My Infinite Investment System

Chapter 3: Seventeen Cents

Nine hundred thousand dollars, and Ryan had nine hundred of them.

He kept it off his face while the scan finished, which apparently did not work, because Mika was already reading him from the other side of the bar.

"That expression usually means the number’s terrible," she said, two fingers pressed over the port under her collar, "so should I prepare for bankruptcy, organ theft, or a motivational speech?"

"Full stabilisation is nine hundred thousand," Ryan said, keeping his voice as level as he could manage.

"Ah," she said, taking it with a smile that stopped somewhere short of her eyes, "and what’s currently in the account of the man delivering that news?"

"Nine hundred dollars and seventeen cents," he answered, watching her face for the exact moment it landed.

"Excellent, the seventeen cents gives it dignity," she said, with a smile that arrived about a second late.

He went back into the projection and started stripping it, which felt less like negotiating than arguing with a vending machine that had opinions about him.

Comfort upgrades came out, then the rehabilitation cycles, then the premium components, until nothing was left but the parts that kept her alive.

[Modification Rejected]

[Minimum Viable Investment Preserves Target Growth]

[Divine Administrator Experience Survey Available]

’It wants the whole career,’ Ryan thought, rating the experience one star out of pure spite, ’not the woman.’

"You look personally offended by something invisible," Mika said, watching him over the rim of a glass she was not drinking from.

"I’m being upsold," he said flatly.

"By who?" she asked, eyes coming up off the glass.

"That’s the part I can’t answer," Ryan said, and watched that register.

Her eyebrow went up slowly, the way it probably did on camera when a sponsor said something stupid.

"Can’t, or won’t?" she asked, tone gone very even.

"Can’t," he said, holding her eyes for it.

"Mm," Mika said, setting the glass down without a sound, "do you know how many men have stood roughly where you’re standing and told me there was money, but the source was complicated?"

"I’d guess a lot," Ryan replied quietly.

"Every single one of them was fronting for somebody," she said, and the amusement had gone somewhere else entirely, "so which is it, my old guild, the lender, or a network that’s decided a B-rank with a dead core is cheap this month?"

’None of the above, and I’d sound insane explaining it,’ Ryan thought.

"I’m not carrying anybody’s money," he said, "and I’m aware that’s exactly what somebody carrying somebody’s money would say."

"It really is," she agreed, without a trace of the earlier warmth.

Outside, the supervisor started demanding access to the regulator again, while the pink light under her collar brightened as the cart got further from the building.

Mika did not look at it once. She had probably spent two years not looking at it.

So Ryan stopped trying to buy credibility with words, since the only thing he actually had was the reading.

"Your left shoulder isn’t the injury," he said, "it’s the trigger, there are five unstable routes in there feeding each other, and the worst one sits under your collarbone and spirals toward your heart instead of away from it."

The whole room went quiet after that.

"...Who told you that," Mika said, and her voice had dropped out of its performing register entirely.

"Nobody," Ryan answered, keeping his hands where she could see them.

"My own clinic didn’t put that in writing," she said, eyes narrowing.

"I know," he said, "that’s the other thing I found."

She looked at him for a long moment, and whatever she was weighing, it was not whether he was lying to her.

It was what kind of problem he was going to turn out to be later.

{she dismissed the staff??? hello???}

"Everybody out," Mika said, without raising her voice at all, and the two employees drifted toward the entrance where they could watch the contractors instead of her.

{he’s an accountant, look at the shoes}

{nobody bring up the shoes again}

Then she unfastened the upper edge of the guild jacket, easing the left side down off her shoulder, which took four seconds and clearly cost her more than that.

A silver medical lead crossed the compression layer underneath, while the light beneath her collarbone pulsed pink and angry, brighter every time the cart rolled another metre toward the truck.

"My body’s mine, the club’s mine, and saving either one doesn’t buy you future access," she said, "so if I say stop, you stop, then you don’t get a second ask."

"Agreed," Ryan said, without looking away.

"Say the rest of it," Mika said, jaw set.

"I’m looking at your condition," he answered, "not at a label somebody attached to it."

"Good answer," she said, chin lifting slightly, "you can touch the shoulder and the lead line, but try to look less terrified, because a nervous man makes a woman wonder what she forgot to wear."

"I’m considering the electricity," Ryan said, with a dry glance at her collarbone.

"Cowardice with a technical justification is still cowardice," she replied, and some of the amusement came back into her face, though it did not settle anywhere.

His fingertips followed the edge of the medical line while the readout mapped every surge underneath it, until she went still and sharp when he reached the knot beneath her collarbone.

"That point hurts," Ryan said, watching the muscle jump under her jaw.

"Your diagnostic brilliance continues to overwhelm me," she replied through a smile with nothing behind it.

The collapsed route sat exactly where he’d said it did, spiralling inward, and the full restoration package hung above it like a price tag attached to somebody else’s life.

He ignored the recommendation, then asked the thing for something smaller.

[Requested Milestone Below Optimal Growth Threshold]

[Projected Survival Improvement: Significant]

[Projected Combat Recovery: Minimal]

[Investment Qualification: Under Review]

Outside, the livestream had turned itself into a poll, so the bartender raised his phone from the doorway.

"Boss, Secret Accountant just lost to Emergency Boyfriend by six thousand votes," he called.

{emergency boyfriend is canon now, I don’t make the rules}

"Save the boyfriend edit, block anybody who types financial dominance," Mika said without turning around, "because one of those groups might become paying customers."

Ryan lowered his hand as a financing alert opened on the seized tablet, and the timing of it stopped being a coincidence somewhere around the second line.

"The lender tied the medical device to the building, then scheduled recovery inside your weakest output window," he said, "they’re not collecting collateral, they’re making you choose between your core and your club, tonight, on camera."

"I did notice the emotional theme," Mika said, jaw tightening, "and I’d worked that part out on my own, thank you."

Then the review came back with a number.

[Revised Qualified Milestone Available]

[Stabilize One Critical Core Pathway]

[Required Investment: $900]

[Projected Duration: Temporary]

’Of course,’ Ryan thought, ’of course that’s the number it lands on.’

"It found a smaller option," he said, turning the screen so she could read the terms, "nine hundred buys one stable route, plus enough time to go looking for a real answer."

"And how much would you have afterward?" she asked, tone sharpening.

He opened the banking app and turned that around too, so the balance could answer alongside the completed transfer to his mother.

"No," Mika said, her voice flattening out, "absolutely not, you do not gamble your last meal on a woman you met during a repossession."

"I’m not buying your recovery, and I’m not buying your loyalty," Ryan said, keeping his tone steady.

"Then what exactly are you buying?" she asked, eyes searching his face.

"Time," he said, "plus finding out whether any of this works at all."

"That is still a gamble," Mika said, frowning.

"Then price it properly," he answered, "the regulator leaves in about six minutes, your old clinic falsified your treatment records, then the lender built this deadline around your injury, so doing nothing became the expensive option a while ago."

She caught his wrist before he could authorise anything, her grip warm and not entirely steady while current brightened under her collar.

"If this fails, I don’t owe you my club, my body, or gratitude," she said, grip tightening on his wrist.

"If this fails, you owe me nothing," Ryan replied, voice quiet.

"And if it works?" she asked, eyes still on his.

"Then we argue about the next one while neither of us is dying," he said.

She held his eyes until the cart hit the truck ramp outside, where the surge coming off it snapped pink light down the loading rail and put the whole crew on their backs.

One contractor ended up sitting in the road with his clipboard still raised.

"Do it," Mika said, jaw tight.

Ryan authorised the transfer before courage could turn itself into another kind of delay.

[Personal Capital Bridge Accepted]

[Investment Processing: $900]

His balance fell to seventeen cents, her damaged route lit up, then he turned her away from the cameras with his own body between the exposed lead and thirty raised phones.

The contractors abandoned the cart entirely while lightning crawled across the doorway of Northstar, turning every screen out there into a dark silhouette with a person behind it.

Mika got both hands into his jacket as the current went looking for an exit, her breathing gone shallow and hot against his throat.

"Please tell me that expression means you have a plan," she said, voice muffled against his collar.

Ryan watched his last seventeen cents disappear under a warning that the stabilisation needed immediate physical guidance.

"It means the payment cleared," he said, "the plan is arriving separately."