Season 3 chapter 66
The Invisible Trillions
Kniya forcefully dropped the pen onto the wood. He immediately leaned back, crossing his arms as his sharp eyes darted around the empty table bulkheads, looking genuinely expectant.
"So," Kniya demanded bluntly. "Where is the money? I cannot see it."
Mantouse Adeius slowly lowered his brightly colored paperback novel, staring across the desk as if he were looking at a fascinating new species of brain damage. A look of pure, unadulterated syndicate malice crossed his features.
"Are you absolute fucking idiots?" Mantouse snapped ruthlessly. "Do you seriously think that the exact millisecond your ink hits the page, thirty trillion credits in physical banknotes are going to materialize out of thin air and drop straight onto your fucking face? It is an encrypted digital routing protocol, you illiterate peasant. Just call your private banker to verify the clearing parameters."
Kniya scoffed loudly, pulling his highly secure transponder from his coat pocket. "Fine! I will verify your slow-ass infrastructure right now."
He dialed his primary corporate clearing house. The line clicked open.
"Listen to me," Kniya ordered imperiously into the receiver. "Check the master liquid ledgers immediately. Was any massive deposit routed into my primary account just now?"
Across the encrypted frequency, his private banker frantically scanned the incoming terminal data.
"No, sir," the banker stammered hesitantly. "The multi-trillion wire hasn't reflected yet. However... I think so, there was a highly specific, unlisted deposit executed into your personal checking account exactly two minutes ago. A transfer of exactly five hundred credits."
Kniya frowned, his baseline CEO arrogance instantly shifting into pure confusion. "Five hundred credits? Routed from which corporate subsidiary?"
"It was routed by a completely anonymous, untraceable private sender, sir," the banker read off the screen. "And they explicitly attached a custom wire memo directly to the routing numbers. It reads: 'Fuck you, poor idiot.' There is absolutely nothing else attached to the wire, sir."
Kniya slowly lowered the phone from his ear, his jaw dropping in absolute, soul-deep existential outrage.
"Why do these kinds of highly targeted things always have to happen to me?!" Kniya shouted at the ceiling, completely abandoning the high-stakes geopolitical context of the room. "Why is there a fucking random hater out there actively spending their own liquid funds just to deposit five hundred credits into my account for absolutely no reason other than to call me a poor idiot?! And how the hell does a random street troll even possess my highly confidential routing parameters?! I will personally track down this footprint and ruin his bloodline afterwards!"
Kniya forcefully cleared his throat, snapping his lethal glare back onto the shadow commander. "Whatever. I will look into that security breach later. But listen to me, Mantouse. Your massive transfer hasn't reached my account yet."
The Transponder Bribe
Sitting right beside him, Malesh checked his encrypted terminal screen and offered a flat, deadpan nod. "The corporate ledgers remain completely empty on my end as well, Mantouse."
Mantouse Adeius slammed his paperback onto the table, his face flushing a violent, uncompromising red. He knew Kniya's manipulative street-level tactics perfectly.
"Kniya, I know for an absolute fact that you have actively bribed your own banking staff to play dumb on the ledgers just to squeeze secondary advances out of your underwriters," Mantouse growled ruthlessly. "So listen to me closely: if you want me to forcefully pull out that coarse industrial sandpaper and rub your unhinged ass so raw that you won't be able to sit down for the rest of the fiscal year, then please don't stop talking shit. I will confirm the routing execution myself."
Mantouse aggressively pulled his own heavy transponder receiver across the desk, dialing his sovereign financial network to officially clear the master digital escrow. As the secure transponder line hissed with connection static, Kniya shamelessly leaned directly over the mahogany table, leaning down toward Mantouse's receiver with a massive, greedy smirk.
"Hey, clearing agent! I am talking to you!" Kniya yelled obnoxiously into Mantouse's line, actively attempting to corrupt the shadow network on the spot. "Listen to me, if you secretly slice off a fraction of this thirty trillion routing and divert an extra hundred billion into my personal unlisted holding accounts right now, I will personally pay you a direct cash bribe of ten million credits! Don't listen to Mantouse, he pays his staff in paperback novels!"
Mantouse forcefully yanked the brass receiver back against his chest, glaring at Kniya with profound, absolute disgust.
"Shut your mouth, Kniya, you absolute creeping degenerate," Mantouse spat ruthlessly. "Just call your fucking banker back on your own line. I will first have a direct talk with him myself to clear your manufactured blockades, and then he will confirm the master clearance to you."
Kniya scowled, dialing his private banker back and ungracefully shoving his receiver across the desk. Mantouse snatched it, speaking into the line with absolute, sovereign authority.
"This is Mantouse Adeius underwriting the master escrow," he commanded coldly into the mic. "Trace the sovereign bypass tags on deposit ledger seven. Clear the manual holds Kniya paid you to maintain and refresh the terminal. Immediately."
A brief, terrified pause echoed over the frequency. Mantouse offered a highly superior, cold smirk and tossed the receiver back into Kniya's hands.
"Speak to him," Mantouse ordered flatly.
Kniya awkwardly caught the transponder, pressing it to his ear. "Hello?"
"S-sir!" his private banker shouted breathlessly over the line, completely intimidated by the shadow overwatch interference. "The firewall clear is officially verified! The full advance of thirty trillion liquid credits has officially landed inside your primary holding accounts!"
Kniya froze, his highly aggressive posture instantly deflating. Slowly, he ended the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket, offering a completely desensitized, unapologetic shrug. "Oh. Well. The wire finally cleared."
The Dominant Hierarchy
Mantouse crossed his arms, leaning back in his metal chair with a deeply arrogant smirk of absolute shadow authority.
"See? See, I deposited the exact amount flawlessly," Mantouse mocked coldly. "Now get the hell out of my safehouse. I absolutely do not possess the calendar time to sit around exchanging dialogue with closeted BL-literature supporters."
"Hey, you tattered old bastard, I told you my reading material is strictly focused on female dominant hierarchy!" Kniya fired back obnoxiously, instantly reigniting the adult verbal warfare. "Keep managing your little safehouse desk while we purchase entire sovereign districts out from under the state!"
"Keep getting bullied by anonymous five-hundred-credit wire transfers, you absolute loudmouth bitch!" Mantouse spat back.
The Battered Taxi
Malesh slowly closed his terminal, standing up from the leather cushions. His dark eyes were entirely hollow. He looked back and forth between his best friend and the legendary intelligence commander actively screaming adult insults at each other across a mahogany table for absolutely no logical reason. Pure, unadulterated exhaustion anchored his soul as he thoroughly, deeply rethought every single life choice that had brought him into this specific circle of operators.
"I think so," Malesh deadpanned flatly, cutting straight through their shouting. "You two are absolutely wasting our precious time. Let us move."
Without waiting for Kniya to finish threatening Mantouse's architectural layout, Malesh grabbed his partner by the ash-stained collar of his bespoke coat and forcefully steered him out of the briefing room.
They left the heavy subterranean bulkheads behind, emerging back into the blinding, scorching heat of the Seistain industrial outskirts. With their private transport fleet compromised by the ongoing civil war purges, the two multi-trillionaire corporate warlords simply hailed a standard, battered city taxi car off the dusty pavement. They climbed into the cracked vinyl backseats, instructing the driver to head straight back toward the central hospital gates where their best friends, Salesh and Filoska, were resting peacefully.
Behind them, the camouflaged safehouse doors locked tight as Mantouse Adeius packed up his transponders and slipped out into the opposite alleyways, leaving the physical site entirely abandoned to the desert wind.
The Post-Op Fasting
For forty-eight consecutive hours, the private waiting wing of the Seistain emergency ward smelled entirely of stale frying oil and cheap boxed juice.
With their liquid cash thoroughly drained by the civil war and their remaining corporate pride locked away in Mantouse's extortionate loan contract, Kniya Anderson and Malesh flatly refused to leave the floor. They spent two solid days slumped on the pristine waiting room sofas, actively starving themselves as a stubborn, highly unhinged protest against the hospital's cafeteria prices.
"I am absolutely certain that ordering a simple plate of boiled vegetables and plain rice from this cafeteria costs more than buying a second-hand steam engine," Malesh deadpanned coldly. His ruined charcoal suit was now heavily wrinkled, his dark eyes staring blankly at the sterile wall as he sipped from a lukewarm, highly artificial mango juice box.
Sitting directly across from him, Kniya aggressively chewed on a cold, incredibly soggy vegetable samosa sourced from a questionable street cart down the block.
"It is basic corporate endurance, Malesh," Kniya defended obnoxiously, wiping deep-fried grease onto a sterile hospital napkin. "Real market leaders do not require luxury dining. We survive entirely on cheap sugar, synthetic salt, and pure, unadulterated hatred. My digestive tract is currently operating at peak performance."
"Your digestive tract is currently processing pure industrial waste," Malesh flatly countered, his voice dripping with pure exhaustion. "If a nurse takes your blood right now, it will literally just be ninety percent reused cooking oil and ten percent street dust. Move your greasy hands away from my coat."
Before Kniya could launch into a loud CEO lecture defending stree-vendor spices, the heavy double doors of the inner surgical wing forcefully pushed open.