A Devil of a Job

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IamLEAM1983
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Re: A Devil of a Job

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Three shrugged again. "We'd need to check to be sure, but framing a business-owner to try and gain from their downfall seems like a pretty Ordo Dracul thing to do to me. Doing it with a plan that'd leave me personally uninvolved with the dirty parts fits the bill especially well.
- Y'got any vamp relatives, Drake?" asked Kramp.

Drake scoffed lightly. "No, I don't. The so-called Blood of the Dragon doesn't push greed on everyone it touches, you know. I only know what comes standard with your average high school Biology class. They're biologically alive and culturally picked for their managerial or people skills. Choosing warriors is less common now than picking people with a knack for working crowds. When certain psychological factors meet with the Blood's influence, some forms of sociopathy can take root if they're groomed by the environment. Some Dracul turn out to be model citizens with their heart on their sleeve, others are less lucky and fall prey to the Blood's influence early on."

He gestured as he spoke. "All that and, well, they're like all the other bloodlines in that the older they are, the stronger they get. The stronger they get, the harder it is to think and act mortal. People think only millennial types lose touch and start thinking they're better than anyone else, but there's no limit for how early depersonalization can start kicking in.

I mean, we have the decency to at least chicken out of some extremes, when we get bitchy with our coworkers. When you have a few centuries under your belt, making Joffrey Baratheon look like a well-adjusted politician starts to look like it's not so bad."
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Karl the Mad
 

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Re: A Devil of a Job

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"Bah," Jimmy groused, heading back behind the bar, "leave an old man to his late life comforts. Not like I'll be around forever." Nor was insider trading his sole source of illegal income...

"That's why my unit had dedicated financial specialists," Mary remarked regarding the talk about vampires. "More damage can be done with a few bad stock movements than with all the guns in the world. Guns only kill, after all, but the stock market affects whole nations!"
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IamLEAM1983
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Re: A Devil of a Job

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Taking the hint, Three headed outside after sparing one last nod to Winters. "From the look of things, we're setting up for a two-pronged assault on the problem," he mused. "We have our group that's liable to tackle the actual culprit and - I hope - Starr that's about to come up with something in terms of evidence or incriminating proof..."

The young man looked back to Aislinn and Mary. "I don't like this. The more we move, the more this feels like a plan someone would fight for. Maybe even kill."

* * *

The way having been cleared with some painstaking timing and a few well-placed shots, Travis guided Katherine to the vault door. A few moments later, they were in.

"Well," sighed the rat in obvious satisfaction, "I hope this was worth the effort... Now, try finding a central console, any computer station that looks important. I need to access Nigel's schematics to check when they were last accessed. If there's a match with what we have thanks to our two idiots back topside, then we'll have part of the mastermind's M.O.

Stoke a serial killer into action, provide him with a competitor's tech so he gets the job done, and stand by while the stocks take a nosedive..."

Katherine could almost hear Connor shivering. "I'm a hacker, I'm used to doing things without getting personal, but even Aldergard would say this is cold."
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Karl the Mad
 

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Re: A Devil of a Job

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"Then we should be ready to fight back," Mary replied firmly, unhesitant. "Do what must be done, and argue over the means later." She sighed and stretched, lacing her hands and reaching for the sky, fully aware of what the pose did for her curves. "Afterward, though, I'm coming back here. Winters makes a mean daiquiri!"

---------------------------

"Not the coldest thing ever," Katherine replied as she scanned the interior of the vault. "Remember that time in Spain, perhaps three years ago? You and I and Spearhead were after that rogue Kitaiteki." She spotted a likely console, and began walking towards it, resisting the urge to relax and let her guard down. Her nerves were stretched thin from all the stealthing, though; she'd need to sit down sooner or later.
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IamLEAM1983
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Re: A Devil of a Job

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Travis could be heard scoffing lightly. "Yeah, that was one of my outside gigs. You'd found this hotel porter's uniform for me and I'd added some big shades to cover my Doctor Robotnik eyes. We were in Madrid, the temp had hit record highs for July... I seriously considered murdering you and Aldergard for sticking me in this getup."

Judging by the way he'd scoffed, there was no real spite behind this, even if he did remember being fairly miserable. He was more nostalgically amused than anything.

"I didn't have my rig, I was forced to work with five or six memorized Spanish sentences and had to let the ol' chip brute-force its way into our target's protected laptop," he reminisced, referring to his brain implant. "Brute-forcing is long as shit. Boring, too, I'd add. Meanwhile, you were chatting up and being your Classy Eurocentric self after stopping by a Balengencia franchise... It's always the same ones who get to have all the fun.

We siphoned the cash out of his Swiss accounts by the end of the day and - that was it, I think? A centuries-old mechanized samurai ends up taken out of the equation by a bunch of motivated Indonesian flunkies that got a higher payout from their Jakarta crimelords..."

He could almost be heard shaking his head. "A couple bottles of spiked sake and a dozen acetylene blowtorches... Au revoir, Monsieur Japanese Clank. May ye rest safely as scrap parts sold to your unsuspecting fellow brethren."

* * *

Three looked back to the pub as he sat in the car. "Yeah, same. I don't like having to pull this cop stuff with Winters. I know he's in with the Commission, but the Drakes have pretty much always stuck close to the local Irish-American scene. He's been good to the family, at least up until Dad started bringing in enough cash to pay for everyone's college... I'll have to stick around for that Daquiri, I think."

He shook his head. "And I ended up pissing over that college fund and enlisting, instead."
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Karl the Mad
 

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Re: A Devil of a Job

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"Spain was a blast! And you should reject stereotypes more," Katherine replied, rolling her eyes. "Look at Hauser, right? Maybe he's not as much a hacker as you are, but I bet he can get into the same places with just as much effort as you, whether in person or not."

Finally admitting she had to relax, the lawyer dropped into a handy chair and rubbed her eyes, heaving a sigh as she did so. "Here we go," she muttered, plugging into the console she had spotted. "Do your thing, T."

--------------------------------

"You could have done worse, Aidan," Mary replied with a smile as she went for her bike. "You could have been a cop. Like me!" She then grinned. "We'll all come back for drinks, we owe him that much after bursting in earlier!"
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Re: A Devil of a Job

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Aislinn agreed with that idea of returning to Winters' pub for drinks and got on her bike. "I told Tesni to drop by Holden Hall so she can make me up. Should I heads over there and tell her to meet me there?" she asked Three.
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