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Not sure if this is the right board for this, but I'd like some advice. A fictional character in a book I'm writing needs to sell something. However, before he reveals that he possesses the thing, he must first verify that his potential customer is not a police officer. (or working for them) What is the best way for my character to do this?

>>20755 Well it really depends. Does your character sell it in the dark Wired or is he like a normal person snapchat plug? If he uses hidden services and uses gloves and all the safety stuff it wouldn't really matter who he sells it to. If it's a park deal than you can't really tell, well if the undercover cop is good enough atleast. A way I could see is to check if he is known in the scene or learn more about his personal life. Maybe make him give your character his Instagram (which will probably not happen) or crypto wallet or something.

>>20757 It would have to be an in-person deal. Street cred, huh? Unfortunately my character is also somewhat new to the scene. Checking them out on social media is a good start though.

You could follow him home or stick a super cheap GPS tracker on his car. Try plugging his face into those commercial facial recognition services to find his Facebook. Get a copy of his prints and DNA surreptitiously just in case. Otherwise, the only other thing you can do is do deals by a proxy agent, and have the proxy agent maintain a canary. If you see the proxy openly arrested or silently set off the canary, you know the customer was a cop and cut off communications with the proxy. Make sure to reward the proxy of he set off the canary.

this is adjacent to wage slave tests. The character needs a question that is not whether the man is a policeman, but the way he answers will nevertheless show whether he is a policeman. It would help if its done in a place where other policemen might hear, but if he could prompt the <suspected cop> to say something that everyone knows is true but police can't acknowledge he would solve the problem. Difficult to think of some exact thing without knowing your story but perhaps there is some corruption which the police deny, some disaster that they can't confess culpability in, something of this nature. doesnt always work, doesn't work in some contexts, but maybe works for you

Blackmail "You have to do this for your own sake." 3rd party verification "Sources vouched he has cred." Extrapolation "It makes sense that he wants the deal." Hacking "I checked him out... thoroughly." Leap of faith "If you want to make a deal, you have to trust." Error "This is not the guy I expected." Esoteric "The world turns as was destined."

>>20833 >Blackmail "You have to do this for your own sake." police are used to dealing with sketchy people, have to make a credible threat to, uhm, wait what kill the family of this potential customer if he doesn't buy ? why not just steal at that point lol >3rd party verification "Sources vouched he has cred." many police informants are recruited by the cops because they already have cred/involvement with the thing they're informing on. Sure he has 'cred', but who is he working for right now ? And who might he tell ? >Extrapolation "It makes sense that he wants the deal." fair, but that doesn't mean he won't betray you afterward. We assume the character already thinks he wants it if he's even considering to mention it to the guy. >Hacking "I checked him out... thoroughly." I bet you typed at 300wpm on two keyboards with cool ascii graffics to do it lol. Dumb and boring but whatever. >Leap of faith "If you want to make a deal, you have to trust." not exactly an answer to the question >Error "This is not the guy I expected." not exactly an answer to the question >Esoteric "The world turns as was destined." acceptable. Maybe he goes to an oracle or sees some sign when he meets the guy, too. I assume the character revlealing he has the <THING> is dangerous, so he should consider going through some intermediary/ies so that potential buyers know it exists / is available but don't know who has it. This could also be arranged just with them meeting under circumstances where the seller's identity is somewhat conealed, or where the seller listens in while an intermediary talks.

>>20834 It's your story so idk just spitballing. If your character is inexperienced it's interesting and almost expected that mistakes will be made... yet not anything fatal, just a lesson. Regardless it's probably a good chance to set an overlaying tone or theme. IMO... I'm not a writer in any fashion, and apologies for any erroneous assumptions. >Blackmail Police aren't exactly squeaky clean, in fact outside of space opera flawed characters to this degree aren't unexpected. This could also be something simple as leveraging an illegal aspect of culture like partaking in drug use with the dealer before the trade. A clever or devious MC would consider this route. >3rd party verification From what I gather your character is a small fish in a big pond, so arresting or making an asset of them doesn't make too much sense unless the setting is particularly draconian, a ripoff being the more likely scenario. Criminals also have ways of sniffing out a rat. The Darknet Diaries episode Gollumfun may give you some ideas. >Extrapolation Idk how mysterious this dealsman is, but some innocuous aspect may tip this off. Definitely not an aspect to ride the whole narrative on, though. >Hacking Consider the social engineering route. Maybe the MC gets his motley friend to scope him out and buddy up with him, but ends up swiftly arrested or assaulted for some petty altercation in the interaction? That would not be anything definitive, but possibly a sufficient tip-off. >Leap of faith Sometimes the MC just has so little information and ability, and the circumstances are so important, that this dangerous position is justified. Anything less would not do. >Esoteric Definitely consider this if there is an important esoteric aspect to the world. Maybe your getting too tied up by the rules set by the worldbuilding, but granted I can't help but think of this as something similar to Shadowrun so strangeness and dichotomies come to mind. Hope I helped and good luck.

>>20835 >It's your story so idk just spitballing lol sorry didn't mean to imply I'm op I'm just criticizing. >blackmail, simple as leveraging an illegal aspect of culture I like this, though if police are very not squeaky clean we this might not be effective; he can get away with it cause he's a cop, and who's going to trust your word against his? >3rd party verification so arresting or making an asset of them doesn't make too much sense on the other hand the other guy might have credibility/history as a criminal type and still be an asset thats my point. I assume the <thing> is valuble, MC doesn't want anybody to know he has it. If he's a 'small fish in a big pond' he might not be able to maintain control of it except through secrecy. >Hacking, Consider the social engineering route I like this, though an informant looking for big catches probably isnt going to immediately cause arrests for minor things, will have to be a good trick, maybe MC exploiting someone elses big mistake and seeing what happens. Slow but viable. Also possible that the guy is a police informant but thats OK, or ok for now anyway. Police can be confusing organizations and sometimes exhibit very strange behaviors, think of the Michigan FBI assasination plot. Maybe MC can trick a police informant into thinking MC is one, too, or has contacts with government who'll get him off clean type of thing. Informant figures its better not to rat on this one and might forget his police ties for now. IDK. to the rest, sure. not my story I'm just a lain who likes things that are well thought out so I'd figure I'd throw my hat into the ring and give some thoughts.