The Truth Be Told

[pchwang]

Ryan Delgado needed to tell someone.

It was big, way too big. Big enough to topple the world, then build it back up again.

The lean 23-year-old university student cursed under his breath. What the hell had he gotten himself into? Regardless, he was in too deep, and he needed to get out, soon.

Delgado originally considered contacting the police, but the LPI were notoriously corrupt. If he told one of those guys, the Hackers would be all over their insecure data networks and picking up all kinds of stuff. Besides, he hated bureaucracy.

So Delgado went to the only person he trusted on Planet Los Angeles.

Her name was Erica, and she worked the intersection of Barnard and Leeman. To most, she was your typical prostitute - lean from hunger, street smart, and decently hot. But to Delgado, she was more. Erica was the first woman he had ever been with, and more than that. She was his friend, his counselor.

Delgado tried to remember. It was his first test at Douglas College - one of the most prestigious colleges in Liberty space - and he had just bombed it. He looked around at all the other students walking away, followed around stoners, drunks, and grassnosers - Cardamine addicts - in hopes of just forgetting the world. But then, he saw her, standing in on an empty street corner, as lonely, distraught, and desperate as he was. He had never really spoken to a woman casually before, but his body simply walked him over to her and his mouth spoke, "So, was that test horrible for you too!?"

He remembered the laugh. At first, it was a suppressed giggle, then it was burst out laughter, with a tinge of scorn.

"C'mon," she said, with a Houstonian drawl, "Ya look beat and I'm not too busy ta'nite. I'll give ya a free one."

Delgado remembered being confused.

When they were together in the hotel room, Erica began to work, and Delgado realized what had happened. He immediately tried to back away, but she didn't let him. Eventually, there was no more room on the bed to back off onto, and Delgado fell off.

"So that's how you like it," Erica said, "I can manage that."

"No wait, I've ne...!" exclaimed Delgado, but it was too late.

That was a year ago. Delgado paid a visit to Erica at least once a month just to destress. No girl could do for him what she could do. Sometimes, they didn't even have sex. Sometimes, they just sat and chatted.

Then Delgado got the call.

It was a Friday night, the night when he would typically go look for Erica.

"Ryan Delgado?" asked the voice.

Delgado recognized the voice changer immediately, but replied anyways, "It's just Del. Who is this?"

The voice chuckled. "Questions later. I'm an admirer of your work, Mr. Delgado, and I've an offer for you. the first job will pay three hundred thou, and maybe more later if we like...your style."

Delgado nearly dropped the phone, but it immediately occurred to him that whatever job it was, it was probably going to be illicit for that sum of money. But Delgado decided to play it safe. After all, he was just a college student.

"What work?" asked Delgado. "I think you've got the wrong person. I'm just a student."

The voice chuckled again. "Student during the day, credit cycler at night. Very funny. Don't think we don't know, Mr. Delgado. We've got people everywhere."

Delgado cursed mentally. How the hell did these guys know what he was doing? The thought that they could be LSF attempting to lure him into a trap flashed through his mind.

The man - or woman - was right. Delgado was what they called a "credit cycler," short for credit recycler. Essentially a digital form of check washing, credit recycling was done on a large scale by federal banks all over Sirius every single day. It was a complicated process - if you didn't know what you were doing. Credits, unlike cash or charge cards, were digital monetary units. While people still carried around fat wads of cash, credits were more convenient and safer to move around. In addition, credit transfers were instantaneous.

In the massive supermassive economy of Sirius, however, it was easy for people to "lose" their credits digitally. Imagine dumping nine hundred trillion bills into a massive pool, then attempting to determine which bills belonged to who. Now, imagine doing this to invisible, digital bills.

All credits begin with a series ten-digit of numbers. For instance, 0098375614.

That number would be followed by an alphanumeric code, such as A8H.

Then, the whole number would be followed by your personal identity code. In Delgado's case, for instance, it was AG9982635.

The whole configuration would then be capped by randomized sequence of numbers.

So, if Delgado made a credit from a job of some sort, his credit would be: 00983756142A8HAG99826357763.

Now, if he took the credit, then bought a drink with it, the drink vendor's credit sequence would look something like this: 00983756142A8HAG9982635776301229834756J7BKNM7009P37683. Although it did seem foolish, the process was a huge deterrent to counterfeit credits and credit laundering, as any credit would be immediately traced back to its source.

But as the sequences got longer and longer, the credits were more difficult to read for machines and scanners. So when the credit somehow returned to a federal bank, it would be wiped clean and reduced back to something like 00983756142A8H.

That's where Delgado and his peers came in. Not all the credits make it back to the federal banks. Some get corrupted or get lost in the system, and become "sinkers," marked for deletion. Others get too long and are tagged by programs for speedy reduction and replacement by banks. These, are called "floaters."

Delgado and other cyclers would essentially skim off the top of the "pool" of credits, and download as many floaters as possible before banks targeted them, took them away, and replaced them with a new credit sequence. Taking the floaters, Delgado would take another pool of credits that a client wanted to be "diversified," or cloaked from the peering eyes of the LSF and LPI, and replace credits in that pool with floaters, while inserting additional, randomized sequences into the credits to be replaced. Those credits would then be dumped back into the pool, becoming sinkers, and programs would mark them for removal.

Meanwhile, the floaters in the client's account would be retagged, and then be replaced with new credits from a federal reserve.

At the end, no one loses any money, no one gains any money, but Delgado's client would be free from raids by the LSF on their homes because their illicit money-making had been traced back to them.

Delgado was known as one of the best in the business. Besides, because he was behind a university firewall, the LSF had an even harder time catching up.

But three hundred K's for one job seemed a little excessive.

"I'm interested," replied Delgado, "What's the job?"

"I'm glad to hear," said the voice. "A good friend of mine, Vice Admiral Keeton Sterner, needs some of his credits edited. You know, shake things up a bit."

"Alright," Delgado replied. "What was it? Embezzlement?"

"That's none of your concern," said the voice. "It's going to be a little different from what we usually do. We already have a pool of premade credit sequences. You just need to insert and replace them."

Delgado was slightly stunned. That wasn't a little different, it was way different. Any random hacker could do that.

"Why do you need me to do it?" asked Delgado, suddenly nervous.

"Because, if any random hacker did it, and a problem did occur, he wouldn't know how to fix it."

Delgado acknowledged the man's logic. Random errors were known to happen. "Alright, I'll do it."

---

[7:42:05 PM][6:51:36 PM] Igor (Smokey): btw terry
[6:51:48 PM] Terrance Cooper: Ye?
[6:52:00 PM] Igor (Smokey): nothin
[6:52:03 PM] Igor (Smokey): just sayin btw
[6:52:05 PM] Terrance Cooper: <_<

Johnny_Haas: you shot anti criuse speed rockets!!!
Johnny_Haas: but why????
Johnny_Haas: ??
Johnny_Haas: why you shoot criuse speed rockets?