- Joined
- Jul 22, 2007
- Messages
- 16,063
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- 133
"Come over here, I want to show you something."
"What is it, Dad?"
It's a bit of a surprise. Close your eyes for a moment."
"What is it, Dad?"
It's a bit of a surprise. Close your eyes for a moment."
Marcella opened her eyes as the nearby computer screen flickered. She dragged herself out of her cot to the monitor. Her search terms picked up numerous results while she was taking a nap, which she started scanning with drowsy dead-eyes.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
No… pe…?
It picked up a credit transaction out of a bank. The date: about 18 years ago, putting it in the right ball park with the previous sources she looked at. Of course, it would look mundane to the typical viewer, but Marcella knew what keywords marked this particular transaction. "Tabula" was the keyword used by her parents to hoard their wealth, acquired from their careers as pirates.
She started tracking the route of the credit transaction. It went between various banks before disappearing from the public record. An extraction of credit sums here and there, disseminating the amounts into separate locations.
Marcella grabbed her satchel, making sure her things were inside it before leaving the hotel room and stepping into the streets. The evening hustle looked like business as usual. Food vendors and street merchants lined the aisles, creating noise as they did their business with others. The occasional speeder towed a collection of slaves right by. Seeing the defeated looks on their faces made her skin crawl. As she walked, Marcella pulled out her commlink and keyed a speed dial.
"It's me. I'm heading out for a bit. Should only take an hour at most," she spoke briefly into it before cutting the connection.
She did not have any reason to explain to her companion what is going on: the two had this discussion after they rented the hotel room.
Marcella went to one of the last locations that she was able to track the Tabula trail, sending her to the Zygerrian Central Bank. She went to one of the private kiosks and attempted to enter credentials to the Tabula account. As expected, her request was denied for an incorrect passcode. Marcella tried again two extra times for good measure before leaving the bank. The purpose of the visit was not to actually attempt to break in: it would have been easily picked up by security feeds and get her into real trouble. Instead, she left a trail for herself to follow later on.
Returning to the streets, Marcella placed distance between herself and the bank building. She selected a holonet line that was somewhat secluded in the rafters and climbed the fire escape stairwell to it. It took a bit of time and a bit of noise, but a brief look around suggested that no one took notice or cared that Marcella was climbing the side of the building this way.
She gave the box a tug, but it was locked securely. Marcella put on some gloves as she sighed and pulled the wiring from its obscured location behind the box. She used her knife to cut a small opening into the wire protector to access the circuit inside. Marcella then took out her tablet and connected a copper wire to the live-wire inside. She checked the box’s model before using the tablet to apply several different voltage current sequences to the wire connected to the box. On the last one, the box clicked open.
Marcella did not actually break the lock to the holonet box. Instead, she falsified an authentication of an override code that would be used by a government employee. Since the box used an electronic lock, that meant that it had to accept a certain signal combination through the existing circuit in order to unlock. Amusing how her old job at a holonet firm is paying off.
It didn’t take long to tap into the central bank’s holonet system and not much longer than that to go into the authentication logs. This information would normally be encrypted, but not when her access is read by the bank holonet as an “authenticated” user.
With master access, it is not necessary to know the password. One could just enter the account, though the permission to move assets within the account would need a special code from someone like the bank manager. But the code is not necessary: Marcella is not interested in manipulating the contents of the account. It is probably empty anyways: the contents transferred to some other part of the galaxy.
As she worked, Marcella noticed that the chrono on her tablet indicated that it has been a little more than an hour since she left the hotel room. Is he wondering what’s going on?
Once she tracked the direct routes from the Tabula account, Marcella downloaded the logs, left a small bug in the system, and disconnected everything from the holonet box. Once she locked up the box, Marcella fished out her commlink and speed dialed her companion.
“Hey. I know, I missed the hour. I just lost track of time, that’s all,” she said in a hushed voice. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
After climbing back down to the street level, Marcella briskly made her way back into the Zygerrian streets and made her way back to the hotel. She stopped at various vendors along the way, buying some of the food to bring back. That should buy some appeasement for not keeping her word.