My Infinite Investment System

The fourth refresh at the third intersection left his balance at nine hundred dollars and seventeen cents.

’Good,’ he thought, putting the phone away before he asked it to perform a fifth miracle, ’we’re both committed to the bit.’

His bus rolled past, leaving three dollars and twenty-five cents in his account, his most successful decision all day.

That morning, Ryan Keller had been a lean procurement auditor with unruly black hair, gold-brown eyes, and dental coverage.

He owned one suit that almost looked like two under different lighting.

By ten twenty, his badge had died after Mercer let him explain six replacement cores billed to six empty clinics without interrupting.

Security entered before the presentation finished, which meant somebody had booked the humiliation in advance.

Bartek found religion in his monitor as he passed, while Priya attacked a blank document like it was responsible.

’I hope the cursor was supportive,’ he thought, remembering both of them by name, ’I hope it attended the meeting you couldn’t.’

The blacklist reached his phone before the lobby doors, six phantom applications denied in forty seconds by a company needing nine days to approve a chair.

His transactions read like a biography written by somebody mean, rent, groceries, transport, plus two hundred sent to his mother at seven-oh-four.

Her message waited unopened, he could not let the app tell her he had seen it.

**got it baby thank you ❤️**

Opening it meant a conversation, and conversations had follow-up questions.

’How’s work, for example,’ he thought, crossing against the light with three other people, ’fun little question, enormous answer.’

The report in his bag was useless without source access, while its intact metadata belonged to the company that fired him.

Trading the evidence might buy his job back, the possibility stopped him outside a pharmacy window until the man behind him swore.

"My fault."

He moved aside and chose an F-rank logistics post at half salary, the rejection arrived before the form finished loading.

He stared until the red banner blurred across the screen.

"Did you blacklist the form before it loaded too?"

A gold window unfolded over the red banner and swallowed half his screen.

[Congratulations, Chosen Hero]

[Divine Hero Growth System Activated]

[Preparing Soul Bond]

He looked left, then right, nobody else reacted to the floating rectangle occupying most of the pavement.

"What is this?" he whispered, one hand rising toward the words.

Something drove into his sternum.

His knees hit concrete as heat tore down his chest, around his spine, then into both wrists.

[Soul Bond: 08%]

[Error: Standard Hero Path Rejected]

[Adaptive Role Reclassification Initiated]

[Warning: Do Not Sever Connection]

Panic found shape through the pain, the window was no longer before his eyes, it was inside them.

Three phones rose before anybody offered help, one woman stepped through them.

She wore green recovery scrubs under a flattened puffer, dark curls escaping a plastic clip at her neck.

Purple shadows sat beneath her eyes, and a fading sticker shaped like a cartoon lung clung to her ID holder.

She crouched outside grabbing distance and kept one palm visible.

The cartoon lung swung from her ID holder as she leaned closer and asked, "Stay with me, suit guy, name for the ambulance form?"

He fixed his attention on the chipped silver polish flaking across her thumbnail before answering, "Ryan, and leave the form blank."

Her gaze moved over his pupils as she continued, "Fine, smart mouth, which corner are we on?"

He glanced at the ring of raised phones recording him from several terrible angles before asking, "The one currently livestreaming my death?"

Her mouth twitched before professional concern flattened it again.

He counted the storefronts and cross-street signs through the shimmer in his vision.

"Westmarch and Leto, pharmacy on the right, dignity somewhere behind us."

"Great, location intact," she said, pulling a water bottle from her tote, "now tell me whether your chest hurts or you’re committed to the bit."

He looked at the gold warning embedded in his vision.

"Like somebody installed a second heartbeat and forgot the instructions."

That got the smallest breath through her nose, then she handed him the bottle once his fingers stopped shaking enough to hold it.

The pressure released without warning, leaving cold sweat trapped beneath his collar and glued across his shoulder blades.

[Soul Bond Status: Unstable]

[Adaptive Role Determination: Pending]

[Primary Interface Functions Restricted]

No weapon, quest, explanation, or apology followed the restricted interface.

’Perfect,’ he thought, drinking water that tasted faintly of somebody else’s strawberry electrolyte mix, ’divine malware with customer service hours.’

The woman folded her arms over the flattened puffer and warned, "That sentence bought you a core scan, today, before you try anything brave or stupid."

He wiped sticky strawberry-flavored water from the bottle neck with his thumb before asking, "Are those priced separately?"

Her expression changed by less than an inch, which told him enough.

She hooked two fingers beneath the tote strap biting into her shoulder before adding, "Vale Recovery takes walk-ins, the front desk usually finds a slot."

He held her gaze and asked, "And the number that ruins the good news?"

She pressed her lips together until the answer stopped looking optional, then gave him the number.

Four hundred and eighty dollars before anybody touched him.

He thanked her, promised to get checked, then searched the clinic while she remained close enough to object.

The booking page demanded payment in full before offering a single appointment time.

He closed it before his thumb could become optimistic, because rent was due Friday.

He pushed himself upright with one hand against the shelter and said, "I’ll handle it."

The woman looked at the clinic page, then at the bus disappearing down Westmarch.

Her eyes followed the bus shrinking down Westmarch as she said, "You’re about to walk four districts."

He tucked the phone away with an optimism neither of them believed and replied, "Fresh air is medically respected."

She pressed her lips into a bloodless line before muttering, "By idiots, yes."

He returned her bottle with an apologetic tilt, she accepted it while looking like she wanted to place him inside an ambulance personally.

Past the third intersection, glass towers gave way to pawnshops, hunter bars, and grilled garlic hanging in the rain-hot air.

’We have food at home,’ he thought, though home had mustard and rice old enough to vote.

Northstar Club had a truck backed across its entrance, a repossession crew on the steps, and livestreamers packed three deep behind a barrier.

Two workers carried a mirrored throne toward the loading rail with the solemn concentration of pallbearers.

He drifted to the back of the crowd where free entertainment remained inside budget.

The teenager ahead of him held a stream open, chat moving too quickly to read.

{ratking_09: who repossesses a B-rank on a monday}

Then the woman beside the next cart laughed toward a camera, and his body misplaced every useful instruction it had ever received.

Mika Santos stood five feet seven in black tactical leggings and a cropped hunter jacket worn pale at both elbows.

Four years of landing work had shaped compact athletic thighs leading into slim knees, with petite shoulders framing a fighter’s waist.

Vivid hot-pink hair fell from a high ponytail in thick glossy waves, its darker magenta roots framing the shaved line over her left ear.

Her face narrowed toward a pointed chin, one eyebrow notched above brown eyes holding the camera with polished amusement.

Her smile belonged to the stream, her left hand stayed flat beneath the jacket, guarding whatever she refused to show it.

He knew both versions before the man beside him whispered her name.

Two years earlier, Mika had ended raids in clips he watched at two in the morning, sometimes frame by frame, not always for the lightning.

His dick chose that moment to wake up, quick and shameless against his zipper.

He lowered his bag over the evidence, twenty-seven, freshly blacklisted, and hard at a public repossession livestream... generational low.

’Nope, she is losing a building and these are my last clean pants.’

Mika turned slightly, presenting the side every old sponsor campaign favored, and he realized he knew she would do it before she moved.

He angled forty degrees away and recited depreciation schedules until his body remembered they were in public.

Mika widened her smile at the nearest vertical phone and said, "Crop out the truck, keep my good side, lie with intention."

Her mouth maintained its sponsor-friendly curve while her eyes checked the case arriving on the next cart.

{gsnn_: she is getting repossessed and still found her light}

A grey equipment case hit the loading rail, her smile vanishing with the impact.

Pink current jumped across Mika’s knuckles, reached the wrist, then died with a tiny snapping sound.

He forgot the rest of her.

’That isn’t weak output,’ he thought, tracking the failed route under her skin, ’the current has nowhere safe to go.’

Mika’s boot struck the cart wheel as she ordered, "Park it, that case doesn’t leave."

Her voice lost its camera polish, and the supervisor’s attention dropped to her left hand.

The supervisor checked his clipboard without reading it and replied, "Auction manifest calls it club hardware."

Mika answered him with a slow blink that lasted one beat past polite.

Mika tapped the red-edged seal with one black nail and countered, "Your manifest buried a medical seal under entertainment."

He shifted the clipboard against his chest, using it as paper armor now that her hand was sparking again, then insisted, "It came off the stage inventory."

Mika pointed at the mirrored throne without looking and replied, "So did I, nobody’s loading me into the truck."

One worker glanced back at the mirrored throne as if its resale value had betrayed him personally.

The supervisor stepped closer after her failed spark loaned him confidence.

Mika kept her boot against the cart wheel in a pose built for cameras.

The muscle above her knee shook once, hard enough for him to see it from behind the barrier.

Mika turned her public smile back on one deliberate degree and warned, "Smile for the cameras, then decide how viral you want your hand on that case."

The supervisor stopped long enough for him to count four seconds, perhaps five if the clip was already performing well.

He had no badge, no insurance, plus a divine error lodged beneath his sternum.

The sensible choice was walking away before somebody discovered a new fee.

Then he read the serial prefix stamped into the grey case beneath two layers of auction tape.

’You have got to be kidding me.’

He was through the barrier gap before the decision finished forming.

He raised one hand above the barrier before his courage could renegotiate the terms and called, "Nobody moves that case."

Half the street turned.

The supervisor took in his suit, searched for a badge, found an empty clip, then reached toward his radio.

His fingers closed around the receiver as his shoulders squared for the growing audience and he warned, "Back behind the tape, you don’t work this recovery."

He indicated the red-edged seal and countered, "Neither does that regulator."

The receiver stopped halfway to the man’s mouth as three cameras tightened their framing.

The supervisor lowered it by an inch, suspicion replacing the procedural confidence in his face before he insisted, "It’s stage equipment."

He pointed at the recovery code and explained, "Stage gear doesn’t carry a class-seven cardiac seal, this does, right under your thumb."

Three livestreams swung toward the clipboard.

The workers released the cart like the steel had become contagious.

{bonked_wizard: the suit has patch notes}

The supervisor looked down at line thirty-seven, then covered it with his thumb.

Mika noticed.

Her camera smile appeared first, bright, easy, and absolutely empty.

Then she looked at his missing badge, the report sticking out of his bag, and the shoes chat had already started insulting.

The real expression underneath was narrower and far more careful.

Mika moved close enough for ozone and citrus perfume to cut through the street.

Her eyes moved from his empty badge to his shoes as she said, "You pass out, hijack my repossession, then play expert, useful or weird, those shoes aren’t helping."

His gaze dropped to the hand beneath her jacket before he caught himself and looked at her eyes instead.

He hooked his thumb through his bag strap, borrowed the posture of a man with credentials, and replied, "Useful until proven deeply weird."

One corner of Mika’s mouth lifted before she pressed it flat.

Mika took the clipboard from beneath the supervisor’s thumb before ordering, "Then start earning the useful part, show me what he tried to hide."

The gold window returned, simpler this time, and settled beside her face.

[Potential Found: Mika Santos]

[Immediate Need: Cardiac Regulator]

[Offer Support?]