Fox Forever (Jenna Fox Chronicles 3)

“Something lightweight that throws easily,” I add.

“That helps.” He leads me to a wall of spools and pulls one out that has a thin flexible rope—but it’s bright orange. I tell him I need something less conspicuous and he pulls out a spool of lightweight black rope that is perfect. I leave with sixty feet of rope tucked into my pack and head for my next stop.

The Information Exchange on State Street is a secure place for the exchange of sensitive information. An Information Bot asks me to peruse the menus as I wait in line before I engage a Service Kiosk. Births, Deaths, Real Estate, Taxes, Banking, Utilities, Licenses, Transportation Applications, the list goes on and on. I look at the various occupied kiosks and I can see people who look like they’re talking to themselves. Virtually nothing is visible other than the customer. Even sound is secure within the invisible boundaries of the kiosk. When it’s my turn, I request Banking and I’m directed to a kiosk with a Virtual Representative. A woman, who appears to be a real woman in some other reality, sits in front of me.

“I’m here to inquire about foreign banking accounts.”

“You wish to open an international bank account, sir?”

“Not exactly. The thing is, when my aunt died she left me some numbers to an account, but they weren’t complete. She lived all over the world. Can you tell me anything about these numbers?” I pass the note window to her with the twelve numbers.

She looks at it and shakes her head. “It appears you have only the last twelve numbers, and the IBAN identifiers for country and branch are within the first twelve numbers. Without the first half of your IBAN, it’s impossible to trace the account.”

“So this is the last half of the numbers?”

“Yes. Do you know which countries she resided in?”

I shake my head, explaining she lived just about everywhere.

“Well, you may want to search her belongings for the other half. It’s not unusual to see foreign account numbers split up this way. The objective of most of them is secrecy for one reason or another. I’ve heard of customers finding account numbers in the most unlikely and unsecured places—slid between the pages of a treasured family book, tucked in socks, even engraved on the inside of wedding bands.”

I know for a fact that Miesha doesn’t wear a wedding band, and their belongings were destroyed in the fire, including Karden’s socks. Besides, if the Secretary had found anything among the belongings before he burned the place down, we wouldn’t be in this race right now.

But at least I know I have the second half of the account number. “Do you have a list of the country codes?” I ask.

She brings up a list and flicks me a note window containing 179 countries and their respective four-digit identifiers. “But without the missing numbers, this won’t do you any good. Searching through her personal belongings is your best bet. If it’s a significant amount of money, you can be sure she left more information somewhere.”

I glance at the ridiculously long list of countries and their codes—countries I didn’t even know existed—and I slip the note window into my pack. I thank her, saying I’ll search through my aunt’s socks. She disappears and the private walls of the kiosk vanish.

Socks, wedding bands, books. Or maybe a time-sensitive biochip hiding somewhere inside Raine waiting to be procured as LeGru suggests. The thought makes my pulse race, but I move on to my next task. Staying the course as Xavier would say, but this is my course.

I head for the PAT.

“Need a lift?”

I look at the CabBot who has offered the ride. As convenient as a cab would be, I need the rest of the money on my card for my next stop. I wave him on. “No thanks.”

“No charge,” he says. “For you.”

He’s not a CabBot I recognize. He seems to notice my hesitation. “I hear you can tell a good story,” he adds.

So word has gotten around. Dot has friends who are passing along her story. And they’re obviously pointing me out.

I accept his offer and he takes me to a market where I buy as many groceries as my card allows. Fresh oranges, strawberries, chocolate peaches, fresh kale and squash, bags of nuts and beans, slabs of brisket, and on a last impulse, four dozen animal cookies, the kind that make animal noises. I carry the groceries to the waiting cab and give him directions to Xavier’s neighborhood.

* * *

“I don’t understand,” Xavier’s wife says as I unload bag after bag of groceries and set them on a table in the center of the courtyard.

“Where I came from, people reciprocated,” I say. “I’m afraid I’m never going to get the chance to cook for everyone here—which is probably lucky for you—but this is something my parents drilled into me. You’re never too young or too old to reciprocate. They liked that word a lot.”

Children flood out of the surrounding buildings. I pull the box of cookies from the cab. “May I?”

She nods, and I pass out the cookies. The courtyard becomes a barnyard of noise and squeals. I leave a few cookies in the box and point to the rest of the groceries. “Will you see that some of this goes to Livvy’s family?”

“Of course, but—” She pushes back a strand of hair from her forehead and frowns. “You act like we might not see you again.”

After today, it’s quite possible that they won’t. “I just wanted to take care of something while I still have the chance.” Before I run out of chances.