- DISCLAIMER
-
I declare before the OSA that government protocol will not be revealed. This is a story that Ive been wanting to write for a very long time.
-Continued
Chapter 3
Friends
Once the hangover from the previous night wore off, I ran to the bathroom, and splashed my face with water. “Get your shit together!” The thing about drug dealers was that you can never ever trust them. Who was BlueViolet99, I did not know, but since he had insurance, I needed insurance too. That’s the way this game worked; you got to have something on each other. Having leverage over someone is ideal, but if you don’t have leverage, then you would need at least an identification of some kind just in case. Trust was almost non-existent. Perhaps fate wanted me to learn this lesson in the US where the penalties were milder before going back to Singapore. In Singapore, one mistake could cost me my life. I became more optimistic; I will learn from this.
“
Phillip, it’s me L. Could we meet to talk at my place tonight at 7pm? I’ll get beers and pizzas; all you need is to show up
,” My text read.
“
I’m down dude.
”
Phillip Kyung was second generation Korean American. One thing about Koreans was that they were really proud of their ethnicity, and they weren’t afraid to show it. He was about my height, 168cm, skinnier, had hair that extended beyond his ears, and never really had a sense of fashion. His jeans were baggy, and completely out of style. Who cares, he was a genius in his own right. Sometimes the Asian stereotype about being good at computers, math, and science was pretty accurate, but we just don’t like hearing it from non-Asians.
The bell rang at 7:15pm. We sat down and did small talk as always. I eased the topic on Silk Road, and my whole plan in. During this whole time, his face was expressionless, never saying more than the occasional “Ahh.” Somehow whenever he did that, I was reminded of an old joke about Koreans always saying “Ahhhhh,” Japanese always saying “Ehhhhhh,” and the Chinese always saying an incredibly sharp “Orh.”
“You’re fucking kidding me right?"
“I have already arranged a meeting with my dealer; I’m serious. I’m getting 900 hits"
“I.. I really don’t know if you’re fucking crazy or just plain stupid, L"
“$100,000 . That’s my target. We’ll split it 50-50. I’ll get 900 hits first, then I’ll return and get more from him. It’s so easy to come over with a Singapore passport. Clearing immigration is a breeze."
“You’re going to get caught, and we’re going to jail; I don’t like jail. I’m Asian, they’ll fuck my ass in there," rolling his eyes as Phillip chewed on his Pizza.
“That’s why I approached you. You were the one who explained TOR Onion to me. I NEED you, Phillip. To pull this off, I need someone who is paranoid, meticulous, and knows exactly what he’s doing. Look, I don’t care if you’ve been jobless for the past year; I need your skills, and you need my brains. Don’t forget, I know the system"
Then the room fell silent.
I had said my bit, gave my business pitch, now it was in his hands. If he was against it, the whole Operation was off. Somehow I knew he liked the idea of using LSD. If there was one drug we could sell through the mail, walk through customs, and carry around without getting caught, it would be LSD. Odorless, colorless, and formless; these were the traits that would make it a success. While law enforcers spend their time and resources looking for pills and powders, we could just slip right past them, smile at their dogs, and walk out of the airport a free man.
That was the thing I learnt about being a Pick Up Artist; misdirection. When everyone was fixated on one thing, you do something else. Meth, Cocaine, Weed, ICE, Heroin etc - Those were the hard drugs the Police were looking for. Nobody would think about LSD, much less in Singapore where the dealers are dumb, their chemists are stupid, and the Police so acclimatized to that kind of stupidity. If dealers in Singapore had to mix glass pieces in the Powder to induce a better “high” by cutting small capillaries in your body for more absorption, their chemists must be pretty stupid. I could make LSD an epidemic, then when the Police start looking for LSD, I switch to something else. I wouldn’t be a criminal, no, that would be an understatement; I would be The criminal.
“I’ll think about it L…"
“I gave my dealer a copy of my passport. There’s not much he can do with it, but whether you’re in or not, 900 hits of LSD will be coming"
“You’re fucking crazy, I swear to God."
Maybe I was. But my mind was fixated on beating the system instead of earning fast money. Everybody thought Einstein was crazy. Make no mistakes, and I don’t think I will seeing God anytime soon.
-Continued
Chapter 3
Friends (II)
The following week, a letter arrived addressed to me in a pink envelope. In it was a pop out card wishing me a good day and signed off, Violet.
Violet? Who’s Violet?
Something peculiar caught my eye; a small SIM card slotted into the corner. It was BlueViolet99.
Ahhh, so that’s what BlueViolet meant. Clever motherfucker.
For an underground Chemist, he was sure going through a lot of precautions to protect himself. First my passport, then a SIM card to communicate. If you asked me, it was a truly an ingenious idea. In this fashion, there would only be one way to communicate with him. Paranoid? Maybe, but it was a brilliant plan. Anyone who received the SIM card could figure it out. It was way too dangerous to exchange numbers over Silk Road; The DEA or FBI may have already infiltrated the system with their tech department. Best to work on the assumption that they already have. Even the email address he gave me was from an anonymous email service. That way, even if the DEA was actively monitoring Silk Road reading all the Messages, they wouldn’t have a fucking clue that we would be communicating through a secure phone line, on a SIM card dropped off through the mail. It was a foolproof double layered security.
Truly brilliant..
I found myself saying as I looked at the SIM card between my finger tips. My guess back then was that the card was registered to someone else - it would be dumb of BlueViolet to take such precaution and register it under his name. Whatever it was, this BlueViolet99 was a professional; no doubt about that.
Luckily for me, I had an extra phone, and I waited for two days before I got a call from BlueViolet99 from that line. Needless to say, I was nervous.
“Hey there, liked the card?”
“H-HHey….. it was a little overdone don’t you think”
“Hah maybe. Listen I’ll be in NYC tomorrow. I will meet you at 545 W 110TH Street. Will 2pm be ok?”
“Perfect, see you there”
“You got it. Listen, come alone; we’ll make it short and sweet”
He hung up.
Contrary to what I was expecting, he actually sounded pretty decent. Definitely White; 40s? I wasn’t sure, but I had expected him to be a little more gangster-like. Been watching too many movies I suppose.
Right after he hung up, I made a phone call to Phillip and told him the details and a little plan that I had.
“That’s all? You just want me to snap a picture of his face?”
“I need a close up shot, Phillip. Its Insurance.”
“Ok got it, but just so we are clear, I haven’t agreed with you on your plan to take over the world”
“It’s a plan for us to get rich and for you to finally put your talent into use instead of playing games”
“Fuck you L”
One thing I found amusing was that games and IT guys always go together. Phillip was so good at World of Warcraft that he used brag to us about being friends with the legendary FireMage called Hansol.
Nerd..
I shook my head.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
sjkevent
Love it ! The Asian Heisenberg with American Dream. Bet NY’s life must be awesome. BTW, how old are you ?
lol thanks! I’m 26 this year
- Continued
Chapter 3
Friends (III)
I unlocked my luggage and took out the US$2500 my dad brought over when he came to visit in August. Perhaps its a thing with their generation; they preferred to carry a lot of cash. I kept procrastinating and never got down to actually depositing the money. Later that day, I made a trip down to the bank to withdraw the remaining US$3500. A part of me wanted to do this, and another part of me was reminded how hard my father had worked for this money, and I was about to spend it on LSD. I shouldn’t be doing this; this wasn’t right.
Investment, this was an investment..
If I pulled this whole Operation off, I could pay my dad 5, no 10 times the amount I took from him, plus interest. Agreeing to the deal with spending US$6000 on LSD was the easy part. It’s only when you go to the bank to do the actual withdrawal that you have second thoughts. Seeing the actual money in your hands was more than enough to feel the gravity of things. How was I going to tell my dad that I’m now US$6000 short?
Course deposit for school.. Yea that’s right… Just say it’s a deposit for reserving my place in my school if I go back to Singapore.
My dad would be too busy, I don’t even think he would even realize that there was no such thing. I was going to Hell for sure.
Twenty minutes until 2:00pm
.. I kept looking at my watch, and time was just crawling. I didn’t have any appetite for lunch; my gut was too constricted and I was taking short and light breaths. The bus stopped a few blocks away from 545 W 110TH Street, and I decided to take a slow walk on foot. If there was anything I learnt about being a Police Officer, it was to mind your surroundings. Every step I walked, I counted the possible locations BlueViolet or the DEA could be coming from. But I didn’t expect the DEA that day; there was no way the DEA could have known from the secure phone line we used to communicate. If anything could go wrong today, it wouldn’t be getting arrested. My worst fear, albeit unlikely, was that I was going to mugged of US$6000 by BlueViolet.
"
I’m in the car. I will be able to see you once you turn the corner. Coby is at the other end smoking. Do not look at him once you’re past him
"
I took a quick glance at Phillip’s text and put my personal phone back into my coat. The sky was clear, but there was a strong breeze today; typical of an early winter. For clearer recognition, I wore a red beanie on purpose in case.. just in case, something went horribly wrong with the deal. However amateurish this was, it was our only shot at getting a picture of BlueViolet. Phillip with the high zoom camera, Coby with a simple portable camera.
20 minutes past 2pm; still no sign of BlueViolet. My secure line with BlueViolet still hasn’t rung. Why was he making me wait? I’m pretty sure he would show up, but being late was completely rude. Then I thought about what I would have done if I were him; I would have surveyed the surroundings first.
Shit.. Did he spot Coby and Phillip?
Though possible, but its an unknown. The longer I stood at the street corner, the more suspicious I was going to look, that was just common sense, was BlueViolet an idiot?
Finally, the call came in through the secure line. His voice was a little distorted by the breeze blowing across his receiver.
“Hey, I see you now. Take a turn, walk towards Central Park. Find the first bench you see, and sit down. I will be there; just wait for me.”
“Ok, Got it.”
I hung up on him.
I looked around; I couldn’t see anyone who suited his profile, White, 40s, or at least that was what he sounded like to me. As I walked towards, my personal phone started ringing continuously. It had to be either Phillip or Coby wondering why I left my position. If BlueViolet was watching me, it would be unwise to pick it up now. That was why I wore the red beanie in the first place, so that they could spot me moving and make appropriate changes to the plan.
Almost there..
As I walked a couple of more blocks.
After sitting down as instructed, the waiting began again. Then he finally came, a Super Big Gulp of soda in his hand, grinning at me at the same time. He was White, had short white hair with a side parting, a little on the plump side, and a really gentle face with droopy cheeks. Absolutely not someone you’d expect to be a drug dealer. He looked more like my science professor than anything. The things people do for money..
-Continued
Chapter 3
Friends (IV)
Geez.. So much soda, no wonder you’re so fat…
He wasn’t 40. Definitely much older; I’d put it at 50, 60 or somewhere in between. BlueViolet had this smile about him that could brighten up even the gloomiest person on Earth. To be honest, I felt secure, and I felt like I was in school. So much to the extent that if I had asked him an organic chemistry reaction, he would probably take a pen and paper out and start drawing line structures. It was that funny.
“Want some soda?” He gestured his Super Big Gulp to me as he sat down.
“Nah, I’m good,” politely refusing.
For a moment, we both didn’t know what to say to each other. We just sat and looked at the park in awkwardness while he continued to drink and swirl his soda in the cold weather.
“What’s your major?”
He knew I was a student?
.. While I don’t actually think he was sure, it was probably a wild guess based on the way I was dressed and my address. I lived near the university after all, naturally anyone in his shoes would guess I was a student. Enough was enough, whether it was a wild guess, or a an accurate profiling, there was no way in hell I was going to let him know more about my life. The danger was real, and clear. Beneath those smiles, fat droopy cheeks, and that friendly facade, was a pit viper that would strike everyone and anyone; friend or foe. Anybody who needed “insurance” will have no hesitation using it as leverage against you. This was the way the underworld worked. Brotherhood, honor, and trust were just words to get the dumber people to fall in place on the chess board.
“Ehh.. Come on you know so much about me, and now you want to know my major too”
Again that little funny grin came on his face.
“It’s just insurance. There’s never such a thing as being too careful in this line, you would be wise to remember that.”
“Do you always ask your customers for their State IDs?”
“Only the ones who Deal - Come on, don’t give me that look. From that amount you wanted, you’re either the Feds, or a Dealer.”
With one hand, he peeled open his coat, and gestured to me to pass him the money with the other hand. Naturally, I was reluctant. Was he trying to be funny? He wanted me to hand him $6000 of cash without a single indication that he brought the goods. Come on, I was no fool. He probably sensed I was reluctant to hand him the money like that.
“You’re not really good at doing business are you.”
Hearing this, he closed his coat and once again drank his soda while grinning at the same time. Then he turned to look at me again.
“You sure you don’t want some soda - you paid for it”
Huh.. I paid for his soda? .. Ahh, I get it now
I can’t help but smile at the realization of what was going on. I paused for a while, looked up at the sky with both hands in my pockets, and turned back to face him.
“How good is the soda?”
“Good enough for a very long time.”
The mood lightened up, now both of us were happy with the pleasantries and comfortable doing the exchange. I took out the envelope from my coat, gave him, and in return, he gave me his whole cup of soda. Swirling the cup; I could feel the ice, and a large object within the cup as it hit the cup walls. Just to be sure, I opened it, and saw a bottle floating with the ice. As much as I wanted to sample it to prove its authenticity like how the movies portray, it was an extremely bad idea to Trip right now with so much LSD on my hands.
“Thanks. Want your SIM card back?”
“No, keep it. The number I used to call you with will be the number you will text or call if you want to contact me, but send me an Email first when you’re gonna call - I have a ton of those cards and only a few phones.”
“Wait, how do I address you?” I wanted a name, and I wanted it bad.
“Violet” grinning again once more. This time, I wanted to punch his fat obnoxious face and wipe that grin off his face. Obviously, any idiot who believed that his name was Violet would be an even bigger idiot.
There was no handshake. There was no need to. A dealer had just met his super-dealer in what was basically a trust-less relationship. We parted ways as casually as we met. In total, the exchange didn’t take very long; probably 10minutes tops.
My personal phone rang after a few minutes; it was Coby.
“Dude, I got a picture of him; it isn’t very clear but it’ll do for now. Lets meet up with Phillip first and we’ll see whether he managed to get good shots”
Finally, I had something on Violet.
Chapter 4
Newton’s Laws
We went back to my apartment and sat by the dining table while I looked at the pictures they took. The clearest shot came from Coby, because he was the only one who got closest to Violet. The mood wasn’t exactly uplifting, but all of us were filled with an inconsistent mix of fear, and excitement. No, it wasn’t because I had just bought 900 hits of LSD in a 45mL bottle floating in a soda cup. We bought LSD and marijuana all the time, a couple of hundred more made no difference. What gripped us today was that we had just gotten a glimpse into the workings of another world. Leverage, concealment, surveillance, counter-surveillance, and anonymity - those were espionage stuff we watched on TV and read in books all the time. The exchange with Violet today taught us everything we grew up on, and the stuff we thought we understood, was fake.
“Look, this Violet guy, was good. Coby told me how he looked like and to go on foot from the other direction, so I parked my car, took my camera with me, and pretended to be a tourist. You know what, I managed to follow him for a while across a few blocks and streets. I don’t know if he thought he was being followed, but he walked all the way straight to the Metro at 103th. Anyone would think he would have taken the Metro to blend in, but no. Right outside the subway entrance, he crossed the road to the other side, and got into a cab.”
Right…
my first reaction to that was an expression of awe, but deep inside I said “amateurs..” Phillip and Coby went on and on with each other about how close they were to getting the shots, and how they pretended to do something else when Violet passed by. They were so engrossed sharing their version of it with each other, that I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. This was probably the most exciting event that happened to them in their whole life; I didn’t want to ruin it. Best to let them think they were the Asian version of James Bond. Violet probably knew Phillip was following him, that was why he made the sudden change in course. They were no operatives. Among the three of us, I was the only one with Police training, and real patrol duty experience. Computer geniuses yes, but definitely not suited for the field.
From their excitement, I could tell Phillip enjoyed such a thrill. I didn’t want to push it that night, and avoided raising the question about his involvement in our Partnership. I still needed him to do the computer work for me. He may be untrained, clueless in surveillance, and had no idea how to deal with criminals. But in the world of computers, he was God. He used to tell me, the reason why he was jobless wasn’t because he lacked the skills. It was because he didn’t want to spend his life writing codes, and probing the company’s system loopholes. Like me, we both wanted to be someone; we had dreams. We wanted to be people that mattered, and we didn’t want to die in obscurity. Working a 9 to 5 job, coming home for dinner, only to do another 9 to 5 job the next day wasn’t what we wanted in life. He had to be my partner, I just needed that extra push to motivate him.
Later that night while I was in my shower, I got a voice mail from David, my dealer for high quality weed strains.
“L, David here. Heard you’re close to Steven. Wanted to let you know he got arrested at his place for smoking weed. I don’t think it’s anything serious. A cop was probably nearby and followed the smell all the way to his place. Couldn’t be his neighbors; they’re nice people, and I just talked to them.”
What.. Just like that? Some cop came at random, and started sniffing shit and he got caught?
Steven’s sentence was the last thing on my mind. Steven will probably just get a fine of a few hundred dollars and be let out the next day, given New York’s marijuana laws. But what got to me was how simple a mistake could be to get you arrested. He was smoking in the comforts of his house, and all it needed was a cop at the wrong place, and at the wrong time, to do what he was trained to do, and you’re busted.
I needed to be smarter and better than who I was now if I were to pull a successful operation off in Singapore. I had to predict every possible outcome, anticipate every single move, and take the necessary precautions to avoid making the simplest mistake. I needed to be more than just a Dealer; I had to be beyond and above everyone else. To beat the Police, I must be above them. As I looked back on the day’s events with Violet in Central Park, and Steven’s arrest, it dawned on me that it would require a whole different skill set just to stay alive and anonymous in Singapore. I needed to be a seller, an operative, a liar, and a genius. It was more than just setting up an anonymous website and shipping LSD off through the mail. I would need all my street smarts, and I still haven’t figured a way for money to be transferred since I couldn’t afford meeting anyone. Now the weight of 900 hits of LSD, and being a Dealer was beginning to set in - my head was spinning.
The whole room lit up once again as I relaxed on my couch. Once again I felt I connected with the synergies of the universe, the System, and myself. My breathing got lighter, my head stopped spinning, and I started to see things differently. Everything made sense once more; I had all the answers to what went on earlier. As I closed my eyes, my mind began to wonder and float in a mix of fantasy and reality, seeing things from Phillip’s perspective, seeing things from Coby’s perspective, and from Violet’s perspective. I could literally see, smell, and hear the things they saw; from the sounds of cars along the road, to the scent of the woodiness and dirt of Central Park.
One thing was certain, Violet was used to being followed. Real surveillance teams never follow a person across a more than a few blocks, much less streets. An operative would follow a suspect around a corner, then back off, and let another operative stationed at a designated point take over the surveillance for a few more blocks, and then hand the surveillance to a third operative, while the first and second operative move quickly to another position with new outfits which could be a new cap, or a new jacket, and wait for the suspect to pass by them again. What Phillip did was completely amateurish. Did I learn this from the Police? No. I was trained to project police presence, not to avoid being seen. During my time in the Police, I went out of my way, driven by passion, to read decommissioned Soviet field manuals I found online, so I may detect people like that. Sadly, I never got to use it. Maybe the criminals in Singapore were really that dumb.
But why a cab..? He could have blended in by taking the Metro..
The more I thought about it, the more I began to see the light. Indeed, this guy was a professional. In this age of technology, and the high rate of crime in New York, naturally there would be police and security cameras stationed throughout the Metro and in the trains. Where you go, where you get off, and which entrance you came in from can be captured through the cameras. If I were the DEA or FBI tracking Violet, I could narrow down the areas where he came from if he took the public transportation. Knowing cab drivers in New York, all you have to do is tell them you don’t need a receipt, pay a pre-determined sum greater than the estimated meter fare, and they’ll be more than willing to drive you anywhere you want. There’ll be no record of your travel; FBI and DEA won’t be able to track the cab driver, because there’s no record. Even if they somehow managed to find the driver through road cameras, the cab driver won’t even remember it. Violet could get off anywhere, change a cab, go on foot, then take another cab in the same manner, and he could basically disappear into New York with no trace of him. And then I thought, the same idea can be used in Singapore.
My couch and I felt like we were at the very center of existence. The great revelation of understanding how the whole system worked made me feel like the entire world existed for me to conquer. What was the world but a myriad of systems, rules, and laws. For each move the police, government, and criminals made and thought would make them ahead of the game, they’d always end up right where I wanted them to be. I could play the strings while I made everyone hum to my tune. Was I moving as a part of this world, or was I watching the world from a cloud. Whatever it was, there was one thing uniquely different this time round: I wasn’t on LSD.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
bloggert
Excellent writing with near perfect grammar and spelling. Good job. It reads like a thriller, and frankly, if you put a bit into it, you could turn this into a very interesting book except for the fact that the subject matter involves the smuggle of illicit substances.
I also appreciate that this story offers a rare insight into a side of life that most of us may not have been aware of. The details are credible and well constructed. Keep it up!
Thanks dude, and all the rest who have been following this story. It is my intention to eventually turn this in for publishing. I have been editing and doing major overhaul on my Word Doc for the past four chapters to include better descriptions and flair.
This is my pilot draft and I’m glad to receive such overwhelming response. I will add the raws in forums and edit it for better coherence and flow. So, if you do check the same thread a few days later, it isn’t surprising to see added paragraphs, or new content, or simply major changes to the characters and their lives.
One point I would like all bros to note, as I have done government service before, I already know their response to such a story even though it is fiction.
My book will 99.999% be banned for publication in Singapore
because the protagonist is the villain, and it involves a good deal of our police being pushed to the edge, and it involves drugs. They will give the same response as they did to the Cannabis Awareness of Singapore website, that it
“does not further our social objectives”
or somewhere along those lines. We are a hypocritical people. We allow shows like Breaking Bad or Cannabis Kid as long as it doesn’t involve Singapore, and Singaporeans. But when a similar story comes along that is based in Singapore, the government has a ton of things to say even though it is a piece of fiction.
Why I’m saying this, is because I intend to turn this in for publishing overseas to be marketed to an international audience. Hence, you may see rhetoric and obvious explanations about the systems, housing, transport in Singapore. I have to replace words like Flats with Apartments, or Apartment Blocks instead of HDB. You will not find Singlish, and you will not find local jargon in it. I thank you all for your understanding.
I love Singapore, but since it is going to be banned anyway despite my effort in writing it, I might as well market it to a global audience.
This may be a piece of fiction, but i’m of the belief that a good story has to have a degree of realism.
We have sat too long reading and watching standard stories of consequence where the villain is inherently evil and the plot devices placed so unintelligently just for the protagonist to forward the plot i.e., the Police suddenly solved the case because the criminal acted so suspiciously and it was captured on camera. We are an intelligent people, and this story was written in a way that would relate to how ordinary people can do extraordinary and disastrous things.
This isn’t a story about Consequence
, where you do X and it affects Tom, Dick, Harry, Peter, and Jane. You will not see mothers and fathers crying like in Crimewatch or mediacorp dramas. You will not see a mother working 6 jobs as a cleaner to support a character who turns out to be a bad guy. You will not see drug addicts in dark street corners with a scary looking syringe and a spoon. Anything standard you can think of from Mediacorp and their formulated dramas, I will make the extra effort to avoid it.
This is a story about Choices.
Whoever you choose to be, good or bad, you have to live with it. If you have to pay a price for it, it will happen. I like to treat the audience with a degree of respect. I leave it to you to decide who is Right and who is Wrong.
One of the main reasons why fellow Bros and my friends like this story so much is because of the realism involved. I thank some of you who PMed me about whether it was true. Lets put it this way, this story is written in an alternative version of myself. I am placing myself in a hypothetical situation where if I were to become a drug dealer, what would I have done?
If the government doesnt like what I’m saying and says I’m teaching people how to peddle drugs, then read the story and think about closing the loopholes in our society and system.
Do not expect people to keep saying stuff you like hearing
. Of course, plot devices have to be placed strategically along the way for the characters to pick up on. New characters have to be created, and old characters have to be taken out. It is after all, a fucking good story that I’m dedicated on writing.
Stay Tuned
- Continued
Chapter 4
Newton’s Laws
One fascinating thing about winter was that there would never be a lack of surprises at the brutal, and unpredictable sudden plunges in temperature. The temperature would plunge below freezing for a day or two, accompanied with spine chilling winds, and end with the occasional flurries keeping almost everyone holed up at home. It wasn’t uncommon to open your door today and see a puddle of water in a pothole, only to find it becoming a frozen slip hazard the next morning.
The weather took a turn for the worse. For the past few days, SEAMLESS became my best friend. SEAMLESS was an online food ordering and delivery one-stop portal, which a customer could access, choose it’s participating restaurants, and have food delivered to your doorstep. Its convenience was simply impeccable. What more could a hungry man ask for from an app or a website, to have food delivered right to your doorstep in a matter of 45 to 60 minutes. I could take a dump, watch my favorite sitcom on TV, and do some reading while waiting for the knock on the door. Before I came over to the United States, I had never heard of such a one-stop portal. The online food ordering and delivery one-stop portal never really gained traction in Singapore. Maybe the people didn’t trust technology enough to make online payments, or maybe Singapore lacked entrepreneurship, I do not know. If there were a way to describe Singapore, it would be an incredibly polarized society. On one hand, you have the people familiar with technology, and on the other hand, you have the folks who scoff at technology as nothing more than entertainment.
But SEAMLESS wasn’t the only thing I ordered from the Internet. I did my groceries through an assortment of websites like AMAZON, PEAPOD, and SOAPBAR. Everything was digital and done through my MacBook Pro. I wasn’t the only one doing that; almost everyone in my social circle used online shopping for food, groceries, or both. As the weather got colder, and the schoolwork got harder, I completely lost the drive to make a trip down to the grocer. To me, the Internet couldn’t just be defined in terms of convenience; it was a matter of endless possibilities. I had to use it for my LSD endeavor.
It was a Tuesday and close to a week away from Christmas. The time was about 5pm and I just came back from the university fitness center feeling proud after doing a full set of strength training and aerobic exercises. After I came out from my shower, there was a knock on the door.
“Mr L., your 18-inch chicken pesto pizza, garlic knots, and 20 wings, seasoned and garlic pepper. Please sign here,” as the deliveryman handed me the invoice. He was short, had Hispanic looking features, and didn’t look like he wanted anything more than for me to sign the invoice and leave. Apparently, it had already been paid for, and it was clearly addressed to me.
I know I wasn’t thinking straight, but that episode with Violet clearly left me looking at things from a different light. Let me remind you, I wasn’t shaken, but I had a completely new perspective on how something innocent could turn out to be something else. Was this some kind of scam, a trick, or was I supposed to find something hidden inside like a note or another SIM card? I kept a straight face, but my mind was just swirling in a soup of questions, and possibilities.
“Is there some kind of mistake? I didn’t make such an order.”
“I don’t know man, I just deliver. Call the restaurant if you want; I gotta rush to another place now.” And with that he just shut the door behind him. I didn’t even have a chance to tip him.
“
New Yorker..
”
That was my way of describing the typical New Yorker: Blunt, and simply no time for bullshit. In many ways, New York was just like Singapore; people were always in a hurry, scuttling like ants, and going about their business. If you weren’t in a hurry, you were jobless, homeless, or fabulously rich. Everyone had something to do, and nobody would notice you unless you made your point in an assertive, and attention grabbing manner.
Not long after I placed the pizza, garlic knots, and wings on the table, there was another knock on the door. It was the Kyung brothers; Coby, and Phillip.
“Surprise! Phillip said it was our treat this time round, and there was a 10% discount on SEAMLESS, so fuck yea, we’re having pizzas tonight. Is it here yet?” Phillip was behind him with two 6-packs of beer; ASAHI, and PERONI, both our favorite lagers, except one’s Japanese and the other’s Italian.
“Dude, you should have called. What if I was going out?”
“You told Phillip you were hitting the gym, so I said we gotta catch you with the delivery before you left your place.”
Once they got settled in and placed their coats on my couch, we each raised a bottle of beer and chugged it within a minute. It was customary of us to chug the first bottle of beer to kick-start the night before doing anything; it gets the juices flowing. For the next 20 minutes, we made small talk about the weather, Coby’s National Guard enlistment, and things we found interesting recently. Yes, Coby was enlisting in the National Guard; he probably figured he’d make a better soldier than a chemist.
Coby was somebody who could fit in any social circle because of the way he talked and came across. When I first met Coby in General Chemistry lab, his first words to me were “Yo, Wassup.” It made me completely uncomfortable with him as a lab partner, but at that instant, I knew he was a laid back, easygoing person, and that we could be friends. He wasn’t too assertive, and he had that level of meticulousness about him that I found similar to mine, even though he always came to lab unprepared.
Phillip on the other hand was different from Coby. Phillip was 3 years older than Coby, but still a little younger than me. I was 25, and in undergraduate terms, I was pretty much an old fuck. They may share the same genes, but clearly, Phillip was a lot more paranoid than Coby, and lacked the street smarts that Coby had. Phillip had to be introduced by Coby before anyone would even talk to him at parties, and events. He was the kind of guy who could come and go in your life, and you wouldn’t even remember he existed. Maybe that was why he chose computer science as his undergraduate major and graduate studies, where he could completely immerse himself in another world.
What Phillip lacked in street smarts, and social skills, he made it up with intelligence and paranoia, to the extent it got pure irritating. The first time Phillip bought Weed, he was so paranoid about it going bad, that he bought a box of mason jars, a food saver vacuum pump, oxygen absorbers, and moisture absorbers; all these just to preserve a couple of buds and prevent it from further degradation. Honestly, if my Weed had gone bad, I would have just made another phone call to buy more instead. Whatever it was, Phillip’s paranoia made him incredibly detailed, and sequential, a trait I needed in a partner.
“We’re in. We need to know more about your little plan.”
“We? You mean both you and Coby?”
“What. You didn’t think I’ll do this without my brother, did you. It’s always better to have two brains and someone you can trust,“ chugging down what was left in his bottle of ASAHI.
Everything that I had thought out, and played out in my head over and over again for the past few weeks till that day, I told it to Coby and Phillip. It was incredibly detailed, from how I would smuggle the LSD back, to the actual operations assuming Phillip was helping me, to how we would communicate, down to the most rudimentary examples of counter surveillance. Everything I thought of was based on the assumption that the DEA, CNB, CID, and Interpol were tracking us. It pays to be careful.
Channel 1
from the deep web on TOR Onion will be used to take orders and sent directly to Phillip. Phillip will then communicate to me the orders and our normal exchanges on
Channel 2
; either an Email or a phone app service, which had to be encrypted.
Channel 3
will be our money and paper trial to each other.
The look on both the Kyung brothers’ eyes was that of a man deep in thought. There was a moment of silence, during which I got up to get another beer from the refrigerator.
-
Cont
“That’s not good enough. We have to close our Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and MySpace accounts. Using Gmail to send emails to each other? Bad bad bad idea. Never use services of big companies, L. The government pays them to reveal stuff. We’re gonna be so screwed.”
Phillip was right; I should have realized this. Governments have power, and the police had access to resources that we didn’t. The more he explained, I was convinced I found the right guy. Any government who allowed social media into their country can request for your information, right up to your friends, photos, and profile. I have heard of the police using Facebook and blogs to solve cases. Our entire network of friends, family, and places we frequently visit could be tracked if the police had us on their radar. All those places we check-in with our friends, and families on Yelp, or Facebook, can be used by the police as places to look for you, view their cameras, and identify all the people you were with. Social media had to go. And it totally made sense; big companies like Microsoft, Google, Yahoo etc have huge databases of people. Any government in the right frame of mind will look to them and ask for details. To remain in the shadows, we must adopt a life of anonymity.
“Then how do we communicate?”
“
Channel 2
will have to be Anonymous Email Services from people who are paranoid about being tracked. There are such people and services around; courtesy of the free world. Only access it at one time of the day. I will give you a window period of when to look at your Email to take shipping orders from me, and in that window period, you must get down all that information.”
“I’m down with your plan. But why only a window period, at a specific time?”
Phillip smiled, sat back with a pizza slice in hand. It was the smug of confidence and the look of self-admiration at the epiphany of his own genius. Whether it was a deliberate pause, both Coby and I were waiting with eagerness at the genius he had in store.
“So I know it’s you. I will set it up in such a way that I can track people accessing it, and if accessed at any other time, I know you are being tracked by the police.”
Working on the assumption the Police was tracking us was the right move. But we needed more layers of security. I had thought of the idea of encrypting our messages. Since I had to receive the shipping orders from Phillip through
Channel 2
, it would be wise to work on encrypting our texts and Emails, so the Police won’t have evidence of us taking orders for drug smuggling. Even if the Police were to find
Channel 2
through their sophisticated IT departments, they would need evidence to incriminate us as drug dealers. Yes, we needed an extra layer of security, and the only person who knew how to encrypt messages would be Phillip. I trusted his computer and IT skills.
“It’s possible. But it’s a lot more work than our original plan, not to mention it’s not worth it.”
“We need encryption, Phillip. It’s logical, not to mention, a rudimentary requirement for intelligent beings like us.”
“Oh, we’ll get it, but why not listen to my plan first?”
Phillip put both his hands on the table, crossing his left palm over his right, tilted his head and in a very serious tone, he looked at us and said, “We buy encryption software online,” ending his sentence with a tap on the table with his index finger. Then he stopped there.
It felt like a cold wind just blew across the room and the whole world just died. Everything fell silent, with Coby and I left in animated suspense; eyes wide open, and a gapping mouth. The man who we had thought was a genius 10 minutes ago, suddenly made us feel he was from Mars, or the weirdo from Ancient Aliens.
Coby turned to face Phillip in total disbelief.
“That.. is like the dumbest freaking shit I’ve ever heard in my entire life. I can’t believe we live together.”
"
What the fuck…
"
As Coby and Phillip quarreled about who said the dumbest thing in their 20 over years of living together, I was just speechless, reeling in from the shock and outrageous suggestion Phillip just gave. I certainly hope he was just joking. Was he kidding us? The Police IT departments were going to bust the code in less than a day, and read all our texts, emails, effectively hammering the last nail in our coffin. We were going to get busted, Coby and Phillip were going to jail, and I was going to be hanged.
“Wait! I’m not done yet, geez. This is my plan ok, I know what I’m saying. Listen first! Fuck both of you; have more faith in me ok, you fucktards.”
“We’re waiting; go on. And I’m just waiting to dick slap your face if you say something stupid again brother.”
“L, you wanted a double layered security in
Channel 2
. Well good news for you; I have a triple layered security. We use medieval communication techniques, encrypted in technology. That will send their tech departments crazy, I tell you. If I wrote the damn encryption, I would have to change it all the time, test, probe, then change it again. They have hundreds of tech experts cracking the codes, and I’m just one man; its just plain stupid to use my encryption.”
Phillip paused, took a deep breath then continued.
“We get the same book, something rare, a book that not many people read. Use cartesian coordinates x,y,z in numbers that identify which page, row, and numbering for the word we refer to, then encrypt it using different online softwares. It will send the police tech departments crazy! They will have no freaking clue what we are talking about even if they crack the encryption code because all they see are numbers like 10,25,4 - 200,23,6 - 98,20,13. They need to find our book first; there are billions of books in this world, if they don’t find our book, they can’t crack our code. That, fucktards, is real intelligence!”
-To be continued
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Sen5eS
Cipher and Code method … archaic but effective?
Thanks for bringing it up . It’s not foolproof but for the characters it’s the best shot at avoiding sophisticated IT teams . It’ll hardly be much of a realistic story if Phillip became a genius at encryption and coding ; that would be more of a plot device already . Do read on, and thanks for reading !