My Infinite Investment System

By eight the next morning, six strangers had photographed Northstar’s condemnation notice and one had asked whether the broken side door was part of the tour.

Ryan watched from behind the frosted glass with a paper cup of donated coffee warming both hands.

"We have tourists," he said.

Mika stood beside him in clean leggings and his white shirt, which reached the top of her thighs beneath the unzipped jacket.

She followed his gaze toward three teenagers posing beside the loading rail.

"We have content," she corrected, lifting her phone before remembering the shirt and lowering it again, "after I acquire trousers."

Nia’s wrench stopped beneath the west wall as she said, "You have clothing upstairs."

Mika pulled the jacket closed over his shirt and replied, "Thank you for approaching the emergency with compassion."

The shieldsmith resumed turning the bolt with the same patient force.

’She stayed,’ Ryan thought as the hidden forge bench came loose, ’one gate became breakfast, then construction, nobody has said member yet.’

His phone vibrated for the hundredth time.

The viral warehouse clip had reached six million views, but a new repost now sat above every version.

**@doorghost: Mystery Suit is Ryan Keller, the auditor Mercer fired after he found six medical cores assigned to empty clinics**

The post included his old company photograph, termination date, and an archived procurement notice he had failed to preserve.

Mika read over his shoulder.

Her playful expression disappeared first.

"Who is doorghost?"

He opened the account and found gate maps, transit failures, camera blind spots, no face.

"Somebody who dislikes closed doors."

"They just opened your entire life."

Ryan enlarged the archived notice while his coffee cooled between his hands.

The document proved he had reported the missing cores before Mercer fired him.

It also placed his mother’s district, former salary band, and employee number within three taps of any stranger.

’Vindication apparently arrives carrying a doxxing kit,’ he thought, locking the screen, ’very thoughtful packaging.’

She put her phone face down on the windowsill and asked, "Do you want me to bury it?"

He looked at the crowd outside.

One teenager held a hand-lettered sign reading **stationery beats violence**, while an older woman left two secondhand chairs beneath the awning.

He turned the locked screen toward her and asked, "Can you?"

She tapped one fingernail against her phone and replied, "No, but I can give the internet something louder."

He lifted the cooling coffee and said, "That answer contained confidence but no plan."

Her real smile started crooked before the front door opened without either of them touching it.

A delivery driver pushed through carrying a stack of flat-packed shelves and said, "Crowdfunded, the comments requested furniture with four legs."

Behind him, a noodle-shop employee brought twelve containers.

Then came a retired hunter with a box of training pads, two students carrying mismatched lamps, and the teenager with the sign.

Northstar filled with wet coats, garlic broth, cheap cologne, and conversations nobody had scheduled.

One student pointed overhead and said, "The hot-pink neon stays."

The teenager with the cardboard placard replied, "I donated for the neon."

An older woman leaned around him and asked, "Is Mystery Suit taller in person?"

The retired hunter hugged the training pads to his chest and said, "Please do not ask him to hold stationery."

Ryan stepped backward as a woman pressed a replacement kettle into his hands.

’I cannot buy breakfast with infinite money,’ he thought, staring at the dented appliance, ’but a stranger brought us one because we killed a monster badly on camera.’

Mika climbed onto the stable chair and raised both hands.

Her public smile switched on, though the emotion behind it remained real.

"Northstar accepts useful furniture, sealed food, and building materials," she announced as phones turned, "keep pathways clear and private documents private."

A teenager pointed toward him and asked, "Can we photograph him?"

She glanced at his face before answering.

"Ask him."

The small permission altered the room more than the viral post had.

He shifted the kettle under one arm and said, "Photographs are fine, employee numbers are not."

Phones rose around him, and he managed three pictures before the city licensing portal chimed.

[Emergency contribution verified]

[Provisional hunter grade: F]

[Registered field role retained: Route analyst]

The teenager read the screen over his elbow and shouted, "Mystery Suit got ranked!"

Cheers moved through the ruined nightclub.

His mother’s name appeared over seven missed calls and one message written entirely in lowercase.

**if you can stand under a monster you can answer your mother**

Ryan turned the screen against his chest.

’The internet located her district, the video reached her phone, and I have discovered a new way to die,’ he thought as the crowd closed around him.

Mika saw the caller name before he hid it.

She took the kettle from his hands, pushed the stable chair into a quiet corner, and said, "Call her before somebody asks you to autograph office supplies."

He looked toward the raised phones and replied, "The room has developed an audience."

Her jacket opened enough to reveal his shirt as she stepped between him and the nearest lens.

"Then let me do my extremely difficult job."

The public smile returned while she redirected every camera toward the donated furniture, giving him three private minutes inside a room full of strangers.

Mika stepped down from the chair, caught his tie, and straightened it with both hands.

She smoothed the tie against his shirt and said, "Congratulations, F-rank."

He glanced at the portal and replied, "I was hoping for a letter farther from failure."

Her thumb pressed once into the knot as she said, "You killed a C-rank with a marker."

He lowered his voice and corrected her, "An inspected marker."

Her fingers remained on the tie for one beat after the joke ended.

Nia emerged from beneath the west wall carrying one end of a three-meter forge bench, her compact strength dwarfing her petite frame.

Her faded red compression shirt followed powerful shoulders, while long microbraids rose above deep brown skin, amber eyes, and the pale scar through her left eyebrow.

Everyone moved aside.

She set it down with enough care to avoid shaking the cracked shield core, then inspected the donated shelves rather than the crowd.

"These are laminated board."

The delivery driver lowered his voice and said, "They were on sale."

"Then keep them away from heat."

He nodded as if receiving battlefield instruction, then carried the shelves toward the driest wall.

’One public face, one human wall, and one former auditor holding a kettle,’ Ryan thought, looking across the room, ’apparently this is a guild.’

His phone buzzed again with a notification carrying the black-and-silver crest of Apex Guild.

Luca Moretti appeared in a polished video beneath white studio lights, dark hair swept from his forehead and a sympathetic expression prepared for immediate clipping.

"Northstar’s warehouse result was extraordinary," he said, looking directly into the lens, "extraordinary results deserve verification."

Mika climbed onto the chair again before the video finished, and the crowd quieted around her.

Luca continued, "Apex formally challenges Northstar to repeat the clear inside an observed gate, with independent officials and equal conditions."

The stream placed two buttons beneath his face.

**Accept public observation | Decline**

Comments poured past faster than Ryan could read, repeating fraud, miracle, rematch, coward, and stationery.

Mika’s thumb hovered above accept, but no camera smile appeared when she looked from Nia to Ryan.

"Equal conditions do not exist," he said, reading the inspection terms, "but the rules are usable."

The shieldsmith checked the warped center of her tower shield and replied, "Mine is not."

Spark Sense opened before Ryan could answer, gathering gold around Nia before narrowing toward the ruined core at her feet.

[Potential found: Nia Vasquez-Oyelaran]

[Immediate need: Stable shield core]

[Offer support?]