In the year 2028, technological advancements have improved not only the quality of life but also the criminal landscape such that materials are available which aid in clandestine crime activities. The currency used is a soaring crytpocurrency called steem.
Written by @Khojo of@steemitashanti &
@genesisproject
THE YEAR WAS 2028, Ekow stood in the corner of the large hall, staring, wide-eyed at Yaw as he took a steak from a package into a plate. He clipped it with a fork and plunged a knife into it, severing every fibre of the meat like a butcher at the abattoir. He parted a fraction of the meat from the whole. Like the parting of the sea. The man was apt. He was very adept at whatever he did; from the parting of meat to swindling people out of their monies. He was the entire package.
Ekow watched as the man took a bite, followed it up with a glass of water before wiping his mouth in the wake of which he appeared as though he hadn’t ate anything. The man had deception at his beck and call.
Ekow nodded inwardly. His mouth curved into a smile.
The building which housed both men was detached from the city. It was in the middle of nowhere. A distant rendezvous for leaders of the criminal landscape who, he, Ekow happened to be a party. An island of criminals.
Yaw was his partner. He was born in hell.
They’d met to plan a major sweep. One that would shake the criminal underworld and have their names soar. Ekow had a goal: to become the most powerful criminal in all of Accra. Yaw had a mission: to build a criminal empire which would be the subject matter of telltales and discussions for generations to come. Both men, seemed like a match made in hell. They had met two months ago, and in the space of two weeks, over ten (10) crimes had been committed in major shopping centres and malls in Accra. The police had chalked it down to mystery but they always talked and laughed over it.
“These guys are jokes,” Ekow had said when the Chief Inspector of police announced that their efforts at catching the criminals had been futile. Yaw hadn’t spoken a word. He wasn’t one to take pleasure in getting a job done.
From a bag which sat beside him, Yaw rummaged through and fished out an all-glassy Samsung tablet, touched the screen with his thumb and brought it to life. He handed the lively device to Ekow who set about clicking away as though he was in a hacking competition and time was eating into his brain. After what Yaw registered as an endless avalanche of chimes, Ekow made out the plan of the Royal Pamel Hotel. Ekow looked at the plan steadily, trying to discern where each line led and how the lines were connected. His partner watched in awe, wondering how Ekow could find such technicalities a child’s play.
“We can’t entertain errors. It’s a life-or-death situation at all times.” Yaw had said. That was the only time he’d spoken more than three words.
“Okay! All done here.” Ekow beamed. He was a very feral man.
“Okay?” Yaw asked, stepping in beside Ekow so that he could steal a glance at whatever Ekow was demonstrating on the plan.
Not that he cared about a bunch of lines strewn together.
“Yes so this here is a tunnel which leads from the Royal Pamel Hotel to Labadi Resort. It is supposed to be some sort of underground exit for bureaucrats. You know for when they came to the hotel and things went haywire. But I trust they wouldn’t be needing it because you wouldn’t be so sloppy, would you? Ekow asked, grinning.
“No I wouldn’t.” Yaw held an austere gaze. His burned look, unfettering.
“I trust you wouldn’t. But of course if things do go south, remember that there is an emergency exit adjoining the conference hall which leads to this tunnel.” Ekow pointed to the tunnel he’d spoken about previously.
“I’ll be waiting for you there, brother.”
“Okay let’s get going then.”
Two days ago it was announced on national television that politicians and various bureaucrats were going to meet at the Royal Pamel Hotel for yet another summit. According to the media, the richest tycoons in the city of Accra were slated to be present. For Ekow and Yaw, this was the biggest opportunity of their lives. The Inspector General of Police, had said in a statement that, police patrols would be around the hotel several hours prior to the start of the summit and all through the summit. Robotic policemen called ROBOS would be stationed at vantage points in the conference hall such that it would be impossible for anybody to try anything funny.
“Every pore will be filled, every hole will be blocked. We will leave no stone unturned,” said the Inspector.
Ekow had laughed at this.
“This is the biggest chance we’ll ever have to getting close to our dreams. This is big. No criminal will think to hit them. If we can do it, our names will soar. We’ll literally become gods.” Ekow had said.
“No Ekow. It is too dangerous. Did you hear what the inspector said? We can’t risk it.” Yaw had pointed out.
Ekow had burst into a long unconventional laughter.
“Are you scared? Yaw are you afraid we’d be caught? Well, this is a day I never thought would come.”
“Exercising a necessary degree of fear is an ingredient of a good criminal. Being a criminal takes aptitude. We think with our heads not our guns. Otherwise you’ll be toast before you know it.”
“Spoken like a true criminal. An artful dodger if you will. But here’s the thing, if you don’t do it, I will get someone else to do it.”
Yaw’s face went ashen and then a seething mortification took over. An electricity of fear shot up Ekow’s veins. He stumbled backwards. Yaw looked at him venomously like one would look at an arch enemy. Then he walked away.
A day later they were planning the heist together just like criminals always did after getting over a feud.
**
Yaw slipped on a white long sleeve tucking it into a black trouser. He put on a sky blue tuxedo. His soft curls and waves raven served as a good cover for a man who’d known crime all his life. He draped a long black jacket over his shoulder and headed for the door.
“Are you done, mate? Ekow enquired through the invisible earphone which was tucked away in Yaw’s ear.
“Not yet. Still a few things I need to do. Take a chill pill, will you?
Yaw then applied a face-shifting make-up. In the year 2028 it was one of the most expensive technological advancements which helped to bolster the criminal underworld. Whoever owned one, was a god in the criminal world. Both men were proud owners of one of these face-shifters which helped them to walk into any place of their choosing, steal anything and walk away without being IDed correctly. At a time he could upload a maximum of twenty (20) faces onto the face-shifter so that when he walked past a security camera, the face-shifter would automatically plant a fake ID on the camera while his real identity remained hidden under the veil.
Tonight Yaw added Ekow’s face shifter to his. He had a maximum of 40 fake faces. That would be enough for the heist.
“Ready to enter the hotel. Are you in position?” Yaw lisped.
“Yes partner. Let’s get these meatheads!” Ekow replied animatedly.
Upon entering the hotel he was welcomed by the receptionist who took the black jacket which was draped over his shoulder and showed him to the conference room.
When he got to the conference room. He sighed. Took a deep breath and exhaled. His heart tolled loudly in his chest.
“Everything okay partner?” Ekow asked.
“Yes, taking a once-over, get ready to go to work. But before that, let me mingle with them a little bit. You know shoot the breeze so that I don’t draw any suspicions to myself.”
“You got it partner.”
Realizing that a petite woman with long dark hair was approaching, Yaw cleared his throat.
“Hello. Your face doesn’t look familiar. Which company do you represent?”
“Oh well, I am from the Syndicate Corporation, a world-renowned corporation which just took roots in Ghana. And you would be?
“Miss Harriet Adjapong, a member of the President’s team.”
“Well aren’t you a successful and beautiful young woman?” Yaw asked, rhetorically.
“Well I have come across a lot of men but you are a work of art, really. Enjoy the summit. Hopefully we’ll talk later.”
“You have a great night Miss Harriet.”
He watched on meticulously as Miss Harriet shook hands with a tall slender man clad in African prints. The man oozed elegance.
Yaw’s face curved into a fiendish smile.
From the corner of his eye, he watched on steadily as various tycoons trouped into the conference room. He’d have no problem been there as he had already stolen the identity of the representative of the Syndicate Corporation. If he was caught and had his face run against the database, it would reveal him as Frank Danquah, a representative of the Syndicate Corporation.
All he needed were codes or anything from these tycoons which could be entered into a database: full names, account names, account numbers, steem IDs, steem pins. Just anything of that sort. Ekow would use them to hack into their accounts so that by the time the conference was over, they wouldn’t have a penny on their steem chips. They had already secured a laptop specially produced for that purpose.
Ekow was waiting impatiently behind the laptop. A mug of thick coffee sat beside the laptop. Every now and then, he glanced to see if he’d had his first beep. But it wasn’t. When he took the mug of coffee, the first beep came.
Het set the coffee down on the table and started clicking away.
In less than half an hour, Yaw had copied data from over twenty tycoons. Some were too careless as they let their personal information slip out without a care in the world. Others took a lot of doing; he had to coax many under the pretense of needing the information for a survey his company was conducting. If many were a tad doubting, he would have blown his cover. However no one would have guessed that such a work of art could dabble into the vile acting of stealing. Coupled with the fact that politicians and tycoons blabbed on about their wealth without a nudge, Yaw turned what should have been a long nerve-wracking expedition into a playground.
While on the expedition he saw a tall broad-chested man clad in black suit put his steem coin holder on the long shimmering metallic table which sat between of the hall. The coin holder was a long slender pen-like device which held all of the holder’s finances. Every inch of detail contained in their account, was on that pen-like device. If he could lay his hands on it, it would open the gateway to the man’s catalogue of riches. Glancing left to right, he zeroed in on the device, paying rapt attention to every set of eyes which may or may not be peering at him. As he inched closer to the device, his heart tightened in his chest. A sharp wave of fear shot up through him almost causing him to give up on his final adventure. But he sauntered on almost secretly like a whore trying to steal her way out of a hotel after a sexual expedition.
Upon reaching where the device laid, abandoned by its arrogant owner, he glanced left and right again before picking it up in a flash.
A security camera picked up the footage but could only ID the man as Kojo Bonsu.
“All done here, your end?” he asked Ekow over the earphone.
“All done mate. Meet you outside in five,” Ekow replied, animatedly.
As Yaw made his way out of the conference room, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He stopped. His heart flew out of his body. He turned around lazily as though forewarning the man not to push him to do something they’d both regret.
“Why are you leaving when the conference has barely started?”
“Is that supposed to be a question?”
“Well Sir, I watched you walk in less than fifty minutes ago so I find it weird that you are leaving just now,” the broad-faced policeman with a dark- hued tan said.
‘You still haven’t told me what I have done wrong,’ Yaw said, drawing confidence from the fact that the policeman seemed to be acting dutifully or based on his instincts. Anyhow, he wasn’t going to make a mess of this.
“Sir if you don’t mind, I will like to make sure you’re clean before you leave,’ the police man said doggedly. Before Yaw could conjure a come-back he had pulled out a slender electronic detector from his pocket.
Knowing full well that the steem coin holder was still in his pocket, he couldn’t take a chance. Otherwise he would leave himself and his partner flapping in the breeze of police cells before the end of the conference. He edged closer to the police man and raised up his hands just enough so that he could grab the policeman’s hands and throw him off before he could place the detector on him.
Better get caught fighting than surrender a scared little bitch.
The policeman landed painfully on the floor. He gave out a groan before speaking through his earphone.
“Suspect on the run. Dark skinned man in black suit and sky blue tuxedo.”
“All units dispatch, dark-skinned man in black suit and sky blue tuxedo exiting the building now.”
Over the sudden mayhem which Yaw left in his wake, he spoke nervously on the earphone.
“Mission compromised. Police after me. Meet at alternative point of exit. Tunnel exit not in sight.”
Ekow, hands trembling as though he’d been living in the snowy mountains of Australia for the past fifty minutes, slipped the laptop into his duffel bag and headed to where Yaw had spoken of.
As part of plans to hit the summit, Yaw had suggested that the exit point through the tunnel was tricky and one which would require some doing. So he’d come up with an alternative plan which had seen them park a white minivan just outside the hotel. It’d taken some doing to get Ekow to agree to it. But it was now their only hope of survival. It was to this van that both criminals were stealthing.
Police sirens blew loudly choking the air around Yaw. The noise almost choked out the blood in his system through his ear. It was part of the latest technological improvements: the police could increase the decibels of the siren to the point where it became unbearable for the human ear.
In front of him Yaw could see Ekow already seated in the driver’s seat, urging him to run as fast as he could.
But Yaw slowed down his pace much to the bewilderment of his partner whose first thought was to step out of the car and slap the fantasy out of Yaw’s eyes. Whatever silly plans he had in mind, this wasn’t the time to take them into action. As much as he hated it, Ekow stepped out of the car.
And then Yaw shouted, “freeze!”
He froze.
“What are you doing?” Ekow barely mustered.
His emotions were flaring up. Some were all over the place. Others were burnt to a frazzle with crumbs falling in front of Yaw. But he knew better than to fall for the man’s antics.
“Sorry partner,” Yaw said with a lingering smile. He continued.
“Your partner Yaw Mensah was killed in a shooting spree the two of you had with the police some two months ago just outside Accra Mall. He didn’t die on the spot but he was shot in the stomach. Police heard word of a man bleeding in an alley. That was when we found your partner breathless in a pool of blood. We dispatched his body underhandedly and put a lid on it. No one but the Chief Inspector of Police, myself and three other offices who came in contact with the criminal’s body knew this. That was when I came up with the plan to infiltrate your camp so as to bring you down with your dead partner who I am sure, is rotting in hell as we speak. All we needed was his DNA. After that our lab technicians went to work to carve this beautiful makeshift personality you were always with.” He pointed to himself. His face.
Ekow stumbled backwards. Something pierced him. It could have been the truth or the system of technology. Anyhow he knew it was all over. He buried his head in his palms as emotions tumbled in him. His whole system was on fire.
The policeman being cognizant of how sneaky and apt Ekow could be, gingerly made for his hands as he took out a cuff from his pocket.
“It is all over,” he said.
“Your partner passed on some two months ago. You might wanna obliterate whatever silly plans you’re cooking right now and think about how to go about his funeral while rotting behind bars.”
He took Ekow’s hands and balled the cuff around them. Then he spoke through the earphone.
“This is MOLE 208, Ekow Acheampong who was on the run is now in custody. I repeat Ekow Acheampong the most dangerous criminal of the underworld has been arrested. Dispatch all units to Royal Pamel Hotel now.”
The End
This is just my take on how technology would have changed the world by 2028. There are probably a lot more things which arent there but this is my take. You can drop yours in the comments box. How technology would have affected the criminal world by 2028-- for both the police and the criminal?
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