THE STORY · EPISODE 12
A careful thank-you was written on the box.
For your hard work.
For all the work you’ve done.
Reading that single line, Mana felt her shoulders ease a little. A free invoice-organizing tool was being distributed to the people who had helped with the recovery. It promised to finish the remaining manual work much faster.
Stacks of paper filled the counter’s desks. Without stopping work, a staff member showed her the screen that had arrived.
“It would help if we didn’t have to type the recipients in again.”
There was one empty chair beside the waiting line. It was for taking lunch breaks in turns. No one could think that wanting something convenient was itself a mistake.
The small picture showing the box’s contents looked like a wooden horse.
But beneath it moved a black shadow. Its neck and legs wavered before they could settle into a shape, sending thin threads toward the screen.
Allow access to contacts.
Permit access to your contacts.
The next window also asked to run with administrator privileges.
“It’s just a tool for entering names, isn’t it?”
The staff member frowned slightly at Mana’s question.
“I thought it might need that to look them up automatically.”
Securidon set his shield in front of the box.
“We haven’t necessarily seen what’s really in the gift yet, don.”
Between receiving it and trusting it, Mana placed her hand.
Episode 12, Illustration 1 | Comparing the gift with its requested permissions
The name was not on the list of approved tools.
Being absent from the list did not, by itself, make it malicious. The staff member contacted the administrator to check its source and approval. Mana noted the publisher claimed on the box separately from the information actually displayed.
They found no signature that verified the publisher, and the same tool was absent from the official distribution route. Nor was there any explanation of why organizing invoices required everyone’s contacts and broad administrator privileges.
Miscure set two permission screens side by side.
“It can do too much.”
A Defense question lit up in Mana’s encyclopedia.
OPTIONAL QUESTION · 12-D1A gift with an unexpected purposeWhat is a Trojan horse?Open illustration & choices
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“A. Something that looks useful but brings hidden harmful actions with it.”
The correct words joined the blue shield’s edges.
Mana looked at Malwemo, whom she had met before. The red companion held a closed PC to his chest.
“The way a tool looks doesn’t tell us what it really does.”
He nodded but did not speak. Perhaps he still remembered how it had felt to think the earlier incident was his fault.
Mana did not ask more. What they needed now was not to make him explain himself in front of everyone.
The shadow beneath the box spread its thank-you note across the window.
You deserve a break.
You’re allowed to rest.
She wanted to rest.
She wanted it so much that she could not even be angry at the words. Yuki brought the empty chair over from beside her.
“Resting and installing this can be separate things.”
Only when she heard that did Mana let out her breath.
At a terminal farther back, someone had already installed the tool.
“I thought trying it first would make things easier for everyone.”
The young staff member took his hand off the mouse. A contacts-reading indicator blinked at the edge of the screen. The black threads from the box reached his terminal, too.
Mana almost said, “Delete it right now.”
She did not know whether that alone would end it.
The doctor spoke with the local administrator, who disconnected the affected communications according to procedure. What had been installed, when it had been run, which permissions had been granted: as Logrin gathered the account, Sapo separated what the user remembered from what the records confirmed.
“Aren’t you going to remove it?”
The staff member’s voice shook.
“The staff will do that after keeping the checks and evidence they need. Looking deleted and having no remaining effects are different things.”
Mana noticed him searching for words with which to blame himself. She tried not to make the questions needed for the investigation sound like punishment.
“What you’ve told us gives us more places to check.”
He nodded and described the screen he had seen when he ran it.
Malwemo moved a little closer. Without opening his own PC, he brought a board for the records to the desk, just as Logrin had put paper beside him the night before.
The hand that accepted it relaxed a little.
The administrator showed them an approved tool and its legitimate source.
It had fewer features than the gift’s description. Fewer features did not necessarily mean it could not do the work they needed. Its permissions and the information it would receive were clear.
“Install software only from an approved source.”
Mana read the line and put it in her own words.
“Use an approved distribution source. A matching name alone isn’t enough.”
The encyclopedia opened an Attack question.
OPTIONAL QUESTION · 12-A1An unapproved tool has already runAn unapproved invoice tool requests broad permissions without explaining why. It has run on one terminal. What next?Open illustration & choices
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“D. Check the source and approval. Don’t give it permissions its purpose doesn’t need. Handle the terminal where it’s already installed separately, with the staff.”
The black box made a different thank-you note for each counter. Don’t you trust us? Everyone is using it. It’s too late to go back. Every phrase seemed to know how tired its reader was.
“Spoofon, find the contact we can verify. Miscure, show the permission boundary. Securidon, protect that boundary!”
The companions moved at Mana’s command. A reply came through a known contact, and the administrator refused unnecessary permissions. Terminals where the tool had not been installed were shown only the approved route.
Removing the unapproved tool and carrying out the necessary inspections remained the staff’s work. Mana and the others did not call it finished. They were stopping the demands the shadow was still spreading from reaching any farther.
Securidon’s shield pushed the half-open lid back.
“If it’s a gift, the receiver should get to choose, don.”
The shadow’s threads broke. The horse-like picture and thank-you notes peeled away like a thin film. What remained grew quiet where no one could touch it.
In the Securies’ light, a small brown wooden horse appeared. His mane swayed. He looked down at his feet, then at Mana.
“What should I carry?”
“May I ask what you want to carry first?”
The wooden horse thought for a long time.
“Things that don’t sneak in by themselves.”
Mana crouched to his height and nodded.
“Let’s choose those together.”
COL-008 — Trojaro. The WS Encyclopedia recorded the twelfth companion’s name.
The counter’s work did not all finish at once.
But the staff rearranged their lunch breaks. They separated what the legitimate tool could organize from what needed checking by hand. Bug carried boxes of paper, while Yuki told the people waiting what was planned.
Trojaro asked each person whether he could take their load. The wooden horse who waited a little before carrying was slower than a promise to finish everything automatically.
Beside him, Mana held a stack of paper.
“Why do we want to decide so quickly when someone offers help?”
“Choosing is hard when you’re tired.”
Yuki answered.
“So I think it’s all right to get help with resting first.”
She did not have to accept a dangerous promise in order to rest. Mana learned that sitting in the chair.
Episode 12, Illustration 2 | Trojaro asks before carrying; a chair for rest
As they were leaving, a staff member called them back.
At another counter, a terminal no one remembered signing in to was using the same user’s name.
The gift box was closed. They still had to check whether anything had already been handed over.
Mana wrote the time of the message in her notebook.
END OF EPISODE 12