My Infinite Investment System

One usable chair still counted as furniture, at least according to Mika during the first hour of Northstar’s forty-eight-hour countdown.

Ryan stood over the second chair, which had three legs and silver tape holding its back together, then said, "It counts as a warning."

She crossed both arms, her jacket open now that the regulator sat comfortably beneath her ribs, and said, "You lack vision."

He pointed between the warped slats and replied, "I can see the floor through it."

Her chin rose as she declared, "Open-concept seating."

The city inspector had left them with one simple route around condemnation, register Northstar as an active hunter team before the deadline.

Without a team, Northstar had no legal use, and without legal use, the city locked the doors.

Mika placed the surviving chair behind the reception desk, then lowered herself into it like a monarch accepting a damaged throne.

She tested the remaining chair with one boot and said, "Fine, we need three licensed hunters and one registered field role before Thursday morning."

Ryan checked the city’s team page on his phone.

He scrolled to the role list and said, "You count as striker."

She brushed imaginary dust from one shoulder and replied, "Obviously."

He glanced at the red warning beside his unlicensed name and said, "I count as a medical event."

She leaned over the desk to read his screen and said, "Investor sounds like a field role."

He angled the phone away from her hair and replied, "Investor sounds like the person who explains why there are no chairs."

Her eyes moved to the equipment-office door, then escaped before his brain could pretend his body had missed it.

She picked at the edge of her phone case and said, "About last night."

He stopped scrolling while she found a damaged patch of reception desk, pressed it flat with her thumb, and said, "It cannot affect the team."

He looked at the taped wreck beside her and replied, "The team is currently a chair."

Her thumbnail dug into the desk patch as she said, "Be serious."

He set his phone down and answered, "I am trying, you keep making it statistically difficult."

She looked up, coldness cracking for half a second before hiding both hands and saying, "That was adrenaline, now we have forty-seven hours to keep the building."

The phrasing converted a blowjob into weather.

He locked his phone, needing the small click before he trusted his voice, then said, "Fine, we keep it out of the team."

Her eyes narrowed as she said, "Don’t say it like that."

His thumb stayed pressed against the dead screen while he asked, "Like what?"

She leaned forward, annoyed by a problem she could not name, and said, "Like you’re being reasonable at me."

He opened one hand toward her and replied, "I have no idea what alternative tone you want."

Her shoulders dropped as she admitted, "Neither do I."

The honesty remained between them until somebody knocked on the glass.

A delivery rider held up two paper bags from the noodle shop down the street.

Mika checked her phone, frowned at the empty order history, and said, "I didn’t order food."

The rider pointed toward a group of teenagers filming from beneath the pharmacy awning.

One of them waved with both hands while another nearly dropped his phone into a rain gutter.

{ratking_09: northstar employees cannot unionize until there are employees}

Ryan opened the door.

Steam carried garlic, chili oil, and roasted pork into the stripped club.

The bags contained four containers, plastic forks, plus a note written across the receipt.

**for the suit and lightning lady, please beat apex someday**

His stomach reacted before his pride, and Mika read his face before nudging the stable seat with one foot and saying, "Sit."

He pushed it back and replied, "You need it."

She trapped one leg beneath her boot and said, "Your eyes have been inside that bag for thirty seconds."

He lifted the stapled receipt under the light and claimed, "Professional inspection."

Her stomach betrayed her with a low growl, but she pointed to the seat and said, "Sit before you start pricing the smell."

Ryan obeyed.

The first bite burned his tongue, and he ate the second before the pain finished.

Mika leaned against the desk with her own container, pretending not to notice how quickly his disappeared.

He saved the best piece of meat beneath the noodles for later.

He had done that since childhood, keeping the best bite safe until everything else was gone.

Mika found it with her fork, and Ryan moved the container before she could steal it.

Her mouth opened in theatrical offense as she asked, "Did you just protect dinner from an injured woman?"

He shielded the container with his forearm and replied, "You have lightning."

She aimed her fork at his chest and said, "You have infinite medical-device money."

He moved the pork farther from the fork and replied, "Neither solves pork scarcity."

Her laugh warmed the empty room as Ryan looked at the exit, wanted to stay, and realized Mika had noticed.

She turned her phone face down beside the food and offered, "Temporary partnership."

He swallowed the last mouthful and asked, "Define temporary."

She folded the empty receipt into a narrow strip and said, "Until the building survives registration, then we review."

He watched her crease the paper and asked, "Define partnership."

She pointed her fork between them and said, "You find people worth helping, I keep them alive long enough to make you look clever."

He examined the uneven division with a raised eyebrow and said, "Very balanced."

She counted the terms against her fingers and said, "You get the equipment office, meals when we have them, and an equal vote on field decisions."

He tapped the registration page and answered, "You keep the guild name, cameras, and final say over your body."

Her fork stopped above the container as she said, "That last one should be obvious."

He met her stare and agreed, "It should."

Mika lowered the fork carefully and said, "You get final say over yours too."

The office returned between them, heating his ears, and her eyes dropped to them as she said, "Please don’t make that face every time we establish basic rights."

He opened the registration page and insisted, "I have made no face."

She tapped one fingernail against her container and said, "Your ears are giving a press conference."

He entered the name field and suggested, "Northstar Squad?"

Mika glanced around the ruined nightclub, then toward the hot-pink sign burning weakly through the doors before correcting him, "Northstar Guild."

He turned the phone so she could see the red requirement and said, "We need three members for a guild."

She took another noodle from his container and replied, "Then find me one."

He pulled the food out of reach and said, "You say that like people are stocked near checkout."

A heavy impact sounded at the damaged side entrance.

Both of them stood as Mika’s current gathered around her left hand and held.

Ryan put the noodle container behind the desk before he moved, which felt like the most honest thing he had done all morning.

The bent side door opened inward.

A woman stepped over the broken latch carrying a tower shield taller than her shoulder, and Mika’s fingers lowered half an inch in recognition.

She stood five feet ten, broad through the chest and hips, with the dense thighs of somebody accustomed to holding weight while other people ran.

Her dark-brown skin showed a pale scar through the left eyebrow, cutting a blunt, rectangular face beneath deep-set black eyes.

Rope twists the color of polished walnut had been tied into a low knot, one thick strand hanging beside her jaw.

She wore charcoal work trousers marked by white ceramic dust, steel-toed boots, and a sleeveless canvas jacket over a faded red compression shirt.

The slab on her shoulder had once been blue.

Most of the paint had burned away.

Mika stepped between the woman and the regulator, her public smile nowhere in sight as she said, "Nia, Northstar is closed."

Nia looked at the condemnation notice, the one chair, then Ryan holding an application page beside half a container of noodles.

Her gaze remained on him long enough to make interpretation his problem.

Her deep-set eyes returned to Mika as she said, "I came for my forge bench."

Mika pointed toward the empty service hall and replied, "Repossession took it."

Nia shifted the weight higher against her shoulder and said, "No, they took the decorative one, mine is bolted beneath the west wall."

The woman lowered the weapon.

Its bottom edge struck the floor hard enough to shake the unstable chair.

Spark Sense opened across Ryan’s vision.

Gold lines mapped its rim, handle, layered core, then stopped at a red fracture running through its center.

’Of course our third candidate brought a bomb,’ he thought.

The crack moved one hair-width while he watched, so he stepped forward with one palm raised and said, "Don’t lift that again."

Nia’s eyes shifted to him before she wrapped one hand around the grip anyway, driving the red fracture into the core.