(warning. loooooooong post!)<br/><br/>Oni wasn’t entirely sure how much he liked the subtle change of her tone on the word “Sedative”. He frowned a bit, before his eyebrows gave a slight raise. It was his shrug without a shrug.<em>’Bad Guys…’</em>he thought to himself. He was giving himself to more than a job. There was no doubt that his exploits have resulted in a few people losing their lives, especially the unfortunate slob currently spray painted on the concrete just outside his door, but that was just competition.  It was clear that this was going to take some time to get used to. He’ll just focus on his end of the job for now.<br/><br/>Seeing as how no-one was doing anything at the moment, he felt it was a good time to fold back into the net for a moment. That money trail bothered him something fierce.<br/><br/>While he leaned back, his eyes appeared to be daydreaming as he fell back into the net. He was now clad in a red spandex suit with a yellow lightning bolt on his chest, a hero of the bygone comic book era. BB was with him, in a white and blue outfit, which was close to a woman who went by Power Girl (http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/0/77/182668-113570-power-girl_super.jpg). Oni was past the point of asking questions, and appreciated the view. “Whatcha got BB, outside of a abundance of cleavage?” BB regarded him with a smirk, knowing his accelerated heart rate meant he was pleased with the choice. Another piece of information put on file. “As ordered, I did not follow the trail, but I was able to establish a starting point for you from the financial institution IF uses to accept funds. It leads to some small bank in New Nippon. Logically, we must assume that it wasn’t its original point of origin”<br/><br/>Oni nodded and walked up to BB “alright, gimme whatcha got”. BB nodded before placing her hand on his chest. Her eyes glowed a bright white as he was transferred the information collected so far. His own image faded in and out as the information was uploaded to him, then solidified after the transfer was completed “Thanks BB. I’ll take it from here. Low profile, from here on. Okay? He was about to go before BB interrupted him “One last thing. As you know, there was a brief transmission along the wireless in the meeting. I had already worked on decoding the message beforehand, as you only ordered me to stay out of personal conversations and not record the meeting. Would you like the decoded message?”<br/><br/>Oni’s shoulders slumped a little. It was bad manners to intercept messages amongst the people you were supposed to trust. It was equally bad manners to share cookies around the room without giving him one. “Later…” he said with a smile “I’m sure it’ll be an interesting tidbit, considering the company I currently keep, but I’ll get it later. Next time, please ask before you work on wireless decoding BB.” BB nodded an assent and turned to fly away. Her image shifted against the sunlight, then vanished.<br/><br/>Oni could only shake his head and chuckle. He’d really have to get a handle on BB’s sudden developments when he was done with the mission. For now, he’d remain on task and began to run. The rate he propelled himself through the net gave him no time to set-up digital scenarios. To him, it was like going into a tunnel meant only for him. Advertisements and people were no more than tiny bits of light that flowed along the surrounding tube. He stopped at the point of origin for nearly half a second, giving the information another look through. He had the routing number for the bank’s transaction, and followed it to the New Nippon bank. Nippon led him to another bank, which led to another.<br/><br/>Crossing the net, double-backing even to smaller institutions. Five countries and over a hundred financial institutions later, he arrived at a smaller block of banks, where the money did something interesting. Simply put, it broke up. He smiled to himself<em>’Crafty bastards’</em>he remarked. He already knew the how. Smaller banks in what appeared to be Venezuela had each pushed an amount to a larger bank within the same country. That bank was used to collect the funds for the transfer, and then push it out through one intermediary after another. Law enforcement wouldn’t have known what to do with the spaghetti string of transfers that were done, but that’s because the hackers they used were hackers they caught…if they were caught, they couldn’t be that good.<br/><br/>While in Venezuelan cyberspace, he felt it prudent to look the part. Taking on the visage of a shady businessman, he wandered up to a few tourists and smiled his best entertainer’s smile “Hey hey, folks. We’ve got watches for sale, here. Nice designer watches that were unfortunately lost due to a packing error” He gave the crowd a wink and continued “ They take a licking and keep on ticking, folks. The best we have to offer, available for fire sale prices.”<br/><br/>Most of the smart ones simply ignored him, going back to what they were originally looking for. But there’s always a sucker, and the couple he sucked in most certainly acted the part. He’d give the guy credit, he thought it was a scam, but allowed his wife to convince him otherwise. To better offer them a look at the merchandise, he got a little closer. Close enough to siphon their net info from them. From there it was just making the bargaining tough and insulting the couple on their bad business sense. They walked away feeling like they’ve avoided trouble with a real asshole. Hopefully that would be true.<br/><br/>Oni’s new skin walked into one of the shady banks he established as a donor to the original bulk transaction. There was a sleeping security guard in the corner, and the place barely had customers.<em>’One bank front, ah ah ah, twoooo bank fronts, ah ah ah’</em>Oni thought to himself, still not able to place the reference he had made. What was readily apparent was that this bank was damn near a cardboard cutout. Sure it might have a few customers, but it couldn’t have done those types of transactions on a normal basis. Oni was intrigued, to say the least, and stood in line to learn more. As he approached the bored teller, Oni smiled and slid a deposit slip to the woman. Oni never released the slip, and just as the woman touched it, he felt himself slip into her, replacing the original holder of the spot and creating a system crash on their end. He then used an ‘out to lunch’ sign to man the teller booth. After a brief shimmer, a light duster appeared in his hand. He used it to dust the sign and the seat. After that, he walked to the filing room as the woman he replaced, and began to review the records on the transaction. The money went back to a development company in the area. The records went into his purse. He noticed that there was no other company attached to the bank. He somehow wasn’t surprised at the news.<br/><br/>After another bit of dusting, he walked out the employee entrance in the back and was once again the scammed husband. After one more tidy dusting of the bank teller’s identity, he had his travelers backpack, and was ready to go. The visit to the development company went as expected. None of the money matched the activity, but he was able to trace the business to a Javier Fuentes, a local businessman and suspected drug dealer, according to the little media available on him. He then cross-referenced Javier with a few other names in the area, branching his search to include more and more people, until the full picture took shape. The transactions would have come from the dealers themselves, then funneled together, and then sent out. He was certain that they wouldn’t have the talent to perform the transaction so smoothly, and again grew worried.<br/><br/>Despite what he felt, he knew he needed definitive information. And though he wanted to stop here, he also knew that this identity he held now had no alerts on it yet. As long as he didn’t try to buy anything, he could use it until they figured it out. The time would have to be now. He began to run again, the tunnel dipping as he researched the development company’s clients. Most of them were other members of the cartel the media speaks of, or at least immediate family members. Going deeper, he knew that even these transactions started in one place. It would have to, for his hypothesis to pan out.<br/><br/>The trail ended at a military installation. Well defended, and heavily fortified. The bandwidth usage was off the charts, and all he could do was shake his head<em>‘Fucking AI’</em>he thought, it had to be. Locked up tighter than a virgin daughter on a naval base, big pipe data stream up<strong>and</strong>down. Smaller transactions originating from this point of origin, placed into smaller banks in the area, then processed through a larger bank in Venezuela, before it ran the gauntlet to finally arrive in the IF’s hands. Deliberate, calculating, and highly precise. AI, when put to very good use. He was definitely impressed. He made sure to add the data coordinates to his records, and got out of there before he could be noticed. After walking though the bush, he released the husband’s identity and dusted it away as well, before he vanished in the jungle.<br/><br/>His eyes came back to focus in the meeting. He was gone for what felt like days, but he’d only zoned out few a few minutes. Even he could not hide the look of worry on his face at the moment. He didn’t even try to. It was one thing to mess around with shady characters, it was another to be contracted by an organization smart enough, and rich enough to use an AI to run their operation in the background. The shit had most certainly reached ankle level.<br/><br/>