[b]Rudy:[/b]

He seems grateful for that. This is a man who voluntarily had a bomb put into his brain to do the job he did, and he can’t just have done it for the money. There’s no evidence that he particularly enjoyed what he earned, and he never acted on temptation in his fifteen years of working with dark money. 

For him it is better to be good at what you do than it is to do good. It’s probably a big part of why he appreciated November when she contacted him. Earth’s going to be hell.

“Anything else?” He asks. “Before I go.” 

He’s not going down the same way Marco did. He’s booking a private ship to the colonies under a different identity, like he’s told his friends, and he’ll be taking an escape pod down to the surface from there. The pseudonym will take a while to link to him, enough to be a plausible attempt to cover his tracks but not so good as to never be recognized. 

He spends too long on arranging it perfectly, triple checking his work every time the high of doing it runs into the cold-blooded crash of what it means to have done it. 

After this, it’ll be encrypted emails bounced off satellites.

[b]Yellow:[/b]

Costa-Silva’s houses are a matter of public record, and she has two she actively lives out of. One in Zeus for when she’s doing her Justice rotation, and one in Hermes for when she’s back in her home district. This isn’t necessary, she doesn’t have duties there. Justice Roberts has no nostalgia for living in Selene, and just stays in Zeus all-year. 

The one in Zeus is a penthouse apartment near the new high court building, but not [i]too[/i] near. It wasn’t even a penthouse to start with - it was a floor of four modest studio apartments that she’s bought all four rooms of, then made into a single penthouse with a helipad. 

Okay, so she’s paranoid. She found the closest neighbourhood that she could afford the highest rooms with clear sightlines that was still near the office, and then flies in so her feet don’t touch street at any point. Rumours have it she regularly sleeps in the office while she’s working, too. 

Her mansion in Hermes, where her extended family lives, is gated and guarded like an old style Cartel house. Interesting. She’s got nine kids and enough aunts, uncles and older cousins there to help raise the young ones alongside her husband, a 56-year-old retired high school maths teacher. None of them came from money. The house was bought during her time in the Hermes district court. 

Making plausible lies up is easy, actually learning real stuff is work. People actually try to hide the real stuff, and they don’t know to hide the completely-made-up. Her bank, her accountant, that isn’t public record, or trivial to learn. 

But… All that physical security? There’s nothing you can find that would explain where she got the money for all of it. And it has to be an ongoing source of income - helicopters and guards are a daily expense for her, and they aren’t cheap either. 

There is something real to find here. Either passive income from undisclosed property that someone bought for her, or she’s being actively paid off. 

What do you think? How would you look into it?

[b]November:[/b]

It’s probably better to let the military base thing sit for a while. It’s still good to know in case you find a way to contact the conspiracy what assets they’re holding that you can ask for, or if the increasing problems with the station’s conditions stop suddenly, what the solution would imply. 

Also:

A package just got delivered for you. What is it? It’s not something case or investigation related, anyway, it’s just something nice. (Ideally related to one of the skills you’re refreshing from taking a break, or levelling up).