She checked her balance three times. The third time, it was lower.
Not by much. By exactly the amount she'd meant to send, plus nothing. No fee. No gas. No subtraction that required her to calculate whether she could still eat tomorrow. She stared at the number, waiting for it to update, to correct itself, to reveal the hidden cost that her experience insisted must exist.
It didn't.
"Free" was the word her cousin used when she called, breathless, to confirm receipt. She hated that word immediately. Free sounds like charity. Like something that will be taken back. What actually happened was flatter. The USDT moved like a message moves. Like air moves. No friction. No arithmetic of poverty, or whatever you want to call that reflex of checking the cost of breathing before you inhale.
She blamed the app first. Thought maybe it was a promotion, a first-time waiver, some hook that would reveal its teeth later. Then she thought: maybe her cousin was wrong. Maybe the money hadn't arrived. Maybe this was a glitch in the display, a number that would unwind itself when the network woke up. None of those stuck.
The transaction was already final. PlasmaBFT had settled it before her thumb left the glass. Before doubt could form. Before the old calculations, gas, timing, is now expensive, is later cheaper, could even begin their familiar loop.
The Bitcoin anchor underneath doesn't announce itself in Lagos. Doesn't need to. Neutrality isn't a feature you explain. It's the absence of someone else's hand on your transfer. She's had payments held for "review" by algorithms in countries she'll never visit, talking to support bots that quoted paragraphs she didn't write. Censorship resistance sounds political until you've waited three days for rent money to clear. Then it sounds like sleep.
She doesn't ask about Reth or EVM compatibility. She asks if her mother can receive it. If the pharmacy will take it. If the number stays flat when she looks away.
she keeps thinking it, though she doesn't have the word. Not secure. Held. Like something you can set down without watching. Like ground that doesn't give way.
She checked her balance a fourth time. The number was still wrong. Still exactly right.