previous chapter: Abetment [12]: 2.4: 2083, September 30th, Thursday. 16:05
995 words
The Robot walks in into Ellie’s office. It is holding a coolbox, which it puts on the desk.
“Delivery for Miss Griffith,” it says, as it drives back out of the room.
“What did you order that needed constant cooling?” Sophia asks.
Ellie smiles. “I show you.”
She opens the box and reveals a yellow curved fruit to Sophia.
“A banana. I thought the blight killed all of them. Where did you get it?”
Ellie laughs. “Let’s just say I know a guy, who knows a guy. It cost a pretty penny.”
Sophia shakes her head. “I thought you didn’t even like bananas?”
“I don’t. But Heather never ate a banana in her life. So I decided to give her this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Sophia sighs. “I think you are doing this all wrong, Ellie.”
“What do you mean?”
“Heather saw her Mom die, right before her eyes. You took her from her home and brought her here. Send her to a new school, and put her in a totally new environment.”
Ellie snaps at her. “Do you mean I should not have?”
Sophia puts her hand on Ellie’s shoulder. “Not what I am saying. I am just saying that buying her expensive stuff isn’t gonna magically make her accept you as her new Mom. You have to be there for her emotionally.”
Tears well up in Ellie’s eyes. “I am trying, Sophia. But I feel like I can never replace her Mom, no matter how hard I try.”
Sophia shakes her head. “Don’t try to replace her Mom. You are not her. You are your own person. And you love Heather. Maybe you should let her know you do. Don’t try to buy her love. Let it grow organically. And if you need help, I am right here.”
Ellie hugs Sophia. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So,” Ellie says, while she plugs her tablet into the giant screen on the wall. “Are you ready to find out where the hell my cousin gets his money from?”
Sophia smiles. “Let’s turn over that ant hill.”
Ellie enters “Companies owned by Finn Griffith.” and presses “search”. The screen displays there are zero results.
“We already tried that,” Sophia says. “Maybe he registered it under the name of a family member.”
Ellie presses some buttons, deleting the first name. There still appear zero results.
Ellie sighs. “Nothing.”
Sophia shrugs. “Maybe he just got a job as an employee.”
Ellie laughs “No way. That guy has no work ethic. No way he could ever land a job.”
“Just type it in.”
Ellie types the query into her tablet and looks at the screen. There are quite a few matches.
“You still are searching for everyone with Griffith as a last name. You need to refine it again.”
Ellie ignores her and stares at the top result.
Turbo Circuit Racing Track (liquid)
HQ: Seattle (UCWS)
est. value: 5 P€$
1 match: Rose Griffith (Former employee)
“Are you alright Ellie?”
Ellie looks at Sophia and back at the screen.
“Ye, I am just thinking, isn’t it weird how valuable the company is?”
Sophia looks back. Five Quadrillion seems a bit high.
Ellie nods. “It is higher than all money in the world combined. How can a company be worth that much?”
Sophia looks back at the screen. “I never even heard from that company.”
“My Mom used to work there as a mechanic when I was little. But honestly, I didn’t know it still existed.”
Sophia smiles. “You want to click it to see where it gets its money from?”
Ellie clicks on her tablet. Hell yes.
She scrolls through the list of assets. It contains some boring stuff. The T.N.Y.N.E. owns quite a bit of money. Yet the company hasn’t decided to collect yet.
But Ellie’s eye falls on another contract. A contract with SunDawn which is quite simple. The Turbo Circuit Racing Track has the right to one shipment of one metric ton of bananas, to be delivered each year, in exchange for twenty-five thousand eurodollars. In case SunDawn is unable to deliver, it will refund the twenty-five thousand Eurodollars and twice the market value of the shipment as a penalty.
Ellie points to the contract on the screen and Sophia reads it. She laughs. “Well, SunDawn really did a bad deal on that. Bananas go for thousands apiece these days. Twice the market price of a ship is a crazy amount.”
Ellie shakes her head “That is the thing tho. When the contact was made, paying twenty-five bucks for a kilogram of bananas was insane. There is no way the Racing Track should have agreed to that. Unless they knew about the blight.”
Sophia shakes her head. “I guess they got very lucky.”
Ellie keeps scrolling. “Except all contracts are like this. With all of these contracts, the racing track should have lost money on this. But they didn’t. They won. Big time.”
Sophia looks through them. “Now that you say it, it is very suspicious.”
“And the contracts are all with government-related bodies. One is directly with the New York bank. The other is with SunDawn, one of the five companies ruling the Republic of Southern States. A third is with Nexus. All of them governments.”
Sophia smiles. “Having the government owe you money is every taxpayer’s wet dream. I wish I could get money from the government.”
Ellie looks at her and rolls her eyes. “But that is just the thing. None of these debts are collected. They just sit there.”
Ellie scrolls down and gasps. She shows Sophia the last asset on the list.
Asset: Trident
Type: Historical Nuclear bomb (made in 2015)
Current location: Unknown
“Isn’t that the nuclear bomb that destroyed New York?”
Sophia grimaces and nods. “Yes, it is.”
Ellie looks back at the top of the page, where the company owner is displayed. “I guess Stephany has been busy.”
next chapter: Abetment [14]: 2.6: 2083, October 4rd, Monday. 9:25
all chapters: Abetment