As I walked inside the building, I felt a stiff bump on my shoulder, followed by a loud thud on the ground next to me.
"Ouch," a feminine voice rang.
I looked at the girl on the floor as she sat there, several bags scattered all over.
"Oh, sorry about that," I apologized, kneeling down to help her up.
She blushed at the sight of my face as she gladly took my hand.
"N-no, it's okay," she muttered shyly, picking up her bags and walking away.
I walked up to the front desk, where an auburn-haired woman met my gaze, her dark brown eyes focused on me with a curious gaze.
She presented a well practiced smile as I arrived in front of her.
"Welcome to Polis Banking, my name is Rose, how may I help you?" Her voice clearly suggested curiosity of my presence, but it was just common courtesy not to show disrespect in any way and just repeat the same words you did to every other customer of the day or night.
"Yes, if I can, I'd like to open up a bank account here or if you can't, at least direct me to a bank that can help me?"
I knew this place likely wouldn't accept people who looked like me, but I gave it a shot anyway.
"Of course, sir. If you go down that hall to the left," she pointed to the hall on her left where several men and women stood next to doors like guards, "one of our employees will be of help to you.
If you'd like, I can even arrange a meeting for you to help speed up the process."
Her tone which held an ever so slight tinge of interest had amplified slightly. No doubt she wouldn't let this chance pass by.
"An arrangement would most definitely be of great help, thank you. Will there be a waiting process or do I just need to provide my information?" I asked.
"That is correct, sir. We do require you to wait for the moment while we arrange a meeting, so in the meantime, please take this pen and paper with all of the information required to open a bank account."
She handed me a paper attached to a clipboard with a pen and directed me to the chairs in the lobby.
Sitting down, I wrote down everything on paper as I filled in the blank parts.
Age, date of birth, Credit ID number(functions like a Social Security number irl), phone number, and other such parts of the paper were written down. Except for my name.
I didn't think using my true name was a good move considering our current situation.
'It probably isn't a good idea to use my last name like this.'
So instead of Andrew Luciel, eldest son of the fallen Luciel family, I became Andrew Verone.
It was ironic, using a name me and my best friend used.
'Maybe I should pay him a visit.'
I didn't notice a smile had crawled up my lips until a tap on my shoulder brought me out of my thoughts.
"Sir, your meeting is ready," Rose spoke as I brought my attention to the woman.
As I followed her through the hallway, I couldn't help but feel the intense gazes on my back.
She stopped in front of a numbered room with a name under.
[1200]
[Layla Burns]
"Please wait in here until Ms. Burns arrives and then she'll help you with everything you need." She smiled once more and walked away, leaving me to my own thoughts.
I sat down in the chair in front of the desk as I placed the clipboard down and fell into my own thoughts.
'Now that my family's in a troublesome situation, I basically have to be self-sustainable now. I would've gone crazy and ended up living in the slums if I hadn't faced the cold reality of the world when I entered the military.'
The sound of the door shutting behind me caught my attention as a thin suited woman walked into my sight.
"Welcome to Polis Banking, sir, my name is Layla and I'll be helping you open a bank account. Do feel free to ask any questions you may have as well while we go through this process."
She grabbed the clipboard paper and all as she analyzed my information.
"Well, Mr. Verone, it certainly is nice to meet you tonight," she commented, typing my information furiously on her computer.
"This is personal curiosity, but for what reason did you come to open a bank, Mr. Verone? What's your story?" She asked, looking at me curiously.
I leaned in slightly as I answered slowly. "Well, Ms. Burns, I've actually just come back home after three years in the military.
I guess you could say my and my family's current situation hasn't been ideal, so I've decided to become self-reliant. I made some decent pay during my time in service, so I thought I could use what I had to open a bank account for myself."
"Oh? Interesting. I'd expect you'd have a boring story, like marriage or childbirth." She chuckled slightly.
"Well, I might be dating someone at the moment, but something's telling me it'll be short lived. Especially with my family's current situation coming to light." I smiled bitterly as I remembered Dawn, my girlfriend.
She interestedly stopped typing as she leaned in herself, absorbed in my story.
"Very interesting indeed. Tell me more. What has it been like so far? I'm sure your family has been keeping you updated, no?"
Her question put a bitter taste in my mouth as I shook my head.
"I actually found out about my family's situation through a pair of strangers. It's not exactly polite to eavesdrop, but I didn't have much choice."
The next half hour or so was filled with light conversation and laughter as we discussed our histories and opened my bank account.
"Well, Andrew Verone, Polis Banking welcomes you as our newest customer. As you earn or deposit more money, your account will hold more Credits and will slowly upgrade when your Credit threshold exceeds a certain limit.
Currently, you possess 65,075,000 Credits and are a Silver member of our company."
She handed me a bright silver card that looked almost like a phone.
"This is your Credit holder, you can use this to purchase any items you'd like and it will remove the value accordingly."
I smiled. "Thank you for your help, Ms. Burns."
I stood up as she corrected me. "You can just call me Layla."
__________
"Orion Real Estate, how can I help you?" A voice rang through my phone.
"Yeah, my name is Andrew Verone, I'd like to buy a house you have on sale and I wanted to see if it was still available," I spoke in response.
"Of course, sir, which house would you like to buy?"
"I was checking out the mansion on Skrye Street and I wanted to know if it was available."
I wasn't just looking at it. I was standing on the front lawn of the property. It was my damn house!
"Alright then, please give me a quick moment while I check over our available mansions on Skrye Street and I'll get back with you, okay?"
"Of course."
While I waited on the phone with cheesy music playing in the background, I walked over to a nearby dealership I'd seen when I was trying to find a bank.
"Welcome to the Lance Dealership sir, how may I be of help to you?" One of the employees said as I walked in.
I lowered my phone not expecting the person over the phone would answer anytime soon, but I still kept my ears open in case I was wrong.
"Yeah, can I check out some of the cars here? I've recently returned from the military and I'm looking to get some faster means of transportation than walking."
"Oh, of course sir, you're more than free to browse our vehicles as you like," he smiled politely, leading me to the obviously more expensive cars they had.
Walking between the cars and motorcycles that filled the large room, I browsed through the assortment of shapes and sizes as I debated my transportational options.
Until I came across a slim, two-seater car that obviously was built for speed, maneuvering, and incredible output.
While I checked the car out, the phone call I was connected to suddenly rang in my ears.
"Sir, are you still with me here?" The familiar voice spoke through the speaker.
"I sure am. So how's the property?"
"Well, sir, it seems we only have one mansion available for sale on Skrye Street, that being the one across from Kali's Bakery, does that seem to be the one you're aiming to purchase?" He asked for confirmation as I distractedly asked for a nearby employee.
"Yes, that's right, I was looking to buy that mansion."
"Of course, sir! Would you like to arrange a meeting with one of our officials and purchase the mansion that way or would you like to come by and we'll arrange for purchase at our company building?"
"I'd like the latter, please and thank you. I can come by just about any day, so as soon as tomorrow would be preferred."
"Alrighty, sir, we'll arrange for a meeting tomorrow at 5:00 and await your arrival. Thank you for doing business with Orion Real Estate!"
I hung up the phone and got to the waiting employee.
"Apologies for that, sir. Thank you for waiting," I apologized as he waved it off politely.
"No worries, sir. Looking at the way your eyes lingered on this car, I could only assume you were looking to purchase this for a pretty penny," he smiled confidently.
"Quite the eye you've got." I smiled. "Yes, I was indeed looking to buy this car. Can you tell me the finer details?"
"Of course I can, sir." He went up to the car and scanned it with a watch as he presented the details to me.
"This is a hypercar specially built from one of our main branch's designs, custom made with black steel, vibranium and some other materials I'm unfortunately not allowed to disclose with you.
We added an electro-carbon engine fitted with a dual burst module for stronger output and greater speed as well as supreme-grade quark spheres to offset any possible unstable reactions inside of the engine itself.
The body kit is an vibra-carbon fiber speed-based design specially purposed for quick, agile turns, extreme speeds and incredible durability.
As for speed outputs and transmission, it is a 7-stage transmission, nearly 10,000 horsepower with speeds up to 600 miles per hour and is the one of the only cars of its kind capable of withstanding warp travel due to the automatically adjustable warp tech we installed to further keep the engine stable.
As for prices, we have it valued at just over 50 million credits for a full payment."(That's $5,000,000,000 USD fellas)
I took in the information I was told, while also looking at the details on the electronic screen.
"You said this was fitted with an electro-carbon engine and dual-burst module, is that the same one the Luciel family created ten years ago?" I asked, curious if what I was thinking was true.
"I'm afraid I don't know that sir, but from the internal design, while it seems to have been significantly improved over the last decade, the design is likely to be true to its lineage."
I smiled as I pulled out my Credit holder and handed it to him.
"I'll take it with a full payment."