Her thumb pressed the fingerprint icon before she could stop herself.

The card went cold. Then hot—too hot. She dropped it.

That night, she couldn't sleep. She kept scrolling the menu. One category remained untouched: .

“Be careful what you open,” he said, and faded like morning frost.

Mara laughed. Scam. Obviously. She tossed the card on her coffee table next to a pile of unpaid bills. Rent overdue. Credit maxed. Student loan breathing down her neck like a loan shark with a spreadsheet.

She selected it.

No note. No receipt. No tracker she could find.

That was Tuesday.

Through the hatch, she saw a version of herself—older, hollow-eyed, sitting in an empty room with an iCard Xpress Pack taped to her door. Waiting. Starving.

A soft pulse. Her phone rang. Her mom’s voice: “Honey, the doctor just called—mix-up in the lab. My memory’s fine. Can you believe it?”

But at 2:00 AM, after her third glass of cheap wine and a ramen dinner, she picked it up again.

“You’ve taken from the Xpress Pack three times. Balance due.”