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erintoknow · 5 years

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evidence

fallen hero: rebirth fanfic, set right after Heartbreak ~1.8k words, staring everyone’s favorite Sergeant Steel. retribution alpha minor spoiler

content warning for a That Guy

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Not quite civilian business, not quite Ranger business. Chen wasn’t really sure how to dress, wasn’t comfortable with this blending of lives. But if he didn’t get to the bottom of this, who would? Ortega was in no state of mind to pursue this. The odds of a dead end was too high. He couldn’t do that to his friend. Things were bad enough right now. Breath in, breath out. Straighten his collar. Ring the doorbell, knock on the door. Wait.

It had taken Chen more than a few beers and hours of reminiscing with Ortega. Surreptitiously going over what they remembered of old stories, writing down the details and cross-referencing everything against each other with a map of the city. Cross out options and narrow down the list. Maybe the fourth time would be the charm. Hopefully it would be worth it.

Someone shouted from the other side of the door, the sound of shuffling furniture. There was the sound of several locks being undone and then finally, the door cracked up, a single suspicious eye peering out. “Who is it?”

Chen clasped his hands behind his back. “Sergeant Steel, we talked on the phone briefly yesterday?”

The eye stares, boring in to him.

Chen stares back.

The eye blinks first. “Yes, yes, I remember now.” The door shuts, there’s a rattling of a chain, then opens again wider. “Com’on then, take a seat.” Defying expectations the owner of the eye is not a crone of an old woman but a man, maybe in his forties? Greying hair, wrinkles coming into their own on his face. If he dressed a little nicer, Chen might even class him as handsome. Untrimmed beard and beer-stained tank-top, however? Not so much.

“Thank you,” Chen says as he steps inside, closing the door behind him.

“Please, take a seat,” his host repeats, gesturing towards the wooden chairs arranged around a dining room table. His host pulls a chair away from the table edge before sliding into his own, a pile of books in poor condition scattered in front of him.

Chen raises a hand. “I’m fine, thank you.”

“Alright then, suit yourself.” He shrugs, “I’m John Carpenter, nice to meet you in person, Mr…?” Chen eyes the man. Definitely a fake name.

“Sergeant Steel is fine.”

John frowns at that.

“You said the person I’m looking for might have been a tenant of yours?”

He nods, reaches to grab one of the books in front of him. This one looks like it’s seen some heavy water damage. “Yep, the name Becker sounded familiar, and you certainly don’t see too many German names in this part of town these days, mostly–” He stops himself, and looks at Chen uncomfortably. Chen allows him the courtesy of pretending not to notice.

“Anyway,” John flips through the book, stopping on one page to circle a name with a red pen. “Here we go.” The way John just rips the page out of the book and slides it over is enough to make Chen wince. “Moved in back in 2007, stayed about… oh, two years?”

Chen scans the page. Towards the bottom, the circled name ‘Chelsea D. Becker | April 13th, 2007 | Deposit and Rent: Paid’

Chelsea? A fake name? Even for Sidestep that seemed a little lazy. With some care, the fine motor control in his hand wasn’t the best, Chen pulls a photograph out of his unbuttoned front pocket, putting it down on the table. “Does this person look familiar?”

John leans over, squinting down at the small, crinkled picture. The only group picture Ortega had been able to corral Sidestep into taking without her suit on, dressed in a vest over a long-sleeved blouse and skirt with tights. It was supposed to stay on the fridge. Hopefully he’d find something out of this that would get Ortega to forgive him.

John purses his lips, pushes his tongue in his mouth from side to side and makes a clicking noise. “The one on the far right there,” Chen keeps a blank expression as John points a finger right on Sidestep’s face. “Reminds me of the kid Chelsea always had around, maybe a sister?”

That throws Chen for a loop. “Parent-Child?”

John shakes his head. “Don’t think so. This kid just showed up a not long after Chelsea did. Maybe right out of high school?” John clicks his tongue and shrugs. “Normally I’d charge extra for stuffing two people in studio apartment like that, but I think the kid had been homeless so I pretended I didn’t see nothing.”

Alright then. What was the connection between this ‘Chelsea Becker’ and Ariadne Becker?

“Can you tell me anything else about them?”

“‘friad not, I respect my tenants’ privacy.” John says with possibly the most lying-through-my-teeth look Chen has ever seen on a man’s face.

Chen waits him out.

Finally; “Okay, well. I think the woman might have been a drug dealer or something. Always weird hours. Always paid on full, never late–”

“That’s cause for suspicion?”

“Around here it is, yeah.” John waves a hand, dismissing the question. “Now that I think about it, you know how women are,” He shoots Chen a knowing look. “Maybe she was just keeping the boy around as a fu-“

“Excuse me,” Chen cuts him off, “Boy?”

“Yeah, boy. Kid was a boy.”

Chen frowns. Another dead end then after all.

John clicks his tongue. “Probably a fairy though,” He makes a face, completely oblivious to the fact that only years of self-discipline is saving him from having his nose broken. “Kept running around in girl clothes and shit. Hell, maybe that’s not a sister in your picture. Could just be him.”

Maybe not a dead end then? But that would mean… It would mean Chen has even more questions now than when he started this whole process.

“…when was the last time you saw the kid?” Chen asks, keeping his face blank.

“So, when Chelsea moved out, I offered to keep renting to him, but he couldn’t afford it. Felt bad though, so generous man that I am, I let him stay, off-the-books, until I got a new tenant to rent the room like, a month later? Never saw him again after that.”

“No idea where they might have went?”

John shakes his head. “Him? Nah, he just straight up vanished the day I gave him the heads up, didn’t even take anything with him.”

Chen sighs, frustration mounting. Why was trying to dig into anything about Sidestep like digging in sand? “What about the… the woman, Chelsea, any idea where she went?”

John shrugs, “Left the city, I think?” An idea occurs to him and and he leans in for a conspiratorial whisper. “You think she was on the run from the law? You Rangers tracking down a cold-case?”

“Something like that.” Chen pinches his nose. “I can’t discuss the details of an investigation in progress.” That was… technically true.

John clicks his tongue, grins. “Say no more Sarge,” he winks. “Say, you know what? Maybe you want to take a look at the stuff he left behind, maybe something’ll help out the case?”

Chen raises an eyebrow. “I find it hard to believe you held on to a tenant’s property for half a decade.”

John waves him off and gets up the table, trundling into a back room. “I am a collector Sarge.” He says the word with an uncomfortable level of relish.

A few minutes of rummaging later and John is back with a small plastic bin. He drops it on the table in front of Chen. “Few pictures, a journal. Think there were some tapes and records too, but I kept those for me.” He looks at Chen, “Always figured I could sell it back to the kid if he came around again. Never did though.”

Chen has to will his hand to keep steady as he picks through the few items in the bin. Pull out one photo, a young blonde-haired woman standing next to an even younger looking androgynous teenager with short reddish-brown hair, and green eyes. Chen lays the the picture down next to the earlier photo he had brought with him. It feels like he’s looking at something he shouldn’t be – there’s an itching in the back of his skull. But the similarities are too close to be ignored, right down to the way the uncomfortable smile breaks across the face.

“I’ll need to hold on to these for evidence.”

John opens his arms wide, “Be my guest, always happy to be of service to the law.” John winks again, “Provided of course, the law remembers me favorably in return.”

Chen frowns, “I’ll make a note of it.” He says, with no such intention to do so. He reaches back into the bin, pulls out the journal. No indication on the cover who owned it. Just a plain black moleskin bound book, held shut with a cloth strap. Slip it open with a careful slide of the thumb, start with the first page.

chelsea thinks keeping a journal will help that I can write out the nightmares as if that’ll like get them outside of me?

she doesn’t understand why I can’t do that I can’t explain it to her either I mean

last night wasn’t even that bad, since i started saving people things feel better

i’m in control again it’s fun actually? just hang around with a police scanner and be ready to run across town tucking sucks like super shit though

i don’t trust the rangers charge seems real full of herself thinks she’s so hot with her perfect smile and the way she stands with her hips cocked and

wow that’s embarrassing

you know what forget this this is dumb sorry chelsea

Chen flips through the rest of the book, all the other pages are blank. Another dead end. Nothing to suggest what might have happened to Sidestep now. Nothing to hint at what was up with the ambulance Chen knows carted Sidestep away in direct contradiction to the official report. Where had Ariadne lived between this and now? Where did she go when she wasn’t at a crime scene or following Ortega like a lost cat? Who did she associate with outside of the Rangers?

Maybe they could put the journal in the ceremonial casket, it’d be better than nothing. But how to explain finding it to Ortega without giving away the investigation? And there was the matter of... Maybe it was best to keep the journal to himself after all. This was one secret that didn’t need to be exposed.

Chen puts the journal back in the bin and adds both the pictures and the torn record book page. Might as well hold on to it. Hopefully his government contact would get back to him soon with something, anything, about the where he’d seen that ambulance go. This had been his best shot at nailing down a residence and it ends up being years old. The only other lead left was this ‘Chelsea’ woman, and given his luck so far, it was hard to be optimistic about the odds.

Ariadne Becker, woman of mystery and thorn in his side, couldn’t even have the courtesy to have a non-mysterious death. This one was going to eat at him.

#fallen hero: rebirth #fallen hero #fallen hero fanfic #fanfiction #fhr/Ariadne #tw: transphobia #tw: homophobia #mc #Wei Chen #RENT CONTROL NOW #investigation time go #trans character

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ariadnelives · 5 years

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Chapter 7 -- The Nightmare

[Missed earlier chapters? Go catch up here! Otherwise, welcome back! Oh, and make sure to join our discord server! Chapter can also be found @ ao3]

“I hate this lady so much,” Pilar practically snarled as she adjusted the ship's course. “Was she ever young, do you think?”

“Nah,” Ariadne said from the passenger seat, trying in vain to get a spoon to stick to her nose, “I feel like she's probably been an unpleasant old crone forever.”

“She was probably already on Calisto when they got there and they just built the bio-dome around her stupid rocking chair.”

The Jovian moon Calisto was now within visual range, and the rest of the viewport was filled with yellow and orange swirls. No matter how many operations they ran through the colonial moons, they never quite got used to the scale of a gas giant. Jupiter and Saturn took their breath away every time they looked at them. Something primal and hard-coded into their DNA told them that this was not something they were meant to see, and yet, here they were, a stone's throw from Jupiter.

The ship pulled closer to Calisto and Ariadne abandoned her spoon effort to pull out fake IDs to get into the bio-dome.

They got into the dome without incident, found a small garage to park in, and gave an almost comically large tip to the downtrodden-looking lot attendant.

La Pesadilla's high-rise apartment was at the top of a building whose elevator was constantly broken. While a woman of her means would be able to have it fixed, she liked that it was broken because it meant anyone who wanted to visit her would have to take the stairs.

Ariadne quickly repaired the electromagnets, actually making the elevator much faster than it was before it had broken, and wrote “HA” on the “Out of Order” sign. They were at her door in seconds.

La Pesadilla answered and, like Jupiter, her appearance never ceased to shock Ariadne and Pilar. At a glance, one might guess she was 90 years old. Her skin was eerily reminiscent to a well-worn catcher's mitt both in texture and coloration. Her expression was about as friendly as a large-mouth grouper, and under her tattered bathrobe was an inexplicable t-shirt depicting what appeared to be a zebra wearing sunglasses and smoking a cigar. Whether she wore pants under the bathrobe was up for speculation.

She walked with a cane, even though she did not need one, simply because she liked to jab it at people when speaking.

“You didn't fix my elevator, did you?” she more snarled than said.

“Nope,” Ariadne lied.

“Good, I like it broken,” La Pesadilla grumbled, “makes it harder for people to drop by and ask me favors.”

There was a moment of silence in the hall as Pilar and Ariadne struggled to find the words to respond to this statement.

“Well, come in if you're coming in,” she said, gesturing into the apartment with her cane, “I pay to air condition the inside of the apartment, not the hallway. Every second this door is open is a waste of my money.”

Ariadne and Spacebreather, still at a loss for response, stepped into La Pesadilla's apartment.

The place was decorated like a family-style restaurant, which is to say, the walls were covered with hundreds of curios, oddities, and other units of nonsense which begged the question, “what exactly is the difference between vintage collectibles and old garbage?”

Two other women sat on an overstuffed couch in the corner, their focus divided between small information terminals affixed to the armrests and a holographic table at the center of the room playing an old rerun of Val Deimos, P.I. at an almost obscenely loud volume.

“Balotelli's cheating on his wife again,” said the one on the left, a relaxed-looking black woman of approximately 70 with wraparound sunglasses (worn indoors for reasons that were known only to her) and a blue-and-purple sweater knitted to look like a particularly starry galaxy that Ariadne thought might be subtly swirling and twinkling. “How much do you think he'll pay us to keep it under wraps this time?”

“No dice,” replied the one on the right, a strong-jawed white woman of perhaps 65, wearing a tank top, cargo pants, and combat boots with an iron-gray buzz cut. With one hand, she rapidly tapped on her terminal. With the other, she repeatedly lifted a rather heavy hand weight. She did not seem to break eye contact at any point with the flickering rerun streaming on the surface of the coffee table. “His wife knows. Hired a private dick to tail them last week. Tried to have 'em whacked but lost her nerve at the last second.”

“Do we have the records?” Galaxy-sweater asked.

“I have the contract here,” Tank-top replied.

“We double down. He's up for reelection in May, and I'm sure neither of them wants the scandal breaking in April. Probably pay a pretty penny to keep it under wraps.”

“Sex, betrayal, and intrigue?” Tank-top asked. “This sounds like a pretty valuable story. It'd be a shame if some reporter outbid them for it.”

“Oh my god,” Ariadne cut in, “do you always talk in clichéd banter or is this for our benefit?”

Tank-top stopped her arm curls for half a second and then continued. Galaxy-sweater raised an eyebrow at her.

“Who's this lunchbox?” Galaxy-sweater asked in a derisive way that seemed to be second nature to mean old ladies and made even the most baffling of insults seem to make sense.

“This is that brat I was telling you about,” La Pesadilla growled.

Tank-top did not look away from her television program. “The one who always fixes the elevator?”

“I think so,” La Pesadilla grumbled. She wandered into the kitchen but continued speaking, incrementally increasing the volume of her voice so she could still be heard. “Her name starts with an A, and her wife here is named after … I don't know, some kind of rice dish.”

Pilar pondered this for a moment and resolved to ask Cookie about it later on.

“Shoot, hope that elevator is fixed.” Galaxy-sweater smiled, “I got bad knees and shit to do.”

La Pesadilla returned with two brightly colored plastic cups, filled with a cloudy yellow substance. She practically shoved these into the hands of her guests with a grunt.

“What do… what is…” Ariadne was uncharacteristically at a loss for words. She was barely reaching adulthood herself and she still had very little experience in the department of respecting her elders. She suspected that perhaps sixty percent of the people in the room were not acting as they should, but she was unsure of where she fell in that ratio.

“It's lemonade.” La Pesadilla removed a smallish disc-shaped tin from her bathrobe pocket, pulled out a handful of leaves, jammed them into her cheek, and began chewing them. “You're kids, you drink lemonade. You're in my house, I offer you a drink. The elevator's out of order, you take the fucking stairs instead of trying to fix it. There's rules to this sort of thing.”

“I said I didn't fix your elevator,” Ariadne stammered.

“You always say that.” La Pesadilla rolled her eyes. “What do you want? You're talking through our program.” She gestured at the hologram. The show was popular enough that Pilar had seen this particular episode several times with her parents, and since she had not had parents in approximately a decade, it was a safe bet it was not their first viewing.

“You could always pause it while we conduct our business,” Pilar offered in a tone she hoped would come across as helpful. She took a polite sip of her lemonade, which had no ice and seemed to be little more than powdered mix stirred into room-temperature tap water.

“You could've shown up on the hour, like a normal person, so you don't interrupt the last five minutes of my show.” La Pesadilla slumped into an old, heavily-patched recliner, searched for a small metal jar, and spat the leaves out into it. “So, spit it out.”

Galaxy-sweater let out a small “heh” at her phrasing.

“Why do you come here and bother me again?”

Ariadne finally seemed to find her voice. “We're looking for information.”

“Well, you've come to the right place,” Tank-top grunted, somehow still lifting her weight, “we've got all of it.”

“The Red God cult that's formed on Mars in the last year or so. We need to know everything we can about them.”

“What do we get?” La Pesadilla asked. “I mean, you're asking me to do the opposite of my job here. People pay me to keep their secrets. If I tell you about these guys, I ain't got no leverage on 'em, can't charge 'em for my services, feel? If I'm gonna spill the beans, I gotta know it's worth more than keeping my mouth shut.”

“Cut the crap,” Pilar said simply, “money is no object to us, and I think you'll be pleased with the amount we've deposited in your account as an act of good faith.”

La Pesadilla tapped at her display and raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Well, I'll be damned.”

“You'll get the other half when we have our information,” Pilar said.

La Pesadilla looked at Galaxy-sweater and nodded.

“Think we got something on them.” Galaxy-sweater said, tapping away on her own display. “Yeah, their leader's this fancy scientist turned whacked-out bible nut, calls himself the Zealot.”

“Real original nickname,” Tank-top added.

“Got into some real shady shit.” Galaxy-sweater furrowed her brow at the display. “We got our hands on a few black market ledgers about 20 years back, and the shit he was buying? Banned on just about every rock in the system.”

“Why would someone selling illegal goods on the black market keep a ledger of their customers?” Ariadne wondered out loud. Galaxy-sweater looked at her flatly and gestured vaguely at the blackmail operation they were currently sitting in the middle of. Ariadne took a sip of her lemonade. “I see.”

“You said 20 years ago?” Pilar looked confused. “These guys have only been operating for the past year, year and a half.”

“Nah,” La Pesadilla grunted, “they been around longer'n you kids have been alive. The Red God stuff is new. They used to walk around the moons, door to door, saying that the Earth was a New Sodom that was to be destroyed due to its sin and heresy and that the only way to be sure Jesus would spare the rest of the system was to join their church.”

“Or make a donation,” Tank-top said.

“Course, the day they predicted came and went.” Galaxy-sweater chuckled. “The Earth was still there. Then that happened, oh, five or six more times before everyone stopped giving them the time of day.”

“Buncha idjits,” La Pesadilla mumbled, “Jesus don't need our money, and he's got a whole universe to run. He doesn't go around blowing up planets because some people didn't pray right. All he cares about is if you're a good person. He don't even care if you believe in him if you ask me, just live your life best you can and he won't bother you.”

“Like bees?” Galaxy-sweater asked, smirking.

“Exactly, like bees. You don't bother him, he don't bother you.”

Ariadne thought this moralizing was rich coming from a professional blackmailer, and she couldn't help but think she'd been given the same advice about what to do when you encounter a swarm of bees, but she bit her tongue to avoid starting another tangent.

La Pesadilla took a sip from a nearby mug that seemed to be full of red wine. “Anyway, nobody bought his end-is-nigh crock and, last I heard, he was a pretty sick fucker. He bought a bunch of illegal shit and went underground. Nobody heard from them for a while, and they came back with a new god and a shiny new preacher. Little white girl, 'bout your age.”

Ariadne scowled. “Not even close.”

La Pesadilla matched her scowl. “Kid, if we're talking years, I'm easily five of you. You both got all your original teeth? You're the same age, far as I'm concerned.”

“What exactly did he buy?” Pilar attempted to break the tension. She, at times, was confused by Ariadne's talent for locking horns with grumpy older women, but suspected this was a deeper issue than they had time to unpack at the moment.

Galaxy-sweater looked at her screen. “We got three Cortex brand neural implants. Those things were all the rage back in the 90s, companies used to get them for all the employees so memos would go right to their brain.”

Tank-top laughed slightly. “Yeah, but they got banned pretty quick.”

La Pesadilla took another sip of mug-wine. “Security risk… a lot of bosses got caught snooping in their employee's thoughts. There was one big scandal where a manager tried to increase productivity by planting thoughts in his employees heads while they slept. An entire office working 16-hour shifts and sleeping at their desks because their brain was telling them 'if I stop working I'll die, if I ask for overtime I'll die, if I make a mistake I'll die.'”

“Yikes,” Ariadne concluded. “Go on, what else?”

“Blueprints for immersion pod,” Galaxy-sweater explained, “That's a VR capsule that uses the brain's visualization center as a processor to create realistic simulations of pre-programmed scenarios. Originally designed for video gaming, scrapped because every focus tester who attempted to play a children's shoot-em-up game had to be treated for very real PTSD, and made illegal after the prototypes were found being used as training simulators for a radical Earth-based supremacist paramilitary corps.”

“I'm sensing a theme here,” Pilar chimed in.

“Here's where it gets really interesting,” Galaxy-sweater said, pointing at the screen, “he bought up a bunch of medical equipment. Machines for growing and implanting new organs.”

“Shouldn't need that,” Tank-top piped up, still watching her show but seeming to slow down on the weights. “I know he was sick, but if he needed a transplant he could get one at any hospital and be home for supper.”

“Could've been for implanting the Cortex device,” Ariadne suggested.

“Could be,” La Pesadilla said. “We ain't here to speculate, we just give you the information.”

“Aaaaand,” Galaxy-sweater reached the end of her list, “one Quantum Shift Generator. Weird little devices, designed for the Shop-n-Go corporation. They had this idea for expanding to the colonial moons that they could just build a single store interior which all of their storefronts would lead into, that way they could have a dozen stores in a bio-dome but only pay one set of overworked employees.”

“Wonder why that got banned.” Ariadne smirked.

“If you're thinkin' it's some worker's rights whatever, you're wrong,” La Pesadilla grumbled, pouring herself another mug of wine from a bottle that had been conveniently located next to the mug on the table. “It's because all the exterior doors led to the same interior, but they ain't give you the same courtesy on the way out.”

“What she's trying to say,” Tank-top said, placing her weight on the ground and reaching for a nearby bottle of water, “is that people would attempt to leave the store only to find themselves coming out of the wrong one. You could end up 15 miles across town in the 40 seconds it took you to buy an iced tea and a candy bar.”

“Would've made a great public transit system if there was some way to predict which storefront you'd come out of,” Galaxy-sweater offered.

“That's all we've got,” La Pesadilla said. “Where's the rest of my money?”

“Now, hang on,” Galaxy-sweater said, easing herself off the couch, “these girls paid good money and we have got one more thing. Been meaning to get rid of it anyway.”

She ambled over to a bookshelf, grabbed a small, shabby-looking paperback, ripped the back cover clean off, and handed it to Ariadne. “They dropped this in our mailslot back when they were still pretending to be Christian. Got a picture of the Zealot on the back. Might help.”

La Pesadilla jabbed her cane towards the closed door. “Now, get out of my house and put that money in my account.”

Ariadne and Pilar put down their half-finished lemonades, more than glad to not have to finish drinking them, and walked towards the door. As they exited, they heard La Pesadilla mumble, “and so help me if that elevator is working.” The door closed behind them and they immediately heard it lock.

In the elevator ride down to the first floor, Ariadne looked at the laminated cover she'd been handed. The photograph was of a white man, perhaps in his 40s, with squinting, intense eyes, a full but neatly trimmed gray beard, a straight, pointed nose, and a wide-brimmed black hat.

She felt uneasy and turned the book over. Something about him, something she couldn't quite place but knew very few others would see, hit upsettingly close to home. She didn't look at it again for the rest of the trip back.

#core story

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chonzu · 5 years

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i just realized i can’t come on here and shout ‘my roommate ripped me off 3 thousand dollars’ without context so like

Here’s the story

In April I was desperate. Because of a long string of bad luck I’d been unable to find a roommate to fill our 3bed 3bath condo and the upstairs bedroom had been vacant for some time. At that time I found Lacey, who I don’t give a shit about name dropping, because he’s a fucking piece of shit.

He moved in on May 8th, also my grad date. I felt a bit off about it because he was super fucking late after insisting he’d be there at a certain time, and I had a migraine, and I just wanted to sleep. It was okay till we got to June, and he had to start paying bills, and I didn’t get rent. So I gave him the benefit of the doubt and asked for it by a certain date.

By this time I’ve already decided I’m moving out. The third bedroom ends up vacant on Father’s Day because that roommate was moving to New York and just happened to leave on that day. I don’t hear or see Lacey for some time and he comes home one day and just decides to deep clean the whole house. At this point, I’m working as much as I possibly can and doing anything I can do to 1) get sleep and 2) get enough money to cover all the bills.

July 1st I get nothing. At the same time, I’m trying to apply for a new apartment, and I got a new job offer, and my old manager made me work EVERY SINGLE DAY of my 2 week notice. I’m trying to squeeze in a vision appointment and a dentist appointment and then found out I need to get a filling immediately or within the next few months it’d be a root canal. Okay! I tell Lacey he needs to leave by the end of the week. I wanted to press charges, but my aunt, who has a law degree, or masters, or some shit and has been working in law for a really long time, said that it wouldn’t be worth it and the money I wanted to sue him for would barely cover the fees that would come with it. Okay. Fine. I go to the police because I woke up that morning and a set of keys was gone and all the couch cushions (5) were missing. Law says that after living there 30 days whether or not someone is on the lease, they have a right to live at the house (unless they’re doing drugs or prostituting or whatever). Tenant rights. I had to get the landlord involved. Because what I was doing is illegal, and the landlord has to evict him legally, which takes 30 days.

So July 6th I have a convention to go to. It’s great. I’m having a fucking amazing time with a lot of good D&D friends I’ve met and do some board games and a 4 hour one shot. That evening I tried sushi for the first time and real ramen for the first time and when we’re watching a movie that evening Lacey tries calling me through FB like 7 times. He insists he’s going to have all the money and he just needs One More Day after already begging for one. I come home that evening at around 12:30 AM and go to bed. He comes in at 1 AM shittalking me and telling the new guy I’m a disgusting pig and he did me a favor by cleaning everything because it was covered in grime and shit (he’s a compulsive liar, I’m not surprised). So I messaged him that I can hear him and to tell the new guy I’m leaving by the end of the month. I hear his phone go off and he huffs and leaves me on read. The next day the sink is full of every single piece of silverware in the house and the counter is full of dirty dishes.

Cut to yesterday. I bought a storage unit because I’m going on vacation and if I get this apartment the move in day is August 10th. I get back late in the evening and come home to the water shut off. New guy is like, yo, what’s going on? And I explain that I cannot turn the water back on, and he has to if he is renewing the lease, because Lacey never paid me a dime and I couldn’t afford it. He runs out and gets me half of the bill and I got it back on today. But now I’m down to less than 100$ to my name (except for cash I’ve stowed away for my trip/graduation money) and I need boxes, tape, and cat food, among some other things. By this point, everything he owes me comes to about 2000 dollars. New guy, just before getting the money, tells me that he gave Lacey the first and last month’s rent and signed a paper saying that he agreed to pay the money to Lacey. And then he stops, and whispers ‘why did he ask me for the money when you’re the one who pays the rent?’ and then drops the bomb that Lacey hurriedly left yesterday morning with a haphazardly stuffed bag and neither of us are sure if he’s coming back and he still has the keys.

New coworker found court records that he’s been arrested like 7 times for drugs and doing shit on probation and now at this point he’s basically stolen 3000 dollars from me and the new guy.

I don’t know if my last paycheck this Friday will be deposited or mailed by paper. New job gets paid this week, but this is my first week, so I’m going to get first week, second week, and third week all together (all of them mailed to me, getting here ‘whenever they get here’).

Now you might be asking, how did you let Lacey do this to you? I gave him the benefit of the doubt because I was in a very similar situation he was (homeless, working crazy jobs, just looking for a place to start new). But, since he gave me that first month’s rent, he covered himself to be able to stay for at least 60 days, 90 days max. Thankfully he ended up leaving, I think, but neither me nor the new roommate know if that’s actually going to happen.

I told the office today that I’m leaving and not renewing the lease. I haven’t gotten a response, but I checked my spam and realized they’d sent me a very similar question about it 20 minutes prior to me sending my email, and still no response, and the office is now closed.

And I’m screaming because all of my tax return AND all of my fucking graduation money are being ripped out of my hands just to live, and I cannot get an eviction on my record if I want this apartment, and my credit has fucking tanked because my power and water keep getting shut off, and the new guy won’t renew the lease because Lacey was Probably on drugs and it made him super uncomfortable. I’m trying to get an apartment with a close friend who’s going to be moving in September and I don’t know how I’m going to survive this month, honestly, because the burnout of working retail and having no time off plus trying to adjust to new policies in a corporate office and dealing with this AND trying to at least do something fun every day and living off whatever scraps I can find while gathering change for some Monster energy drinks is....

Not a good time.

#not mha

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junker-town · 7 years

Text

How I'd spend Paul Pogba's money

Week 1

My mother sees things as things. Things to be used, things as means.

I say to her, "Being poor is the worst of sins. It is not that the world doesn't care for you, it's that they don't even see you."

"You are naive," she says. "I have six children. I am fortunate (indeed, who can deny it?) and I will stay fortunate (and who can doubt that too?). My riches make me safe. I am greater than any whom Fortune can harm, and though she could take much away, she would leave me much more. Surely my comforts banish fear."

When she bought me my first soccer ball, she put it inside a kicking net so that the kicked ball would always return. I told her that when I became rich and famous that I would repay her by buying her a semi-truck.

Looking at the $130,000 machine with $4,050 worth of gold rims, she said "you always thought that these trucks were the best because they were the biggest."

Starting: $300,000

Total spent: $134,050

Remaining: $165,950

Week 2

I cut off all contact with my mother and the rest of my family. That poor shit is depressing. I don't need that type of negative energy in my life. After the second $300,000 check came in, I realized that I needed to create a "positive vibes only" environment around myself.

In the immortal words of Mr. Burns: "Family, religion, friendship. These are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business."

I moved out of my parent's house and into a $1,800 per month (set aside the $21,600 for the year) Riverfront apartment in downtown Detroit with a $2,000 security deposit. Paid $300 to take my cat with me. Apparently she will also cost me $35 a month as well. In ancient times cats were worshiped as gods but the men of today only bow to money. Shameful. I paid the yearly $420 at once on some rich shit.

I joined a cross-fit gym for $150 a month, because I needed to be able to flex both physically and financially. I started drinking more water and flat tummy tea. Then I created an Instagram and Tumblr. One for pictures of me doing rich shit and the other to find random fake-deep Drake quotes to put as the captions of the pictures of me doing rich shit.

The first picture was of me posing next to my plane (Some nights I wish I could go back in life. Not to change shit, just to feel a couple things twice), because of course I bought a fucking plane. A Cessna 182 for $250k, with the fixed yearly costs — inspection, maintenance, insurance, hanger fees, and data subscription— of around $8k. Chump change to stunt so hard. Flight training cost around $11,000. Still rich, but had to postpone going to Whole Foods for the week, it would have cost an extra $11k. Bought three boxes of pizza rolls for $30 instead.

Starting: $465,950

Total spent: $293,350

Remaining: $172,600

Week 3

I spent $11k in Whole Foods for groceries for the week. On the way home, I ran into an old friend, Don Leo.

We sat down for coffee. I told him about my change in fortune and because Modeste can only marry Ernest in fiction (Eveline Hańska married a landowner and then a Count after), Don Leo said "most men confound happiness with the means that lead to it. Money in their eyes is the chief element of happiness."

"But," I said, "money can add significance to things."

"Yes, you seem to believe that."

I thought about what he said for the next few days. Then on Friday morning as he drove to work, I called him. I asked him to look towards the sky. To the space between our world and the abyss of the universe. I paid a skywriter $3,500 to write the words "Broke Boi" so that my friend could see exactly what I thought of him. Then I cackled and hung up on him. Fuck outta here with that broke shit.

Starting: $472,600

Total spent: $14,500

Remaining: $458,100

Week 4

Spent $15k in Whole Foods. I bought an extra item: something called an "Air Plant." I don't really know what it is but I guess life is just as difficult to decipher.Yet, still I live. What am I really but an air plant in the air forest of the world? Insignificant but worthy of love. I took a picture of it and posted it on Instagram (knowing the difference can make all the difference.)

Starting: $758,100

Total spent: $15,000

Remaining: $743,100

Week 5

I bought the typical Nouveau riche things: a $60,000 diamond grill, three white tigers — Kimba, Simba, Hamlet — for $140,000 (yearly grooming cost of $144,000 that I set aside), a few cars: A Tesla X P90D for $138,800, the 2017 Jaguar F-TYPE Coupe for $61,400 — five $900 suits to match — and a Ferrari 599 GTO for $385,000. Of course I put it all on the ‘gram.

Certain people need to tell me they proud of me, that mean a lot to me (sitting on the hood of the Jaguar with Hamlet).

It's more to life than sleeping in and getting high with you (looking down at my phone while leaning against the Tesla.)

May your neighbors respect you, troubles neglect you, angels protect you, and heaven accept you (holding Simba's paws up and making a goofy face behind him.)

You know life is what we make it, and a chance is like a picture, it'd be nice if you just take it (me and all three of the tigers playing on the ground with the doors of the Ferrari open in the background.)

I quit cross-fit and hired a personal trainer who charges $15,000 for a six-week session. I'm too rich to be in a stuffy warehouse with random people training to fight God. Hired a personal chef for $1,000 a month. Paid him for the year.

Starting: $1,043,100

Total spent: $957,100

Remaining: $86,000

Week 6

In my excesses there was an aching emptiness. Born poor, my sudden wealth had freed me from the oppression of poverty, of unbeing. I was a person, intelligent and worthy. Yet, I still lacked purpose. I was no longer an object but being a man came with the problems of what it was to be a man. Each pleasure brought a rising sense of unfulfillment, something even my $2,400 Charlotte Thomas bed sheet couldn't cover up. I hoarded things to set a barrier between me and myself.

I envied the fish in my recently purchased $300,000 shark tank. Born into captivity, they couldn't see their chains, but I, having pulled against the links as a poor child and now, having become having been promoted by wealth to the position of a guard, knew that I was confined to the prison all the same.

Starting: $386,000

Total spent: $302,400

Remaining: $83,600

Week 7

I sought solace in the church. I donated $50,000 for its renovations and gave $100,000 for the medical bills of its member. The priest thanked me but when he said "you've done well by the Lord," I left. He obviously knew too much.

Starting: $383,600

Total spent: $150,000

Remaining: $233,600

Week 8

Bought a $19,990 rose gold Daytona Rolex and took the plane out to Ibiza. I stayed in the Palladium Hotel Don Carlos, all inclusive, for a week at the cost of $1,700.

I spent my days there oscillating between being drunk as hell in the night and saying that I would never drink again in the morning. On one of the nights when I was ordering another five bottles of Armand de Brignac Brut gold (3 nights of this, $100,500 in total), a gorgeous woman, a model named Amina, asked me if I was rich. I said yes. Then, as if by magic, totally unexpected, we fell in love. Life is wild.

I took several pictures of the time we spent together on the island and uploaded my favorite: an image of her half-asleep with the caption "You a real ass woman and I like it, I don't wanna fight it." We partied and enjoyed the kind of love that only good looks and lots of money could bring. Spending a lot of money made me feel much better.

Starting: $533,600

Total spent: $122,190

Remaining: $411,410

Weeks 9 and 10

Amina and I took a tour through Europe ($500 for the flight to London, $3,200 for the tour itself): London, Paris, Dijon, Jungfraujoch, Florence, Montecatini, Pisa, Rome, Venice, Innsbruck, Munich, Boppard, Amsterdam, and Bruges.

In Innsbruck we visited the Thomas Flora. Amina looked at the "Venezianischer Carneval" and I looked at Amina looking at the "Venezianischer Carneval."

"It's beautiful," I said.

She closed her eyes and the world ended. "It is. But I think it would be better if it wasn't expected to be."

I bought the painting for $150,000. I'll put it next to the shark tank. Baller ass shit.

Starting: $711,410

Total spent: $153,700

Remaining: $557,710

Week 11

Spring was near and Amina and I were happy. We took so many pictures for the 'gram that I damn near quoted the entire "Take Care" album — flights in the morning, what you doing that's so important?

Imagine a music video of two outlandishly good-looking people running around in $1,800 DSQUARED2 outfits and drinking from a 30-liter bottle of Boërl & Kroff's Brut that's worth $120,000. That was our entire week. Also, I know some of you just had to look that up that champagne. Broke boys.

Starting: $857,710

Total spent: $123,600

Remaining: $734,110

Week 12

I still felt unfulfilled. The emptiness persisted. Amina suggested that I start investing my money and buying real estate. She said that I needed bigger ambitions. "Aim for the stars and land on the clouds." It's what 4:44 Jay Z would have wanted.

By her suggestion, I hired a real estate developer and put aside a maximum of $150,000 for the yearly salary and $300,000 for renovations of the places that I planned to buy. We went after properties that needed very little, if any work. We bought a $190,000 home by Eastern Market, with a $716 mortgage, then a 990-square-foot single family home by Midtown for $35,000 with a mortgage of $130.

The expenses for the homes were to come out of the $300,000 stash and the profits would also go into that account, which I made separate from my personal one. I would increase the rent frequently, with the stated reason that the area was improving.

Starting: $1,034,110

Total spent: $675,000

Remaining: $359,110

Week 13

Bought a condo on East Jefferson Ave. for $60,000 with a mortgage of $231 and a $100,000 townhome on Pembridge place ($385/m).

Paid a combined $20,000 to a few neighbors in hush money because apparently tigers are loud and aggressive.

Starting: $659,110

Total spent: $180,000

Remaining: $479,110

Week 14

I wanted to build something great. I thought that I should start a company with the name of "Anybody Can Get It, Inc," in reference to my lifelong belief that the sole reason to play sports is to embarrass your opponent. But that would take too much work. Too many moving parts.

So in honor of my mother's philosophy that the riches of materials pales in comparison to the richness of the human as a person, a dust speck in the universe but a universe unto himself, I decided to invest in the people. For my own profits, but in the people.

I invested $200,000 in a web-based solar energy engineering company called "Greenlancer."

$20,000 for the tigers. I should just let the cubs eat these people instead.

Starting: $779,110

Total spent: $220,000

Remaining: $559,110

Week 15

Since Thomas Flora, Amina has been painting a lot. She says that what she wants to do is replicate the beauty that's already in the world. Not to create it, since all beauty exists and has always existed. She wants to paint it as it is.

She says that I don't understand "how odd it is to be made of flesh, balanced on bone, and filled with a soul you've never met."

I bought her an old dialysis center for $120,000 on Conner Street that she could turn into a studio, and gave her $50,000 for redecoration.

Paid another $20,000 for the tigers. Now I know I'm being extorted.

Starting: $859,110

Total spent: $190,000

Remaining: $669,110

Week 16

Invested $150,000 in Realty Commander, a transaction management software for real estate professionals to make the buying of property easier. Also invested also $50,000 in Alfa Jango, a company that helps build the identity of startups with web-based software and application development.

Sold the tigers for $5,000 each and emptied the shark tank. The novelty had worn off, I did not love them. But with the animals gone and Amina spending most of her time in the studio, I find myself more alone than I wish to be.

Starting: $969,110

Total spent: $185,000

Remaining: $784,110

Week 17

Invested $150,000 in Cribspot, a site that helps helps college students and landlords find and manage off-campus housing, in order to prioritize my properties.

Donated $200,000 to Wayne State University, with the understanding that they will work to direct students to use Cribspot to find off-campus housing.

Starting: $1,084,110

Total spent: $350,000

Remaining: $734,110

Week 18

Bought two foreclosed condo homes, both on Seville Road. One for $141,533, the other for $101,023. Added an extra $100,000 to the account reserved for the retail properties for renovation.

Starting: $1,034.110

Total spent: $342,556

Remaining: $691,554

Week 19

Hired an assistant ($50,000) to act as landlord for the apartments and an investment fund manager ($120,000). Set aside their salaries.

Haven't seen Amina in some time. She wants to have an exhibition for her work and is spending more hours away.

Went to the movies alone, bought a combo meal of popcorn, a Kit-Kat bar, and a medium drink for $1,200.

Starting: $991,554

Total spent: $171,200

Remaining: $820,354

Week 20

Invested $500,000 into Castle, a company whose mission statement is to "to provide intelligent, investor-driven property management to real estate investors around the world." This will be the umbrella that covers all of my real-estate ambitions. We will use our relationship with Wayne State to attract college students to work as stewards and to train those interested as property inspectors.

Starting: $1,120,354

Total spent: $500,000

Remaining: $620,354

Week 21

Invested $250,000 into Detroit City FC because the most rich shit to do is to have a sports team. I go to the games wearing New Balances and terrible blue jeans.

Starting: $920,354

Total spent: $250,000

Remaining: $670,354

Weeks 22 and 23

I begged Amina to take a vacation with me again, but she declined. She was too close to finishing her work.

I don't understand. It was she who said that I needed to think bigger. What have I done but expanded our world? I've built a paradise around us, now and forever: homes, companies, influence, power. We have everything that anyone could ask for, yet she doesn't see me anymore. It's always the paintings. The damn paintings. The ugly things. Deformed bodies, twisted faces, and harsh, violent colors.

All she says is that I don't understand. "It's a matter of the soul and you don't have the eyes for it. All you see is what you see and to you that's everything."

I took the plane back to Ibiza and stayed in the hotel room drinking the finest of champagnes, doing drugs, and watching sports alone for two weeks. I opened several Twitter accounts and spent nights tweeting abuse at everyone who said that Arsene Wenger's time at Arsenal was up. Wankers.

Spent about $70,000. Whatever, I'm rich.

Starting: $970,354

Total spent: $70,000

Remaining: $900,354

Weeks 24 and 25

I didn't go home. Instead, I flew to South Africa for 10 days. I stayed in the Castello di Monte Guest House ($1,800), which included accommodation, meals, and a transfer to the hotel from OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. I rented a rifle for $100 and, along with a few professional hunters and several other rich people, I went hunting for wild animals ($3,780 in total).

We were taken to the Lowveld region. A dentist among us, who was after the head of an African elephant, listed off the species that were available in the area: blue wildebeest, buffalo, bush pig, bushbuck, common reedbuck, eland, elephant, gemsbok, giraffe, grey duiker, hippopotamus, impala, jackal, klipspringer, kudu, leopard, lion, nyala, ostrich, red hartebeest, roan antelope, sable antelope, steenbok, tsessebe, warthog, waterbuck, white rhino, Burchell's zebra.

I killed a lioness ($9,700) and took a picture next to its dead body. Uploaded it to Instagram (MORE LIFE. MORE EVERYTHING.)

At lunch the next day, I couldn't eat. The dentist patted me on the back as he left, "They're just animals."

On the final day, we visited Pretoria. I was amazed by the polished wood, stained glass, and tiled floors in the Palace of Justice. The dentist said that it only cost £115,260 to build.

Starting: $1,200,354

Total spent: $15,380

Remaining: $1,184,974

Week 26

Bought some plots of land: $49,000 individually for two on Ashland street, $15,500 for one on Avery Street by Midtown, and a 2,178-square-foot house available by the old Tigers Stadium for $149,000.

There were a few homes included in the Ashland properties, and I had my assistant send a letter letting the residents know that they had two weeks to move out.

Starting: $1,484,974

Total spent: $262,500

Remaining: $1,222,474

Week 27

An article ran in the city's biggest paper, titled "Who is Zito and why is he buying up Detroit?"

The author wrote about my various properties and business investments, tried to find the reasonings behind them, and in the end does an admittedly good job in exposing my relationship with Wayne State. He insinuated that I'm taking advantage of the city when it's vulnerable for selfish reasons. "Zito has no known charity foundations nor has he done anything to help the city beyond to fill his own pockets."

Amina agreed with the author. She suggested that some philanthropy would be good for me as well as the city. "You need to think of others."

The next day I gave $15,000 to the Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit. After that, I gave another $15,000 to Kids Without Cancer. Then I gave the same amount to Mercy Education Project. I felt nothing. But I figured it would do well for my image.

Starting: $1,522,474

Total spent: $45,000

Remaining: $1,477,474

Week 28

The paper didn't mention my donations, so I invested $200,000 into another local newspaper under the requirement that they cover me favorably to counter any negative articles that might come from other publications.

Starting: $1,777,474

Total spent: $200,000

Remaining: $1,577,474

Week 29

Went hunting again. This time, an elephant (Don't switch on me, I got big plans). Amina has grown more distant because of this new hobby.

$2,100 for five nights. Elephant trophy: $38,000.

Starting: $1,877,474

Total spent: $40,100

Remaining: $1,837,374

Week 30

A feature in the main paper: "Zito, you took my home." It was by a man who died shortly after I kicked him out of the homes in Ashland, and they published a letter from him.

His wife said: "Zito is an evil man. My husband was worth more than all of his money..."

I paid various journalists and outlets a combined $380,000 to publish good stories about how I was making the city better by fixing homes. To write about my solar panels. But people latched on the letter, and their anger intensified when news got out that I was planning on setting up an online video channel for hunting.

Starting: $2,137,374

Total spent: $380,000

Total: $1,757,274

Week 31

The mayor called me into his office. When he finally saw me face to face, he laughed and the universe expanded.

"You're new to this."

"Yeah, but I'm getting used to being rich really quick. For the good and the bad."

"No, I mean, you're a poor kid. You just have money. That's different from being a rich man."

He told me that there's a way, beneficial to the both of us, that we could fix things.

Starting: $2,057,374

Total spent: $0

Remaining: $2,057,374

Week 32

People protested at my apartment building. Idiots. It was within my rights and power to kick anyone that I wanted off of what was my property. I had done nothing wrong.

The city council rejected the protests under the same reasoning.

Yet, as much as I was aware of my innocence, the anger of the people bothered me. But what was I to feel ashamed for? I had worked, as every man should, and had used the money and opportunities granted to me to build the world that I wanted, as anybody else would. I didn't squander my money. I built homes and invested in people. I didn't go out to hurt anyone, I simply asked for what was mine.

Amina thought that I should leave for a few days to let the people cool off. It meant that I would miss her show, but she insisted out of love, or what was left of it.

I bought a first-class ticket ($2,000) to Innsbruck and stayed for three nights at the Hilton ($390). I went back to the Thomas Flora. I wanted to see what I couldn't see, but when I looked at the lines, colors, and prices, all I saw were lines, colors and, prices. I wanted to buy a few of the paintings, but I could hear Amina's voice saying "You don't understand."

Starting: $2,357,374

Total spent: $2,390

Remaining: $2,354,984

Week 33

The mayor's plan was for the city of Detroit to loan me $50 million so that I could build a low-income apartment complex in the plot of land by the old Tigers Stadium. The interest would be at 3 percent for 10 years. I would also have to name the building after the man I kicked out of the Ashland homes. He would handle the legal process to make sure it was approved quickly.

He wanted some perks ($250,000, yearly). I was a poor boy with money, and this is what happens to people like me. But the plan would work. The people would love me.

I accepted his plan to be exploited. We were to announce the agreement in three weeks.

Starting: $2,654,984

Spent: $250,000

Remaining: $2,404,984

Weeks 34 and 35

Amina and I flew to Qatar ($4,000 for flights, $1,010 for five nights at the Four Seasons). She saw my idea and said "every plant and tree will die. Owls will deafen us with incessant hooting. The town's sun dial will be useless. I don't want any part of this project, it's unconscionably fiendish."

I paid $2 million as a down payment, including their flights and the shipping.

When we returned home, Amina left.

I can't think of the boy that I was or the man that I might have been. I have what I have and that's how one knows that he is alive. A man in relation to the things around him.

Even those who protest me, in doing so acknowledge that I exist, and I exist because of what I own. This is how his dust speck shouts out into the universe. I am significant.

Starting: $2,704,984

Spent: $2,005,010

Remaining: $699,974

Week 36

The loan was approved. The mayor and I met again. I asked him what the difference between a poor boy with money and a rich man was.

"One has power and the other pretends to."

I said, "But we are what we pretend to be."

I visited Amina's studio like a wild animal in need of shelter, coarse hair, and soul.

Starting: $50,999,974

Total spent: $0

Remaining: $50,999,974

Week 37

The mayor spoke of the future, as politicians do. He gave the people words worth more than a husband and a semi-truck.

I went up to the podium talked of the past, of regrets, of redemption. Had I been the boy I was before, I would have walked off to the applause. Had I been Amina's love or my mother's child, I would have shook hands and thanked the people for coming.

But I am not them. I could buy the love of the people with an apartment complex, but what love is that? What had I done wrong to begin with?

"In Doha, the summer temperature can sometimes reach up to 122 degrees. When Qatar was awarded the World Cup, they faced the challenge of making the climate suitable for sport. Many ideas were suggested, the most ambitious being to simply block out the sun. Artificial clouds, each with four solar-powered engines. The technology had been developed at Qatar University.

"One of those clouds costs about $500,000 and could cover a soccer field. $50,000,000 would get you 100 of them."

I pulled out a remote from my pocket, "In the words of Mr. Burns, have you ever seen the sun set at 3 p.m.?"

I cackled as I pressed the button. The machines came alive and soon the city was enveloped in darkness. As expected, everything descended into sweet, sweet chaos.

We are what we pretend to be.

Starting: $51,299,974

Total spent: $50,000,000

Remaining: $1,299,974

Week 38

I've been reading a lot in jail. Guess there are still some things that rich people can't get away with. Who knew?

Remaining: a few cigarettes

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