Chapter 8: Aura Leeches

Pain reminded Rick that he was still alive. For a while he just lay there, not sure how he felt about that.

But no, he had too many obligations to give up. Struggling to open his eyes, Rick found himself staring at a sterile white ceiling. He sat up and discovered that he lay in a room that reminded him of a hospital, but without most of the equipment. Just two beds.

Uncle Alan lay in the other bed. It seemed that he'd been given minimal medical treatment, but he still looked pretty rough. Rick stared at him, unsure how to feel. He might have experienced a bit of lingering pride if not for the ache in his chest.

He felt absolutely terrible. Though he couldn't sense the leeches squirming around inside his soul, he knew they were there, and he definitely felt them draining away his strength. How bad was it? He realized that since all of this was perfectly legal, it would probably be listed in the usual app. Finding his phone lying beside him, he brought up his profile:

[Name: Rick Hunter

Ether Tier: 18th

Ether Score: 152

Lucrim Generation: 20,602

Effective Rate:    11,102

Current Lucrim: 2071]

He groaned when he saw his basic profile. Though he'd finally passed 20,000 lucrim for his generation rate, the "effective rate" represented his strength minus the leeches' draining effect. All told, he was even weaker than before. Worse, his ether score had been downgraded, placing any advantages from reaching 200 firmly out of reach.

Except that the numbers didn't add up properly. The fight against Uncle Alan had probably strengthened him a little, but not that much. Rick pulled up his portfolio, afraid that he already knew what he was going to see...

[Rick Hunter's Lucrima Portfolio

Foundation: 8150 (Lv II)

Offensive Lucore: 3550 (Lv II)

Defensive Lucore: 6050 (Lv IV)

Birthright Core: 1944 (Lv I)

Birthright Core: 1108 (Lv I)

Aura Leech: -5000 (Stage II)

Aura Leech: -3000 (Stage I)

Aura Leech: -1500 (Stage III)

Golden Lucore: 10 (N/A)

Gross Lucrim: 20,602

Net Lucrim: 11,102]

His portfolio had reorganized itself to measure his weakened state, and the aura leeches were a horrible mark against him, but the worst part was confirming his suspicions: he'd already been implanted with both Birthright cores.

For a long time Rick just stared at the screen. Where did he go from here? Giving up wasn't an option, but having his hopes be crushed so thoroughly left him floundering. He wasn't even sure how they could make ends meet, with such a large drop in his generation rate. This was all he'd bought with his limited strength?

Before he could find any answers, the door opened and a young man in hospital scrubs stepped in. He gave a quick smile that Rick couldn't return.

"You're awake, huh? We completely finished the process and you took it well, so you're free to go whenever you like."

"I didn't want the cores implanted."

The man's smile wavered and he shrugged. "I'm sorry about that, but I can only do what the sheet tells me."

"Those were for my sister. She's sick."

"That's tragic, but..." The man picked up a clipboard from beside his bed and ran his eyes over it, wincing. "Bluntly, man, you need it more than she does. Without the increase in generation rate, those leeches would be doing a serious number on you."

Rick felt a surge of anger and rose to his feet, only to halt at a twinge of pain. He clutched his chest, breathing heavily. "This... is just how it is now, huh?"

"Well, at least for a while. I know it's not much comfort, but you can work those off. Once they've absorbed enough, they'll automatically detach and then you can get rid of them."

Right, once he just paid off a debt of almost 10,000 lucrim. Except the debt was actually much more than 10,000 lucrim as a currency - Rick tried to ransack his memory for information on how exactly such debts worked and couldn't remember. Uncle Frank had always told him to avoid demonic bonds and leech debts, so he hadn't thought it mattered. Yet now he didn't have a choice.

At that moment, his other uncle let out a curse. Uncle Alan lurched up to a sitting position, muttering more curses under his breath.

When he saw Rick, however, he let out a malicious chuckle. "Didn't go as well as you thought, did it, boy? Guess I should be thanking you for putting in so much work to beat me. I really dodged a punch there."

"Alan..." Rick wanted to hit him again, but outside of a formal challenge, that would be assault. He could have mocked his uncle for losing or rubbed it in, except that he felt only bitterness. "Do you know how sick Melissa is? You talk about family, but she's the one who will suffer from this."

"You're not family. You're going to end up just like Frank, thinking you're too good for us. Getting involved with even worse shit." Alan stood up and glared at him, but when Rick didn't back down, he hesitated.

"Umm..." The nurse glanced between the two of them awkwardly. "Listen, can you deal with this stuff somewhere else? Since we finished everything, Mr. Hunter, you're free to go."

Uncle Alan scoffed, though he couldn't entirely hide the fact that he was the one to back down first. "Fine. Enjoy your leeches, boy."

"Ah, I didn't mean you." The young man stepped into his path. "There's still the matter of paying for the legal fees, the formal challenge, and the medical treatment. As the firm would have disclosed to you, we do need you to balance those accounts before you go - the total comes to just under 13,000 lucrim, how would you like to pay?"

"I..." Uncle Alan looked extremely nervous for a moment, then tried to push through. But the nurse simply struck him on the chest with an open palm and he immediately crumpled to the ground.

"Then I'm afraid you have a debt as well. Hold still while I set everything up." With that, the man looked up at Rick and gave him the same smile - it still seemed honestly friendly, but Rick's blood ran cold. "You can go, Mr. Hunter. Have a nice day."

Rick left the building as quickly as possible. On his way out, he heard his uncle cry out in pain and guessed that an aura leech was being applied to him as well. If his uncle was so desperate to drive all the way from the trailer park to steal a few small cores, then he was likely in poor shape. Having another drain on his lucrima... well, he wasn't likely to be a problem for a long time.

Though seeing his uncle get what was coming to him could have been satisfying, Rick was just reminded of what the lawyer had said. The law firms didn't care about fairness, they just wanted to keep everyone in the lower tiers of society constantly paying off debts so they could never rise up. His uncle might have gotten the slightly worse end of the stick, but...

Yes, that was cold comfort compared to the new reality Rick had inherited. Such large negative numbers... he needed to read up on how exactly aura leeches worked, but he just felt exhausted. Far too tired to run, but now he definitely couldn't afford a cab.

But his uncle's words reminded him of his other uncle. While he headed down the sidewalk, Rick dialed Uncle Frank's number. As usual he only went to voicemail, and even though he should have expected it, he still found himself not sure what to say.

"Uncle Frank, my parents... well, you probably already heard. They left me a lot of debt. I assumed that would go away when they... is it possible that this isn't legal?" Still on the line, Rick rubbed his eyes roughly. No, a large firm probably wasn't going to do something explicitly illegal. He was rambling and needed to pull himself together. "I'm not sure what I'm going to do and I could really use some advice. Call me back when you can."

As he put his phone away, he noticed that it was already 4:30, which meant he'd been unconscious for some time. Perversely, despite the fact that there were much more serious problems in his life, he found himself frustrated that he'd lost his vacation day. He usually worked Saturday, and there was no way his boss was giving him a day off.

Plus, he'd need the money and training more than ever, to cope with the aura leeches. Yet where could he go from here? How was he going to help Melissa? For a moment he considered just sacrificing everything and converting all he had into a core for her. That might slow down her condition enough for her to live a long life. Yet he knew that too much would be lost in the transfer, especially since his lucrima soul had just been manipulated so much.

In fact, he had to consider that the debts might go to her next. He didn't think debts could be inherited, but apparently this was one of those things they never told poor people. No, the best way he could help her was to stay alive and work his way out of this. Besides, it wasn't like him to give up. Though he couldn't see the path through, he'd find a way.

While he walked home, his eyes wandered to the signs above the Branton Arena. Perhaps he could use his combat skills to earn more lucrim on the side. Obviously he couldn't compete in the Arena itself, and he knew that underground fights could be extremely dangerous, but he might be able to find something. His coworker Henry had mentioned participating in a few street fights, so maybe he would know.

The risk of injury, though... Rick went back and forth over the subject until he finally reached their apartment complex. Going up the stairs to the third floor, his entire body felt too heavy to move, but he forced himself to keep going. Just unlocking the door took a significant effort.

"Whoohoo, weekend!" Melissa grinned at him as soon as he entered. "I'm gonna get drunk and make poor life decisions!"

Normally he would have chuckled, but he was just too tired. Melissa immediately realized that something was wrong and her smile faded. She leapt up and helped him down onto the couch.

"You look pretty bad, Rick... what happened at the meeting?"

He told her the events without trying to hide how bad things were. There was no point keeping the truth from her or treating her like she was fragile just because of her condition. But when he finished, he saw the pain in his sister's eyes and realized that he'd made a mistake.

"I'm sorry... if it wasn't for me, you..."

"Don't say that." He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her firmly to sit beside him. "Blaming each other... that's what our parents would do. And they're the reason we're in this mess, not you. We need to be better than them."

She stared at him sorrowfully for a time, then one corner of her lips twitched. "Good motivational speech, bro."

"I do what I can." He sighed and let himself relax fully back into the couch. "I'm gonna need to go to work early tomorrow, so we might as well talk now. Did you have a good week?"

"Mostly. There's this one girl at school... ugh, it feels petty compared to everything else."

"I've had a heavy day. I could use petty."

Rick sat back and talked with his sister, putting aside all thoughts of lucrim and fighting aside for a while. Just talking at home, he felt okay. There were plenty of people who lived their lives with less power or even greater debts, after all. If they could make it through, he could too.

Eventually he found himself getting rather sleepy. Melissa brought a blanket and tucked him in, but he couldn't go to sleep yet. Instead he forced himself through his normal exercises. It hurt, but it was even more necessary than usual after everything his lucrima had been through that day.

How many days of exercises would it take to build up enough to get rid of the aura leeches? He couldn't do the math in his head, but it would be a lot. But avoiding them would just make him fall further behind, and he couldn't allow that.

Before he finished his work, his phone rang. He considered ignoring it, then saw who it was and immediately picked up. "Uncle Frank?"

"Richard!" His uncle's voice was warm and resonant. "Sorry I haven't called lately, work has been busy. And I'm sorry to hear that you're going through such a rough time."

"Yeah, it's... things aren't great." He told the story again, almost the same as he had with Melissa. It felt somewhat humiliating to repeat it all, even though it wasn't his fault. But his uncle just listened thoughtfully and didn't cast any judgments. When Rick finished, Uncle Frank paused for only a moment before responding.

"I'm afraid they're right: all of that is completely legal. Some debts are discharged at death, but lobbyists have been pushing to restrict lucrim forgiveness for years. The good news is that you can definitely take care of these aura leeches. I'm not promising it will be easy, but you'll come out of it leaner and meaner."

"Thanks, Uncle Frank."

"I'd offer to come down and check on you, but I'm afraid work is going to make that hard. Though... would you consider taking a job here? You'd have to move across the world, but you and Melissa could move here and I could do better for you than that little gym. It wouldn't be charity, either - we need the help."

"That sounds tempting, but... it's the middle of a school year. I want to let Melissa graduate here."

"No, that makes sense. And I have to admit, it's hard to find good schools here." Uncle Frank was quiet for a while, then sighed. "Will you let me give you some advice? I think I have to insist on it, because I'll feel bad if I can't at least do that for you."

"Please, go ahead."

"If you just train normally, those leeches will be on you most of your life. There are people who get used to them, actually, but that's no way to live. What you want to do is invest all your lucrim directly into the leeches. You'll get rid of them much faster that way and you'll be able to restructure effectively once they're gone.

"Another thing: don't take any demonic bonds. I know they're usually harder to get, but the demons like exploiting weakness. I guarantee once your data gets sold, demon sects will come around offering you deals. Maybe even enough to to wipe out the debt entirely, but trust me, transferring it to a demonic bond is worse. Just refuse all offers."

The idea that they would prey on those who had little strength to give surprised him, but Rick realized that he shouldn't be surprised. They were demons, after all. Worse, they were demons organized into corporations. Expecting anything like mercy was foolish.

"Beyond that, just stay focused. You're a hard worker and a smart kid, so you'll dig yourself out of this."

"Thanks, Uncle Frank." He considered letting the conversation end there, but abruptly realized that he had another question to ask while he had his uncle on the line. "Oh, I had one more question. Have you ever heard of something called a 'Golden Core'? That's all it says in the app."

In response there was a long pause, so long he wondered if they had disconnected. When his uncle spoke again, his voice was a bit flatter. "It appeared after the other cores were implanted?"

"No, before that. I'm not sure exactly when."

"Richard... I can't tell you for sure what it is. Usually lucrima programs give color or metal names to cores that are unregistered. And it might not seem like it, but unregistered cores are bad news."

"Then it could be a problem? Should I get a specialist to check it?"

"No, don't do that. Just..." Another long pause. "Are you sure you don't know how it showed up?"

"Well, I can guess." Rick told the story about Mike and the other Birthrighters. Unlike usual, his uncle didn't ask any questions or make affirmative noises, just listened in silence. When it was finished, he sighed.

"Best case scenario, it's just a minor accident. Worst case scenario, you could get arrested for theft. Unless I'm entirely wrong, the 'Mike' you fought was Michael Maguire. His father is CEO of Maguire Incorporated, and it wouldn't be out of the question to think that he gave something experimental to his son."

"And it just... broke off in the fight somehow?"

"It's possible, not even that uncommon. A lot of Birthrighters often don't have great control, so these things happen." Uncle Frank sighed heavily. "I'm going to look into this further as soon as I can. Right now I recommend just not touching it."

Great, one more thing going wrong in his life. After what had happened that day, Rick wasn't even surprised. He and his uncle chatted for a while longer about less serious matters, but it was obvious they were both distracted.

As soon as the call ended, Rick lay down on the couch. Even tired as he was, it took him a long time to go to sleep.