The Drop
They didn't run. Running is for guilty people and athletes, and they were neither. They simply walked into a crowded mall, slipped out the back kitchen door while the spy was arguing with a bouncer, and disappeared into the steam tunnels.
An hour later, they were standing in Room 5B.
It was exactly how Malesh had left it years ago. Small. Dusty. Smelling of industrial grease and stale air. The heavy iron bolt Malesh had installed when he was a kid was still on the door.
"Home sweet shit-hole," Kniya coughed, waving away a cloud of dust. "Your dad really has no idea this place exists?"
"None," Malesh said, walking over to the floorboards under the single window. "To the world, I was a runaway sleeping in the woods. To this room, I was just a tenant with cash."
Malesh pulled a loose floorboard up. It was the same spot where he used to hide his "Durkan & Sons" paychecks.
He pulled the heavy, sealed envelope from his coat—100 Billion Credits in bearer bonds.
"Goodbye, retirement fund," Malesh said, dropping the envelope into the dark, dusty void between the joists. He stomped the board back into place.
"Safe as fuck," Kniya noted, sitting on the dusty bed frame. "So, we have a hundred billion hidden under a floor in the slums, and we are still broke students in public. What is the next phase? Because I am tired of eating chapatis that taste like wet cardboard."
"We wait," Malesh said, leaning against the peeling wallpaper. "We let your grandfather waste his money on this investigation. We let the spies sweat in their coats. And once the heat dies down... we start washing the money."
"Washing 100 Billion?" Kniya laughed, kicking his feet up. "Bro, we are going to need a very big laundromat."
"We will buy the laundromat," Malesh smirked. "And the city it sits in. But for now? Let's go get a brick to break ! Being rich is exhausting."
The Boredom of Gods
Three weeks had passed. The Royal Audit, which had threatened to tear the city apart, fizzled out like a wet firework. The spies in trench coats got heatstroke and went home. Grandfather, unable to find the leak (because the leak was his own grandson hiding cash under a floorboard in the slums), officially declared the investigation "inconclusive."
The official report blamed "Foreign Agitators." Classic scapegoat.
Kniya and Malesh were now legally in the clear. They were sitting on two secret islands, 100 Billion Credits, and zero responsibilities.
And they were bored out of their minds.
They were walking through the public park near the University, eating bags of fried dough. The sun was setting, casting long shadows over the cobblestones.
"So," Malesh said, licking sugar off his thumb. "We survived. We are richer than the government. What do we do now? Buy a boat? Buy the ocean?"
"Too much paperwork," Kniya yawned. "I was thinking we just... exist. Aggressively."
They turned a corner and saw a man sitting alone on a park bench. He was middle-aged, wearing a worn-out clerk's uniform. His head was in his hands, his shoulders shaking slightly. He looked like the physical embodiment of a Monday morning.
Malesh and Kniya stopped. They weren't exactly social butterflies—they were usually introverts who preferred machines to people—but today, it was different.
They didn't just walk up to him; they materialized on the bench on either side of him like two bad omens.
"Hey," Kniya said, loudly munching on a piece of dough. "Why is the face so long, my friend? You look like you just watched your dog invest in a failed startup."
The man jumped, looking between the two students in terror. "I... what?"
"Are you sad?" Malesh asked, leaning in with zero respect for personal space. "Is it the wife? Did she leave you for another man because his dick was so good? Is that it? The biological competition got you down?"
The man's eyes went wide. "Excuse me?!"
"Or is it the job?" Kniya interrupted, taking a swig from a glass bottle of orange juice he pulled from his bag. "Are you sad because your ass has been spatted upon fifty times a day by a boss who can't do basic math? Is your dignity currently in the toilet?"
The man's shock turned into anger. He stood up, his face red. "Who do you think you are?! You insolent brats! I am having a crisis, and you come here to mock me with... with filth?!"
"Whoa, relax," Kniya held up his hands. "No mockery here. Just analysis. Sit down."
"Sit," Malesh commanded. It wasn't a request. The man, confused by the sudden shift in tone, sat back down.
Kniya shoved the cold glass bottle into the man's chest.
"Here," Kniya said. "Orange juice. Vintage. Drink it. Drink your sadness."
The man looked at the bottle. "I don't want—"
"People should not be sad," Malesh declared, looking at the horizon like a philosopher. "If you are having any problem in life, you should not cry. You should look in the mirror and say, 'Fuck you, problems.' I am DI'an. I don't give a fuck to the problems. Problems work for me."
The man stared at them. He took a hesitant sip of the juice. It was cold. It was sweet. It was surprisingly grounding.
"I..." the man's voice cracked. "I don't know who you are."
"We are just... Assholes," Kniya grinned.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick, crumpled envelope. He slapped it onto the man's knee.
"Okay," Kniya said. "This won't be considered as bribery, because you aren't a cop. But we still would consider that I am providing you a bribe. A 'Legal Bribe' of 10,000 Credits."
The man froze. 10,000 credits was three months of his salary.
"If any problem that is related to monetary exchange is there," Malesh added, standing up and dusting off his pants. "This should fix the equation. Enjoy the liquidity."
"Why?" the man whispered, clutching the envelope. "Why would you do this?"
"Because we were bored," Kniya shrugged. "And your sadness was fucking sad, i know my wordings have no meaning but still, Fix it."
They turned and walked away, disappearing into the evening fog as quickly as they had arrived, leaving the man sitting there with a bottle of orange juice and a fortune in his lap.
He opened the envelope. He saw the cash.
The tears that came now weren't from sadness. He started to laugh—a broken, hysterical laugh.
"Tuition," he choked out, looking at the sky. "I can pay the tuition. My kids... they can go to school."
He looked around for the two boys, but they were gone.
"God exists," the man whispered, wiping his eyes. "And he has a foul mouth."
----------------------
The Path Forward
Walking away, Kniya listened to the man laughing in the distance.
"You know," Kniya said. "That felt... too low. For a bribe."
"It was a micro-transaction," Malesh corrected. "0.00001% of our net worth. We basically just dropped a penny."
"Still," Kniya put his hands in his pockets. "We have the islands. We have the billions. We have the anonymity."
He looked at Malesh.
"I think we're done with the 'student' arc, bro. We conquered the school. We conquered the underground. What's next?"
Malesh looked up at the darkening sky, where the smoke from the industrial district was choking the stars.
"We build," Malesh said. "We don't just survive the system anymore, Kniya. We buy it. We dismantle it. And we build something that makes the Royal Family look like amateurs."
The Acacia Wasteland
Date: January 1429 (Two Months Later)
Location: Antrious Regional Airport, Sulwai State (Northwest DI)
The steam-plane hit the runway with a violent, metallic crunch that suggested the landing gear was merely a suggestion.
Kniya stepped out of the cabin, instantly getting a face full of dry, yellow dust. He coughed, looking around at the state of Sulwai. It looked like a survival simulation that hadn't finished rendering. Flat plains of dry, golden grass stretched endlessly into the horizon, broken only by bizarre, flat-topped acacia trees and sparse patches of dark forest.
There were no skyscrapers. There was barely a skyline. Just an overwhelming amount of empty space.
Kniya looked back at the airport. It was a rusted corrugated tin shed with a windsock that looked like a dirty sock. A single baggage handler was asleep on a cart next to a stray dog.
"Fuck this airport," Kniya grumbled, swatting a fly away from his face. "Why is it like this? It looks like a tetanus infection disguised as infrastructure."
Malesh stepped down the stairs, carefully adjusting his tie. He didn't look angry; he looked analytical.
"It is a reflection of the state's gross domestic product," Malesh noted, looking at the sleeping baggage handler. "Someday, we are going to control the aviation industry too. And when we do, I am going to buy this specific airport, bulldoze it, and pave it over. Not to build a new one, just to send a message to the dirt."
"Please do," Kniya sighed, walking toward the dirt road where a single, sad-looking steam-cab was idling. "So, remind me why we left the capital to come to a state that is 95% dry grass and 5% seasonal depression? The capital city of Antrious looks like a ghost town where the ghosts couldn't afford rent."
Malesh opened the cab door. He was carrying a scuffed leather briefcase. Inside were no bearer bonds, no stacks of cash—just a stack of incredibly boring corporate acquisition forms filed under a shell company with a forgettable name.
"Because, Kniya," Malesh said as the cab rattled to life. "To monopolize an industry, you don't buy the factories. You buy the earth. We are going into the steel business. Do you know what you need to make military-grade steel?"
"Heat and a lack of empathy?" Kniya guessed, staring out the window at the endless acacia trees.
"Iron ore, metallurgical coal, and limestone," Malesh corrected. "If you have to import those three things, your profit margins bleed to death in shipping costs. The Sulwai government thinks this state is empty because the topsoil is garbage for farming. They are idiots who only look at the surface. Beneath these acacia trees is one of the largest untouched veins of iron and coal on the continent. Today, we are going to do them a 'favor' and take this useless dirt off their hands."