Spooker
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Grass Eaters | 10 | Payment Fraud
🕑 Added 2024-03-05 00:09:12 +0000 UTCMalgeirgam, Malgeiru
Speinfoent breathed in the stale air in the Defense Ministry Archives. The walls were lined with tall racks of aging machines and boxes, blinking lights indicating their continued operation… some of them, anyway. Dusty monitors sat atop desks cluttered with stacks of abandoned data discs. A single beam from a rusted skylight filtered through the dimly lit room to illuminate the front desk. The seat behind it was occupied by a seedy-looking fellow with pale-tan fur and glowing yellow eyes who eyed him suspiciously.
He had an official-looking nametag pinned to his lapel that identified him as Clilacu, Head Archivist.
“What do you want?” Clilacu asked gruffly.
Speinfoent steeled his nerves, determined to get what he had come for. “I’m from Home Fleet. I need access to the incident report repository, preferably without filing a lot of extra paperwork.”
The archivist scoffed at his brazen request and went back to tapping on his datapad. “Not going to happen. That right there is highly restricted secure data. Nobody is getting access without authorization codes from the Defense Minister himself.”
Speinfoent had expected this response. He reached into his pocket and deliberately pulled out a fleet payment chip he’d lifted off a haughty Home Fleet aide at a bar he’d been scouting for hours. “Naturally, I’m prepared to make it worth your while.”
By the way that the archivist’s eyes lit up with avarice, thatwas indeed the valid authorization code he was referring to.
Speinfoent was not surprised. Archivists for civilian libraries on Malgeiru were exceedingly rare; their usefulness did not last long past the invention of computers several hundred years ago. Even with the ban on the development of digital sentience in effect for most of their history, the Malgeir just hadn’t found the use for many of these archivists.
No, the only reason this position in this particular Defense Ministry Archive facility continues to exist is to allow critters like Clilacu to exploit the opportunity for corruption.
The archivist leaned forward. “Which incident reports will you need access to?”
“All of them in the past five years. All severities, in any sector, by all filers. And I want the original, uncensored versions.”
The archivist guffawed. “I don’t know what you need millions of reports for… Gamma Leader Hinstuilcim,” he said, staring at Speinfoent’s fake nametag, “But they don’t come for free.”
If the Malgeir Navy was good at one thing, it was filing reports. Of course, nobody ever actually went back to read them to learn something. But there was always the possibility that a rival or superior commander made a mistake in them, and that could be the opening that an ambitious young officer could exploit to get a quick promotion. From the look of the luxurious looking watch that Speinfoent noted on Clilacu’s wrist, the market for uncensored reports was apparently a rewarding one in the Malgeir Navy’s contraband trading underground.
“How much would all the reports be?”
“Four million credits,” the archivist replied with a humoring smile, “And no refunds.”
Speinfoent stared him in the eye and said, “deal”, sliding his stolen payment chip over.
“Woah, wait,” the archivist’s smile disappeared into concern. “Are you crazy? Where did you even get this?”
“Like I said, I’m from Home Fleet. This chip authorizes withdrawal of payment from the Home Fleet general activities fund. Check it yourself.”
The archivist suspiciously plugged the chip into a sale terminal he materialized from beneath the table. After a few seconds of fiddling, he pulled the chip out and looked up again.
“It looks genuine enough, but this is obviously stolen, and you are not Hinstuilcim. Not to presume anything about you, but that’s a female’s name. And there is no chance that someone won’t notice this many credits disappearing; they will come down on us in a flash.”
“You will label the transaction ‘ammunition: advanced gunnery exercises’, and when I get the report on my terminal, I will log the receipt of thirteen thousand railgun training rounds on my ship’s inventory,” Speinfoent lied, putting as much confidence in his voice as he can. He would do nothing of the sort, but he was hoping the grifter in front of him would hear what he wanted, transfer the credits, and they’d both be out of here before the diligent accountants in Home Fleet noticed the massive hole in their accounts.
Clilacu’s eyes stared down at Speinfoent’s uniform for a few heartbeats. Speinfoent figured his lie wasn’t that convincing, but four million credits were enough to disappear or pay the right people to look away, and he was sure the archivist had some way to fence it all somehow. By the time they came looking, he could get off world and Speinfoent hoped that itself would be just enough…
The archivist clearly made up his mind and plugged the payment chip into his terminal, following the instructions Speinfoent had given him. After a few agonizing seconds, a confirmation beep sounded from the machine.
“The funds came through,” he said excitedly. Then, as if dealing with an annoying chore, he clacked a few more keys at his desk. “Sending your reports over… now.”
Speinfoent confirmed he received the files on his datapad and pretended to log some activity onto the screen. “Good doing business with—”
Clilacu had already packed up his bag and was making a beeline for the exit.
---
Atlas, Luna
S.83920 Republic Defense Authorization Act 2123
Status: Amendments Process Concluded
---
Bostruisa Science Park, Malgeiru
Speinfoent felt the treasure trove of reports burning a metaphorical hole in his pocket as he walked into an upbeat looking commercial office with brightly colored paint plastered on the walls, the few walls it had that were not covered by large panels of seemingly physics-defying glass. The reception hall was abuzz with vibrant energy. While soft music tinkled from unseen speakers, groups of excited guests and employees laughed as they made their way through its broad double doors… passing beneath an orderly tangle of wires and gadgets.
Above the doors blazed the name of the technology startup, Eupprio Tech, which shares its name with its egoistic founder, who Speinfoent knew from school but hasn’t seen since—
“Speinfoent!”
He looked at the familiar speaker in front of the reception table, who moved to embrace him. Eupprio was an energetic 28-year-old with a sharp snout, covered in an unnaturally glossy silver fur. Speinfoent noticed it matched her silver eyes, a color scheme that was genetically grafted into her body at no small expense, no doubt. The silver fur even reached up into her attractive, long, triangular ears—
“Hey!” Eupprio laughed, noticing his gaze linger towards her ears for a second too long. “My eyes are down here, Speinfoent.”
He blushed. “Sorry, I almost didn’t recognize you with the new colors—”
“Yes, yes, silver is all the rage these days,” she said, waving her paws. Then she leaned into his ears and whispered, “Besides, I was kidding; you can look at my ears for as long as you want.”
Speinfoent almost died of embarrassment from the teasing. If he were a few years younger, he would have immediately bolted for the door. But a few years in the Navy had toughened him up against playful banter. He hurried to change the subject. “I’m glad you took my call, Eupprio. You seem to have been quite busy the last few years.”
“Yes, I have,” she replied proudly, gesturing at the office around her. “Want a quick tour?”
The question was rhetorical, and he followed her long strides as she led him into the office.
Eupprio walked him around the various departments, introducing him to her employees. Speinfoent was impressed that she seemed to know most of them by name and mundane details about their lives. She was genuinely proud of her staff and the work they were doing.
Finally, they reached the back of the office where a set of large double doors was flanked by two security guards. Eupprio pointed to the sign, which said Server Room, then swiped her card on the keypad. The doors opened and they stepped into a room full of humming computers.
Speinfoent was amazed by what he saw; rows and rows of computer units, all neatly arranged in designated order, each one with hundreds of wires running between them. He could feel the temperature of the room being noticeably cooler on the inside as the air conditioning units worked overtime to keep the dedicated machinery at their optimal temperature.
“This is where the magic happens,” Eupprio said with a smile. “And it’s a nice private place to talk, as you requested on the communicator. Or did you just miss me?”
“I did,” Speinfoent grinned. “But that’s not why I need your help, Eupprio. I’ve got something only you can do for me.”
“Ah. Flattery. So they did teach you a thing or two in the Navy,” she teased.
Ignoring the taunt, he waved his paws around the room and asked, “How much data do you actually process here every day?”
“Here? Not that much,” Eupprio admitted. “Most of our actual servers are scattered all over Malgeiru. And we’ve got a few offices on other planets too now.”
“So, you process payments mostly for Bostruisa and the surrounding districts?”
“A chunk of it, yes.” She nodded. “We have a ways to go to catch up to our entrenched competitors, but we’ve just started expanding. We are on track to take over the entire Malgeirgam metropolitan market and put them all out of business within the next few months. And then the rest of the Federation is ours…”
Speinfoent hung his tongue, impressed. “That must be a lot of payment data.”
“One hundred million transactions per day, to be exact, and up to twenty thousand a second,” Eupprio bragged. “Once we expand… we could be talking about not billions but trillions!”
“How do you deal with cases of fraud?” he asked, looking at the loudly purring servers.
“Why? How we keep our fraud rates lowest in the industry is one of our closely guarded business secrets. Did our competitors send you to come seduce the answers out of me?” she winked, combing through the fur on her head in a mockingly bashful gesture.
“No, I’ve just heard rumors in some circles that your company has developed digitally sentient programs that could scour through that much data faster and more accurately than your competitors can.”
Eupprio smirked. “Digital sentience? You can’t believe everything you read on the communication net, Speinfoent. And… even if we did, it wouldn’t be against the Malgeir-Granti Digital Sentience Treaty since the High Council lifted the ban right before Grantor fell, remember?”
“For defense applications, sure,” he noted dryly. “I hardly think that using sentient programs to gain an advantage in processing payment chips—”
“Oh, come on, Speinfoent,” she scoffed. “People talk, but there’s no proof. And again, even if it is, we’ve got a capable legal team ready to go.”
“Hey, I’m not being judgmental,” Speinfoent waved his paws in front of him defensively. “I’m just wondering if the rumors may be true.”
Eupprio looked at him ponderingly for a couple seconds. Then, she asked, “So what if it is true? What then? Is that why you’re here?”
“If you do have a digital sentience program, I would need its help with combing through a large set of reports I have and point out any… irregularities it can find.”
She squinted. “If we did have such a program, it might be of help. Theoretically speaking, of course. What kind of data and reports are we talking about?”
Speinfoent hesitated, wondering how much he should tell her. “It’s complicated.”
“My dear, you are at Eupprio Tech. Everything we do here is complicated.”
Sensing no point in hiding the truth, he admitted, “Navy incident and after-action reports. I need you to help me find out which ones are telling the truth, and which ones are liars. And then, we need to find out which of the truthful reports contain… unexpected information.”
Eupprio widened her eyes in surprise. “That sounds like highly classified information.”
“And I would need it to be off the books,” Speinfoent added hurriedly.
“That’s the least of your problems. How much data do you have?”
“One point four million reports.” Speinfoent asked nervously, “Is that too many? Some of them are duplicates around the same incidents.”
“One point four million?” Eupprio almost scoffed. “No, that’s not too much at all. It’s barely enough to train the sentience model. We could use the duplicates to get it to recognize honest filers.” She hastily added with a wink, “If we did indeed have such a model.”
“So, it can be done?” he asked excitedly.
“Hypothetically speaking, yes. But it would help if you told us more about what kind of unexpected information we’re looking for.”
He shook his ears. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Nothing? Just… anything unexpected.”
“I can give you access to the Navy Battle Prediction Algorithm,” he offered. “If you feed it battle starting conditions and such, it can tell you what it thinks will happen when.”
She curled her lips slightly. “Wasn’t there some scandal around that a while ago?”
“Well, yes, it’s not perfect,” he admitted.
Actually, it’s not even close. The Battle Prediction Algorithm was a system created centuries ago, back when the Malgeir Navy was still competent and capable of fighting an interstellar war.
The planners of the ancient defenders of Malgeir saw the future: one where a prosperous Malgeir people did not have to experience the war and suffering they did. That conflict between factions of the Malgeir and interactions with alien races could be resolved with diplomacy and compromise, instead of force of arms. In that long peace, there would be weakness. Their people would not just forget war; they would forget how to wage it. And if they were threatened, they would be defenseless.
For that contingency, they created a machine: using a set of algorithms and equations, their descendants would feed in every parameter relevant to battle — down to detailed statistics on every spacer, every ship, and every weapon station — and it would be able to approximate the outcome of battles. They created it from hard-won battle experience, something they hoped their children and grandchildren would never have to earn themselves.
Future commanders could use the output of such a machine to plan battles or learn to avoid them. It was not perfect, as its designers well knew, but interstellar battles were about math, not sentiment; given the right inputs, the Algorithm could be close enough.
For hundreds of years, the design of the machine was kept in storage, forgotten by a society used to peace and prosperity. When war came to the Malgeir, they brought it out of its slumber and began drawing on the wisdom of the ancients.
Unfortunately, its actual performance was a crushing disappointment. It frequently predicted triumph, only for the battle to end in disaster. The Algorithm’s predictions were only as accurate as the data given, and unfortunately that data was often garbage. Garbage in, garbage out.
It might have worked for the Malgeir Navy a thousand years ago, but modern commanders in the current Navy regularly fed it unreliable information of enemy numbers, details and whereabouts. To make matters worse, they also frequently lied to their superiors about the readiness of their troops in order to avoid humiliation and censure… leading to predictably disastrous performance on the battlefield.
At the start of the Znosian-Granti war, the Battle Prediction Algorithm was heavily emphasized in war planning. By the second year, its uselessness was evident, and its employment in planning became optional. Most commanders only ended up leaning on it to excuse their poor performance in after-action incident reports, often with exaggerated or even falsified data.
“It’s actually not that part I’m worried about,” Eupprio said. “We can probably train the sentience to estimate results based on the truthful reports by themselves. If we did have such a program.”
“So, what’s the issue?”
“I just need to know what kind of unusual performance you’re looking for,” she requested patiently.
“It… would be way outside the norm. Like perhaps something with less than a percent chance of happening,” he replied slowly, thinking how much he should give out. And perhaps more importantly, how much he could assume about this new alien species he was looking for.
“One percent? That would still be about one hundred and forty thousand incidents, more or less,” she pointed out.
“Maybe less then,” Speinfoent hedged, feeling out of his depth.
“Alright, we can discuss that further later,” she dismissed. “Another salient question is one of payment. This will cost several million credits just to get started—”
“How many is several?”
“I know the Navy raised its wartime salary—” Eupprio looked suspiciously at the payment chip he materialized in his paws. Snatching the chip from him, she swiftly plugged it into one of the terminals next to them, which scanned the chip and quickly beeped an angry-sounding rejection. “I knew it… Didn’t you think I’d figure out this isn’t yours after we were literally just talking about our state-of-the-art payment fraud detection, Speinfoent? Or should I say… Gamma Leader Hinstuilcim?”
He shrugged. “It was worth a try. I don’t suppose I can appeal to your sense of patriotic duty to help the very Navy that keeps you safe during time of war and chaos?”
“I can give you a small discount,” Eupprio laughed, apparently not too bothered by his blatant attempt to scam her. “Besides, if this was really about that, you wouldn’t need it to be kept off the books.”
“It really is,” he said earnestly. “This may be a matter of life or death for the Malgeir species.”
Eupprio prided herself on being able to spot the truth. She looked into his eyes and — to her surprise — saw no lies. Squinting her eyes in hesitation, she said unsteadily, “Well, it does seem important. But I don’t do work for free on principle.”
Pursing her lips, she thought for a moment.
Then, grinning mischievously, she said, “I have an idea. I know how you can pay me back.”
“How?”
Looking down towards his walking paws, Eupprio flashed him a sly smile. “Surely you have a… better pair of shoes than that?”
