System Of Retribution

Chapter 3

Ryan stared at the nurse like she had just told him the walls were made of sugar. "From this room," he said. "I wasn't in this room. I was in an alley."

"I just relay what dispatch tells me," she said, already halfway out the door, the kind of tired that came from a twelve hour shift and zero patience left for mysteries. "Get some rest. Doctor will be in to check on you in an hour."

The door clicked shut, and the quiet that followed felt heavier than it should have.

Ryan lay there a long moment, running the timeline again in his head, the footsteps, the triangle of men, the alley, the dark, none of it added up to a call placed from a hospital room he hadn't been in yet. Unless something had placed it. Unless something had known where he would end up before he did.

He shut his eyes, half expecting nothing, and there it was, the faint blue shimmer at the edge of his vision sharpening the instant he focused on it, lines of text unfolding in the air like they had been waiting patiently for him to stop being distracted by nurses and start paying attention.

‘Liquidation system! Analyzing! Complete!’

"Okay," Ryan said out loud, to the empty room, because talking to thin air felt marginally less insane than thinking it silently. "So I'm either dying, dreaming, or losing it completely. Which one is this."

“None of the above”

"That's not actually an answer." Ryan Said.

“The call was made for you, consider it a welcome gift,” it said.

"A welcome gift," Ryan said. "From who."

“From me,” it replied.

Ryan let out a short laugh that turned into a wince when it pulled at his ribs. "Great. I'm being stalked by an app."

“I am not an app.”

"You sound a little defensive for something that isn't an app."

“I said I am a liquidation system and I have been bonded to you. I do not take offense, I simply correct inaccuracies.”

"Bonded to me," Ryan said slowly. "Like a parasite."

“Like an investment,” it said.

That word landed strange, deliberate, like it had been chosen specifically to get his attention. Ryan pushed himself up against the pillows, ignoring the protest from every bruised muscle in his body, suddenly more alert than he had been since waking up.

"Explain," Ryan said. "Plainly. No riddles."

“The liquidation system converts the losses of those who harm you into gain for you. When someone who has wronged you suffers a loss, money, status, power, reputation, a portion of that loss is converted and transferred to you.”

Ryan sat with that for a second. "So if Tyler loses money because of something I do."

“Correct, the more he loses, the more you gain.”

"And if I just hit him." Ryan said.

“Hitting him accomplished nothing for you, phys6injury is not loss in the way I measure it, you would merely be tired and arrested.”

"So revenge has to be smart."

“Yes, revenge has to be effective, smart. It is simply a requirement of effectiveness.”

Ryan almost smiled at that, the closest thing to relief he'd felt in longer than he wanted to admit. A system that punished stupidity instead of rewarding rage, that was new. That was something he could actually work with.

"Fine," Ryan said. "Let's say I believe you. Why me. Why now. I've had plenty of people screw me over before tonight."

“That is not a question I am authorized to answer yet.” it replied.

"Convenient."

“Necessary. Some answers are earned, not given.”

"You're a real charmer for a piece of software." Ryan said, doubting everything it said.

“I am not a software” it said protesting.

"Could've fooled me."

The system didn't respond right away, and for a second Ryan wondered if he'd actually managed to annoy it, which felt like an oddly satisfying thing to accomplish on the worst night of his life. Then new text bloomed in front of him, slower this time, almost deliberate.

“A notification has been generated.”

Ryan straightened. "What kind of notification?"

“Tyler Briggs has just lost a client contract worth four hundred thousand dollars”

Ryan's heart kicked up a notch. "I didn't do anything. I'm in a hospital bed."

“The loss was not caused by you . It was caused by its own negligence, discovered today by the client in question. However, because he wronged you tonight, and because this loss occurred between the qualification window, a portion was transferred to you regardless of your involvement.”

"So I get rewarded even when I'm not the one who screws him over."

“Correct, though your own action will not accelerate the price considerably.”

Ryan felt something shift inside his chest, not pain this time, something sharper and stranger, a kind of pulling sensation just beneath his ribs, like a held breath finally letting go. The hospital room blurred at the edges for half a second, and when his vision cleared, new text sat waiting, stark and simple.

“Reflect Tier 1 Unlocked.”

Ryan flexed his hand experimentally, and even through the haze of painkillers and bruised knuckles, something felt different, sharper, like the static between his thoughts and his body had cleared out a notch.

"That's it," Ryan said quietly. "That's actually it. This is real."

“This is real and Tyler Briggs is only the beginning.”

Ryan almost asked what that meant, almost asked who else the system already had its eye on, when the door to his room swung open hard enough to bang against the wall, and a man in a security uniform he did not recognize stepped inside, eyes scanning the room with the particular intensity of someone checking whether a target was still breathing.

"Mr. Ryan Cole," the man said, professional, wrong in a way Ryan couldn't immediately name. "I need you to come with me.”