THE INFINITE CONTRACT BROKER
Volume I The Weight of Fine Print
Chapter 24
Chapter 24 The Decision
Veyne called him four days later.
"I've been thinking," she said.
"I know."
"Don't do that."
"Sorry."
She was quiet for a moment. He could hear wind on her end. She was outside somewhere.
"I looked at what I'm carrying," she said. "The way you said. I tried to count it. All of it. Nine years."
"And?"
"It took me two days to go through the Ledger history. Every contract. Every entry." A pause. "It's a lot, Ethan. I knew that. But seeing it all laid out together is different from knowing it."
He waited.
"The photos I took down," she said. "I remembered who was in them. All of them. My sister. Two friends from before. A man I cared about for three years." She stopped. "I remembered their faces. But when I tried to feel what I used to feel looking at them, there was just" She did not finish.
"I know," he said quietly.
"You told me not to do that."
"You're right. I'm sorry."
A long silence. The wind on her end.
"I'm still going to do it," she said.
He had expected this. He had not decided how to feel about it. He had been waiting to hear what she said before deciding.
"All right," he said.
"You're not going to argue?"
"You read the notes. You looked at what you're carrying. You understood it. And you're still choosing to go." He paused. "That's what I said a real decision looked like. I meant it."
Another silence. Longer.
"I want to try to put things down before I go through," she said. "Some of what I'm carrying. Not all of it. But the oldest contracts. The heaviest ones."
"Can you do that?"
"The Compendium says held contracts can be released back to the Market pool. They dissolve. The value spreads back out. I've never done it because it reduces the Ledger weight I bring to the threshold. But if Moss is right about what the Source sees" She stopped. "I would rather go through lighter than not go through at all."
"How much can you put down?"
"Enough to matter. I think. I won't know until I try."
"And the threshold? Will you still have enough to open the door?"
"Barely. If the five contracts run together the way they should, yes. But it will be close."
Ethan thought about this. He thought about close. About what close meant when the thing on the other side was something nobody had done before.
"When?" he said.
"One week. Not two. I don't want more time to think about it. I've thought enough."
"One week," he said. "All right."
"Ethan."
"Yes."
"Thank you. For the notes. For sitting in the park. For not trying to stop me."
"I'm not your parent," he said. "I'm your" He paused. He realised he did not have a word for what he was. Not quite her partner. Not exactly her colleague. Something newer than both.
"Your what?" she said.
"I'm the Broker who's going to be on this side of the door while you go through it," he said. "And I'm going to be here when you come back."
A pause. Then: "Okay."
"Okay," he said.
He hung up.
He sat in the kitchen for a while. He thought about one week. About the five contracts running in a single day. About standing at the Ledger node while the door opened.
He thought about Moss, who had been careful. Who had chosen Ethan because he was not like him.
He thought about whether he was being careful enough. Or too careful. Whether there was a difference at this point.
He opened his notebook. He turned to a blank page.
He wrote: One week. Here is what I know. Here is what I don't know. Here is what I can control. Here is what I cannot.
He filled two pages. Then he closed the notebook and put it in the desk drawer next to the older one. Next to the line: I felt something when she said she slept better. I want to remember that.
He went to make dinner. He ate it at the kitchen table with the case beside him, closed.
Outside the Darnell the city did what it always did. It moved and hummed and went about its business without knowing what was coming. That was fine. That was how it was supposed to be.
The Market ran beneath it. Invisible. Patient. Old.
And Ethan Voss sat in his kitchen and ate his dinner and counted the days.
Should have some emotional distress if yes then write in the reviews if no then I continue like this.It suppose to help me write more about trading I want to write a another new novel but I don't know where I should start with maybe romance or fighting this one has very few fights in it thanks if you support me