'The fuck is this...?'
He turned to the left.
He looked to the right.
The people who walked by him didn't seem to notice anything strange.
'What's going on here...? Am I the only one that can see this bullshit?'
He looked at a woman with a cup of coffee who brushed past him without stopping. And he also noticed a delivery man looked at his phone and walked past him without looking up.
No one else was reading the floating text because they couldn't see it.
Mike looked back at the screen that was floating in front of him.
'Is this what I think it is...?'
After that, he laughed.
It was a short laugh that was quiet enough not to bother the people walking by, but it was real in a way that most of his other reactions to the world weren't.
'There's no way a lame-ass system appeared in real life... those only existed in comics and novels!'
'But what if it's real...?'
'What if the universe had apparently decided to introduce itself as a game mechanic after everything I've done...'
'Every country, every alias, every year spent operating with the full weight of multiple governments' interests pointed in my direction, and every year spent inside a facility that had been specifically designed to keep him from operating at all.'
He thought that was funny. He didn't know why, but he did.
'Yeah, this is just straight-up bullshit.'
'I'm leaving—'
The system, it seems, thought his laughter and insults were a good way to say hello, so it kept going.
[Dominance Authority System — Overview Initialized.]
[This system does not reward conventional virtue. It rewards leverage.]
[Power is generated through desire. Specifically: the desire of women who have built their lives around control, security, and the careful management of what they want and what they allow themselves to have.]
[The deeper the longing — suppressed, redirected, never acknowledged — the greater the energy available for transfer.]
[Compatible profiles include: women with status, women with experience, women with defined roles and undefined desires. The ones who have built the highest walls are the ones whose desire, once unlocked, generates the most significant return.]
[Each successful Desire Acquisition increases the host's Influence, Fortune, and Environmental Probability — commonly referred to, in simplified terms, as luck.]
[This system does not pretend to be anything other than what it is. Accordingly, it does not require the host to pretend either.]
Mike read it all twice, which took a lot less time than reading Rex's document. Then he stood on the sidewalk for a moment with his carry-on bag over his shoulder and the sounds of Erosyne moving around him.
'Oh shit... it is real...' Mike thought while pinching his right arm. 'And I didn't wake up from it.'
"So," he said in a low voice that no one walking by could hear, "I can still be the heartless guy I am? A fucking criminal in this new country?"
The answer came almost right away, before he had even finished the sentence.
[Correct. Pretending your real colors is inefficient.]
He nodded once. That was a point of view he could at least respect.
The system's next set of outputs were less philosophical and much more useful, which was the direction he had hoped the conversation would go.
[Starter Package — Activated.]
[Currency Allocation: 15,000 Dollah — transferred to registered account. Details available on request.]
[Account documentation: generated. Access credentials: available in System Interface.]
He blinked. Fifteen thousand Dollah wasn't a lot of money, but it was a beneficial start.
It was the kind of money that let someone settle into a new place without feeling desperate, which could lead to mistakes.
It provided a significant advantage in the process of starting over financially.
'Dollah...? That's this country's currency, and goddamn... 15,000 is a lot!"
[Navigation Function — Enabled.]
[Primary Residence Located: Schneider Apartments, 14 Harwick Lane, District 4, Erosyne City.]
A map appeared in his peripheral vision. It was clean, simple, and more useful than pretty, with a single red marker showing a point about three kilometers from where he was standing.
He appreciated the distance he had to walk. Walking allowed him some time to read a neighborhood before it knew he was reading it.
[Landlady Profile — Petricia Schneider, Age 41. Property Owner.]
[Note: Your arrival has not been formally announced. Present yourself at the address. You will be accommodated.]
Mike raised one eyebrow. The system's faith in results it hadn't yet produced was either based on information he didn't have access to, or it was an optimism he would have to trust provisionally until evidence supported or contradicted it.
'Landlady, huh...? That's interesting.'
'If she still has a husband, then it's going to be worth it, but if not... nahhh... I'm not interested in widows.'
'Anyway... let's start this new life as my coc... I mean, Mike Hawk with a system right by my side like it's a normal Monday.'
He changed the strap on his carry-on and began to walk.
....
In District 4, Harwick Lane was the kind of street that had become a comfortable middle ground between dreams and reality.
The buildings were sturdy and slightly worn down. They weren't new enough to be fashionable or old enough to be charming, but they were kept up by someone who prided what they owned even if they didn't have the money to fix it up.
The trees on the sidewalk were planted at different times for different reasons, so they were unevenly spaced. The light from the afternoon sun made the facades look a little warmer than they probably were.
Schneider Apartments was a four-story building with a double glass door at the front and a small intercom panel to the right.
He thought there were about twelve to fifteen units in the building, which would need active management but were small enough that the landlady probably did it herself.
Mike could see a neat, handwritten note near the door asked people not to leave their bikes in the stairwell.
'This is the place, huh...?' Mike thought while looking at the system's map. 'Aight...'
Mike pushed open the front door and walked into a lobby that smelled like cleaning products and something floral, like a real flower, not an aerosol.
The lobby was decorated in a way that made it feel welcoming, even though the person who did it didn't know much about interior design.
A table with a vase on it. Two chairs that looked the same.
There was a board on the wall with unit numbers and a column of handwritten notes about package deliveries.
He could hear someone moving behind a half-open door to his left. It was the sound of a person going about their normal day in the late afternoon.
He knocked on the door.
The woman who appeared in the doorway a moment later was not what he would have predicted from the word "landlady," which he acknowledged was his own failure of imagination.
Petricia Schneider was tall enough that she met his eye level with only a slight upward tilt, built with the kind of solid, unselfconscious physicality of someone who had never particularly needed to be small.
'Holy fucking shit... a gem...' Mike already knew that this woman was indeed worth his treasure soon, and he could see clearly that there was a wedding ring on her finger.
She was in her early forties, with blonde hair pulled back in a loose arrangement that was more practical than intentional, and wearing a knit cardigan over a collared shirt in a combination that managed to be both comfortable and somehow entirely competent-looking.
Her face was open in the way that faces are when the person behind them has made a sustained habit of being interested in other people and is not naive but genuinely present.
She looked at him like someone who wasn't expecting a visitor but wasn't too bothered by the interruption.
"Oh! Hello there," she said, using the kind of greeting that someone who greets everyone with consistent warmth and sincerity would use. "How can I help you?"
Mike said, "Well, I do hope you can help me," and let his voice drop to the level he used when he wanted to sound honest instead of strategic.
"I need a room... someone told me there might be one here."
Petricia's face changed a little as she thought about the request. "Ahh... I see, you're new here, huh?"
"Well, there is one, actually. And I remember it's unit six. It just opened last week." She tilted her head. "Are you new to this city?"
He said, "It's more like... I'm new to the country," and that was true in every way that mattered.
"Oh," she said, "I can help you with that."
"Well, come in then."
"I can show you the unit and we can talk about the terms."
"My husband is out running errands... his name is Gerald, by the way, and he does most of the maintenance work, but I have the lease paperwork." She stepped back from the door and waved him in.
"Do you want tea while we go over it? I just put the kettle on."
[Target Designation — Confirmed.]
[Petricia Schneider: Desire Level — 0/100]
[Initial Contact Established. Patience recommended.]
The words were at the edge of his vision, and then they went away.
'Jackpot... So this is going to be my new life, huh'
'Same ol' Michael... stealing wives and fucking them until they're pregnant with my child...'
Mike Hawk walked into the Unit Management Office at 14 Harwick Lane and smiled as he accepted the offer of tea.
This time, his smile was only partially genuine.
He thought this country had no idea what was going to happen.
Petricia Schneider didn't either, for that matter.
But that's how beginnings were.
No one ever did.