Chapter 5
I was all-aflutter with glee all the way home as I imagined all the beautiful secrets in data form I’d soon uncover. It took all my willpower to not open my snooping software before I was at home and had privacy. Oh, fingers were twitching to see what evil was hiding from me, but I controlled them, just barely. From experience, I’d found there were few things in life which compared to the joy of snooping through someone else’s life. I just adored going through someone’s “private” journals, notes, and documents, looking for the weaknesses and secrets I’d be able to exploit for my advantage.
Lounging on my couch, I began a cursory search through her phone. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but from previous experience, I’d found just scanning through the data would give me a better picture of my target.
And what a target she was, I saw after doing an initial sweep of her phone. While by all accounts she looked like a slob, in her electronic life she was very organized. Each document was in a nicely labeled folder, each program on her desktop organized alphabetically. I hadn’t seen anything this neat and tidy since I cleaned up the work of a drunk programmer who’d been very diligent about labeling every step as he went about modifying the software for my jewelry.
(While this programmer hadn’t been the nicest person to deal with in person, especially when he’d been sober, his work had been very good, if a little redundant.)
I was just about to activate the GPS in her tablet and phone when I saw her come online. She was on AnoniMess, an anonymous chat room creator. With little more than a name for your chat room, you could create a free, permanent room for only the people you invite. No invite, no access to the room. This kept the cops out, and allowed people who normally wouldn’t associate to connect.
AnoniMess was a notorious site where if you had enough money and credibility, you could get anything you wanted or needed.
I had used the site many times, including when I was searching for a hacker to create the very software I was using to spy on Meredith. Ironic, isn’t it?
From my hacker friend, I’d obtained the ability to follow my subject into the chat room, enabling me to go back into said room whenever I wanted. This was especially useful when I wanted to contact the people in the room for my own purposes.
I watched as she began to chat with a “Latens” about how “things were progressing.” Latens said everything was on schedule and that it would be ready in a week.
Meredith (code name Fumantes) stated that they would talk the day before the delivery and signed off.
I was torn. I really was. I wanted to follow her web surfing, but I also wanted to stay in the chat room and learn more about this delivery. Decisions… decisions….
On my tablet, I punched in a command to copy her history. I’d look at them later, and turned my attention back to Latens. Another person, Atrox was saying how he didn’t trust Fumantes and how they didn’t need her.
Latens: “We need her money.”
Atrox: “I’ve got a guy who will give us all the money we need. For a cut of the profits.”
Latens: “By next week?”
Atrox paused. I could feel Latens’ impatience, for it was my impatience as well.
Atrox: “No.”
Latens: “When?”
Atrox: “In two weeks.”
Latens: “Not soon enough. We need the money by the end of next week. Any delay will interfere with the mission.”
Atrox: “But…”
Latens: “We take her money.”
Latens signed off the chat, leaving Atrox apparently alone in the room. But I was still lurking just behind the curtain, contemplating taking a chance.
Signing on as Aduro, a name I’d been using sporadically over the last seven years for some of my dealings with the black market and other unsavory characters, I said, “Want to help me make Fumantes disappear forever?”
Atrox: “Why? What’d she do to you?”
Aduro: “Doesn’t matter. I know where she lives. What she looks like. Willing to help rid our world of her?”
Atrox: “How much is it going to cost me?”
Aduro: “Nothing.”
I waited for his response. The longer it took the more trepidation I felt from Atrox. He didn’t know if he could trust me. Hell, I didn’t know if I could trust him, but if I could, we would be able to get rid of our mutual enemy.
Aduro: “You can keep the money she gives you. I don’t care about the money. I just want her gone.”
Atrox: “What would I have to do?”
Aduro: “You know anyone who’d take her to Barathrum?”
Barathrum was a planet of varying extremes. With a tissue paper thin atmosphere, half of the planet was skin meltingly hot while the other half was extremity killingly cold. Only the small land which separated the two extremes was temperate and comfortable to live on.
Not that people went to Barathrum for the climate. They went there for the natural resources. The planet was covered in metals, gems, stones, minerals, and anything else one could harvest and make money off of. But in order to bring in the money, the different companies needed cheap labor. Slave labor as some called the workers.
Oh, technically these people weren’t slaves. Slaves don’t get paid and these people made enough in a week to pay for their food and shelter on the planet. They just never made enough to get off Barathrum ever again.
Yes, those companies had their workers dead to rights. Whatever they made they were forced to spend in order to survive. And the few that were smart enough to get the funds together and started talking about leaving the planet always had a mysterious accident resulting in their death.
Barathrum was the perfect place for Meredith. Now I just needed Atrox to have someone who could take her there.
Atrox: “Yes. I know a guy with connections.”
Aduro: “Contact him. We’ll talk again tomorrow, 09:00.”
I changed my status to invisible, which would allow me to watch their conversation without them knowing, and stayed in the chat room, watching to see what he’d do next. Would he make contact with his guy via the chat room or would he seek out his associate in person? The answer was the latter I saw much to my dismay. I guess I’d have to wait until tomorrow morning to get my answer.
Turning my attention back to my target, which meant I was looking at her current internet activities, I saw she was shopping for some very expensive shoes. Ugly shoes, I saw when I got a good look at them. Who’d pay that much for such crap?
While she shoe shopped, I glanced over her internet history and saw she’d been going to a lot of jewelry, jewel appraisal, and gem sites. If I’d been dealing with a normal person, I’d have just thought they had a jewelry fetish and been on my way. But Meredith, as I was learning, was not a normal person. She was involved with organized crime in some capacity, thus making her abnormal in nature.
I looked very closely at the sites she’d been to and saw they all dealt with the value of red diamonds, rubies, and musgravite.
Why would Meredith be looking up values for these gems? The answer came to me in a moment of glory: she was buying stolen jewelry.
I began to laugh. I couldn’t contain my jubilation. Here I’d been planning the demise of a seemingly ordinary annoying flea, when in reality she was a buyer and/or fence of stolen jewelry.
Isn’t fate funny? Wiping the tears from my cheeks and eyes, I went back to my tablet to learn more about my little crook. Now that I knew what to look for, evidence of her extracurricular activities and how much money they brought in, I began the long task of sifting through her documents.
You’d have thought her neatness would make the task easier, but you’d have been wrong. Neatness, as I quickly found out, was much more difficult to navigate than a messy system for the messy system usually kept everything in one or two folders or directories.
The neat person, on the other hand, had folder after folder in every nook and cranny of their computer. It was like a vi
rtual Easter egg hunt where you’d finally think you’d found every egg, or folder location, only to have another one pop out of the woodwork, making you have to rethink your beliefs. You could spend hours scouring for your eggs and never find them all. This happened to me dozens of times. I’d think I knew where everything was only to find a new hiding spot.
I’d been searching for a few hours before I finally glanced at the clock and saw how late it was. If I was going to be up and functioning at 09:00, I needed more than a few hours of sleep.
I severed my connection to her tablet and began plotting what I’d say to Atrox in the morning.