The Scene 2.0 (2006) — Season 2 Episode Synopses

Reconstructed from the episodes themselves: on-screen text — Jabber, AIM and mIRC windows, emails, browser tabs and terminal output — read frame by frame, merged with the spoken narration from locally generated transcripts. No published episode synopses exist for this season either. Links to the series and its records are at the end.

Coverage: complete — all 20 episodes, including the cold-open narration that opens each one.

This is written for someone who has watched the series, or doesn't mind knowing: the episode entries point forward to what things turn out to mean, and the sections after episode 20 take the whole season as read.

The season at a glance #

Episode 1 — the recruitment (POV: lukai) #

Contents · Episode 2 →

I'd been out of the scene for over a year and I wasn't looking to return. I guess I should have known that the scene would come looking for me.

The season opens on a channel doing what warez channels do — an XDCC bot spamming its slot count into #elitewarez — and then a private message that has nothing to do with any of it.

<talisman> thank you for meeting me

<sng330> who is this?

<talisman> you don't remember me, lukai ?

<talisman> i am disappointed

<sng330> oh, it's you

talisman says his group needs an encoder, that they have releases coming, that they need someone fast. It is an ordinary scene recruitment, and sng330 turns it down eight times — i'm not available, not interested, i don't encode anymore, no thanks, i have no time for this, i can't do this right now, tell your group to find somebody else, i have to go to work. Then the register changes:

<talisman> you really don't want to disappoint my group

<talisman> let's discuss in a secure channel

<talisman> i will idle here while you set it up

sng330 types it's done and gives a Jabber address. Everything after this in the season happens there.

Between the two conversations the narration stops being about her and explains the machinery, in the season's only piece of exposition:

There are lots of ways to have a private conversation in this world. In fact, if you know where to look, you can access some of the most advanced cryptography on the planet. For free. Tor is a global network of double-blind servers. It's basically an onion rooter. Criminal cartels share it with the intelligence agencies who invented it. All the traffic is ground up and re-assembled, so that nobody can trace it. And nobody has to trust anyone else.

Her Start menu, open on screen a few seconds later, is the same claim in software: Gaim and Gaim-otr, mIRC, Putty, WinSCP3, FileZilla, TightVNC, a Cisco VPN client — and Vidalia, which is the Tor controller the narration has just described.

In the encrypted window the other man is t0mb0, and he is not recruiting an encoder at all.

t0mb0: our mutual friend wishes to engage your [services]

t0mb0: he has buyers

t0mb0: and we need to put a deal together quickly

houdini6: i left the scene a long time ago

t0mb0: come now

t0mb0: once you're in you cannot leave

houdini6: i can and i did

t0mb0: your naivete is refreshing

t0mb0: it must be wonderful to be young

t0mb0: but none of us can stay a child forever

t0mb0: your involvement is required

houdini6 says she is logging out. t0mb0 asks her to wait, and posts a link — http://walkin.thruhere.net/lukai.jpg — with have a look, and then we can talk some more. The episode ends on the link. What the picture shows is never stated; the next episode is about what it means.

Episode 2 — Katerina (POV: lukai) #

← Episode 1 · Contents · Episode 3 →

When I first got into this scene, I was convinced I could game the system. I thought I was smart enough to remain anonymous and still make a profit. But nothing in life comes without a price.

One conversation, and it is the one the season is built on. t0mb0 opens with an unhurried courtesy that never lets up — good evening, it is not late where you are, good afternoon — while houdini6 asks the same question three different ways.

houdini6: where is she?

houdini6: tell me where she is

t0mb0: you do not know ?

t0mb0: that's right

t0mb0: it must be hard to get information

t0mb0: since your mother passed on

t0mb0: (my condolences, btw)

Then, line by line, t0mb0 lays out everything he knows, in the gentlest possible phrasing:

t0mb0: i [imagine] this is the worst thing for you

t0mb0: to be separated from your baby for so long

t0mb0: missing the critical development period

t0mb0: and now

t0mb0: not knowing who is raising her

t0mb0: this is not a good situation you have made for [yourself]

houdini6 answers with the only thing she has: i did it for katerina, and i did it for my mother, you know i had to leave the country. t0mb0 agrees with her — that is the cruelty of it. He recites the plan back as though admiring it: enter the scene, earn money, bring Katerina and her mother to the US, with your family contacts, etc., it is a good plan, things are no different now.

houdini6: just tell me where she is

houdini6: and i promise i will help you

t0mb0: an orphanage

t0mb0: one of the better ones, actually

t0mb0: our mutual friend has seen to it that she is [well cared for]

t0mb0: you see, lukai

t0mb0: there is no need for useless confrontation

t0mb0: we can work together

Terms: houdini6 will get the client anything he needs, and wants Katerina in the country in return. $75,000 US up front, to an account she will open; t0mb0 asks for bank details when she has them. The last exchange of the episode is the contract in plain words:

houdini6: i need some assurance from you

houdini6: about katerina

t0mb0: i can assure you

t0mb0: if you don't come through for us

t0mb0: you will never see katerina

Episode 3 — the job (POV: lukai) #

← Episode 2 · Contents · Episode 4 →

I've seen a face of the internet that most people will never know. Still, like any web surfer, I come online every day hoping to find the one thing I am looking for.

t0mb0 wants a status report and gets one: houdini6 has taken a temporary position at Applied Engineering Partnership, a subcontractor. The location disappoints her handler.

t0mb0: location ?

houdini6: newark

t0mb0: this is far from new york

t0mb0: not acceptable

t0mb0: perhaps you should move closer

houdini6: 1:15 mins

houdini6: unnecessary

The position is in accounting, which t0mb0 calls excellent and then this is perfect — the first sign that the target is the company's own paperwork rather than anything in the scene. She begins in a week and a half.

Behind the chat, a browser window carries the other half. The mail is addressed to jlaurent@bbvabankltd.ch under the subject Personal Account, opens Dear Mr. Laurent:, and confirms the opening of an account in the name of Michael Cunningham, with an initial deposit of $75k (US) via wire transfer, forms to be faxed and a routing number requested. The account will be in Bern.

Episode 4 — some to china, some to iran (POV: lukai) #

← Episode 3 · Contents · Episode 5 →

People say the world is changing, but the reality is that a few simple principles still drive everything. With the scene, it's all about supply and demand.

The goods are named, and the season stops being about software.

t0mb0: our friend has provided me with details of the job

t0mb0: i will send along the technical specifications

t0mb0: what else do you need to know

houdini6: difficulty level

t0mb0: it is nothing out of the ordinary

t0mb0: there are all items with which you are familiar

houdini6: where are they going?

t0mb0: some to china

t0mb0: some to iran

houdini6: nothing to iraq or afghanistan?

t0mb0: no

houdini6: good, that's harder

Alongside it, the laundering, and it is being assembled on camera. The browser is on antiquefurniture.net, on a listing titled Important Pair French giltwood Armchairs at Patrick Sandberg Antiques in London, and she is saving the photograph — 705.jpg — to the desktop. Then an eBay registration flow fills the screen, and houdini6 explains that an american named michael cunningham will be selling several expensive antiques — the same name as the banker in episode 3, and the episode never says whether that is one man, one alias, or carelessness.

The specifications move by FTP, and the client is open beside the chat: connected to 82.165.238.165 on port 21, retrieving a directory listing for /home/a/yatb-rev159/. t0mb0 asks whether the server is secure; houdini6 answers of course it is, it's clean. The file lands, receipt is confirmed, and t0mb0 says everything is in order.

The local pane of that same window reads C:\Documents and Settings\David\Desktop.

Episode 5 — the other window (POV: Danika) #

← Episode 4 · Contents · Episode 6 →

US-built fighter jets, missiles and helicopters can be found in every corner of the globe. But when a regime falls out of favor with America, it becomes illegal to sell them parts. This has given birth to a global black market, where billions of dollars of high-tech weapons parts change hands. Those of us who make a living on that market have a name for it. We call it The Scene.

This is the episode where the season turns over, and it does it by opening a second chat window. A new contact greets houdini6 by a name nobody has used yet:

tann3r: danika?

houdini6: hello stan

tann3r: how's it going?

houdini6: operation is on schedule

tann3r: pls confirm that you have made contact with michael

houdini6: confirmed

tann3r: good

tann3r: he's your ticket into inventory and shipping

tann3r: divorced

tann3r: two kids

tann3r: and hasn't had a date in years

tann3r: judging by his movie rentals, etc.

tann3r: he's a pretty lonely camper

So she is running an operation, and someone has been reading a man's rental history to plan it. The personal cost surfaces in the same window:

tann3r: you holding up okay?

houdini6: as well as can be expected

tann3r: don't worry

tann3r: this will all work out

houdini6: i've no doubt that it will work out for you

houdini6: but i want my daughter back

tann3r: i know it

tann3r: we're checking all of the orphanages in that part of [the country]

tann3r: we'll find her

houdini6: that assumes she actually is in an orphanage

While that runs, t0mb0 is in the other window — lukai?, why haven't i heard from you?, what is the status? — and houdini6 answers both men at once, telling t0mb0 nothing to report and i am still setting up here while tann3r asks whether t0mb0 is lying. i have no way to verify one way or another. Then: just keep him close, and we'll have this operation wrapped up in no time, do you think tombo suspects anything?

To t0mb0 she describes the accounting fraud in detail — her position gives her access to most of the company's systems, so altering income statements, payables and receivables will not be a problem; she will make it appear that existing customers are increasing the size of their orders, and pay with the Swiss money. That is the easy part. The hard part is inventory and shipping:

houdini6: i haven't been able to access those systems

houdini6: tried to hack the db yesterday

houdini6: but iw as unsuccessful

houdini6: the security measures are good and i am [not]

t0mb0: try again tonight

houdini6: no, the network admin is already suspicious

houdini6: i need to find someone in inventory who [has access to the database]

houdini6: once i am into the database, i can ship goods [wherever i want and then alter the records]

t0mb0 calls it a logical plan and asks how she will get that person. The reply is the last line of the episode, and the first time houdini6 uses her handler's name: don't worry, tomasz.

Episode 6 — Danika (POV: Danika) #

← Episode 5 · Contents · Episode 7 →

When you operate in the scene, you can't afford mistakes, you can't afford wasted time, and most of all, you can't afford to feel badly about the people you hurt along the way.

An entire episode of the legend working, on a screen with no Jabber in it at first — just AIM, and a colleague. DanikaLi99 is the accountant Applied Engineering thinks it hired; Danika is also, as episode 5 established, what her own side calls her.

MikeyD5550: Danika

DanikaLi99: hi Mike

MikeyD5550: sorry for the [noise]

MikeyD5550: i'm over at the warehouse today

MikeyD5550: it's loud as hell and tough to hear

DanikaLi99: i prefer IM anyway

DanikaLi99: you're just saying that because we sign your paychecks

MikeyD5550: you got me there

She wants a document. He offers to ask his boss — ned snyder — rather than have her email him, and asks, reasonably, what she needs it for. The answer is prepared: i noticed some minor flaws in the last earnings report and i'm trying to track them down. He says it won't be a problem.

Then he changes the subject, and the episode becomes something else:

MikeyD5550: hey listen

MikeyD5550: i'm taking my boys out to the mets game

MikeyD5550: next week and i have a few extra [tickets]

MikeyD5550: thought you and your little girl might like to come along

DanikaLi99: she's actually not here

DanikaLi99: not in the states i mean

DanikaLi99: she's still in estonia

MikeyD5550: ah i see

MikeyD5550: when i saw her pic on your monitor i just assumed...

MikeyD5550: why don't you come with us yourself?

She hesitates. He presses — beer, hotdogs, fat guys from jersey, what's not to like? — and she gives in: you drive a hard bargain, i spose it is, thank you it sounds like fun. He replies you just made my day!

The detail that lands the invitation is the one true thing on the screen. Her daughter really is in Estonia, and the photograph on the monitor really is hers.

The episode closes back in Jabber, with the same man discussed as an asset:

t0mb0: what is the status of the [inventory]

houdini6: moving forward

t0mb0: our friend grows impantient

t0mb0: you have contacted the proper parties ?

houdini6: the operations manager

houdini6: he controls inventory

t0mb0: he is vulnerable

houdini6: very

houdini6: he has no idea what is about to [happen to him]

Episode 7 — partner (POV: Danika) #

← Episode 6 · Contents · Episode 8 →

Trafficking illegal weapons parts requires the involvement of a number of people. Sometimes the participants are willing, and sometimes they're not.

tann3r opens in a register he has not used before, and in doing so says out loud what episode 5 only implied.

tann3r: hey partner

tann3r: just the usual annoying check-in from your other half

houdini6: i don't have time for this

tann3r: do i detect a note of impatience, agent [?]

houdini6: i'm not used to having a babysitter

tann3r: well this wasn't exactly my first choice of an [assignment]

tann3r: but they assigned BOTH of us to this operation

tann3r: so i'd appreciate an update if it's not too much trouble

The update is a break-in, described flatly while it happens:

houdini6: i am currently breaking into mike davis' [machine]

tann3r: he's not there?

houdini6: no i went by his office. he's at the warehouse

tann3r: how are you attacking the box?

houdini6: packet sniffer

houdini6: it's not hard

houdini6: i'm collecting passwords off the network

houdini6: once i find his i'll just use it to log in remotely

No inventory database yet: mike's boss is out of town. Then, unprompted, an apology — sorry i'm so touchy, it's the pressure — and tann3r says it's okay three times. houdini6 asks the only question she cares about: is there an update from estonia? Twelve orphanages checked, about fifteen to go. So sit tight. — why must it take so [long] — keep your chin up, partner.

And in the third window, at the same moment, the man whose passwords she is sniffing is thanking her for a nice evening:

MikeyD5550: thansk for coming out last night

MikeyD5550: the boys had a blast

MikeyD5550: especialy charlie

DanikaLi99: he's a sweetie

MikeyD5550: yeah but he's been acting out since his mother left

MikeyD5550: anyway, i was thinking next time we could leave the kids with [someone]

MikeyD5550: dinner and a movie perhaps?

DanikaLi99: that sounds great

She asks him to firm up plans when he gets back from the warehouse, and he catches it:

MikeyD5550: how did you know i was at the warehouse??

DanikaLi99: oh i just assumed

DanikaLi99: seems like you're there all the time

She asks what time he is coming back. Sure — that will give me plenty of time to finish up what i'm doing. What she is doing is standing in his office.

Episode 8 — filling up Mike Davis' computer (POV: Danika) #

← Episode 7 · Contents · Episode 9 →

Surfing the internet feels private, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Almost anything you do online is visible. And you never know who's watching.

The episode opens on a joke that turns out not to be one.

tann3r: how goes it?

houdini6: i'm currently donwloading hardcore porno

tann3r: haha, i'll be sure and put that on the report

houdini6: you should

houdini6: it's what i'm doing

tann3r: you're serious?

houdini6: yes, i am serious, stan

She is doing it on irc.a0hell.net, in a channel called #ALTERED-PORN, by DCC — a screen of warez-scene furniture put to a use the scene never intended. The status window names her own end of it: Local host: user-0cev611.cable.mindspring.com (24.239.152.53). An episode about framing a man for what is on his hard drive, run over a residential cable connection with her name on the bill. And the drive filling up is not his:

tann3r: and you're downloading this to your hard drive at work?

houdini6: downloading it, yes

houdini6: but not to my hard drive

tann3r: wha? not following you?

houdini6: i'm filling up Mike Davis' computer

tann3r: i see said the blind man

There is also friction, and it is the first time tann3r pushes back:

tann3r: i know i'm new to the unit and all

tann3r: but i'm working my ass off

tann3r: trying to find your little girl

tann3r: think you could cut me just a little slack?

houdini6: you're right

houdini6: sorry again

houdini6: i must learn to behave

In the other window, progress and impatience. houdini6 has acquired the inventory database; t0mb0 is unmoved.

t0mb0: not acceptable

t0mb0: we are already 7 days behind schedule

houdini6: the operations VP was out of town

houdini6: i could not access the db until today

t0mb0: that sounds suspiciously like an excuse

houdini6: please tomaz

houdini6: i'm doing everything i can

Asked what is holding her up, she explains the whole shape of it: she will alter the inventory database and the shipping log to reflect the client's purchases, which means overwriting the current files on the server, which means covering her tracks — if anyone ever questions our clients' shipments i must [be protected] — and she has broken into a computer that will let her do it. The method is named in the last line of the episode: by making sure that somebody else in the company gets the [blame].

Episode 9 — the carrot and the stick (POV: Danika) #

← Episode 8 · Contents · Episode 10 →

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, is the largest investigative agency in the Homeland Security Department. I've been a part of the agency for the past four years, but the agency has been a part of my life since the day I was born.

The first line is a refusal.

houdini6: i'm not going to do this

tann3r: the mike davis thing?

houdini6: that's right

tann3r: it's not coming from me, danika

tann3r: it's coming from higher up

The frame is already built — i've partitioned his hard drive, and filled it with the evidence, we can make him the scapegoat whenever [we need to] — and houdini6's objection is that it is now unnecessary:

houdini6: nothing will go wrong

houdini6: i overwrote the inventory db on the server

houdini6: and no one suspects a thing

houdini6: the weapons will be shipped to tombo's client

houdini6: right on schedule

The name above tann3r is spoken here for the first time: greenberg, who doesn't want to take any chances and won't risk having your cover blown if something [goes wrong]. If it does, we want people to automatically blame davis, because it's the best way to keep suspicion off of you.

Behind the chat is the other half of the frame, and it is worse than the pornography: a letter, composed on screen in a Yahoo account opened for the purpose — infinitematter@yahoo.com — from an anonymous employee of Applied Engineering. Last week a report of yours named Mike Davis called me into his office to discuss some company business. When I got there, he began coming onto me... he started showing me a movie on his computer, a very disturbing and inappropriate movie. He said he had a hard drive full of them... I'm sure Mr. Davis will deny all of this. But all you have to do is examine his hard drive and you'll see that I'm telling you the truth.

houdini6: so you're willing to ruin an innocent man's career and reputation just as an added measure of prtoection?

tann3r: this is an important operation

houdini6: that's bullshit

houdini6: you don't go to extremes like this over some [2nd rate operation]

tann3r: you have your orders

houdini6: i want to talk with greenberg

tann3r offers the softer version — take my advice, do what greenberg wants, i will PERSONALLY see that davis lands on his feet, we can set him up with a defense industry gig, he'll have a new job within 8 weeks — and gets the question nobody in this operation has an answer to:

houdini6: and what will you tell his children?

houdini6: that their daddy didn't really download all [of that]

houdini6: something about this smells, stan

houdini6: there's another reason you want mike out of [the way]

houdini6: what is it?

tann3r: i've given you the carrot, danikia

tann3r: don't make me use the stick

Episode 10 — Murph (POV: Danika) #

← Episode 9 · Contents · Episode 11 →

I grew up believing that the people who protected us were different, that they were superior in a way. But people are always just people, and sometimes you need protection from the protectors.

A third name appears in her Jabber window, after t0mb0 and Stan, and he is the only person in the season who talks like a human being. t!nman is English, hates typing, and has known Danika's family since before Danika was born.

houdini6: murph!

houdini6: where have you been?

t!nman: ah, you know

t!nman: here and there

houdini6: right

houdini6: it's good to talk to you

t!nman: ha

t!nman: this shyte aint talkin

t!nman: i aint no bloody typist

houdini6: i know, but it's secure

t!nman: if you say so

t!nman: i'm never gonna get used to it

houdini6: you're just like my dad

The family history arrives sideways, in condolences. Danika's mother has died — her name was Vicky, she died in Estonia, and Murph knew her since the old days back in beijing.

t!nman: i'm so very sorry luv

t!nman: i hadnt seen vicky since the old days back in beijing

t!nman: but i'll miss her just the same

houdini6: she hated estonia

houdini6: she hated all the travel

houdini6: it's so awful that that's where her life ended

t!nman: she might have hated the travel

t!nman: but she loved yer dad

t!nman: and she went into his life with her eyes wide open

t!nman: she got lots out of it i expect

houdini6: she didn't know everything about dad

t!nman: she knew enough

t!nman: her family was diplomats

Murph has been watching from the trade side: i've seen some of tomasz['s] people getting pretty worked [up], looks like they're expecting a big shipment. And then she asks him for the thing the agency has been promising for five episodes.

houdini6: listen

houdini6: murph

houdini6: i need your help

t!nman: already on it luv

t!nman: we'll get yer little girl back

He says it has to be quick — there's something going on, something with ICE that i can't figure out — and lays out the clock: the money moves, the shipment happens in days, and they're going to come down on tomasz right [away]. Murph asks one question, the customer is who i think it is?, and draws the conclusion the rest of the season runs on:

t!nman: then we have to find yer little girl before all this goes [down]

t!nman: because once the arrest happens

t!nman: we will have lost our chance to get her back

Threaded through all of it, ignored, is a second window. Mike Davis has been suspended, and he is writing to the only person at the company who was ever kind to him:

MikeyD5550: i'm not supposed to talk to anybody at the company

MikeyD5550: so don't worry

MikeyD5550: you don't have to reply

MikeyD5550: i just wanted you to know

MikeyD5550: that none of the stuff people are saying about me is true

MikeyD5550: i don't know how it happened

MikeyD5550: but none of it is true

MikeyD5550: NONE OF IT

MikeyD5550: i just wanted to get that off my chest

MikeyD5550: i wont bother you [again]

Episode 11 — three minutes (POV: Danika) #

← Episode 10 · Contents · Episode 12 →

The scene is like a body of water, black and silent and cold. I stare into it every day, hoping for a glimpse of what's lurking beneath the surface.

The shortest episode in either season, and it does one thing. She types into a window that does not answer:

houdini6: murph, you there?

houdini6: we're running out of time

houdini6: the money just went through

houdini6: i can only stall the weapons shipments for maybe a week

On screen behind her, the money: a bank's confirmation to michaelrcunningham5@gmail.com that per your request of last week, we have completed a wire transfer, and that the name on the receiving account is Applied Engineering Partnership. The figure is on the screen too — $74,507.89 (US) to router number 8890754, which is the $75,000 agreed in episode 2 with something taken out of it on the way.

Then Mike, back from his week, apologizing for having had feelings about being destroyed:

MikeyD5550: sorry about last week

MikeyD5550: things were getting to me for a while there

DanikaLi99: you sound much better now

MikeyD5550: this whole situation's just been hard

DanikaLi99: i'm sure

MikeyD5550: i'm glad you believe [me]

MikeyD5550: it really means a lot

DanikaLi99: i think everyone here believes you

DanikaLi99: i just wonder who could have done this to you?

Episode 12 — tombo works for ICE (POV: Danika) #

← Episode 11 · Contents · Episode 13 →

A bust in the scene is like someone getting shot in a big city. It's not uncommon, but if you're a guy on the street, you go about your business knowing that it's unlikely ever to happen to you.

Two windows, and the season's floor gives way in the last two lines.

With Murph, waiting: talk to me, murph, why haven't i heard from you???, it's coming down to hours now. Murph is expecting a call from a contact who had something to tell me re tomasz. We got to be patient. There's nothing else for it.

With t0mb0, the deal finally breaks. The shipment is three days late at customs, and Tomasz treats lateness as breach:

houdini6: i kept up my end of the bargain tomasz

houdini6: i want katerina back

t0mb0: you have worked hard, lukai

t0mb0: nobody disputes this

t0mb0: we have kept your daughter safe

t0mb0: and well cared for

houdini6: where is she??

t0mb0: even though you have breached the terms of [our agreement]

houdini6: the weapons are only 3 days late!!!

houdini6: you're just keeping her as a bargaining chip

houdini6: you're never going to let her go

t0mb0: you need to adjust your perspective lukai

t0mb0: in return for your work

t0mb0: we are keeping katerina out of harm's [way]

She threatens the only way she can — otherwise i'll call up some of my father's [friends], and let them handle it — and Tomasz answers with the sentence that tells you what kind of man Danika's father was:

t0mb0: if you turn me in to the chinese

t0mb0: it will be the death of katerina for sure

t0mb0: i promise this

houdini6: your life and katerina's are tied together then

Then Murph comes back, and the episode ends on it.

t!nman: hold off!

t!nman: my guy just called me

houdini6: what did he say???

t!nman: he didn't find out where they got [her]

t!nman: but he's confident that she'll be safe

houdini6: how can he say that?

t!nman: there aint gonna be no bust luv

t!nman: [i] dont have all the answers

t!nman: but the picture's gettin clearer

t!nman: the americans want those weaps to go through

houdini6: how do you know that?

t!nman: because tombo is working for the same people you are

t!nman: he's working for ICE

Episode 13 — the bust that didn't happen (POV: Danika) #

← Episode 12 · Contents · Episode 14 →

My father once said, working in the scene takes everything you've got. If you don't want to give it, the scene will take it anyway.

Two windows, side by side, telling incompatible stories — and for once the viewer can check one against the other in real time, because she relays each line as it arrives.

tann3r reports a triumph:

tann3r: the operation is all but done

tann3r: now comes the paperwork

tann3r: you know all the basics of the bust

tann3r: it's all about interrogations now

houdini6: has tombo been useful?

tann3r: in fact

tann3r: he's singing like a bird

tann3r: we've taken down his whole networks

tann3r: 9 arrests so far

tann3r: and counting

Murph, being told the same thing second-hand, answers in four words: utter and complete horseshit. And then explains why, which is the most purely scene-literate argument in either season:

t!nman: if he'd really taken down a player like tombo

t!nman: don't you think i woulda known about it

t!nman: the whole scene woulda shut down

t!nman: it's all a crock

t!nman: they guy you were chatting with was probably not [tombo]

t!nman: just some govt spook

Meanwhile tann3r explains why Katerina still cannot come home, and the explanation is elegant:

tann3r: tombo has acknowledged that they have her

tann3r: and that she's safe

tann3r: the thing is

tann3r: katerina is their only leverage

tann3r: they know we want her back

tann3r: and so they're using her as a bargaining chip

She takes the news the way anyone would, and then asks the only question that matters to her:

houdini6: I'm glad it's a success stan

houdini6: but what about katerina?

She tells him the truth about what this is doing to her — i honestly don't know how much more of this i can [take], he's feeding me all of this stuff about [her], and whether it's true or not it's very hard to [bear] — and gets don't worry, everything humanly possible, i assure you, i promise to keep you updated. Murph, in the next window, says ain't none of it true, she's safe and sound and we'll get her back, and then the instruction that defines the rest of the season:

t!nman: now play along, luv

t!nman: just play along

The episode ends with Murph setting the new problem. A whole shipload of weapons parts has just moved. Blackhawk parts dont just disappear. Somebody got [them]. The question is [who].

Episode 14 — jim brandon (POV: Danika) #

← Episode 13 · Contents · Episode 15 →

When I first came to the States, I thought it would be a safe haven, a place where I could build a life apart from the one I had known. But wherever I go, my demons have a way of finding me.

Danika comes back to work to find the company hardened against her: one of the new multilayer firewalls, a packet logger, and they rearranged their network. An Nmap run scrolls behind the conversation — nmap -sS -sV -A -f -v -v 199.46.198.87, a fragmented scan of 1,680 ports started at 10:49 — and it finds too many fingerprints to identify the host.

t!nman: a bit o paranoia can be healthy

t!nman: tell my you've been careful

houdini6: i've been meticulous

houdini6: maybe too much so

houdini6: because i haven't found out anything

She wants a record they have not thought to alter — i may at least be able to see who's been [logging in and when], at least it will give us some clues — and answers Murph's skepticism with something that sounds like her father talking: in my experience, if you follow the right path, the answers will reveal themselves.

Then a new window opens, and it opens in exactly the wrong place.

jimbrandon09: danika?

DanikaLi99: yes

jimbrandon09: it's jim brandon

jimbrandon09: got your IM from Mike Davis' computer

jimbrandon09: i hope you don't mind my pinging you

DanikaLi99: no, not at all

jimbrandon09: i'd have called

jimbrandon09: but i'm here in the warehouse

jimbrandon09: they've put me into mike's old job

jimbrandon09: and i'm trying [to] figure everything out

He would like her to walk him through some items — i'm trying to familiarize myself with the systems, and how they link up to accounting, etc. She says glad to help. He says he will swing by.

She turns to the other window and says what the audience is thinking:

houdini6: i just heard from jim brandon

houdini6: the guy they put in place of mike davis

houdini6: it can't be a coincidence

houdini6: that he's pinging me just now

houdini6: god, i feel like they're watching my every [move]

t!nman: how would he know

houdini6: maybe their fancy new IDS flagged my scans

houdini6: or it's possible

houdini6: they hid something extra in the db server

houdini6: something in the kernel...

Murph's conclusion is the episode's last turn, and it moves her from operator to target:

t!nman: these guys have a way of being rid of people that [have outlived their use]

houdini6: but i pose no threat to them?

t!nman: untrue

t!nman: let's assume they shipped those weaps to someone [who shouldn't have them]

t!nman: (not a stretch)

t!nman: they don't want you nor noboby else knowing about it

t!nman: THAT's what's makin them nervous

t!nman: THAT'S why they're upping the security

t!nman: you were once necessary to them

t!nman: but now you're a liability

t!nman: and i want you out of there

She asks for a little more time to find where the weapons went. Murph tells her what finding out would mean: it's good cause that will prove that the US gov't is [arming someone it shouldn't], and you'll have ICE by the short and curlies. And the bad news is that they'll know it too.

Episode 15 — the bluff (POV: Danika) #

← Episode 14 · Contents · Episode 16 →

In the secret branches of law enforcement, there are those who represent a threat, and those who can help stave it off. Somewhere along the line, I crossed from the latter into the former.

The company has closed around her. The VPN is "down for maintenance", the whole place is sealed off from outside, and she has had to come in physically to work at all. Murph wants her gone.

t!nman: forget the weaps shipment, luv

t!nman: pack up yer shit

t!nman: and get out of there NOW

houdini6: not until i get that data

t!nman: it ain't worth yer life

houdini6: but it might be worth katerina's

She has a lead, and it is the new man:

houdini6: jim brandon is the one who'se altered the records

houdini6: whatever else he is, he's a lousy hacker

t!nman: so how does that help you

houdini6: i've been sniffing him

houdini6: watching his keystrokes

houdini6: his computer's broadcasting the works

houdini6: and with any luck

houdini6: he'll mention where the weapons went

The surveillance is now physical — there's two new "security guards" here, and a small asian man who's been on my train — and Murph assumes her flat is bugged and her workstation logged. It is, and she has already stepped around it: she has wedged a second operating system into her machine and runs the company's heavily monitored windows install in a virtual machine, so they can eavesdrop all they want.

Then Stan pings, and Murph coaches her through it in real time, before it happens:

t!nman: stay cool now

t!nman: he'll take one of two tacks

t!nman: he'll either try and drag things out

t!nman: (exend the relationship for some reason)

t!nman: or he'll tell you to meet him someplace

t!nman: if he drags it out it means they're off balance

t!nman: and need time to assess the situation

houdini6: and if he wants to meet me?

t!nman: if he wants to meet you

t!nman: set the meeting

t!nman: and then get your sweet arse out of that building ASAP

t!nman: be brave now, luv

t!nman: put yer pokerface on

houdini6: i don't have any cards murph

Stan drags it out, exactly as predicted. Greenberg is quite pleased with the outcome of the operation and sends his personal congratulations; he would like her to stay on at the company, indefinitely, on salary. She asks what she needs, and answers her own question:

tann3r: is there anything else you need?

houdini6: i need my daughter back

tann3r: i know

tann3r: you can serve her best by staying within the fold

houdini6: no need for veiled threats, stan

houdini6: i get it

And then she finds a card after all. She tells him she is happy to stay, and mentions, conversationally, that she was just telling a few friends how much she enjoys the work — i sent them all messages, specific messages, it's always good to have friends around you for support, don't you agree?

t!nman: what'd you tell him

houdini6: i made him think that i had the info already

houdini6: and that i'd given it to several friends - just in [case]

t!nman: bloody brilliant

t!nman: you'll be safe for a while then

She has nothing. It is a pure bluff, and it buys her the rest of the season.

Episode 16 — wonderful news (POV: Danika) #

← Episode 15 · Contents · Episode 17 →

I met Murphy in Estonia, three days after my sixth birthday. That's nearly twenty years ago now, but I still see him standing with my father, telling me to go ahead and blow out the candles.

Two things happen in this episode and they are in different windows, and the whole season is in the gap between them.

In the first, an email. Not to anyone in the operation — to Murph, at an address the two of them set up as an emergency contact point, although I'd hoped never to use it. It is the longest single piece of writing in either season, and it is a woman composing her own last letter while the people outside her office get into position.

Well, Murph, I may have pushed my luck too far. I suppose I've made the classic mistake of underestimating my opponent. I'm being watched 24/7, and I'm no longer sure I can get out of here. The "security guards" that they hired have been eyeing me all day and they've now lost all pretense and have taken up positions just down the hall from my office.

I have my escape plan all set, but now that it's come to it, I'm not at all confident [...]

God I'm scared. What do I do, Murph? I just don't know what to do??

But don't worry Murph, I'm not giving up. I'm going to stay cool and get the hell out of here right now. I'll write you again when I get to a safe place, OK? When you read this, let me know how to contact you.

Oh, and by the way, there's one other thing: in case I don't make it, I contacted the shipping company and I told them there was a billing problem. Following is an email that contains the actual address where the weapons were shipped.

Anyway, I hope you can do something with this information. You've been a great friend. A second father, really.

Attached below it, the thing she went into the building for. It is a shipment confirmation, and it is the answer to the question the whole season is about, sitting on screen in plain type four episodes before anyone says it out loud:

Shipment confirmation #2668765

This will confirm shipment of 18 size AA3 containers from: Applied Engineering Partnership, Newark, NJ 98721

to

No. 46, Zhanlanguan Lu, Jishou, Hunan, China

SHIPMENT WAS RECEIVED OCTOBER 4, 2006 — SIGNED BY [H. XIOU] — 3:25pm

The confirmation is dated September 27, 2006 and the sender is at 2451 Warwick Avenue, Newark. Above it, the letter ends the way nothing else in the season does — Love, Dani.

Hunan is where, in episode 20, Murph says he has been spending time with Wei Chang.

In the other window, at the same moment, Stan is delighted.

tann3r: danika

tann3r: i have wonderful news!

tann3r: tombo has finally given us katerina's location

tann3r: it wasn't easy

tann3r: but our field ops people have verified it

tann3r: i'm flying into newark today

tann3r: and you and i are going to pick her up!

houdini6: stan that's so wonderful

houdini6: thank you SO MUCH!

tann3r: i told you we'd come through

houdini6: i'm so happy!!

tann3r: i'll be on the ground in two hours

tann3r: we'll send a car to pick you up

tann3r: then you and i can fly out tonight to get katerina

houdini6: thank you for all you've done

The two are interleaved on the same screen, and the timings show her writing around him. The men in the corridor go into the letter at 2:39; Stan's invitation arrives at 4:03; and at 5:36 she adds the line that ties them together — Jesus. This is really it. Stan's asked me to get together in person, just as you [said he would]. Murph predicted both tacks in the previous episode, and this is the second one. A car is being sent for a woman who has already written that there are men outside her door.

Episode 17 — the offer expires in 15 seconds (POV: Ralph Lasky) #

← Episode 16 · Contents · Episode 18 →

My name is Ralph Lasky, but at work I'm known as Jim Brandon. I'm a field operative, what's commonly called a spook. After 15 years in the service, I've seen every facet of undercover law enforcement. But no matter how long you're in the game, there are some aspects of it you just don't get used to.

The first of two episodes shot from inside the agency rather than against it, and the first in the season where Danika does not appear at all. The man who took Mike Davis's job has stopped pretending to be an operations manager.

jimbrandon09: am I going to get a straight answer or [not]

tann3r: i've told you everything i can

tann3r: you know how greenberg is

jimbrandon09: don't blame this on greenberg

jimbrandon09: i'm just the field guy

jimbrandon09: but i've been out here a long time

jimbrandon09: and i know when i'm being strung along

tann3r: no one is stringing you along, ralph

The leverage is simple and he applies it without embarrassment:

jimbrandon09: you're the supervisor

jimbrandon09: and now you have a decision to make

jimbrandon09: you can tell me what i want to know

jimbrandon09: or you can lose your man at applied [engineering]

tann3r: you're not serious

jimbrandon09: you better believe i am

jimbrandon09: i'll fold up my laptop and walk out of here right now!

jimbrandon09: how do you think greenberg will like [that]

His assessment of the operation is the audience's, delivered to the man responsible: you've screwed this job up nine ways, danika's gone, you were sloppy on the weapons [shipments], and the records leaked out. And then the piece Stan did not have:

jimbrandon09: and now you've got another old fart from my day asking all the wrong questions

tann3r: what are you talking about?

jimbrandon09: his company handle was spartan

jimbrandon09: but most of us knew him as "murph"

tann3r: and the relevance of this is....

jimbrandon09: murph was pretty tight with danika's old man

jimbrandon09: she's covered her tracks here very well

jimbrandon09: but from the little we saw, she's been hooked up with murph for a while now

tann3r: why wasn't that in your reports???

jimbrandon09: didn't put it together until recently

jimbrandon09: but you're her supervisor

jimbrandon09: you should have know about murph

jimbrandon09: i'm starting to believe that danika's father had something to do with her being assigned to the case

So Murph is not a scene contact who happens to know the family. He is agency, retired or otherwise, and Danika's father is somewhere in the reason she was given this operation at all.

The episode ends on a countdown. Stan needs to think about it; Ralph gives him fifteen seconds, then ten, then five, through you're going to fuck up your pension and everything about the case was in your brief! Stan folds — all right, the old man's going to castrate me — and Ralph, who has just held a knife to his supervisor's career, is gracious about it: he doesn't have to know, stan, i'm not trying to fuck up your career, i just want to do my job.

Episode 18 — bellbird (POV: Ralph Lasky) #

← Episode 17 · Contents · Episode 19 →

Governments keep secrets for a variety of reasons. Some of those reasons are better than others.

Ralph has tracked Murph down and opened an encrypted conversation with him. Neither man has anything to gain from the other except information, which makes this the most straightforward exchange in the season.

t!nman: first it'd be good to know who i'm speakin with

jimbrandon09: it's ralph lasky

jimbrandon09: we worked together for a while in [beijing]

t!nman: i remember you

t!nman: cryptographer

t!nman: ex navy as i recall, right?

jimbrandon09: correct

t!nman: you had the hots for that little redhead

jimbrandon09: in fact, i still do

jimbrandon09: she's my wife

t!nman: hahaha!

t!nman: well good for ya then

Then he explains why he is doing this, and it is the closest the series comes to a statement of principle:

jimbrandon09: we both know that if you stay in this business long enough you see a lot of shit

jimbrandon09: most of it you can't do anything about

jimbrandon09: but every once in a while

jimbrandon09: you see something you can

jimbrandon09: and that's what i'm seeing now

And then the history. Danika's father was Zhen, American operational name bellbird.

jimbrandon09: i assume the word "bellbird" is familiar?

t!nman: yes, zhen

t!nman: danika's daddy

t!nman: bellbird was his american op name

Approached in the 1970s, just promoted to the diplomatic corps; the company liked him because they thought he had the potential to rise up through the ranks in the chinese govt. Hesitant at first, and then persuaded once he understood the scope of it. About a dozen were approached, all of them young and from good [families], but each of them had a reason to work for the [Americans] — in Zhen's case an uncle the Party killed. Six were successfully recruited. Four are still alive.

jimbrandon09: it was a longterm program

jimbrandon09: which is itself a radical departure for [the agency]

jimbrandon09: they finally learned to think like their enemy

jimbrandon09: the chinese govt don't think in terms [of years]

jimbrandon09: they think in terms of generations

And the conclusion, offered as suspicion rather than fact:

jimbrandon09: i'm telling you that zheng's operation [never ended]

jimbrandon09: it's still going on

jimbrandon09: and i can't verify this

jimbrandon09: but if you could track illicit weapons shipments out of the us over the past fifteen years

jimbrandon09: i think you'd find that the four surviving members of zheng's [cohort] were getting more than their [share]

Episode 19 — what your government bought (POV: Danika) #

← Episode 18 · Contents · Episode 20 →

I'd left Applied Engineering nearly a month ago, and I'd not heard a word from anyone since. In one way it was a relief, but at the same time, I thought the silence would drive me mad.

She is out. A motel, after a getaway she ran to Murph's instructions — i switched subways several times, and followed a fairly labyrinthine path, no one was with me — and Murph, who has not been in touch with her since episode 15, finally answers.

t!nman: good girl

t!nman: well done

houdini6: murph, i've been sick with worry

He went to ground because someone with juice was asking after him and he could not be sure the chats weren't being read. The someone turns out to be Ralph:

t!nman: it turns out the guy lookin for me was someone of [interest]

t!nman: jim brandon

t!nman: chill

t!nman: turns out he and me go back a ways

t!nman: i knew him under another name of course

t!nman: the thing is,

t!nman: he doesn't much like yer boss

t!nman: nor what stan's been doing to [you]

Then Murph tells her about her father, and the season's actual subject finally comes into view.

t!nman: yer dad and a bunch of others spent years working for [the americans]

t!nman: they were basically double agents

t!nman: you prolly knew as much

t!nman: they provided info

t!nman: and in return they had fantastic careers in the chinese [government]

houdini6: how did the US help their careers?

t!nman: oh usually they'll give info at the right ties

t!nman: not to mention money and access

t!nman: over time

t!nman: these double agents probably became valuable assets

t!nman: yer dad was in diplomatic circles

t!nman: but the four guys left are in the chinese military

t!nman: and someoen got the gright idea that it would be good [to strengthen their collective hands]

houdini6: the weapons?

t!nman: weapons, cash, connections

t!nman: the whole works

Which makes the shipment she was blackmailed into arranging not a theft at all.

t!nman: i can't say for sure

t!nman: but it seems to me

t!nman: that yer government has spent a lot of years and a [lot of money]

t!nman: basically planning [this]

Episode 20 — the frame, returned (POV: Danika) #

← Episode 19 · Contents

We'd planned everything out to the last detail and Murph assured me that we were doing the right thing. But now that the time had come, I was anything but confident.

The longest episode in the season, and it is a single operation run across three windows with two people helping her.

She is not ready. The timing has to be perfect, what if it isn't?, the money won't be enough on its own, i don't know murph. Murph gives her the only instruction available: just do yer job and it will turn out fine, now just be cool and let's have this done. Here goes.

houdini6: hello stan

tann3r: what a pleasant surprise

tann3r: care to tell me where the hell you've been?

houdini6: actually no

houdini6: i think i'd rather not

tann3r: i guess we don't have much to talk about then

houdini6: quite the contrary

houdini6: we've got plenty to discuss

In the second window is Mike Davis — the man she framed, recruited, and now depending on. He is inside Stan's machine, and he is not in yet.

MikeyD5550: danika

MikeyD5550: hold off a sec!

DanikaLi99: i'm already chatting him!

MikeyD5550: crap

MikeyD5550: having a problem

MikeyD5550: not in yet

DanikaLi99: i thought you were in already????

MikeyD5550: just stall him

MikeyD5550: and i will get this done

DanikaLi99: you've GOT TO, mike

So the third window is Murph, feeding her lines while she stalls a federal supervisor in real time. I'm choking. What do i say??? Come on murph, he's waiting. I'm fucking this all up!!! Murph thinks — hmmmmmm — and then hands her two names.

The first is his own:

houdini6: my old friend murph

houdini6: i believe you folks knew him as "spartan"

tann3r: i'm not aware of that name

houdini6: sure you are, stan

houdini6: he used to work with my father

tann3r: that was before my time

The second name stops him dead:

houdini6: murph had a little chat with greenberg last [night]

houdini6: apparently they were discussing a man you [know]

houdini6: a man named wei chang

houdini6: still there?

houdini6: well done murph

houdini6: that got him

Murph adds that he has been spending time with Wei — in hunan — and Stan changes register: you're playing with fire, danika.

Then Mike gets in.

MikeyD5550: it worked!

MikeyD5550: i have access to stan's box

MikeyD5550: upping the content now

MikeyD5550: haha

DanikaLi99: lovely

DanikaLi99: thanks a million mike!

MikeyD5550: no sweat

MikeyD5550: give him a big kick in the balls for me!

And she turns the operation's own weapon around, using the exact method she was ordered to use on Mike in episode 9.

houdini6: i don't think so, stan

houdini6: what i'm playing with is you

tann3r: escuse me?

houdini6: come on now, stanny

houdini6: don't tell me you've forgotten about all that steamy sex we had

tann3r: have you lost your MIND?

houdini6: or all that money we stashed away together?

tann3r: WHAT are you talking about???

houdini6: check your bank account

houdini6: the wire transfers are all there

houdini6: if your memory is that badm you can check your chat [logs]

houdini6: you'll see all the records of the conversations

houdini6: all the things you said you'd do to me after we'd diverted [the money]

houdini6: all those nasty little pictures you sent me

houdini6: some of the really bad ones were even illegal, weren't they stan

tann3r: this won't work

houdini6: sure it will

tann3r: how did you get all this filth onto my computer?

tann3r: i'm deleting it

houdini6: good idea

houdini6: that will make you look that much more guilty when the computer forensics guys check your hard drive

houdini6: even better

houdini6: toss out your computer

houdini6: when they find the copies of the logs on the server you can tell them how your box mysteriously disappeared at just the right [moment]

Then she asks for the only thing she has ever asked for.

houdini6: now that i have you in the proper frame of [mind]

houdini6: i'd like you to tell me where i can find my [daughter]

tann3r: she's with a foster care family

tann3r: in pennsylvania

Pennsylvania. Not an orphanage in Estonia, which is where the whole season's searching had been directed — but in the custody of the people doing the searching. Whether she was ever in Estonia at all is a question the series leaves standing.

houdini6: you'll send me the address in the next 10 minutes

houdini6: won't you

houdini6: and you'll take care of all the paperwork so that kat and i can go off and live in peace?

houdini6: way to go, stan

The last card of the season carries no date and no next episode — only END OF [SEASON], and an address to visit for information on upcoming projects.

About the season

The personal thread #

Season 1 was about a group. This one is about one person, and everything that happens to her happens through a child she cannot reach.

Katerina is in Estonia, or is said to be. The mother who was raising her has died — her name was Vicky, she hated Estonia and hated the travel, and she came from a family of diplomats. Danika left the country to earn the money to bring both of them to the United States, which is the reason she entered the scene in the first place, and t0mb0 recites that plan back to her in episode 2 as though admiring it. Every subsequent demand is enforced with the same sentence in different words: if you don't come through for us, you will never see katerina.

Her own side makes the identical promise in a warmer voice. Stan is checking orphanages — twelve by episode 7, about fifteen left. By episode 13 he has an explanation for why she still cannot come home, and it is elegant: Katerina is their only leverage, and they know we want her back. By episode 16 he has found her, and a car is on its way.

In episode 20 the child is in Pennsylvania, in foster care, and has presumably been there all along.

The second relationship in the season is the one nobody is running. Murph is old, English, hates typing, calls her luv and good girl, knew her mother in Beijing and her father before that, and is the only person who ever tells her something true without being forced to. He is also the one who says now play along, luv — the instruction that lets her survive the last seven episodes. Her email in episode 16 puts it plainly: you've been a great friend. A second father, really.

And there is Mike Davis, who is in the season for one reason: to be destroyed so that suspicion stays off her. He invites her and her daughter to a ball game; he mentions that his youngest has been acting out since his mother left; he apologizes, after being suspended for something he did not do, for having let it get to him. She asks him, in episode 11, who could possibly have done this to him.

He is also the one who gets into Stan's computer in episode 20.

The season's timeline #

The fiction is dated much more precisely than season 1's was, because season 2 leaves timestamps on screen rather than in window captions.

Set against the twenty-episode span, that puts the whole season inside a few months of autumn 2006 — and places the weapons on a dock roughly four episodes before anyone on screen works out where they went.

The release schedule #

There isn't one, and that is itself a difference worth recording. Every season 1 episode but the tenth ended on a card announcing when the next would appear, which is how that season's near-real-time release pattern can be reconstructed. Season 2's end card carries only a web address. Episode 20's reads END OF [SEASON] — FOR INFO ON UPCOMING PROJECTS, VISIT: WELCOMETOTHESCENE.com, and nothing in any of the twenty episodes gives a date. The Internet Archive item is dated 2006 and that is all there is.

Open questions #

Not among them: where the weapons went. Episode 16 puts the delivery address on screen — Jishou, in Hunan province — and the series then spends four more episodes letting its characters work out what the audience has already been shown.

Whose computer is it. The Start menu in episode 1 — on the machine the episode is told from, the one running her mIRC and her Jabber — is logged in as David. It is not a one-frame slip: the FTP client in episode 4 shows the local path as C:\Documents and Settings\David\Desktop. No character called David exists in this season — but one does in the last one. Season 1's encoder, pyr0, is called David thirteen times in episode 14 of that season, out loud and only out loud — by his mother up the stairs and by her boyfriend through a locked door. His name is never typed on screen. So the machine Danika's story is shot on is the machine pyr0's was, account and all, carried across two years and a change of series. The sequel shares no characters with the original, and this is the only thread that reaches back to it: a user profile nobody thought to rename.

Michael Cunningham is one alias, not two people, and the window furniture settles it. The episode 3 mail is addressed to jlaurent@bbvabankltd.ch — the banker is J. Laurent, at a Swiss bank — and Cunningham is the name on the account being opened. In episode 4 the same name is the eBay seller moving several expensive antiques; in episode 11 the bank writes back to michaelrcunningham5@gmail.com opening Dear Mr. Cunningham. One invented American, used to hold the money, sell the cover goods and take the confirmations. He never appears because there is nobody to appear.

Whether t0mb0 is a person at all. Murph's argument in episode 13 is that the man Danika spent twelve episodes negotiating with was probably not [tombo], just some govt spook. Episode 12 says he is working for ICE. Nothing later confirms which, and he never speaks again after episode 12.

Wei Chang. The name that ends Stan's resistance in episode 20, said to be one of the four surviving members of her father's cohort, now in the Chinese military, and to have been talking to Murph in Hunan. He is never seen, and the conversation with Greenberg that Danika describes may be a bluff of Murph's — she is reading his lines off another window as she types them.

Greenberg is named in episodes 9, 15, 17, 18 and 20 and never appears. He is the person who decided Mike Davis had to be ruined, the person pleased with the outcome, and the person Ralph says probably knows what the operation was for.

POV by episode #

1–4 lukai · 5–16 Danika · 17–18 Ralph Lasky · 19–20 Danika.

The desktop is the POV, and it is readable from the window furniture: the title bar names the remote party, and the local user's lines are the blue ones. Every episode but two is Danika's machine.

The window count says something different here. In season 1 the number of open windows tracked how much trouble a character was in, and everyone's count climbed. Danika's barely moves. Counting conversations rather than windows, she runs two at a time for almost the entire season — one of t0mb0, Stan or Murph, plus one other — and only in episode 20 does she run three at once. Six have just one: 2, 3, 4, 9, 16 and 19.

What is fixed is not the number but the arrangement. From episode 5 onward there is almost always a second live conversation running against the first, and the two men in them are being told incompatible things by the same person in the same minute. Each believes he is the one getting the truth. The series makes the viewer read both columns at once, which is the only way to feel what holding that costs her.

Episode 13 is the purest version: Stan's account of a triumphant bust and Murph's four-word verdict on it, side by side, with Danika relaying each line to the other man as it arrives. Episode 20 is the escalation — three windows, two of them helping her run the third.

Character notes #

• Danika — sng330 on IRC, houdini6@jabber.org on Jabber, DanikaLi99 on AIM, and lukai to everyone who knew her before. An ICE agent working undercover in an accounting job at Applied Engineering Partnership in Newark. She grew up abroad and came to the States as an adult — episode 14's narration opens when I first came to the States — and her family's life was in Estonia; her mother Vicky has just died there, her daughter Katerina ("Kat") is missing, and her father was a Chinese diplomat run by American intelligence. She is a considerably better technician than anyone around her — packet sniffers, a keylogged workstation, a second operating system wedged under the company's monitored Windows install — and the only person in the season who refuses an order.
• t0mb0 (t0mb0@jabber.org) — Tomasz. Courteous, unhurried, and the most frightening presence in either season precisely because he never raises his voice. Holds Katerina over her for twelve episodes. Episode 12 says he works for ICE.
• Stan (tann3r@jabber.org) — her supervisor, new to the unit, addresses her as danika and partner, and is the case's actual antagonist. Runs the orphanage search that never finds anything, orders the destruction of Mike Davis on Greenberg's instruction, claims in episode 16 to have had her location verified, and in episode 20 gives it up in two lines under pressure.
• Murph (t!nman@jabber.org) — company handle spartan. English, retired, knew Danika's mother in Beijing (i hadnt seen vicky since the old days back in beijing) and was, in Ralph's words, pretty tight with danika's old man. Feeds her lines through the final confrontation. The nearest thing the season has to a moral center, and the only character whose information is never wrong.
• Ralph Lasky (jimbrandon09@jabber.org, cover name Jim Brandon) — ex-Navy cryptographer, fifteen years in, put into Mike Davis's job. Introduced as a threat and revealed as the one person inside the agency willing to break procedure because every once in a while you see something you can [do something about]. His wife is the redhead Murph remembers him chasing in Beijing.
• Mike Davis (MikeyD5550) — operations manager, divorced, two sons, one of whom is called Charlie. Framed for possession of pornography and an invented harassment complaint, suspended, and then recruited by the woman who did it. Gets the last laugh in episode 20 and asks her to pass it on.
• Zhen (op name bellbird) — Danika's father. The screen spells him both zhen and zheng, sometimes within a few lines of each other. Approached in 1970s Beijing after his promotion into the diplomatic corps, one of six successfully recruited from about a dozen candidates, motivated by an uncle the Party killed. Four of the six are still alive and are now in the Chinese military.
• Greenberg — above Stan. Never appears.
• talisman, ned snyder, michael cunningham, wei chang — named, consequential, never seen.

The series itself #

The Scene 2.0 was produced by Jun Group Entertainment and released free on the web in 2006, twenty episodes, in the same format as season 1 — almost entirely on-screen text, with a first-person narration opening each episode. It is a different story with a different cast; nothing from season 1 carries over but the method.

A note on the license. Season 1 settles its own licensing on screen: a card at the end of episode 1 reads Copyright (c) 2004 Jun Group, Inc. This work may be redistributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs license, linking to by-nd/2.0. Season 2 prints no such card in any of its twenty episodes — the only thing on the final frames is a web address. So for this season the sole source is the Internet Archive item's metadata, which claims Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 — and that is the same metadata that demonstrably gets season 1 wrong, by adding a NonCommercial term the series never claimed. Treat it as unverified.

On the sources #

The frames in the episode entries are reproduced because the series is read rather than watched, and a few of its frames carry more than any description of them can. They remain Jun Group's.

Quoted exchanges follow the client they came from. This season runs on three:

• Gaim, talking Jabber, is most of it, and it prints a full address — houdini6@jabber.org/Gaim: text. Repeated down a quote block that is unreadable, so the local part alone is used here: houdini6:, t0mb0:, t!nman:, tann3r:, jimbrandon09:. The full addresses are in the recovered logs.
• AIM prints a screen name, and those are left exactly as they appear — MikeyD5550:, DanikaLi99:.
• mIRC, quoted from episode 1 only (it is on screen again in episode 8, in a channel nobody speaks in), uses <nick> — <sng330>, <talisman> — which is how it actually renders a line.

Square brackets inside a quotation mark text that runs off the edge of its window and was never legible; the words inside them are inferred from context and are not on screen.

Everything outside brackets is what the frame shows, including the characters' own typos — donwloading, impantient, especialy, iw as, you should have know. Those are preserved because they are on the screen. OCR's own errors are not: the rule throughout is that a misspelling every capture of a line shares is the actor's and stays, while one that varies between captures is Tesseract's and goes.

Each episode entry opens with that episode's cold-open narration, in italics. Those are spoken, not on screen, and come from transcripts generated locally with faster-whisper; they run for the first ten or twenty seconds of every episode and are the only sustained speech in the season. Everything else in the episode entries is read off the screen.

All twenty were re-transcribed with the vocal track separated from the score (--ff_vocal_extract mdx_kim2, large-v2, pyannote VAD), and the twenty narrations came back word for word as quoted here, give or take three words this pass corrected — the scene rather than this scene in episode 4, favor in episode 5, and the one I had known in episode 14. The second pass roughly doubles the subtitle count, but the additions are all song: the narration sits in the quiet at the head of each episode, before the music starts, which is why the first pass caught it intact. Season 1 was not so lucky.

One trap in the audio: the episode files on the Internet Archive are numbered episode2.0 to episode2.19, so episode2.16 is episode 17, not 16. The narration above each entry has been matched to the episode it actually opens, checked against what happens in that episode — Ralph Lasky introduces himself over episode 17, which is the first episode told from his desk.

On-screen text was recovered by sampling every episode at one frame every three seconds and reading the windows directly. The handles are leetspeak — t0mb0 with two zeros, t!nman with an exclamation mark — which is exactly what OCR destroys, so all of them were confirmed by reading the frames by eye rather than by majority vote across readings.

A note on what is easy to miss. Not all of this season is chat. The single most important document in it — the letter Danika writes to Murph in episode 16, while men take up positions outside her office — is an email, and a sweep that looks only for chat lines does not see it at all. Neither does it see the shipment confirmation attached below it, the fabricated harassment complaint in episode 9, the wire transfer in episode 11, or the Nmap output in episode 14.

The infrastructure #

Everything nameable that appears on a screen in twenty episodes. Most of it is never spoken aloud; some of it answers questions the dialogue leaves open.

A dagger (†) marks a string taken from OCR and not yet checked against the frame itself. Everything unmarked was read off the frame — one entry still carries the dagger.

The distinction matters because these are exactly the strings OCR destroys, and it destroys them plausibly. It gave me yatb-rov159 for rev159, -sU for -sV, jlauront for jlaurent and user-Gcev611 for user-0cev611 — four readings that look entirely reasonable and are all wrong. Everything else here was checked against the frame and proved correct as OCR had it. The single remaining dagger is the capture interface in episode 7: the adapter and its address survive on exactly one sampled frame, in a dialog the sampling caught only once, and that frame has not been re-read by eye at full size the way the others were.

Two details are worth pausing on. The FTP window in episode 4 and the Start menu in episode 1 both name the machine's Windows account, and it is neither of hers. And in episode 8, while she fills a colleague's hard drive with material that will end his career, the IRC status window is printing her own residential cable host in clear.

Where to look #

Timings for the moments the season turns on, in case you want to check any of this against the episodes. Taken from the Internet Archive H.264 encodes and accurate to about three seconds, the sampling interval. The range is first legible frame to last, not the length of the beat.

Two are worth finding on your own copy. The photograph link in episode 1 is on screen for six seconds and is the reason the entire season happens. And episode 11's wire confirmation — the money that buys the weapons — sits there for nine.