Words Misunderstood

Separate Worlds

        If you ask Karlie, she’s not a bad person. She’s simply trying to make it through this life with some money and some adventure. So maybe her main source of income is bank fraud and fake identities, but the amount of work that goes into those things is honestly more than most people’s real job. It’s not like she’s robbing banks at gunpoint, for a majority of the crime she doesn’t even leave her home. Her beautiful New York apartment paid for with the spoils of past ploys. In general, she lives a normal 21-year-old’s life; she works as an IT Project Manager along with taking classes at NYU, goes out with her girls on the weekend, and steals hundreds of thousands of dollars in her spare time.

        Now if you ask Taylor about the fraudster known as kballetk, she’d probably tell you that they’re evil. They steal people’s hard-earned money for themselves, and then do who knows what with it. Taylor is determined to catch the thief and dedicates a majority of her time with the FBI to this goal. See, Taylor believes in hard work and justice and people like kballetk do not respect these qualities. Unfortunately for Taylor, kballetk is good, virtually untraceable, leaving behind nothing but a simple message ingrained in each system she manages to hack, “Just borrowed a bit from those who can afford. kballetk”.

                ---

        It’s 6:30 am when Karlie’s alarm goes off and elicits a groan out of the young woman. She reaches over to her phone to shut it off, and then stretches her back to wake up. She knows it’s her own fault she’s so tired this morning, since she stayed up so late researching her next target, media tycoon Robert Silas. He does most of his banking at First International which after poking around a bit, Karlie determined she could enter their systems within a few days. The only unique aspect she has to figure out is an employee passcode. After entering their system she’ll discard their I.D. so no blame could be traced back to them, but it would be important in discovering how to properly implement her next move. 

        Karlie gets ready for work quickly and grabs her coffee mug all while making a mental to-do list for after work tonight. She pulls out a small planner and pen on the subway to write them down.

                -Call maintenance on leaky sink

                -Call Derek about dinner Friday

                -Look up FI security cams

                -Try adding walnuts to cookies

                -Start research for midterm paper

At the office her day goes quickly and then she rushes home to start her busy night.

“Hey, big brother! How are you?” Karlie smiles into the phone as soon as Derek answers.

“I’m great babes, always happy to hear your voice,” He responds.

“So I was just wondering if you had plans for Friday night yet? This art gallery is opening near our fave restaurant and I was hoping we could go out,” Karlie suggests while holding the phone with her shoulder and using her hands to mix the cookie batter.

“Sounds wonderful! I’m sure I can manage to schedule you into my busy life for one night,” Derek laughs.

“Oh fuck…” Karlie mumbles as a piece of eggshell falls into her mix.

“I gotta go, Derek. Turns out I only have two hands.”

“Alright, see you Friday! Love ya,” He says goodbye, and Karlie calls out an “Love you too” before hanging up and focusing on her cookies. She doesn’t make it to bed that night until midnight again, but she has a solid plan for tomorrow.