Conflict of Interest - Chapter 7 (Patreon)

No questions.

After all the preparation Ruby did for that case, Weiss had no questions.

On the one hand, Ruby was flattered.  She’d watched the thoughts flashing through Weiss’ eyes and knew it was a calculated decision.  Weiss didn’t ask questions because she concluded that keeping Ruby quiet was better than letting the jury hear her explanations.

On the other hand, she was disappointed.  By not asking anything, Weiss avoided the argument entirely, leaving Ruby with a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction.

After the anticipation of defending her research against one of the best defense attorneys in existence, the letdown affected her more than she thought it would.  Helping Jez set up a bio encryption profile had distracted her for a little while, but at the same time...she couldn’t stop thinking about what could have been.

Regardless of that discontent, she smiled and waved to the patrol officers while making her way through the station’s entryway.

“Morning!”

“Oh, Ruby!”

Slowing down, she smiled as Jez jogged over to her.

“Hey Jez!  You didn’t get locked out already, did you?”

“No, thank god.  But if I do, I know who to call.”

“You bet.  Anything goes wrong, I’m your gal.”

While Ruby passed the security checks to enter the back of the station, it became clear that Jez wanted to stick around a little longer.  Welcoming the temporary company, Ruby moved to the side so they could walk through the doorway together.

“I just wanted to thank you again - for helping me set all that up.”

“You’ve already thanked me way more than enough.”  When it looked like Jez might argue, Ruby smiled and shook her head.  “Seriously, I love helping people with that stuff.  It’s like my superpower - protecting lives, and data, from falling into the wrong hands.”

When Ruby held her arms out in front of her like superheroes did when flying in movies, Jez finally relaxed into a smile.

“You’d be a great superhero,” she said before glancing at one of the officers passing by.  “And...I had a lot of fun spending time with you.”

“I had fun too!”

“Maybe we can do it again sometime?” Jez added, but Ruby gave her a curious glance as they walked into the lab.

“You mean set up another security system?  Because you have the best thing out there right now...”

“No, not that.  I mean...maybe we can hang out again sometime?”

“Oh.”  Chuckling at the momentary cluelessness, Ruby nodded.  “Sure!  That sounds fun.”

“Great,” Jez replied, smiling shyly before her gaze slid to the screens behind Ruby’s back.  “Guess I should let you get to work.”

“Could say the same to you,” Ruby joked while grabbing her tech glove and sliding it over her hand.  “But I’ll see you later!”

When Ruby used a wave to simultaneously start her computer, Jez looked at the screens and laughed.

“Showoff,” she teased before heading back to the front of the station, smiling and shaking her head as she went.

Left alone in the lab, Ruby turned towards her computers and smiled.  Most of her friends were friends with Yang first, but Jez felt like someone she’d befriended on her own.  That wasn’t to say Yang and Jez didn’t get along - they did, but they were more ‘coworkers’ while Ruby could call Jez a friend.  At least, she felt like she could call Jez a friend.  They didn’t hang out very often, especially outside of work, but it sounded like that could change if she wanted it to.

At least one thing was going her way.  If only the rest of her job would grant her the same mercy.  This morning, her task queue held six new ‘find as much video evidence as you can’ requests as well as three ‘make my evidence more understandable’ pleas.

Sighing in resignation, she plugged the first set of information into a program she created specifically for the video evidence requests.  Building it had been fun and complicated, but that feeling disappeared months ago.  The officers and detectives still treated it like the newest, coolest thing in the world but, in actuality, it was already outdated.  Technology moved fast these days, but staying ahead of the curve was only a small part of her job.

After setting up searches for the five other requests, she opened the first ‘help me make sense’ file and found several evidence sheets woefully needing connection.  Sometimes, she...strongly disliked...when the detectives sent this stuff to her.  Sure, she might be smarter than them, but they could at least put some effort into sorting through everything by themselves.

But it was her job to help them win cases, so she would do whatever it took to make that happen.  Putting bad guys behind bars and all that jazz...meaning she had to read all of the collected information, reformulate it, and create an easy-to-understand way of presenting it.  Essentially, they needed her to organize data - just about the easiest thing they could ask of her.

Her mind started wandering in the midst of the first case, and she’d pulled up the court schedule before she even realized what she was doing.  It wasn’t a leap from there to search for Weiss’ name but, when she found nothing, she flipped to tomorrow and felt her discontent grow.

Weiss wasn’t on the calendar for the rest of the week.

“Dammit...”

After closing the schedule, Ruby opened a new browser and stared at the blinking cursor for several seconds.  She couldn’t focus right now, and when she got like this, she had to let her curiosity take over before she got back on track.

Right now, she wanted to know every thought that had flashed through Weiss’ mind.  Every reason for abandoning the technology argument in an important case.  Every argument that would have been that was then abandoned.

Basically, Ruby wanted to get into Weiss’ mind and figure out how she worked.  Unfortunately, that technology didn’t exist, and she couldn’t just talk to Weiss without being kind of, sort of dismissed.  But she could do the next best thing - use the internet to find out as much about Weiss as possible.  Knowing more about her life and circumstances could illuminate how she thought and why.

“Weiss Schnee…” Ruby muttered to herself while entering Weiss’ name in the search field.

The first few pages of articles focused on Weiss’ recent successes as an attorney.  One high-profile case after another.  One high-profile client after another.  Most fully acquitted.  Some cut deals.  A very, very small minority were actually found guilty.

But the articles mainly focused on the clients.  Ruby didn’t care about them.  She wanted to know more about Weiss.

What was she like when not browbeating the prosecutor’s office into submission?  What did she do for fun?  Who did she hang out with?  What kind of person was she?  Ruby couldn’t learn those answers from the pompous victory quotes spoken by the men and women Weiss set free.  She needed Weiss’ words.

“You’re smart...” Ruby mumbled when Weiss’ school records popped up on the screen.  Apparently, Weiss graduated early with the highest marks in her grade, then passed the attorney’s licensing exam with a near-perfect score.

“Bet that ‘near-perfect’ bothers you...” Ruby added before chuckling to herself.

Near-perfect would bother her too.  She would probably retake the test until she got a perfect score, and was honestly a little surprised that Weiss hadn’t done that too.

Then Ruby found correspondence on the licensing board’s servers suggesting that Weiss challenged the questions she’d answered ‘wrong’ - that was more like her.  Unsurprisingly, the licensing board backed down and internally changed Weiss’ score.  Perfect, after all.

“You’re successful...” Ruby muttered as her search dragged up articles proving what she’d already known - Weiss was widely viewed as one of the best attorneys in Vale.  Cementing those claims were even more news releases featuring Weiss and her wealthy, powerful clientele.

Did Weiss look happy in the photographs?  Ruby couldn’t tell.  Maybe she did, but her smile was a little too perfect sometimes.  Practiced, maybe.  Still beautiful, still wonderful to see, but...too perfect.  Of course, most people would assume she was happy since it didn’t seem like she had much to be sad about.

“And you’re loaded.”

Staring at the number on the screen, Ruby didn’t know whether to be jealous or impressed that Weiss had amassed so much money in such a short time.  She’d always figured that Weiss was rich based on the expensive car, expensive clothes, and expensive jewelry, but this confirmed that suspicion in a hard amount anyone could understand.

By defending the lives of the wealthy, Weiss, herself, had become wealthy.  Or maybe she’d already been wealthy.  Considering her family’s many businesses, that was probably the case.  Of course, Ruby could easily find out by running a yearly balance check.

“Wait.”

Abruptly realizing she was snooping around Weiss Schnee’s bank accounts, she quickly closed the screens and stepped away from the computer.  She hadn’t meant to dive so deeply into Weiss’ personal life, but sometimes her desire for information led her places before she realized where she was going.

And apparently Vale Union’s account security wasn’t great.  She’d overridden the access codes without using her police credentials and even pausing.

“I’ll talk to them about that…” she muttered while returning to her computer and making a note to do that later.  Then she pulled up the rest of her search - the much more innocent, widely-available information - and studied the results.

All of these articles and profiles were about Weiss, but they said nothing about her.  Everyone knew that she was smart, successful, and wealthy, but what did her mind work like?  What did her thoughts sound like?  Those were the answers Ruby wanted.

Unfortunately, those answers were hard to find online.  Not impossible, but...hard.  Especially if she didn’t want to break into more institutions to get them.

Hearing two familiar knocks at her door, she hastily closed the browser and turned around right as Yang walked into the room.

“Hey Yang!  What’s up?”

Heart suddenly racing, Ruby tried to stay nonchalant while also scrambling for explanations.  Researching the competition?  Avid curiosity?

Fortunately, Yang wasn’t in the mood to pay much attention to anything right now.  Instead, she collapsed on the small sofa near Ruby’s desk and sighed.

“Nothing…can I hide in here for a bit?”

“Pretty sure it’s not ‘hiding’ when people can see you,” Ruby teased while waving at the glass walls.

“Can’t you tint those?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Sensing that something was up, she found the controls and tinted the glass until the hallway was hardly visible.  She didn’t do this often, mostly because it felt like working in a white box, but it was nice to tune everything out sometimes.  Once the world was blocked from view, she pulled off her tech glove and left her computers behind.

“What’s up?”

After patting Yang’s leg to get her to move, Ruby sat beside her on the sofa.

“It’s...nothing.”

“Except it is,” Ruby pointed out, so Yang sighed.

“It’s just...sometimes, do you feel like we’re the only sane people in the world?”

“I’ve literally never considered myself sane,” Ruby joked, smiling when Yang laughed.

“Ok, well, it feels like everyone’s hiding something, you know?”

“Does this have to do with that college girl?”

“Yeah.  You noticed, didn’t you?”

When Yang gave Ruby a thoughtful look, she raised her hands and shrugged.

“She spent a lot of time in some shady parts of town...”

“She did,” Yang agreed.  “So I checked out those shady parts of town and found a ton of drug paraphernalia.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah, exactly.”

When Yang shook her head and fell silent, Ruby thought about the information she compiled the other day.  For someone who was supposedly an ‘angel,’ the victim had a lot of dubious acquaintances and unusual hangout spots.  If she was linked to Vale’s drug trade, that would explain why.  That would also make her far less angelic than she appeared.

Hearing another sigh, Ruby looked over and tried to determine whether Yang was demoralized by the new information or just tired.  Sometimes, it felt like Yang had too much heart for a job like hers.  She wanted to believe the best in everyone, often leading to disappointment when people turned out to be just as greedy, manipulative, or horrible as suspected.

But she was strong.  Plus, over the past few years she’d made small adjustments to move her heart further from reach.  Caring was part of her job, as she said, but protecting herself was important too.  Ruby credited Blake for that bit of wisdom.

“So...now what?” Ruby ventured to ask, knowing that Yang came to see her so they could talk this out.

“Now I’m back to thinking the boyfriend did it.”

Leaning against the sofa, Yang gave Ruby a rueful smile.

“Because…?”

“Because he has a drug problem, making him the prime suspect.”  Thinking about the unfortunate circumstances, Yang shook her head.  “I know he’s got some serious flaws, but...he really seemed to care, you know?  Guess I just wanted to believe him…”

“Just because he does drugs doesn’t mean he killed her,” Ruby pointed out.

“But it increases the chances.  They could’ve been business partners, for all I know, so now his motives include money, power, or fear of getting caught.”  After thinking about the situation a little longer, tapping her fingers on her leg all the while, Yang met Ruby’s gaze.  “It’s a lot easier to keep a secret from someone than with someone.”

Ruminating on those words of wisdom, Ruby leaned into her sister’s side.

“Too bad people can’t just be open books, right?”

“Ain’t that the truth…”

The two of them sat in silence for the next few minutes, but Ruby knew Yang’s mind was working just as much as hers.  Sometimes bad people seemed good, and sometimes good people seemed bad.  That was part of what made their jobs so difficult.  Well, Yang’s job more than Ruby’s.

People were complicated, but it was their job to separate the good ones from the bad.  That job could be exhausting sometimes, especially when constantly lied to or fed false information.  That often brought them to moments like these...where they recharged and regrouped before returning to work with the energy to continue.

“Anyway,” Yang said after not too long.  “What’re you workin’ on?”

As soon as Yang asked, Ruby’s cheeks heated up.

“Just some research.”

Technically true - she was researching.  But Yang would ask for what case in about two seconds if she didn’t come up with a distraction.

“Oh!”  Hopping to her feet, she grasped onto the first topic that wasn’t Weiss-related.  “Want to see something I’m working on?”

“Of course.  I’m always ready to see another Ruby Masterpiece.”

After Yang stood, her mood brightened with every step she took towards Ruby’s computer.  Grinning at the positive response, Ruby pulled on her glove and opened several files from her personal drive.

“It’s for Tech Masters,” she explained while the system loaded.  “Finally figured out what to do.”

Work might be a drag, but at least she had some personal projects holding her attention.  The most important one right now was Tech Masters - a big, annual event that she’d been invited to speak at this year.

“You’re giving me a sneak peek?” Yang asked in fake surprise before laughing when Ruby nudged her side.

“Well you won’t be there,” Ruby pointed out.  “Besides, my biggest fan always gets a sneak peek!”

“Perks of being your sister.”

When Yang smiled and motioned for Ruby to explain the project, Ruby turned towards the screen and opened the first file.

“Tada!”

Excitement increasing, Ruby watched Yang step closer and squint at the convoluted picture on the screen.

“You’re gonna have to give me some hints...”

Laughing at the response, which was to be expected, Ruby waved at the screen and simultaneously flipped to the next page

“Every phone has a projector, right?  But they only get so big.”

Using her phone as an example, she projected the screen and motioned at the holographic rectangle about half the size of one of her monitors.

“Companies are trying to make them bigger but can’t figure out how to do that without putting the projection like twenty feet away.”

“Bet you could solve that in a week,” Yang said, and Ruby grinned at the vote of confidence.

“If I had time, maybe.”

“So what you really need to invent is a time machine?”

“More like a time replicator.  I don’t want to mess with timeline consistency.”

“Right,” Yang replied with a playfully-serious nod.  “Because who would want to do that?”

Sensing that Yang was teasing her, Ruby smiled and continued explaining her pet project.

“Anyway, hologram size is limited, but...what if you used multiple phones?”

After another wave, the next file moved onto the screen and displayed a rough approximation of what Ruby planned to do.  Yang studied the screen closely, using what little background information she had to make sense of the random lines and jotted notes before smiling when she figured it out.

“You’re linking them.”

“I figured out how to create a web,” Ruby replied with a nod.  “Then I’ll have access to more than just one screen.”

“I’m guessing you have to individually bypass the security?”

“But that’s the easy part.  Hardest part is getting them all to do what you want at the same time.”

Nodding, Yang gave the file another long look.  There were probably a lot of details and intricacies she didn’t understand, but Ruby knew that she had a good grasp of the concept.  And, after a few more seconds, a smile snuck onto her lips.

“How many phones did you buy to practice?”

“Not many...” Ruby fudged, only to give up and smile when Yang’s brow rose.  “If you or Blake want to upgrade though…”

“I think we’re good, but thanks.”  After another chuckle, Yang turned towards Ruby with a more thoughtful expression.  “This is awesome, Ruby.  Seriously.  You’re just…”  Taking one more look at the screen, Yang smiled and shook her head.  “Amazing.”

Even though Yang always called her amazing, it made Ruby happy each and every time.  Ever since they were kids, Yang had challenged and encouraged her to become the best she could be.  She would always be grateful for the support Yang still showed to this day.

“I just...wanted it to be something memorable.”

“It will be - trust me.”

Gently patting Ruby’s shoulder, Yang glanced at the screen before her expression grew more serious.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come?  I’m sure Blake will be fine if we reschedule -”

“No, it’s ok.  It’s your half anniversary!  That’s important.”  When Yang looked unconvinced by the argument, Ruby tapped her arm and smiled.  “Besides, I’ll get nervous if you’re there.”

Yang still didn’t want to agree, but she glanced at Ruby’s smile and sighed.

“Alright...then get a recording for me?”

“Definitely!”

“Cool.”

Satisfied with that, Yang finally nodded.  From her lighter expression, their prior conversation had faded away by now, bringing her back to her typical self.

“Guess we should get back to work, huh?” she asked, only for Ruby’s cheeks to warm at the reminder.  Fortunately, Yang was none the wiser, as she patted Ruby’s shoulder and backed towards the door.  “Thanks for talking,” was the only reference she made to the real reason she sought Ruby out before adding a quick, “Love you!” and heading into the hall.

When Yang tapped the glass - a reminder that it could be untinted - Ruby returned the wall to clear and watched her sister wave before hurrying back to her office.

Once Yang was gone, Ruby turned back to her plan for Tech Masters and thought about the testing she still had to do.  She wished that she could skip the entire event, but that option disappeared when the organizer told her that a nonprofit was bringing a bunch of kids to watch.  She loved encouraging kids to join the tech field, so skipping was out of the question.  Instead, she would go and be nervous about speaking in front of a crowd while trying to be the ‘tech wizard’ everyone expected her to be.

The buzz of an incoming message drew her attention away from that growing worklist.  Picking up her phone, she frowned when she saw that an encrypted message had just arrived.

Everyone thought encryption masked their identity, but it actually only added a few locked layers on top of their information.  Full identity masking was only possible through a combination of encryption, spoofing, and backwards-facing tracing that few people wanted to set up.  But if encryption made someone feel safer…

Except this wasn’t a standard tri-level encryption.  It was deci-level combined with an expensive multi-channel rotating cipher.  Still not enough to erase the sender’s identity, but who the hell was sending her messages with such high-level security?

Curious, to say the least, she tapped the message and was immediately prompted for a twenty-digit passcode that could be a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols.  Having no idea what that might be, and not having the patience to figure it out, she connected her phone to her computer and circumvented the locking protocol.  Once that was done, she had direct access to the message.

As soon as she read it, her eyes widened.  Then she immediately set about verifying the sender’s identity.  Because there was no way.  There was absolutely no way that was right.

Someone must be messing with her, but who in the department had access to this type of encryption software?  Maybe the other tech specialists, but why would they send a message like this?

She didn’t think any of them would.  A few minutes later, she confirmed that they hadn’t.

The message wasn’t a joke.  It was a real, honest-to-goodness invitation from Weiss Schnee.