Chapter 125: Pick Up

Four months, he thought. In this room.

Same four walls, he thought. But different from the room he’d arrived in four months ago. He had styled and rearranged it differently making it looked more exquisite.

He didn’t need to move for now, he thought. Just needed to make it right.

He drank his coffee and opened his laptop. Checked the businesses remotely. All seven running without requiring his attention. Gerald Obi’s logistics company. The Meridian Street property. The food distribution company. The printing company. The manufacturing firm. The commercial cleaning company. The courier company.

Seven businesses, he thought. Running while I sleep. Running while I’m in Millhaven. Running without me.

That’s what infrastructure feels like, he thought. When it’s built correctly.

He opened his banking app. Checked the balance.

$15,846,100, he noted. Clean start for a Friday.

He cycled his morning donations before leaving. Tier 3 cap absorbing the amounts at a scale that still felt new even after a week of it.

[ REBATE SYSTEM ]

Transaction Detected: $800,000 spent on donation — Global Education Trust

Base Multiplier (Tier 2): 2x

Total Return: $1,600,000

[ Net Balance: $15,046,100.00 → $16,646,100.00 ]

[ REBATE SYSTEM ]

Transaction Detected: $800,000 spent on donation — Rural Healthcare Initiative

Base Multiplier (Tier 2): 2x

Total Return: $1,600,000

[ Net Balance: $15,846,100.00 → $17,446,100.00 ]

$17,446,100, he noted. He’d just past seventeen million.

He looked at that number for a moment.

Past seventeen million, he thought. On a Friday morning before 6AM.

He closed the app. Picked up his bag. Looked around the room one more time.

Still here, he thought. Still the base.

But not today, he thought. Today Millhaven.

He headed for the door.

Mama Elizabeth’s door was open when he came down the stairs.

Which was unusual. Her door at 6AM on a Friday was never open. She was always up. He’d long since accepted that Mama Elizabeth operated on a schedule that preceded and outlasted everyone else in the building. But the door being open at this hour was different from her usual morning presence.

She was standing in the doorway.

Looking at the bag on his shoulder.

She looked at him. Looked at the bag. Looked at him again.

Xavier stopped on the stairs.

"I’m Travelling," he said.

She nodded once. The nod of someone who had already figured that out from the bag and the hour and the particular energy of someone leaving rather than going.

She disappeared inside for a moment.

Came back with a container.

Xavier looked at the container. Looked at her.

She prepared this, he thought. Before 6AM. For a trip she didn’t know about until she saw the bag thirty seconds ago. He looked at her standing in the doorway in the early morning quiet of the hostel corridor. Or she’s been making extra every morning just in case. Because that’s who she is.

He came down the last few stairs and took the container.

"Thank you ma," he said.

She looked at him for a long moment. The particular look she gave him sometimes. Not the one about the car or the suits or the hours. The other one. The one that said something she didn’t have words for or had decided words weren’t the right instrument for.

"Be safe," she said.

"I will ma," he replied.

She nodded once more. Went back inside. The door closed quietly behind her.

Xavier stood in the corridor for a moment holding the container.

Be safe, he thought. Two words. From a woman who had been feeding him and watching over him for four months without being asked and without requiring acknowledgement.

Some people, he thought. Just decide to look after you. Without a contract. Without a reason. Just decide.

He went outside.

The Panamera in the early morning light looked different from the evening version. Cleaner somehow, more present. He put the bag in the boot. Got in. Set Mama Elizabeth’s container on the passenger seat.

Started the engine.

It was already 6:15AM, he noted. ’I have to pick up Selene at 7’.

He had forty five minutes. He drove slowly through the quiet Friday morning city. Not toward Selene’s building yet, just through the city. The particular Kenvale that existed before 7AM when the performance of the day hadn’t started yet and everything was just itself.

He ate Mama Elizabeth’s food at a red light. Proper food. The kind she always made.

Be safe, he thought.

I will, he thought.

He finished eating. Checked the time. Turned toward Selene’s building.

7AM, he thought. Don’t be late.

He pulled up outside at 6:58PM.

Two minutes early.

I’m never late, he thought.

He cut the engine and waited. He had on the way branched a fuel station to get fuel.

[ REBATE SYSTEM ]

Transaction Detected: $85 spent on fuel

Base Multiplier (Tier 2): 2x

Total Return: $170

[ Net Balance: $17,446,015.00 → $17,446,185.00 ]

At exactly 7AM the entrance door opened.

Selene came out.

She held one bag. It was practical, fitted, the kind that was light and efficient. She wore dark jeans. A clean top.Her Hair pulled back for the journey rather than down for the evening. The composed energy she brought everywhere but carrying it differently at 7AM on a Friday with a bag on her shoulder and her city four hours away by road or forty five minutes by air.

She saw the Panamera. Saw Xavier through the windscreen.

He got out. Opened the boot. Took her bag without asking and put it beside his.

She watched him do it.

"You’re early," she said.

"Just two minutes," he said.

"That’s early," she said.

"That’s on time," he replied.

She looked at him for a brief moment with the expression that had been getting less composed the longer she knew him.

Then she got in.

Xavier closed the boot. Walked around. Got in.

Started the engine.

The Panamera pulled out into the Friday morning city from her house.

Millhaven, he thought.

Let’s go.