p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Deep down, Alec knew he was a good person. He knew that, when he was given the opportunity, he would always choose to help people as opposed to not./p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"None of Alec's mindset prepared him for Hardison's story. It was amazing, absolutely astonishing, to see what Hardison and his team had done. Admittedly, the whole "wrong acts, right reasons" mindset was flawed somehow, but Alec couldn't figure out how it was flawed, so he didn't worry about it too much. When he asked Hardison about it, his commentary made Alec's jaw drop./p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I had never worried about it, before Nate. He took four good, honest criminals and gave us a conscience! I should really be more offended than I am." Hardison crossed his arms, but a smile crept on his face. "Still, we did some pretty sweet stuff. You know, one of my fake I.D's for Parker actually got jury duty?"/p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""You're kidding!" Alec gasped./p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Nah, it was completely real. And we discovered that there is in fact a conspiracy lurking behind every routine government operation."/p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Alec shook his head. "Someone was pulling the strings in a court case that Parker's alias just happened to be assigned to? I don't buy it."/p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Hardison smirked. "You want to check it out? Oh, by the way, I'm also a well qualified lawyer." He scratched his head and looked away. "Completely unrelated, of course."/p
hr style="margin: 0.875em auto 1.2525em; border-style: solid; width: 359.234375px; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.444320678710938px; background-color: #ffffff;" /
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"br /span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"It was a real eye opener, when he overheard his stepdad's animated speeches. He actually found himself nodding along, agreeing with some of the things he said. With some of the things Hardison said./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Alec found himself researching Nathan Ford, Sophie Devereaux, Parker, and Eliot Spencer. They were all a force in their own right, but as a functioning unit, they were unstoppable. It made Alec long for a team of his own./p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"He spent his idle evenings helping Hardison with the coms, and reviewing their old marks, matching up the heists to the resulting change in different corporations./p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""... And I realized, really what you need to do is take out a lynchpin of corruption, like that lady from the court case. Anyway once that's out, the system runs itself as designed. Honestly." He relayed to Hardison, shaking his head at the simplicity./p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Hardison nodded, like Alec coming to that conclusion was his intent the whole time. (Alec knew better, though. There was a reason Nathan Ford was the mastermind.)/p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"When Alec had finally researched just about everything "Leverage Incorporated" he could find - including the extensive FBI and INTERPOL files, a month had passed. While he did occasionally sit in on his stepdad's meetings, he spent most of his time experimenting and inventing in the barn. He had recently been toying with creating fake identities; it hadn't been a priority before, but if Hardison's experiences were anything to go by, they could come in very convenient in the future./p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"One day, he finally caved and purchased a better webcam and a Raspberry Pi computer to run his Alecs program - he decided that their video chat system needed a name, and he wasn't overly original at making them./p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The plan was that the system to Hardison was completely separate from his other systems, and although Alec trusted the older man, but a hacker was a hacker. He probably wouldn't trust himself if he was face to face with his clone./p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Alec had finished the Raspberry Pi set up and was working on adjusting the frequency when something broke through his firewalls./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;""Central? This is Cameron. I need back up."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"None of Alec's mindset prepared him for Hardison's story. It was amazing, absolutely astonishing, to see what Hardison and his team had done. Admittedly, the whole "wrong acts, right reasons" mindset was flawed somehow, but Alec couldn't figure out how it was flawed, so he didn't worry about it too much. When he asked Hardison about it, his commentary made Alec's jaw drop./p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""I had never worried about it, before Nate. He took four good, honest criminals and gave us a conscience! I should really be more offended than I am." Hardison crossed his arms, but a smile crept on his face. "Still, we did some pretty sweet stuff. You know, one of my fake I.D's for Parker actually got jury duty?"/p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""You're kidding!" Alec gasped./p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Nah, it was completely real. And we discovered that there is in fact a conspiracy lurking behind every routine government operation."/p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Alec shook his head. "Someone was pulling the strings in a court case that Parker's alias just happened to be assigned to? I don't buy it."/p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Hardison smirked. "You want to check it out? Oh, by the way, I'm also a well qualified lawyer." He scratched his head and looked away. "Completely unrelated, of course."/p
hr style="margin: 0.875em auto 1.2525em; border-style: solid; width: 359.234375px; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.444320678710938px; background-color: #ffffff;" /
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"br /span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"It was a real eye opener, when he overheard his stepdad's animated speeches. He actually found himself nodding along, agreeing with some of the things he said. With some of the things Hardison said./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Alec found himself researching Nathan Ford, Sophie Devereaux, Parker, and Eliot Spencer. They were all a force in their own right, but as a functioning unit, they were unstoppable. It made Alec long for a team of his own./p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"He spent his idle evenings helping Hardison with the coms, and reviewing their old marks, matching up the heists to the resulting change in different corporations./p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""... And I realized, really what you need to do is take out a lynchpin of corruption, like that lady from the court case. Anyway once that's out, the system runs itself as designed. Honestly." He relayed to Hardison, shaking his head at the simplicity./p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Hardison nodded, like Alec coming to that conclusion was his intent the whole time. (Alec knew better, though. There was a reason Nathan Ford was the mastermind.)/p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"When Alec had finally researched just about everything "Leverage Incorporated" he could find - including the extensive FBI and INTERPOL files, a month had passed. While he did occasionally sit in on his stepdad's meetings, he spent most of his time experimenting and inventing in the barn. He had recently been toying with creating fake identities; it hadn't been a priority before, but if Hardison's experiences were anything to go by, they could come in very convenient in the future./p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"One day, he finally caved and purchased a better webcam and a Raspberry Pi computer to run his Alecs program - he decided that their video chat system needed a name, and he wasn't overly original at making them./p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The plan was that the system to Hardison was completely separate from his other systems, and although Alec trusted the older man, but a hacker was a hacker. He probably wouldn't trust himself if he was face to face with his clone./p
p dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Alec had finished the Raspberry Pi set up and was working on adjusting the frequency when something broke through his firewalls./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;""Central? This is Cameron. I need back up."/span/p