Guilty Until Proven

[Sebastian Thel]

Fake Fame - God Module​

​

Within the heights of a civilian apartment complex, Sebastian Thel went about his evening, which consisted of analyzing scores of data pertaining to a criminal the Empire had ordered him to track down. The afternoon fell into night, leaving behind a starless veil through which the apartment complex peeked through. Stretching the cramps out of his wrist, Sebastian turned around to look out the window, where the sky was thick with smog.

The drone of craft loomed beyond the glass as speeders docked into lanes, calming Sebastian with the gentle noise, before he turned around and put his headphones back on. Switching to another album on his industrial playlist, he turned up the volume and lost himself in the aggressive techo music as he hammered away on his keyboard. Robert Derali was the name of the broker and although the data he had compiled was impressive, Sebastian was beginning to notice inconsistencies which Imperial intelligence had not picked up on.

"You're good Derali, but not that good." Sebastian said to himself, his chin cupped in thought. "Good enough to fool intelligence, but not good enough to fool the maths." Smiling, the mathematician leaned forward and proceeded to compromise he inconsistencies in Derali's report with the missing percentages. Tapping vigorously, he aligned them with the dates of the crimes committed, as well as the locations and the victims, which resulted in differences in information that could not be correlated.

As the pieces in the puzzle became wider, and more frequent, Sebastian had to take a moment and adjust his glasses to make sure that what he was seeing was real. With a gasp, he sat back and struggled to accept that the slicer he had been chasing had been innocent. Innocent of the crimes Derali had tried to frame her for, but still a cybercriminal, no doubt. At first, he had simply thought that Derali was out to scam the Empire, but he really seemed to have it in for this girl.

"She was framed." Sebastian said to himself.

After taking a moment to think, Sebastian leaned over the keyboard and opened up an encrypted server, which would allow him to delve into the hidden depths of the holonet. With the name of Aren D'shade on his mind, he wrapped around number after number, until they produced an account which was linked to the name. Opening up his usual instant message app, he entered in the account and found a user by the name of Ari.

"Bingo." Bas said and hit chat now. Luckily for him, Ari was online and most likely reaching out to the users of the holonet for help. When the chat box popped up, he recoiled for a minute, unsure of what to say. "Uh... Oh crap." Sebastian said, feeling slightly uncomfortable about approaching a stranger on the holonet, especially a girl, and especially somebody who he would otherwise be trying to get arrested. The chat box hung open, pressuring him to type something in right away.

"Hi." Sebastian typed. His username, Cryptobas, stood in front of the message and gave Ari a direct idea of who he was, without hiding his name with an encryption or an anon prefix. "My name is Bas, I work for intelligence." His next message read.

"Chit, should I not have said that?" Sebastian wondered aloud, before placing his hands against the keys again.

"I work with numbers and data, but I mostly break codes." He typed. When there was no response from Aren, he began to get worried and allowed for a moment to pause just to see if she sent anything. There was no response and Sebastian sighed, then began to type again. "So I had to go through the data on your case, and it didn't add up." His next message read. He hit send and began to type another.

"Intelligence was convinced, but I could tell right away that it was fake lol. I know you didn't do anything wrong." Sebastian sent. "Well I mean, you did, just not what Derali says you did." He typed again and sat back in his chair, his chin cupped in contemplation. Even if Aren didn't commit the crimes Robert had framed her for, she was still a cybercriminal and had most likely hacked responsible networks in the past. She was the kind of person Sebastian would usually be trying to get caught, but in this case, her crimes had been fabricated.

Sebastian was split. If he turned Aren in, intelligence would think he was sloppy for not picking up on the inconsistencies in the data, but if he helped her, there would still another black hat out there. He would be mortified if intelligence really thought that he hadn't been thorough enough in his analysis and if he proved that Aren was innocent, he could just leave it up to them to find out about any crimes she had committed for real. When he looked down, he could see that Ari was typing.

[member="Aren D'Shade"]

 

[Aren D'Shade]

For a while now Aren had been on an almost straight and narrow path, at least when it came to the holonet and cracking into things. Those days were in her past, but there were times when haunting reminders surfaced. This wasn't one of them. Something was going on she was unaware of, but the young woman was scared and in hiding. Luckily her master gave her freedom to come and go as she wanted and if he caught wind of these crimes that had her signature on them, she was sure she would be in trouble.

She knew how the Empire worked and one was guilty almost without question. To keep herself alive until she could somehow figure out how to clear her name, Aren had gone into hiding. Not one to be without her technology, she still maintained her connection to the holonet but used a false name. She also used other tricks to keep who she was secret.

When a message came through from Intelligence she was stunned. For several minutes all she could do was sit and stare at her screen. Clarification came slowly from the sender and she quickly started digging into him. In an attempt to find out anything she could. He covered his tracks well, but she found enough for her to confirm he was telling her the truth. He was who he said he was.

It was only then she decided to answer.

​Why should I believe you?

Not sending any more than that question, she quickly packed up what few belongings she had with her and prepared to move again.

[member="Sebastian Thel"]

 

[Sebastian Thel]

The message at the bottom of the text box hung open, telling Sebastian that Aren was typing. With his fingers pursed, he leaned on his desk and waiting keenly for what she had to say. The notification light popped up with a bing and text appeared beside Aren's username. The message contained little more than a question, which Sebastian thought was perfectly logical given the random nature of how he had contacted Aren. Swiping his chin, he leaned back and took a breath as he thought about how to respond, before setting his fingers against the keys.

"Trust me, I don't lie." Sebastian typed. Even through he knew was as honest as honesty came, it would not be enough to convinve Aren, who was not in a position to trust anybody. "Intelligence would sooner trust a Hutt then assign me with an undercover mission." He sent a further message, then leaned back and thought about how he could prove his intentions were legitimate.

"Hmm..." He thought aloud. Drumming his fingers on his desk, the screen flashed in his glasses as he turned around, having come up with an idea. He opened up the report he was filing, complete with the inconsistencies in the data and began to notate the percentages comprising of the fabricated information, before using his report, and the data to compile an attachment.

"Here is the report I filed, complete with the inconsistencies in the data, that should be enough to prove I'm genuine." Sebastian typed a message to go along with the attachment and sent them both. The files loaded as the message sent, before appearing in the chat box for Aren to click.

"I've notated the incorrect percentages, but you should be able to tell what's wrong right away." Sebastian typed. Indeed, while it would take mathematical annotations to convince intelligence, Aren should have been able tell which passages Derali had compiled about her that were false. "This was enough to convince me that Derali is a fraud." Sebastian typed, quite convinced of the nature of the information, which he would not dare to report to intelligence while it was riddled with inconsistencies. "I can't complete my analysis with the data he supplied intelligence, because it's false." Sebastian affirmed.

The aggressive techno pulsated through Sebastian's headphones as he typed. With a tap, he sent the message and sat back, waiting for Aren to respond. His reasons for helping her were detached from simple kindness, he had a job to analyse Aren's case accurately and bring her to justice, but in this case, the information he had to work with was false. He needed to provide intelligence with an accurate assessment of the girl they were after, even if it meant proving that she was innocent. Aren took her time responding, so Sebastian sent another message.

"So yeah, I don't want to help you out of the kindness of my heart, my job depends on it." With a shrug, Sebastian sent the message.

[member="Aren D'Shade"]

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Transferring their conversation onto something portable and not the larger system she was using, Aren finished gathering up her few other belongings. Intelligence was involved and if Sebastian had found her, others could do the same. Letting out an untrusting grunt her microphone picked up on it and typed out, "harumph", or something like that and it was sent to him.

Hitting the mute button a moment too late, the timing of her reply was proper though and the impression of not believing him was clear. The file he sent flew past her eyes in a flash, the information was as clear as day to her and it would have taken another person with great skill to notice the differences.

Her music was silenced while she was chatting with him. In the lull between his words, it turned back up. That music was something Aren had grown used to and it was something of a comfort blanket for her. His last words that reached her ears were akin to music and she knew he was telling the truth.

"So what do you want of me? Your report is full, complete and shows my innocence. Yet, you wouldn't have gone through all this trouble if there wasn't something else."

She stopped in her packing and the music thrummed in her ears as she waited for his reply.

[member="Sebastian Thel"]

 

[Sebastian Thel]

When Aren's microphone transferred her voice into text and sent it, Bas smirked. Leaning back in his chair, he watched the files load up into the chat box as Aren read each one. He saw her typing and proceeded to wait for her response. Reaching to the side, he grabbed a bag of chips, which he ripped open and shoved into his face, then washed it down with an energy drink. He licked cheese off his fingers, his eyes fixed to the little message that said Aren was typing.

By now, Sebastian expected her to accept his offer of help, but began to get frustrated when he saw that was not the case. With a heavy sigh, he slumped over his keyboard and hammered away, clenching his teeth in the process.

"Look lady, I'm offering to help you." His first message read. Before Aren could respond, he began to type another. "Kark, I thought that's what you were meant to do when somebody was in trouble." He typed, his response clearly conveying his frustration. Aren's whole stand confused Bas. He was reaching out to her and she just kept hesitating, he thought he had been doing the right, but clearly not.

"If I hand my report over to intelligence, they'll put Derali on their chitlist and he'll know he's been busted." Sebastian affirmed, typing between handfuls of chips. He munched away and cleared his throat with a gulp of caffeine and continued to type, the music blasting in his ears. As soon as he handed in his report to intelligence, they would cut ties with Derali and proceed to track him down, which would draw his attention to Aren. He could hurt her, or worse. "He'll come after you." Bas typed, then gave Aren some time to respond.

"In order to compromise the inaccuracies in the data he supplied, intelligence will have to go after the pattern he left behind." Typing away, Sebastian picked out a curly chip and munched it, all the while pressing his case for Aren to go along with him. He valued transparency and so did the Saraaisash, he knew they would go out of their way to correct the misleads in Aren's case, but he debated how long it would take them before Derali went after her.

"I'm going to do that, but I need your help." Sebastian typed, now questioning the extent of the crimes Derali had made up to fool Aren. The statistics indicated that some of them, if not many, were crimes committed by other people and proving that she was innocent would mean that Sebastian and her would have to solve the crimes themselves. "The stats indicate that some of the crimes Derali framed you for actually happened, so we need to solve them to patch up the misleads in your case." Bas typed.

"I mean to do this before Derali gets a chance to hurt you." Sebastian typed, taking a moment to stop eating to wait for Aren's response.

"But only you will know for sure which crimes are real and which aren't." He typed, switching to another album on his aggrotech playlist. The day had faded into night now, leaving him in the darkness of his apartment, the screen of the computer reflecting in his glasses. Swiping his chin, he drummed his fingers to the bass of the song and leaned over the keyboard again. "So I need your help, but I'm still going to do this with or without it." With that, Sebastian sent the message.

"I value honesty and so does intelligence, we won't stand by while an Imperial citizen gets screwed over." Sebastian typed away, expressing how he felt about the issue. Although he would feel genuinely bad about Aren getting hurt, he was more concerned about completing an accurate analysis of her case, complete with answers to the crimes which she had been framed for. Leaning back, he shook the cramps out of his wrist and watched the message confirming that Aren was typing.

[member="Aren D'Shade"]