Chapter 5 Meeting Korobeiniki

“It’s easy to make friends. Just find someone you both want to stab to death and you’ll be fine and dandy.” - Reginald Cressler, leader of the Slaughterhouse Seven, wanted dead in sixty countries. Wanted alive in the remainder so they could do it themself.

'What the fuck is wrong with this school?' Alexis thought as her arms strained to pull her weight out of the pit.

Despite her best efforts, her arms gave out and she landed ass first onto the concrete stool, “Blyat!”

Rubbing her sore behind, she realised she was barely a few hundred metres into school ground and yet she felt like she’s moved enough to fill out an entire lifetime.

“Damn it, power time.”

Standing back up, she held her hands out, using the thumb and index of both hands to frame a rectangular area. Keeping the stool just beneath the frame, she looked through it and an ethereal 10 by 1 by 24 grid appeared between them. Constructed of equal cubes glowing an ethereal neon, only she, the ability user could see it.

With the grid pointing upwards, she pulled her hands out slightly more, increasing the size of the rectangle and allowing the middlemost square to be just barely larger than the stool. The end towards the bottom of the pit, she designated the ‘top’ and the end towards the top, she designated the ‘bottom’.

Then, she once again stood on the stool before her power finished manifesting.

At the middle of the end of the grid designated the ‘top’, a blue cube appeared out of seemingly nowhere. Pushing itself and Alexis who was standing on the stool upwards. It was followed by three other blue cubes under it which gave it an L shape.

Alexis slowly rose out of the pit. Mentally berating herself for not doing this sooner as she stepped off the tetrimino and back onto level ground.

The blue tetrimino continued upward until it hit the ‘bottom’, then a red cube started peeking out of the middle ‘top’ of the grid, but Alexis dismissed the power and both objects faded away.

Taking care to look at the ground this time, she managed to evade the many pitfall traps that littered the schoolyard. It took her another long while of carefully considering every single step, but she eventually made it to a school building.

Entering through the revolving glass doors, she quickly found the room she needed to be in. Knocking once, she didn’t bother for a reply before entering. Soon finding herself in an office where a tall man was sorting files, all the while another boy sat by reading a brochure for the Academia.

He was about her age, not that you would notice at an initial glance. Wearing a long-sleeved button shirt that was completely buttoned up, he gave a similar impression to her dad. A lean body with black hair neatly cut short and a severe feeling of organisation.

All in all, he looked and would’ve felt like a stiff.

If he didn’t look at her.

Lids narrowed onto her like a hawk catching sight of prey, and those cold, dead eyes. Like a freezing wind, those eyes seemed to say he didn’t even recognise her as human.

Aiden squinted as he tried to decipher whether or not the blonde blur in front of him was a teacher or a particularly tall student.

He was reasonably certain they were a 'she', at least unless male long hair was becoming a trend early. Or maybe that long blonde thread they pushed away from their face was some kind of weird hat. What did teenagers wear these days? Aiden tried to muster up both his memories but found even his younger Bu self was quite antisocial.

Behind him was a heavy thumping sound as the counsellor put away the last of several heavy boxes. “Take a seat,” the counsellor asked. “If the third person isn’t coming I’ll start early with you.”

“Sure,” a distinctly feminine voice sounded out. Probably a girl then.

“Sorry if I was disorganised,” the large counsellor said, nodding towards Aiden, “I just came to Vikterria yesterday.”

“What happened?” the girl asked as he sat down by the desk.

“Predecessor was shot up by goblins and I had to take her job.”

“I’m… so sorry,” the girl spoke.

“Happens every now and again,” he shrugged, “I was moving her stuff out and mine in, but enough bout me.”

From a cabinet behind him, he pulled out two files. “I’m Rick, please don’t call me Mr Rick, I’m not that much older than you. And you two are…?”

“Alexis Pajitnov.”

“Aiden Lu.”

Rick’s eyes glanced over the files, “Lu?”

“Sorry, Aiden Bu,” he quickly caught himself. “Slip of the tongue.”

“Ah, yes,” Rick replied, eyes still on the file, “my condolences for your circumstance.”

'Probably because Bu had two families die on him.' Aiden Bu was born to the same parents Lu had, but they ultimately died to a rogue meta when he was young. Fortunately, both he and Jaiden got adopted by the Bu’s.

“It’s fine,” Aiden answered. “It’s in the past, I’ve had time to get over it.”

Namely, he didn’t care that the Lu’s died because they were pieces of shit. And only the Aiden of this world cared that the Bu’s died. All the memories Lu had of them were second hand.

He knew they were good people, but he didn’t know them.

Rick nodded in apparent understanding, “Anyways, you two are both recently Awakened. Unlike the majority of this school, you two are Manifested rather than Genelines, so you’ve come from relatively normal families.”

Well, came.

“You two both need some catching up to do on basic Gate and Bleed mechanics, which you will be doing over the week before semester one starts proper.” Rick pulled out a form, passing it to them, “I have the year 10 curriculum here, you have the mandatory subjects of English, Self Defense and Mathematics, along with two electives you can pick. Take whatever, they don’t really matter.”

“Along with that…” he muttered, “I’m also telling you your expected responsibilities. As students of the Academy, you are thus expected to serve a four year term of service in either the Guard or M.I.D. Two of those years will be done in your senior years after this one.”

“What about my student loans?”

He waved away Aiden’s question, “You don’t need to worry much about that, you will have paid off a large majority of it after your four year service. After which you may seek private employment or a permanent government position.”

“And my stipend?” Aiden asked.

“Were you informed of the amount?” Rick began, “lemme check…”

Aiden ruminated on his circumstances as they left the counselling room. His government stipend was $1178 per week, it was an investment, a loan he was expected to pay back over the course of not only his 4 year term but also in taxes afterwards for the entirety of his natural life.

Unfortunately, it was not enough.

At the current moment, his rent was a flat $200 per week, not bad for a four room apartment. Electricity, water and gas were about $60 give or take a few dollars. Food and public transport together shouldn’t go over $100 if he didn’t indulge. If considering an extra $40 for leisure or saving, it only cost about $400 to keep Aiden by himself alive every week.

That is, just Aiden by himself.

To keep Jaiden on a hospital bed and with life support, cost three hundred dollars. Not every week, but every. Singular. Day.

Some basic mathematics would lead one to the conclusion that $1178 was less than the $2500 Aiden needed to keep both of them alive for a single week.

Fortunately for him, when the Bu’s died, they left behind a sizeable inheritance.

Unfortunately for him, it’s been almost a year since Jaiden fell into her coma and during that entire time, Aiden Bu was running on a net negative. Eating into the savings without adding to it.

Aiden knew exactly how much was left in the bank, for it was one of the many factors that drove Aiden Bu to despair. Eleven-thousand, six-hundred, forty-two dollars and seven cents.

For Bu, it meant only a month before he was kicked out of his home, his sister cut off life support and ruin. But Aiden Lu had almost two months before he truly went broke with the government stipend.

He has thought of obtaining more welfare, but the world Aiden lived in was one of brutal meritocracy. Corroborating Bu’s memories with his own, Aiden realised that the public education Aiden Bu went through was only really focused on turning Aiden into someone who can immediately join the work force as cheap labour. Doing grunt work in a manufactorem or dying on some foreign battlefield.

Aiden Bu did not have options, for the simple reason he was born normal in an abnormal world. Basic scientific education wasn’t even valued here because only knowing the foundations was useless during a Gate where the understood laws of reality became as interchangeable as socks. So for a scientific profession to become valued, one had to go to the top or don’t go at all.

Aiden Lu was no longer normal, he had a power, even if it was odd. But Rick straight up told him the stipend was about as much as he can expect from the government without proving himself. However,

“There’s still a year,” he muttered under his breath.

Even if he could prove himself, he didn’t begin his military term for another year, when he reached that arbitrary age where he was no longer considered young enough to be a child soldier, it would already be too late.

He had two months to find a way to scrape up money just to break even.

Working a normal job was a dead end, the teenage minimum wage was $8.42 per hour. To make the $1322 per week to break even, he would need to work 157 hours, which was about six and a half days every week.

Without even mentioning the absurdity of that. He still had his education to consider. Aiden lacked any viable credentials, work experience or references. He needed to go to school to get all of those, the Academy was his future. Everything he was currently considering was just for survival. Not curing his sister. Not living a better life. Not avoiding to repeat the same mistakes.

If he went to school from 9 AM to 3 PM, that left another eighteen hours of the day, if eight of those were left to sleeping, two for commuting, that left eight hours to work on a weekday. On a weekend he would have fourteen hours, adding onto the weekday hours, he would have sixty-eight free hours to work.

With some simple division, one realised Aiden needed to earn $20 per hour, working 68 hour weeks, to break even every week with his government stipend.

As a fucking sixteen-year-old teenager with no on-paper experience, knowledge, skills or worth other than his power.

And he had to get this all in two months or start racking up debt.

Even if Aiden Lu had the skills and experience of some middle-aged working ass, he couldn’t exactly go around telling people that. Best case scenario, they think Bleed-Exposure made him delusional. Worst case, they think he’s an Invader.

Aiden still remembered the casualness with which that meta spoke when talking about killing him.

“It’s nigh hopeless,” he muttered.

“What have you been muttering about?”

Aiden blinked, not even realising he had made it to the front door with the other girl next to him.

He shook his head slightly, “Nothing, just doing some internal maths.”

“You were asking a lot about money stuff back there,” she inquisitively brought up.

“68 hours, $20 per hour.” Even if he could feel Oros giving him the stink eye for thinking about nothing but money, that was the reality in which he lived.

“Yeah,” he replied, “I’ll probably have to start racking up debt to break even.”

Alexis scrunched her face, “Bad idea, you know of the Debtors, don’t you? You’ll be worked worse than a slave if you can’t pay up, meta or not.”

Aiden smiled, to be worked to death now or later, truly a great conundrum. “Might be my only choice.”

“Something about your family?” she quizzed as they walked out.

“Yeah,” he answered. “Sister’s suffering Bleed, it costs an arm and a leg to keep her in hospital.”

She stopped walking, standing for a moment, “I’m… sorry to hear that.”

“I’m sure you are,” he muttered.

They pushed the revolving doors, just as they saw a group of senior students return. There was a crowd waiting for them as they made it past the obstacle course of a schoolyard. Cheering as they returned and clasped hands and exchanged greetings. Moving in closer, Aiden could tell they were just back from a Gate, the wet dripping of blood and other fluids onto the pavement, the white blurs in their uniform, where rips had revealed skin. And they were celebrated.

From a certain point of view, Aiden could get that easily. If he had to only account for his living expenses, the stipend covered it more than enough. If he played his cards right, in a few years, he would have experience, acclaim, backing from a military government. In a few years, he could easily and cushily reach a high position. He could be that person welcomed back with cheers for closing a Gate. He could be the celebrated hero.

That was if he ignored Jaiden.

If he spent the stipend purely on himself, if he didn’t have to worry about getting an extra two thousand dollars every week, if he pulled that metaphorical plug, he would easily reach a good, comfy life. It has been broached to Aiden Bu before, euthanization. The hospital didn’t care if one girl lived or died. She was only there because the money was flowing, but Aiden Bu couldn’t have made that decision.

Aiden Lu might.

And perhaps, that was why he was so set on keeping Jaiden alive.

“Alexis,” he spoke, not really sure if his voice reached over the loud crowd.

“Hmm?”

“What do you think is better, to reach something easily by hurting another, or reach something with great difficulty by not hurting anyone?” he asked.

“I think the second sounds way better.”

“Indeed,” he agreed, “but humans are pretty selfish beings. It is sometimes par for the course to hurt someone to do something.”

“I guess,” she replied, before scratching her head. “Ahh! You sound like my Baba talking bout old people stuff like that.”

“Probably just the mid-life crisis talking,” Aiden replied.

“Aren’t you the same age as me?” she quizzed. “Sixteen right?”

“How old do you think people like us live?” he asked with a small smirk.

“Blyat you are negative,” Alexis spat as the crowd drifted away from them.

He only shrugged, “What do you think happened to the third person?”

They didn’t show up during the session, and no one has entered the building since they left.

“Probably just stuck in one of the pits.”

“Reasonable assumption,” he answered. Alexis had a frank, no-nonsense way of talking that he found rather enjoyable to be around. “I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow for the tutor.”

“Oh wait,” Alexis stopped him. “What was your power? I was curious.”

Aiden unbuttoned his right sleeve, pulling it back to reveal an arm covered in tattoos of small animals. The subjects of yesterday's testing which he didn’t reabsorb back into his memories. Mainly because he relearned what they were over the course of experimentation. “Oros?” he asked and the white serpent flowed off his wrist and animated that fork he took over.

“Huh, neat,” she replied before holding out her hands as if taking a picture frame. “Mine’s called Korobeiniki.”

In front of them, a Cyan cube seemed to push itself out of thin air, larger than Aiden’s own arm in fact. “I can make one random shape made of four cubes push out of nowhere and move at any speed along with rotating it so long as it follows the same direction. Can only have one moving at a time so that sucks.”

“That’s neat.”

“Figured we should introduce ourselves, but we already knew our names so…” she trailed off, “I’m sorry if you had any reservations about telling me your power, Baba always said we should keep what our abilities actually do close to our chest, even amongst comrades, but then again she is senile.”

“She sounds like a wonderful lady.”

Alexis squinted at him, “I can’t tell if that’s sarcasm or not.”

“Sarcasm?” he asked as Oros returned to his skin and he buttoned up his sleeve once again.

“You speak with a very monotone and even voice, I can barely tell if you’re happy or angry or anything at all.”

Did he? Aiden genuinely didn’t know. Lu never talked much out of business, perhaps it became a habit. “Sorry about that then.”

“Nah don’t apologise. You speak just fine.”

“Thank you I guess?”

“So…” she kicked the ground, “See you later I guess.”

“Have a nice day,” Aiden replied with a small smile.

They separated, each going their own way.

As Aiden was lowering himself into a trench, his mind only half considered where he was moving. For if he wanted to achieve his goals, the normal methods lead only to dead ends.

So he needed to figure out a way to use his ability to make money in abnormal ways.