Chapter 9: The Dumpling Disaster
The world had gone soft around the edges.
Kayel sat in Leonard and Sheldon's living room, squinting at what he was pretty sure was supposed to be a television screen, though it looked more like a blurry rectangle of shifting colors. His debt had climbed to negative twelve dollars and thirty cents over the past few days—a cascade of accidental queries triggered by everything from wondering about the weather to accidentally thinking about his dwindling food supply.
[DEBT LEVEL 2 ACTIVE. VISUAL ACUITY REDUCED BY 20%. PREMIUM VISION RESTORATION: $0.50 PER HOUR.]
The system's clinical announcement felt like adding insult to injury. Not only was he broke, but now he was literally paying for the privilege of seeing clearly. Everything beyond arm's length had taken on the soft, unfocused quality of a watercolor painting left out in the rain.
"Kayel!" Penny's voice came from somewhere in the blur. "I want you to meet Christy. She's visiting from Nebraska."
A vaguely Penny-shaped figure approached, accompanied by what appeared to be another blonde woman. Kayel smiled and nodded in what he hoped was the right direction.
"Hi," he said to the general vicinity of the second blur.
"Nice to meet you," came a voice that sounded young and energetic. "Penny's told me so much about all you guys. The physicist next door, the crazy roommate, and the mysterious web developer who works all night."
"Mysterious. If only she knew how mysterious."
[QUERY: $0.10]
Balance: -$12.40.
The visual degradation got slightly worse.
"We're about to start Halo night," Leonard's voice came from near the television. "You should join us, Kayel. We need a fourth player."
Kayel's stomach dropped. Gaming required hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness, and the ability to distinguish between targets and teammates. With his current vision, he could barely tell the difference between a person and a coat rack.
"This is going to be a disaster."
[QUERY: $0.10]
Balance: -$12.50.
"Sure," he said aloud, because refusing would require an explanation he couldn't give. "Sounds fun."
Leonard handed him a controller that felt familiar in his hands, even if he couldn't clearly see the buttons. The game loaded with a collection of sounds that suggested science fiction warfare—energy weapons, explosions, and the kind of dramatic music that made everything feel epic and important.
"Okay," Howard's voice explained the rules. "It's team deathmatch. Leonard and Raj versus Sheldon and Kayel. First team to twenty-five kills wins."
The screen filled with what Kayel assumed was the game world, though it looked like abstract art rendered in military colors. He could make out moving shapes—some green, some red, presumably representing players—but distinguishing between friend and foe was like trying to read an eye chart through frosted glass.
"Green is good, red is bad. Or maybe red is good and green is bad. Why didn't I pay attention during the explanation?"
[QUERY: $0.10]
Balance: -$12.60.
The game began with a chaos of movement and gunfire. Kayel moved his character forward, or at least in what he hoped was forward, and started shooting at anything that moved. The controller vibrated with each shot, providing the only clear feedback he had about his actions.
"Nice shot!" Sheldon called out. "You eliminated Leonard."
"Wait, Leonard is on my team. Isn't he? Or is Sheldon on my team? I can't remember."
[QUERY: $0.10]
Balance: -$12.70.
"Kayel!" Leonard's voice carried a note of frustration. "You just shot me. We're on the same team."
"Sorry," Kayel mumbled, squinting at the screen. "Thought you were... someone else."
Two minutes later, he shot Leonard again.
"Dude," Howard said, "you're supposed to shoot the other team, not your own teammate."
"Right. Sorry. The graphics are just so... realistic. It's distracting."
"That's the worst excuse I've ever heard. But maybe they'll buy it."
[QUERY: $0.10]
Balance: -$12.80.
By the end of the first round, Kayel had eliminated Leonard seven times, Raj three times, and himself twice through what appeared to be creative grenade misuse. His actual kill count against the opposing team was zero.
"Maybe you need some practice," Raj suggested diplomatically.
"I wish I knew how to play this properly. A tutorial would be—"
[HALO TUTORIAL AVAILABLE: $2.50. COMPLETE GAMEPLAY MASTERY IN 30 MINUTES.]
"Absolutely not. I'm not paying two-fifty to learn a video game while my vision is compromised by debt."
"I'm just not much of a gamer," Kayel said, setting down the controller. "All those colors and explosions. Hard to focus."
"You've never played video games?" Howard asked, incredulous.
"Not really. I was always more of a... book person."
The lie came easily, but Kayel could feel the weight of everyone's stares, even through his blurred vision. In this group, admitting to gaming inexperience was like confessing to illiteracy.
"We could try something simpler," Leonard offered. "Maybe a puzzle game, or—"
"Actually," Kayel interrupted, "I'm getting pretty hungry. Anyone want pizza? My treat."
The offer hung in the air for a moment. Pizza would cost him at least twenty dollars—money he definitely didn't have, considering his negative balance. But it would also serve as an apology for his gaming disasters and distract everyone from his obvious incompetence.
"You don't have to do that," Penny said.
"I want to," Kayel insisted. "Consider it my contribution to Halo night. Even if I can't contribute much to the actual Halo part."
Twenty minutes later, they were gathered around Leonard's coffee table sharing two large pizzas that had cost Kayel twenty-three dollars—money he'd put on his credit card while mentally calculating how long it would take to pay off. His balance had dropped to negative thirty-two dollars and thirty cents, deep enough into debt territory that his vision was now noticeably worse.
But everyone was happy, fed, and no longer focused on his gaming inadequacy.
"You're terrible at Halo," Howard said around a mouthful of pepperoni, "but you're great at apologies."
Kayel squinted at him through his compromised vision, trying to make out Howard's expression. "Thanks?"
"It's actually kind of refreshing," Christy added. "Most guys get all competitive and angry when they're bad at games. You just bought pizza instead."
"Pizza solves most problems," Kayel said, which was both true and completely irrelevant to his actual situation.
"They think I'm nice but incompetent. Which is perfect. Nobody suspects the nice, incompetent guy of hiding advanced technology in his brain."
[QUERY: $0.10]
Balance: -$32.40.
His vision blurred a little more.
"So what do you do for work?" Christy asked. "Penny mentioned web development, but you don't seem very... technical."
"Great. Now I need to explain why a web developer can't play video games without revealing that I'm literally going blind from poverty."
"I'm more on the creative side," Kayel said carefully. "Design, user experience, that kind of thing. Less programming, more art."
It was technically true, if you considered desperately avoiding system charges while building websites to be a form of artistic expression.
"That makes sense," Leonard said. "Different skill sets. Hand-eye coordination for gaming versus spatial reasoning for design."
Kayel nodded gratefully, relieved that Leonard had provided a reasonable explanation for his obvious deficiencies.
The conversation moved on to other topics—Christy's visit, Penny's work at the Cheesecake Factory, Sheldon's latest theoretical physics obsession—while Kayel sat quietly, eating pizza and trying not to think about anything that might trigger additional charges.
"This is my life now. Sitting in social situations, pretending to participate while actually just trying not to go bankrupt from my own thoughts."
[QUERY: $0.10]
Balance: -$32.50.
"Even existential despair costs money. Of course it does."
[QUERY: $0.10]
Balance: -$32.60.
By the time Christy left and the pizza boxes were cleared away, Kayel had managed to avoid any major social disasters. He'd contributed to the conversation without revealing his technological handicaps, apologized for his gaming failures without explaining their true cause, and successfully maintained his cover as the nice but slightly incompetent neighbor.
The price was twenty-three dollars he couldn't afford and vision so compromised that navigating the stairs to his apartment required careful concentration.
But his secret was safe.
"Small victories," he told himself as he fumbled with his keys in the hallway. "Small, expensive victories."
[QUERY: $0.10]
Balance: -$32.70.
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