Moe felt a great deal of relief from what Tara had said regarding his concerns Moon Lake and its were law. It was odd that as part of moving into town that at least one member of his family would have to become a were-beast of some kind. Some of the lawyers and law enforcement agencies that he'd talked to over the years might even argue over the law being unconstitutional under the US Constitution, but after the diner with Daniel and his family the previous night, Moe could see the reasoning why the rule was there. His own wife's responses to the were secret was another good reason for it, and that a part of him figured she might expose weres if they were outside Moon Lake or in a situation where a member of the family could be exposed.
There was fear on all parties and that included those in Moon Lake. Weres didn't want to marked as monsters any more than humans wanted to be torn apart. It was just that most of the stories portrayed weres as mindless blood-thirsty monsters, which had been totally different from how Daniel had behaved the night before, and Moe and his family were in their house for dinner and quite some time. If Moon Lake was "the Colony" in the Howling movie, the Brooks would have surely attacked them during dinner when they were essentially defenseless. But the Brooks never did, and Moe generally seemed to trust his old friend.
And the conversation with Tara seemed to alleviate many of the fears he had and the fact that she had lived in Moon Lake as a normal human for most of her life without ever being threatened helped with others. It essentially showed that they weren't ruthlessly enforcing it on people and that their reasoning truly was in relation to the things that weres feared. This reinforced Moe's willingness to tolerate it, if only to protect his daughter from the Gambonis. The thing that then remained for the moment was to get his phone debugged and go from there.
"Thank you," Moe said softly, "For what you've told me... It reinforces a lot about what Daniel said to me last night with his family..."
"It's no problem," Tara answered, "and a lot of people do tend to have the same problem with the mandatory were law, likely in relation to what they've seen in the movies or on TV. In that, I'm more than happy to help."
Moe nodded and looked to her as she was going through something that looked like a programming list. Tara had her lips pulled back with her tongue sticking out as he listened to her type away on her keyboard. He then glanced to the screen and saw a fair amount red flashing on the screen as she typed. He glanced again to Tara who now looked like she had gritted teeth as she went through the process, which made him wonder as to whether or not Tara was having any success.
"You doing okay?" Moe asked, sounding a bit nervous.
"This bug the Gambonis came up with is a bit tougher than I expected," Tara answered, "there's something in the code that has interlaced it with the programming for your phone's dialing and reception... essentially using its own cell signal as the broadcast signal... but every time I try to wipe the code that is clearly the virus... I have to do it piece by piece, and with each delate... it's like the whole code reappears."
"Can't you just delate the whole code?" Moe wondered.
"The way its intermixed with the rest of the coding in your phone, if I do that, I'll wipe your phone of its entire operating system," Tara grunted with frustration, "Your phone will be clean... but even if you got a clear signal here, you wouldn't be able to use it and wouldn't respond to anyone calling the number and you'd need to take it to the distributer just to get them to reactivate your number."
Moe watched as Tara then gave groan in her chair and leaned over onto the desk in front of her, leaning onto her hand which she raised to hold up her chin. It looked painfully clear that she was frustrated by the coding that the bug that Albert Gamboni had sent him. It was something that made it glad that it was only his phone that had been infected and not what computers that he and his family used. He watched as Tara then gave a heavy sigh to him and looked up.
"I'm afraid we'll have to make a call to Stovall Systems," Tara said slowly, "See if they can fix it."
"They do computer programming?" Moe wondered.
"For much of the area," Tara answered, "Melissa Stovall pretty much brought the internet to Moon Lake and does a lot of work in Moon Lake and the surrounding area regarding both computer programming and anti-virus type stuff. A lot of that might be with suggestions for certain systems and the type of anti-virus software you'd want to buy. You can buy it retail from them with regard to certain software and they'll even help install it. They also handle just about everything else that you'd want with regard to all these sorts computer related stuff. I think they either just did or are scheduled to upgrade the entire security systems at the school... digitizing everything and so on."
"Can she remove the bug?" Moe asked, "as until I can get my business up and running and a new phone to give that number to the contacts on that phone... I really can't get rid of it."
"She'd probably do better than I could," Tara said slowly with a heavy sigh and then looking down, "Sorry about all this... I promised I'd get it out and..."
"It's okay," Moe sighed back as he watched Tara straighten her glasses, "I'm sure you did your best... that's really all that matters. If this Melissa Stovall can help me... I'll gladly take it."
"Okay," Tara sighed and turned to her phone and began to dial a number.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The wait ended up taking a little while, and Tara and Moe spent much of that time conversing things that related Tara's life in Moon Lake. Most of it was pretty minor with regard to friends that she'd made and what actually got her interested in law enforcement and in computers. It made for some interesting conversation, and Moe was most intrigued by the fact that Tara requested Moon Lake as her assignment after she graduated from the Washington State Police Academy because she saw the little town as "home." It made for some good stories that Moe figured would also be helpful to share with Nicole, at least to assure her on some of the additional things that she was frustrated over.
Tara also shared a few stories on what life was like after her sister was born and how her childhood differed from her sister's. It was an interesting childhood in which both actually became protective of each other. There was also the marked difference that Tara's sister never needed glasses and grew into the pretty standard form that all female weres shared, though Tara noted that there were differences between every were species. Moe thanked her just as there came a knock on door to Tara's office.
"Come in," Tara spoke in answer to the knock.
The door creaked open and Moe turned to see a blond haired woman squeeze in behind him carrying a briefcase with her, which Moe figured was likely more computer equipment. The woman gave a small smile and offered Moe her hand which he slowly and hesitantly took.
"Moe Charleston, I take it?" the woman asked politely and with a small smile.
"Yes," Moe answered as he shook hands with the woman, "and you would be Melissa Stovall?"
"Yes," Melissa Stovall gave a small smile, and moved to step around the desk as Tara stood up.
"Thank you for coming," Tara spoke and then shook hands with Melissa, "Whatever this virus is... it isn't going into my diagnostic computer, but it seems to be so interwoven with the phone's own programming that I can't delate the virus's programming with out pretty much completely wiping the phone and leaving it useless."
Moe watched as there was a bit of shuffling. Melissa set her briefcase down and backed against the wall while Tara pushed her chair in under her desk and then squeezed between her desk and Melissa. Once clear to the look at the computer screen, Melissa gave a "hmmm" and focused on it for a few moments.
"Whoever sent this certainly knew how to make sure it'd be potentially difficult to remove if you don't know specifically what to do," Melissa then spoke as she pulled out the chair and sat down. Once she sat down, she took the mouse and highlighted one strand that ended in a ":r:R" before going into the main coding for his phone. "This coding is essentially a "repeat" button. Even if you delate that part of the code, it's designed to put the whole code in again with that code in it."
"Yeah, I found that," Tara admitted, "about the only way I figured I could clear that code would be to take everything... but that'd erase ALL of the phone's coding, which for certain reasons, we can't do."
Melissa nodded, "I'm going to guess they're business related... given that the phone wasn't just junked, given the company's service in this area."
Moe nodded as he noted Melissa's eyes turning to him. This was the second time he'd now heard the point that his phone didn't get good reception in the area. On certain levels that was probably a good thing, as if his phone couldn't send the signal, the Gambonis couldn't receive it, but that didn't change the needs he had to keep the phone. All of his business contact numbers, many of which had often given him the numbers needed to get fresh local suppliers when he moved to a new area, which meant he needed the phone in order to get Moe's Pizza up and running. His thoughts briefly thought over his and Nichole's savings, pretty much spent over the constant moves, he also figured that until he got Moe's Pizza up and running, he probably wouldn't be able to afford a new phone with a better service plan.
"Well, the code as it's put in there is ONLY attached to the virus," Melissa answered, "you can see that it's put in at the end of each Virus code. The intermixing is to make sure the virus code is kept close to the phone's own code."
Moe watched as Melissa Stovall gave an off click to undo the bold the part that she'd bolded. She then proceeded to bold the phone's main code and remove it with the "cut" and "paste" functions. She then reassembled the phone's own code in a clear spot. Moe noted that on the screen, that new code appeared in green as opposed to the red that the virus code was in.
"But because the repeat function is only attached to the virus's code as a means of protection for the virus," Melissa continued, "it DOESN'T extend to the phone's main code. In this if you're careful, you can reassemble the phone's code and reinstall it without the virus, no problem. The only difficulty is in making sure that you don't include a part of the virus's code. But once that is done..."
As she finished, Melissa then bolded everything but the phone's code that she'd reinstalled and hit delate. That left only the phone code and it was in green. It was clear of the virus.
"How...?" Tara gasped.
"Will all my contact numbers be there?" Moe asked.
"They are saved to the phone?" Melissa asked, "as in were saved there BEFORE this virus was sent to you?"
"Yes," Moe answered.
"Then your numbers should be fine," Melissa nodded, "you told me that the virus was designed to be a tracking system, which would mean that whoever hacked the phone isn't using it to gain access to accounts or anything like that. In this it's going to be fairly simple. Especially as whoever coded the virus didn't code it in a way that would add that repeat button to the phone's main code which would fully put it all together. And I could see that as I sat down. The coding looks like it was pretty "simple" and potentially rushed. In this the hard thing will be in going through the code, copying the phone's code out and then pasting it separately. And in this phone's files should be safe... we just have to go through all the code..."
And with that, Moe watched as Melissa continued to go through the code in a cycle of copying the phone's code and reinstalling it separate from the virus. Melissa continued to explain specific details to Tara as she went along on how she recognized and where she'd seen "similar" things before and how those were resolved, though that generally went over his head. He was just glad that his phone was being debugged.