《Good Enough》 Shark Tank I never considered myself a bad guy. Sure, I was a thief, but I never robbed anyone with a gun. I didn¡¯t tell people I was a Nigerian prince, and I didn¡¯t manipulate seniors into stealing their life savings. I almost never hurt anyone who I didn¡¯t think deserved it. Then again, I was no hero either. I made fake IDs for high school and college students. I scammed entitled rich people by promising not to share information about their affairs with their wives, husbands, or lovers. I electronically redirected shipments of high-end perfume and sold them to gray-market street resellers. I read once that the average low-level drug dealer would make a better hourly wage at McDonalds. Before any craziness started, many of my scams felt like that: a lot of work for little reward. I wanted a real payday; I wanted a game changer. While I paid the rent with my scams and hacks, most of my time was spent looking for bigger fish. So when I got lucky with a spear-phishing attack on a balding, 46-year-old tax attorney, I was sure it was the win I was looking for. After wading through his personal emails, his collection of foot-fetish porn, and thousands of illegally downloaded harem anime videos; I found a set of poorly-encrypted access codes to his law firm¡¯s accounting system. That¡¯s when things started getting juicy. Bertrand, Levin and Hoyle was a very naughty company. 95% of its business came from sketchy-looking international clients, and it was clear their real specialty was money laundering. They were a full-service crime syndicate support operation. Not just the obvious crypto-investing, shell corporation juggling, and cash-business transfer stuff. They were doing large transactions with banks in Bahrain, Ghana, Yemen, and a bunch of FATF greylist nations, the kind of money you might use to pay for an illegal arms shipment or to buy a hit on a rival cartel head. Granted, my entire experience with international finance at that point was building a European theme park in Rollercoaster Tycoon, but to me, it seemed pretty obvious they were a company I wouldn¡¯t mind stealing from. The best part was the way they did some of the transfers. Each morning, they had an automated transfer agent that would open up and simulate a set of people sending lots of medium-sized transactions. They were small enough to avoid notice, but collectively, they were over a hundred thousand dollars every single day. It was so easy to hijack I couldn¡¯t believe it. I didn¡¯t have to compromise the banking code, just the database listing the transfer account numbers. I waited until the program was ready to run, changed the bank routing information to send the money to my own accounts, and watched it do its thing. 30 minutes later I had eighty grand spread across 30 different bank accounts. Of course, I knew they would figure it out, but by the time they did, that eighty-thousand would be long gone. I reset the account numbers and hid my tracks. A smart hacker would have stopped right then. They would know that the pissed-off recipients would wonder where their money was and start an investigation. A smart hacker would have left some very quiet, hard-to-find back doors and not gone back for months. Take the win and try again at some future date. I was not a smart hacker. I was a greedy hacker. So, the next day, I rented a car using one of my fake IDs, drove it to a Starbucks, connected to their free Wi-Fi, and sat outside waiting for my next big payday. It took me five minutes to work through a series of hops into the accounting servers. It took another ten to overwrite the transfer codes, and then it was just a waiting game¡ªwaiting for the money to roll in. I felt giddy and confident as I sat in the car, watching for signs the system had started the transfers. The whole thing would take less than an hour. Could anyone really backtrace the IP to that specific Starbucks and make it there before I was long gone? Not a chance. These guys were lawyers, not some FBI anti-hacking task force. They could investigate and try to figure out who was at the Starbucks at 9:25 AM, but I was parked across the street in a mostly anonymous car. I had on a baseball cap and sunglasses. Even if they found some surveillance camera image and got a license off the car, there was nothing to trace it back to me. Honestly, it was genius. As I waited for the transfers to complete, the weirdest, most overwhelming sense of dread washed over me. If you¡¯ve ever seen something in the dark that triggered your fear response, you know the feeling. That open-up-your-eyes, tingles-over-your-whole-body sense of utter dread. Your adrenaline spikes, making your heart race and your palms sweat. I felt that intense emotional response, but it was combined with something else. Something far more specific. Somehow, I knew with absolute certainty that there was a man about to pull up who was coming to kill me. My logical mind rejected all this. I told myself it was crazy that I was panicking for no reason. As I tried to calm myself down, I spotted a blue late nineties Nissan with dark tinted windows. After the driver stepped out, my brain shouted at me: ¡°Look at that guy. He¡¯s the one. He¡¯s going to shoot you.¡± I felt like I was going insane. He was not especially big, not especially scary looking, not especially anything. He was wearing khaki pants, a gray henley three-button shirt, and a black Nike jogging jacket; just a normal late-thirties white dude who wanted his morning Caramel Macchiato. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. My mind kept screaming: ¡°That man will kill you.¡± I tried to ignore it, but then I saw something that made my heart skip a beat. His jacket pulled up as he opened the door to the Starbucks, and, right at the small of his back, was a black gun in a holster. It wasn¡¯t some monster gun, but it was plenty big enough to put a hole in my skull. He immediately pulled his jacket back down and headed in. At this point, the panic mostly won. I restarted the app to run without intervention, closed the laptop 90% of the way, hid it under the passenger seat, and abandoned the car. As soon as I was out of the car, I turned and walked directly away from the Starbucks. I kept my pace slow and measured, trying to look like I was just out for a stroll, but my mind still screamed at me to hide. My fear had won, so I let myself listen to whatever my lizard brain wanted me to do. I ducked into the next business I saw. I didn¡¯t care what it was. It could have been a nail spa for all I cared. I just had to get out of sight, and it didn¡¯t matter where. The room I walked into had a large desk, and the whole place was decorated with a light blue aquatic theme. There was a very bored young woman sitting behind the desk. She was tall, good-looking, and in her late teens or early twenties, with rich, ebony skin. Her hair was in tight box braids and pinned up in a high bun. She glanced at me, sizing me up, her eyes friendly and inquisitive. I felt stupid wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap on a cloudy fall day in Seattle. ¡°Do you have an appointment for a float,¡± she asked. My mind floundered, trying to figure out what in the hell this place was. I saw pictures of what looked like hot tubs and supermodels relaxing. I had no idea what these guys sold. Not wanting to stay silent as I worked through it, I bluffed, ¡°I was just wondering, what¡¯s it cost?¡± ¡°Well, we have memberships, but for walk-ins, we have a one-time trial float package for just sixty-five dollars. It lets you have a sixty-minute session.¡± Sixty-five dollars, I thought. Well, it''s definitely not a cruise. I looked around and started to put things together. Some kind of spa or relaxation treatment. There were guys in some of the brochure shots, so it wasn¡¯t completely weird for me to be there. I took off my sunglasses and hat and looked her in the eye. ¡°Could I try it out now? I have some time to kill.¡± She smiled up at me. ¡°Sure, we have some float pods available right now. Actually, none of them are in use.¡± I got out my wallet and started to give her my credit card but thought better of it and handed her cash instead. My panic was rising again. I felt like doom was walking up, and when he found me, he would take out his gun and send my brains in a mist of gore all over this pretty young woman. I looked around, terror ringing like an alarm in my brain, and then I spotted a blue and white sign with the words ¡°ALL GENDER RESTROOM.¡± ¡°One second,¡± I said as I walked briskly into the bathroom. The moment I was in the restroom, the panic alarm inside me receded from a blaring truck horn to something more akin to a cell phone on vibrate. I waited, and as I did my panic kept receding until it was nothing more than a mild tickle at the back of my neck. I flushed the toilet, washed my hands, and went back out. When I left the restroom, the attendant was waiting for me, a form ready on the desk for me to fill out. I just filled in a bunch of made-up personal information. As I did, I finally figured out what this place did. Right at the bottom was a long section about ¡°Sensory Deprivation Do¡¯s and Don¡¯ts.¡± She looked up at me and gestured with an open hand towards a hallway, ¡°Right this way mister... Gladwell.¡± My mind tripped over the ¡°mister¡± part, and it took me a second to recognize the alias I had given her: ¡°I go by Trey.¡± ¡°Luanda,¡± she said, giving me a crooked smile and an exaggerated flourish toward her name tag. She started to lead me back into the building. ¡°Is this your first time in a sensory deprivation tank?¡± she asked as she walked me back. ¡°Yes, I heard about it on Rogan and thought I¡¯d give it a go.¡± She laughed, ¡°Yes, we get that a lot. Just relax and let your mind wander. When your time is up, a light will come on inside to let you know to get out, but if you get freaked out or anything, just open the door.¡± She gave me the lowdown as we headed back, and right before she turned to go, an idea struck me. I grabbed her arm gently and said, ¡°So, I have a really weird request.¡± Luanda tilted her head to the side, ¡°what¡¯s that?¡± ¡°If anyone comes around looking for me. Can you pretend I¡¯m not here?¡± She narrowed one eye and looked at me sideways, ¡°Why? Are you in some kind of trouble or something?¡± ¡°No, I just, ¡° I paused, thinking about what to say. Well, kind of. Maybe a little, but please, can you just do that? I really don¡¯t want anyone to know I¡¯m here.¡± ¡°Look, I¡¯m not gonna lie to the cops for you or something.¡± Her California accent flattened as she took an unconscious backward step. ¡°No¡­ No, it¡¯s not like that. It¡¯s this guy. He¡¯s wearing a black Nike jacket. He¡¯s got it in his head that I¡¯ve been hitting on his girlfriend. He saw me by the Starbucks where she works, and I am pretty sure he is looking for me. I kinda hid in here.¡± She nodded, but her eyes shone with skepticism, and she wrinkled her nose as though smelling something unpleasant. ¡°Look, if a guy like that comes in, I¡¯ll pretend you aren¡¯t here, but if the police show up, forget it.¡± ¡°Thanks. You''re a lifesaver.¡± Deadly Daydreams I thought about not even getting in, just waiting in the room for the whole hour, then leaving, grabbing my laptop from the car, and hurrying back to my apartment. But I¡¯d already paid my sixty-five bucks, so what the fuck, may as well give it a try. I got undressed, showered in the attached shower, and slid into the warm, thick water, feeling the strange sensation of¡­ no sensations. When I closed the lid and relaxed, there tiniest moment of panic. It¡¯s hard to describe the feeling of ¡°nothing.¡± It¡¯s not like being in your room when you go to bed. The blackness, the quiet, and the complete lack of¡ªwell, almost any feeling at all¡ªwas strange and disorienting. I let my mind drift, and after what seemed like no time at all, the light came on. But something wasn¡¯t right. I knew I hadn¡¯t been in for more than two minutes, yet the light was on, which meant my hour was up. I thought, ¡°I must have fallen asleep. Oh well, at least I got a nice nap.¡± I opened the pod and got dressed, and as I did, I experienced the strangest sensation. It felt like I wasn¡¯t really present, as if my body didn¡¯t truly belong to me. I reassured myself, ¡°It¡¯s just an after-effect of being in the deprivation tank for so long. It will wear off soon.¡± I told myself those things, but a deeper, more instinctive part of my brain was telling me, ¡°You¡¯re insane. You¡¯ve lost your mind.¡± It was a genuine fear, dark and personal, and I shut it down. Stomped on it like an ant, and I focused on getting dressed. When I returned to the lobby, Luanda greeted me with a warm, wide smile. ¡°How was it? Did you like it?¡± Her voice sounded far away, surreal. When I smiled back at her, I felt like I was looking through her¡ªas if she wasn¡¯t Luanda, not a real person at all. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°It was nice, but I fell asleep,¡± I said. My voice felt distant and detached, and I began to wonder if there was some kind of hallucinogen in the water. She made an exaggerated frown and replied, ¡°Oh. I¡¯m sorry. That happens sometimes.¡± But then her expression hardened, her brow furrowed as she added, ¡°Hey, that guy you mentioned came by. He had a picture of you, and he asked if I¡¯d seen you. I said I didn¡¯t. He seemed super sus.¡± My stomach twisted with anxiety. How could they have a picture of me so quickly? I nodded, forcing a smile and giving her a thumbs-up. ¡°Thanks, Luanda. You did me a solid. I totally owe you.¡± I stepped outside and looked at the car I had rented. Thankfully, it was still there. I hoped no one had found the laptop inside. After looking around and confirming that no one was nearby, I approached the car and opened the door. Just as I was about to get in, I suddenly heard a loud crack and saw a flash from the window of a car parked about a block away. My mind raced. Someone was shooting at me. I turned and tried to run, but my body felt weird, disconnected, and slow. I looked down, and there was a body on the sidewalk next to the car door, blood streaming from his head. A man. No, not just any man. My heart leaped. It was me. That was me lying dead on the sidewalk. Time seemed to slow as my mind struggled to comprehend the utter disconnect of what I was seeing. Suddenly, I felt a strange pull, everything went black, and I felt thick, warm water sloshing around me. It dawned on me that I was still in the tank¡ªstill in the sensory deprivation tank. I reached up and pushed the lid open. My heart was pounding, but everything felt normal again. The room was bright, and I was still alive. It had all been some kind of nightmare or hallucination; none of it was real. I took a deep breath and then another, slowly allowing my heart rate to come back down. Second Thoughts I lay in the tank with the door open, allowing my pulse to slow. "What is happening to me?" I wondered. I breathed slowly and deeply, letting the fear dissipate. I focused on each breath, trying to calm my racing thoughts. Part of me wanted to get up and leave, but the panic returned every time I tried to rise. After about five minutes of struggling with myself, I decided to close the tank, try to relax, and use up the rest of my hour. I shut the lid, immersed myself in the dark silence, and allowed the tension and fear to wash away. Seemingly moments later, the light turned on. I opened the pod door and looked around, experiencing the same sense of oddness and discontinuity I had before. I examined the room outside the pod. It looked the same. I pulled myself out of the pod and dried myself with a towel. I felt the soft terry cloth against my skin. I smelled the salt of the tank. I heard the hum of the lights. All my senses worked; they had the texture of reality, yet somehow, my brain registered it as unreal. It wasn¡¯t like any dream; this was fully lucid. I felt like I was myself, and I was in control. The world looked and felt and acted like the real world, but somehow it wasn¡¯t. I didn¡¯t bother to shower; I just dressed and made my way back to the lobby. My focus was intense as I struggled to scratch the itch in my brain telling me things were wrong. As I entered the lobby, Luanda turned to me, and I saw what looked like afterimages¡ªfaint, ghost-like versions of her, all moving slightly out of sync. As the main Luanda spoke, the afterimages resolved, but the sense of unreality lingered. Luanda smiled and asked, ¡°How was it? Did you like it?¡± I kept looking at her, examining her thick, dark lips as she spoke, seeing the same wispy afterimages but less clearly. I studied her hair and dark eyes, watching as the creases of her thin white blouse shifted with her movements. The afterimages were everywhere I looked, sometimes nearly imperceptible. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. She gave me a weapons-grade glare, and I realized I had been staring at her for a good fifteen seconds. Her voice, a bit sharper and higher in pitch, broke the silence. ¡°Please, take in the wonder that is Luanda. I¡¯m here for your viewing pleasure,¡± she said sarcastically. As she spoke, her hand quietly slid into a large woven purse on the counter. I felt my cheeks flush, and I raised my hand to cover my face in embarrassment. ¡°Oh my god, I¡¯m so sorry.¡± I looked down, almost flinching. ¡°I don¡¯t know what it is. Somehow, everything looks weird since I got out of the pod. Is that normal?¡± She shook her head and said, ¡°No, it¡¯s not normal. If you don¡¯t want people thinking you¡¯re hitting on their girlfriends, you might want to stop leering at them. That guy you mentioned came by, and I brushed him off. Now I¡¯m starting to wonder if I should have.¡± ¡°When was he here?¡± I asked. ¡°I don¡¯t know; it was just a few minutes after you came in. He even had a photo of you. Are you some kind of creeper? Was that guy a private detective or something?¡± ¡°I honestly don¡¯t know who he is,¡± I said, turning around and heading towards the door. In that instant, I felt like whatever happened next would be better than the embarrassment of facing Luanda. ¡°You might want to stay low for a minute,¡± I added over my shoulder. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure when I go out there, he¡¯s going to put a bullet through me again.¡± With that, I opened the door and stepped outside. Looking across the street, I saw the blue Nissan parked less than a block away. The front left window was rolled down, exposing what looked like the barrel of a rifle. Suddenly, there was a flash and a loud bang, and the window rolled back up again. I glanced around and saw a shattered window behind me. Inside, Luanda crouched low behind the counter, her hand in her purse, drawing out a tiny handgun. Then I felt a pull and looked down to see my dead body lying on the concrete, my blood spreading around me. The pull grew stronger, and then it was dark again, and I knew I was back in the tank. Third Times a Charm Seeing myself die for the second time didn¡¯t have the same emotional impact as the first, but it was still jarring. I didn¡¯t bother to open the tank; instead, I focused on trying to relax, curious to see if the same strange sequence of events would unfold again. I slowed my breathing, but a throb in my temples distracted me. Ignoring the mild headache, it wasn¡¯t long before the light came on, and I found myself back in the unreality. When I entered the lobby, Luanda greeted me just as she had before: ¡°How was it? Did you like it?¡± The words felt familiar now, and the tone remained unchanged from the previous two times she had said them. I gave a half smile and replied, ¡°It was fine, but I kept having these weird hallucinations. Is that normal?¡± Luanda shrugged, ¡°people have all kinds of reactions. Personally, no one has told me about hallucinations, but I suppose it¡¯s possible. I¡¯ve had some people tell me they felt like they were flying. Was it something like that?¡± ¡°No, nothing like that,¡± I replied, shaking my head. ¡°I kept imagining I was waking up and coming back in here. Then, when I leave, that guy I was telling you about shoots me, and I wake up back in the pod. It¡¯s like a Groundhog Day kind of thing.¡± Her thick eyebrows rose as I spoke. ¡°Damn, that¡¯s wild. It sounds like that guy has you super freaked out. He came in with a picture of you just a little bit ago. Is something going on? I know you said he was just being jealous, but that seems pretty sketch to me. Random jealous guys don¡¯t walk around with driver''s license photos.¡± Since this felt like yet another hallucination, I decided to tell her something closer to the truth and not worry about the consequences. ¡°Yes, sorry, that was bullshit. I stole a bunch of money, and I guess they''re pretty salty because they sent that John Wick wannabe after me. I came in here to hide.¡± ¡°What the fuck,¡± she said, her hand going to her purse. I noticed her slight California accent had faded, and her tone had a knife-like clarity, punctuating each word. ¡°I don¡¯t want any part of that shit; just clear the fuck out.¡± As she spoke, a ghostly image of her step back, drawing a gun smoothly and aiming it at me in what looked like a practiced stance. I paused for a moment, watching as the image faded and disappeared. ¡°Look,¡± I said, raising my hands apologetically. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to drop any of this on you. I just wanted to know if there was another way out of here, maybe an employee entrance.¡± She shook her head. ¡°There¡¯s a fire exit in the back, but the door is alarmed. Just take your bullshit problems and go.¡± I glanced down the hall, past the rooms with the pods, and spotted the clearly marked fire exit with a push bar. I hurried towards it, but she called after me, ¡°Don¡¯t go out that way; it will set off the alarm!¡± I ignored her and pushed open the door, stepping outside. The bright light hit me, making me squint for a second. As my eyes adjusted, I heard feet pounding to my left. I turned to see a muscular white guy with tightly cropped hair running directly toward me. I tried to run, but he had too much momentum. Before I could take two steps, he tackled me, landing heavily on top of me. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. As I hit the ground, my face slammed into the asphalt, and pain exploded in my head. I tasted the salty, metallic flavor of blood in my mouth, and I felt my arms being yanked hard behind my back. I heard the zip of plastic ties and felt them cutting painfully into my wrists. Off to the side, the door alarm bleated angrily, complaining about being opened. His hands patted up and down my sides, my back, my legs. Strong fingers gripped my right arm around the bicep, and he flipped me over as if I weighed nothing. On my back, with my hands painfully crushed under me against the rough blacktop, I got my first detailed look at the man who had tackled me. His eyes were dark, and his skin was tanned. His hair was extremely short, giving him a vaguely military appearance. His body was trim, with thick biceps and a general muscular build¡ªnot the thick-necked, steroid-fueled type, but the kind of solid physique you might expect from a rock climber or gymnast.. He pressed one knee firmly against my chest, causing the pain in my wrists to intensify as the added weight pressed them harder into the pavement. The other leg bent at a 90-degree angle, and he leaned back, straightening his posture. He reached into the pocket of his brown khaki pants and pulled out a small, old-school flip phone, quickly dialing a number. After a moment, he spoke in an unexpectedly high-pitched voice. ¡°Yes, you were right; he was in one of the shops. I caught him trying to sneak out the back.¡± He paused briefly before adding, ¡°But hurry; he set off the door alarm, and we¡¯re going to attract attention.¡± I lifted my head, looked up at him, and asked, ¡°Hey, can you ease up off my chest with your knee? I can¡¯t breathe, and my hands are getting crushed .¡± The look in his eye made it clear he wasn¡¯t interested in what I wanted. He bent over, placed a hand on my forehead, and pushed the back of my head hard into the asphalt. The pain was quick and sharp, making my vision swim for an instant, and I heard him say in a measured tone, ¡°Look, just keep quiet unless we tell you to talk. You¡¯re in a lot of trouble, computer boy. Don¡¯t make it harder on yourself.¡± His tone wasn¡¯t angry, just matter-of-fact with a barely hidden hint of glee. I kept my eyes closed and remained silent. I told myself, ¡°It¡¯s okay. None of this is real; you¡¯ll be back in the tank soon.¡± Yet, despite that sense of detachment, the pain still felt very real. I wondered how long it would be before I woke up again. Then a thought came to me that made my heart race, ¡°Fuck, do I need to die to wake back up? Will I wake up when my time is up and Luanda comes and opens the tank?¡± Either scenario was terrible. It was pretty clear nothing good was about to happen, and I wanted no part of what seemed to be coming next. At that moment, I decided to try to wake up. I shook my head slightly and thought, ¡°Okay, wake up now,¡± but nothing happened. I tried relaxing, even though it was difficult with someone¡¯s knee on my chest, but I couldn''t manage to slow my breathing. I heard a car pull up just a foot or two away from my head, and the linebacker guy lifted me to my feet. I opened my eyes and saw the door of the blue Nissan swing open. I was pushed into the back seat, hitting my head on the door as I went in, which made my vision swim again. The door closed next to me, and the linebacker sat down beside me on the other side. In the front seat sat the man in the Nike jogging suit, looking back at me with a detached interest. I realized now that he was older than I''d initially thought¡ªprobably in his mid to late forties. His brown hair showed traces of gray, but his gaze had the intensity of a serious father trying to figure out how to deal with a son who had just broken a window. I noticed the back end of a short-barreled rifle protruding from the passenger seat. It looked different from what I was accustomed to seeing in movies. I didn''t know it at the time, but it was a bullpup style¡ªdesigned to be compact enough for easy maneuvering within the confines of the Nissan, yet long enough to ensure accuracy. The car smelled like some kind of oil and body odor, but underlying it was the smell of my own blood that was dripping down my face from a cut I must have gotten when my head was slammed into the ground. The linebacker forced his forearm under my neck and roughly pushed me back into my seat as the car accelerated. Then, he reached across me and fastened my seatbelt. Watching us pull away, I couldn''t help but think that this was much worse than getting shot.