Lonely Thieves

Act I, Part VIII

Megumi's Side (April 7, 10:30 pm)

Megumi slammed her hand on the table in front of her. "Take a look at that necklace again! You can't possibly tell me that this necklace is only worth that much!"

The old jeweler shook his head and shrugged. "My answer doesn't change. One hundred thousand redals is the most anyone will pay for that necklace. Take it or leave it."

"Like hell it is! You think you can lowball me 'cause I'm a thief?"

"Of course not, Miss Megumi. I'm only telling you the truth. Look!"

The jeweler pulled out a magnet and hovered it over the necklace. As he hovered it over the gold chain, it slightly rose up in order to meet the magnet.

"You see? Gold isn't magnetic, so this chain definitely isn't pure gold. Ah, but the emerald seems real from a cursory inspection. Still, there's no way that it's worth more than what I've told you already."

Megumi opened her mouth to argue, but realized by the jeweler's expression that he really was telling the truth. She let out a crestfallen sigh and took back the necklace and walked out of the store without another word. Daryl followed her out with a concerned look on his face. "Hey, what was all that about? What did we even come here for?"

"I came because I wanted to see if I could get more for it," Megumi explained. "I mean, ten billion for a measly necklace? Surely there's gotta be something special about it."

"But the black market guy said it was worth one hundred thousand, right? Did you steal a fake?"

"There's... no way I can say that's impossible, but..." Megumi stared at the necklace again. "No, it'll do us no good to worry about that now. Let's tell the client we've got what he wants. He can just take his money and leave if it's fake."

Daryl seemed like he wanted to object, but Megumi ignored him. She kept examining the necklace, looking through the chain and inspecting the gem set in its center. Why would anyone be so willing to pay ten billion redals for this necklace? Was it a service bonus for the difficulty of the job? No, that's impossible. The returns would be a massive loss. The necklace had to have some sort of value to warrant such a massive reward.

Megumi continued to inspect the emerald necklace as Daryl drove back to his apartment. She hadn't found anything of value until she flipped around to see the emerald's back. To her surprise, she found a small groove in the gold frame used to hold the emerald into the necklace. Curious, she touched the groove with a finger, and when she saw that it was a button, pressed down.

Suddenly, the necklace began to shift in her hands as the emerald split open. Megumi let out a loud squeal as she realized what had happened, surprising Daryl.

"What? What happened?" Daryl shouted as he turned to look at Megumi. "Did you break it?"

"No!" Megumi exclaimed as she took a closer look at the necklace. Megumi flipped the necklace over to look at the split emerald from the front. Hidden inside of the emerald was a flash drive, smaller than an inch and painted so as to not be visible from the outside. Megumi pulled out the flash drive, prompting the emerald to seal up again. Megumi inspected the flash drive carefully. It looked like one that anyone could buy at an electronics store, although the drive itself was certainly not where the value lay.

As she asked herself what could possibly be on the drive, Megumi noticed that the car had come to a stop. She looked outside to see that Daryl had parked his car against the side of a large apartment building.

"We're at my apartment," Daryl explained after seeing Megumi's confused expression. "At least, it is for the time being."

"Good timing," Megumi said as she hopped out of the car. "You have a computer, right? Let's take a look at what's on this thing."

"Is that a good idea? We have no idea what's on it."

"Oh, don't be a baby. It's obvious that this is what the client's paying the ten billion for. Don't you want to see what's worth that kind of money?"

Daryl couldn't deny that he was curious, so Megumi waltzed past him and up the stairs. "Hey, what are you going ahead for? You don't even know where my apartment is, do you?" he shouted has he ran after her.

Megumi slowed down for Daryl and followed him up to his apartment. She tapped her foot impatiently as he fumbled with his keys. It took all she had not to rip the keys out of his hands and open the door herself.

Eventually, Daryl managed to get the door open. Megumi bolted inside and looked for Daryl's computer. It was a small studio apartment with only one large room serving as both the living room, kitchen, and bedroom. It was surprisingly messy, with clothes and discarded food containers strewn all over the floor.

"Hey, don't be hasty! We don't know what's on that drive!" Daryl called out as he rushed into the apartment after her. He walked over to a nearby set of drawers and pulled out an old laptop. "This is an old laptop that I don't use anymore. Take this if you're gonna go snooping."

Megumi booted up the laptop and impatiently waited for it to start up. As she waited, Daryl poured out two cups of coffee and handed one to her.

"Here. It's late, but I'm not gonna be getting any sleep soon anyhow."

Megumi took the coffee cup and give Daryl a nod of thanks. It was rather cheap, but it warmed her tired body and energized her somewhat. As she glanced down at the laptop screen, she noticed that it was finished booting up. Daryl input his password, and as soon as the laptop finished its startup process, Megumi took out the flash drive and plugged it in.

An empty folder popped up on the screen. For a moment, Megumi was stunned, but common sense soon kicked in. Of course any kind of information worth ten billion redals wasn't going to be found as easy as plugging in a flash drive into a computer. She stretched out her hands, then hovered her hands over the keyboard. She closed her eyes and focused, and soon her cyber-implants activated, causing wires to emerge from her fingers and enter the laptop.

To her side, Megumi heard Daryl let out a yelp of surprise. "Don't distract me," she said without turning to face him. "I need to be focused for this."

For the next few minutes, the two sat in silence as Megumi attempted to gain access to the drive's files. Unlike the safe's lock that she had bypassed in Tom Hayasaka's office, Megumi needed to donate some considerable brain power for this task. The feeling of seemingly disconnected files and data swimming through her brain felt strange, but it wasn't uncomfortable.

Soon, the empty folder suddenly filled up with files and folders. Daryl, who had been watching intently without saying a word nearly jumped out of his seat when they appeared. Megumi withdrew her cyber-implants and leaned back in her chair, exhausted.

"There you go," she said as she caught her breath. "I knew they were hiding in there somewhere."

"You managed to find them, but that's all," Daryl said as he clicked through the files. "I'm afraid these files are all locked."

"Can you break the encryption?" Megumi asked.

"I'm not the most skilled computer programmer, but I know enough to tell that the encryption blocking these files is not something I can even touch."

"From my analysis, it seems to be one part of a three-part passcode meant to break some kind of encryption. This drive has the first part, but there are still two other parts needed to create the passcode."

"Does that mean there are two other necklaces like this out there?" Daryl mused as he scanned over the files. "Why go to the trouble of hiding it like this?"

"Who knows?" Megumi mumbled. "In any case, I think this data is interesting. Let's copy it to the computer before handing over the necklace."

Daryl nodded and made sure to copy the drive in its entirety onto the laptop before removing it. Megumi took back the drive and placed the drive back inside the emerald. As she pressed the groove, the emerald closed back around the drive, making it appear as if it had never been taken out.

"What now?" Daryl asked. "Do we still hand the necklace over to the client?"

"Of course," Megumi responded curtly. "Don't you want your money?"

Megumi used the laptop to log in to the Night Hunter boards. She deftly navigated the site until she arrived at the job posting she was looking for. Using a private message, she informed the client that she had the necklace on her. She'd assumed that it would take a while before the client would get back to her, but she surprisingly received an answer almost immediately.
Good, read the message. There's a public locker located in the Sunset district. Leave it in one of the lockers and then message me again. I'll tell you where to leave the key.

"How roundabout," Megumi complained as she quickly shot off a message acknowledging the client's demands. "He's definitely being very cautious. It's obvious he doesn't want anyone to know who he is."

"Well, we've gotta do what we've gotta do, right?" Daryl yawned. "Still, it's too late to do anything else today. Let's meet up tomorrow, okay?"

"Meet up? Are you stupid? I'll just stay here for the night."

"For real? I don't have any extra beds for guests, though."

"Just sleep on the floor," Megumi remarked callously. "You can deal with it for one night, can't you?"

"Huh?" Daryl nearly fell out of his seat. "You're kidding, right? It's my apartment!"

"And it's my necklace. So if you want your full share, you'll quit your complaining."

Before Daryl could even say another word, Megumi collapsed on his nearby bed and fell asleep in an instant. He let out an exhausted sigh and scratched his head. "Well, fine. What's one day of sleeping on the floor anyhow?"