Kent Babin's Blog

June 2019

[Christoph hands piece of paper to boss]

Christoph: Have you seen this, boss?

Boss: No, what am I looking at?

Christoph: Our man in Southeast Asia.

Boss: Seamus? What trouble has he gotten himself into this time. If he submits reimbursement request for another endangered animal, I’m going to kill him.

Christoph: [Awkward laugh]

[Boss reads for a few seconds]

Boss: Is it true?

Chris...

May 2019

Cicero: I just want to go on record and say that I’m against this whole idea.

Noah: Oh, you want to go on record, do you? Does it look like we’re in a court of law? Do you see a stenographer anywhere, bruv?

Cicero: I don’t know what that is, mate.

Noah: I didn’t expect you would, d’you know what I mean?

Cicero: Then why’d you use that word?

Noah: Intellectual superiority inni...

May 2019

Cicero: Mate, I’m gonna need you to get this wrapped up sooner rather than later.

[Max keeps typing]

Cicero: Mate? I’m talking to you.

[Max stops typing]

Max: Have you ever written a committee-scale consensus algorithm that follows the quorum-based Byzantine agreement, extending the Nakamoto consensus with a directed acyclic graph (DAG) structure ...

April 2019

[Cicero : I want to finish with a big announcement, something that is very near to my heart. It’s going to be a real gamechanger for the next generation.]

Valeria: This is the guy?

Seamus: That’s him. The mighty Cicero Loukanis. An eejit if I ever laid eyes on one.

[ Cicero : And before you jump to conclusions, no, it’s not a new token]

Valeria: I’m sensing strong crypto bro vibes. ...

February 2019

MC: Our next speaker is a man who absolutely needs an introduction.

You know, it’s funny, we were talking backstage just now and I kept getting blinded by the reflection off the guy’s Rolex. And, ladies, you can ask him for a ride in his Maserati later. Oh, wait, are there even any ladies here?

Guess not.

Where was I? Right, okay. When he’s not buying sports cars and luxury watches, our next speaker is ...

November 2018

Benedict’s hand hovered over the large button that would open his online casino for business. Behind him, a projector beamed images of dancing bitcoins and virtual slot machines onto a screen. In front, an emcee evangelized in Mandarin to the fifty or so people in attendance.

Cicero stood off to the right, flanked on both sides by a bevy of young Shan women brought in to bolster the event...

September 2018

Cicero Loukanis closed the blinds of the glass meeting room and picked up a marker. He drew some circles and arrows on the whiteboard.

Cicero: “Right, here’s what I’m thinking. We need to get our hands on as much of the gaming tokens as possible so we can convert them to bitcoin and disappear.”

Max: “How are we gonna do that? You’re not making any sense, dude.”

C...

September 2018

There comes a time in every criminal mastermind’s life when, presiding over a breakfast spread fit for a king at a Phnom Penh hotel, he learns of his immediate eviction from the Kingdom of Cambodia.

Benedict Goh — Singaporean-Chinese dual citizen, casino mogul, arms dealer, and heroin trafficker — stared across the table at the man sent to deliver the news. Perhaps he should’ve felt h...

Rem: Greetings everyone. I’m Remington Cooney, the narrator and voice of Gerry, Hans, Amir, Ivanov, and Ruslan.

Kent: And I’m Kent Babin, the writer and the voice of Bill.

Kent: I’d like to start by thanking you for listening to season 1 of Accidental Intrigue.

Rem: We hope you enjoyed listening to it as much as we did making it.

Kent: We’re already excited about season 2, which we’re going t...

Autumn 2012

Ivanov and Amir stared at each other from across the marble chess board. The last time they had squared off was in 1991, just prior to the event that had changed both their lives.

They were seated on the ground floor of the famed Nukus Museum of Art. A call had been made to close the museum off to the public while the two men rekindled a rivalry that spanned at least fifty matches. Vodka had ensured...