Chapter 99: Exam Season

Xavier’s phone buzzed on the desk.

Delivery notification. Food order arriving in fifteen minutes.

He picked it up and looked at it.

She actually did it, he thought. Went home to handle something urgent for a hospital committee and still ordered me food. Even after getting me previously at a restaurant.

He sat with that for a moment.

Impossible woman, he thought.

He almost smiled and went to wait by the door.

The food arrived at 6:47PM.

A proper order from the restaurant near the north side. The one he’d taken her to for the celebration dinner three weeks ago. She’d ordered from memory apparently. Everything he’d had that night replicated in takeaway containers, right down to the dessert he’d ordered without guilt and she’d pretended not to notice him enjoying more than the main course.

He took it inside. Set it on the desk. Sat down and opened the containers.

She remembered, he thought. Every dish. In order.

He ate.

His phone buzzed while he was halfway through the food. Not Amira. A number saved as Campus Admin Contact. A third year student Xavier had quietly identified three weeks ago as someone with access to the university’s academic records system and the financial flexibility of someone who had access without enough money to feel comfortable about it.

Campus Admin: checked your attendance record like you asked. You’ve missed 73% of scheduled lectures this semester. Two assignments outstanding. End of semester exams in three weeks. Academic review gets triggered automatically if attendance doesn’t reach 60% before the exam period opens.

Xavier read it twice.

73%, he thought. That’s... thorough.

He set his fork down.

In his previous life missing 73% of his lectures would have been a full scale catastrophe. Letters home. A meeting with his academic advisor. The particular shame of having to explain to people who had sacrificed for his education that he’d been elsewhere.

Different life, he thought. Different resources. Different everything.

He typed back.

Xavier: what does it cost to make the attendance record look acceptable and the outstanding assignments disappear before the review triggers.

A brief moment.

Campus Admin: Assignments I can sort. Mark them as submitted, clean grades. Attendance is harder. System auto flags below 60%. Getting you to 61% on paper is a different level of access and carries more risk on my end.

Xavier: I’ll cover the risk. Name the number.

Campus Admin: $8,000. Everything. Attendance adjusted to 61%, both assignments marked submitted with passing grades, exam registration confirmed active.

Xavier looked at that number.

$8,000, he thought. From a man sitting on nearly six million dollars in a hostel room two blocks from the university he’s technically enrolled at. He almost laughed. I’m paying $8,000 to maintain the fiction that I’m a Food and Nutrition student while running a business acquisition portfolio through a financial crime firm’s network.

The world, he thought. Genuinely strange.

Xavier: done. Send account details.

He transferred the money before the details had fully arrived.

[ REBATE SYSTEM ]

Transaction Detected: $8,000 spent on academic administration

Base Multiplier (Tier 2): 2x

Total Return: $16,000

[ Net Balance: $5,926,014.00 → $5,942,014.00 ]

The system just rebated my academic record adjustment, he thought. That’s a sentence I never expected to think in any life.

He picked his fork back up and finished the food.

His phone buzzed again. Amira.

Amira: Did the food arrive?

Xavier: yes. You ordered exactly what I had at the restaurant.

Amira: I have a good memory.

Xavier: apparently that’s sweet of you.

A brief moment.

Amira: Xavier..

Xavier: Amira.

Amira: exams are in three weeks. First semester to be precise . Please tell me you’re prepared.

He looked at that message.

Am I prepared, he thought. I just paid $8,000 for my attendance record to read 61% instead of 27%. He picked up the last container. Prepared is genuinely not the right word.

Xavier: Am actively working on it...

Amira: Xavier. That means no.

Xavier: it means I’m working on it

Amira: I’m sending you my notes from the lectures you missed.

Xavier: you kept notes from my lectures.

Amira: Someone had to.

Xavier looked at that message for a long moment.

She kept notes from my lectures, he thought. For months. While running her own coursework and the research project and the partnership proposal and preparing for the Kenvale General committee. He looked at the food containers on his desk. Ordered from memory from one dinner he’d taken her to once. Although we’re technically in same department.

Xavier: thank you sweetheart

Amira: Don’t thank me. Study them. And did you just call me sweetheart?

A brief moment.

Xavier: yes ma’am

Amira: 😐 goodnight Xavier. Study.

Xavier: goodnightsweetheart

Amira: 😑

He put the phone down.

Leaned back in the chair.

Three weeks to exams, he thought. $8,000 spent on attendance. Notes incoming from Amira. Fifth acquisition overview sitting in Vincent’s email unopened. He looked at his balance. $5,942,014 in the account.

I’m a first year Food and Nutrition student with nearly six million dollars who just paid someone to fix his attendance record and is receiving lecture notes from his girlfriend who isn’t technically his girlfriend yet.

He almost laughed properly this time.

He cleared the food containers off the desk. Opened his MacBook. Pulled up Vincent’s fifth acquisition overview.

Exams in three weeks, he thought. Amira’s notes incoming. Keep the acquisitions moving.

He almost smiled.

And someone else writing the actual exam, he thought. Obviously.

He opened his phone and typed a follow up message to Campus Admin.

Xavier: one more thing. Exam period. I need someone reliable to sit the papers.

A brief moment.

Campus Admin: that’s a different arrangement. More people involved. More risk.

Xavier: I’ll triple whatever the going rate is.

Campus Admin: ...give me 48 hours to find the right person.

Xavier: Take your time. Just make sure they actually know Food and nutrition.

Campus Admin: 😅 understood.

Xavier put the phone down.

Nearly six million in the account, he thought. Paying someone to fix my attendance. Paying someone else to sit my exams. Receiving lecture notes from Amira who thinks I’m going to study them. He looked at the ceiling. The audacity of this life is genuinely something.

He opened Vincent’s fifth acquisition overview.

Manageable, he thought.

Very manageable.

Manageable, he thought.

Probably.

[ REBATE SYSTEM ]

Daily Cycle Complete

Donations processed: Global Education Trust, Rural Healthcare Initiative, Women’s Empowerment Fund, Digital Access Network, Child Nutrition Foundation

Total Spent: $350,000

Total Returned: $700,000

[ Net Balance: $5,592,014.00 → $5,942,014.00 ]

$5,942,014, he noted. Cap hit. Academic standing secured. Amira’s notes incoming.

Three weeks, he thought.

Let’s see what that looks like.