Bunny Bun's Dumplings was the kind of place only locals knew. They never brought their out-of-town friends or relatives because it was neither comfortable nor unique. It was the kind of subterranean joint with absurd ceilings. So low you couldn't see it from the street. You had to know the staircase was there. None of the furniture had legs. Instead of wait staff crawling around, flat, vacuum robots had been modified to deliver plates.

Danival and Xiao Lin sat at a table with a plate of dumplings. They were young enough that the perpendicular angles wouldn’t throw out their backs. Xiao Lin was going off on another scheme. It wasn’t the get rich quick or “anchor a yacht off the coast of Boltecca kind of money” scheme he would usually float. He hooked Danival with finance buzzwords. Xiao Lin talked about compound interest and leveraged assets and supply backlog plus a few other terms Danival thought rich people made up to stay busy memorizing facts in school. Their dumpling order came with seven. They spent the conversation spiraling the edge, neither making a decision about what to do with the last one.

“Carlos Wen has shown me this stuff before.” Xiao Lin pushed dumpling into the pocket of his cheek as he spoke. “And because he knows me, he’s going to extend a line of credit. We only need half up front.”

Danival gnawed on his chopstick. He wasn't sure how this stunt would work, but knew that Xiao Lin had been preparing it for a long time. Since they were kids, they’d always gotten into trouble together. They were a yin and a yang that never figured out they were supposed to complete the shape of a circle. Xiao had a way of spinning tapestries out of threads of bad luck. Danival had a yarn ball full. It was how Danival would end up broke as soon as he got a little savings. It’s why he was always a grocery trip away from overdrafting his accounts. This time, Xiao Lin thought they could “corner the insulin pump mod market.” His pharmacist contact, Carlos Wen, had a complicated way to get drugs that would replace the insulin canisters in the pumps. Success was only a small, initial investment around the corner. Danival believed it.

So he thought about his flatlined bank account. He remembered his newscaster telling him that morning about a new type of “pay later mortgage plan” for things like clothes and bulk grain he was uniquely eligible for. He pinned that to his readout to review on the bus ride home.

Xiao Lin reached across the table to smack the chopstick from Danival’s mouth. “Dude, I know money’s tight. What if you…” He gazed at a spot on the ceiling. “Ran as a processor at RecursoTec again! How much do you think that would get us?”

“Ugh, I hate that place. It’s my last resort when I literally have nothing left, and I don’t want my sister getting suspicious.”

Xiao Lin leaned into the bench. He had his right leg curled up so his knee was tucked into his armpit. He tapped a chopstick against his shin. “Get out of that headspace, Val. This is going to change everything for us. With the amount of insulin pumps I’ve stored, we’ll have a steady revenue stream. If we do this right, we could be making money for years.”

Danival imagined a world where he didn’t wake up at 3 am to find a gig that would accept his 256 score. He knew he could make the payout last for six months. He knew he could have a very comfortable three. The procedure was rough. He’d have to spend at least two weeks detoxing. If Xiao Lin was right, he could spend a whole year on a normal human’s sleep schedule.

“We have to hit Chinese New Year.” Xiao Lin said. “Cops are going to be overwhelmed with enforcing the new prohibition laws and protestors. Nobody’s going to think twice about hormone injectors.”

Danival considered a supply backlog. He pictured the line of his bank account like a snake digesting a rat. A green incline with little humps.

“You like the idea.” Xiao Lin grabbed the last dumpling with his chopsticks. He pointed it at Danival. “You've got that face when you like an idea. So let’s do this: I’ll sell my sneaker collection and get rid of my bike. I’ll cover the down payment, and however we split the difference on the delivery will be how we split the profit.” Danival thrust forward to bite the dumpling from Xiao Lin’s chopsticks. He was too slow. Xiao popped it in his mouth and gave Danival the finger. “We’re gonna be rich. I’m gonna see you get rich!”

Danival’s mind rattled the following nights as he detoxed off Noxidril. He thought about the Technical Printing 324 class he could apply for once he paid out his university expulsion fee. It was a gen ed, but the teacher reviews were really good. People said on the ProfDox channel that this teacher actually got student transcripts into factory application pools. Danival thought of going to a resume improvement house so he could apply to one of the big three temp agencies in the state. He could become a real corpo salaryman. His sister would be pissed but proud. He’d have enough income to have his own apartment. He'd meet somebody and do the old person thing. They’d have health and weather insurance. The company would set him in front of a whole team to talk about retirement plans.

When he met his friends at karaoke, he just drank water. They were applying subdermals that triggered your sneeze reflex. Yelde had just processed and chose to invest her earnings in this experiment. She and her friends were the test subjects.

“Yo, Val!” Sneeze. “You gotta try this.” Sneeze. Her boyfriend held up a thin white packet. They were in one of those private rooms with the sofa that ran along the walls. They were blasting pop classics. Figures would project in the center of the room and dance with you. There was a stand of cheap toy instruments. Danival waved Paulo’s packet away and sat down.

“How was your run?” He asked Yelde.

“Damn good. You seeing this?” Everyone was having fun. Danival saw Xiao at the other end of the room, sitting in a corner of the couch with a melodica. He was trying to tell a joke, but sneezed too much to land the punchline.

Danival and Yelde compared notes from their past runs. Yelde had run processor way more times than Danival. Her results were consistently lower. Danival mentioned how he had followed the protocols in the How-To Guide like it was a course in school that he actually enjoyed. He pinned the doc to the home of his personal so it would pop up on all his peripherals. He memorized the suggested foods to eat and the section on the “72-hour lead up to your appointment for best results.”

“Nah,” Yelde said. She had given up that night trying to convince him the RecursoTec protocol was a scam. “That’s because you’re an idiot savant or something.” Danival didn’t know what Yelde meant, but didn’t bother trying to understand. She managed to slurp down a shot of soju without sneezing.

Danival tripped on the stairs to Recursos Organic Tecnológica Corporation. He blamed his nerves, but he was just clumsy. RecursoTec operated from an old government building that was abandoned when “new downtown” got built. The imposing architecture of the outer facade remained.

Danival rolled his joggers down to his ankles. They ran the AC at “ice box” inside. His shoelaces were untied again.

Danival inhaled air all the way to his belly. Ran his fingers through his hair. He entered the building with his hands out. He didn’t keep them in the unzipped kangaroo pocket at his chest. He didn’t need to put pressure on his sternum.