"Heard of me, have you?" Aden asked, sounding more amused than anything else. Given how thoroughly he'd gone in to take over other organizations while cleaning up the criminal element, he wasn't exactly surprised. He'd tightened the noose on anyone who hadn't fallen into line with his vision. There had been plenty of big talk on the holonet from frightened little gangsters, and the name Keeper had certainly come up more than once.

Scrubbing the holonet to remove those mentions had not been part of his priorities since his existence had become a pretty good deterrent too.

"Suppose there's not a whole lot of other people it really could be. Had it been the head of some other organization I would have taken out a hit on them already."

Maybe. Depending.

Sometimes keeping competition around was fun. But hey.

"It's my first time meeting with any of my agents in person too. I have a crew who work with me in our headquarters- don't ask by the way- but most of my other agents enjoy a certain amount of operational freedom."

He didn't mind saying this because he didn't think he was saying something Thrawn didn't already know. Aden's agents, aside from these two, would all keep their anonymity, after all.

"That said, I might need to increase the budget for these ones. My people who recruited them gave me an idea of how much it'd take to make sure they're comfortable, but I'd say there are some overarching economical problems going on here currently. Cost of living might be going up."

Maybe it was good that he'd come out here in person.