The screen didn't disappear after the last notice.
It stayed.
Hovering just at the edge of Ethan's vision, faint but persistent—like a scar you only noticed when you stopped pretending it wasn't there.
No alarm.
No countdown.
Just data.
He focused on it.
A new panel unfolded, smoother than before, as if the system had refined how it spoke to him.
[Transaction History — Expanded Access Granted]
User: Ethan Hale
Status: Eligible
Behavioral Index: Trending Upward
Below it, numbers rearranged themselves into a curve.
Not a straight line.
A slope.
Ethan frowned. He had expected totals. Debts. Remaining lifespan.
Instead, the system showed something worse.
Patterns.
Every "payment" he had triggered—every time someone else bore the cost—had pushed the curve higher. The line steepened with each intervention, each decision where Ethan chose to act instead of staying still.
Saving a life.
Redirecting harm.
Forcing consequence.
The cost wasn't fixed.
It was accelerating.
"So that's it," he muttered. "Compound interest."
The system responded immediately.
[Clarification]
Cost does not increase randomly.
Cost scales with influence.
Influence.
Ethan leaned back in his chair, the city lights outside his apartment blurring into streaks of white and amber. He hadn't thought of himself as influential. He was reacting. Surviving. Making the least bad choice available.
But the system didn't care about intention.
Only impact.
Another section unfolded beneath the curve.
[Projected Outcome — If Current Trajectory Continues]
Short-Term:
• Increased access
• Reduced restrictions
• Higher-value transactions available
Long-Term:
• Escalated cost events
• System scrutiny
• Irreversible thresholds
Irreversible.
That word stuck.
Ethan's phone buzzed on the desk, snapping him out of the spiral. A message notification—unknown number.
You don't know me.
But I think we're in the same program.
His pulse spiked.
The system didn't react. No warning. No denial.
Which meant one thing.
It allowed this.
Ethan typed back carefully.
What program?
The reply came almost instantly.
The one where nothing is free.
A chill crept up his spine.
Outside, a siren wailed in the distance, then faded. The world kept moving, oblivious to the invisible ledger rewriting who paid for what—and who was allowed to decide.
Ethan looked back at the curve.
At the slope that was slowly, inevitably, becoming a wall.
Everything so far had been calibration.
Now he understood the next phase.
This wasn't about learning how the system worked anymore.
It was about choosing how far he was willing to let it work through him.