Infinite Rebate System: Beautiful Women And Endless Returns

Sarah looked at it.

Then Looked at him.

"Why," she said. For the third time. But it meant something different this time.

"Because the work is good," he said. "Whatever else this was. The work is good. It should be yours." So far I’ve gotten the thrill of what I wanted.

Sarah looked at the confirmation screen for a long moment.

Then looked back at him.

She’s going to cry, he thought. Or she’s going to shout. Or she’s going to say something that ends this conversation cleanly.

She didn’t do any of those things.

She stood up.

Picked up her bag.

Walked to the door.

At the door she stopped with her hand on the frame and looked back at him.

"Xavier," she said.

"Sarah."

"The parts where I stopped performing," she said quietly. "They were real for me too."

She left.

The door closed behind her.

Xavier stood in the middle of his apartment and looked at the closed door for a long moment.

The parts where I stopped performing, he thought. They were real for me too. There’s no way this alternate Sarah Torres’s might be different no way possible...

He sat back down at the desk.

Picked up his phone.

Looked at the V message still sitting there unanswered.

Mutually beneficial, he thought.

He set the phone down.

Checked his balance.

$673,452.00, he noted.

Looked at the system notification he’d been putting off.

[ Special Package — Open now or later? ]

He looked at it for a long moment.

Now, he thought.

He pressed it.

[CHIME]

[ REBATE SYSTEM ]

Special Package — Unlocked

Opening...

The screen went blank for exactly three seconds.

Then one line appeared.

Someone has been watching your rise. They want to meet.

Then a name.

Then a number.

Xavier read both.

He sat very still for a moment.

That’s not possible, he thought.The special package is a fucking number.

He read the name again.

That’s not possible.

He picked up his phone.

And dialled.

The name on the screen was one Xavier hadn’t expected.

Not a stranger. Not a random industry contact or a business connection or someone from the Cardinal Circle’s wider network.

Someone he thought he knew.

Or rather.. someone he knew of. From a previous life he just couldn’t trace it to a specific direction.

He read it a third time.

Still not possible, he thought.

He picked up his phone and dialled.

It rang twice.

"Xavier Cole," the voice said. Not a question. A statement. The voice of someone who had been expecting the call and was unsurprised it had come.

"You know my name," Xavier said.

"I’ve known your name for a while," the voice said. "Longer than you’d be comfortable with probably." A pause. "My name is Vincent Hale. I think you’ve heard of me recently through a different connection."

Hale, Xavier thought. Victoria Hale.

"The A&R consultant," Xavier said.

"My daughter," Vincent said. "Yes." Another pause. "She called me Saturday morning. Told me about the festival. About what she’d witnessed. About the EP production package and the holding company and the way the whole thing had been constructed." A brief silence. "She’s been in the industry long enough to recognise architecture when she sees it. She said whoever built that was either very stupid or very smart and she’s been briefing me about you for a while ."

"And?...," Xavier asked.

"She doesn’t think you’re stupid," Vincent said.

Xavier said nothing.

"I’ve been watching Kenvale for about eight months," Vincent said. "Specifically the financial activity around Riverside University. Unusual patterns. Money moving in ways that don’t fit the profile of a student budget. Significant transactions cycling through accounts connected to a first year undergraduate." A pause. "You’ve been careful. But careful and invisible are different things."

He’s been watching, Xavier thought. Eight months ago, since before I transmigrated to this world, what a drag . Since before the Ashworth situation. Since before the EP. Since before any of it.

"What do you want," Xavier said.

"To meet," Vincent said simply. "In person. What I have to say isn’t a phone conversation." Another pause. "I think you have something unusual Xavier. Something I’ve seen hints of before but never at this scale in someone your age." A brief silence. "And I think you’re about to outgrow Kenvale District entirely. The question is what comes next."

Xavier looked at the ceiling of his apartment.

What comes next, he thought.

$673,452 in an account that started at $520, he thought. Two bound targets. A law firm. A security contact. A research trust. A collapsed criminal network. He looked at the ceiling. All of it built in a university district from a hostel room two blocks from campus.

And now someone has been watching from above for eight months.

What comes next, he thought. Is going to be something different entirely.

"When," Xavier said.

"Tuesday," Vincent said. "Lunch. I’ll send the address."

"Fine," Xavier said.

"One more thing," Vincent said.

"Say it," Xavier said.

"Whatever you did at that festival," Vincent said. "With the screen. The message." A pause. "I’m not judging it. I’ve done things in business that make a stage screen look like a birthday card." Another pause. "But whatever that was about. Make sure it’s finished. Where I operate there’s no room for personal scores running in the background."

Xavier was quiet for a moment.

Is it finished, he thought.

He thought about Sarah standing at his door that morning in the glasses she didn’t usually show people. The parts where I stopped performing. They were real for me too.

He thought about the masters transferred back. $15,000. Clean.

Obviously Finished, he thought.

Yes.

"It’s finished," he said.

"Good," Vincent said. "Tuesday. I’ll send the address."

The line went dead.

Xavier set the phone down on the desk.

Looked at the ceiling.

The apartment was quiet around him. Sunday afternoon. The city outside doing its ordinary thing without any awareness of what had just shifted in a first year student’s hostel room two blocks from Riverside University.

Vincent Hale, he thought. Eight months of watching. A daughter in the A&R industry who might’ve been a spy all along. Connections he hadn’t specified but hadn’t needed to. The weight of them was in every word he’d said.

What comes next, he thought.

He pulled up his balance.

$673,452.

Someone has been watching your rise. They want to meet.

That’s all it had said, he thought. No details. No context. Just.. someone has been watching.

The system knew, he thought. Before I did. It always knows.

He closed the notification.

Everything resolved, he thought. Everything closed.

He added one final line.

Tuesday — Vincent Hale.

He wrote on his phone notepad and closed it.

Leaned back in his chair.

Three months, he thought. From a dead man with $520 and a broken heart on a train platform.

To this.

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