The Idiot Tax

He tapped a few more icons and was back at the main report page. The dollar-sign icon was blinking yellow, which meant that his bot had found some financial data that should be reviewed. He was about to tap it when he felt like he was being watched. He looked up, startled, as Clara cleared her throat, staring down at him from the low cube wall.

"Hey," he commented lamely, quickly tapping the folder icon on the screen next to the dollar-sign. A list of file names started scrolling as he cleared his own throat.

"I gathered you weren't a morning person, so got myself a coffee and started reviewing my bot's report."

"Sorry about earlier, and yeah I hate mornings worse than taxes," she joked. "How's the report looking?"

Not wanting to give away too much information yet, Jared answered in a half-truth. "Well, so far it's shown me that almost all systems that are routinely accessed by users and partners are secure. I've only found two that look like it was able to bypass existing security, and gain read access."

"WHAT?!" she replied angrily. "Show me!" she ordered.

Jared tapped a few more buttons and got to the report about the compromised systems and the user accounts that were able to bypass security features. Clara grabbed the tablet from him and scrolled the list for herself.

"GOD DAMN IT!" she cursed loudly. "I TOLD that fat-ass to stop using SEX as a password! FUCK!" she nearly yelled.

Jared pulled the tablet back from her, nodding his head. "I understand," he replied diplomatically. "Users never listen, do they?"

"Anything else?" she demanded.

"Not that I can see. Look, I'm just trying to help here, and this is all part of evidence that I will present to the Commissioner as well as my own bosses. In my experience, if it comes from outside the organization, the management tend to take it more seriously than from in-house."

"That's FUCKED! Damn it!" she continued her tirade, storming off towards her office.

Jared decided that he would give her time to cool off, before attempting any further contact. He sat back down and moved the tablet back to the main screen, tapping the report about the finances he had yet to read.

The bot wasn't only setup to check systems for security, but also for any information that might be just lying around to be picked up. Jared shook his head glumly, as the bot almost never failed to find skeletons in most of his client's closets. As he reviewed the report about ALC, he realized with a deepening sense of dread, that he might be in deeper shit than he had ever been before.

The transactions that it found, if true, would mean that the ALC had a much bigger problem on its hands. A trail of payouts dating back several years seemed to be listed, all with very conflicting transaction information. Jared quickly copied the reports from the tablet to his reporting server back at the Chicago office, securing the files with his highest level of encryption possible, locking them with his double-key system. He had two security keys distributed on two physically separate systems, in separate physical locations. While no system was ever 100% secure, Jared liked to think his was one of the best.

Once the file copies were complete, he erased the financial reports from the tablet. He also instructed the bot to stop its crawl on finances, forcing it to focus on the technical security and data it found. He set the bot to message him when it completed its run, then disconnected the tablet and put it back in his bag. He looked up and around the office, all the lights on and several other employees now sitting behind desks, working. Henry was off to one side joking into a headpiece, talking to someone about how sunny it was in Florida.

Jared stood up and turned in a slow circle, examining the surroundings closer. Panic was attempting to force its way into his mind. He felt his racing heart, pulse thumping in his veins, his ears banging the beat into his head. Thump, thump. Thump, thump...

He shook his head, snapping out of the daze he'd been in, grabbing his bag and moving towards Melissa's office. He knocked on the frame and was waved in by the beautiful blonde, looking up from her screen.

"Good morning, Jared! What can I do for you?" she asked with a smile.

"I've wrapped up some of the tests I had running and was going to head back to the hotel for a bit. I have some testing that I usually to do after-hours and planned to come back tonight for it."

"Oh," she replied, raising an eyebrow. "Want some company?" she asked, trying to act innocent in a sensual tone.

Damn, is she flirting with me?

Jared cleared his throat, "Well, you can join me if you want, but it'll be pretty boring. I stare at the screen most of the time."

Melissa smiled at him. "Oh, that's okay. I'm pretty sure I can keep you entertained while we wait."

Jared gulped, smiled nervously and replied, "Okay, well, I'll message you when I'm heading back over from the hotel then?" he asked more as a question than a statement.

Melissa nodded as he turned and left the lawyer's office. Jared wasn't sure what was happening, but he was pretty sure she had something besides talking planned. He wasn't the kind of guy to cheat on his girlfriend, so the second he got back to his room, he called her.

"Hey, babe, you're calling early," Sasha said, still dressed in her work clothing. She'd taken the call from her own office, still in the middle of her day. "What's up?"

"I can't say much, but I really need you here with me. Can you ask for some extra time off and fly down here? I know we planned on a vacation after this client, but I thought maybe we could start a little early?" he nearly begged.

"Jared, you're scaring me a little here. What's going on?"

"I'd be glad to tell you all about it when you get here, in person," he replied, trying to smile. "I just love you so much, that I can't be without you any longer," he declared.

Jared winked at her, lips tightly closed, as he nodded his head to the left subtly. Sasha picked up the sign immediately as the code they'd agreed to if either were ever in distress but couldn't say it out loud. Her job as a Federal employee wasn't like a super-spy, but she did work with some of the more notorious criminals in the state. Chicago had become a dangerous place to live, with the crime-rate soaring to the highest in the world. Her job as an agent was to investigate all forms of digital sources, to assist with the capture of known felons.

"Uh, let me talk to my boss and get back to you," she said before quickly ending the call.

Jared paced the room for about five minutes, feeling like it took an hour. The vid connected and Sasha was walking out of her office. "Okay, she approved me taking some time to come see you. I will message you with my flight info so you can pick me up."

**********************************************************

Two hours later, her plane touched down and he met her outside the baggage claim area. The pair exchanged a tight hug, when she whispered in his ear, "Okay, what the fuck is going on?"

"Deep shit, that's what," he whispered back. "I'll tell you everything once we're outside."

"God, I'm glad to see you," he said at normal volume.

"I'm so glad to see you, too," Sasha replied.

As the two exited, he directed her towards the short-term parking. Jared wasted no time filling her in on the situation. She didn't say anything as he explained the problem, and the fact that the ALC lawyer had basically propositioned him. When he was finished explaining, she stopped and turned Jared to face her.

"I will always be here for you. We'll figure it out, okay? I love you, babe."

He nodded, pulling her in for a tight hug. "I know."

They separated and continued the walk to his rental. "So, who else knows about this?" she asked.

"Right now, just you and I, and whoever set it all up."

"Let's keep it that way, for now, until we can figure out who we can trust."

They didn't say much more as they got in and he engaged the auto-drive. The trip to the hotel was uneventful, and they were soon in his room. Sasha dropped her bag on the floor and went into the bathroom, locking the door.

After a few minutes, she emerged, wearing only her heels and stockings. Jared's mouth dropped to the floor, nearly drooling at the sight of his gorgeous girlfriend. She knew the effect she had on him, and sashayed her way across the room to him, wrapping her arms around his neck as she pressed her soft breasts into his chest.

"Someone is overdressed," she purred.

They spent the next two hours doing their best to ease the stress of the situation.

**********************************************************

Jared started at the sound of his phone dinging, signaling a new message. It was from Henry, asking if he would be joining him and Sam for dinner. He thought about joining them, before grinning and deciding to fuck with the older man instead. He chuckled as he hit send.

Sorry, have a better offer. Sasha showed up and plans to fuck my brains out ;)

Later that evening, Sasha joined her boyfriend back at ALC. Jared had messaged Melissa to let her know he was heading there but hadn't told her that Sasha was joining them. He had warned Sasha to just go along with whatever he said. When the blonde lawyer arrived, she wrinkled her nose at the new woman with him.

"Who's this?" Melissa demanded.

"Melissa, this is Sasha, my girlfriend from back home. She came to-"

"Doesn't matter. Shit, she shouldn't even be here. Don't let anyone know, okay?"

Jared made the zipper motion across his lips, pretending to throw away the key afterwards. She nodded and then asked what his plan was.

"Sasha will stay here at my desk, reading whatever that garbage is on her tablet, while I was going to head up to the clean room for a bit."

Sasha looked up briefly, "Yeah, I've got some stuff to catch up on. Go, have fun," she said, rolling her eyes.

Melissa followed Jared to the clean room and watched as he sat at the workstation tapping away at the screen. After a few minutes, she stood behind him and started to rub his shoulders.

"Dang, you're getting all tense working on that. Here, let me help you relax."

Her fingers began to work some relief into his stiff shoulders, and he closed his eyes and moaned. "So, any leads yet on what we talked about?" she asked.

"Well, for starters, I think the drawings have been rigged. Somehow, I think someone is drawing the exact numbers they want to win the drawing. I just need to figure out who," he said.

"Wow, really? You think someone is gaming the system like that?" she asked, sounding astonished.

"Yeah, I do. Is there anyone you could guess might be behind something like that?"

"Hmm, not really. Let me think about it," she said, rubbing into his shoulders with a little more effort.

Jared didn't even realize what was happening until he felt a soft set of lips on his neck. The beautiful lawyer moved up his neck slowly, tenderly kissing the exposed skin, until she got to his ear. Her tongue lightly flicked his earlobe, and at that point he snapped out of the relaxed state he'd found himself in, sitting up straight.

Jared tapped a few icons on the screen to log out, then abruptly stood up. The move startled the blonde, who stood for a second with her lips still puckered, before standing up fully herself. She raised her eyebrows as if to ask, "What the fuck?"

"Sorry, that felt amazing, but I'm all done now. I think it's time to go back downstairs."

Melissa was almost pouting as she followed him back down to the first floor. When they got back to the desk area, he winked at his girlfriend as she casually looked up.

"So, there you two are. I was beginning to wonder what happened up there."

"I'm going to stop by my office for a minute. I need to finish up some stuff from earlier," Melissa commented.

As Jared sat down next to Sasha, his girlfriend looked at his neck and scowled. "What the FUCK?"

She smeared her fingers on his neck and they came back red, the same color as Melissa's lipstick.

"Babe, nothing happened," he tried.

"Ugh, don't babe me."

Melissa smiled to herself as she shut her office door behind her. Sasha and Jared stopped talking and looked down at their tablets. Sasha tapped out the first message.

Sasha: Do you think she bought it?

Jared: I hope so. Find anything?

Sasha: Yes, will explain later. Sent report to your server.

Jared: Okay, now on to part 2. We need to figure out who's involved.

Sasha: I'm working on it. Back to the room until it's finished?

Jared nodded, the pair standing up and walking to Melissa's door, knocking. "Melissa, I'm all done for the night," he said, sounding dejected.

"Okay, let yourself out," she responded with a muffle through the door.

The couple left the building, and as soon as they were in the rental, Sasha began explaining.

"From what I can tell, someone is gaming the system, hard. The algorithm that is supposed to create all the quick-pick numbers, does have some randomization in it, but isn't allowed to use all the numbers. It was buried deep, but there is also a link setup to the routine that processes and records the manual picks. I think someone has been controlling the outcome of these payouts with the drawing itself.

"The last three winners were older couples, ranging in age from 71 to 89. All three were tickets purchased in some very remote locations, in towns with a population below two thousand. The last thing that really set off my radar, all three were manual picks, meaning they didn't use the quick-pick feature. They were tickets that someone manually filled in a piece of paper with their number choices."

"Wow, nice job Babe! Yeah, Melissa mentioned that they were all manual drawings. I noticed a pattern for the payouts, but I just thought someone was redirecting the money. This is on a whole different level," Jared replied, smiling with pride. "I love you so much," he replied, as his right hand linked with her left, fingers entwining.

"The one thing I haven't figured out yet, aside from who's behind it all, is the machines. Those are just balls supposedly picked at random... How would anyone be able to fake that?" she asked rhetorically.

Once they returned to the hotel room, Jared made sure that his sexy girlfriend knew exactly how much he loved her, twice. They were a quivering mess as they lay, eventually falling asleep spooning together.

**********************************************************

It was still dark in the room when Jared woke up. He heard what sounded like a conversation coming from outside their room door. He strained to listen to what was being said, thinking he'd heard the word "hacked," but soon the sound of the voices drifted away from the door. He looked over at the bedside clock and saw that it was only 4 a.m.

Groaning, he slid his legs to the side of the bed, as Sasha made a moan of her own into her pillow. "What's wrong?" came the muffled question.

"Some quiet voices from the hallway woke me up, not sure if they were at our door or just walking by."

Sasha pushed up onto her elbows, looked at the clock, blinked twice and then turned her head towards Jared. "This early in the morning? Babe, we should probably finish up here and get the hell outta Florida," she said with concern in her tone.

"I think you may be right, as usual," he replied with a grin.

They took separate showers, got dressed and packed up their things just in case they needed to make a hasty exit. At 6 a.m. the couple went down to have a complimentary breakfast, before heading back for their final day at the ALC building. On the way over, the pair discussed the plan for the day.

They both agreed that someone on the inside of ALC had to be involved, there was a familiarity to the scheme that screamed intimate knowledge of how ALC operated. With that in mind, they created a list of people they'd met or knew could be a suspect. The short list was basically Melissa, Clara, and Tara, the stage manager. The Commissioner himself was also on the list as a weak possible.

"I wish we could get at those damn machines," Sasha lamented.

"I know. Why don't we ask each of our suspects about it, see who barks the loudest?" Jared replied.

"That's good. Also, I want to get as much dirt as I can about the drawings and the payouts."

"Okay, you look into that while I check out the code to see if I can find a trace as to who's been contributing to the code."

They got to the office and got right to work. After an hour, they were both nearly shocked out of their seats when Henry rolled up.

"Damn, Jared, are you a vampire or some shit? Is she your vampire queen?"

"Fuck you, asshole," Sasha managed through her tightly clenched teeth. Sasha didn't care for Henry, having met him at a company holiday party previously.

"Whoa, easy there, I was just messing with him," Henry replied, hands in the air.

"Dude, do you always have to be such an ass?" Jared asked his coworker.

"Yeah, just ask my three ex-wives," he chuckled, waving dismissively at the couple and rolling over to his assigned desk.

The moment passed, and Jared returned to his tablet screen. Having found what he thought might be a breadcrumb, he tapped the screen furiously as he moved through the system. He stopped at a specific file and examined it closer. The contents weren't as interesting as the metadata of the file was. Inside, he found a Garbage list that made his eyes open wide.

Jared blinked, then quickly copied the Garbage file to his tablet and disconnected it from the network. He tapped out a quick note on the tablet and put it in his bag. Sasha turned to him and raised an eyebrow.

"I'm done here. I think I'm going to go have a chat with Melissa. You hang out here and I'll be right back," he promised with a kiss.

She nodded and went back to what she'd been looking at. He loved that she trusted him as much as he trusted her. He smiled, then adopted a serious expression on his short walk to the lawyer's office, preparing himself for the coming discussion.

"Hey, what's up?" she asked in her usual perky tone.

"I was wondering if there was any way to talk with your stage manager, Tara? I'd like to see what she knows about the software that runs the ball machines. I'd like to verify their integrity in person. Also, after talking with the IT manager, I think there might be some changes that could make the system run better while using less of the CPU."

"Um, I'm sure that'll be fine, let me just give the boss-man a call first," she replied.

She tapped on her desk vid and in short order the Commissioner asked, "Good morning, Melissa. What can I do for you?"

"Mr. Stone is here asking if he can talk to Tara about the ball machines. Aside from his investigation, he thinks he has some code suggestions that will make it run more efficient," the blonde asked.

"I don't see why not. Take him to the studio and let him look around. Is he there with you right now?"

"I'm here," Jared announced.

"Have you found anything yet?" the older man asked with a slight nervousness in his tone.

"Nothing definite yet, but I will let you know the second I find anything," Jared lied.

This part of the plan was critical, Sasha stressing how important his acting was during this conversation. They needed everyone in the dark about things until they were convinced of who was responsible.

Melissa walked him out of her office and to the door marked STUDIO. They went in and quickly found the stage manager. She was sitting at her desk, facing a huge panel glass window, which had a view into the actual studio. Jared gave her a once-over, noting that Tara was taller than average, and a bit stockier than he'd expected. She looked like an MMA fighter more than she did a television studio manager.