In a bar called "The Penalty Box," and like every sports bar it smelled like beers, fried food and toxic masculinity.
Saturday night, Seahawks playing the 49ers, every screen showed the game and every patron had opinions delivered at volumes inversely proportional to their actual knowledge of football. Darren sat at the bar in jeans and a button down—Liz had said the suit would be "too visible" here—nursing a beer and watching tags float above the crowd.
[EXCITEMENT: MODERATE] [$4.25]
[COMPETITIVE AGGRESSION: LOW] [$6.50]
[TRIBAL AFFILIATION: HIGH] [$2.10]
Low value emotions, surface-level, the kind of ambient harvest that would net him maybe $30 for an entire evening of work.
But Liz wasn't here for ambient harvests.
"See the two guys at the corner table?" she said through his earpiece—a tiny Gilt woven device that sat invisible in his ear canal and transmitted her voice directly to his auditory nerve. "Longtime friends, been coming here every week for three years, watch their body language."
Darren followed her gaze, two men in their thirties in jerseys and baseball caps, the easy camaraderie of people who'd known each other forever. Their tags read:
[FRIENDSHIP SATISFACTION: HIGH] [$0.00]
[CONTENTMENT: MODERATE] [$0.00]
Positive emotions, worthless in the Gilt economy.
"Your job," Liz continued, "is to introduce discord, nothing obvious. No direct conflict, just... plant a seed and see what grows."
"How?"
"Use what you know about tribal dynamics. Sports teams are identity proxies, attack the proxy, you attack the identity." There was a smile in her voice. "I'll be watching, make me proud."
The earpiece went silent.
Darren finished his beer, grabbed the next one he'd already ordered—Liz's tip: always have a prop—and approached the corner table.
"Excuse me," he said, friendly but not pushy. "You guys mind if I ask you something? Settling a bet with my buddy."
The taller one—Seahawks jersey, friendly face, gestured to the empty chair. "Sure, man. What's up?"
"Wilson versus Garoppolo, who's the better quarterback?" Darren asked it casually, like he didn't know he was lobbing a grenade.
"Wilson, easy," Seahawks jersey said immediately.
His friend—49ers jersey—laughed. "Are you kidding? Jimmy G's stats this season—"
"Stats don't tell the whole story, Mike."
"Oh, here we go with the 'leadership' bullshit again—"
Darren smiled, took a sip of beer and said: "I mean, Wilson's got the ring, that's gotta count for something."
"Thank you!" Seahawks jersey—apparently not Mike, gestured at his friend. "That's what I keep saying, Championships matter."
"Sure, but Wilson had a better defense those years," Mike countered. "Put Jimmy G on that team, he wins too."
"That's pure speculation..."
"And your argument isn't?"
The friendly tone was developing an edge, Darren watched their tags shift:
[FRIENDSHIP SATISFACTION: DECLINING] [$0.00] → [$3.25]
[COMPETITIVE AGGRESSION: RISING] [$6.50] → [$12.80]
"Although," Darren said thoughtfully, "didn't Wilson have some rough playoff performances? Like that interception against the Patriots?"
Seahawks jersey's face tightened. "That was a bad play call, not Wilson's fault."
"Bad play call that Wilson executed," Mike said, suddenly more animated. "A truly elite quarterback balls out of that."
"Oh, so now Wilson's not elite? This is the guy you've been saying is underrated for years—"
"I said he 'was' underrated, past tense really. He's overpaid now—"
"Overpaid? The going rate for franchise quarterbacks—"
Their tags were climbing:
[IRRITATION: MODERATE] [$15.50]
[DEFENSIVE PRIDE: RISING] [$18.25]
Darren interjected again, gentle as a surgeon's knife: "I think what's interesting is how much we invest in these guys emotionally. Like, they're just athletes doing a job but we treat them like they represent something about us, you know?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Seahawks jersey asked.
"Nothing bad, just... it's interesting how defensive we get. Like, my buddy—the one I'm settling the bet with—he's a Patriots fan and he gets so worked up about Brady criticism it's like you're attacking his family."
"That's different," Mike said. "Brady's actually the GOAT, wilson's just... good. Fans oversell him because they're desperate for validation."
Seahawks jersey's expression hardened. "Desperate for validation? That's rich coming from a 49ers fan, your team literally hasn't won shit since the 90s—"
"We've been to Super Bowls this decade—"
"And lost them."
"Because of bad calls, not bad quarterbacking."
Darren stood, reading their tags:
[ANGER: MODERATE] [$28.50]
[BETRAYAL (MINOR): EMERGING] [$35.75]
"Anyway, thanks for the input, guys. Appreciate it."
He walked away as their argument escalated, each one defending their position with increasing heat, what had started as friendly disagreement was curdling into something sharper. They were still "joking," but the jokes had teeth now.
Behind him, he heard: "You know what your problem is? You can't admit when you're wrong."
"My problem? You've been shitting on Wilson for twenty minutes."
"Because you brought him up! Again! Like you always do—"
Darren sat back at the bar and harvested both of them simultaneously. The cold hit him in stereo—two different flavors of betrayal mixing:
*—he always does this, makes everything about his team, can't just enjoy the game—*
*—three years and he still doesn't respect my opinion, treats me like I'm stupid—*
The golden script fractured and dissolved.
DEPOSIT: $64.25
The earpiece crackled. "Beautiful," Liz said. "You didn't take sides, didn't attack directly, just introduced a framework that turned friendly competition into genuine conflict. The betrayal yield is particularly good—that's what happens when you damage established relationships."
Darren watched the two friends. They were still arguing but quieter now, with less eye contact. The easy camaraderie from thirty minutes ago was gone, replaced by something brittle.
"They'll make up," Liz continued. "Probably apologize tomorrow but you've introduced doubt, they'll remember this fight. Wonder if maybe their friendship isn't as solid as they thought, that seed will grow."
"What if they don't make up?" Darren asked quietly.
"Then they don't, not your problem." A pause. "You did well, rest for an hour, let your emotional recovery complete then head to the next location. Address incoming."
The earpiece went silent.
Darren stared at his beer, at his reflection in the mirror behind the bar, wearing clothes that made him look like someone who belonged here, who could just be a normal guy watching a game.
Except normal guys didn't start arguments between friends to harvest the resulting emotional damage.
Normal guys didn't calculate the yield of minor betrayals.
His phone buzzed: Next target location uploaded, corporate networking event. Dress code: full suit. Car arriving at your building in 90 minutes.
Darren left cash on the bar—real money, not Gilt, because the bartender couldn't accept emotional capital even if he wanted to, and he walked out into the Seattle night.
Behind him, the two friends were apologizing, laughing it off but their body language was still tense.
The seed was planted.