Brainwashed Thieves and Third Favorite Necklaces

Hub is Elizabeth Bartley's campaign set in the universe of James Schmidt's Hub stories. Players for the session included:

1. Joshua Kronengold -- Jealousy Jones, psi resistant detective

2. Lisa Padol -- Marius Lecks, empathic doctor

Marius was attending a medical conference at a resort, while Jealousy was enjoying herself on a nearby beach. She caught a thief trying to steal her stuff.

A few of the guests at the resort had already been robbed, including an NPC whom we dubbed Ms. Rich Bitch. She hired Jealousy at twice Jealousy's normal rates to recover her third favorite necklace.

It turned out that the rash of thefts was occurring because of an odd combination of penal laws and a corporate takeover. The penal laws involved brainwashing criminals to be loyal to a new employer. Many such criminals were hired by a security corporation. This corporation fell prey to another.

Now, the former criminals had been brainwashed to be loyal to the old regime, not the new. Possibly at the orders of the old regime, possibly on their own initiative, they were committing crimes to hurt the new corporation, hoping to drop the price of stock so that the old owners could buy the old corporation back. This didn't address the issue of how the damage done would continue to hurt the old corporation even if the rest of the scheme had worked.

Ms. Rich Bitch (pronounced "Miz REESHbeesh") was nowhere near as air headed as she liked people to believe. Jealousy was not legally permitted to make a profit on the stock market from what she'd found out, nor could she tell Ms. Rich Bitch everything. Ms. Rich Bitch was able to put the missing pieces together, however, and she sold short / bought up much of the corporation, which she could legally do. She also gave Jealousy 2% of her profits as a bonus.