I didn't sleep that night.
Not because I was sad or anything, I was past sad. I was in that weird post-breakdown clarity where your brain just goes completely quiet and starts running calculations instead. A hundred thousand dollars. In my account. Real money, I checked four times.
By morning I had a plan.
Step one: pay rent. Obviously. Mr. Henderson had been texting me with increasing aggression for two weeks and I was tired of saving his contact as "Landlord DO NOT IGNORE" and then ignoring him.
I opened my banking app, navigated to the transfer screen, typed in the amount —
[Ding!]
[Transaction blocked!]
[System funds may only be spent on women!]
I stared at my phone.
"...what."
[System funds may only be spent on women!]
"Yeah I read it the first time."
I sat there for a second processing that. Then I tried the same transfer again, just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.
[Transaction blocked!]
[Are you dense? We said what we said.]
Okay the system had jokes apparently.
I tried buying textbooks but it still got blocked. Then I tried paying my phone bill. Blocked. I tried literally just sending twenty dollars to my roommate Kevin for the noodles I owed him. Blocked, and Kevin is very much a man so that tracked I guess.
Every single thing I tried to spend the system money on that wasn't a woman got shut down instantly. There were no exceptions, no workarounds and no mercy.
I put my phone down and laid flat on my back on the floor because the bed felt too comfortable for this kind of news.
"So you're telling me," I said to the ceiling, "that I have a hundred thousand dollars and I'm still not paying rent."
The system did not respond. It only ever talked when it felt like it.
I laid there for another ten minutes then got up because I had a 10am lecture I was already going to be late for and being broke AND failing out wasn't the energy I was going for.
---
Professor Daniels taught Economics 201 with the enthusiasm of a man who had given up on everything except his mortgage. I slid into the lecture hall seven minutes late, which was practically early by my standards, and scanned for a seat.
The hall was about half full. I spotted a seat near the middle and made my way over, squeezing past a couple of guys who looked equally dead inside.
I sat down, pulled out my notebook, and that's when I noticed her.
One seat to my left.
I didn't notice her because I found her attractive or anything, well okay I did, but that wasn't the first thing. The first thing was that she was the only person in a 10am economics lecture who looked genuinely unbothered. Not happy, not miserable, just completely and utterly neutral. Like she had decided long ago that the world's chaos was not her problem.
She had her notes already open with a pen in hand.
She was not looking at her phone or whispering to anyone. Just ready for a 10am lecture. After a Tuesday.
I had seen her before, vaguely. We had the same course but different section probably, but we'd never spoken.
Professor Daniels started talking. I started pretending to take notes.
Ten minutes in I leaned over slightly.
"Hey, did he say this was going to be on the midterm or—"
She didn't even look at me. "Yes. Supply elasticity, market equilibrium, and the intervention models from last week."
"...thanks."
"Mhm."
She went back to her notes, completely unbothered. Not even sparing me a single glance.
I faced forward again. Okay then.
For the rest of the lecture I kept my mouth shut and actually tried to pay attention for once in my life. When Daniels finally let us go I was packing up my bag when the system chimed in completely unprompted.
[Ding!]
[Eligible recipient detected!]
[Spending on this individual will activate a return multiplier!]
I froze with my notebook halfway into my bag.
I looked to my left. She was already standing, slinging her bag over one shoulder, completely unaware that my vision had just filled up with blue text about her.
[Current multiplier: 3.5x]
[Spend $1,000 — Return: $3,500]
[Spend $5,000 — Return: $17,500]
[Spend $10,000 — Return: $35,000]
I blinked the notification away and looked at her again like she was some kind of walking investment portfolio. Which apparently she was. The system had picked her specifically, which meant something, I just didn't know what yet.
She glanced over and caught me staring.
"Do you need something else?"
"No I just— sorry. I'm Caden."
She looked at me for exactly one second. "Mia."
Then she walked out.
I stood there in the emptying lecture hall, system humming quietly in the back of my vision, watching her go.
Mia huh.
I had a hundred thousand dollars I could only spend on women, a system that just flagged her specifically, and absolutely zero idea how to do any of this without coming across like a complete weirdo.
This was going to be complicated.