{ 1st Jan 2023 | Vikram's Home }
Both siblings were quietly enjoying the breakfast that Maya had prepared with all her effort after waking at the break of dawn.
It was her habit to wake up early and follow Avi to the canal near the slum to carry fresh water for the day's activity.
Even when Avi would scold her to stay at home, Maya being the stubborn kid she was would still tag along.
After all, she didn't get to live a normal teen life like other kids because her brother couldn't afford two people's education at Icarus High.
"Maya, how are you feeling these days?", ironically it wasn't Maya that asked that question today.
It was as if the sun had risen from the West.
"Uhmm! I feel better. I haven't had to take medicine as frequently ever since moving into the new house", she replied, "... it is almost like the severity of my disease has gone down by a quarter."
"Oh", Vikram said genuinely surprised.
From Jane's memory, he knew that she had built her house specifically in a way that would elevate a sick person's health.
From the rich soil in the garden outside fertilized by plant-based Monster drops to the buried network of herbal wizardry in the concrete, everything about the house was built to help a sick person.
And she had done this so deceitfully that even a trained Shika might not feel the difference but a sick person would still get the benefit. That is why no influential people had come and broken the house apart to read into its mystery.
'Damn! It would have been better to have Jane work as a personal potioneer for me, but now all hopes seem lost with her getting brainwashed and all'
He went deep in thought for a minute thinking of some things before coming back to Maya.
"Are you still practising the breathing like I told you?"
"Yes bhaiya! Although I wanted to ask you about that too?"
"What is it?"
"Bhaiya! Is it necessary to practise that breathing technique in the same posture and inside the house?"
"Those details don't matter as long as you are able to enter a meditative state anywhere, however from my experience, silent environment do work best. Why do you ask?", surprisingly Vikram was being tolerant of Maya today. Even going as far as giving nuanced answers to her questions.
"It is because the other day while walking bare foot on the garden, I felt something similar to how I would feel practising Prana Breathing. At first I thought it was a coincidence but then it started to happen more often and now I can enter a meditative state by simply being near the plants", she laid out her experience bare in front of Vikram hoping that he would have an answer. In fact, she almost fanatically believed that her brother would definitely have the answer no matter what she asked.
*drop... ting*
Vikram dropped the spoon he was using, splashing his clothes in the process with the leftover curry.
Watching her brother get soaked in curry, Maya hurriedly stood up and ran to him grabbing a few napkins from the table.
"Bhaiya... be careful, the curry is still hot-!", the 12-year-old behaved like a mother. She didn't care that her brother was a 3rd Stage Body-level Shika and had a C-rank physique that was harder than wood.
However, when she reached him, the curry splashes had not even reached his shirt. In fact, they were short only by a quarter of an inch and had fallen down on the floor instead.
Maya looked at Vikram with a surprised expression, the degree of fine control over gene power required to achieve that feat was nothing to scoff at.
'Are dwij really this powerful?', she thought, '... humph, I always knew that Bhaiya was special', she contradicted herself.
But contrary to her blind faith, since when was it easy to master genes to such granularity, that too after having only been awakened for weeks?
Most Shikas required at least multiple years of professional training to cover themselves in a layer of gene power and even then they would be called the cream of the crop.
Despite her tall claims, however, Vikram wasn't the one who had done that. It was Jane.
"*cough* ... It is fine, just eat your breakfast", he ignored Maya's worshipping gaze and continued with indifference.
~You don't have to be so uptight. A little curry won't hurt me~
Vikram mumbled to Jane in a soft voice using his gene power to modulate the voice.
It wasn't a grand technique or anything. Incorporating gene power simply made Vikram's voice unheard to Maya - a normal unawakened human being.
~I'm sorry Master, but as your subject, I can't watch your image be tarnished~
Jane replied indifferently, this had been her behaviour since Vikram made a contract with her last night. It was as if she wasn't the same person anymore.
Even though it was a little inconvenient, he now also had a deeper understanding of what 'contract' and 'exchange of memories' meant for him.
Vikram had not only gained Jane's memories from the exchange but had to feel every pain and emotion that she had felt leading to the final moments of her death.
The attachments and grief that made her a ghost were now like a core part of his memories. This also changed some things inside of him at a very fundamental level and because of that Vikram became wary of his new power.
'I don't think I should ever take in another contract in the future. No wonder this is a D-rank Mutation, the disadvantages of using it are huge', he thought remembering all the horrors he experienced.
Even if his mind was like a metal plate, most of Jane's emotions were at the extremity of human suffering and that was bound to affect any sane person.
"So bhaiya, why do you think that is? Am I doing something wrong?"
"No. No. It might be because you are reaching a breakthrough, that is definitely a good thing"
Maya was surprised. Even Vikram didn't think that she would progress so quickly. After all, he himself was still only at the first stage of the Prana Breathing Technique (Aum) and he had already practised the same method in his past life.
~could it be that she is really a descendant of Annapurna!~
Vikram didn't know how to treat the 12-year-old girl in front of her after having known that she could also be like Jane.
'Didn't Jane say that Maya also suffers from the same disease as her? What if the disease she was talking about was being a descendant? Then does that mean the other orphans she talked about are also the same?'
Vikram had too many unanswered questions in his head right now.
'How are children of Annapurna all appearing in Zone Y-?'
'Does the 11th Zodiac family know about them? Was that the reason Kane killed and possessed Avi's body?'
'This is getting complicated'
Should he protect Maya from the cataclysm that was coming for all the Annapurna's descendants or should he let her die an agonizingly slow death like other children born with the same faith?
He decided to be a spectator for now and let things unfold at their normal pace.
Even if he was sympathetic to Annapurna's children before coming to Diaspora, his own life took priority over everything else at the moment.
*****
*ding dong*
After an hour, a familiar face graced Vikram's house with his presence, Casper.
"Hey Maya! How are you doing these days", the first thing he did was to pull Maya's soft spotty cheeks and pull them out as a distant aunt would.
"uwWaaa BHAIYA wtoop thhhat", Maya cried out, but he didn't let her go.
Instead, he took out a card-shaped gift packed in colourful wraps and gave it to her.
"Bhaiya, what is this?"
"That's your homecoming present from your eldest brother", he replied puffing up his chest in pride.
Casper looked really proud telling her about the fact that he was the oldest amongst the three children. Even though it was merely a difference of 3 hours from Avi's age.
Maya quickly unwrapped the gift with anticipation but felt like getting poured cold water on her head when she saw what the gift was.
"What is this?", she said pouting, not knowing what it was.
"That, my dear cute sister, is a home bot license"
"??"
"You remember the "Model D232 Fully Automatic Home Assistant Humanoid Robot" that I was talking about last time?"
Maya nodded signifying that she did remember hearing something about it from Casper a few months back. Although, she only remembered hearing a long robot name that was hard on the tongue.
"It is the official license for that robot which I recently got, and I'm gifting this to you"
"WOAH-!!! *cough cough*... Bhaiya, Please take this back, I can't take it. This is too precious."
"... I remember you telling me that such robots cost an upward of tens of thousands union coins in the resell market"
Casper quickly shut her mouth with his hand and asked her to accept his gift no question asked.
"It still won't be ready in another week and even then it is just something I fixed from the scrap I found in the dumpster. It is not like I bought it or anything", he rubbed his nose slightly as if he was slightly embarrassed to gift her scrap, but Maya didn't notice that at all.
Instead, she still felt hesitant to accept Casper's gift.
The D232 model was not something easy to come by, even parts of the model if disassembled would sell like hotcakes because they were that rare to come by. The main reason for its scarcity i
was that the D232 Robots were not manufactured in Zone Y.
"There are no ifs and buts with this. Just accept it and tell me where is that son of a b*tch-!! I have serious issues with his attitude these past few days, that assh*les been ignoring my calls for a week now, I'll have his skin today if I don't get an answer!!"
Seeing Casper get angry with Vikram, Maya hurried to explain everything that happened to her brother and her in the past couple of weeks.
"WHAT-!!? HE LOST AN ARM-!!! AND HE IS A DWIJ NOW."
.
.
"I didn't even know he had awakened-? When I got back to the infirmary that day after taking care of some personal stuff, he was already discharged; and the next day I found out that you guys had moved? Why the hell did he not contact me when so much was happening with him-! I feel even angrier now!!"