My Infinite Investment System

Chapter 4: Wrong Reward

Pink lightning climbed Mika’s throat while the transfer cleared, which put everything Ryan owned between her damaged core and the truck waiting outside.

{Purchase Approved: Core Regulator 7-C, $900.00}

{Available Balance: $0.17}

Then his banking app launched confetti across the screen, before it asked whether the expense belonged under Health, Business, or Shopping.

"Choose Health while I’m still alive," Mika said through a locked breath, "then if I die, change it to Shopping so the algorithm feels responsible."

[Qualifying Investment Verified]

[Asset Ownership Transferred: Ryan Keller]

[Emergency Procedure Window: 06:42]

"The regulator belongs to me now," Ryan told the supervisor, receipt raised, "so move it inside before three livestreams record you damaging a sold medical device."

The crew brought the cart back without arguing. That told him roughly everything about how much authority the man had actually been carrying.

Northstar’s staff cleared the service room while Mika pointed at the privacy seal above the controls.

"You sold the device," she said, with a smile aimed straight at the doorway, "you didn’t buy a viewing package."

The supervisor retreated past the seal, an employee shut the door on him, then the livestreams outside settled for speculating about the hot-pink flashes bleeding under it.

Mika lowered herself onto an insulated mat, then eased the guild jacket below her left shoulder so the lead could reach the branching marks under her collarbone.

"Tell me before you touch anything," she said, jaw tight.

"The contact pad needs to sit over the darkest scar," Ryan replied, keeping his hands visible.

"Move it nearer the shoulder," she said, eyes closed, "the current turns inward from that point."

He followed her direction and set the pad against skin hot enough to feel through the backing, while she closed one hand around his wrist to control the pressure herself.

The first scan showed three rising discharges, plus a pathway angling toward her throat at a speed he did not like at all.

"You control the timing, I’ll adjust the bridge after each pulse," Ryan said, watching her face rather than the readout, "and if the route turns inward, I disconnect everything."

"Even if your miracle objects?" she asked, with the ghost of the camera smile.

"Especially then," he answered, without any hesitation in it.

Her fingers dragged once across his palm as she let go, leaving a warmth the regulator could not account for.

’Not the time,’ Ryan thought, ’genuinely, extremely not the time.’

"Send the first pulse," he said, voice level.

Mika discharged into the lead, numbing both his thumbs while values scattered across the display. An ordinary technician would have called it noise.

Ryan had spent two years finding patterns that dishonest people assumed nobody would ever check.

The pathway failed at the same point three times, with a consistent gap before the current collapsed toward her heart.

"Send another at half strength," he said, watching the display instead of her.

The second discharge hit harder than the first and threw him into the service counter, while the regulator burned a red line across his palm.

"We’re finished," Mika said, killing the current before he’d finished landing, "your hand is bleeding."

"The failure moved eleven percent," Ryan replied, already opening the housing, "the regulator’s learning, but somebody pulled the compatibility bridge before they listed it for sale."

’Of course they did,’ he thought, ’why sell a working one.’

Northstar’s emergency bar-light module ran the same load profile, though taking it would drop half the service hall into backup lamps.

"I need that power unit," he said, jerking his chin at the wall cabinet.

"Removing it creates another safety violation," the bartender warned, voice climbing.

"Leaving it costs the pathway," Ryan replied, flat.

"Take it, because I can repair a dark club," Mika said, without looking away from the ceiling.

The bartender tore the module free while Ryan fitted it inside the regulator.

The room dropped into red emergency light as the timer went past three minutes.

"Most men who work this near my chest buy a bottle first," Mika said, watching him secure the bridge.

"I have seventeen cents," Ryan replied, not looking up.

"Then perform well enough to justify the discount," she said, with a smile that was almost real.

He guided her injured hand over the pad and covered her fingers with his own, feeling the pathway hammer underneath both palms.

"If I lose control, disconnect me," Mika said, voice quiet now.

"You already established that condition," he replied, voice steady.

"I’m checking whether proximity damaged your memory," she explained, eyes half shut.

"It’s affected my concentration," he admitted, eyes on the bridge.

Her mouth curved despite the pain, so the current brightened between them before she started the count.

"One," Mika said, eyes shut, as the first stage entered cleanly.

"Two," she continued, while pink light flooded the improvised bridge.

"Three," she said, as the power tore toward her throat.

Ryan opened the emergency channel instead of disconnecting, then dumped the excess through Northstar’s lighting module while glass shattered somewhere beyond the service door.

The current turned downward before it reached her neck, but the bridge kicked hard enough to tear his burned palm open.

Mika adjusted her grip over his hand and took part of the vibration through her own wrist, because she would not let him carry a risk they had agreed to share.

"Stay with my count," she said, sharp and clear.

Ryan fixed on her voice instead of the alarms while she seized the failing route and drove it toward her elbow, until the red calibration values narrowed into one stable gold band.

The silence arrived all at once.

For about two seconds Ryan was certain the pathway had stopped entirely, and that he had just spent his last nine hundred dollars watching a woman die on an insulated mat under emergency lighting.

Then Mika raised her left hand between them and produced a thin line of pink lightning, which held across two armoured fingers without the slightest tremor.

"Let me try again," she said, voice unsteady.

A second line formed with the same perfect control, which pulled a breathless laugh out of her before she pressed her forehead against his shoulder.

The contact lasted about a second, hidden from every camera outside, though it carried more than every condition they had negotiated put together.

Then something slammed through Ryan’s sternum before he could react to any of it.

[Investment Milestone Verified]

[Target Benefit Retained: Core Pathway Stabilization]

[Patron Support Reward Routing]

[Error: Valid Party Patron Not Found]

[Reward Routing Inversion Initiated]

Cold pressure shot from his chest up behind his eyes and split the room into impossible detail, so that he heard every rotation of the regulator fan alongside the supervisor still arguing out in the hall.

A loose screw dropped from the damaged ceiling, and Ryan caught it beside Mika’s cheek before he consciously registered that it had fallen.

His body did not keep up with the flood of information afterward. He stumbled, so she caught his collar and pulled him against her.

[Adapted Dividend Acquired: Spark Reflex]

[Function: Enhanced Stimulus Recognition And Initial Response]

[Warning: Physical Adaptation Required]

"What happened to you?" Mika asked, one hand flat against his chest.

"I don’t know yet," Ryan said, while nausea rolled through him in a slow wave.

"That’s a terrible answer," Mika said, frowning.

"It’s the honest one," he replied, with what was left of a smile, "ask me in an hour."

’Reward,’ he thought, ’it called that a reward, and it took it out of her lightning.’

Spark Reflex registered her arm going around his waist before his muscles worked out that she was keeping him upright, which left one hand braced against her armoured thigh.

"Your new whatever-it-is has ambitious priorities," Mika said, glancing down with an eyebrow raised.

"My balance is seventeen cents," Ryan replied, with no strength left for the joke.

"Then the hand can stay until standing becomes affordable," she said, and her voice had gone gentle.

A satisfaction survey opened across her amused face, asking whether he would recommend Divine Portfolio Services to a colleague.

He selected one star out of five. When it demanded written feedback, he entered two words with his bleeding hand.

{wrong reward}

The survey closed with cheerful thanks while Mika helped him sit against the counter, her newly steady hand producing one controlled thread of lightning after another.

Outside the sealed room, the contractors backed away from the medical discharge and the thirty people filming it.

Inside, Mika held the pink line between them and smiled, with nothing careful left in it at all.