Infinite Cashback System

Chapter 215: 216 | She Has a Pleasant Voice

Jordan watched Chloe’s first stream from the worst possible location on earth.

Dr. Ashford’s lecture hall.

The woman had returned from her five-minute absence with the silent footfall of a jungle predator, her heels making no sound on the tile until she was already at the podium, her grey eyes sweeping the room like a lighthouse beam searching for ships to sink. Jordan locked his phone so fast his thumb left a friction burn on the screen. He slid the device into his pocket and looked up with the expression of someone who had been deeply, passionately invested in double-entry bookkeeping for the past three hundred seconds.

Brooke sat beside him. She did not look up from her notebook. She did not acknowledge him. She did, however, slide a single sheet of paper two inches to her left with one finger, positioning it so that Jordan could read the handwritten note at the top.

She looked directly at you when she came in. Your phone brightness was visible from the third row. I give you a 73% chance of survival.

Jordan loved Brooke. In the way you loved a smoke detector. Annoying, brutally honest, and the only reason your house wasn’t on fire.

Ashford launched into a segment about depreciation methods, her voice carrying the emotional warmth of a tax audit. Jordan took notes with the desperate intensity of a man who had been caught watching his girlfriend’s livestream during a lecture taught by the most terrifying woman in higher education. His pen moved so fast the ink smeared on the page. He wrote down every word Ashford said, including the part where she called a student’s analysis "an insult to the concept of numbers."

His phone vibrated in his pocket. Once. Twice. Three times.

Jordan did not touch it.

A fourth vibration arrived, longer this time, the specific pattern of a DM notification from Kumiko. Jordan knew her message cadence the way weather forecasters knew storm patterns. Short bursts meant she was excited. Long bursts meant she was having an emotional event. This particular vibration sequence, four rapid taps followed by a sustained buzz, meant Kumiko had seen something that made her brain produce dopamine at a rate that required immediate external validation.

Jordan did not touch his phone.

Ashford wrote MACRS on the whiteboard in letters large enough to read from the parking lot.

"Mr. McKnight."

Jordan’s spine turned to rebar.

"Would you care to explain to the class why the Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System allows businesses to front-load depreciation in the early years of an asset’s useful life?"

Jordan looked up. Ashford stood at the podium with her arms crossed and her chin tilted at the exact angle that preceded academic destruction. Her ash-blonde bob caught the fluorescent light. Her grey eyes had the warmth of a January sidewalk.

The entire class turned to look at him. Brooke’s pen stopped moving for the first time all lecture. Two rows back, Cameron Mitchell leaned forward with the expression of someone anticipating entertainment.

Jordan opened his mouth.

The answer came from somewhere deeper than his textbook knowledge. Maybe it was four weeks of actually attending class and doing the readings. Maybe it was Brooke’s forty-seven-page market analysis rewiring his brain for business logic. Maybe it was the specific kind of focus that arrives when a woman who could vaporize your GPA with a red pen asks you a direct question.

"MACRS front-loads depreciation because assets lose the most value in the first few years of use. A delivery truck depreciates faster in year one than year seven because usage patterns, maintenance costs, and obsolescence all compound early." Jordan paused. "The IRS allows accelerated depreciation to incentivize capital investment. If a business knows it can write off a larger portion of a purchase in the first five years, it’s more likely to buy new equipment, which stimulates economic activity. The trade-off is lower deductions in later years, which is why companies have to plan their tax strategy across the full recovery period, not just optimize for year one."

Ashford stared at him for four seconds. Her expression did not change. Her posture did not shift. She could have been carved from marble.

"Adequate."

She turned back to the whiteboard.

Jordan exhaled so hard his lungs flattened against his ribcage. Brooke wrote a new note on her paper: Survival probability revised to 94%. Well done.

Cameron’s smirk had died somewhere around the word "obsolescence."

The remaining thirty minutes of class passed without incident. Jordan took meticulous notes about straight-line versus declining balance methods, his handwriting growing steadier as the adrenaline faded from his system. When Ashford dismissed the class at ten forty-five with her usual absence of warmth or encouragement, Jordan packed his notebook and pen with the care of someone handling evidence.

Brooke gathered her materials in her own methodical fashion, each item returning to the same compartment of her bag from which it had been removed. She stood, adjusted her glasses with one finger, and looked at Jordan with an expression that contained several layers of meaning.

"Your phone has been vibrating for the last twenty-two minutes. Eleven separate notifications. The interval pattern suggests two different contacts, one sending rapid sequential messages and one sending longer individual communications."

"You counted."

"I observe ambient stimuli. The counting is involuntary." Brooke slung her bag over her shoulder. "I will have the revised operating agreement in your inbox by this evening. Sections 4.2 through 4.7 have been restructured based on comparable talent management contracts I sourced from public filings." She paused. "Also, your girlfriend appears to be doing well. I found her stream during the lecture."

"You watched Chloe’s stream during Ashford’s class?"

"I muted the audio and minimized the window to a two-centimeter square in the corner of my screen. Dr. Ashford’s sight lines from the podium create a blind spot below the desk surface at our seating position, and my laptop screen angle was adjusted to prevent reflection on the ceiling tiles." Brooke adjusted her bag strap. "She had four viewers when I checked. One of them was me."

Something in Jordan’s chest went soft and stupid. "Brooke."

"It was a minor allocation of attention. I was simultaneously reviewing our insurance liability requirements. Your girlfriend’s stream provided ambient background stimulation comparable to white noise." Brooke’s cheeks colored faintly. "She has a pleasant voice."

"Thank you."