Big Data [3593]

[Moonfire]

This wasn't the first time Qiki had slipped into The Blind Eye, a tastefully decorated casino for everyone no matter societal status. The common gambling man wasting his waitress wife’s paycheck to high rolling Imperial Aristocrats enjoyed the various debaucheries at their disposal in the den of excess and frivolity. To be fair, Qiki didn't mind playing the various casino games.

She liked cards the most, even if the dealers caught her counting more often than not. It was more a challenge that way, better than the cakewalk riches of lesser parlors.

Hands tucked into her pockets the woman wove between the bartenders and patrons, ratty dreads pulled up into a messy bun as thumbs brushed the sleeves of her netted shirt. She’d made an effort to wear more layers today, seeing an Exchange boss in their fancy office with your belly ring showing felt just a touch too casual. Just a touch. Her eyes skimmed the various gambling machines, slots and virtual fight games, the slicer keys in her pocket all but burning to be used. Nope, bad idea Qiks. Keep walking.

Within moments of her piddling about a tall guy with a mop of dark hair told her Lidah was expecting her, escorting her to the lush office of the woman who'd managed to rise from nobody to one of the most powerful people in the Exchange. Without even a polite tap the spritely woman slid in, all grins. “Syntax-terror at your service, what's the dealio my dude?”

[Neology]

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What the Viridian Room lacked in state of the art security, it made up for with an excellent view of the main floor. Comfortably seated at the head of the conference table, Lidah watched and listened. It was early in the evening yet – the music softer, more of the house lights up, the crowds sluggish and unhurried and clustered around games and the buffet. Later was better, for people watching. All that frenetic activity, Nar Shaddaa’s fascinating ecosystem in miniature. Dead by sunrise and born again every night. It, like all else, emulated nature. Vastly simplified, of course. But simplicity was only an orderly sort of death. No. The Exchange had endured much since Lidah had come to power. Certainly, it would go on without her in time, when she became as extinct as Garland. Until then, stability and stagnation went hand in hand – it was time to grow, to add complexity one element at a time. There were downsides to consider. It meant less control, less personal oversight. To reach something on the other side of the galaxy, one needed a light touch … And something more. Everyone else in the world seemed to have it figured out: self interest worked well enough, for most. Very bizarre at first, from her Jedi-then-Sith-then-something else perspective. Do what I say because I pay you well. Ha! What would someone like Levin even think of that? She could imagine something of his face – that confused or maybe constipated expression – but the details had gone fuzzy with time. The door slid open with a soft pneumatic hiss. Lidah turned her chair to greet her guest, arctic blue eyes taking in the young woman’s gutterpunk attire and irreverent attitude with an air of faint amusement. Trim and styled as Lidah was for the day, in an ink blue sleeveless silk dress, they looked far from the same social set. A flick of her hand on the console tinted the window to an opaque mirrored sheen of black glass. ”What a colorful way of speaking. Thank you for accepting my invitation, Ms. Terror.” A safe assumption that the name she presented was the one she wished to be called – Lidah, of course, wanted to speak to Memento. ”You have honored my arrangement with your predecessor admirably and discretely thus far, I want that to be very clear. But I can’t help but wonder … Would you and yours like it better, if you could get out from under the Hutt’s thumb? “I do not propose you trade one tyrannical master for another, of course, but neither am I in the business of burning big piles of money. I am confident we could come to some arrangement, if you’re interested in hearing more.”

[Moonfire]

The grinning figure of Qiki moved with a level of self-surety and confidence other criminal masterminds might consider dangerous. In truth, it probably was. Whoever thought to let a twenty-eight year old human decide they were the foremost hacker in the galaxy, perfectly deserved of course, had never considered the repercussions. Letting riff-raff think they’re special for one. Also, stock in Space Slug Soda skyrocketed from sheer demand as pallets worth of the toxic green bubbly was dropped off at secret roof-top hideouts. Pros and cons, for the galaxy, for sure.

Settling into the plush seat the woman sank into the clearly superior piece of furniture. Whatever amount of money Qiki had spent on her control room, it wasn’t enough. Not when Lidah Faine had cushions that felt like a hug from your absent father figure, only on your ass. “Holy shit, where did you get this chair?”

Bouncing lightly in the seat the woman marveled for a moment before returning her attention to the task at hand. Lidah Faine, some sort of boss for the Exchange, had called in for the one and only Memento. She’d, of course, gotten Reflex, because Memento doesn’t just have a private phone number on the holonet. This lead to talking to Io’an who talked to Qiki while she was trying to beat Avishan’s B’Jawa’d high score.

The former Memento had a deal with the Compeer, one in which she even knew his real face and vice versa. You know the deal, two secret big bosses leveraging secrets in a facsimile of trust. Thus far Qiki knew he’d informed Faine of the changing of the guard and she’d honored everything they’d settled in their arrangement, but kept things tight and close. What was the use of having a secret identity if everyone and their shitty overlord brother knew it, right?

Two days later and here they were. Qiki stretching out, scoping out the fancy office as she stretched, becoming more comfortable by the second. Lidah had that icy Arkanian thing going for her. Eyes and cheekbones sharp enough to cut, a smile that felt less predatory and more truly charmed. Encouraging, that.

“No probs, babe. Figured if you were still willin’ to slide into my dee-ems knowin’ your boy’s given me ‘is blessin’ I might as well pop by your crib when you shoot me an’ invite.”

Stretching Qiki shifted some, shuffling so she leaned predominantly on the right side of the chair, though still very much sitting in a way one would figure polite for a stranger’s office. A pierced eyebrow quirked up, the little ball of the bar catching in the light with the motion.

Qiki had quite a bit to say about her current primary employers, the Hutt Cartel. Choice words, even. But to give Lidah all of that right away? That seemed a mistake. Instead she smiled, fingers hooking into the sleeves of hoodie again. “Hit me with your best shot.”

[Neology]

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”I could … Look that up for you, I suppose?” Lidah’s eyebrows twitched up, briefly nonplussed. She hadn’t put much thought into the conference table and chairs – obviously these were all inferior to the one in her private office upstairs. The Vermilion room, as tastefully appointed as it was, was client-facing. And thus only as lavish as it needed to be. Couldn’t trust people not to fight or fuck in here, after all. The furniture had to be serviced and replaced semi-regularly, so there had to be spares knocking about in storage … Perhaps she could offer the slicer a deal on one of the shabbier specimens. A string of heavily accented slang then flowed from her guest’s mouth and Lidah abruptly lost that line of thought. Asking SyntaxT3rr0r to repeat herself so early in their sprouting business relationship would be terribly rude, but she would have done it anyway if it would’ve done any good. Instead Lidah tried on an attentive smile and waited. It didn’t seem as if that particular piece of conversation needed an answer. A moment later, though, ‘hit me with your best shot’ was plain Basic. Reassuring in a way. Too much enthusiasm or too much caution would have her worried about the slicer’s Hutt masters. ”Your predecessor kept these … Message boards? A bulletin system for mercenary work. It seemed to me that he’d skim data, get caught, pull the whole thing down, and start over in some other dreary corner of the holonet.” Lidah wrinkled her nose. The boards had caught her attention several times over the years, though it’d been at least two since she’d taken any jobs. Useful though, in the lean months after that business with Locke and the Unseen. Before she’d killed Garland. ”I think it could be bigger than all that, don’t you? Earn a little trust, apply a little patience. Instead of robbing the cookie jar for whatever you can get and resetting the trap, you could build a network of contacts all over the Galaxy. “That strikes me as something that could be very profitable if and when that pub-imp war heats up again.” And of course it would, though Lidah was too far out of the loop to predict exactly when or where. Yet things could not have changed too terribly much. Stagnation was and always would be death to the Sith. Empress Renata was riding an avalanche. “In the interest of building something like that … The Exchange would be willing to foot the bill for the initial set up – and spring you from your current contract. Profits split 80-20 in our favor with the option to renegotiate when we’ve recovered our initial investment.”