Crossing Infamy

Chapter 11 - Kalix

"Gotta say, the news is boring without you," Darien comments, walking beside me down Abbey Wood Road. "It's all 'blah blah blah, corporations, blah blah blah, NineX, blah blah'—"

"Wait, what?"

"What what?"

"NineX?"

"Yeah?"

"I know I've really got to pay more attention to the news, but what's that?"

"Oh, I'm not really sure, I think it's some new corporation. Nothing interesting, it'll probably get eaten by AllaCorp in, like, two seconds."

"Hmm..."

"Hmm?"

"It's probably nothing, but— Oh, who knows."

"What is it?"

"Earlier today, when I was trying to trace Dr. Blayne's sponsorship funds... There were so many different money trails, and it was all pretty convoluted, a total mess, really, but somewhere in there there was a mention of a NineX. I thought it sounded familiar. I meant to look it up, but got distracted by—"

"Ooh, lemon bars!"

"Speaking of getting distracted..." Turning around, I find Darien looking into the window of a bakery.

"Sorry, sorry! I was listening, I promise. I just... also saw lemon bars."

"You are... chaotic," I say, with a chuckle. "Dammit, now you made me hungry."

And what do you know, three minutes later, we're sitting in the cute little bakery with coffee and lemon bars.

"So, you were saying, you saw NineX in the payment transfer records to Dr. Blayne?"

I nod. "There were a few different transfers between them in the BankOne records."

"That's the bank owned by Nexlo, right?"

"Yep. Well, it's owned by Nexlo Investment Consortium, technically, like a subsidiary within a subsidiary, but— Anyways, I don't think they have anything to do with this. I saw him with a Nexlo phone at one of his presentations, he probably just likes to stick to one brand. The NineX transfers, though, they don't quite add up. They did start around the time Blayne accepted the sponsorship, but they stopped only a few weeks later. Besides, if NineX is just some new, tiny corporation, how would they have the means to fund a project like his, or their own tech brand like we saw with that watch he was wearing?" As soon as the words leave my mouth, a realization pops into my head, and I snap my fingers. "That might actually answer my other question! The watch, I mean. If they want Blayne to switch over to their technology, maybe they have other internal services that they want him to use from now on — like their own banking system. Maybe the payments didn't actually stop, they just aren't coming through BankOne anymore."

"Good point," Darien says, breaking off a piece of lemon bar with his fork. "That still doesn't answer the 'how are they doing this' question, though."

"Yeah, I really don't know about that..." I sip my coffee and let my eyes flick aimlessly around the café. "Maybe... we're wrong. There's no way a mini-corp like NineX would have the resources to support Dr. Blayne's project, so, it can't be them, right?"

"But what about the payments from them, then? That's got to mean something."

"It is kind of weird... I mean, who else would be sending him money? And quite a bit, too, though I don't remember the actual number now."

"Exactly. 'Weird' must be something. Right?"

I find myself looking away from him, staring down at the synth-wood table in front of me. Does it mean something? I certainly hope so...