Episode 6 — Snap Cash
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Previously on the HUD:
• Level: 12
• Hourly Income: $1,200/hr
• Balance (last check): $13,750
• Perks / Skills: Cash Knuckle (convert $ → force per punch), Keep It Low (suspicion discount), Secret Influence (Salina — permanent), Overflow (ally boost via spend), Combat (basic)
• New Rule from you: When Legend snaps, only money appears, and it comes out of his account immediately. He still earns hourly, still gets mission payouts, and still has to hustle.
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Cold Open — Breakfast, the Experiment
The radiator clicked like it was thinking about speaking, and the Bronx morning slid in through the new curtains—heavy fabric, better light, a small reminder that life was drifting upscale without saying it out loud. Legend blinked awake on the couch to the familiar green flicker across his vision.
[CASH FLOW | +$1,200 Deposited]
Current Balance: $14,950
He sat up, stretched until his spine cracked back into cooperation, and grinned at the number like it had finally begun to believe in him. The HUD's new menu tab pulsed coyly in the corner—the thing it had teased him with in last night's half-dream. He focused and it expanded.
[Perk: SNAP]
Gesture: snap fingers → Materialize cash on hand; deducted instantly from account.
Limits: You can only snap money. No items, no clothes, no cars—money only.
Audit: Every snap is a ledger entry. Don't lie to yourself.
Legend eyed his hand. "Let's see if you're dramatic or real."
He snapped.
A sharp, clean clap. Five twenties fluttered out of nowhere and landed on the coffee table with the soft thud of possibility. The HUD ticked down with the impatience of a teller.
[SNAP: -$100] → Balance: $14,850
Legend stared a second, then laughed—quiet at first, then full-bodied. "I'm the ATM now." He held a bill to the light, turned it, rubbed it like a suspect gemstone. It felt right. It smelled like it always smells. It was cash, not a trick; the difference between a story and a receipt.
He snapped again.
[SNAP: -$40] → Balance: $14,810
Two twenties. He rolled them and tucked them under a coaster like he was tipping the living room.
Footsteps padded from the hallway—Salina, robe tied lazy, hair still wrapped from sleep, the soft authority of a woman who'd decided on herself and liked the decision.
"You talking to the furniture again?" she teased, voice husky.
"Talking to my new favorite button," he said, and snapped—$60 in small bills. He put the cash in her palm. "Delivery tip. I'm ordering breakfast."
She looked down, blinked, then looked up at his face like it might be a magic show and he was the rabbit and the hat at once. "You… made money happen."
"From my balance," he said, deliberately sober. "No fairy tale. I earn it hourly. I earn it on missions. The snap just lets me pull cash out of thin air when we need it. Every dollar comes out the account. Every snap is a subtraction."
Salina smiled slow, the kind of smile that made terrible ideas sound like legacy. "So you're not cheating."
He stepped close; she smelled like cocoa-butter and warm steam. "I'm withdrawing," he murmured. "The bank is me."
She kissed him quick—gratitude, mischief, territorial all at once—then tapped the money against his chest. "We're out of paper towels," she said, and laughed when he groaned.
He ordered breakfast and paper towels because adulthood is mostly managing sauces and feelings. When the buzzer sang, he snapped $20 for the delivery—Balance: $14,790—handed it over with a grin, and shut the door on the stairwell's gossip.
Miles crawled out of his room mid-bite, hair exaggerating every direction, hoodie halfway on like he'd lost the second half of the act.
"We fancy now?" he asked, clocking the croissants and fruit cups and the new coffee that didn't taste like burned cartoons.
"Balanced breakfast," Legend said.
"Balanced on what?" Miles said, shoving half a croissant into his face.
"On me not being poor," Legend said, and Salina laughed around her mug.
They ate. They traded small news—the studio was actually answering Miles's messages; Salina had found a place that could detail her car same-day; the neighbor's cat had adopted their windowsill like a religion. Legend watched the two of them fill the room the way a song fills a room when you didn't realize you needed music, and the HUD flashed another quiet miracle:
[CASH FLOW | +$1,200 Deposited]
Balance: $15,990
The number didn't fix anything by itself. But it built a floor no one could kick out from under him. He breathed easier on it, like oxygen had money dissolved in it all along.
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Scene 1 — Miles's Good Thing (Cash Only)
An hour later, Miles had both elbows on the table and a half-smile he couldn't control.
"I got an email back," he blurted. "From the station. They want me in the building Friday. Actual building. Interview. Play the full track if I finish it clean. And they said—" He stopped himself, like if he said it, the air would laugh. "They said bring your story."
"Bring your bars," Legend said. "The story will come out your voice."
Miles breathed, nodded, then frowned at his own outfit like it had betrayed him. "I can't pull up looking like a before picture."
"You can pull up looking like work," Salina said. "People can tell when clothes are louder than the person wearing them."
"Yeah," Miles said, "but if the person's whispering… clothes help."
Legend snapped $800 into an envelope—Balance: $15,190—and slid it across the table. "Shopping. Cash only. No trying on the whole store. Pick one jacket that respects itself, one pair of pants that won't fight the jacket, and shoes that can walk you through the door without apologizing."
Miles stared at the envelope like it might be a prank. "I can't—"
"You can," Salina said. "You will. Bring back the change."
He laughed, then humbled himself enough to hug them both at once and jogged out with the kind of lightness you only get when the world finally decides to be fair on purpose. The door swung shut behind his grin. Legend watched the hallway for a second like it could continue the sentence.
"You gave him cash," Salina said.
"I gave him a bet to win," Legend said.
"And if he loses?"
Legend cracked his neck. "Then he learns while looking good."
She smirked. "You're a soft tyrant."
"Soft where it counts."
She raised an eyebrow, and his grin answered questions he shouldn't be answering at breakfast.
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Scene 2 — The Syndicate Calls (and the Street Answers)
The text came from the number that never put a name to itself:
Syndicate: 8 pm. Under the bridge. Same van. Louder risk.
Legend: How loud?
Syndicate: People who like to take what isn't theirs.
Legend: I speak their language.
He showered the day off, dressed in not-too-new jeans and a jacket that had picked up the scent of the city the way a good jacket should, and checked the living room like a pilot. Salina was finishing emails for work with the concentration of a surgeon; she flicked a glance at him and softened.
"You good?" she asked.
"I'm built for this," he said.
"Then be built to come home." She stood, crossed to him, and fixed his collar like she had a license for it. "And leave your pride here. Money wins fights, but pride loses them."
He kissed her temple. "I left pride in last year."
"And yet," she said, amused and worried in equal parts.
He tucked $300 into his pocket with a snap—Balance: $14,890—old-school cash because not everything can be solved with apps, and rolled out.
The Bronx evening smelled like a hundred dinners and five arguments, cracked open hydrants and bus brakes and summer elbowing spring out of the way. Under the bridge, the Syndicate waited like they'd been poured there—the boss in a bomber jacket that cost more than Legend's first three months of rent, lieutenants with eyes that drank data, a driver whose foot never stopped tapping.
They popped the van. Duffel bags. Crisp plastic. Agitated bills that hummed like angry hornets in a box.
"Same rules," the boss said. "Don't slam, don't stop, don't get cute. Marked money gets mad when it thinks it's a hostage. It sprays its feelings. Cops get a message. We all take a nap in holding."
Legend climbed in, sat on the bags like they were a couch in a room that used to ignore him. The HUD flickered a warning:
[Volatile Currency Detected] — Agitation Risk: 58%
Mitigation: Keep velocity smooth. No hard stops. No sudden jostle.
Advisory: Your presence calms money.
He let his breath settle. It sounded stupid, but something in him relaxed the way it had during the last run. Calm is a language, and cash speaks it. The needle drifted down to 35%.
They pulled into traffic. No words. Nothing but the city shoving its stories down the throat of the night.
Halfway to the handoff, scooters swarmed like gnats that had read a heist manual—two on the left, one right, one hanging back. The left rider smacked the side of the van with something metal. The driver flinched.
"Don't brake," Legend said, voice flat.
"Can't not brake if I'm dead," the driver shot back, but there was less panic in it than there should have been. The van held line.
Legend slid the door just enough for a look. The rider on the right lifted his shirt to show grip tape and trouble. Legend snapped $1,000—Balance: $13,890—a banded stack in his hand instantly. He flicked it low and behind like bait.
Money is gravity. The rider's eyes betrayed his plan; his scooter lurched. Momentum did what morality wouldn't, and the little formation broke like a school of fish panicking in the shape of greed.
"Keep it steady," Legend told the driver, closed the door, and exhaled. The hum in the bags steadied with him.
They made the drop in a basement that smelled like bleach and bad decisions, watched a pleasant, forgettable man sign nothing into existence, collected nothing that would matter in court, and slipped back into the night with a quiet that felt paid for.
Under the bridge again, the boss handed him an envelope.
"Five," the boss said—five thousand, legit, clean enough not to stink.
[Mission Payout: +$5,000] → Balance: $18,890
The boss studied him in that way that says this conversation is a test and a confession. "Those scooters?"
"I don't like scooters," Legend said. "I fed them."
"And the stack came from…?"
"My account." He didn't blink. "I snap, cash appears, the HUD takes its cut. I don't make money out of nothing. I move it out of me."
The boss nodded slow. "Good. I don't like gods. I like men with systems." His head tilted, amusement cracking his face. "Though the system you got is rude."
"It's honest," Legend said.
The boss leaned in, voice dropping a half-step. "Be careful with honest. Honest makes enemies jealous faster than a lie."
Legend slid the envelope away and patted the van. "I'll sing to your money again if you pay me again."
The boss laughed. "I hate you."
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Scene 3 — The Alley That Asked for Hands
Two blocks from the bridge, a trio stepped out of the dark like a bad idea wearing good shoes. No masks this time; masks had gotten embarrassing since phones started loving faces too much.
"Bread boy," the tallest one said, grin sharp. "Let us hold something."
"Get a job," Legend said, not unkindly.
"Come on," the short one added, hands loose. "You got it. We need it. Balance the world."
Legend sighed. "I do charity when I decide." He snapped $200—Balance: $18,690—and tossed it into the gutter. "Find it if you move quick."
The short one moved too quick; the tall one moved too slow; the middle one moved straight at Legend anyway with that stubborn sprint you see right before regret. Legend didn't take a step back. He threw a tight right and pumped $100 into Cash Knuckle—the air cracked, the man folded around nothing, and his friends did the math you do when your friend becomes a lesson.
[Cash Knuckle: -$100] → Balance: $18,590
Legend shook his hand out. "Economic stimulus," he said, and kept walking.
By the time he reached the bodega, the adrenaline had burned off and become appetite. He bought a water, a sports drink for the lie his muscles were about to tell him, and a lotto ticket for superstition.
"Big man," the owner said, chin up, eyes grateful like they always were when Legend was breathing. "Your friend with the braids—she came by. Crying in my store like I'm a church."
"Mrs. Darby?"
"Who else sings in a shop like she's paid to keep the block in tune?"
Legend snapped $6,000—Balance: $12,590—and tucked it into his pocket. "I'll stop in tomorrow."
"Bless your mother," the owner said.
"She'd agree," Legend said.
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Scene 4 — Money That Fixes Things (and What It Costs)
Morning came like a well-behaved dog, and the HUD did what it always does when you survive the night:
[CASH FLOW | +$1,200 Deposited]
Balance: $13,790
He walked to Mrs. Darby's shop with a coffee and the kind of intention that convinces doors to open. The metal gate was pulled up halfway; the old sign hung tired. Inside, the chairs were stacked like surrender. Mrs. Darby sat at the counter with a calculator and a stare that had been through every kind of weather.
"Don't you cry in his store," Legend said gently, setting the coffee down. "You cry here. This is home court."
She laughed the way you laugh when laughter is a muscle you forgot you built. "Landlord raised it again. He likes numbers more than people. I thought I could love this place into cheaper math. Turns out math doesn't read poetry."
"How much to make him shut up for six months?"
She told him a number like it might bite him. He didn't flinch. He snapped $6,000—Balance: $7,790—counted it off in hundreds the way his first boss at the pizza spot had taught him—and pushed the stack across the counter.
She covered her mouth. "Legend. I can't take—"
"You can," he said. "You will. Then charge one extra dollar for kids under twelve and call it a scholarship. Tell everyone I said so."
She cried then, unabashed and singing it to the ceiling in a way that made the block vibrate. He took the tape off the register, loaded her site with a quick-and-dirty online booking page on his phone (the syndicate taught him things they didn't mean to), and texted a kid he knew with a ladder and too much free time to fix the buzzing letters out front.
He left to her promising him a free retwist for life, which was a lie they'd both politely agree to. The HUD chimed:
[Neighborhood Anchor Stabilized]
Reputation (Local): +++
Keep It Low synergy: + (people look but don't pry as much)
He bought a chopped cheese and paid with cash because sometimes you pay with cash so the story stays yours.
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Scene 5 — Miles, Clean
By afternoon, Miles burst back into the apartment with a bag and an expression that meant he'd landed something better than he could describe.
"What'd you get?" Salina asked.
He laid it out carefully—the jacket that had texture instead of a logo, the pants that admitted they were pants and not a manifesto, the shoes that didn't require an announcement. He spun in the living room once like a turntable.
"You look like a version of you that's already doing the thing," Legend said.
Miles grinned, then sobered, the weight of belief settling. "I wouldn't be doing any of it if you didn't… you know. Help. With cash."
Legend shrugged like it was lighter than it was. "Money's nothing until it moves."
Miles sat, bouncing his knee, thinking about Friday with a look that was hope's older brother. "You coming?"
"I said I would."
"I know you got 'things,'" he said, air-quote mocking and sincere together. "Just—be there."
"I will," Legend said, and meant it in that way that rewires where a sentence lands.
The HUD pulsed a suggestion:
[Overflow Opportunity: Media Day]
Suggested Spend: rideshare pass for the week, barber day-of, $200 petty cash for emergencies.
Expected Return: Confidence ↑, Professionalism ↑
Legend snapped $400—Balance: $7,390—folded it in half, and pushed it across. "Don't lose it trying to be interesting."
Miles laughed. "I'll be boring with expensive pockets."
Salina swatted him on the head. "Be good."
"Always," he lied, and left the door open to the hallway's applause.
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Scene 6 — Salina, Claim and Counter-Claim
That night, the apartment fell into that soft domestic rhythm that makes the city sound like it's outside and not inside you for once. Salina came and sat beside Legend on the couch with a glass of cold water and her feet bare, toes painted a color that had a name too fancy to repeat.
"You're doing too much and exactly enough," she said, reading something on her phone and turning it face down. "Men I haven't seen in years found my number. I blocked them like whack-a-mole."
"They will keep calling," he said.
"I will keep blocking." She climbed into his lap without asking like permission was a game for other people, and kissed him slow; it was gratitude, but it was also a vow. "Only you," she murmured. "You are the one I answer to. The one I answer for."
He touched her face lightly with his thumb, the heat that lived under any conversation with them rising like a tide you pretend not to predict. He wasn't going to narrate what happened next; that wasn't his style. What mattered was the afterward—the way she tucked her face into his chest and breathed like someone had removed a stone from her ribs, the way they lay there while the TV asked if they were still watching and the answer was obviously no.
The HUD slid a line across his eyes he barely glanced at:
[Influence: Salina — Anchor (Permanent)]
Shared Silence → Deception checks -10% (people suspect less when you and she are together)
He exhaled, and she laughed at the same second, and that shared timing felt like money he couldn't spend.
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Scene 7 — The Collector Takes a Note
Across the river, high above a street where cars sighed like pets, a man who called himself the Collector poured tea from a pot that looked like it had opinions and watched Legend's neighborhood move on a wall of unauthorized data.
Every snap registered as a little heat flare in a model he'd built out of spite and curiosity. The model didn't care about names. It cared about flows.
"He withdraws correctly," the Collector murmured. "No tricks. Ledger consistent. He learned restraint. Or he's pretending restraint until I believe it."
He let his gaze rest on three stills from a street camera that should have been illegal to place where it sat: the scooters peeling off like greedy birds; the alley punch that tore the air without tearing skin; the handoff under the bridge in a choreography the police could never prove because proof hates getting out of bed.
The Collector smiled, the way you smile at a chessboard where someone doesn't realize you're not playing chess. "Touch the frame again," he told nobody whose name mattered. "Don't open the door. Just remind it that doors can be opened."
He sent vultures without masks this time, and one with. People carry their own alarms if you know how to push their pockets.
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Scene 8 — Frame, Again
It was late when Legend noticed it—the wrongness around the building's lock, a new pressure in the metal that meant someone had put a tool where a hand should be. He stood in the hall a second too long, listening for footsteps that knew how to lie. Nothing. Just the old woman on 3B laughing at a show that had finally landed a joke.
He slipped inside. The apartment was soft—music from Miles's room like a prayer with drums, Salina's humming from the bathroom, the scent of the candle she liked that made the place behave like a home.
He checked the chain, checked the bolt, checked the line in his jaw that meant fight or leave. He snapped $120—Balance: $7,270—and stuffed it in an envelope, sealing it with a fast scribble: super — thank u. Cash is thank-you, too. He took it down to the super because people who protect you for money deserve money.
"You seen anyone around?" Legend asked casually at the basement door.
"Everyone around," the super said. "You mean anyone with the wrong kind of silence?"
Legend smiled despite himself. "Yeah."
"Not today," the super said. "But the lock felt… fiddled. I'll change it. You got a different face lately. You know that?"
"Better lighting," Legend said.
"Hah." The super looked at the envelope without looking at it and slid it into a pocket like it was a handshake.
Legend went back upstairs and stood in the dark for a second, looking at the moon skipping the tops of buildings. The HUD did a courtesy flash.
[Threat Proximity: Low → Moderate]
Recommendation: Spend for safety upgrades; plan for ambush; keep cash on body.
He snapped $500—Balance: $6,770—folded it, and tucked it into the back of his sock. Not every problem waits for the bank to open.
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Scene 9 — Quiet Wins, Loud Mathematics
The next morning brought coffee, a syrupy sunrise, and the HUD's favorite alarm.
[CASH FLOW | +$1,200 Deposited]
Balance: $7,970
He wrote himself a list on the back of a takeout flyer because fancy notebooks make some lists lie:
• Miles: barber day-of, rideshare pass, petty cash.
• Door: new deadbolt, camera—nothing cloud, keep local.
• Mrs. Darby: new paint, sign tune-up, school discount flyer.
• Bodega guy: the fridge that rattles like a snitch.
• Gym: one month for Miles and one heavy bag for the hallway that no one will use politely.
• Legal: a phone number that picks up at 3 a.m. without judging.
He snapped $2,000—Balance: $5,970—into envelopes with names on them because envelopes are old magic and still work. He didn't post any of it, didn't ask for a mural. He just moved the money where his mouth would be if he were talking.
He ordered the lock and the camera from a shop that would take cash and a fake name and didn't pretend it wasn't a real name. He let the super install them while he and Miles argued about hooks in the living room and Salina scolded both of them for using cups as microphones.
During lunch, his phone buzzed. The Syndicate, a different number this time; they loved new numbers like cologne.
Syndicate: Good work. You sing to money.
Legend: It sings back if you listen.
Syndicate: Want to sing louder?
Legend: How loud?
Syndicate: Queens to Staten. Tonight. Bigger bags.
He looked at Salina, at Miles, at the list on the table with a pen rolling back and forth like a metronome. "Be right back," he told the room, which didn't ask for a time stamp because it knew better.
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Scene 10 — Staten, Patience, Hands
This run had fewer scooters and more suits, which is a way of saying it was more dangerous in quieter clothes. The driver was new, the route unfamiliar, the weight in the back heavier and more opinionated. Legend rode on top of the duffels and kept his pulse low, singing the silent song he'd taught himself. The HUD's agitation meter hovered and dipped like a nervous heartbeat that liked being told what to do.
On the bridge, a sedan slid in too clean behind them, then too close. The driver muttered an apology to the air. Legend watched the sedan's grill kiss the van's bumper, twice—just enough to make stopping look like an option.
"Don't brake," Legend said.
"I'm running out of road to not brake on," the driver said, voice up a note.
Legend slid the door back a hand's width. He snapped $500—Balance: $5,470—and let the bundle tumble into the edge between lanes. The sedan bit; its driver was a human being with a rent, and the human being flinched toward the cash like gravity tripped his foot. The van slipped, clean, through a seam in traffic that had no business opening for anyone but did.
They finished the run. The man in Staten wore a smile that made his face look smaller and thanked them in a dialect of We Will Never Speak of This Again. On the way back, the driver finally exhaled.
"You some kind of saint?" he asked, not kidding.
"I believe in tithes," Legend said, and the driver laughed like he'd earned it.
Under the bridge, the boss handed him his envelope with a nod that meant both congratulations and watch your back.
[Mission Payout: +$5,000] → Balance: $10,470
"You either a genius or a problem," the boss said.
"Why not both?" Legend replied.
"Because both don't live long," the boss said, and walked off like an omen in a jacket.
Legend stood there with the river trying to pretend it was clean and let the wind be the only witness to his decision to stay alive.
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Scene 11 — The Radio and the Room
Friday came like a rumor that turned true too fast. Miles paced, then didn't, then paced again, jacket on, jacket off, the kind of pre-interview dance that looks like nerves and is actually the body clearing space for power.
Legend snapped $120—Balance: $10,350—for rideshares and water, handed it to him, and said, "You don't need it, but you'll be mad if you don't have it."
Salina smoothed Miles's collar like she'd been waiting to do it since he was five. "No swearing unless they ask," she said. "No beef unless you cook it."
Miles grinned, then looked at Legend. "You ready?"
"I'm not going to rap," Legend said.
"Good," Miles said, and laughed the fear off.
They rode to the station in a car that didn't smell like someone else's night, watched the city slide by like a slideshow of reasons to try, and walked into the building like they owned their piece of its air. The lobby guard barely looked up; the elevators did their slow business; the hallway smelled like old coffee and new dreams.
In the booth, Miles delivered. He told the short version and made it sound long enough. He didn't drop names. He didn't apologize for a thing. When they cued the track, he hit the verse like a door finally opens and you remember your legs work. Legend stood behind the glass, still as an altar. Salina sat on a chair with her hands fisted in a way that meant she was praying even if she didn't approve of prayer.
When it was over, the DJ smiled the smile of a person who knows he's just found a wave.
"You're a kid," the DJ said. "But you sound like a city. Keep going."
"I will," Miles said, and this time it sounded like the world had signed off on the sentence.
They spilled back onto the street. Legend snapped $60—Balance: $10,290—handed it to Miles with a flourish.
"For what?" Miles asked, laughing.
"For the slice you're about to pretend you don't want," Legend said.
They ate on the sidewalk like kings and idiots, and nothing bad happened for a whole ten minutes.
Scene 12 — The Call You Don't Ignore
The unknown number that wasn't unknown anymore rang. Legend picked up on the first vibe.
"You withdraw with a snap," a voice said, clean, not trying to be anything but dangerous. "Impressive. Efficient. Honest, even."
"Who's this?" Legend asked.
"Someone who collects," the voice said. "And I like new features."
"You can try liking from a distance," Legend said.
"Oh, I intend to come closer," the Collector said pleasantly. "I sent someone to test your frame. Your door holds. For now. We'll speak soon."
The line went dead like a curtain fell.
Legend stared at his phone, then at the apartment building reflected in its glass, then at Salina and Miles arguing about whether pineapple belonged on pizza with the intensity of people who need to argue about anything but real trouble.
He snapped $1,000—Balance: $9,290—and tucked it into his inside pocket. The weight wasn't much, but it was a promise. Cash doesn't break when phones do.
The HUD slid a card across his vision:
[Quest: Defend the Snap]
Context: Adversary engaged. Testing physical perimeter and psychological edges.
Advice: Keep cash on hand. Spend deliberately. Fight when you must, pay when you should, leave when you can.
Legend blew out a long breath, then smiled at the two people who centered the map.
"Pineapple's a war crime," he said.
Miles booed. Salina pointed at both of them with a crust like a gavel. "Grow up," she said, and ended the debate with sauce.
Nothing in the room knew how close it had come to being a battlefield.
⸻
HUD — End of Episode 6 (Snap-Only, Realistic)
Level: 12
Hourly Income: $1,200/hr (continuous)
Balance: $9,290 (after all snaps, payouts, and small spends logged above)
New Perk (Active): SNAP — Money only; instant cash; deducted from balance; audited.
Combat: Cash Knuckle used (-$100) logged
Allies:
• Salina: Anchor (Permanent) — suspicion dampened when together
• Miles: Momentum ↑ (radio interview aired; presence/confidence boosted via real cash support)
Reputation (Local): Rising — rescued shop; tipped building staff; low-profile generosity
Threats:
• Collector: Active observation; frame tamper confirmed; contact made
• Street: Vultures test and disengage when paid or punched
Notes:
• No conjured items—every purchase came from snapped cash or mission payout.
• Missions remain gritty: volatile currency, rival crews, legal heat.
• Snap is a tool, not a cheat code: the ledger keeps the man honest.
⸻
Closing Image — Money in the Air, Feet on the Ground
The apartment dimmed itself as the day folded up. The new lock clicked with a sound Legend liked. The curtains held back the city's louder announcements. Miles worked his verse until it sounded like a promise. Salina leaned against Legend's shoulder, scrolling nothing, heart steady.
Legend snapped once more—$40—Balance: $9,250—rolled the bills and slid them into the glass jar on the shelf labeled For Nothing in Particular in a marker that had run a little.
He smiled. "For emergencies," he said.
Salina kissed his jaw, exactly there. "For living," she corrected.
The HUD pulsed, not intrusively—just enough to let him know the hour had turned and the next deposit was warming up in the pipes.
He closed his eyes and let the quiet money breathe around him like air he had finally learned how to own.