Eagle-eyes

Michael took Anna with him to the eighth floor of his residential building and pressed the doorbell.

"Coming!" they heard, and the door opened. Nadezhda Severniy's smile faltered as she scrutinized the couple. Her son had a stoic expression while the girl she'd met before was blushing up a storm. "Misha, is this your girlfriend?"

"Mom!"

Anna overcame her shyness and came forward, "Nice to meet you again, Mrs. Severniy. I'm Anna."

"I remember you, dear. And you, have you wronged this girl?" Nadezhda stuck out a finger at Michael, "How much have you dragged her into, huh?"

"What? Mom, hello? What are you talking about?"

"N-no, we're just friends!" Anna protested.

"Oh, I see," immediately agreed the woman, "Come in then, tell us why you're here."

Anna went inside first, while Michael slowed down and shot an eyebrow at his mother. She huffed in response, but the corners of her mouth betrayed how much fun she was having.

Who knew Michael's character better than his parents? He grew up isolated, introverted, interested only in books. That was the reason he managed to get into EIS. His mom and dad knew better than to suspect him of being disrespectful towards a girl. Instead, they doubted he had the stones for it. Of course, he wasn't that kid anymore; he had 20 years to grow up.

When the two friends took off their shoes and coats, Nadezhda was already in another room, whispering something into Vladimir's ear. Once he caught up on everything his wife knew about the girl, they shared a look and broke into smiles.

"Hey, dad, this is Anna," Michael introduced in Russian, and the conversation that followed was also in that language.

"Yes, I heard so much about you, young lady. I'm happy Misha has made such an excellent girlfriend."

"Dad!"

"What? Girl friend, what else is she? A boy friend?"

"Don't listen to them, they've united against us," warned Michael. 'Stop it, you fools, I don't need her to crush on me!'

"I haven't seen you in over a month. How are you, Anna?"

"I'm fine, thank you, ma'am."

"Do you two actually know each other? Why hasn't anyone told me?" Michael interjected.

"We met when you were injured, Misha," explained his mother. "Anna used to come see you, and our visits coincided one day."

Unlike his parents, the cultivator knew the truth, so he understood how hard that period of time was for Anna. Her mother had been in a coma for a week, and then he, her best friend, almost lost his life too. The girl still visited them both and found the strength to keep going.

"Listen, guys. Anna has some bad news. Do you want to, or should I?" he inquired of the girl.

She nodded and told her story. Michael's parents adopted somber expressions when they learned how much Anna had experienced recently. They also encouraged her to try to move next door to them, and Michael promised he'd make it happen.

As expected, Graves was perturbed when he found out he'd been misinformed. He offered Anna to have the school doctor look at her mother and pestered her until she agreed.

The girl was so unaccustomed to accepting help, she always tried to refuse it at first.

Three men soon arrived and offered to move Anna's things to apartment 805. Everything was done within an hour.

In the evening, Michael's parents finally let Anna leave, but not before they had her promise she'd come to eat with them the next morning. When she was gone, Nadezhda asked her husband, "What do you think of her?"

"Perfect. Smart, beautiful, good character. And she's Russian! Misha, marry her as soon as you can, don't let her go."

"Dad! Mom! Pff, I'm going to bed." He barricaded his room to avert the unwanted intruders and sat behind the computer. 'What would they say if they knew I once had a British aristocrat fall in love with me? Who abandoned her family and fortune to huddle together in a cramped apartment?'

Ah, that life was over. Michael checked his YouTube channels, recorded a few videos and replied to comments. He needed less preparation now that his mind was decidedly superhuman. New ideas constantly flowed in his head. Glory considered it impossible for Michael to become a genius, but with that much Mental Power, what else was he?

Monday afternoon, the four creators of a breakthrough mobile game dropped by the bank after classes. Their account manager was familiar with the game and even asked them for signatures. Everyone but Sofia received shiny new bank cards with several million dollars. The Bulgarian girl, however, requested to see her share in cash first.

"You know this is a bad idea, right?" advised Dimitri.

"I'm not planning to carry it with me, silly. I just want to see it!"

The account manager took them to a secured room and placed a million dollars on the table. Sofia eagerly kept waiting for something.

"Here, miss, a million dollars."

"And the rest?"

"Excuse me?"

"A million dollars, isn't that like a truckload?"

"This on the table, it's a million," Dimitri got annoyed. "Hundred packets, each containing a hundred $100 bills. One packet is small enough to fit in your pocket. You can probably stuff ten million in a large enough bag."

Sofia's jaw dropped. She looked so lost that Michael asked their manager to put some more money on the table to have a look. That wasn't standard procedure, but the teenagers were good customers who enhanced the bank's value, and they were public figures, not some thieves. The account manager entered the room into lockdown for safety and piled more money on the table.

"This is what, about sixteen mil?"

"Seventeen and a half," corrected Michael instantly. "Except those three packets are counterfeit."

"Mister, that's not possible," reacted the manager.

"Look, I'm just trying to help. None of us touched the money. I suggest you put it all away, take the three packets I point out, let us out of the room and check the money."

It was a difficult thing to come to terms with, but if this youth was a famous game designer who had good eyesight. The female account manager agreed to follow his instructions. Ten minutes later, she came back with the bank's director. Meanwhile, the four were enjoying tea and biscuits in a recreation room amidst Dimitri's good-natured ridicule of Michael's attempts to look cool.

"Mr. Severniy, a pleasure," the older, bespectacled man shook hands with Michael. "Can you tell me how you came to suspect a counterfeit?"

"The way their color reflected in the mirror ceiling, something bugged me. I took a closer look and noticed the ink wasn't shifting color."

"My manager tells me you didn't move. How did you look at the banknotes from a different angle?"

"Once again, I looked at the mirror ceiling."

"Eh," the addled director dropped all decorum, "how good is your eyesight? Is that real?"

Dimitri laughed at the man and boasted, "Him? He designed the levels for our game without testing! Let's just say, if this guy knew how to ski and shoot, he'd become the biathlon champion!"

"So, you're saying he lacks the only two skills necessary?" elbowed him Sofia.

The bank director watched the teenagers fool around, and his expression softened. "All right, Mr. Severniy, truth is, this money got into our vault a week ago. My security tells me all four of you only paid us a visit once when you opened an account. I have no questions for you, only a suggestion: apply your talents well. I've never seen anything like it before."

He nodded at the manager who gave Sofia a card with a million on it. "I hope to see you again, ladies, gentlemen."

The four friends returned the pleasantries and left.

"What are you going to use the money on?"

"Settle the debts, buy out the house. Then, give all that's left to my mom. She's the responsible one," said Dimitri.

"I want to send my parents on a cruise or to travel the world."

"Yeah, you told us before, and you know what? I asked my folks if they wanna do that – they stared at me like a deer in the headlights. I guess they're more interested in staying at home. If we spend it all on travel, we won't have much left."

"You'll earn more if you stick with me."

"That's why I'm still here, eagle-eyes. What about you, Anna?"

"I don't know. Maybe my mom has something she wants," the Russian girl avoided the question. Michael caught her meaning and gave her a pat on the shoulder. Life stopped for Anna when her mother got sick.

The cultivator took control of the energy in his body and made it twirl. Flawed Healing technique might not be a great skill, but it allowed him to use glory points to cure people. Depending on the situation, there was a chance Anna's mom would read by herself soon.

"And you, Sofia? Clothes?"

"Shoes! Shoes! Shoes!"

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