It was a normal morning, as best as you could define normal in an environment centered around deception and lies. The office was dirty and dusty around the edges of the floor, a dead roach laid in the corner. The air was musty and had a distinct blunt funk, remnants of the day before, just like every day. The air was heavy as usual and I tried not to think about it. Every day I felt as if I was closer to figuring things out. I remember this day distinctly as the "set up* was about to begin, which is the best words I can find to describe it. I had already discovered that all of our actions were being recorded, our words captured, but had no idea the purpose. I felt as if they were originally attempting to turn me into the fall guy for whatever evil plan they had next, but who knows? After all, they did just traffick pallets of drugs through the shop months ago. I was on edge and uneasy today. I was working on some graphics, but nothing of major importance. The actual business of making logos and designs for people had slowed down to a crawl. It was a dead day, but something felt off to me. The smell of [[Sam]]'s Black and Mild's smoke pumping through the crusty air vent didn't help. God I hated the smell of that tobacco... The office always wreaked of smoke or screen cleaning chemicals; the air vents were never cleaned and the filters never changed. It made me nauseous. I'd shaken [[Ernest]]'s hand hundreds of times prior to this. We'd been working together for years. He had an evil smirk, different than usual, and told me to put in consultation packages on the register for specific amounts of money, all under $10,000. This happened on the Grind Global account, which was a bit odd, but then again, everything about him was odd. As any normal person would, I questioned these consultation packages, knew he was up to no good, but had to see how deep his scam went. After all, how much more could he be involved in? Illegal surveillance and monitoring, voyeurism, drug trafficking, money laundering, scamming of the highest magnitude. I knew this was no different. I also knew he'd been listening to me and watching me, recording me without consent. Part of me even wondered if this was a way for him to make it up, try to pay me for listening to me without my knowledge, or so he thought. As he checked out on the register, smoothly swiping his crusty old credit card, he held out his hand, waiting for mine. His wicked smile and crinkled face told me all I needed to know, he planned to set me up. I could strategize better than he could ever imagine, yet felt confused in this moment. As I said before, we shaken hands in greeting hundreds of times. What made this different? Before I shook his hand, I asked him why he was trying to shake my hand and he smoothly said "because I'm doing business with you..." I realized his intent as this was being recorded, everything was at all times. Sam came out of the studio at that exact moment and looked shocked and saddened in a way. As if I'd made some kind of deal with the devil. However, I was never aware of any deal, I just wanted to see how far this Faustian style bargain would take me to uncovering everything. Would this get me access to the people running the show? Ernest was smart, as criminals come, but he wasn't a strategist. Someone, or multiple someone's were behind this...