Infinite Cashback System

Jordan locked his apartment door at 8:47 AM and headed for the stairwell.

His hair was still slightly damp. Clean jeans, white tee, navy blue bomber jacket. The Chelsea boots from Macy’s. He looked like a person who had slept in a bed and not on a pile of regret, which was technically accurate.

Chloe’s door was twelve feet away.

He did not knock.

Progress.

The drive to campus was light traffic and morning radio. Jordan took the left on Prospect, merged onto the 55, and stopped at a red light behind a silver pickup.

He pulled out his phone.

The System interface loaded gold and clean across his screen.

💝 CASHBACK SYSTEM

ACTIVE CONNECTIONS

Chloe Kim 📍

Chemistry: 58% ▰▰▰▰▰▰░░░░

Return Rate: 1.16x

Last interaction: Today

ACCOUNT SUMMARY

Balance: $1,831.29

Quest Tickets: 4 🎫

Active Quests: 1

Fifty-eight percent.

Up from fifty-three. Whatever happened between last night and this morning had bumped it five points without Jordan spending a single dollar. He thought about Chloe calling him boyfriend in her doorway. Her voice doing that soft thing it did when she dropped the performance entirely.

Five percent. For free.

Jordan locked his phone. Light turned green.

He still needed to hit the gym. Still needed to talk to three women for two minutes each. He had class in twelve minutes and zero quest tickets to pull anything new.

The math was not ideal.

Jordan merged right and thought.

He could knock out the gym after class. Kyle would probably come if Jordan texted. The women objective was trickier because "speak to three beauties" with the System’s definition was specific. It logged time. It tracked eye contact. Jordan could not just wave at his professor and call it done.

But first.

He had an idea.

A stupid, beautiful idea that he needed to test immediately.

Jordan opened DoorDash at the next red light. Found a cafe three blocks from the Cooper Garment Lofts. Scrolled the menu.

Iced vanilla latte. Sixteen dollars.

Avocado toast. Seven dollars.

Total: twenty-three dollars even.

He added a five dollar tip for the driver.

Then Jordan typed in the delivery address as Unit 403, Cooper Garment Lofts, and his own phone number for contact. He texted Chloe before hitting confirm.

Jordan: check your front door in about an hour

Chloe: ???

Chloe: jordan what did you do

Jordan: nothing

Jordan: probably

He hit confirm on the order.

The System pinged immediately.

✨ TRANSACTION COMPLETE ✨

Purchase: Iced Vanilla Latte + Avocado Toast

Amount: $23.00

Girl: Chloe Kim

Attraction Change: 58% → 60% (+2%)

Rebate: $26.68 (1.16x multiplier)

Net: +$3.68

Jordan stared at the screen.

Twenty-three dollars spent.

Twenty-six dollars and sixty-eight cents back.

A profit of three dollars and sixty-eight cents.

On food he bought for his girlfriend.

The tip to the driver was just gone because the System only tracked money going to registered beauties, not strangers with delivery bags, which was fine. Acceptable losses. But the twenty-three dollar order itself had returned twenty-six. He had paid for Chloe’s breakfast and ended up three dollars richer.

Jordan made a sound in the back of his throat that was not quite a laugh and not quite a scream.

This was a cheat code.

This was an actual, functional, real-world cheat code.

He had spent over five thousand dollars on Calypso content over six months at a zero percent return and here he was making money buying his girlfriend breakfast. The economics were so fundamentally insane that Jordan needed a moment to just sit with it.

Chloe: JORDAN

Chloe: you ordered me breakfast

Jordan: don’t read into it

Chloe: it’s literally at my door

Chloe: the driver just knocked

Jordan: I know I’m watching the app

Chloe: this is so cute I hate you

Jordan: noted

Chloe: the latte is perfect

Jordan pocketed his phone. Turned into the campus parking structure. Took the ramp to level two.

The profit number sat in his head like a warm coal.

Three dollars and sixty-eight cents positive on a twenty-three dollar purchase. At fifty-eight percent chemistry with a 1.16x multiplier. Which meant as the chemistry climbed, the multiplier climbed. At seventy-five percent he would hit a 1.50x return. At one hundred percent everything doubled.

Jordan found a spot and cut the engine.

He was going to become the most financially responsible boyfriend in recorded history.

Bluffs Hall 150 was already filling when Jordan pushed through the side door at 8:57.

The lecture hall was massive. Tiered seating, laptop armies, the ambient sound of two hundred people arriving and deciding where to commit to for the next fifty minutes.

Jordan scanned for a seat.

Found two familiar faces instead.

Kumiko sat center-left, about seven rows from the front. Her twin tails were up today, pink ribbons matching the floral cardigan she wore over a white blouse. Her ita-bag hung from the seat hook beside her. She was already animatedly talking to the person on her left.

That person was Alexis.

Alexis Van Der Berg sat with her legs crossed and her iced coffee in hand, wearing a camel-colored blazer over a fitted white top and dark jeans. Her honey-blonde hair fell perfect over her shoulders.

Jordan’s step slowed for exactly half a second before he continued down the aisle.

Kumiko spotted him first. Her whole face lit up like someone had flipped a switch.

"Jordan!" She waved with both hands, accidentally elbowing Alexis. "Over here!"

Alexis turned her head.

Her expression went through several stages in rapid succession. Recognition. Something that could generously be called guilt. Then the wall going back up, smooth and immediate, like watching a door close.

Jordan reached their row.

Kumiko immediately stood up and gestured at the empty seat between them, sweeping her ita-bag off the hook and relocating to the seat on her other side to make room.

Jordan looked at the seat between them.

Looked at Alexis.

Alexis looked at her coffee.

He sat down.

The row around them had already clocked the arrangement. Jordan could feel it. Eyes from the rows ahead and behind. Guys especially, the kind who knew exactly who Alexis Van Der Berg was and had opinions about whoever was sitting next to her.

Someone two rows back leaned toward their friend.

Jordan’s ears caught pieces of it.

"...jumped from Eliza straight to Alexis? No shame at all."

Jordan kept his face neutral.

No shame. Sure. He had literally cleaned his own apartment less than two weeks ago for the first time in four months and cried in a parking lot on Christmas. But yeah. No shame. The guy behind him had figured it all out.

Kumiko pressed her shoulder against Jordan’s arm and dropped her voice to something only he could catch.

"So." Her eyes were doing that thing where they sparkled too much to be innocent. "Chloe tells me you two are dating."