Good guy Sam
28 Sep 2021Ohmnibus
Sam was a good guy. He was one of those quiet people that didn’t bother anyone but above all didn’t want to be bothered. So, on the third theft, he decided to install a hidden camera in the canteen to find out who was stealing his lunch.I don't know if he knew that was Melinda all along, but now it doesn't matter anymore: Sam, Melinda and all their colleagues died while they were doing their job as researchers, crushed by the rubble after the bombing of 23-09-3307 at the Clothier Cultivation Base. A terrorist action on defenseless civilians. Some butchers don't know, or don't care, the difference between a soldier and a defenseless civilian.
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Unauthorized transactions were discovered at the Gamma Galactic Library, and I was called in to investigate. It’s not the kind of job I usually do, but the situation is not good for the faction and everyone has to help out, so I immediately got to work.
I quickly discovered that the outbound transactions were made from the Clothier Cultivation Base to encrypted accounts, some of which are tied to mercenaries whose bounty it’s of seven digits. Unfortunately, the surveillance camera recordings, which I struggled to recover from the rubble, were erased at the times these transactions were made. A job well done, then, were it not for Sam's invaluable help and our thief's unfortunate idea of making transactions from the canteen terminal. I found Sam's hidden camera, and tracking down the culprit was easy.
But here the good news ends.
Sure of not being traced by the tapes, he hadn't bothered to assume the identity of Dr. Jewell Frash, hired a month earlier, and only thanks to this I was able to recognize his true identity: Tyler Kaufman, the well-known industrial spy.
Tyler, for the few who don't already know him, is famous for his transforming and acting skills, as well as his manipulation skills. He often hires inexperienced mercenaries using their feelings to motivate them, so much so that they often refuse to be paid. Among the CMDRs, jokes are made about the number of brothers or sisters that, according to his stories, he would have lost: 12 killed by the Sirius Corporation, 7 killed by Lakon Ind, 5 by the hands of Achilles Corporation…
Tyler cannot be hired for a few bucks. He must have been paid by a very influential organization that the Gamma Galactic Library probably stepped on. What's worse is that he’s hiring mercenaries against us by paying them with our credits.
Who knows how many mercenaries are fooled by his stories. Who knows if Sam, Melinda and their colleagues died to avenge a family member who never existed.