My Infinite Investment System

At seven twelve, Spark Step fired beneath one sock while yesterday’s shirt clung to Ryan’s back.

He placed two strips of orange tape four meters apart across the upstairs corridor, braced one hand against the wall, and focused on the second mark.

Gold tightened around both legs.

The corridor snapped sideways.

He crossed the full distance without taking a step, reached the second strip upright, and celebrated just long enough to slide on his bare foot.

The donated partition beside the office received his shoulder with a dry wooden crack.

Half the panel folded into the empty storage room.

Mika appeared in the office doorway wearing his white shirt, bare legs, and an expression that had not finished waking.

"Are you fighting the building?" she asked, gathering her loose curls away from one eye.

He remained inside the broken panel and said, "Controlled mobility test."

"Did the wall consent?"

"The wall was not the target," he replied, pulling one arm free from the broken panel.

"That answer feels legally important," she said, pressing her lips together around a laugh.

She stepped over the fallen trim, caught his wrist, and pulled until the cheap board released his shirt.

The corridor smelled like split pine, plaster dust, and the coffee Nia had started downstairs.

’Four meters exactly, no windup, limited braking,’ he thought as Mika brushed sawdust from his chest, ’also hostile to laminate.’

The system remained above the damage.

[Ability: Spark Step]

[Function: Traverse a recognized short route instantly]

[Current safe range: 4.0 meters]

[Recovery: 11 seconds]

He read the final number twice while feeling a dull pull along both calves.

"Eleven seconds between uses," he said, testing his ankle against the floor.

She pinched a wood splinter from his collar and asked, "How many uses before you become furniture?"

"Research remains active."

"Research is putting on trousers."

The downstairs buzzer sounded through the empty nightclub.

A voice followed from below and called, "City inspection."

She looked down at the shirt covering her thighs while he looked toward the trousers beside the office bed, and neither moved until the buzzer sounded again.

"You take the bathroom," he said, pointing toward the far end of the corridor.

"That is six meters."

"Walk like a civilian."

She collected his trousers instead, shoved them against his chest, and said, "You are the guild master, look employable."

"You are wearing my employment."

"Temporary asset transfer."

Footsteps entered the front room below.

He pulled on the trousers while moving toward the stairs, missed the first belt loop, and reached the landing with his shirt still dusted white across one shoulder.

Inspector Thessaly Arvanitis waited beside the recovered bar in a charcoal suit that had never met gate water.

She wore her iron-gray hair in a smooth knot and held a city tablet beneath one arm.

Her attention moved to the hot-pink ceiling sign with the patient disappointment of someone billed by six-minute blocks.

Nia stood beside the forge bench with both hands clean and every tool arranged by size.

"Final premises inspection for Northstar Guild," she said, capping her silver pen before anybody offered a greeting.

Her thumb moved down the checklist as she added, "Field clearance passed, fire repairs reported complete, structural capacity listed at twenty-four."

He reached the last step and said, "Correct."

Her attention moved from the plaster dust on his shoulder to his wet shoes waiting near the door.

"You live here."

"The office contains a bed," he replied, brushing plaster dust from his shoulder.

"That was not an answer," she said, holding the uncapped pen above her tablet.

"Then yes."

She uncapped the pen and charged him another silence.

’She found residency in three seconds,’ he thought as one short line appeared on her tablet, ’the city should deploy her against crime.’

Mika descended behind him before he could wonder whether she had found clothes.

She had buttoned the white shirt to the collar and pulled on black leggings, but his silver tie hung around her neck without a knot.

The inspector looked at the borrowed tie while her silver pen remained motionless above the tablet.

"Good morning," she said, tucking both hands behind her back.

"Is it?"

"Statistically likely."

Thessaly turned one page early.

Nia looked down at the shield core she was pretending to calibrate.

He felt both ears warm and said, "The residential occupancy form is filed."

"I know, Keller, I read submissions before arriving."

The use of his surname sounded less intimate than it had upstairs.

The inspector began at the front entrance.

She tested the new panic bar, measured the doorway, and checked the repair invoice against the installed frame.

Her tablet photographed the accessible path between the recovered bar and training floor.

Every donated chair had been moved into legal rows while the extension cables remained secured under bright floor covers.

The west wall carried no exposed wiring, so Northstar almost looked prepared for a government visitor.

She stopped below the bright ceiling sign and asked, "Can this be disabled during an emergency?"

Mika reached beneath the bar, flipped one switch, and turned **Northstar** from hot pink to emergency white.

"The internet paid extra for color options."

"For once, the internet purchased something compliant."

The pen added a clean check.

They moved upstairs.

Ryan walked ahead, trying to block the inspector’s view of the storage-room partition with his body.

Thessaly stopped three meters away.

"Move."

He moved.

The broken panel leaned inward around a shoulder-shaped hole, while both orange tape markers remained on the corridor floor.

She studied the first mark, the second, then the plaster across his shirt.

"When did this happen?"

"Seven fourteen," he answered, shifting his foot over the nearest tape mark.

"Cause?" she asked, pointing the silver pen toward the broken panel.

Mika pressed her lips together until the answer stayed inside and every trace of laughter left her eyes.

He kept his face neutral and said, "Ability calibration encountered insufficient braking."

The silver pen touched the tablet and added one short line beneath the structural checklist.

"You ran through it."

"Instantly," he replied, lifting one finger in clarification.

"That does not improve the wall," she said, drawing a box around the repair note.

"It improves the timing."

Her gaze remained on him until his mouth closed.

’I won an observed gate yesterday,’ he thought as she photographed the damage, ’today I am losing to a rectangle of cheap wood.’

Thessaly examined the exposed studs and tapped one with the back of her pen.

"Decorative partition, not load bearing, replace the broken board and trim before final approval."

Ryan released the breath trapped behind his ribs and looked toward the remaining rooms.

"Anything else?"

"I have inspected six meters of your building."

She moved past him toward the office.

Mika stepped aside, but the borrowed tie caught on the door handle and pulled tight around her collar.

The inspector freed the tie with two fingers and said, "Personal arrangements are outside my jurisdiction unless they block an exit."

No expression changed on her face.

Nia made a sound downstairs that could have been a dropped wrench.

She held the tie away from the handle and replied, "Understood."

She pointed her pen toward the damaged partition and said, "Repair that, then try not to discover another wall before I finish."

Ryan looked at the eleven-second recovery timer still fading beside his ankle.

Spark Sense opened with it and sent one thin gold line through the floor toward the front entrance.

[Potential detected nearby]

[Verified growth need obscured]

Someone moved behind the frosted glass downstairs.

By the time he reached the landing, the entrance stood empty and his inspection clipboard had disappeared from the bar.