Alli didn’t care for how Kaihime brushed off the question, but the cyborg didn’t pay attention to her annoyance. Her focus turned to the computer. Kaihime worked her fingers across the keyboard, but even as she did so, thin strands of wiring emerged from beneath her blouse. They snaked into every access point on the computer tower. Alli felt her skin crawl at the sight of it, but she restrained herself from stepping between her new ally as she went to work.
The screen flickered across several screens as Kaihime worked. It quickly switched to a run menu as Kaihime started to input hundreds of DOS commands faster than Alli’s eyes could follow. She was no computer expert by any means, but she didn’t understand the first thing Kaihime was doing.
I’ve came this far already. I might as well trust her now.
“What are you doing? This all looks like gibberish to me.”
“I’m accessing the encryption of the files. It is set in layers, each one more complicated than the last. The keys are different for each one, and in order to access each, I have to first unlock the one before it. It is an ingenious system, designed by a master cryptographer. The first two layers are already open, the ones containing your friends’ names as well as the second layer with information on Ian and the man you knew as Smith. The third layer seems harder to access than it actual is. The key here is a complicated substitution cipher, but I am already well on my way to unlocking it. Give me just a moment longer.”
Alli didn’t even know what to say to most of that. She only knew what cryptography was from movies. She certainly didn’t have any clue on the nature of how to use it, nor of breaking codes. She didn’t have a clue what a substitution cipher was, nor did Kaihime seem to have any intention of explaining it. The mysterious woman certainly was knowledgeable, but she didn’t seem to understand most people didn’t know as much as she did. It made her talk over people easily, and did little to make Alli feel like an intellectual equal. She had to remind herself Kaihime didn’t do it on purpose. Her knowledge of human interaction was based on television and film, far from reality.
Cut her some slack and remember I’m smarter than I feel right now.
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