The Price of Tomorrow

Martin Listwan

The social worker's verdict hammered through Kai's skull while he kicked open his studio door: "Financial stability isn't just numbers, Mr. Veyra. It's reliability. It's character". The apartment answered with its usual chorus—dripping sink harmonizing with flickering fluorescents, the hum of the mini-fridge fighting for its life. He tossed his keys at the wall collage of rejection letters, their corpo-logos bleeding ink from humidity. The photo of Lissa grinned at him from the center, her foster home's sterile white walls framing her like a specimen. Next to it, their parents' memorial display flickered—the hologram unit glitching their faces into pixelated ghosts.

The ceiling fan clicked with each rotation, counting down the days on the eviction notice beneath it. Thirty days. Thirty days before even this crumbling haven would collapse.

Kai slumped into his chair, its springs groaning. Another rejection letter glowed on his tablet, this one at least bothering to spell his name right. His chest tightened as he scrolled past yet another clinical trial recruitment—he'd spent the last two months being a human guinea pig, letting them test everything from mood stabilizers to neural enhancers. The credits had kept him afloat, but the side effects were getting harder to hide during his sister's visits.

His thumbnail hovered over the latest clinical trial—NEURAL INTERFACE STUDY: EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AMPLIFICATION. The payment was triple the usual guinea-pig gigs.

"Risk of personality drift?" he muttered, reading the waiver. A bitter laugh escaped him. What personality?

The facility smelled like a hospital that moonlighted as a nightclub—sterile lemon bleach undercut by the burnt-plastic tang of overheating servers. A researcher with neon-green eyeliner scanned Kai's wristband.

"Final trial," she said. "We're mapping how trauma influences decision-making. You'll wear this wristband for three weeks. It'll… nudge you."

"Nudge?"

She shrugged. "Think of it as a life coach with a dark sense of humor, and you get to keep it as long as you continue weekly calls with us"

The first credit deposit hit his account before he reached the parking lot.

"You look like shit," came a tinny voice from his wristband. A small holographic face flickered to life, pixels arranging themselves into raised eyebrows and pursed lips. "I'm ARIA, by the way. Your new digital conscience, appointed by the powers that be to prevent you from spectacularly screwing up your life. And before you ask, yes — you need to get up now. The sales interview won't wait."

Her exaggerated complaints somehow made the bitter pills of criticism easier to swallow—like having a sister again, one who masked concern with cutting remarks. When he practiced interview responses, she'd mime falling asleep, complete with digital snores. When his hands shook from his sixth cup of coffee, she projected a tiny conductor's baton into them. "Might as well make those tremors productive. Now, from the top!"

But when he mentioned Lissa, ARIA's tone would shift, the sarcasm falling away like a discarded mask. "You're doing this for her," she'd say softly, her hologram dimming to a gentle blue. "Remember that." In those moments, he glimpsed the depth behind her programmed wit, an understanding that went beyond algorithms.

The sales position came with a desk, a view, and Chad. Chad with his veneer-white teeth and stories about "crushing quotas" and "owning the competition." Chad who took Kai under his wing with promises of "optimizing customer psychology."

It started small. Tweaking the truth about investment timelines. Glossing over the fine print. Each compromise earned a bigger commission, and each commission felt like one step closer to Lissa. But the steps grew longer, darker – redirecting retirement funds into high-risk portfolios, pushing credit lines on people who could barely afford them.

ARIA's concerned flickers grew more frequent. "Your numbers are impressive," she noted one evening, her avatar mimicking a slow clap. "But tell me, what would little Lissa think about her big brother now?"

Then came the Reyes. Mr. Reyes had his father's steady hands, weathered from decades of construction work. Mrs. Reyes wore her silver hair in the same tight bun his mother had favored, and when she laughed, the corner of her eyes crinkled in that familiar way that made his chest ache. They sat across from him, trust radiating from their weathered faces, speaking of their grandchildren's futures with the same hope his parents once had for him and Lissa.

ARIA didn't speak, but her band pulsed red once, like a warning flare.

"Actually," Kai heard himself say, "this isn't the right investment for you." The words tasted like his first honest breath in months. He showed them safer options, ones with lower commissions but better protections. Chad's face in the doorway curdled from confusion to fury.

"Not a team player," Chad reported it. But as Kai cleared his desk, ARIA's voice held an unfamiliar note of pride. "You know," she said, "some things are worth more than commissions."

The Reyes' referral led him to another sales role. During the interview, when they asked about his values, he found himself sharing the truth about Lissa, about learning the difference between success and worth. Two months later, his client satisfaction scores spoke louder than any sales figures.

Standing at his parents' grave, Kai touched the silver band on his wrist. The latest foster care evaluation sat in his pocket, its "PRELIMINARY APPROVAL" status feeling heavier than any commission check.

"We did it," he whispered.

ARIA's hologram sparkled in the morning light. "Technically, you did it. I just provided commentary on your horrible fashion choices along the way."

"You provided more than that." He traced the foster care papers' edges. "You helped me remember who I needed to be. For her."

"Oh please," ARIA's voice crackled with familiar sarcasm, but her hologram glowed warm and steady. "Save the sentiment for your sister. Though I suppose..." Her image flickered, numbers scrolling briefly through her projection—bank statements, client reviews, ethics compliance scores. "The data does show you've become surprisingly reliable. Even developed some character along the way."

Kai's breath caught as he recognized her echo of that long-ago evaluation. But before he could respond, ARIA's display returned to normal, her smirk firmly in place. "Now, about that outfit you're planning to wear to the final evaluation. Let's demonstrate some of that character by dressing like a respectable adult you've grown to become?"