#bergen_county

"Hey."

The pristine counter where he sometimes has delicate animal bones - and sometimes has drying mini figurines, currently has a partially dissected watch. "Don't touch, " He warns, "It's on an anti-static mat, but a finger might shock the circuits if you're not grounded first. And I wouldn't want to have to scramble to afford to replace this if that lady wanted it back."

"Yeah, not touching. Connor sent cicada shells."

"Just the shells? That's... kinda cool." He admits. "If nothing else, they're a good autumn bunk. I'll show Lilly."

"So you said you found something interesting?" She tromps over to claim a seat, and sets the baggie of cicada casings down... and a tupperware with something.. greyish-greenish-lilac inside.

"So she just gave it to him like that, huh?" Symon sounds a little envious. "If my Dad had taken one of those board positions and worked as a surgeon in the bigger city hospitals, I'd probably have one that nice. And a motorcycle. And a trust fund." A small sigh. And a glance over at Dagmar, and small, wry smile. "But I wouldn't live here, then."

"Yeah, well - the're loaded, near as I can tell."

"Well, the confusing thing here - and I wasn't really sure what I was looking for - was that there wasn't anything in there. No extra circuits wired in, no secret microchips. I was worried if I took it apart I'd not be able to get it back together, but other than a little thermal glue, I think I'm good. Didn't even crack it. The guts are normal." He has a slightly smug look, though.

"No weird programs?"

His lips widen into a toothless grin, and he taps his nose. "See, what I haven't figured out is if they're really clever, or really lazy. There's nothing EXTRA added. So there's deniability there. But the device itself - standard really in this top end tech - is so sophisticated that stuff that used to be like, CIA level is now standard. Here.. can I see your phone?"

"Um, yeah?"

"Promise I won't break it."

She offers it out - so precious, but it's refurbished, and low-end... but smart, yes!

He turns it over in his hands, picks up a tiny, thin metal tool - wait, no - it's a bent out paperclip - and with a flick of a motion, a tiny chip is popped out from a little slot that was near invisible. He shows this to her on a fingertip, then taps it into how own phone - laying half-dissected, and hooked to his computer. And data scrolls across the screen.

"See this? Each tree shows different subsets of information stored - this shows all of your contacts, and saved -account- data from you phone. If you ever break it, make sure you retain this."

He returns the precious chip to it's phone and phone to it's owner.

"And THIS is the card from that thing."

And he pulls up a much larger set of folders.

"Contacts, texts, GPS data, apps - not photos or videos, they're too data intensive... but those are stored on the phone, and based on the account data on the SIM card, it feeds back to the account owner. They can read any of the phone data, just within their account. And use the security features for a lost device to track it, even without any GPS apps, which it DOES have. It all goes to the cloud. Unless you reprogram it, that is."

"Oh jeez..."

"So she can track all kinds of stuff, and get all his friends..."

There's that smug look again. "See, if it were ME, I'd have put a bug in it. A dummy. Pop it open, take it out, say AHA, and they'd never look further. But this is easy enough to fix. Just put in a blank SIM card. Get one from a burner phone, they're standard. You'd have to pay for the service - but those pay-as-you-go plans are pretty cheap, if you don't need a ton of data. Limited minutes and enough juice for GPS, that shouldn't cost much. It cripples the phone a bit." He says, a little sadly, "But it would still work."

"I can loop it to your phone so you can track it, if you want." He offers. "No more face stealing adventures."

"...do they even HAVE a computer at the lodge?" He wonders.

"I have a laptop at home..."

"That's because you're a Thor-branded Viking. The electricity in your brain helps you understand mystery tech, amidst morlocks."

"So, okay... I get Connor a pre-paid plan, put THAT chip in his watch, and she won't get his stuff? Maybe stick THIS sim card in the cheap phone?"

"Have it do stuff so Calanthe doesn't get too suspicious..."

A blink. "I hadn't thought of that. Well I would have. Yeah. It was probably my idea." A smirk. "You just got there faster. If you use the old sim every so often, she may not be tipped off that you caught on. True burner style. One phone for family, one phone for dirty dealing. But she's the dirty dealer."

"Yeah. And Connor can call HER on the card she owns..."

Sigh. "He wants to. Figure I can listen. Not sure if the boon works over the phone..."

"Maybe clip the phone to brown dog, let him run around a bit. He doesn't go on patrols, right?"

A snicker.

"GPS tracking that never really leaves the area. Moving around reasonably, but not going anyplace she shouldn't know about."

"Well, yeah... yeah, that could work."

"The longer you trick her, the more pissed she'll be when she figures it out. Well, if. At least, I would be. Granted, I'd be more pissed at myself for getting tricked."

Shrug.

"But, she gave him the phone, right? Not loaned?"

"She'll be pissed I do anything to keep Connor away from her."

"Yeah."

"Then it's yours to do whatever you want with. You could sell it." He offers. "Even second hand and unlocked, I could probably get at least $300 for this thing."

"That buys a lot of dog biscuits."

His hand hovers over the watch. "Maybe it broke when I was looking at it." He offers.

"Well, he'll still need it - she'll look for it. And it's his."

"You say with the new sim, it'd be mostly safe?"

"No more dangerous that any of our phones. Which now you know how easy it is to crack into if someone gets. So yeah, safe if he doesn't lose it, and he doesn't really go out in public, so... yeah. And I can pre-load apps on and nanny-lock it, or show you how. It's not hard."

She nods.

"He likes it, and he wants it."

"Nanny-lock sounds good, too - like, so he can only call certain numbers without somebody undoing it?"

"Like me, Chief, Kerri, Ann-Marie?"

"You can restrict contacts, block downloading apps, limit internet access - burner data would be expensive, I'd just turn that off entirely - not like you can really browse on that tiny screen - and link to your phone so you can track his GPS. Um. Not sure about limiting -specific- contacts without blocking them all. I suppose you can't just ask him to promise. Pooka." A shake of his head.

"It comes with fitness data, if you really wanted to know how many steps he walks a day. He might find that interesting? Kids are weird."

"Hm."

"Put Calanthe and the dangerous ones on the other card, and... swap them out when it's time to call her?"