NOVEL WEB Chapter 13: Chapter 13
The stale motel air tasted like dust and adrenaline hangover. Ace blinked awake, not to the comforting glow of dawn, but to the stark, internal pulse of the System interface flooding his vision. It felt less like waking up and more like being forcibly rebooted.
SYSTEM INITIALIZING...
USER STATUS: Ace (Designation: Survivor)
BIOMETRICS: Elevated Cortisol (82%), Minor Muscular Fatigue, Neural Pathway Adaptation (Stage 1 - 12%)
FINANCIAL SUMMARY:
- Physical Assets: $137.76 USD
- System Funds: $510.00 USD
- Outstanding Liabilities: $0 (Temporary Relief Granted)
TODAY'S PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: CAPITAL ACCUMULATION. COMMENCE OPERATIONS.
A groan escaped Ace's lips, muffled by the thin pillow that smelled faintly of bleach and desperation. The events of the previous night slammed back into him – the splintering wood, Deke's thug snarling through the gap, the frantic scramble to barricade himself, the terrifying silence before Big Mike's arrival. His body ached, a symphony of bruises from the alley ejection and the tense, cramped positions he'd held during the siege. The raw patch on his palm from the screwdriver felt like a brand.
He pushed himself up, wincing. The repaired door stood as a monument to his desperate ingenuity. Sunlight streamed through the new, slightly-too-small plywood panel Mike had grudgingly supplied, highlighting the globs of dried adhesive and the uneven screw heads. It was ugly. It was functional. It was his. A fragile barrier against the world that seemed determined to crush him. For the first time since being thrown out, he had a space, however temporary and battle-scarred, that wasn't an alley floor. The $40 cash felt heavy in his pocket, a tangible symbol of earning safety, however messy the process.
OBSERVATION: The structural integrity of Barrier Unit 'Door' is suboptimal (Estimated Durability: 42%). Recommend resource allocation for reinforcement within 72 hours.
"Noted" Ace muttered, rubbing grit from his eyes. The System's voice in his head was becoming less jarring, more like a relentless, slightly sarcastic internal monologue. "Reinforcement requires capital. Hence, today's delightful objective."
AFFIRMATIVE. CAPITAL ACCUMULATION IS PARAMOUNT FOR SURVIVAL AND SYSTEM UPGRADES. ANALYSIS OF AVAILABLE OPTIONS COMMENCING...
A flood of data, charts, and probabilities cascaded behind Ace's eyes. It wasn't just visual; it was a sensation. Stock tickers scrolled like a physical river he could almost touch. Market volatility indices pulsed with a low thrum. News headlines flashed, tagged with predicted impact percentages. It was overwhelming, dizzying, like trying to drink from a firehose of pure information.
WARNING: NEURAL LOAD APPROACHING USER CURRENT THRESHOLD (85%). ADJUSTING DATA STREAM. FOCUS: MICRO-TRANSACTIONS, HIGH VOLATILITY, IMMEDIATE LIQUIDITY.
The torrent narrowed. The overwhelming river became a focused stream. Ace felt the pressure in his temples lessen slightly. He saw it now: penny stocks, cryptocurrencies with fractions-of-a-cent fluctuations, obscure commodity futures. The System highlighted patterns invisible to the naked eye – minute buy/sell imbalances, social media sentiment shifts milliseconds before they registered on public platforms, algorithmic footprints of small-time pump-and-dump operations.
PROPOSED ACTION STREAM #1: EXPLOIT VOLATILITY IN 'NICKEL NUGGET MINING CORP' (TICKER: NNMC).
- CURRENT PRICE: $0.087/share
- PREDICTED SPIKE (+18-22%) WITHIN NEXT 47 MINUTES DUE TO MISINTERPRETED PRESS RELEASE LEAK.
- WINDOW FOR PROFIT: APPROXIMATELY 90 SECONDS.
- REQUIRED CAPITAL: MINIMUM $40.00 USD (Physical Assets Recommended for Speed).
- ESTIMATED RETURN: $7.20 - $8.80 USD (Pre-Fees).
- RISK FACTOR: HIGH (Volatility Window Narrow; Potential for Rapid Collapse Post-Spike).
Forty dollars. Almost all his hard-won cash. For a potential eight-dollar profit. It felt ludicrous. Insulting, even, after what he'd been through. Panic, the old familiar friend, started to coil in his gut. What if the System was wrong? What if the 'misinterpreted leak' was just plain wrong? He'd be back to near zero, vulnerable.
USER HESITATION DETECTED. REMINDER: PASSIVITY BREEDS STAGNATION. STAGNATION = TERMINAL DECLINE. THE $40.00 USD IS A TOOL, NOT A TREASURE. UTILIZE IT.
The System's tone wasn't cruel, just brutally pragmatic. It cut through the fear. A tool, not a treasure. The $40 wasn't safety; it was ammunition. And ammunition was meant to be fired. He remembered the alley, the crushing despair. He remembered the System forcing him to beg, to gamble. This, at least, felt like a calculated risk, guided by something beyond his own terrified instincts.
"Okay" Ace breathed, his voice steadier than he felt. "Okay. Do it. Use the $40. Physical assets."
ACKNOWLEDGED. INITIATING TRADE VIA PRE-ESTABLISHED SHELL ROUTES. USER INPUT REQUIRED FOR FINAL CONFIRMATION VIA NEURAL INTERFACE.
A virtual button pulsed in Ace's mind's eye, glowing with a cool, blue light. He focused on it, pushing his intention towards it – Confirm. A faint electric tingle shot down his spine.
TRADE EXECUTED: $40.00 USD -> 456.321 SHARES OF NNMC @ $0.0876.
The numbers appeared in his vision. His physical cash was gone, transformed into digital fragments of a company digging dirt for a metal worth pennies. He felt naked. He sat rigid on the edge of the lumpy bed, staring at the peeling wallpaper, the System's countdown timer superimposed over reality: 44:32... 44:31...
Every second stretched into an eternity. He could feel the market's pulse through the neural link now, a low, erratic thrumming. The NNMC line on the internal chart was flat. Dead. Doubt gnawed at him. Had he just thrown Mike's payment away? Had the System finally steered him wrong?
Then, it happened. A tiny blip. The thrumming intensified. The flat line jagged upwards. $0.089... $0.091... $0.095... News alerts flashed in his peripheral vision: "NNMC Rumored Major Nickel Strike!" – tagged by the System with <
PRICE SPIKE IMMINENT. PREPARE FOR LIQUIDATION.
The line shot up: $0.102... $0.105... $0.107! Ace's heart was racing and pounding hard. The timer hit 00:15 for the predicted peak window.
EXECUTE LIQUIDATION PROTOCOL: NEURAL CONFIRMATION REQUIRED.
Another pulse, another button. Ace slammed his mental focus onto it. Sell!
LIQUIDATION COMPLETE: 456.321 SHARES NNMC @ $0.1063 -> $48.52 USD (Gross).
NET PROCEEDES AFTER FEES: $47.86 USD.
PHYSICAL ASSETS UPDATED: $47.86 USD.
A wave of shaky relief washed over him, followed immediately by a throbbing headache. He sagged back against the headboard. $47.86. He'd started with $40. He'd made $7.86 in under an hour, sitting on a stained motel bedcover. It was absurd. It was terrifying. It was… possible.
OBJECTIVE PROGRESS: CAPITAL ACCUMULATION INITIATED. EFFICIENCY: 19.65%. ADEQUATE FOR STAGE. NEURAL ADAPTATION INCREASED TO 15%.
"Nineteen percent efficient," Ace mumbled, massaging his temples. The System's praise was as backhanded as ever. But he had $47.86 more than he'd had an hour ago. And the neural-interface… it worked. It hurt, but it worked.
The headache receded to a dull ache. Hunger, sharp and insistent, replaced it. Capital accumulation needed fuel. He needed food. Pocketing the cash – the physical feel of the bills and coins a grounding anchor – he cautiously opened his newly fortified door. The motel courtyard was quiet, mid-morning sun warming the cracked concrete. He took a deep breath, the air cleaner than the alley but still thick with city grit.
As he walked towards the street, aiming for the dubious-looking deli on the corner, a figure emerged from the motel office – a young woman, maybe a year or two older than him, wearing scrubs and looking tired but alert. She had warm brown skin and eyes that held a sharp, assessing intelligence. She was locking the office door behind her, a stack of flyers in her hand – advertisements for a free health clinic nearby.
Their eyes met briefly. Ace instinctively looked away, the ingrained habit of someone used to being unseen. But he felt her gaze linger for a second longer than usual, perhaps noticing the fading bruise on his jaw or the tense set of his shoulders. She offered a small, polite nod before turning towards a beat-up compact car.
"Rough night?" she asked, her voice surprisingly clear and direct, cutting through the morning quiet. It wasn't pity, just observation.
Ace froze, caught off guard. He managed a non-committal grunt, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets, feeling the weight of the $47.86 and the phantom thrum of the stock market still echoing in his skull.
"Something like that," he muttered, not meeting her eyes again, and hurried towards the promise of cheap calories, the System already humming with the promise of the next task, the woman's observant eyes a new, unsettling variable in his fragile equation of survival.