Committed by Ell Leigh Clarke & Michael Anderle

Author:Ell Leigh Clarke & Michael Anderle [Clarke, Ell Leigh & Anderle, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2018-03-24T22:00:00+00:00

Base conference room, Gaitune-67

Maya flicked excitedly between one holoscreen to another, comparing results. The audio in the conference room was playing an archived news report about the Newstainment takeover. She lifted her gaze from the screens only when she heard Paige’s high heels announcing her arrival at the door.

Maya grinned. “How you doing?” she asked brightly.

Paige shook her head. “Not as well as you, it seems.” She was carrying two mocha cups. She headed over to Maya’s side of the table and placed one down in front of her. “Extra frothy, extra hot.” She smiled.

“Thanks, hon!” Maya pulled the lid off and poked her nose into the cup, savoring the aroma. Remembering the recording playing in the background, she poked at a screen and paused it.

“What you listening to?” Paige asked.

“Newstainment takeover,” Maya explained, realizing the mocha was too hot to drink straight away. “Turns out, it was a hostile takeover. Info Corp bought up just shy of fifteen percent of the shares in the open market before they made the approach. Timing was bad too. The Newstainment group released a bad earnings report, and then a series of really bad news reports dropped their share price. Made it easy for Info Corp to swoop in and pick up the company for a song.”

Paige pulled out one of the anti-grav chairs. Her skin was gray again, despite taking the previous night off. “Well, mine isn’t a publicly owned company, so they can’t try any of that shit with me.”

Maya could tell that Paige was thinking about the other ways someone with money and power might be able to get to her. It wasn’t going to be productive to contemplate that right now, though. She stayed on track. “So, I did some more digging on Info Corp.”

Paige seemed to gather her focus and looked directly at Maya, giving her her full attention. “What did you find?”

“Well, it looks like Info Corp is indeed a shelf company, as I suspected.”

“You mean a shell company?”

Maya shook her head decisively. “Nope. A shelf company, my non-criminally-minded friend. It’s a company that has history but no traceable activity. Cultivated and filed for years and years until it’s sold to someone dodgy for dodgy activities. Criminals use them to make a company look legit to anyone who isn’t looking too carefully. But there are telltale signs. Add into the mix that apart from funding the accounts and a few spurious transactions, Info Corp only started buying up shares in other companies months ago.”

Paige frowned. “How could you possibly know that? They won’t have filed any accounts yet, if that’s the case… and how did you see their transactions?”

Maya waved her hand. “Ways. You don’t need to know the details. But,” she added, the investigative journalist glint back in her eyes, “the most interesting bit is where I traced the source of the funds to.”

Paige leaned forward, clearly moved by Maya’s enthusiasm. “Tell me,” she pressed.

Maya grinned. “It’s a privately held fund called the Northern Clan of Cambodian.

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