14591/Trust me: Sky(e)'s the limit! (Part One)

Trust me: Sky(e)'s the limit! (Part One)
Date of Scene:	03 November 2022
Location:	Cafe - Greenwich Village
Synopsis:	From Latte to Money Laundering. Skye drops a bomb on Jax's carefree future prospects. To Be Continued!
Cast of Characters:	Jax Miller, Quake

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Jax Miller has posed:
Mid afternoon in Cafe Polychrome is an understated, refined, nigh on artistic affair. Coffe is, of course, being consumed but most of it is being consumed ironically. Like, there are like thousands of things the patrons could like be doing, but it's like a revolt against the system to, like, do something mundane like drinking, like, coffee or something. It's the sort of place where the world is put to rights over coffee, picked apart over a whole bran muffin, reconstructed through a hasty cappuchino, and then finally declared lacking in some elementary sense which requires it to be picked apart again before being put to rights once more, only this time with proper articles and constitutions.

It is, in short, the last place anyone would expect to find Jax, that free-wheeling spirit who never takes anything too seriously and has the good fortune of going through life as a cat mutant, with a feline attitude to it all, and who doesn't need anything out of the world except money, fame, comfort, luxury, and fame. Not necessarily in that order. But for the moment, he's settling for a latte up in the corner loft with his laptop and phone.

If the custom made helmet is any indication, he's probably the proud owner of that Honda Shadow parked outside, and yet for some reason seems to be browsing for cars. New cars, at that, and of the more expensive kind.

He is, in short, easy to spot, easy to find, easy to trace, and easy to get along with. Probably.

Skye Johnson has posed:
Skye wasn't here for the coffee. Well, she was - this cafe shop was in her neighbourhood, so she actually buys coffee quite frequently to and fro from her 'desk job'. Which she rarely does from her desk, incidentally. But this time there was a purpose to her visit beyond coffee.. and an apple fritter.

It would seem that a very.. very.. large amount of money was being laundered through a fairly sizable fund, whose sole beneficiary was this mutant name Jax. From all Skye was able to see, this university-aged boy (oh god, when did she become old enough that Jax was a boy??) didn't appear to be the sort of person she would normally pick for the bad guy. And admittedly his bank account was pretty nice.. Only it didn't add it to the amount that was being transferred.

Somewhere, someone was using the Miller fund for nefarious purposes, and Skye had to check this Jax out. After all, when she was younger than him, she was certainly able to break the code on numerous corporations and tell everyone around the world what they really were up to.

The question that was in front of her, was Jax the culprit, or was he a victim?

Grabbing her coffee, she took a table beside him, studying him.

Jax Miller has posed:
The tables around Jax are unusually deserted. Quite possibly the usual patrons understand that this mutant is not truly one of them, and only uses the cafe for convenience. Or, worse, is here because he wanted a coffee.

The truth appears to be something close to it... that he, in fact, did want a coffee, and also a convenient place to put down his laptop. All seemingly very innocent.

But what college student browses for expensive Jeeps while having a nice bike outside? What college student, in fact, somehow manages to stump up the money for the hire of a luxury yacht for a whole month just a year ago? A student that, it seems, has eschewed the offer of a full ride sports scholarship at Columbia in favor of paying his own way. All of it adds up to a whole lot of dollars being spent, and all of it coming from the same source.

A source which, despite much searching, still remains hidden in the interminable maze of offshore shell companies.

If Jax is a criminal mastermind, he's also putting on an acting performance worthy of an academy award. After scrolling and searching for a while, he gives a groan and leans back in his seat, which is a spectacle all in itself. It seems Jax has inherited the feline trait that allows them to treat a spine as mostly optional, and he adopts a posture more usually associated with a liquid.

That is, until he sighs and returns to his work, ears twitching slightly, and his long tail curling along the leg of his chair. For someone who has cats, the signs are obvious: vexation.

Skye Johnson has posed:
Skye pulled out her laptop, pretending to have a bit of trouble.

"Excuse me? I'm new around here." She flashes a smile, even as she lies. "Would you know the password here?" She pointed at Jax's laptop, which was logged in. "I never know what to do. Everything is too techy these days."

Oh, did she lie.

"I could buy you an apple fritter for your help?"

Jax Miller has posed:
The ears swivel first. Even before those clear blue eyes leave the screen, the large feline ears turned to face Skye, like a pair of fuzzy radar dishes. "Hmm?" When the rest of Jax's head follows the motion of his ears, it's all smile from the word go. This is not someone who has to pretend to be friendly or happy, but seems to have a sort of in-built happiness that's trying to escape through his eyes... slitted eyes, feline style.

"Oh! Oh, hey, yeah, sure... just gimme..." For a brief moment, Jax looks around him, nearly managing to turn his head through 180 degrees, before spotting what he was looking for on a nearby table. Behind him. Then it's just a matter of leaning back, arching his spine, grabbing the bit of laminated paper, straighten out, lean sideways, and hand it over. There it is, in grey and slightly darker grey, the wifi password of the Cafe (one beverage minimum), and the network to connect to. "There ya go."

Pause, one brief moment, then the other hand joins the offering hand, to offer a hand. "Name's Jax, and thanks for the offer, but I'm gonna pass. Fruit and me don't get along."

Skye Johnson has posed:
As she waits, Skye continues to fabricate the lie. "It's really my boyfriend's laptop. He usually takes care of it. I'm not the computer sort. I look on Facebook, and even there it starts to be complicated. I thought I would come here and buy a coffee. It was one of those thing that if I thought about it, I would have realized what a dumb thing it really was. Just, it's so nice for November."

She takes the paper from him.

"Are you sure I can't buy you something? They have chocolate eclairs?" She stares at the paper, feigning a frown. "The truth is, I don't know how to put the password in. At home, it does it automatically. Could you?"

All the while Skye is taking a really good look at Jax. Studying him.

Jax Miller has posed:
"Sure, no prob!"

Helpfulness, thy name is Jax. In moments he has moved from one table to the next, just taking his own laptop with him. Because of course he would. And then he leaves it open on the table next to Skye's, not even bothering the close the lid or lock the screen. Because of course he wouldn't. Such a nice friendly lady, clearly struggling with technology like all older people, why would he have to worry about a thing?

"D'you mind if I...?" he begins, apologetically leaning over and opening the connection wizard, selecting the network and typing in the password. Typing, in fact, without looking at the keyboard, his head craned to the side to read the unnecessarily long and complicated symbol spaghetti that passes for secure passwords in most places around the multiverse, with practically nobody thinking that if you have a password so complicated you need to write it down, it defeats its own purpose.

And ding! Network done!

"There ya go. And I'd love to say yes to a chocolate eclair, but I've got practice in two days, and it would take me that long to digest it." Ah, the drawbacks of being mostly cat...

Skye Johnson has posed:
She would have to defrag her hard drive, check for bugs that almost always wormed their way in on public wifi. Good thing her real work was on a partition completely away from such things.

"Oh? You play.. football, do you? My boyfriend is the kind of person who watches sports, instead of playing. I mean, I don't either - well, I used to be a cheerleader." Skye really doesn't like sports. At all. The only reason she did target practice, and the like, was she would have been kicked out of SHEILD, and that would have meant jail.

Jax might be innocent in the past; Skye wasn't.

Jax was turning out to not be the problem. The more she was around him, the more convinced that whatever he might be, the money laundering type he was not. Which made him a victim.

Jax Miller has posed:
"Oh yeah. My dad plays for the Bills, starting quarterback." Which, if research in Jax is accurate, must refer to Colin Miller. He mentioned it fairly off hand, as if it's something entirely normal. But a well paid quarterback, even a very good well paid quarterback, wouldn't be able to fund the Miller trust just on his player's salary. Not even with sponsorship deals and image rights thrown in. "I was going to play for the Bulls in College, but grandpa ... yeah, he doesn't like football players all that much. So now I play for the Columbia Lions." Admittedly the worst college football team in the history of the College Football League. The only team in the history of the league to go six years without a single win.

Aptly named though.

"He wanted me to go a real college. Y'know, his words, not mine. But he's footing the bill, so... eh." An elaborate shrug. And just like that, Jax has pretty much told this perfect stranger everything they'd ever need to know to steal his identity and fleece him for every last cent. And with a smile too.

Skye Johnson has posed:
Oh god

This was going to be a bit of a problem. Almost immediately, Skye dropped the blonde bimbo disguise (sans the blonde).

"Jax? We've got a problem." And with that sentence he should know that she knew who he was without him telling her.

Jax Miller has posed:
"Really, where?" And yes, Jax instantly looks at Skye's laptop, just to make sure the connection is still up and running. What other problem could there be?

"I don't see anything wrong. Look, little icon is still there, you're still connected."

Skye Johnson has posed:
The innocence reeks off of Jax. Hell, he didn't even notice that she used his first name - without telling her what it was.

"I know, dammit. I'm going to have to check everything on it later. What I meant was, for some reason you have got yourself wrapped up in a bigger thing than you know. Someone is laundering money through your trust fund, and frankly, if we aren't careful, you are going to be blamed."

She sighed. "I'm not some ditzy woman who can't put in a password. I'm a SHIELD agent. Skye Johnson. And I might know a bit about computers. It would be better to have this discussion where we have privacy."

Jax Miller has posed:
It's a curious succession of expressions that chases across Jax's face. First the sudden perking of ears, a sign of surprised interest, although the smile remains. But as words continue to come, the ears slowly, by degrees, lower themselves and swivel until they lay flat against his head. Then, by degrees, the smile goes from open and friendly, to just goofy, along strained jollity, and then finally subsides into an expression cat owners known so well... baffled incomprehension.

"Wha...?" If any further proof of his innocence in this matter is needed, the expression should say it all. This is one cat that does not know where it's at.

"But... I mean... it's... you are... does that..." Thoughts. Arrange. Focus. Focus! Oooh, falling leaf outsi- FOCUS! "How much trouble?"