2025-11-26 21:22:40I walked into Jade's dojo at 5:58 PM, holding a roll of athletic tape. My arms still remembered yesterday's pad work, and now they were filing restraining orders.
Jade was already on the mats, wrapping her hands. She looked tired. Not physically, because she could probably run a marathon backward while juggling chainsaws. But her eyes had that distant, weighted thing that comes from too many hospital waiting rooms and not enough sleep.
"You're early," she said.
"I'm on time. You're just chronically punctual." I dropped my bag by the wall and started stretching.
Across the room, Marcus was teaching a class of six guys who all looked like they bench-pressed trucks for cardio. He hadn't noticed me yet. Small blessings.
Jade checked her phone for the fourth time in two minutes. "Danny's nurse says they moved his next round up again. Three days instead of two weeks."
My stomach dropped. "Three days?"
"Yeah." She locked the screen and shoved the phone in her pocket. "So we don’t have two weeks to get fifty grand. We need it in seventy-two hours."
"That's..." I did the math. Failed. Gave up. "A lot per hour."
"It's impossible."
Mira's voice whispered in my head. "You committed to this, rookie."
"Shut up," I muttered.
"I didn't say anything," Jade said.
"Not you. The... my inner voice. It's mean."
She almost smiled.
Then Marcus spotted me.
"Well, well," he called out, loud enough for the entire gym to hear. "If it isn't Evan the Charity Case."
His class turned to look. Great. Audience participation.
Marcus strolled over, arms crossed, biceps doing their usual intimidation routine. "I saw your little funding request online, Cross. 'Help Save Danny Kwon.' Very touching. Really tugs the heartstrings."
"Thanks," I said flatly. "We accept donations in cash or credit card."
"So you're monetizing pity now?" He grinned at his students like he'd just landed a killer punchline. "What's next? 'Click Here to Save a Kwon'? You selling T-shirts?"
A couple of his guys chuckled. One of them muttered something about e-begging.
Jade's jaw tightened, but she didn't say anything. Just kept wrapping her hands in slow loops.
A notification blinked in my peripheral vision.
[Micro-Quest: Clap Back Publicly]
Reward: +1 PRC
Marcus was still going. "What's the target? Fifty grand? That's cute. I make that in a month."
"Cool," I said. "Maybe you could donate some instead of using it all on protein powder."
His smile flickered. One of his students coughed into his fist.
I should have stopped there, but my stupid mouth kept going.
"Besides," I said, "if people are willing to pay to watch your form, they'll definitely pay for Danny. He at least can become useful to society."
The gym laughed. Even the receptionist at the front desk snorted.
Marcus's face went red. Jade's went blank.
[PRC +1]
[RSN with Jade –1: Questioning motives]
Oh no.
Oh no.
Jade turned and walked to the equipment rack without a word. Grabbed two focus mitts and shoved them at me.
"Put these on," she said quietly.
"Jade—"
"Put. Them. On."
I put them on.
She took her stance, and the first punch came fast and hard. I caught it on the mitt, barely. The impact jolted through my forearms like I'd just blocked a car.
"Again," she said.
Another punch. Then another. Left, right, left, right, faster and harder each time. My arms screamed. My shoulders burned. I was pretty sure my skeleton was filing for divorce from my muscles.
"Jade, I'm—"
"Don't." Punch. "Talk." Punch. "Hold." Punch.
Between rounds, when I was doubled over trying to remember how breathing worked, Jade's phone buzzed on the bench.
She checked it. Her whole posture changed, shoulders dropping and jaw loosening.
"They're admitting him tonight," she said. "Infection risk is too high. They want to start prep for the emergency treatment cycle."
"Jade—"
"We need the money by Friday." She looked at me, and for the first time since I'd met her, she looked small. "Evan, we need fifty thousand dollars in three days."
I wanted to say something smart and reassuring that wasn't complete bullshit. "We'll figure it out."
"How?"
"I don't know yet. But we will."
She stared at me for a long moment. "Don't use Danny to score points against assholes like Marcus."
"I know. I'm sorry. That was—"
"It was shitty," she said.
[Micro-Quest Complete: Lesson Learned]
[RSN with Jade: Repair in progress]
I nodded. "I know. I'm sorry."
She picked up the mitts again. "Good. Now hold these before I decide to use your face instead."
***
By the time we finished, my arms were jelly and my shirt was 90% sweat. Jade looked calm again, or at least back to her default level of controlled intensity.
I checked my phone while she packed up.
The funding page had $847.
Three days to raise fifty grand.
I was so screwed.
"Hey," Jade said. "Thanks for coming. And for... trying."
"I'm making more calls tonight. Rico said he'd spread the word to his food truck network. And I texted that comic shop guy—"
"Evan."
I looked up.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "For real."
[RSN +1]
[Jade Kwon — Combat Path]
[Resonance (RSN): 12 → 13]
Before I could respond, my phone buzzed with a notification from the funding page.
New comment: [CLICK HERE FOR A FREE IPHONE GIVEAWAY 🎁🎉]
I frowned. "That's weird."
Another buzz.
[CONGRATULATIONS YOU WON $$$]
And another.
[NIGERIAN PRINCE NEEDS YOUR HELP]
"What the hell?" I scrolled through the comment section. It was flooded with spam, dozens of bot accounts posting scam links, burying the real comments.
Mira's voice chimed in. "Anomaly detected."
"Can you track it?"
"I'm an AI guide, not a digital forensics team. You need actual help for this."
"From who?"
My phone buzzed again. Unknown number.
Unknown: [Your donation page has a leak. You want it patched or do you prefer bleeding money?]
I stared at the message.
"Who's that?" Jade asked.
"I... think it's my neighbor."
Unknown: [This is Clara. 6B. You moved my packages. Now I'm removing your spam problem. You in?]
"Debug-quest unlocked," Mira said cheerfully. "Congrats, rookie."
I typed back: [How bad is it?]
Clara: [Bad. Someone's targeting your page with bot traffic. If it gets flagged as spam, the funding platform might suspend the whole campaign.]
My stomach dropped. Again. It was becoming a habit.
Clara: [I can fix it. But I need remote access to your campaign dashboard and about two hours.]
I looked at Jade. "My tech neighbor says someone's sabotaging the fundraiser. She can fix it, but—"
"Do it," Jade said immediately. "Whatever it takes."
I texted Clara: [You're hired. What do you need?]
Clara: [You and your credentials. Mostly the credentials.]
Me: [Sending now. And thank you.]
Clara: [Don't thank me yet. If I find whoever's doing this, I'm billing them for my time.]
I sent her the campaign credentials and shoved my phone in my pocket.
"What now?" Jade asked.
"Now?" I grabbed my bag and headed for the door. "Now I go home and watch a semi-stranger work while I stress-eat instant ramen and pray we don't end up on the news for fraud."
"Sounds like a plan."
"It's a terrible plan."
"All your plans are terrible," she said. "But they're better than nothing."
I paused at the door. "Jade?"
"Yeah?"
"We're going to save your brother."
She didn't answer right away. Just looked at me with those sharp, tired eyes.
"You better not be lying," she said finally.
"I'm not."
[Quest Updated: Emergency Fundraising]
[Timer: 71 hours, 23 minutes]
[Current Progress: $847 / $50,000]
As I walked out into the cold night air, Marcus's voice echoed from the gym behind me.
"Good luck with your charity case, Cross!"
I just kept walking.
Mira's voice was soft in my head. "You know what's funny?"
"Enlighten me."
"That was the first time you walked away from him without freezing."
I stopped on the sidewalk, surprised.
She was right.
[Personal Growth Milestone: Confidence +1]
[PRC: 6 → 7]
I pulled out my phone and opened the group text with Rico, the comic shop guy, and two other delivery contacts.
Me: [Emergency meeting tomorrow morning. We're raising 50k in three days and I'm out of good ideas.]
My phone buzzed immediately. Clara.
Clara: [Found the source. You're going to want to see this. Come to 6B. Bring coffee. Not decaf.]
I stared at her door number on my phone screen.
Time to find out if my Tech Path neighbor was as good as Mira seemed to think.
[Quest Unlocked: Debug the Disaster]
[New Objective: Meet Clara and identify the saboteur]
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Ch 58. Danny Sees Too Much
Mira had been quiet for a day and a half.I'd said good morning to my ceiling twice and gotten nothing back, which was new and which I hated more than I wanted to admit."Mira?" I tried again in the hospital elevator. "Still doing the silent treatment? Because I said one nice thing and you vanished like a startled hologram, which, frankly, is a you problem—"Nothing. Just the elevator hum and the smell of industrial citrus that hospitals use to pretend they don't smell like hospitals.I let it go. I had a person to see who actually answered when you talked to him.***Danny looked better than last time. Not better better. Better the way a guy looks when the worst round of treatment is behind him, and the next one hasn't started yet, meaning color in his face, eyes bright under the baseball cap, but thinner than a guy who played college ball should ever be, the IV line still taped to the back of his hand like a tether."There he is," he rasped, grinning. "Delivery Boy Hero. In the fles
Ch 57. The Girlfriend Terms and Conditions
The text said: Your presence is required. 2 PM. Your apartment.It was from Clara. It had a calendar invite attached. The calendar invite had an agenda. The agenda had bullet points.I have walked into job interviews with less structure than this. I have walked into a police station with less structure than this."You look like a man reading his own sentencing," Mira observed from somewhere near the ceiling."They scheduled a meeting with an agenda. In my own apartment.""Eleven days to a citywide tournament against unknown enemies, and this is what frightens you?""You don't understand. There are bullet points, Mira."***They arrived together, which was its own bad sign.Clara came in first, laptop already open, walking like she had a quarterly review to deliver. Jade followed with two grocery bags, set them on my counter, and started laying out snacks like provisioning a bunker."Why so many snacks?" I asked."Because this is going to take a while," Jade said, "and I refuse to nego
Ch 56. Leona Hart Already Knew Something Was Wrong
Telling Jade had felt like jumping off a cliff. Telling Clara had felt like an oral exam I hadn't studied for.Telling Leona felt like walking into a chess game already in progress, where I was somehow both a player and a piece, and I'd forgotten the rules on purpose.The elevator played the same smooth-brained Coltrane-adjacent jazz. The city dropped away below the glass. Twelve days until the Challenge. A second echo blinking on Clara's screen somewhere across town.And me, going to Leona's office two days early and unannounced, because Jade had looked me in the eye that morning and said no more secrets."You're tense," Mira said in my ear. "Tenser than usual."The doors opened. The receptionist was gone for the day. The corridor of magazine covers of TIME, Forbes, Vanity Fair, and all the people Leona had built and quietly unbuilt ran ahead of me in low amber light.The last door was open."You're early," Leona said, without turning around. She was at the window, the city behind he
Ch 55. Catastrophically Good
She laughed and pulled my shirt off over my head. We sank down onto the same cruel mat, now somehow the best object in the world, and her hands ran over the bruises she'd just put there like she was apologizing to each one personally."You're going to be purple tomorrow," she murmured."Worth it.""You don't even know what I'm about to do to you yet.""Still confident in my answer."She kissed me again, slower this time, the anger bleeding out of it, and when she pulled back, her eyes were scared in a way she'd rather die than say out loud.So I said it for her. "I'm not going anywhere.""You don't know that.""No," I admitted. "But I'm going to keep showing up until you have to throw me off the roof to get rid of me.""Don't tempt me," she said.Then she kissed me again. Her hands flattened against my chest and pushed me down onto my back, and she followed me down, straddling my hips, her weight settling over me."Tell me to stop," she said against my jaw, "if you want to stop.""Tha
Ch 54. Jade Punches the Truth Out of Me
The text came at 6:14 a.m.Jade: Gym. Now. Wear something you don't mind bleeding in.I looked at it for a while.Me: good morning to you tooJade: 6:40. Door's open.No Cross. No teasing. Just instructions.Clara was probably already three coffees deep, hunched over the second echo, blinking on a timeline in a part of the city neither of us had touched. There was nothing to do with it yet. You can't punch a network signature. You can't lock your door against a hiccup in the traffic.Jade, though, had found something she could punch.***The gym was empty and gray in the early light, that hour before the heavy bags and the loud men, when it smells like rubber and effort. Jade was already on the mats, barefoot, wrapping her hands. She didn't look up."Shoes off. Tape up.""So we're doing this. Cool. Love it."I sat to untie my shoes. My hands weren't completely steady, and the worst part was I couldn't tell if it was nerves or the Intuition passive, that low hum the system gave me afte
Ch 53. Clara Puts God in a Spreadsheet
The coffee mug lay on its side by the leg of the couch, a slow brown tongue of Jade's terrible coffee crawling toward the rug.Nobody moved to clean it up. We were all still standing inside the word Leona."Okay," Clara said.Her voice had gone flat and far away.She opened a new spreadsheet."Clara," Jade said. "He just told us Leona Hart is in his head. The woman who cornered him at the gala. The one you said gives you a bad feeling.""I know.""So we're going to talk about that.""We are." Clara's fingers didn't stop typing. "Just not now. If I start with Leona right now, I'm going to say something I can't take back, and then the system will probably dock him for my feelings, knowing his luck." She finally looked up. "Let me do the part I can do. Then we do the part I can't."Jade held her stare for a second. Then she dropped onto the couch arm, jaw tight, and let her have it."Title," she said, typing. "Nexus Testing Sheet, version one.""You're versioning it," I said."There will
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