CH3: The Regault Foundation (Kendall)

[Renekin Skywalker]

Unfortunately, no tennants remembered calling the phone company, and the super ended up being the one to meet Kendall at the door. "Contractor, eh? For the phone? What unit?"

[Dome]

"You sure there no problems here? Damn, I bet they sent me to the wrong address again. Give me a sec."

Kendall turns his back on the super and dials the phone number for time. He has a one way conversation with someone that the super cant hear.

"...Yeah this is Kendall I'm at (what ever address he is at).....What do you mean its the wrong address. It's the one you gave me......Oh thats it? One block over same address, ok Got it, thanks."

He hangs up the phone, and turns back to the super, "Sorry about that. Its one block over, same address though. Have a good day."

Kendall turns around and walks away. He jumps into his car and drives off.

[Renekin Skywalker]

As Kendall's collecting his thoughts, he finds a been on his phone, letting him know he has a work order waiting at his office from CSTel.

[Dome]

Kendall pulls over and calls his voicemail, 'Pretending to have a job, and here they call me with one. Funny as hell if its any where near that building. I'll do that job to get my head straight. Maybe I will come up with a plan while I work.'

He listens to the message and writes down the information, hangs up, and heads towards the new address.

[Renekin Skywalker]

Better start laughing... turns out the address is the one of interest... the CS-Tel message had indicated that there was some kind of muddle around the wiring and he was being asked to sort it out. Standard rates.

[Dome]

As Kendall hangs up thinking that this is a very funny and bizarre coincidence. If he believed in coincidences that is. 'What are the chances? I better be extra careful this seems to coincidental for my taste.

He makes his way back towards the building and once again approaches the door. He rings the super, and when he answers Kendall says, "hello again. Seems that there is also a problem here. Just got a call from CS-Tel about this address. I confirmed to be sure this time."

[Renekin Skywalker]

The super - a man in his fifties with that there-and-back-again presence - eyes him suspiciously. "Give me a second." He says. Leaving Kendall at the front door. After a little while he comes back (like, enough time to check something) "Alright, come in. Sorry for the wait, but there's been someone else snooping out that apartment. Gotta look out for the kids."

As he walks Kendall up to the apartment, the Super goes on. "Hopefully, though, you'll make heads or tales of it. Some sort of engineering student was in there before, and then, last year, we tried to rent it again, but the new tenant couldn't use the phones. He didn't care, cause he was one of those all-cellphone types, you know? Gonna die of cancer if you ask me. Anyways, now that he's moved out, we figured we could just let it sit and get the wiring done before we upgrade the wiring an all that, you know?"

[Dome]

"Engineering student? Probably thought he could make his phones better or get himself free internet or something. I should be able to figure out whats what. You said someone was snooping around? Why the hell would anyone want to snoop around a college kid? Show me to the room, and I'll see what I can do."

[Renekin Skywalker]

"God only knows." the landlord says. "I went in to fix the plumbing... talk about bring your work home with you..." He chuckles.

He opens the door, and shows the apartment. There are a lot of places where the wall was patched up and outlets removed. "I did what I could, but I could only do so much, you know? I doubt there's much left behind the walls, but you know, clean wiring is good. The owners want a minimum one phone jack per room, and wiring to handle two phone numbers. Also, if you can wire it for a computer network, and double check the cable, it should be enough. Don't worry about the dry-wall, since it'll all be redone anyways."

[Dome]

"This could take a while. I'll have to locate and check all the old stuff first, then go from there"

Once the Super leaves him to his work he begins by opening up each phone jack and taking a look at the wiring. 'Too bad they didn't give me x-ray vision, would make this job much easier, I'll have to ask for the upgrade when I go back in.'

As he looks at each jack he checks for any signs of tampering that may cause the line to fail.

[Renekin Skywalker]

X-Ray vision would have been earlier, but having carte-blanche with the dry-wall did make a difference. The tenant must have had amazing skill and/or to wire so much up without taking the dry-wall off. Kendall could see new holds in some of the studs were hardened (against EM interference) pipes still ran, protecting whatever wires went through it from disruptions.

The phone jack had been very efficiently spliced as well, to allow no less than a dozen lines, and the remnants of the LAN network showed about as many outlets. If anything, the engineer had upgraded what the older building had experienced from years of super-intendent fiddling.

[Dome]

"Damn this was some good work. But why the hell would they need so many lines in one apartment? Couldn't have been one person just living here. Seems they may have had some kind of office here or something. They took the main single line, and made it a trunk line. Must have had a server or something here. Well, would be a shame to waste this wiring, but the customer wants what he wants."

After talking to himself as he appraised and evaluated the current work, Kendall begins his work after a quick visit to his vehicle for parts. He re-wires the jacks so that only one line will function throughout the apartment. He does re-use the same wiring, but he cuts out the main line that had been spliced out, and replaces the jack with a single line. He reconnects one Data line, and one voice line per room. Anything he cut out he saves to evaluate further later. After he is done replacing all the jacks, he tests everything and then packs it up. As he works he goes over what he knew before, and how that relates to what he found in the apartment, 'Revenant is some kind of organization that stole some trade secrets from Regault. They had an office somewhere, but Regault didn't know where. I could definitely see them being able to do all kinds of work from this apartment. That hardened pipe would have protected the wires from EM, and the lines from being tapped as well. I was ready to write off this guy as a student and not a willing participant, but after looking at all this, I think he may actually be my guy. I'll have to look further into him, maybe get his new address.'

When he heads downstairs he stops by the super's office. "I'm all done. I tried to be gentle with the drywall. You said only one student stayed in that place? He had spliced the phone and data lines, probably had a dozen different lines. My guess is he was running some kind of office out of there. Do you have his new contact information? I have to forward the info to CS-Tel. The guy was paying for one phone and one internet connection, and he was obviously running alot more. They are going to want to bill him, fine him, or based on the quality of work, i would suggest hire him."

[Renekin Skywalker]

The super shrugs. "Yeah, I suppose I can dig it up for you... though I don't know if he'ld even still be there. I don't think he had any kind of line hacks. Somehow, no-one had trouble, even with electricity." He pulls out a pad of paper and writes an address. "Here you go. Thanks for doing the work."

[Dome]

"Thank you I'll make sure CS-Tel gets this. One more thing, you said someone was snooping around in that apartment. Did they touch the phone lines?"

Kendall makes his way out to his truck and packs up his tools. He jumps in the cab and starts up his laptop with cellular broadband. He does a google on the new address just before he drives away. He stops at a local coffee shop not to far from the apartment building and goes inside with his laptop to do some research and have a cup of joe.

[Renekin Skywalker]

The new address is in a farily nice part of town. Though, it has very little googly history. A map from the coffee-shop to the address is easy enough to find.