My Infinite Investment System

Chapter 6: Night Visitors

Six days left on the standstill, with Ryan working from seventeen cents, four Return Credits, and a partnership whose first week could still end with Mika losing the building.

Stripped-down bar service was covering staff wages, mostly because she had turned the exposed wiring into a renovation series and convinced eleven thousand people that a room with no furniture was a creative choice rather than a repossession.

He circled Friday at five on the office wall, then reduced the whole situation to the three things the lender could actually use.

{Confirmed Tables: 8 to 27}

{Payroll Coverage: 3 nights to 8 nights}

{Debt Principal Reduced: $0}

{Ryan Cash Balance: $0.17}

"Attention bought us time, it didn’t buy us safety," Ryan said when Mika came in between livestreams, "every full table is worth a few hours, and the lender is measuring the same week in ownership rights."

"You’ve left out my irresistible personal brand," she replied, dropping into the other chair with her eyebrows up.

"Their agreement can’t seize it," he said, glancing up, "which makes your brand the best-positioned asset we own."

Mika looked genuinely pleased about that until his banking app offered him a dining-rewards card whose minimum payment was larger than his entire balance.

She declined it for him and handed the phone back.

"Your bank has become the neediest participant in our relationship theories," she said, "also, the two men at table seven have spent twelve minutes pretending to choose water."

Ryan had clocked them on the way in, because the reflex made every inconsistency arrive with a sort of painful clarity now.

Reinforced boots matched asset-recovery crews, the jackets sat wrong over shoulder badges, then the attention inventoried exits instead of women.

He put the interface across the older one, just to see.

[Target Classification Attempted]

[Qualified Investment Criteria: Not Met]

[Profile Access Unavailable]

’Right,’ Ryan thought, ’so it funds people, it doesn’t identify threats.’

That limit was worth knowing on its own.

One impossible success had already started teaching him to expect help, when information had always been the only weapon he actually owned.

"They’re recovery scouts," he said, without looking over, "the older one keeps checking the medical screen while his partner maps the staff."

"Then let’s give them the full customer experience," Mika replied, standing up with a smile that meant nothing good.

She crossed the club with a welcoming smile, seated both men under Northstar’s best cameras, then described the premium tasting flight loudly enough for the livestream to hear every word of it.

Refusing would have exposed them as something other than customers, so the senior scout accepted two flights while his partner’s face did something complicated about the price.

{those are recovery boots. I do this for a living, those are recovery boots}

Viewers found the catalogue photograph before the first course arrived, which turned the visit into an open secret in about ninety seconds.

"We have a wet floor and a private booking," Ryan told the bartender on his way past, which was the phrase they had agreed on that morning.

Two employees walked a cleaning screen around the regulator and moved it into the locked treatment room, under a protocol Mika had named after an inconvenient club event, which was the most useful paperwork in the building.

Then he sat down at table seven with the seizure receipt, halfway through their second pairing, which was roughly the point at which a man stops being able to leave politely.

"Mr. Keller," the senior scout said, reading the name off paperwork Ryan had never given anybody, "we understand you purchased equipment involved in a disputed transfer."

"The record describes a completed sale," Ryan replied, tone perfectly level, "so which part does your client dispute?"

"The equipment’s condition may affect valuation," the man said, "we’d like to verify storage, modifications, then continued access for servicing."

"Contesting the valuation means admitting your client sold certified medical equipment under an entertainment code," Ryan said, setting the receipt down between their tasting glasses, "put that position in writing, and I’ll forward it to the seizure review office."

The junior scout changed direction and asked whether Ryan held a manager’s licence, then whether his partnership included authority over the liquor permit.

Mika arrived with the final course before he could answer, setting one brilliant pink drink in front of each visitor as though commercial intimidation had earned bottle service.

"His authority includes reading documents that visitors wish he’d ignore," she said, with a smile that belonged on a poster, "and my liquor licence is exactly where every previous creditor failed to take it."

The senior scout tasted nothing, though Mika kept the premium pairing itemised on his bill anyway.

"Your standstill ends Friday," he said, dropping his voice under the music, "cooperation decides whether ordinary recovery becomes an incident afterward."

"Cooperation starts with a written request," Ryan replied, holding his eyes, "threats delivered over a tasting flight stay entertainment until somebody signs them."

The scout folded the receipt very carefully before handing it back, which meant he intended to challenge it later.

"Your hunter-combat insurance lapsed last month," the man said, "an energetic venue really should correct that before something unfortunate happens."

"Gratuity is included for parties conducting commercial intimidation," Mika said brightly, turning the payment tablet toward him.

He paid the full amount rather than argue under the cameras.

Then he walked his partner out, while the chat celebrated an upsell it only half understood.

{she charged him for the threat. she charged him FOR the threat}

Ryan waited until their vehicle cleared the corner, then asked for another scan, which gave him precisely nothing.

Mika locked the creditor file in the office. Then she reconsidered, and pushed the whole folder across his desk.

"You get the unedited version now," she said, "those men work for the lender’s recovery subsidiary, and it keeps an E-rank enforcer on call for asset disputes."

The full file showed an insurance cancellation, plus three visits nobody had bothered to mention to him, all of them walking in a straight line toward Friday at five.

"Why did the combat policy lapse?" Ryan asked, looking up from the file.

"The premium tripled once my injury went public, then the medical lien ate the renewal money," Mika said, tone flat, "I chose the regulator."

"So they start an incident inside an uninsured club, and every loss lands on us," he replied, voice going flat.

"Which is why you will not improvise another restraint when their E-rank turns up," she said, jaw set.

"The last restraint worked for a full second," Ryan answered, almost smiling.

"Your shoulder submitted a written complaint about it," Mika replied, with a look at the sling.

He went back out and walked the route the scouts had studied, which turned the bar rail, the medical screen, then the service lane into positions inside somebody else’s contract.

Something in his chest tightened, and his hand came up to intercept a bottle cap Mika had thrown from behind him, half a metre short of the regulator door.

"That looks impressive right up until somebody throws an actual weapon," she said, grinning.

"Then throw another one while I still have affordable medical options," Ryan replied, dry.

She sent three in quick succession, so he caught two of them, while the third hit his forehead and bounced under a table.

"Sixty-six percent against stationery-grade violence," Mika said, watching him rub his forehead, "the E-rank must be terrified."

Ryan set the missed cap beside the rail, using the failure to mark the blind angle where the scouts had expected support to come from.

By the time she worked out what he was doing, three chairs and a service cart had mapped tomorrow’s approach.

"You’re turning my club into a battlefield," she said, no longer smiling.

"They did that when they checked the insurance," he replied, "I’m just choosing where the battle charges them interest."

They took the file up to the roof after closing, where Mika described the subsidiary’s usual enforcer as patient, professional, and completely uninterested in morality.

"He stops when the contract stops paying," she said, eyes on the street below.

"Then we make his contract more expensive than the asset," Ryan replied, voice quiet.

Her phone buzzed with a follower’s screenshot from the subsidiary job board, posted four minutes after the scouts had walked out.

{E-Rank Asset-Recovery Support}

{Compensation: Incident-Dependent}

{Venue Experience Preferred}

"They priced tomorrow’s violence before they finished tonight’s tasting flight," Ryan said, quietly.

Mika saved the screenshot next to their creditor evidence, and every trace of performance went out of her face.

"Good," she replied, expression gone somewhere cold, "now we know what they ordered."