Jack watched as Mr. Gefen unlocked the door to his office. Since he had templatized Mr. Gefen, he had also gained the ability to replace the real Mr. Gefen for a template instance inside a simulation. So, instead of memorizing codes and combinations extracted from Mr. Gefen, he figured, it would just be easier to have Mr. Gefen himself, in the form of a loyal and obedient template instance, gather all the evidence needed to incriminate himself.
Jack sat on the leather couch in Mr. Gefen's office while he watched him unlock his safe. It was two in the morning and no one was in the building except the two of them, so he didn't need to worry about explaining his presence to anyone. Not that it would really matter, being a simulation and all, but he wanted to avoid interruptions.
Mr. Gefen turned and sat at his desk while placing several thumb drives on the desk in front of him.
"Sir," he said respectfully, "These contain all the sensitive data on my clients that are engaged in illegal activity. It's not enough for the district attorney to bring a case against them, but it is enough to give investigators many threads to pull. With this data, the feds can make life very uncomfortable for my unsavory clients."
Jack tossed a thumb drive onto Mr. Gefen's desk. "Copy all the data onto that drive, then write up a detailed readme that explains the contents as well as a short summary description."
The detailed readme would be placed in the root folder of the thumb drive so that the feds would be able to quickly understand and make use of the drive contents. The short summary would be printed and included in the envelope along with the drive, so whoever opened it would understand what had been given to them. Without the printed summary, the feds might sit on the drive, unexamined, for years. The summary would provide the incentive they needed to examine it immediately.
As Mr. Gefen booted his desktop and got to work. Jack templatized the printer sitting in one corner of Mr. Gefen's large L-shaped desk. He had read that printers included special hidden codes on every page they printed so that law enforcement could track a piece of paper back to the printer that printed it. It was mainly so that printer companies could avoid changes of aiding and abetting forgery, but it was also used to solving other cases. Jack didn't want any of this being tracked back to him, so he needed to make sure the forensics trail led back to Mr. Gefen.
Once Mr. Gefen finished, Jack exported the changes to the thumb drive, then ended the simulation. Back in his soul space, he instantiated the printer, a portable power supply, and an unopened block of printer paper that was the same brand as used by Mr. Gefen. Then he linked printer and block of paper to their originals in the physical world.
Putting on nitrile gloves, he opened the brick of paper and loaded the printer. Then he powered it up, connected it to an instance of Mr. Gefen's laptop, and printed the summary page. Once the page was printed, he exported the changes to both printer and the brick of paper. Just like with the pen and paper test he had done, he expected that when he left his soul space, he would find that the first piece of paper in the still sealed block of paper would now have Mr. Gefen's summary printed on it, and kilometers away in Mr. Gefen's office, his printed would be just a few milligrams of printer toner lighter. All forensic evidence would point to Mr. Gefen.
Back in the physical world, he looked at his improvised isolation chamber. It was just clear plastic sheeting over a wood frame, with rubber gloves taped to two holes in the plastic, but it was sufficient to ensure that none of his genetic material would make it onto the final item he intended to drop in a mailbox.
Inside his isolation chamber was the block of paper, an unopened box of envelopes, an unopened thumb drive, and a pair of scissors. He had already sprayed bleach liberally inside the chamber and wiped down the outside of everything to ensure that his fingerprints were erased and any dead skin was non-viable for DNA extraction.
First, he used the scissors to extract the thumb drive from its plastic clamshell. Then he opened the box of envelopes and pulled out an envelope with Mr. Gefen's handwriting on it, containing a delivery address, but no return address. He had previously linked the pen and envelope so that the templatized Mr. Gefen could write the address of the feds' local office on it. The envelopes were from the post office and had postage pre-printed on them, so he didn't need to apply a postage stamp.
Then he opened the block of paper, pulled out the printed page, folded it, and stuffed it in the envelope along with the thumb drive. He used some scotch tape to seal the envelope, then finally, put the envelope inside a large zip-lock freezer bag. Later that night, he'd drive around until he found a mail collection box no one was watching and drop the letter inside without ever touching it.
If the feds tracked the envelope back to Mr. Gefen, he could probably avoid any serious charges. But, once the feds started acting on the evidence provided to them, Mr. Gefen's criminal partners would also track it back to him and they would almost certainly have a more lethal response to Mr. Gefen's apparent betrayal.
——————————
Jack and Henry were again sitting in Dan's office at Summit Partners, but this time in the real world.
Three corporations had been formed, all registered in New Sonora. The company that would collect his winnings was called "High Desert Holdings", and the investment company that was going to hire Natalie was called "Plutus Financial". Dan had also suggested that, instead of renting an apartment near NSU he might want to just buy a few properties, then "rent" one of them. Jack liked the idea, so a third company was formed, "North Star Properties."
After explaining everything that had been accomplished, Dan concluded, "And this has the information you'll need to create an online account to access your bank accounts." He handed Jack one last piece of paper. "The bank allows you to link multiple bank accounts to a single online account, but I recommend you create a separate online account for each bank account. It's less convenient, but more secure. And, I strongly encourage you to use a hardware token instead of a password for all your accounts. I've taken the liberty of including several tokens in this envelope."
Jack was impressed. Not only had Dan taken care of everything, he had also solved some problems Jack didn't even know he had. He was sure the bill would be hefty, but he felt like it would be worth it.
"So, are we ready to sign over the ticket? Who will actually go to the lottery office to collect?" asked Jack.
"Yes, we are ready," replied Dan. "We can go to the bank and retrieve the ticket whenever you are ready. I provided more than one hardware token so you can register two with each account. That way, you can secure one of them in your safe deposit box in case you lose the other. You can deposit the spare tokens when you retrieve your ticket and save yourself a trip. As for who will actually collect your winnings, we have people that work solely for our registered agent service. One of them will be assigned the task. They won't know about you or Henry."
"I'll meet you at a place of your choosing," he continued, "where you can transfer the ticket to me. Give you a signed receipt proving I took possession. And, I'll also bring a Polaroid camera with me so that we can take a picture proving that I have the ticket. This will be sufficient proof to the insurance company if something goes wrong and you need to make a claim."
Jack had been worried that something would happen to the ticket before his winnings could be collected. The lottery commission would only accept the actual ticket. They would not accept pictures or other proof of prior possession. So Dan had suggested taking out an insurance policy that paid out the full six hundred and fifty million credits if anything happened to the ticket after it left Jack's hands. The insurance was expensive, eye wateringly expensive, but a drop in the bucket compared to losing the ticket and the associated six hundred and fifty million credits.
"Okay," Jack said, "Can you meet me tomorrow at this address? One P.M.?" He handed Dan a slip of paper with the address of the coffee shop that was next door to the bank with his safe deposit box.
Dan looked at the slip of paper. "Yes, we can do that. I'll see you then."
——————————
Jack exited the bank vault with his ticket secured in a mint tin and stuffed in his back pocket. The bank associate stayed behind to lock the gate to the vault, while he continued down the hall towards the lobby. As he neared, he heard a man yell.
"Everybody down on the ground!"
WHAT?! Where the fuck did this guy come from? Thoughts of losing his lottery ticket flashed through his mind.
The entrance to the hallway leading to the vault was on the other side of the lobby from the tellers, so when Jack approached the end of the hallway, he could see the back of the bank robber as he stood waving a pistol at the people that stood waiting in line.
Jack glared at the back of this interloper, this fly in his ointment, this wrench in his works, and a sudden rage filled him. Without thinking, he strode forward, took one last, long step, stretched his right leg all the way back, then swung his foot forward as hard as he could, aiming right between the robber's legs. Jack had appeared so unexpectedly from the hallway, and acted so swiftly that the people staring at the robber didn't have time to react in any way that would have alerted the robber to his impending doom.
Jack's foot connecting with the robber's pelvis made a solid thud, the impact so hard that it sent pain radiating through the top of his foot. It was probably just his imagination, but he thought he also felt two "pops" as his foot connected. Every man in the bank winced and hunched over slightly in sympathetic response. As Jack retracted his now throbbing foot, the robber dropped his pistol and collapsed to his knees on the floor, then, hands hovering between his legs, tilted forward until his forehead struck the floor.
Jack kicked the pistol away from the robber, then turned and hurried towards the exit. As he walked away, he could hear a faint keening noise emanating from the prone robber.
As soon as he exited the bank, he turned and headed towards the coffee shop at a brisk pace. It was all he could to do to keep from breaking into a sprint, but he didn't want to look suspicious. Crossing the bank parking lot, then hopping over the thin green belt separating the bank lot from the coffee shop drive through, he headed for the coffee shop side entrance.
He spotted Dan as soon as he entered the coffee shop and rushed over. Handing the mint tin to Dan, he said, "No time to explain, sign the receipt, take the picture, then leave."
"What?" Dan asked.
"I think I foiled a bank robbery, so I need to stay and talk to the cops, but you're not involved, so hurry up and get on with it so you can leave."
Dan blinked at Jack, mouth half open. Then, snapped his mouth shut, grabbed the mint tin and handed Jack the Polaroid camera. After a quick check of the tin contents, verifying that the numbers on the ticket matched the numbers on the receipt, Dan signed, posed for Jack, and then left.
Still holding the camera and the still developing picture, Jack watched as Dan walked out the back door of the coffee shop. Then, as relief flooded him, he sank into a chair and stared at the developing picture. It was getting hard to focus on the picture because his hand was trembling violently, and the realization of what he had just done finally sank in. What if the robber had noticed Jack as he was approaching? What if Jack had missed and failed to incapacitate the robber? What if the robber was actually a woman with a deeper voice? So many things could have gone wrong and he would be dead.
He was an idiot; he realized. Bank robberies were so rare, and the walk from the bank to the coffee shop was so short, he had decided a simulation wasn't needed. But clearly he'd been wrong. Unlikely was not the same as impossible. It didn't matter now. This was the real world. There were no do-overs here.
He was also a little proud of himself. He'd acted decisively. Sure, he had taken a risk, and yes, he had maybe let his anger drive him, but damn, it feel good to watch that robber drop to the floor.
In the distance, he heard sirens. He hoped he wasn't in trouble for what he'd done. But, even if he was, he was certain he could soon afford the very best lawyers.
——————————
"Wait," Madison gasped, "You just walked up and kicked him in the balls? Like, no hesitation, just bam?"
"Yep."
"And you're not in trouble?"
"Nope. I was still sitting at the coffee shop, debating how I should approach the cops, when one of the bank manages came in. He knew who I was, and told me he had "accidentally" deleted the entire day's worth of security footage.
"Holy shit, really? Why would he do that?"
"When I asked him, he said he didn't want the robber to have any way to identify me. Said without evidence, the robber couldn't sue me. Then he shook my hand and went to order a coffee."
"Damn, that guy deserves a reward!"
"He does. I've made a note of him. Once things get established in my investment firm, I'll probably see about getting him hired to help Natalie."