The city of Kanbe was busy as usual with people walking about under the bright and warm sun of summer. Beneath the walking streets, the silent electric engines of vehicles made their quiet protest towards mankind's claim of convenience and technology in the darkness that reigned in the vehicle-exclusive street.
One such vehicle was driven by our protagonist, Natasha Nikolayevna Novak.
Her left elbow rested on the window. A tiny gap let the cold air in to have endless battles with the hot air inside, a result of driving in what could be considered a tunnel in 30 degrees Celsius. Her right hand rested on the wheel, abruptly turning left and right to overtake other vehicles. Her long, golden hair slightly whipped around, as free and loose as it was long. Her green eyes stared forward, watching the road ahead.
“Y de pronto un dia de suerte se me hizo conocerte~ Y te cruzaste en mi camino, ahora creo en el destino~ Tenerte por siempre conmigo~ Pero mas suerte es quererte tanto~ Pero mas suerte es quererte tanto y que tu sientas lo mismo~” She sang along with the radio.
Suddenly, a running person overtook her.
Natasha's eyes widened for a second, then doubt replaced the bewilderment. A quick check on the speed she was going at made her incredibly confused for a long second.
260 km/h was no speed a running person could achieve.
Natasha's eyes squinted, giving the running person a closer look.
A shirtless man covered in scales, a tail on the lower back, and horns on the forehead.
“Ah,” she uttered, realization hitting her. “Otherworlders,” she concluded, relaxing her shoulders and letting the shock leave her body as well as her interest in him.
The scales were red, different from the otherworlders she knew. Were it red skin and no tail, Natasha would have thought it was her fellow colleague, the Body Building trainer at the University she worked at, Yolin Makav.
Since that was not the case, she focused back on the road and continued driving.
–
Taking a right turn out of the underground street some minutes later, Natasha came out to the upper street, directly into one of the many parking lots that dotted her destination: Kanbe's 17th Medical School.
Twelve stories high, and three whole blocks wide in all four directions, the monolith of construction jutted out of the ground and demanded attention with its brutalist style of architecture. The off-white concrete and apparent disregard for nuance was as ugly to Natasha as the first time she visited. It looked like a massive rock had fallen from the sky, only to be carved just enough to give it the minimum of functionality over every other possible characteristic.
She sighed and drove into the rampart that lead to the quick pick-up spot while turning the radio off. “Call Volodya,” she said out loud.
“Calling contact: Vladimir Nikolayevich Novak,” a robotic voice coming from the car said back at the same time as a screen lit up on the dashboard, showing the face of a young man that looked very similar to our protagonist.
The call connected and rang two times.
“Hey,” came a deep voice after a quiet click.
Natasha's lips tugged upwards in a smile. “I'm at the usual spot,” she told her brother.
“On my way,” he replied and hung up.
Coming out of the underground parking lot, the grounds of the campus opened up to Natasha, where hundreds of students milled about in large plazas, walked out of and into buildings, stood around waiting for public transport, or did whatever students did after class.
The style of architecture also included the benches students sat on to relax, the kiosks they bought food from, and the fountains in the middle of the plain plazas.
Natasha's nose wrinkled in distaste. Whoever designed a place that taught future doctors would find no support in her. As a sensible and post-modern woman with heavy Renaissance leanings when it came to architecture, she couldn't forgive such reckless violations to people's eyes.
It's free, though, she thought with slight convenience-driven forgiveness while parking on the right side of the road facing the main entrance.
Almost immediately, people noticed the car and started pointing.
A mischievous smile occupied Natasha's features while she waited.
The car was a present for Vladimir. The younger sibling had turned eighteen years old a few months ago, and among the very few things the young man enjoyed in life, cars were the biggest topic of conversation.
Natasha reminisced the time she spent teaching her younger brother how to drive, including the moments she lost her temper with the boy – countless with her anger-prone nature. Her brother learned things quick, though. Quicker than she learned languages.
Still, the smile waned a bit at knowing his reaction wouldn't be a normal one. A boy his age would freak out and become excited with the surprise of a brand new car. Not Vladimir. He wasn't normal. Not that it was a bad thing, though. As a high-functioning psychopath, his emotions were greatly dulled by whatever chemistry made up his brain and his own brand of psychopathy.
Natasha accepted that fact and loved him without issue, not once in her life wishing or imagining he was normal instead. If her brother was happy, that was enough for her.
With such thoughts, she got out of the car, leaned on the door, and lit up a cigarette.
At that point, students had gathered nearby to admire the car, whispering to each other and trying to guess the model's specs.
“Is that the Nissan GT-R R35 Core 9?” one asked in a whisper not directed at Natasha.
“I heard that one has turbo,” another one commented.
“How can an electric car have turbo?” a third one voiced a healthy skepticism.
“Do I look like a mechanic? That's what I heard,” the second one retorted.
“Look at that ass, though,” a fourth one whispered, unfortunately loud enough for people to hear.
Natasha's eyebrows went up in surprise at hearing such bold words.
“Yoo~! The baggy shirt kind of hides it, but she packing mad cheeks!” the first one pointed out.
“She a bad bitch for sure,” the third one, a girl, stated as a matter of fact.
Natasha slowly turned to them and arched an eyebrow.
The group of students went quiet, avoiding eye contact.
“Young people are pretty fucking rude these days,” she commented offhandedly.
Footsteps coming close caught her attention, making her turn around.
A large woman of advanced age was approaching from between the waiting cars with an angry face. She was obviously Human.
“Excuse me, hun?” the old woman said, pointing at Natasha's cigarette. “You can't smoke in here, darling,” she stated with a smirk, and the unpleasant – to Natasha – accent of Western English.
“Fuck off,” Natasha ordered in Russian, took a drag of her cylinder of addiction, then blew the smoke upwards. She then pointed at a sign that read [Zona de Fumadores].
The woman smiled, then lifted her shirt a little, revealing a white and red Glock in a blue holster strapped to her hip. “You'll talk to me with respect, and in English,” she attempted to intimidate.
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Natasha lifted her shirt as well, revealing trained abdominal muscles, and a thick pistol originally of Israeli making strapped around her abdomen. The gun was black and the holster was red. “Go eat a dick, retarded westoid,” Natasha calmly replied, having lost patience with the ignorant woman.
Kanbe's laws were simple. Ownership of firearms was allowed through three stages and under a plethora of conditions. The first stage allowed immigrants to own a weapon and carry it around on their person. The making was of plastic and it could shoot rubber pellets designed for self-defense. The second stage – two years after arrival – allowed immigrants to own and carry weapons of metallic making that functioned with gas or compressed air to shoot small metallic pellets like an airsoft gun, but with higher power than normal. The third stage allowed Citizens to carry real firearms.
Natasha, who had been living in Kanbe for the last six years, had a Desert Eagle with a magazine full of fat, bear-killing bullets.
The lady in front of her, possibly a former UCNA citizen who had probably arrived last month at best according to the city's course, had a rubber pellet shooter that served to inflict pain, but ultimately only pain.
As allowed by Kanbe's laws, brandishing of firearms was allowed if the individual believed doing so would deescalate potentially violent situations.
Natasha sighed and gestured at the sign. “Fumar,” she said slowly, then motioned taking a drag of her cigarette. “¿Entiendes?” she asked, not even slightly considering humoring the woman by speaking English. Making her understand in the easiest way wasn't her responsibility, after all.
The large woman's face flushed the second Natasha finished speaking. “Oh, no,” she muttered, dropping her shirt over the gun. “I'm sorry, hun. I don't know the language,” she excused herself with a polite smile.
Natasha let out a long sigh, feeling like a complete asshole for insulting the woman – although she hadn't understood a word of it – and actively hindering the exchange. She took a deep breath and calmed the anger that had come out of nowhere. “Ignorance will kill you one day. It almost did today,” she told the woman in English. “You better change old habits.”
The woman gave Natasha a complicated smile. “I'm not home anymore, am I?” she asked with sadness in her eyes.
“If you behave and live long enough, it can be,” Natasha argued with little interest. “Don't forget you're an immigrant and things will go smooth for you.”
“I'm sorry, darling,” the woman apologized again. “You see, my daughter is a student here and I worry a whole lot about her. She's my everything after my hubby passed away.”
Natasha shrugged. “None of my business,” she simply said, denying the woman of her pity. “Now let me smoke in peace.”
A few seconds of silence later, the large woman walked back to where she came from.
To fight the slight stress of the situation, Natasha finished her smoke and lit another. Nicotine does wonders to ease anxiety, after all. The products that contain it kill and it's horribly addictive, unfortunately.
A few minutes passed, and Natasha started glancing about in case Vladimir showed up, thinking he was taking his sweet time.
Sure enough, she found him almost immediately, and her eyes opened wider in shock than when a running person overtook her in the driving street.
Vladimir Nikolayevich Novak, her beloved baby brother, a high-functioning psychopath who had never in his eighteen years of life showed the slightest interest in the opposite sex, was having an energetic conversation with three girls whose eyes had sparkles when looking at him.
“Holy shit,” Natasha whispered, feeling time had moved faster than she believed it would. “My Volodyenka is being accosted by multiple women!”
Vladimir and the girls laughed at something one of them said. The boy's laugh looked genuine, fruit of years of acting to replicate normal human emotions with Natasha. His smile was organic as were his gestures of joy.
Natasha smiled at that, feeling a tear form in her eye. Her chest swelled with pride, almost as if the boy was her own son instead of her brother. “You did a good job, Natasha,” she whispered to herself with endless happiness, having forgotten she almost shot an immigrant not even five minutes ago.
The two siblings met eyes for a second, and Vladimir's features shifted for the shortest of instants to one of pure panic. His older sister caught him flirting with girls. Psychopath or not, that warranted some amount of worry for the future.
Natasha waved at him, smiling cheekily at the boy.
As fast as it came, the panic vanished and he said something to the girls he was talking to.
The three shifted to look at where the boy gestured, and met eyes with Natasha.
Naturally, our protagonist gave them a death stare, informing them that mistreatment of the boy meant the most horrifying of deaths a living organism of any kind could experience. Her natural resting bitch face helped immensely with that.
The three, young as they were, had different reactions.
The first one, a dark-skinned girl with a tight bun went pale and averted her eyes.
The second one, a Hispanic redhead flushed and gave Natasha a smile.
The last one, a bitch-looking blonde girl stared back, not buckling in the slightest.
Vladimir, not noticing the short exchange, said his goodbyes and walked over to Natasha.
Our protagonist opened her arms wide and gave her brother a big, tight hug. “Puberty finally hit you?” she teased right away, not one to miss a chance.
“You will not believe what happened to me today,” he replied in a tired monotone, returning the hug.
The siblings were around the same height, Vladimir being slightly taller than Natasha.
“Tell me all about it,” she urged, looking into his eyes with barely contained enthusiasm. It wasn't everyday Vladimir wanted to share what happened to him, so Natasha was excited. “But first let's go.”
Vladimir nodded, and gave the car a look. “What happened to your bike?” he asked, but lacked interest in his voice.
“I'll tell you later,” Natasha replied and opened the door, then went inside. “You go first.”
The boy walked around the car and got in the passenger seat, closed the door, and let out the longest sigh to ever be sighed. “Social interaction is so tiring,” he complained.
Natasha checked the rear view mirror and pressed the button that started the engine, then drove off.
“Hear this,” Vladimir started, stretching his back and popping the bones on his neck. “I was in Chemistry class today minding my business, listening to the professor, when I caught this girl staring at me.”
Natasha nodded in approval.
“It was annoying at first, but she stopped after ten minutes,” he continued. “Anyway, class is over and I went out of the classroom to the kiosk to buy a snack, when the same girl approaches me. I was walking with Zuri who for some reason follows me around all fucking day, so I was getting proper pissed-”
“Who's Zuri?” Natasha interrupted, wildly interested in her brother's new lore.
“A girl from Nigeria, she got here a few years before we did. You saw her with me,” Vladimir explained. “At least she's quiet,” he commented. “Anyway. This staring girl comes up to me and asks to speak with me, and I go 'Sure, why not',” he retold, then let out a very long sigh. “This retard proceeds to tell me... I am not joking... that she comes from the future and must have my babies to save humanity.”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Natasha exploded in laughter. “WHAAT?! HAHAHAHAHA!”
“I wanted to laugh too,” Vladimir lamented with a heavy sigh. “But she was dead serious, so I didn't know if laughing would be good in that situation.”
“Nah,” Natasha denied with a shake of her head. “Bitch has no game. And don't call her a retard. She may be mentally ill, and you don't call retarded people retards. You call stupid and ignorant people retards when they're acting retarded.”
“What's the difference?” Vladimir asked for clarification.
“You use retard as an insult, not a slur,” Natasha informed him. “But it's best to not use it at all if you're not sure.”
“Got it,” Vladimir accepted his big sister's words. “So, now that girl started following me around too. She got on friendly terms with Zuri pretty fast, though. That surprised me a little with how quiet she usually is.”
“Does she have a name?” Natasha inquired, used to Vladimir not caring enough about people's names to repeat them, but just enough to remember them.
“Ignacia Manuela Garcia Bustamante,” Vladimir replied.
“So she's the Hispanic girl,” Natasha concluded, taking a left back into the underground parking lot that would take them into the driving street. “What about the third one?”
“That'd be Ljuba, Ignacia's best friend,” Vladimir supplied. “It's a shit show, sis. Ljuba is like a big sister to Ignacia, but Ignacia told Ljuba she must have my babies. Ljuba questioned me to the point I thought the Committee for State Security caught me with western propaganda.”
Natasha's eyebrows almost fused with her hairline. “That bad?”
“We had a talk and she eased on the stick up her ass, though,” Vladimir continued with a sigh. “And now she's following us around as well. I don't know what to do,” he admitted.
Natasha nodded. “I think she likes you,” she revealed to the dense boy. “Ljuba may just be making sure her cognitively challenged friend didn't fall for the wrong guy. I don't know about Zuri, though. She sounds and looks shy. Maybe she's following you around because you don't speak much unless prompted, so she's comfortable with you.”
Vladimir listened intently, but still had a doubtful look.
“This all happened today, and you three seemed to get along just fine,” Natasha started, a small smile occupying her lips. “Maybe this is your chance to have one of those harems you droned on about as a kid,” she teased with a laugh.
Vladimir squinted at the road ahead. “Maybe,” he considered.
A moment of silence occupied the car.
“Well,” Natasha chuckled, still finding the time traveler bullshit funny. “You asked me about my bike. It's back home. I bought you this car as a late birthday gift since you already have a license, and it seems you'll need it with how things are looking ahead of you.”
“Neat,” was Vladimir's expression of joy. “Thanks, sis.”
“Playboy,” Natasha chuckled.
“Fuck off,” Vladimir retorted.