Chapter 21

  A Broken Brokerage

  (Three Weeks Later)

  “Eventually, you get to a point where you either commit to the con or drop bait entirely and plan your escape.” -Marcon, on choosing a simple life and settling down.

  Not all fixes are equal.

  That motto was readily apparent as apparently some students seemed to burn through their standard dosage of power faster than others. This was seemingly particularly true for students who had a lower baseline starting point than the others.

  How did Arla know this?

  Simple, her caches were being messed with early.

  She still got paid, her dummy accounts would ping and slowly siphon money into and throughout the universal exchanges that would ultimately wind up in accounts owned and controlled by Arla directly.

  Monthly subscriptions fees for gym memberships that were never used, that was a primary method of payment. That gym membership would then pay taxes on the monthly fees, then have expenses. Expenses in the form of monthly consultations, diet plans, and other means to explain such a high quality gym membership cost.

  All of these ultimately tricked down to Arla. The trickling of funds was made in such a way that the government was more than happy, easily earning over 60% of her funds from taxes, by the time the process was all sorted and complete.

  Nothing tied back to Arla, and nothing tied back to the fact that every payment was calculated in her ultimate plans.

  This was not a get rich quick scheme.

  This was a get rich slowly scheme that would be hidden under layers upon layers of Federation red tape, jurisdictions and commercial clauses.

  How else could one truly justify the exorbitant price of making and hiding away storage nooks all around a campus that should be monitored from every angle.

  Arla was a runner, at least that was her cover that she used to justify her going around campus, running different circuits, and dropping off next level doses in storage caches.

  At first, it was thought that leaving markers around campus between the two classes would be a way to go, to let her know when to replenish the stocks.

  In the end, it was the payments that made the most sense.

  Monthly renewable gym membership subscriptions could be purchased. The trick was, letting the user note how many hours they spent working out on a secondary fitness app. An app that ultimately signaled to Arla 48 hours before the next shipment that a resupply was needed.

  At first, Arla had started restocking right away, but the girls were needy, apparently.

  That or these girls found ways to burn through their supplies slightly faster each and every few weeks.

  Still, the money was great.

  The only problem that Arla saw in this whole arrangement was how strung out the newly minted S-Rankers seemed to look as time went on. Especially as the fake twelve were all put into classes that would help condition their poorly maintained bodies. Something that stood out when compared to the one male who had not been boosted in any way.

  These were not concerns for Arla, yet. But Arla saw the writing on the wall.

  The faux S-Rankers were getting sloppy.

  Instructors were beginning to ask questions.

  Questions that could get the twelve imposters followed and could ultimately lead back to Arla.

  The time was coming soon, when Arla would likely have to be forced to make permanent changes to these twelve interlopers, Lyria included. A change that would require a few personal boundaries that Arla had built up to be dissolved.

  Having seen the future herself, where she gained glimpses of the most likely set of futures available, she saw this very act.

  During her visions, she saw a few scenarios play out.

  The first led to multiple expulsions and her ultimate dismissal. Another led to her constantly changing her hiding spots and sending new locations to Lyria.

  The third option was the more permanent and would require a much larger payday for her to continue. Not that any of the twelve had a problem with this, as each came from a family of mega rich and entitled children. Children who were seemingly born into power.

  In her mind, Arla already knew what the going rate for a permanent boost would be. As she had worked with Marcon on the pricing of each permanent boost, and the fluctuations based on supply, demand, and most importantly what happened when a rival got a boost.

  For a moment, Arla almost contemplated having a bidding war proceed. One that would start by turning Lyria permanently into an S-Ranker. Then having her show off not having to suffer withdrawal like symptoms. Symptoms that Arla herself had felt and could now easily see it in these others.

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  The only problem, well the major problem was, right now these S-Rankers, despite their obvious external social status, were manageable.

  Right now, if any became too obnoxious, Arla could just cut them off and leave them to suffer.

  If things went on, then she would be rich.

  But what is wealth, when people above you are obnoxious and entitled.

  “Hey, it’s that annoying girl,” B. Murphy, one of the S-Rankers that originally drew attention to herself while enrolling spoke out to her friends.

  A quick glance told Arla all she needed to know.

  Namely the fact that Lyria was not there, which meant she could not help detract or distract the group from their newly identified target of derision.

  “Hey you, new girl,” another of the girls spoke out.

  Mentally, Arla counted to three as she slowly made her way away from the pack.

  Having been an outsider for so long, Arla was well aware of how to avoid most conflicts, especially when people were seemingly looking to create an incident.

  The easiest way of getting people to back down was oddly enough facing them head on and being unrelenting in your communication with them.

  “Hello, I am Cadet Proma, not ‘Hey You,’ ‘that girl,’ or any other variation of the above,” Arla stated her words cold, but her hand held out as if in a casual greeting for the first time.

  Her sudden abruptness and dismissive demeanor to the S-Rankers who had up until this point been kowtowed to by the other students and most of the staff seemed to be taken aback by her stern and authoritative approach.

  “Uh, um,” the second girl stammered for a bit as she looked at the imposing hand. Then a seemingly malicious smile filled her face as she all but pulsed with green Body Fortification energy, with the majority of her energy focusing on her hand and the arm muscles attached to her body.

  This was an act that Arla had anticipated.

  To say that most people had a personality that seemed to match their given powersets was a fair assessment. That or, one grew with the initial ability to master any and all powers, but by choice and circumstances had their personalities formed, which would then predicate the types of powers one would be able to achieve.

  This was a strong variant of Earth energy, which normally implied that the people utilizing such powers would be calmer. Yet, there was also the stereotype that they were generally slower, which this Cadet clearly seemed to exhibit traits of.

  Arla knew the girl because she was in a few of their common core classes. All of which Arla was fairly certain the girl was either failing outright or being passed due to her perceived potential to the Federation.

  This was something Arla had expected, but still found herself oddly disappointed by, that is the fact that a student would be passed due to their perceived future value, rather than on their current effective value.

  Still, Arla let this moment play out, having experienced many similar moments, there were only a number of ways that this could go, and it was best to get them all over with as quickly as possible.

  That was why when the hulking brute of a girl grinned evilly at Arla, going so far as to show her teeth, Arla prepared to not hold back in her handshake.

  Grip.

  Just as expected, the overly muscular girl, reached out and squeezed.

  Or at least she tried to squeeze, Arla just held the hand there for a moment, not applying any grip strength of her own.

  Most would have recognized the moment and realized that there was no reaction and moved on. There were a number of reasons for this obvious disparity in strength. First the application of Body Fortification cold only enhance the abilities that were there. Meaning that if someone never worked out, or at least never practiced their grip strength, at least not to the extent that Arla had, then they would logically not be able to multiply their effectiveness enough to make any real difference.

  Next was the fact that despite not looking it, Arla was strong, focusing on condensing her muscles, rather than expanding. Preferring to be in the old adage of being to be strong, as opposed to looking strong. All of this was to explain that when the brute of an S-Ranker chose this moment to exert dominance, nothing happened.

  A pause.

  The girl looked momentarily stunned by the event. Now if she took her hand back and thought about things, Arla would let the incident go.

  However, the girl pushed, so Arla pushed back.

  Angry grip.

  Seeing the initial failure, the female cadet doubled down. Opting to grit her teeth, lean in and all but massage the back of Arla’s hand with her thumb.

  This was where Arla stopped holding back and applied pressure.

  Snap.

  Almost immediately Arla felt the metacarpal of the pointer and pinky finger break under her squeeze.

  A bit too much force, but Lyria was a healer and would hopefully be able to heal this girl before too long.

  Drop.

  Immediately, after the neurons fired to the brain of the Body Fortification girl, she dropped to her knee as the pain in her hand was suddenly too intense to bear.

  “I yield,” she all but screamed as she let go of her hand and held her mangled fingers up in the air.

  Seeing the submission, Arla immediately let go, nodded, and turned to walk away.

  “What the heck just happened?” The first girl Murphy asked, her eyes glowing blue with resonating power.

  Arla just locked gazes with the girl, there was a moment, an unspoken tension.

  “What happened?” Lyria called out, seeing her group of fellow S-Rankers all but ready to square off against Arla.

  Almost immediately people began screaming, Lyria seeing her injured classmate immediately went over to provide healing.

  During this time Arla left, wondering exactly what that entire event was about.

  They would meet again, the number of basic classes required by all first-year students, along with morning exercise classes, all but ensured they would brush paths again.

  The only real issue was the way the girls had seemingly sidestepped Lyria’s authority.

  In order for this to work, there needed to be a layer of separation.

  Arla provides to Lyria, who then gathers the doses. In fact, Arla purposefully chose an aloof and silent posture when dealing with other S-Rankers to help keep that layer of separation in tact. For it was very hard to notice a link between two groups, when there was none.

  Half the time Arla wondered if she was just being paranoid, but then others made her wonder if she was not being paranoid enough.

  Her chosen career path, of being an Advanced Mechanical engineer all but screamed that eyes would be on her. Which was why she wanted to keep as much distance as possible between her and the other S-Rankers.

  Heck, even fellow A-Rankers were unable to approach her.

  Everyone but Chloe, her roommate who she made sure to get along with particularly well, if for no other reason than to ensure she never had reason to focus on Arla.

  It wasn’t until she went to what was quickly becoming her least favorite course to go to, Basic Cerusian when she ran into a grouping of S-Rankers. There at the front of the group was Lyria.

  Seeing as a majority if the S-Rankers for the Freshman class were now here, Arla realized that things were about to get complicated.

  With the glance out of the corner of her eye, she couldn’t help but see that the muscular girl’s hand was still bandaged. Apparently, Lyria’s B-Ranked Healing was not as exceptional as one might think.

  As Arla drew closer to the entrance, Lyria moved to impede her progress.

  This was not a stop, but enough of a hindrance to cause Arla to either stop her movement completely, or attempt to creep around the gaggle of S-Rankers.

  Seeing the power play, Arla drew to within two paces, stopped and just stared.

  Shiver.

  Lyria shivered involuntarily at the glare given by Arla. But after a second, she composed herself and nodded before apparently breaking into why she was here, with them.

  “It would appear that some of my fellow classmates were a bit too enthusiastic earlier with trying to recruit your services.” Lyria began.

  “Recruit?” Arla found herself questioning.

  “Yes, it would appear that you have a certain knack for Cerusian that many of us would greatly appreciate learning.” Lyria suggested.

  Arla paused, letting the question roll over her. Her mind saw the rationale, these girls were failing, for the professor here truly did not care about rankings, or other status that the Academy offered. Then other than learning to squawk in guttural tones of the Lostarians, or a few of the other even trickier languages to learn from the academy.

  Hearing the request, it was not unreasonable, as it was clear from classes that Arla was one of the few who truly seemed to get the material.

  There was of course just one problem, well many, but most stemmed from why she was so good at understanding Cerusian to begin with.

  Arla paused for a moment, running through the different permutations in her mind.

  Then finally, before she could give her answer.

  Chime.

  The class bell began to ring, indicating that everyone would be late.

  Arla used that brief moment of hesitation to enter the classroom, going so far as to shove one girl out of her way as she entered the classroom and quickly made her way to her assigned seat.

  Her moves were so quick and decisive that no one could stop her as she entered.

  The final chime for class rang out as the gaggle of S-Rankers entered.

  Seeing the students all entering, the Dr. Juric, the professor for the class just stared angrily at the gaggle of S-Rankers, before asking them in butchered Cerusian.

  “What if anything can you recall about the AI-Legacy?”

  Hearing his question, that was clearly not in Federation Standard, the students all paused and stared first at the professor, and then to Arla.

  Seeing how completely lost they were, Arla understood the ask.

  She understood, and waited, not wanting to enable these S-Rankers anymore than she already felt that she was currently.

  “Well?” Dr. Juric asked angrily, again in Cerusian.

  Judging by the mood the professor was in, it seemed like it would be a long day, for everyone.