Catch up on chapter 4 before reading on…
Rick’s days blurred into a bleak rhythm as his financial reality closed in on him. He’d maxed out every credit card and drained every last dollar, and still, the inescapable weight of ThinkTech’s debt loomed over him. The essentials-only plan was all he could afford, but it was a mere shadow of what he’d experienced. The prompts came rarely, and even when they did, they were blunt and basic. He longed for the smooth, intuitive guidance of ThinkTech Premium, but after depleting his cash and credit reserves, it was out of the question.
Without ThinkTech’s steady influence, Rick felt stripped down, raw, and exposed. Experiences that had once flared with confidence and charm now felt distant and dulled, as if he were experiencing the world inside a fishbowl. His thoughts were muddled and sluggish, like static buzzing in his head, making it nearly impossible to respond naturally in conversation. When he struggled to think fast enough, his mind would short circuit, and he’d fall back on repeating the last thing the other person had said—a cheap trick that only occasionally worked and left him feeling hollow and robotic every time.
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