Xenophobia - Chapter 27

    The others glanced around at each other, not sure what to say. Illiquina watched them with an excited look that quickly dwindled.
    A moment of silence later, she buried her face back in her datapad and started pounding away.
    "I'm not sure I understand." Darrian said thoughtfully, the first one to speak again."So whoever it was that changed the info in the archives...they forgot to remove the information on the old judge's brothers?"
    "In essence." Illiquina responded with a mischievous smile, still typing furiously.
    "Wow." Ferris said stupidly.
    "Yep!" she said gleefully.
    "That seems like a huge oversight." Ferris continued.
    "Yes and no." Illiquina remarked.
    Ferris and Darrian traded confused glances.
    "What do you mean by that?" Darrian asked.
    Illiquina didn't respond.
    The silence grew louder, intensified by the incessant tapping.
    "Illiquina?" A'alan't 32 finally interjected.
    "Mmm?"
    "What do you mean?" A'alan't 32 repeated.
    "Well..." she said looking up. "whoever came through and changed the information on the judge did alter the information on the judge's brothers."
    Ferris let out a sharp, annoyed groan.
    "Then how is it any better than the judge's entry?" Ferris demanded.
    "Because they only deleted the info." she responded with a joyous grin.
    Again, they found themselves just staring at the little Cadrax.
    "How is that any different?" Ferris asked. "Or useful?"
    Illiquina's face darkened.
    "Actually, it's very useful." She quickly spat. "The judge's article was deleted and altered. His brothers only had specific segments removed and nothing else."
    "Or redacted, if you will." she added as an after thought.
    "How is that-" Ferris began.
    "Oh for the love of-! You really don't understand how your archive servers store information, do you?" she spat.
    "Illiquina." A'alan't 32 interjected once more with a warning in her tone.
    "Oh fine!"
    "Treat us as if we know nothing." Ferris quipped.
    "Like that would be hard." she snapped.
    Illiquina straightened herself up and took a deep breath, setting the datapad to the side for a moment.
    "Look: the archives are meant to store information." Illiquina started. "Meaning that, unless it has a good reason to, it doesn't simply purge information."
    "Information like 'old records', perhaps?" A'alan't 32 offered.
    "Precisely."
    "So you're saying that deleting something isn't a good enough reason to purge it from the archives?" Darrian asked, sounding utterly confused.
    "No! With multi-thread archiving, deleting something is just the beginning!" she said more excited than annoyed now. "If anything it's really just a hindrance."
    "I don't get it." Darrian said.
    "Me either." added Ferris.
    Illiquina stared at them with a look of complete derision.
    "Like I said: me know nothing." Ferris quickly shot out.
    Illiquina groaned under her breath.
    "Deleting is just the first level of the multi-thread purge in these systems. It removes the information from being readily displayed but it doesn't actually get rid of it. Unless the actual articles were altered...changed to reflect new information...none of the information in the stored backups is going to change."
    "In short," she continued. "If I can dig into the backup servers, I can pull out all of the information about our judge's dear old brothers."
    Darrian stared at the little Cadrax in awe. She was small and unassuming but she very well might be the most impressive one of the group.
    "Tha-that's incredible." stammered Darrian.
    "Damn straight."
    "What do you need from us?" asked A'alan't 32.
    "Absolutely nothing." she retorted. "Unless you know how to manually bypass 768 bit encryption or know how to plant a worm that will bypass security and draw out their database backups without triggering something?"
    "Do what now?"
    "That's what I thought." she said, scooping up her datapad.
    "How long should it take?" asked Darrian.
    "A while." Illiquina offered. "It might be worth heading home at this point. I'm going to keep working and let you know when I've made some headway. Very well might be a cycle."
    "Good luck." Ferris offered.
    Illiquina snorted and disappeared out into the hall.
        And with nothing better to do, the group said their goodbyes and made their way to their respective homes. That night, for the first time in a while, Darrian wasn't thinking of the humans or what was going on in their Sol system. His thoughts were racing with the possibilities with what Illiquina might find.

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