The Commission

Chapter 1

Irena was really having a bad day. She woke up at 4:30 to a freezing cold bedroom, her neighbors already in the middle of shouting match. At work, the “Boss” was cranky all morning. Screaming at his officers, irritated at the slightest things. The best thing to do was to stay out of his way and clean.

Irena had been working with her current employer for over two years now. The lady in charge told them to always mind their own business and complete their tasks as quickly and efficiently as possible. Cleaning the house and keeping the garden alive and well was easy enough, but she took pride in her tasks, and the house was notably always clean and inviting, the garden impeccable, an ode to the green thumb Irena had. So, not only was she minding her own business, as the lady in charge asked, but she was doing her job and getting paid well enough for it.

All the workers knew they worked for someone with power, so they all tended to take extra care. Generally speaking, everyone understood the Boss to be a restauranteur, nothing more. Rich people like things their own way. And he would become irate at the most insignificant things, but the staff were quick to fix their mistakes, and things moved on.

The last cook was keen to make a quick penny on the side. He started with the little things at first, some antique pieces of silverware, silk napkins here and there. And then he became bolder, taking some of the smaller cooking devices that weren’t commonly used like the copper baking molds in his bag. And finally, he took an expensive paring knife. Something small, to be sure, but an heirloom, with a nice bone handle. And that’s when the lady in charge noticed. She called him into her office immediately after noticing the missing item. Irena could hear him pleading with her as she cleaned the kitchen floor. He whined about needing money on the side, sounding increasingly absurd and pathetic in his stories, and then silence. The lady in charge murmured something softly, and then screaming. Loud, and high pitched, the kind to really send your blood curdling. Irina ran to the next room, not wanting to be within line of site when the cook came out of the office. She heard the door slam and saw two officers taking him out the back door, each taking an arm and roughly pushing him through the door, grabbing his bag along the way. She heard one say to him, “We don’t ever want to hear, or see from you again. Count this as a lesson. You got yours fair and square. Losing a thumb just means you can’t be taking what isn’t yours no more. We would hate to see something worse happen.” She could see the cook leaving with his bag clutched to his chest. Irina took a deep breath, walked back out and resumed mopping the floors. The lady of the house sat at the kitchen counter, coldly holding her phone and replying to messages, not looking once at Irena. From that day forth, Irena took extra care to keep to herself, complete her tasks, and leave when her work was done. The last cook was a warning message to the rest of the house and Irena took care to head the warning.

She planned to leave in a month’s time. The job was good, but the lady in the house had crossed a line, and Irena understood that she worked for more than just a wealthy restaurateur. She would get out just fine, being a good employee. There would be no warm goodbye’s when she left, but she knew that she would be fine to quietly leave the employment.

Chapter 2

Rebecca did not want to show up to work with Irena today. Sure, her cousin was her closest friend, but after a late night of work herself, the last thing she wanted to do was show up to her cousin’s house early to help her grab her things from her workplace. But she did, as her cousin had taken to cooking for her more recently and she figured this was a good way to return the favor.

They came together into the entry way. Irena told her to wait there as she went to go grab her two bags of cleaning supplies and extra rags. The dwelling was huge, and Rebecca could only imagine what the employer did for a living. Irena had already packed her things; she just needed the extra hand. Irena appeared with two huge duffle bags, one on her back like a backpack, the other she was dragging behind her. She brought them to the front door and went back to grab her last paycheck. Rebecca grabbed the one off the floor and turned to follow Irena out of the house. As she bent down to pick up the bag, she noticed a small old notebook on the floor. Thinking nothing of it, she tucked it into her pocket, thinking it had fallen out of one of the side pockets on the duffel bag. Rebecca knew Irena liked to mark the progress for her garden in notebooks in order to better plan for future gardening.

Back at her apartment, Rebecca helped Irena bring her bags indoors. Neither had much planned for the day, but both recognized the other looking tired, and so Rebecca returned home.

Chapter 3

After getting home and eating a can of soup, Rebecca felt something in her pocket and realized she had kept the black notebook from earlier in the morning. Feeling stupid for having taken it with her, Rebecca set it on the counter and kept drinking her soup before settling down for a nap.

Chapter 4

The nap was enough to charge Rebecca up for the rest of the afternoon. As she sat down on the counter again, she noticed the black moleskin notebook she picked up earlier off the floor. ‘Irena is going to kill me,’ she thought. Irena was probably worried about money now that she quit her job, and one of the few things that really helped her relax was gardening and her plants.

Rebecca figured she would return it later. In the meantime, nosy Rebecca figured she would pick up a few plant tips from her cousin while she snacked.

Chapter 5

The Boss was furious. His Captain lost the key and he had a meeting with the Commission in two days. There would be hell to pay, sure, but for now, he sent his Captain out to find the key no matter what. Nobody would sleep or eat comfortably until someone found the key.

Chapter 6

Rebecca flipped open the black book and was surprised to find nothing in it. Just the grid squares prints on the paper. The entire notebook was empty. ‘That’s odd,’ she thought. Was this one of Irena’s new notebooks? Was it even one of Irena’s notebooks? Irena hadn’t called her since this morning, but that wasn’t surprising. Both women were pretty tired. And it’s not like Irena had any secrets in her gardening notebook; Rebecca was just going to drop it off in a day or two.

She flipped through it again, looking for a name in the beginning or something written in the pages to give her a clue. Again, nothing. Finally she noticed that on the back cover there is a flap. Sticking her fingers in the flap, she pulled out a tiny piece of paper. On the scrap of paper was XY 16445 18267. What was this? Honestly, it could have been trash the way it was written and squirreled away in the notebook. After a quick search on the internet, Rebecca realized it was a grid for a map. A little more research showed that the exact grid was only thirty minutes away. Thinking that there was nothing else to do for the afternoon, Rebecca jumped in her car, entered the grid into her GPS and started on her way.

Chapter 7

The lady in charge was calmly reviewing the house footage. Not one for hysteria, as soon as the Boss informed everyone that the key was missing, she moved to her office and started reviewing footage. There was only one camera in the house and it was pointed at the front door.

After two hours of reviewing the footage, the lady in charge noticed the cleaning lady gathering her things with another woman. There didn’t seem to be anything unordinary about their presence, but something caught the corner of her eye as the cleaning lady went back to grab a second bag. She reviewed the footage more slowly and in one of the frames saw the key.

Chapter 8

There was a moderate amount of people at the park. Some two running couples ran past her car as she parked. She could see a children’s playground almost thirty meters away. This was exciting. Maybe it was a social project? Strangers leave books or notes in certain locations and the next stranger who picks it up must find a new spot to leave a book or notes. Yeah, that was probably it. And she was down to have some fun.

Rebecca noticed a bench out in the middle of the pathway. It seemed to be where the GPS on her phone was leading her to. The wooden bench was empty and uninteresting. She checked behind the seat and the ground around the seat. Nothing. Feeling deflated, she took a seat and planned for a cup of coffee at a local coffee shop as a consolation prize. She leaned back in her seat and put her hands down on the bench. As her fingers curled between the crevices in the wood, she noticed a small wad of tape attached to the underside of the bench. Leaning over to take a look, she grabbed the wad of tape and unwrapped it. This must be it! But when she ripped it open, it was just a USB. Again, she felt a little deflated. This could be anything. Some sort of computer virus, unsolicited pictures, anything really. The possibilities were endless. Anyway, it was a fun trip.

Rebecca was already on her way home when she drove past the library. “You know what, let me just check it out,” she thought out loud. Making a U-turn, she turned into the library parking lot. Inside, she picked a computer located in the back of the room. If there was something rotten on the USB, she didn’t want to cause a scene if somebody saw it.

When she plugged her USB into the computer there was only one folder labeled “Private Key”. Feeling a little nervous about it, Rebecca opened up the folder, fully expecting to find someone’s dirty photos. Instead, it opened up the notepad app and there was one line of 31 characters.

Chapter 8

Rebecca searched, “Private Key,” and, “31 characters”. “Bitcoin,” and, “Blockchain.com,” and, “Bitcoin,” kept popping up. What was this? She quickly looked it up. There was a login option, and she tried her 31 characters. To her delight, she was able to log on. 26.98 Bitcoin. What did that mean? She looked up bitcoin and it was valued at 45937 USD. Rebecca was now a millionaire.

Prologue

Rebecca called Irena and the two women immediately packed their bags and booked a flight out of the country. They would start off somewhere in Canada while things cooled down, and then head to some warm European country to settle down. If they played it right, they would be set for life.

Breaking news showed that the Boss had been “schwacked”. The news speculated that the Boss lost a large some of money due to the Commission. Rebecca and Irena were in the clear.