It worked the same way as Alipay back home. Alibaba's Alipay would front you a loan too—as long as your credit score cleared 600, floating a few thousand was easy. But borrow a few hundred grand? Don't even dream about it.
And the only thing of any real value Maya could think of was the apartment her family was living in right now.
Except Maya, sweet naive Maya, had it backwards. The single most valuable asset in this little household absolutely was not the apartment or anything like it.
It was her.
"Jack and I have no credit—but Maya, you're a different story! I did some digging—ha!—and your maximum borrowing limit runs as high as two hundred thousand dollars. Two hundred grand! This afternoon I took your Social Security number down to the Citibank branch in New York. I'll be honest, baby, I didn't expect you to be this big a deal. I told them my daughter's scholarship pays three hundred and fifty thousand a year, and asked whether we could borrow against next year's award. And guess what? Ha ha ha—they looked into it and told me we didn't need collateral at all. Five-percent low-interest loan, ceiling of two hundred thousand, repayment window unlimited. Unlimited! Ha ha ha. Maya, you know the most you could borrow? One point five million! A cool million and a half—I nearly fainted dead away right there in the lobby—"
"So then I took a closer look at the interest, and—damn it, it was a little steep. Nine-point-one-one percent. But I'm no fool. There's no use sitting on that kind of money, so in the end I only took out thirty thousand. Add that to one installment of your scholarship and we can buy Lucious's place!"
Watching Jennifer preen there, glowing like she'd just pulled off some heroic feat for the ages, Maya slumped limply back into the couch, her whole face one long note of resignation. "So. The one drowning in debt now isn't the two of you. It's me. Thirteen years old. Me."
Jennifer waved a breezy, unbothered hand. "What's this 'you,' 'me'? I'm your mother. You yourself crawled out of my very intestines. What's yours is mine—obviously."
You make such a compelling case that I, your daughter, honestly can't think how to argue.
Money, Maya was not short on—and that's before you counted the funds she'd fleeced out of Tony, which couldn't see daylight anyway. Just over the two or three months of summer break, spending a little time each day, she could bang out a few sets of programs in half a month. Some simple, classic little games she could reproduce in her sleep—Plants vs. Zombies, Angry Birds, the sort of thing that ran on the humblest hardware, easy to build and playable by practically anyone. Maya would bet the shirt off her back that dumping those onto the market would net her tens of thousands, easy. And in her past life she'd been a genuine expert in this exact field. With the concept in hand, the hardware no obstacle, and the skills more than up to it, resurrecting a few classics ought to be a walk.
The reason Maya hadn't already done it was that she didn't need the money, and neither did this family. Past life or present, Maya had always understood one truth: money is a thing you need enough of, no more. Chasing it isn't wrong. Treating your net worth as the scoreboard of your success isn't wrong either. There's only one rule—don't let money run your life.
You can't live without money. But money isn't the whole of a life. It's just one part of it.
Maya's old philosophy had been simple: go with the flow, savor the present. Jennifer's life goal was to become a Hollywood star; Jack's was to become a great director. Neither was a thing money alone could buy. Those were dreams—and stir in too much money and they lose their meaning.
So when Maya spent a couple hours a day working shifts at Old Huang's shop, it was really just to taste the life of an American kid. Reborn into a whole new life, and instead of living it you turn yourself into a slave to money? That's putting the cart squarely before the horse.
Of course, every stage of life makes its own demands on your wallet, and Maya wasn't actually planning to play the pauper forever. She'd mapped it out early: right up through high school—high school included—she'd let herself just enjoy the simple pleasures of being a student. Come college, she'd have countless ways to get rich fast and bank a healthy war chest for the research to come.
Don't live your life in too much of a hurry. Do, and you miss too much that's beautiful.
Life and death are the fairest things there are—from birth to grave, everyone's life is a roll of film, all of us running about the same length. The only real contest is over the good times in the reel.
That had been Maya's thinking, once. Now, though, it looked like the plan needed some adjusting. She was easygoing, sure—but even wrapped in this new pale skin, a big part of Maya's soul still ran on the instincts of a traditional child of the Celestial Empire. Rule one: don't be in debt. Debt makes your whole body itch.
And it was right then that Maya slammed her chopsticks down, gulped down the dumpling in her mouth in two or three quick bites, charged into Jennifer's room, and scooped the sound-asleep James straight up into her arms.
"Jennifer! Jack! Stop—both of you, stop eating! Move—move—everybody out!"
Jennifer and Jack sat there, a fat dumpling pinched between each of their chopsticks, gaping dumbly at the suddenly-deranged Maya.
"Slrrp—what is it? Maya, what's gotten into you?" Jennifer asked around a slurped-up dumpling skin, mystified.
"Fuck! Earthquake! Tsunami! Manhattan's under attack—come on, move!"
Even as she babbled it out, half-incoherent, Maya was hauling on the two slow-to-react dolts with everything she had.
And what were Jennifer and Jack against the grip of Maya, an elite Chūnin? They were shoved and dragged and jostled clean out the apartment door.
At the very same moment, the Shadow Clone that had been reading and studying up in Maya's little room threw on the Spider-Man suit, cranked a subwoofer to its highest volume, and went sprinting out into the street, shouting: "I'm Spider-Man! Everybody nearby, out of your homes—now! Residents of these apartments, please make your way to the open ground in the street!"
"Spider-Man! It's Spider-Man! Maya, look!"
Jennifer, just off the last stair, spotted Spider-Man and started shrieking with excitement.
"Move! To Tenth Avenue—no, no, there's no time. Straight to the Hudson River docks. Go!"
Maya had zero interest in gawking at Spider-Man. She just clamped James tight against her and towed the two of them off toward the open ground at the waterfront.
"Hey, what's Spider-Man doing all the way over here?" some resident asked, sticking his head out to peer at the figure in the street.
"Spider-Man, are you out of your mind? Middle of the night and you want us all out in the road? What for—a block party? Ha ha ha!"
"Man, Spider-Man, you've got guts—slinging your heroics all the way in Hell's Kitchen? Shoot."
"Ha ha ha!"
Facing all that jeering, Maya was equal parts frantic and furious. Feeling that colossal, matchless surge of energy building not far off, she honestly wanted nothing more than to turn and walk away and leave them to it. But among the ones laughing at her were plenty of old neighbors, faces she'd known for years. You spend a decade-plus alongside people and, like it or not, you get attached.
"Everybody listen up! A hundred meters (330 feet) from here, the Punk Hotel is about to blow—there's a bioweapon inside, and it's going critical! Get to the docks and take cover! You've got to believe me—this is Stark Industries' latest strategic weapon, the kind that levels cities, wipes out nations. You don't trust me? I'm here on behalf of Tony Stark. Tony Stark himself vouches for it! Move—there's no time—get down here!" Maya had no choice; she trotted good old Tony out one more time to serve as her billboard.
That did it. The crowd stopped hesitating—because the Tony Stark name still carried real weight.
Seeing them start to move, Maya set the announcement to loop on repeat and strode, fast, straight for the front of the Punk Hotel.
"The hell—off my turf! I'm not scared of you, you son of a—gah—!"