Chapter 8 Everyone Lies

POV: First Person (Samuel Reed)

Jake threw the supplier invoice onto my workbench hard enough that a wrench clattered off the edge.

"We're getting robbed," he said.

I picked up the invoice and scanned the numbers twice just to make sure I was reading them right. Brake pads up thirty percent. Engine oil up almost double. Spare parts across the board priced like we were buying gold instead of gaskets.

"This can't be right," I said.

"It's right. I called them myself. They said prices went up county wide." Jake crossed his arms. "If we eat this, we lose money on every job for the next month. If we pass it to customers, they walk to the shop two towns over."

"So we negotiate."

"With Larry? Good luck. Man's never given anybody a discount in his life."

I studied the invoice again, turning the problem over the way I used to turn over an engine that wouldn't start, looking for the one thing that didn't add up. Before I could get far, the voice spoke, calm and sudden, the way it always was.

"new function available"

"lie detection tier one"

"synchronization complete"

I set the invoice down slow.

"What does that mean exactly," I asked, keeping my voice low enough that Jake wouldn't hear me talking to no one.

"I can now analyze heartbeat, breathing patterns, eye movement, voice stress, and emotional inconsistency in real time. This allows me to estimate deception probability during conversation."

"So I'll know when someone's lying."

"Approximate deception probability will be provided. Not absolute certainty."

"So now I can tell who's lying?" I asked, mostly to myself.

"Approximate deception probability, eighty two percent baseline accuracy."

Good enough.

"Grab your keys," I told Jake. "We're going to see Larry."

The supplier warehouse smelled like rubber and motor oil, stacked floor to ceiling with parts that used to cost half what they did now. Larry came out from the back office wiping his hands on a rag, all smiles the second he saw us. The kind of friendliness that always made me wonder what it was covering.

"Samuel! Jake! Good to see you boys." He clapped Jake on the shoulder. "I know, I know, the prices. Believe me, I hate it as much as you do."

"You raised them thirty percent, Larry."

"I'm barely making any profit at these numbers myself," he said, spreading his hands wide like he was offering proof instead of a claim.

"lie detected"

"confidence, ninety three percent"

I kept my face even. "That's rough," I said. "Your costs went up that much across the board?"

"Every bit of it. I bought these at a higher price myself, had no choice but to pass it along."

"lie detected"

"confidence, eighty seven percent"

"Everyone's paying this rate now," Larry added. "It's just the market, Samuel. Nothing personal."

"lie detected"

"confidence, ninety percent"

Jake shifted beside me, clearly bracing for the usual outcome of these conversations. A shrug and a higher bill. I decided to try something different.

"Larry," I said. "Who told you to raise prices specifically to garages on Main Street?"

His smile flickered, just barely. A half second crack in something he'd been holding steady since we walked in.

"That's not what happened," he said.

"stress spike detected"

"heart rate elevated"

"I've been buying from you for six years," I said, keeping my voice even and unhurried. "Never once has a price jump hit exactly the businesses closest to Whitfield's new development. That's not the market, Larry. That's a list."

He went quiet and glanced toward the back office like he expected someone to appear out of it.

"I can't lower it," he said finally, weaker now than his first three lies had been.

"lie detected"

"confidence, seventy eight percent"

"You can," I said. "You already know exactly how much room you have, because you priced this high enough that even a real discount still leaves you ahead. I'm not asking you to lose money, Larry. I'm asking you to stop pretending you don't have a choice."

He stood there a long moment, jaw working, weighing something I couldn't see. Then he sighed, long and defeated, the sound of a man setting down a story he didn’t actually believe himself.

"Fine," he said. "Fifteen percent off, back to close to where we were. That's the best I can do without my supplier finding out."

"Deal."

Jake stared at me the whole walk back to the truck like he was trying to work out a math problem in his head.

"You actually did it," he said, once we were loading the boxes into the bed. "How."

"Asked the right questions."

"That's not an answer, Sam."

I didn’t give him a better one, and he let it go this time. Mostly because he was too pleased about the savings to push harder. We finished loading in comfortable silence, and by the time Larry waved us off from the warehouse door, something had settled in my chest that I hadn't expected.

It felt good. Really good. Watching Larry's carefully built story fall apart piece by piece, watching him realize I already knew, watching him fold. It wasn't just relief at saving money. It was something closer to satisfaction, sharp and warm, sitting right where my ribs still ached from the accident.

That scared me more than the lie itself had.

It wasn't the money that bothered me. It was how much I'd enjoyed watching him panic.

Larry came out to help finish loading the last box, still a little subdued, and as he set it down he shook his head like something had just occurred to him.

"You know what's funny," he said.

"What."

"Some billionaire's been buying up garages all over the county. Not just Whitfield's people either, other outfits working alongside him. Guy up in Hendricks County sold his shop for pennies on the dollar last month. Wouldn't say why."

I stopped with a box halfway into the truck bed.

"What billionaire," I said.

Larry shrugged. "Whitfield. Same one buying up your block, I'd guess."

"He's not just after my garage."

"He's not just after your street." Larry lowered his voice and glanced toward the office again out of habit. "Guy doesn't really negotiate, from what I hear. He just buys. And if a business refuses."

He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.

We drove back to the shop mostly quiet. Jake glanced at me every so often like he wanted to ask something and kept deciding against it. Once we were back we spent the rest of the afternoon working through the backlog, and for a while it felt like the version of the garage I used to know. Easy laughter and familiar rhythm and Jake complaining about the radio station while I rebuilt a carburetor two bays over.

But underneath it, a question sat with me that I couldn't shake. Would I have won that negotiation without the system. Would Larry have folded for the old version of me, the one who only had instinct and stubbornness to work with. I didn't know, and not knowing bothered me more than I expected it to.

We were closing up for the night when my phone rang. Clara's name on the screen.

I answered before the second ring finished.

"Hey," I said. "Everything okay?"

Her breathing came through fast and uneven on the other end.

"Samuel," she said. "I found something outside my diner."

"What is it."

There was a pause and the sound of paper shifting. Her voice dropped to something just above a whisper.

"A letter," she said.

I could hear her hands shaking through the phone, the faint crinkle of an envelope being turned over.

"What does it say, Clara."

Her voice cracked slightly when she finally read it out loud.

"Leave before you're forced to."

The line went quiet after that. Just her breathing and the hum of the shop lights above me.

I stood there with the phone to my ear and the invoice still in my hand, and for the first time since the system showed up, winning didn't feel good at all.