Reed stared at the screen, his finger hovering over the execute button.
Five hundred million credits. Corporate black operations fund, if his research was right. Untraceable, because it was never supposed to exist in the first place. The kind of money that disappeared people who asked too many questions about it. The kind of money that could do... anything.
The kind of money that could answer a very stupid question.
His apartment was dark except for the glow of his tablet. 3 AM. The building was quiet except for the ever-present hum of station systems and someone's muffled coughing three units over. Reed had been sitting here for two hours, high enough on Leveler that his hands weren't shaking but not so high that he couldn't think. The sweet spot. The place where nothing seemed impossible and consequences felt abstract.
He'd been thinking about Marco. Always thinking about Marco. But tonight it had crystallized into something specific, something dangerous.
What if people just... didn't have to work?
Not forever. Not some utopian fantasy. Just... what if they had enough that they didn't have to take the shit jobs, the grinding ones, the ones that killed you slowly? What if, for once, people in Sector 12 could say no to terrible labor?
Would they become lazy? Would they collapse into degeneracy like every corporate broadcast insisted they would? Or would they, maybe... be okay?
Reed laughed quietly, the sound bitter. This was the stupidest idea he'd ever had. This was how you got disappeared by corporate security. This was absolutely, categorically, a terrible decision.
His finger pressed the button.
The program he'd written—cobbled together from his old financial analyst skills and three nights of paranoid coding—began executing. Anonymous shell accounts, randomized transfer patterns, routing through seventeen different sector exchanges. The building had 200 residential units. Each unit would receive 2000 credits per month. Marked as a "Prosperity Initiative Grant" from a fake subsidiary he'd invented called "Future Forward Solutions."
Corporate loved that kind of language. It wouldn't raise immediate flags.
The first transfers went through. Then the second batch. Then the third.
Reed watched the numbers cascade down his screen, watching five hundred million credits become slightly less than five hundred million credits, and felt... nothing. No triumph. No fear. Just the same flat numbness he'd felt for the past five years, overlaid with the Leveler's chemical calm and a distant sense of curiosity.
This was either the most interesting thing he'd ever done, or it would get him killed.
Possibly both.
The transfers hit accounts at 6 AM, precisely when most residents would be checking their prosperity scores before morning shifts.
Reed was standing in the building's common area—a depressing rectangle of shared space with broken furniture and a water dispenser that had been "under maintenance" for eight months—watching people as they emerged for work.
First was Chen Rodriguez, early shift in food processing. Chen glanced at his tablet, froze, looked at it again. His face went through a series of expressions: confusion, suspicion, careful blankness. He looked around the common area like he was checking for cameras, then walked out quickly. Didn't say anything. Didn't react.
Smart, Reed thought. In Sector 12, if something seemed too good to be true, it was definitely a scam. Chen was probably already trying to figure out the catch.
Next was Yuki Tanaka, juggling three bags and their tablet while trying to make it to the first of their three jobs. Yuki almost dropped everything when they checked their account. They stood in the corridor, staring at the screen, breathing fast. Reed could see the anxiety attack building from across the room—the rapid breathing, the trembling hands.
"It's not real," Yuki said out loud to no one. "It's a mistake. It's going to disappear. It's—" They stopped, closed their eyes, did the breathing exercise Reed had seen them do a hundred times. "It's not real."
They left without looking back.
Marcus Ibrahim came down twenty minutes later, moving slowly because of his back. He checked his tablet out of habit, then stopped walking entirely.
Reed watched him. Watched the older man's face carefully cycle through disbelief, hope, and then—most painfully—the immediate crushing of that hope. The assumption that it was an error. That someone would take it back. That people like Marcus didn't get 2000 credits deposited in their accounts for no reason.
Marcus looked up, scanned the common area, his eyes passing right over Reed without recognition. Just another resident in the background.
"Scam," Marcus said quietly to himself. "Has to be."
He kept walking, but Reed saw him check the tablet twice more before he reached the exit.
Over the next hour, Reed watched the building wake up. Watched residents check their accounts. Watched the same pattern repeat: confusion, hope, immediate suspicion, defensive blankness. Nobody celebrated. Nobody even smiled. They all assumed it was a mistake or a trap.
Which made sense. Good things didn't happen in Sector 12. The system didn't give you money for free. There was always a catch, always a price, always a corporate agenda.
Reed understood. He'd expected this. The first month, no one would believe it. Maybe not even the second month. But if the money kept coming...
If it kept coming, things would get interesting.
By evening, building gossip had reached critical mass.
Reed was back in his apartment when he heard voices in the hallway—unusual for Sector 12, where people mostly kept to themselves out of exhaustion and learned wariness.
"—checked with my supervisor and she said it wasn't from the company—"
"—probably a prosperity score error, they'll take it back with penalties—"
"—my neighbor in 4-B said everyone got it, all 200 units—"
"—Future Forward Solutions, anyone heard of them?—"
"—I'm not spending it, I'm not touching it until I know it's real—"
Reed cracked his door open slightly. A group of maybe six residents were clustered near the elevator, talking in low, worried voices. He recognized most of them. Sarah Kim. Dmitri Washington. A couple others whose names he didn't know but whose faces he'd seen for years.
"It's probably a tax thing," Sarah was saying, arms crossed defensively. "They give you money now, charge you triple later."
"Or it's a test," Dmitri said. "See who spends it, then ding their prosperity scores for financial irresponsibility."
"Maybe it's real," a younger woman said, but she didn't sound convinced. "Maybe it's, like, some corporate initiative?"
"Corporate doesn't give you money," Sarah said flatly. "Corporate takes money. That's the entire system."
There was a murmur of agreement. Because yes. That was the entire system.
Reed closed his door quietly and leaned against it. They were scared. Scared of hope. Scared of the catch. Scared that accepting something good would result in something worse.
He understood that too. The system had trained them well. Taught them that nothing came for free, that every gift had strings, that people in Sector 12 didn't get lucky breaks.
His tablet chimed—the evening broadcast starting. "Remember, Nova Prosperity citizens: your dedication today builds your tomorrow! Prosperity through effort!"
Reed looked at the tablet, then at his ceiling, then at nothing in particular.
What if, he thought again. What if they didn't have to be scared? What if, just once, something good happened and stayed good?
What if people could just... breathe?
The Leveler was wearing off, reality creeping back in around the edges. His hands were starting to shake. His brother was still dead. The corporate courier was still dead. The system was still grinding. And Reed had just done something monumentally stupid that couldn't be undone.
He took another dose—probably too soon, but who was counting—and lay down on his bed.
Tomorrow people would still be suspicious. Still scared. Still assuming it was a scam.
But the next month, the money would come again.
And the month after that.
And eventually...
Eventually they'd have to start asking the same question Reed was asking.
What if?
Week two, and the building's atmosphere had shifted from confusion to paranoid analysis.
Reed made his normal rounds, dealing Leveler, observing. The gossip network was in overdrive. Theories multiplied. Everyone had an explanation for the mysterious 2000 credits.
"It's a corporate social experiment," Chen told Reed during a pickup. "They're studying our spending patterns."
"Probably," Reed agreed neutrally. "You spending it?"
"Hell no. It's sitting in my account until they try to take it back. Which they will." But Chen looked tired. Looked like someone who desperately wanted to believe the money was real.
Yuki had a different theory. "It's a mistake in the system," they said, talking too fast, always talking too fast. "An accounting error. When they find it they'll charge us all for it, probably with interest, and everyone who spent it will be in debt."
"Makes sense," Reed said, handing over their usual dose.
"But what if it's not?" Yuki asked, voice dropping. "What if it's, like... real? What if someone actually wants to help?"
Reed met their eyes. Saw the hope there, fragile and desperate. "Would that be so crazy?"
"Yes," Yuki said immediately. "That would be insane. That's not how anything works."
"Yeah," Reed agreed. "Probably not."
But they both stood there for a moment, not moving, both thinking the same thing.
What if?
Marcus had the most cynical take. "It's a trap," he told Reed. "Corporate wants to see who has savings. Who's got enough resources to survive without work. Then they'll know who to squeeze harder."
"Dark," Reed observed.
"Realistic," Marcus corrected. He paused. "But my daughter needs new shoes. Her school shoes are falling apart and the cheap ones hurt her feet." Another pause. "The money's still there. Still real, as far as credits go."
"You could buy the shoes," Reed said carefully.
"Could." Marcus looked at his hands, at his missing fingers. "Probably won't. But could."
Reed nodded. Understood. The money was Schrodinger's gift—simultaneously real and fake, a blessing and a trap, until someone collapsed the probability by spending it.
And nobody wanted to be first.
End of week three, someone finally broke.
Reed heard about it through the building network: Chen Rodriguez had quit his second job. The overnight shift at cargo processing. The one that paid barely anything and required him to work in near-freezing temperatures loading containers.
The one that was slowly killing him but that he couldn't afford to quit.
Until now.
Reed found Chen in the common area the next morning, looking shell-shocked.
"I did it," Chen said. Laughed. "I actually... I quit. Told my supervisor I wouldn't be coming back. And he was so confused because nobody quits. People get fired or they die, but they don't quit."
"How do you feel?" Reed asked.
Chen looked at him with wild eyes. "Terrified. Fucking terrified. The money's going to disappear. It's going to turn out to be fake. I'm going to end up in worse debt than before. I just destroyed my life over 2000 credits that probably aren't even real."
"Probably," Reed agreed.
"But Reed..." Chen's voice dropped. "I slept last night. Eight hours. I didn't wake up for a shift change. I just... slept."
"Yeah?"
"When's the last time I slept eight hours?"
Reed thought about it. "Don't know that you ever have. Since I've known you."
"Exactly." Chen laughed again, the sound slightly unhinged. "So either I just made the best decision of my life, or the worst. And I won't know which until the money disappears. Or doesn't."
He walked away, still laughing.
Reed watched him go and felt something unusual in his chest. Something that felt almost like...
No. Not hope. He didn't do hope anymore.
Curiosity, maybe. Scientific interest. He was running an experiment. Collecting data. That's all this was.
The fact that Chen had slept for eight hours didn't mean anything except that people were tired. Everyone already knew people were tired. That wasn't a revelation.
But still.
Eight hours.
Month one ended. Month two began.
Reed executed the transfers at 6 AM on the first of the month, just like before. Anonymous. Untraceable. Regular as clockwork.
This time, the building's reaction was different.
The common area at 7 AM was crowded—unusual for any time, impossible for a morning. Reed counted at least thirty residents, all of them staring at their tablets, all of them processing the same information.
It had happened again.
The money was real.
Or at least, it was real enough to appear twice.
The silence in the common area was profound. Like everyone was holding their breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for the corporate security announcement. Waiting for the trap to spring.
Yuki broke first, a laugh bubbling out of them that sounded like crying. "It came back. It actually... it's still there."
"Two months," Sarah Kim said slowly. "They kept the pattern for two months."
"Could still be an error," Dmitri said, but he didn't sound convinced anymore.
Marcus was leaning against the wall, tablet in his good hand, staring at the screen like it might bite him. "My daughter has new shoes," he said to no one in particular. "I bought her new shoes. Good ones. And the money came back anyway."
The building was waking up to a new possibility. A dangerous possibility.
What if it was real?
What if it kept coming?
What if they could actually... plan? Save? Stop taking jobs that were killing them?
Reed stood in the back of the crowd, invisible as always, and watched the moment happen. The moment when people started to believe. Started to hope.
Started to ask themselves: what if I didn't have to be this tired?
His tablet vibrated—a message on one of the anonymous boards he monitored.
> Sector 12 Building 7 mystery credits thread: 2nd month confirmed. Anyone know who's behind this?
> No idea but I'm not asking questions
> Future Forward Solutions still showing as source. Can't find any company by that name.
> Who cares? Rich people throw money at weird projects all the time
> This is going to end badly
> Or it won't
> What if it doesn't?
Reed closed the thread and pocketed his tablet.
The experiment had begun.
500 million credits. 200 units. 2000 credits per month per unit.
That gave him 125 months if he did the math right. Ten years, give or take.
Ten years to prove his brother's death meant something. Ten years to see if people were really lazy, or if they were just tired. Ten years to prove the corporate propaganda wrong.
Or ten years to prove it right.
Either way, he'd have data.
Either way, Marco would have... something. Some kind of answer.
Reed left the building and walked to the memorial wall. Stood in front of his brother's plaque like he did every day.
"Started something stupid," he told Marco's name. "You'd probably think I'd lost it completely. And you'd be right."
The plaque didn't answer. But behind him, Reed could hear the building waking up differently than it had in years. Could hear voices that weren't quite so exhausted. Could hear something that might have been hope.
"What if?" Reed asked the plaque. Asked his brother. Asked himself.
What if people could just be okay?
He didn't know the answer.
But for the first time in five years, he was curious enough to find out.