Chapter 19

“Delacreu.”  Riley called.

Artemvian looked up from his phone.  It was only noon outside and the sun shone brightly, one of the rare occasions when the smog and light pollution were light enough to see the sky.  As if to celebrate the occasion, Riley had opened up the windows as well and the sunlight reached places never meant for mankind to see.  Artemvian was sure he spotted stains older than he was in his previous life.

“Your payment just came in.”  Riley walked out from the back, carrying a suitcase.  She propped it open in front of him.  “New Identification Card.  Two Bank Accounts.”  With the last word, she passed over two bracelets to him.  

“Oooh,”  Artemvian reached out and took the metallic bracelet, one tinted with black and the other made of gold.  He turned it this way and that, frowning.  “This… seems awfully small for a Bank.”  His eyes narrowed.  “You’ve built a Bank for ants? This is slavery! Not right!”

“It’s a bank account.”  Riley said flatly and then shared a look with Brant.

“You promised, boss.  If I cleaned up after that customer yesterday that you’ll explain the banking system to Mr. Delacreu.”  Brant went back to polishing the wine glass, making sure to keep an ear on the conversation.  

“Right.  I did.”  Sighing, Riley continued.  “That black tinted one is linked to the First World Bank.  It’s linked to the Nero City Crypto Bank.  No more carrying around hundreds of Doiley Cards.  The money you’re dealing with is getting too big for that.”

“Uh huh… and how do I pay with this?”  Artemvian took the bracelet back from her.  “I don’t see a coin slot or a place to keep the bills.”

“Everything is done digitally.  Watch.”  Riley brought out her own bracelet and took a Doiley Card.  She tapped the Doiley Card on the Bracelet.  The bracelet displayed digital numbers that increased with a small ‘beep’.  “That’s how you charge the Bracelet.  Like I said, the Bracelet is linked to your account with Nero City Crypto, so you don’t have to ever visit that place and answer any awkward questions.”

“You still haven’t told me how I can pay for stuff.”

“Same way, you can tap it to any other bracelet or payment methods.  Some people you meet will have the bracelet built into their bodies.”

“What’s to stop someone from stealing the bracelet from me?”  Artemvian frowned.  “In the process of making things easier to use, you people have made it easier for criminals to use the same things.”

“The Bracelet is linked to your unique biometric signals: heartrate, bloodpressure and even the slight different pitch variations in your vocal cords.  It’s also linked to your DNA, so you don’t need to worry about that.  If they have the skills to crack an NCC Bracelet, they wouldn’t be stealing from you anyways.”  

She pointed at the black bracelet again.  

“That’s your regular bank account.  It’s linked to this one,” She pointed at the golden one.  “Which is where all the payments from your mercenary work will be going.  That one is linked to the First World Bank.  It’s an offshore account so the feds can’t track it as easily.  It’s set up so that at the beginning of every month, a set amount of funds will be transferred to your NCC account.  Do you get why?”

Artemvian understood immediately.  “A fake account, to make it seem as if I’m a hardworking man.  When in actuality, I’m simply paying myself through an illegal account that looks the other way while I earn coins through illegal means.”

“Nicely put.”  Riley smiled, a rare occasion.  “If you want to make big purchases, use the FWB account.  Though Mercenaries usually use Brokers, in your case, that’s me. For everything else, you can use your NCC account.”  She pursed her lips.

“Perfect.”

Artemvian spent the next few minutes playing around with the bracelet.

“So, you’re sure that the Cop didn’t see you leave?”  Riley ventured after a couple of minutes.

“Nope.”  Artemvian answered, he finally put the black metallic bracelet on his wrist and stowed the gold on back in the briefcase, “The one who kidnapped Helen Papier never showed up either.”

“I’m not surprised.”  Riley scoffed.  “I reckon the buyer was tipped off about police activity the moment you started sniffing around, especially if you were using that badge.”

Artemvian had refrained from telling Riley and Brant that it was in fact, a Vampire, who had ordered the kidnapping of Helen Papier.  He wanted to keep this quiet, especially since he hadn’t been able to find out the identity of the Vampire.  Riley did put out a request to the Web Spiders –the Hacker Organization– to try and get the identity of the man, without knowing that he was a vampire of course.  But the traces had already been wiped clean from the web long before news got back to Riley.

“Stay away from Cops, Artem.”  Riley offered.  “Cops and Us are like oil and water.  We can’t go together.”

“Oh, I know.  Trust me.”  Artemvian replied back, checking his bank account balance.  There was a hefty sum deposited in it.  A41, the hacker who hired Artemvian to find Helen Papier, had deposited a little extra and did not comment on why.  With his previous work, Artemvian had about 120,000 Doilies in his bank account.  Plus about 27,000 in the form of Doieyl Cards on hand.

Without preamble, Artemvian dumped the Doiley Cards out of his pockets onto the bar counter.

“What are you doing?!”  Riley yelled, grabbing the Doiley Cards and trying to shove them back in Artemvian’s pocket.  She looked outside the windows wildly.  “Why the hell would you take out so much money in public like that?”

Artemvian took a card and tapped it to his new NCC Bracelet.  “To make my deposits?”  He said innocently.

Riley growled, grabbing Doiley Cards by the armful and putting them in a metal case she took out from underneath the Counter.  “I’ll take care of it.  What were you going to do? Spend the next hour tapping hundreds of Doiley Cards to your bracelet?”

“Not hundreds.”  Artem pouted.  “108 cards.”

“No one likes a smartass, Delacreu.”

“Point of fact.  From what I see on Meowtube, the smartasses get the most likes.”

The slender white-haired woman glared at Artemvian.  “Yes and what you’re doing now will definitely end up under the radar of the feds looking for any fishy transactions.  On a brand new account, nonetheless.”

“Oh.”

She opened and closed her fist a few times and Artemvian stopped saying whatever he had been about to say.  “If you’re done being a brat, there are other things we need to talk about.  One, I have the things you asked me for.  Two, I finished your registration on the Deepweb and there are already jobs lined up for you.”

“More jobs already? See, people love smartasses.”

“Brant.”  Riley ignored him and snapped her finger.

Brant went to the back and came out holding a long slender box made of wood.  It was about four feet long and two feet wide.  He held another box in the other arm, much shorter but wider and deeper.

Artemvian opened the boxes to see exactly what he had asked for.  A long thick branch of Limewood and its twin laid next to it, made of Elm.  They were inside the wooden box, wrapped in lush red fabric.  In the smaller box were perfect cubes made of Gold, Silver and Platinum.  He inspected them carefully, holding the metallic cubes up to the light and channeling bits of mana into it.

“They’re perfect.”  He said finally, his expression softening.

Brant and Riley shared a look.  They hadn’t ever seen that expression on Artemvian’s face before.

“Don’t know why you wanted those, but I’m taking it out of your next pay.”  Riley said, trying to ease the mood.  “Now, your next job.  I’ve narrowed them down to three”

“On what basis?”

Riley made a gesture, rubbing her thumb and forefinger together.  “Appropriate pay for the danger involved.  Requests that were looking for a Mage, regardless of whether they were Spatials, Empath or Elementalist.  And one request that asked you by name.”

She passed him a folder.  Artemvian looked in it.

“Huh.  Is this right?”  He pointed to one of the names.  “The Corpse Heads want to hire me?”

“Yup.  The gang you just had an altercation with.  You probably wiped out one of their branches.”  Riley looked at him.  “Got to admire the hustle.”

Artemvian considered the job before turning it face down.  First, it was obviously a trap… or not.  Who knew what the Ghouls of this world thought.  Still, he had no intention of working for them especially after last night.  Then there was the fact that Riley put the posting in there in the first place.  She knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t take the job.  Most likely, she was gauging his reaction and trying to figure him out as a mercenary.

He looked at the other two jobs.  “Who are these Grymms?”

“Security Consulting Corporation that works with the feds from time to time.”

Artemvian turned that one face down too.  After the run in with Celine, he wanted to put some distance between himself and the law for awhile.

“And then there was one…”  He looked over the last page.  “What’s the Vatican?”