[Tela Vasir/Councilor Tevos] - A Few Personal Favors - 2d/?
anonymous
May 8 2012, 00:19:44 UTC
For now, mulling over the idea of contacting Barla Von was one of them; pleasant though the volus could be, he made an effective replacement for a cold shower in the here and now... not that she'd ever tell him that.
It was a risk to reach out to him, she knew, but now that the stakes had been raised, she had only a few choices in how she proceeded-- assuming she wanted to accomplish what the councilor had asked her to. She'd had reason to ignore the Broker's agent before, and pursue other paths, but now, those reasons were beginning to look a bit flimsy.
In the end, she'd opted to sleep on the decision, too worn out from a full day's worth of sifting through dead ends to make the kind of informed decision she needed to. What she wasn't expecting was how much effort it took to push aside the thoughts she'd deemed as flippant upon her return to the cozy accommodations. Alright, so, it had occurred to her that simply indulging would have made her life easier, but that didn't meant she was altogether comfortable with the idea of going through with it.
Even she had a sense of propriety.
Or, so she told herself; her subconscious, on the other hand, didn't.
-------
Seven hours later, awakened from a decidedly fitful period of rest by a soft chime coming from her terminal, she leaned out of bed far enough to accept the incoming message-- text, thank goodness-- with a sharp slap of her hand at the holographic interface. Determined to roll over and go back to sleep-- and maybe, just possibly, catch up on some of the decidedly satisfying dreams she'd been forced to abandon-- she only got as far as shifting on to her side before she thought better of it.
For all she knew, it was one of her contacts letting her know that, miracle of miracles, they'd actually done their jobs correctly. And while she wasn't necessarily expecting that to be the case, she was still irritated to find that it wasn't.
The message, with a subject line written out entirely in upper case, looked for all the world like a simple advertisement. So much so, in fact, that she was ready to write it off as one when, finally, she saw who had sent it.
Barla Von.
The message was innocuous, sent out under the name of his financial firm, using a kind of language she'd become used to from him. To anyone else, it would've looked like an advertisement, something that was easy to ignore, but after dealing with him in the past-- she'd gotten to know his methods of communicating. The subject stated clearly that it was a solicitation for acquiring loans and, potentially, properties; other emails would have been sent out that were just like it, looking to be little more than spam to the untrained eye, in order to maintain the appearance of automated marketing, sent from his server based on Irune.
In everyone else's case, that was precisely what it was-- random marketing based on extranet searches-- whereas, in her own, it was an offer-- the loan itself-- of pertinent information. Getting up out of bed to put herself together before making the call-- grateful he only accepted audio-only when it came to his primary business-- she went immediately for the shower to wake herself up.
It was the first stroke of luck she'd stumbled across in her attempts to locate the screed for the councilor and, she would soon find, it would also be the last.
-------
Over the years, Vasir had come to learn certain absurdities about the information trade. It wasn't uncommon that, during her time on Illium, she found that she had to route her calls through numerous off-world comm buoys-- all with their own unique sets of encrypted pass-codes to enable another re-route-- in order to reach a contact that was working in the same building she was. Often times, the method of contact was strictly audio only-- as was the case with Von, regardless of whether or not the volus' office was within walking distance.
"Vasir," he'd greeted her calmly, once the necessary verifications had gone through. "I'm grateful you decided to contact me. I'm in a bit of a-- bind, I suppose you could say."
It was a risk to reach out to him, she knew, but now that the stakes had been raised, she had only a few choices in how she proceeded-- assuming she wanted to accomplish what the councilor had asked her to. She'd had reason to ignore the Broker's agent before, and pursue other paths, but now, those reasons were beginning to look a bit flimsy.
In the end, she'd opted to sleep on the decision, too worn out from a full day's worth of sifting through dead ends to make the kind of informed decision she needed to. What she wasn't expecting was how much effort it took to push aside the thoughts she'd deemed as flippant upon her return to the cozy accommodations. Alright, so, it had occurred to her that simply indulging would have made her life easier, but that didn't meant she was altogether comfortable with the idea of going through with it.
Even she had a sense of propriety.
Or, so she told herself; her subconscious, on the other hand, didn't.
-------
Seven hours later, awakened from a decidedly fitful period of rest by a soft chime coming from her terminal, she leaned out of bed far enough to accept the incoming message-- text, thank goodness-- with a sharp slap of her hand at the holographic interface. Determined to roll over and go back to sleep-- and maybe, just possibly, catch up on some of the decidedly satisfying dreams she'd been forced to abandon-- she only got as far as shifting on to her side before she thought better of it.
For all she knew, it was one of her contacts letting her know that, miracle of miracles, they'd actually done their jobs correctly. And while she wasn't necessarily expecting that to be the case, she was still irritated to find that it wasn't.
The message, with a subject line written out entirely in upper case, looked for all the world like a simple advertisement. So much so, in fact, that she was ready to write it off as one when, finally, she saw who had sent it.
Barla Von.
The message was innocuous, sent out under the name of his financial firm, using a kind of language she'd become used to from him. To anyone else, it would've looked like an advertisement, something that was easy to ignore, but after dealing with him in the past-- she'd gotten to know his methods of communicating. The subject stated clearly that it was a solicitation for acquiring loans and, potentially, properties; other emails would have been sent out that were just like it, looking to be little more than spam to the untrained eye, in order to maintain the appearance of automated marketing, sent from his server based on Irune.
In everyone else's case, that was precisely what it was-- random marketing based on extranet searches-- whereas, in her own, it was an offer-- the loan itself-- of pertinent information. Getting up out of bed to put herself together before making the call-- grateful he only accepted audio-only when it came to his primary business-- she went immediately for the shower to wake herself up.
It was the first stroke of luck she'd stumbled across in her attempts to locate the screed for the councilor and, she would soon find, it would also be the last.
-------
Over the years, Vasir had come to learn certain absurdities about the information trade. It wasn't uncommon that, during her time on Illium, she found that she had to route her calls through numerous off-world comm buoys-- all with their own unique sets of encrypted pass-codes to enable another re-route-- in order to reach a contact that was working in the same building she was. Often times, the method of contact was strictly audio only-- as was the case with Von, regardless of whether or not the volus' office was within walking distance.
"Vasir," he'd greeted her calmly, once the necessary verifications had gone through. "I'm grateful you decided to contact me. I'm in a bit of a-- bind, I suppose you could say."
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