02-16-2020, 01:03 AM
Bureau of External Affairs, Laeralsford, Laeral
February 8, 2020
"The suspect still is refusing to talk," the BEA interrogator said. "Still insists that she's Sharon Quan, a Kerlian refugee and employee of the Kerlile Human Rights Initiative."
"So there's still absolutely nothing out of her?" Espoir Landais asked. "Any signs from body language, bodily responses, anything like that?"
"Nothing conclusive," the interrogator said. "She's not even displaying much abnormal resistance. We have her in uncomfortable conditions, we're trying to intimidate her, and she's responding just as much as you'd expect from a normal civilian."
"So we can't even hold up resistance to interrogation as evidence of her being an Aurora," Espoir mused. "Keep up the interrogation, I suppose. We probably have just a few more days until we have to release her, anyways."
"Yes, ma'am," the interrogator said, and left. Joseph Wu, Espoir's partner agent, entered a few seconds later.
"Where were you?" Espoir asked.
"Taking phone calls," Wu said. "You remember how I gave the woman back at the KHRI my phone number?"
"How could I forget?" Espoir said. "We made quite the scene."
"That woman and her colleagues have been calling me non-stop," Wu said. "I turned on my phone this morning to find that I had seven voicemails. Seven!"
Espoir snickered. "Imagine that. Human rights activists, being persistent like that."
"The worse thing is, Sharon's husband has been calling me, too. I just got off the phone with him."
"How's the poor man taking it?" Espoir asked.
"He's a wreck. Seems like they were just married a few years ago- they have a two year-old son, and the husband seems desperate to get his wife out of what he thinks is immigration detention."
"She'll be out in a few days, anyways," Espoir said. "Not much worse for wear."
"Still no evidence?" Joseph asked.
"Nothing at all," Espoir said. "Nothing to justify holding her longer. We'll have to give her up in a few days, with nothing to show for it."
"That's where you're wrong," Wu said, with a rare grin. "Follow me."
Wu led the way out of the room, down a hallway, and into a bare room with a single table. Sitting on the table was Sharon Quan's laptop and cell phone, which Wu had been careful to grab during Quan's arrest, surrounded by evidence documentation materials.
"Our tech team was able to break into her laptop and cell phone," Wu said. "Everything looked perfectly ordinary on the surface. Email, social media, ordinary search history, all of that. But they dug a little deeper, and they found a second layer. I don't understand all the computer stuff, but essentially there was a second layer of the computer, hidden beneath the surface, where she had been hiding a web browser and a bunch of download files."
"And what had she downloaded?" Espoir asked.
"I was waiting for you to take a look," Wu said. He walked over to the laptop. The screen was powered on, displaying a generic web browser. "This is the second layer of the computer," Wu said. "Sharon did all of her aboveboard things- work, personal emails, all of that- on the first layer, the one that comes up when you type in the password. But when you enter a series of commands and then another password, it gets you to this second layer. The search history here on the web browser cleared itself every time she exited this second layer, so we don't know what she was searching for. But her downloads stayed, even when she exited the layer."
He typed in a few commands, and up came a smaller screen displaying the downloads. It was a series of video files, dozens of them. They each had a title:
-"The Struggle of Wearing Boyfriend Jeans"
-"Setsuzoku vs. Reality: Lunar New Year Parties (Feat. Daniel Chan)"
-"How To Hide a Hickey From Your Brown Mom"
-"What Girls Really Think About Their Boyfriends' Sports (Part 2)"
"What the hell?" Wu said quietly.
"Maybe the titles are codes for something," Espoir said. "Watch one."
Wu clicked on a video, and a bouncy jingle played over a title card reading "Deepa's Diary: The Struggle of Wearing Boyfriend Jeans". The scene opened on an attractive young Desi woman waking up, springing out of bed, and walking over to a mirror before struggling to pull on a pair of jeans. As light music played in the background, the woman picked up a pair of jeans from her drawer and tried them on, before falling victim to a series of comedic pitfalls- mentally comparing her appearance to that of a twelve year-old boy, being unable to fit possessions into her pockets, and her mother, a traditionally dressed Andhran woman, berating her for being dressed immodestly. As the young woman walked back into her bedroom, defeated, a bouncy snippet of music played, and the screen cut to the woman herself speaking directly to the camera.
"Hey, thanks so much for watching! If you enjoyed, be sure to like and subscribe, and check out my other videos..."
"Is this a- comedy show of some kind?" Wu asked.
Espoir was struggling to hold back a very unprofessional giggle. "Joseph, this is the kind of thing my little sister watches! It's an online video channel. That's Deepa Bhowal; she started out doing makeup tutorials and now she runs these sorts of- comedy things. My sister's sixteen, and she loves it."
"Are they all like this?" Wu asked.
Espoir took a look at the file names. "These all look like Deepa's Diary videos to me. I just don't get why Sharon would go to all the effort of hiding a bunch of videos on, like, hiding hickeys and that kind of thing."
"She must have had some reason with them," Wu said. "Some kind of plan. Look at this, there's dozens of these videos here. Maybe a hundred. And this one over here- it looks like video of this Deepa person just walking down the street or something."
"This means she's an Aurora, then," Espoir said. "There's no other reason why anyone, especially a businesswoman in her thirties, would be hiding all of these videos like this." She paused as a thought dawned on her. "Do you think Deepa Bhowal is an Aurora?"
"She's famous, you said? A celebrity?"
"To some people, I guess," Espoir said. "I don't know if anyone over 25 could tell you who she is, but for a lot of teenagers, she's important."
"She's in a position of power, then," Wu said. "There's a good chance she's an Aurora. Or someone Sharon was targeting. We need to find her."
"She lives in the Laeralsford suburbs, I think," Espoir said. "Somewhere in the Riverlands, at least."
"Deepa Bhowal is now a person of interest for us," Wu said. "Let's make sure we get to her before anyone else does."
February 8, 2020
"The suspect still is refusing to talk," the BEA interrogator said. "Still insists that she's Sharon Quan, a Kerlian refugee and employee of the Kerlile Human Rights Initiative."
"So there's still absolutely nothing out of her?" Espoir Landais asked. "Any signs from body language, bodily responses, anything like that?"
"Nothing conclusive," the interrogator said. "She's not even displaying much abnormal resistance. We have her in uncomfortable conditions, we're trying to intimidate her, and she's responding just as much as you'd expect from a normal civilian."
"So we can't even hold up resistance to interrogation as evidence of her being an Aurora," Espoir mused. "Keep up the interrogation, I suppose. We probably have just a few more days until we have to release her, anyways."
"Yes, ma'am," the interrogator said, and left. Joseph Wu, Espoir's partner agent, entered a few seconds later.
"Where were you?" Espoir asked.
"Taking phone calls," Wu said. "You remember how I gave the woman back at the KHRI my phone number?"
"How could I forget?" Espoir said. "We made quite the scene."
"That woman and her colleagues have been calling me non-stop," Wu said. "I turned on my phone this morning to find that I had seven voicemails. Seven!"
Espoir snickered. "Imagine that. Human rights activists, being persistent like that."
"The worse thing is, Sharon's husband has been calling me, too. I just got off the phone with him."
"How's the poor man taking it?" Espoir asked.
"He's a wreck. Seems like they were just married a few years ago- they have a two year-old son, and the husband seems desperate to get his wife out of what he thinks is immigration detention."
"She'll be out in a few days, anyways," Espoir said. "Not much worse for wear."
"Still no evidence?" Joseph asked.
"Nothing at all," Espoir said. "Nothing to justify holding her longer. We'll have to give her up in a few days, with nothing to show for it."
"That's where you're wrong," Wu said, with a rare grin. "Follow me."
Wu led the way out of the room, down a hallway, and into a bare room with a single table. Sitting on the table was Sharon Quan's laptop and cell phone, which Wu had been careful to grab during Quan's arrest, surrounded by evidence documentation materials.
"Our tech team was able to break into her laptop and cell phone," Wu said. "Everything looked perfectly ordinary on the surface. Email, social media, ordinary search history, all of that. But they dug a little deeper, and they found a second layer. I don't understand all the computer stuff, but essentially there was a second layer of the computer, hidden beneath the surface, where she had been hiding a web browser and a bunch of download files."
"And what had she downloaded?" Espoir asked.
"I was waiting for you to take a look," Wu said. He walked over to the laptop. The screen was powered on, displaying a generic web browser. "This is the second layer of the computer," Wu said. "Sharon did all of her aboveboard things- work, personal emails, all of that- on the first layer, the one that comes up when you type in the password. But when you enter a series of commands and then another password, it gets you to this second layer. The search history here on the web browser cleared itself every time she exited this second layer, so we don't know what she was searching for. But her downloads stayed, even when she exited the layer."
He typed in a few commands, and up came a smaller screen displaying the downloads. It was a series of video files, dozens of them. They each had a title:
-"The Struggle of Wearing Boyfriend Jeans"
-"Setsuzoku vs. Reality: Lunar New Year Parties (Feat. Daniel Chan)"
-"How To Hide a Hickey From Your Brown Mom"
-"What Girls Really Think About Their Boyfriends' Sports (Part 2)"
"What the hell?" Wu said quietly.
"Maybe the titles are codes for something," Espoir said. "Watch one."
Wu clicked on a video, and a bouncy jingle played over a title card reading "Deepa's Diary: The Struggle of Wearing Boyfriend Jeans". The scene opened on an attractive young Desi woman waking up, springing out of bed, and walking over to a mirror before struggling to pull on a pair of jeans. As light music played in the background, the woman picked up a pair of jeans from her drawer and tried them on, before falling victim to a series of comedic pitfalls- mentally comparing her appearance to that of a twelve year-old boy, being unable to fit possessions into her pockets, and her mother, a traditionally dressed Andhran woman, berating her for being dressed immodestly. As the young woman walked back into her bedroom, defeated, a bouncy snippet of music played, and the screen cut to the woman herself speaking directly to the camera.
"Hey, thanks so much for watching! If you enjoyed, be sure to like and subscribe, and check out my other videos..."
"Is this a- comedy show of some kind?" Wu asked.
Espoir was struggling to hold back a very unprofessional giggle. "Joseph, this is the kind of thing my little sister watches! It's an online video channel. That's Deepa Bhowal; she started out doing makeup tutorials and now she runs these sorts of- comedy things. My sister's sixteen, and she loves it."
"Are they all like this?" Wu asked.
Espoir took a look at the file names. "These all look like Deepa's Diary videos to me. I just don't get why Sharon would go to all the effort of hiding a bunch of videos on, like, hiding hickeys and that kind of thing."
"She must have had some reason with them," Wu said. "Some kind of plan. Look at this, there's dozens of these videos here. Maybe a hundred. And this one over here- it looks like video of this Deepa person just walking down the street or something."
"This means she's an Aurora, then," Espoir said. "There's no other reason why anyone, especially a businesswoman in her thirties, would be hiding all of these videos like this." She paused as a thought dawned on her. "Do you think Deepa Bhowal is an Aurora?"
"She's famous, you said? A celebrity?"
"To some people, I guess," Espoir said. "I don't know if anyone over 25 could tell you who she is, but for a lot of teenagers, she's important."
"She's in a position of power, then," Wu said. "There's a good chance she's an Aurora. Or someone Sharon was targeting. We need to find her."
"She lives in the Laeralsford suburbs, I think," Espoir said. "Somewhere in the Riverlands, at least."
"Deepa Bhowal is now a person of interest for us," Wu said. "Let's make sure we get to her before anyone else does."