data would be sufficiently present to give them sway over the wayward senator. At the BactaMax data storage, he had been too rushed to confirm the presence and integrity of the requisite files, but he calculated their odds of being intact as favorable.

The datastream whirled past his display until finally coming to a halt, punctuating its journey with an error of transference completion. It0’s photoreceptors turned towards Pidge.

“Upload complete.”
he announced, “It’s in your hands now ma’am.”

@Pidge Batana
 

Pidge Batana

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Smirking, Pidge began furiously typing away. In no more than three minutes, she had taken down a security wall, unencrypted the data to its most basic form, and filed it onto a datapad. Just in case. It0 watched expectantly. He was quite the character, the Twi’lek mused fondly. He had a better sense of humor than most organics. Now came the fun part. A message delivered directly to his official com.

Dearest Senator Balzeek,
I have accidentally stumbled upon some your magnificent work. Your children are beautiful and your choice in women is on point. I plan to share the wonderful news of your many illegal engagements and your illegitimate children not only with your wife, but also on channel 0012 on the holovids tomorrow morning. I can’t imagine the entire senate not wanting to meet your family. Unless, of course, you want your personal life to be kept secret, In which case, it will be 10,000 credits a month and my word of secrecy. The proof of your misdemeanor, including official records and holo recordings lies in my possession.

P.S. Dancers are never secretive about their relationship and hospital records are not difficult to obtain. Buy yourself some security. (Not that I couldn’t get through that too)


“Well, It0. I think we’ve got a politician under our thumb now. Long live Crymorah. Oh and the Grotta” She beamed at the droid. Her friend, she thought happily. She had done something magnificent. The thrill of it all warmed every inch of her.
“Let’s go get another drink!”
/End Thread
 
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