Hector Santiago

This story is part of the Hummingbirds gameplay experience.

You should read it from the main website.

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Hector Santiago
Systems Analyst – Altagrande Hotel & Casino

Born and raised in the sunny city of Seville, Hector had access to everything an immature young man could wish for: easy money, and loose women. Logically, this often meant that he had to obtain the former to attract the latter; entertainment on the Costa del sol is not cheap, even when you are a good-looking Spaniard.

A gifted programmer, Hector maintained his lifestyle by working long hours as a freelancer for various customers; he would be mainly hired to uphold the integrity of financial transaction systems. Yet, despite having money burning a hole in his pocket, the golden boy sternly chose to remain an honest professional; someone with his skills and access could easily have pilfered some funds without anyone noticing.

That is, until one particular contract.

Initially hired to resolve server interaction issues for the local branch of a multinational bank, it didn’t take long for the curious young man to discover something he was not expected to recognize. That is, the existence of a massive money laundering scheme, which seemed to involve several anonymous entities from all over Europe.

At that point, temptation had simply become too strong. Thinking that he would never be exposed, Hector wired to himself a relatively small amount of funds through the illegal system; barely enough to last him a year or two. In any way, the organizers of the scheme, mainly narcotics importers and traffickers, wouldn’t think much of the paltry sum they had lost; they would surely forget about it quite quickly.

Unfortunately for Hector, it turned out that the accounting controls of the groups involved in the fraudulent system were quite good; drug lords make for surprisingly efficient bankers (and vice versa).

Still, in retrospective the young man was partially right; the Mafiosi didn’t think much of the insignificant sums that went missing. However, they deeply cared about an occurrence witness who could expose them to the authorities. Needless to say, Hector’s life was hanging by a very thin thread from that moment on.

In the end, luck was still on the side of the young man. The thugs sent to silence him – permanently – were careless; a resident of Hector’s apartment building noticed that they were sporting handguns. The Policía Nacional of Seville, surprisingly efficient in all matters related to firearms, arrested the criminals as they were about to reach his floor.

Hector, smart enough to understand he might not be so lucky the next time, rapidly converted his funds into gold escudos before leaving the country. Thus, he jumped upon the opportunity offered by the United States, who freely welcomed European qualified workers.

Unwilling to part with sunny beaches and a Hispanic community, Hector chose to reside in California; there, he enrolled as a graduate student and research assistant in Stanford. Hopefully, he was now beyond the reach of his previous employers.

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Though he initially appears as a proud and carefree man, Hector learned his lesson; he is now much more cautious with money, and doesn’t live beyond his means anymore. Despite this, he still enjoys going out once in a while, and no one at the University ever had to complain about the quality of his work.