{4nd December, 544 DTA}
"Damien, wake up." Aria called out.
Damien grumbled, "A few more minute… I promise."
"Nope, I gave you more time because you were reading late to the night." Aria called out again.
"Yeah, give me extra time… wake me 9 am," Damien continued.
"Damn it is 10am… we have to get to work." She kept going before pulling his sheet off him.
Damien sighed and got out of bed, he used the bathroom and cleaned himself up, dressed up and went into the room next door…
Previously the Original Damien used this room as an office, but he hardly ever used it.
Now it was his… better yet The Broker's Workstation.
It had taken Aria less than three days to put everything together. The room had everything a fully equipped expert hacker would ever need.
Damien leaned back in the office chair, arms crossed as he watched Aria pace around the newly refurbished room.
Cables were everywhere, monitors still wrapped in plastic, and the low hum of servers filled the background.
"Alright, Professor Aria," he said with a grin, "what's all this mad scientist setup supposed to do exactly?"
She stopped, spun around, and pointed at the massive curved monitor on the main desk. "Welcome to Ghost Terminal. Cost $100,000. Try not to fry it."
Damien raised an eyebrow. "You gave it a name?"
"Of course I did," she said with a smirk.
"We're not setting up some sad little hacker nook. You wanted something untraceable, and efficient. That's what I built."
She walked over and tapped the side of the 57-inch Samsung Odyssey Neo G9. The thing looked like it could fly a spaceship.
"Dual 4K. 240Hz refresh. Anti-glare. Perfect for running four encrypted chat windows, scanning dark web markets, and watching real-time facial recognition feeds—all at the same time."
"Nice," Damien muttered, impressed since he used to be a hard core gamer he knew most of what she was talking about.
"Not yet," she said. "The keyboard's a Keychron Q3 Pro. Wired only. I added a Faraday cage inside to block keyloggers.
Same with the mouse—wired-only Logitech MX Master. I ripped the Bluetooth chip out myself so you don't have to worry."
She waved toward the tower under the desk. "i9-14900KS CPU. RTX 4090 Ti. 128GB RAM. This baby could brute-force passwords while rendering three deepfakes and running a dozen virtual machines without overheating."
She walked over to a steel briefcase on the side table. "Faraday bags for phones and SSDs. Kill switch on the machine itself. Yank it, and the RAM fries instantly."
"And this isn't even the best part," she added, opening a drawer and showing him a set of phones and what looked like radio gear.
"This is the what I call the Black Chamber. Your comms suite," she said. "Burner phones only. Removable batteries. Tails OS on a USB. One call per phone, then smash. You talk to clients through GhostComm, or encrypted HAM radio if needed."
"The one that still leaves no digital trail," she shot back. "Also—RF detector. Always sweep the room before talking business. Remember one hacked mic and its game over for us."
He nodded slowly. "And if we need to send files?"
She pointed toward a sleek metal case.
"This contains encrypted USBs that wipe after three wrong PINs. MicroSDs hidden in stuff like pens and lighters. SSD duplicator to keep backups without touching the originals."
"Router's been modified," she added, walking him over to the corner. "Ubiquiti Dream Machine SE—VPN killswitch, MAC spoofing, no logs. ISP's Starlink under a fake ID, so they can't trace physical lines. And Tor is run through a dedicated Raspberry Pi relay, which sends everything bouncing through three countries before it hits the darknet."
Damien nodded, visibly impressed. "Okay… and what happens if it all goes wrong?"
Aria smiled like a maniac about to explain her hobby.
"Burn Box," she said simply. "SSD crusher—punches through NVMe drives in two seconds. USB Killer fries anything it touches. And if you really need to erase the entire room?"
She opened a black case and showed him a small DIY thermite setup.
"This'll destroy through everything in under a minute."
Damien looked from the thermite to Aria.
"Remind me never to piss you off."
"You should've figured that out years ago," she said, hands on hips. "And before you ask, yes—I installed a timer protocol that wipes the RAM every 30 minutes. You get sloppy? It doesn't."
He let out a low breath and looked around the office. From the gear to the details, it was all… too real now.
Aria crossed her arms and softened just a bit. "This isn't just about tech. It's about keeping your ass alive."
Damien gave a slow nod. "No arguments. You really outdid yourself. Hope…"
She cut him off "Yes, I outdid and don't worry… I bought it under a fake name and had it delivered to one of the safe houses in the city."
"Great I guess I should get to work." Damien said as he turned on the system.
*******
Damien opened GhostComm.
The screen loaded with very quickly, revealing a long wall of messages—his inbox was flooded. Lines of code, usernames, cryptic messages, transactions, and offers.
He let out a low whistle.
In less than Seventy-six hours, The Broker had drawn in 217 applicants and 17 contracts.
"Shit," he muttered, leaning forward.
He wasn't anywhere near Aria's level with IT, but he could still write a script for something simple.
In about ten minutes, he had programmed a rough filter that separated job applications from contracts.
It wasn't perfect, but it would keep him from getting flooded.
Once the applicants were in their own folder, he focused on the contracts.
Seventeen potential clients.
He started skimming through them.
Some were obvious jokes or low-rent scams—someone offering 0.3 XMR to 'handle a noisy neighbour,' another looking for someone to 'teach a lesson' to an ex'
Damien barely glanced at those before deleting them.
But one caught his attention.
_______
Client:
"Need Tier 2 disposal. Target: ex-business partner. Prefer 'natural causes' method. 20 XMR. Can discuss logistics."
_______