Dirty Laundry

[Jason Kellar]

Jason had been a busy little slicer these past few weeks. He'd been digging into the personnel files of this Mera-Perlemian Trade Council, trying to find all sorts of dirty little secrets. He had found some, forwarding any pertinent information to Mr. Cardiff himself. He hadn't heard back from the man, so he took it as a sign to go ahead with what he wanted to do. If he was going to be working in this sector of the Galaxy, and these people were the major players here, he wanted to know all he could about them.

Sipping on the cup of caf next to his six monitor display, he had set his systems to sift through the holo messages and correspondence of any even remotely tied to the Trade Council. He had discovered information on a canned good drive, some illegal gambling - someone was cleaning house in a Fantasy Huttball League - and even some new ways to use bacta that he hadn't thought of. Though it did look a bit...off in that particular application.

Giving a little shiver, Jason went back to perusing the information in front of him, when a little tidbit jumped out at him. He pulled up the file - someone was blackmailing another person. Digging into the file deeper, Jason discovered that the blackmailer had discovered the person was taking organs from still living people and transplanting them into others. He was disgusted at first, but then he dug deeper still. Apparently the 'donors' were all bad guys. Rapists, serial killers, child molesters - all bad people in one way or another. And the recipients? They were all poor. This lady was doing this, and at a loss too. Didn't seem like a bad person to him.

He started hunting through her dossier, pulling up all the information he could about this Mirax Eygan, and started building a profile of her. Seemed decent, wanted to help people, looked out for others before herself. She protected the weak and innocent and punished the wicked. Yeah, he liked her. Also helped she was easy on the eyes too. He checked the blackmail message again, and noticed that she was actually reading it right now. Good.

Chuckling as he prepped the message, bouncing it all over the holo net from one end of the galaxy to the other, he sent her a little pop up message on her screen.

"This guy's a douche. Want him gone?" It had two little boxes underneath it, one marked yes, the other marked no. Let's see what she clicked. He inserted the coded message into her system, and waited for a response.

 

[Mirax Eygan]

It was another long night.

​Having spent the majority of the day in a prison hospital, Mirax conduced four appendectomies and three nephrectomies, in addition to minor treatment of wounds and cuts as her weekly schedule dictated. Some places were cheaper than others - this particular venue was always short on bacta and due to spiking increase in violence simply could not keep up with procedures as they were being conducted by medical droids. That's where she came in. Always on call and eager to help, Dr. Eygan was the go-to surgeon whose primary duty was taking care of those who could not help themselves. Her career was a choice she made - it did not choose her.

​She had vowed never to regret her decision.

​Yet in as much as these wretched prisoners needed her aid from time to time, the orphaned and impoverished children needed it so much more. To that end, Mirax had sworn a terrible oath unto herself, and from that point onward her first duty would be to the young. After all - they were, the future.

​Now, reclining in the pilot's chair after a long day's work, Mirax pulled her inseparable fedora over her eyes and let the soft hum of the ship's systems lull her to sleep. Yet just as she started to feel herself drifting off toward the happy island of restful slumber, a distinct beep stirred her senses awake - a beep that came from the main communications console and caused the screen to light up in neon green. An incoming message, she frowned - realizing that her day was likely far from being over - then reached over to tap the activation button. A brief message appeared on the screen, no signature attached:

"This guy's a douche. Want him gone?"

​Mirax blinked, seeing the picture of Reuben Black - an alias of a particularly nasty thug whose half-brother was serving a life sentence for first degree murder (of a mother and her newborn). The good doctor saw it fit to collect one of his lungs earlier this week - a 'donation' made on Sylas Black's behalf as evidenced by the fingerprint signature he left on the electronic donation form. The fact that he had made the decision while he was high on spice and had absolutely no idea what he was signing away, played no part in affecting Mirax Eygan's conscience. When it came to heartless bastards like Sylas - she had simply learned to turn it off.

​It surprised her then, that someone was aware of the fact that Sylas' brother was sending her ultimatums. She looked at the boxes under the message and considered clicking 'No' at first, then wondering whether the person behind the transmission was a well-wisher or someone wanting to further entrap her. As her finger hovered in front of the screen, Mirax continued to hesitate. And then the image of the little girl who could breathe again because of what she had done, flashed before her eyes.

​The index finger jerked forward, tapping the affirmative.

​What happens now?

​Licking her parched lower lip, Mirax bit down upon the soft flesh, waiting to see what happened next - if anything at all.


[member="Jason Kellar"]

 

[Jason Kellar]

Jason had just come back from the small kitchenette he kept on his little ship and saw that she had responded in the affirmative. He let out a smile, rubbing his hands together gleefully.

"Time to royally jack this guy's life up."

Jason sat down at his workstation, pulling up the dossier on one Mr. Reuben Black. He also pulled up the prison file of the man's brother, Sylas Black. Both these guys were a piece of work he saw. Sylas was currently serving a life sentence and Dr. Eygan had harvested a lung from the dirt bag prior. So, Reuben didn't like his brother being used for spare parts, and thought he could take Mirax down did he?

"Not gonna happen."

First thing he did, was attack Reuben's financials. He started back tracking the man's money through different accounts and fake identities. Took him a little while to find a few of them, but once he cracked the man's personal database - it was all downhill from there.

"Hmm, 200,000 credits in this bank, another 150,000 in that one. Only 50,000 in your public account and whoa, ho ho, we got 1.5 million credits under another false name...no wait, that's not false - it's his mother's!" Anyone watching Jason would have a chuckle, as he sat there talking to all his monitors. Gathering all the funds, he wondered what to do with it.

Cackling evilly - or what he considered evil anyways - he tossed half a million of it into a dummy account that he set up, diverting funds for his personal use. The rest he spread out throughout the Galaxy, mostly to Police Benevolent Funds and some other charities. Though - after thoroughly laundering the money through a few stock exchanges - he diverted 150,000 of those credits to Dr. Eygan's account.

Next, he took a gander at a few of the other underworld contacts Mr. Black had. Diving into their business dealings and financials, Jason diverted the exact same amount of money he had just taken from Mr. Black's accounts and put them back - and made the trail quite obvious for his dastardly friends to follow. So Reuben would look at his accounts and not see anything was wrong. The gangsters he associated with would see plain as day that he was the one that stole their money and any slicer that they hired to crack his accounts and verify he had the money, would easily track the credits back to Reuben. So, Reuben was a dead man, and didn't even know it yet.

To add one final cherry to the poodoo sundae the Black's had brought upon themselves, he sliced his way into the prison network, and ordered that Sylas be put on permanent solitary confinement, only let out for one hour a day max.

Giggling out loud to himself, he looked up at the clock and saw that he had spent nine hours straight on this project. He giggled some more. He always lost track of the time when he was having fun. He pulled all of what he did into a file, and tied it up all nice and neat, sending it to the good doctor with another note attached.

"Frakked Reuben's life up but good, would you like to know more?"

If she clicked yes, it would detail all the financials that he had done, all the laundering, the transfer of credits to her account, the credits donated to different charities, and the moving of his brother to solitary on a permanent basis.

He also left a little box, in case she wanted to attach a return note. Smiling at his work, he hit the send button, letting it bounce across the galaxy before coming to rest at Dr. Eygan's terminal.

[member="Mirax Eygan"]

 

[Mirax Eygan]

Mirax returned to her reclining position in the chair only to find that it was almost impossible for her to return to sleep. For one thing, her brain was now firing on full and she found it a futile to attempt and shut it down. For another, she could not help but wonder whether the strange message was the end of it - or if the bizarre dialogue would continue.

Bloody hell. This better be on the up-and-up, whatever it is and whoever is behind it.

The Lorrdian simply could not afford to make any more enemies. As it stood right now, she had several people (and their mother) eager to get their hands on her, in just about every known system in the Galaxy. And just as she was about to kick her feet off the main console and lean down to pull the canteen from the backpack under her seat, the communications console lit up again.

"Frakked Reuben's life up but good, would you like to know more?"

The game was still afoot.

Again, the 'Yes' and 'No' boxes flashed green below the taunting inquiry. It was a tempting offer, one that could possibly help unravel the identity of her anonymous 'guardian angel'. This time, she would not hesitate. As soon as she clicked the affirmative, an awesome 'wall' of all the financials, the money laundering, transfer of credits, charity donations and finally, the re-location of Sylas Black to solitary confinement - all of it washed across the screen, glaring back at her in a sea of neon green.

As overwhelming and relief-inducing as it was at first, Mirax still had her doubts. No one had ever done anything selflessly for her, before. Not even Sol, for he had his own agenda, she thought firmly. So why this person - and why now? She read through the list of financials again, Mirax slowly scrolled up to the message preceeding her choice. And then she saw a little box - large enough for her to include a brief message. Perhaps it was time to flex some spine, she decided silently - and then began to type.

"Who am I to thank for all this?"

Might as well start with some semblance of gratitude. That it posed a not-so-subtle demand as to the identity of her secret redeemer, was obvious - but every civilized introduction had to start somewhere.


[member="Jason Kellar"]

 

[Jason Kellar]

The console beeped, startling Jason awake. Wiping the drool from his cheek - along with plucking the key from his face and putting it back into the keyboard - he saw she had actually replied to his message. Rubbing the sleep and drool from his face, he shook himself, trying to get his blood flowing again. He'd need to spend some time on the treadmill later as he hadn't done anything but sit at his work station for half a day and, wait a tick...his arse was numb.

Standing up and stretching, he massaged his back side to get feeling back in it as he wandered back to the kitchenette. Pulling some protein bars from a pantry he walked back, twisting and bending, stretching his body out before sitting back down in his seat. Before diving into her response, he pulled up some other screens, checking on the data trojans, financial worms, and other goodies he had working around the sector. His biggest cash cow was a few stock exchanges. Siphoning off fractions of credits from each transaction didn't sound like much, but when it all added it, it meant several thousand a day - for no work on his part.

Seeing that all was well in his little kingdom, he went back to his interaction with Dr. Eygan. She had opened the file and viewed the contents, so she knew all that he had done for her. She was probably wondering why he had done it, and what he wanted in return. Well, he didn't want anything. Anything he needed he could just slice his way in to getting. He felt much like a spider pulling on flies in his web, but that wasn't the correct analogy. He was just someone that had a particular set of skills, and liked to use them.

Looking at his screen, he saw that she had sent a message back to him. He set his system to pick it apart and look for any sort of tracer code or blood hound script, and finding none, he opened it up to see what she had written.

"Who am I to thank for all this?"

He smiled a bit at that. She was being civil about it all, which was good. He sat there for a bit, wondering what to respond to her with. He really didn't interact with people all that much. Only when he made planet fall somewhere to get supplies, and only then it was short and businesslike. Pulling up his own response, he hovered over the keys, and smiled as he typed up a response.

"Who I am - is a friend, Doctor. And my friend's call me Key."

He slipped in a small program that would allow them to chat directly, with everything encrypted to his own specifications. He included only one sentence to describe the program: 'Install This to Chat with Me'.

Let's see if she'd do it.

[member="Mirax Eygan"]

 

[Mirax Eygan]

A friend. Male? Female? The transmission specified an alias, 'Key'. Well, that was hardly enough to pinpoint the correct gender, Mirax thought and watched as another message came through - this one harboring a small attachment. A curious twinkle flashed in her eyes as she read the sentence inscribed below the file folder icon.

"Install This to Chat with Me"

Well, Mirax seemed to go along with everything else this 'Key' suggested thus far, so why stop now? Without a moment's hesitation this time, the young woman double-tapped the file icon and waited for the install to complete. She then took a deep breath before activating the newly installed program . . . and waited for it to load.


[member="Jason Kellar"]

 

[Jason Kellar]

Jason was leaning back in his seat, his feet up on the edge of his console. He watched as his system updated as she installed his program. The program also included a few other things of his own devising, items that would allow him to...keep an eye on the good Doctor. As the program installed and finished, it would sit and wait in the operating system of her consoles, and catalog the information inside - before transferring it to his systems. Then after that, any new entries would be sent. But only when the system was in sleep mode, and only after 93 minutes of inactivity.

Seeing that she had installed the program, he waited to see if she typed anything. Looking at the corner of the box, nothing was blinking and the line was showing as secure. So she hadn't typed anything yet. He reached for his head set, setting it on his head, adjusting the mic boom. Still, he sat there waiting to see if she would type anything.

He hoped she did, and wondered what he would say in return.


[member="Mirax Eygan"]

 

[Mirax Eygan]

It did not take long for the application to install and given that it seemed clean after having inspected it with the local antivirus, Mirax figured it would not hurt to type a brief message - if only to satisfy her own mounting curiosity. To this end, she paused for a moment, giving her first message some thought - then began typing inside the text box:

"This is Sparrow. Hello, Key. I just wanted to thank you again for all you did for me, earlier. I hope it does not get you in trouble. Btw, I am just going to assume that this conversation is fully encrypted, correct? Just wanted to make sure, in case someone has bugged my ship. I don't think that is the case - but you can never be too sure. So, Key - how did you find me? And why choose me, out of millions floating around in the galactic information superhighway?"

Having finished the message, Mirax leaned back in her chair and waited patiently for Key's reply.


[member="Jason Kellar"]

 

[Jason Kellar]

"This is Sparrow. Hello, Key. I just wanted to thank you again for all you did for me, earlier. I hope it does not get you in trouble. Btw, I am just going to assume that this conversation is fully encrypted, correct? Just wanted to make sure, in case someone has bugged my ship. I don't think that is the case - but you can never be too sure. So, Key - how did you find me? And why choose me, out of millions floating around in the galactic information superhighway?"

Jason smiled as he read what she wrote. Of course there were no bugs - at least nothing he was able to discover. And of course this was encrypted. Did she think him an idiot. Hell, if you tried to trace his signal, the results would be different each time. He thought about what he was going to reply to her. He didn't reply right away either, he kept her waiting for a bit.

In fact, he kept her waiting while he got up from his chair, and did some light exercising. He had been sitting for too long and needed to move a bit. A hundred pushups and a hundred crunches later, he returned to his workstation. Thinking on his reply again, he finally decided to give her one.

"Sparrow? I like that. I found you, while digging up dirt on people who worked for the Mera-Perlemian Trade Council. I'm new to this sector of space, having just arrived, and decided to look into the major players here. Their name came up, so I started digging. Been spending the better part of a month, tracking down all the dirty laundry I can, and forwarding it to someone in the Trade Council, so they can clean house. Don't worry, your information has not been forwarded to them. I have no qualms whatsoever with you using the dregs of society to make life a little better for those that normally can't afford it. It's why I sent a nice...tip...to your account. I hope you enjoy it. By yourself something nice. And also don't worry, this program is encrypted better than a Hutt's financial record."

Hitting send, he sat back, reaching for his cup of caf while he waited for her reply.

[member="Mirax Eygan"]

 

[Mirax Eygan]

Mirax furrowed her brow as she considered something before typing back a brief reply:

"If that is the case, why not try to gift the money to the ones who truly need it? Like children or mothers touched by ravages of war, for example. Unless you're only interested in corporate espionage and screwing around with bureaucrats for the fun of it. I mean, I am still grateful that you have gifted me the funds, just know that none of it will be spent toward personal gain."


[member="Jason Kellar"]

 

[Jason Kellar]

"If that is the case, why not try to gift the money to the ones who truly need it? Like children or mothers touched by ravages of war, for example. Unless you're only interested in corporate espionage and screwing around with bureaucrats for the fun of it. I mean, I am still grateful that you have gifted me the funds, just know that none of it will be spent toward personal gain."

Jason read her reply after it came through. Had she not read all that he had done? He smirked as he typed up a reply.

"It is that simple, at least for me. I gave several large donations to a few charities in the area. Though if you have any idea on who would benefit better, perhaps I can send funds directly to them. And to be honest, corporate espionage bores me, but it fills my coffers. I got more money than one man could hope to spend in a single lifetime. If I wanted, I could disappear into whatever part of the galaxy I want and live out the rest of my days a happy man."

"But that's boring. I have a talent, a gift almost when it comes to slicing. I may have the social graces of a bantha, but I know my way around the holo net and can get into things best left untouched."

He stopped when he realized he was rambling, letting the cursor just sit there and blink. He reread her reply, and focused on the last part.

"You are free to do with the funds as you please. Let me know if you need more."

[member="Mirax Eygan"]