The Diary of Professor Duke Odus | Duke x Rodney

1: A Strange Opportunity

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November 5:

I have received a letter from Rodney whom I have not spoken to in almost half a decade. Although I am happily surprised to hear from him out of the blue, I was hoping for more than a random job offer. Stranger still, Rodney said only to communicate through letters or to visit in person. I am considering going to visit the address given to me as I am curious what this is all about. Although, I would need to find a fill in for my work at the lab while I am away at work for Rodney, which he has stated would not be long.

Rodney seemed wildly set on convincing me to go as he had sent with his letters a four page document that explained what I would be doing along with all the benefits of the job. I will not be taking the job for any of the reasons that Rodny had stated, but for one of my own. I wish to see Rodney deeply and this may be my only chance to reconnect. Not that I will ignore the actual job; but Rodney has a rather small team, and I was invited to stay with Rodney while I do this work to avoid the cost of a hotel. Those two factors could lead to a few personal moments with Rodney.

I will be leaving tomorrow, the plane ride has already been scheduled. It's not as if there is anyone who could tell me not to, and I will stay in touch with my team in case anything happens. I believe I will leave Shara in charge of the operation, she has been on this specific project from the beginning and would be the best bet to make sure nothing gets broken or lost.

November 6:

I have arrived in the town Rodney had asked me to travel to for this project. Once I found my way to his office, and we talked more about my involvement within the project, Rodney revealed that his saying of 'a rather small team' really meant no team at all. Apparently, Rodney has had people join his team before, but they have stolen bits of his research and published it as their own multiple times. Rodney would enjoy it if this did not happen with a fourth person, which is where I come in. Rodney stated that he is having an incredibly hard time finding someone for his cyber security that he can actually trust. Rodney knows of my work, from when we worked together, securing our research centers computers. I'm not sure if my skills will be up to par with what Rodney is asking.

The project's specifics will be revealed to me at a later date as Rodney had invited me out to dinner so we could talk more personally. Apparently, he has been at this project for a rather long time, and so he has been rather alone, apart from the few previously mentioned partners. I'm starting to think Rodney may have some trust issues from this experience, so I'll do my best to stay on his good side. Once he has completed the project, he wants to take a long vacation where he travels the whole world, but he fears that day is slipping further and further from him. I explained that my current project has had me traveling all over the globe to find pieces of evidence, so the last thing I want is to travel for a vacation and would rather be set in one area for some time. He found it funny that we were living each other's dream life, and believing it to be a nightmare. I think we are off to a good start again.

He has me staying in an almost empty spare bedroom in his apartment. The apartment as a whole is almost depressing. The kitchen and Livingroom are covered in reports and research papers, and that's about it. It seems Rodney has made this project his whole life and has forgotten to focus on any other areas. He showed me where the spare room was located, and left me to unpack. Once I was done I went out to see what he was up to; he had made some coffee and was reading one of the papers that was on the counter looking deep in thought. It took him some time to notice that I was standing next to him and he jumped when he did. He offered some coffee that was still in the pot, but once I declined, it being almost 10 pm, he simply went back to reading as if he could not stop his brain from wandering back to his work.

It is almost 11 now and I have yet to hear any movement from the kitchen to the other bedroom, I would have to say that he is most likely still out there. I have only been here a day and I am very intrigued as to the project and what it could possibly be to have Rodney this way. Not that I am not guilty of focusing too much on work, but Rodney was usually the one to tell me what's what, I fear the roles may be reversed in this instance.

November 7:

Rodney was looking at something on a whiteboard in the living room when I awoke, it's unclear if he had been there all night. He had said I could eat anything I could find for breakfast, I just went with a bowl of cold cereal, Rodney had the same. While we ate Rodney told me about the applications he mostly used and asked if I knew any way of protecting them. I gave him the basics that would apply to any website that he would use, but told him I would need to know more about the specifics to help in the way he asked me to.

He logged me onto a computer he had at his apartment, and showed me a file he had that had usernames and passwords saved on. I immediately printed that off before deleting it and making sure it was inaccessible from the computer and told him that that was the first step in making sure no one unauthorized was getting into his accounts. Apparently he had a similar thing on the computer at his office and lab. I've never wanted to punch someone so hard. I showed him how to make sure the file was fully deleted and sent him off to go do the same to the other computers.

I spent most of the days setting up new passcodes and multi factor authentication for most of the accounts. I didn't have time to look at anything on the accounts and I didn't plan to. Once Rodney returned I gave him a paper of the new passcodes and the answers to the security questions. I told him to either hide the paper extremely well or to memorize the new passwords, he just nodded with a look of confusion, so I showed him some ways he memorize or figure out them, most where a hash of something I knew about Rodney, so I imagine it won't be to hard for him to figure it out. Showing him how to hash the original item to get the actual passcode was a whole other thing.

I talked with him about setting up a system that would protect documents or sites from unknown IP addresses, but that it might take some time to set up something like that. He agreed to it and went back to his office. I had him send me emails from both computers so I could track their IP addresses and add them to the code. I have made a lot of progress with this project today, but I am going to try to sleep tonight.

Rodney has not returned but he did not give me a time to expect him to be back, so I am not sure whether to be worried or not. But, he is a grown man and I know I should not worry for him but I can not stop myself.