Chapter 72
---
Strangely enough, visiting a cemetery with a fresh grave in it had done something to revive me. Just as I'd told myself — I brushed away the apathetic fog from my thoughts. And I'd managed to catch up on sleep over that past week. Boredom was starting to creep in — the great enemy of long-livers. And I only know one way to fight it: find something to do.
The Federation's routine had driven me up the wall over ten years. No new Masters of any real note had appeared, and no rumors of any had reached me either. But I did have a task I'd set myself back in Japan — a checkbox still unticked: bring my knowledge of modern science and technology up to date. Falling behind the times was not something I could afford. I wasn't an Omega, after all — not even quite an Alpha, by Xavier's classification. My abilities and my control over them put me squarely in the Beta category, given that I can't switch them on or off at will. They simply operate. And they're fairly modest, frankly, compared to energy mutants like Scott or Ororo. So I couldn't afford to rely on them alone.
Intellectually I understood: the direct path led toward magic. But every time the thought surfaced, my whole gut turned over. My soul simply had no pull in that direction. So then what? Then science. And science meant studying. And studying — I love it, and I'm good at it.
The only questions were where, and what.
The world is large. It has many institutions.
---
The morning of September first, 1981, found me on the campus of Moscow State University — named for Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov — as a first-year student of the Physics Faculty, department of experimental and theoretical physics. Viktor Ivanovich Creed, born 1962, native of the village of Turukhansk, Turukhansk District, Krasnoyarsk Krai. Why there? There had been someone I knew from that place, back in Vasya-Sensei's world. She wrote books. The name stuck with me. I'd even made myself a vow back then — to visit that picturesque spot someday. The Yenisei, the taiga. Beautiful.
And the second reason: it was far from Moscow. Not the ends of the earth, but far enough to complicate any official inquiries sent to that remote location.
There was legwork involved, naturally — bouncing around the country to produce all the required documentation for enrollment. A school-leaving certificate. Filling in, forging, lifting blank forms, briefly borrowing official stamps, mimicking the necessary handwriting, inserting my name into grade registers and class logs, filling in and correcting marks.
Document forgery is, broadly speaking, a routine matter for me. And with the capabilities of the jump and the freeze-frame — the latter of which I'm still actively developing, by the way — it was easier and faster than it might have been. What was discouraging was the sheer quantity of paperwork now required. Since forty-three, the last time I'd done this sort of thing, the paperwork had multiplied considerably. Nothing to be done about it: civilization advances, state oversight tightens, and it will only keep tightening. And then globalization is still coming down the road. But let's not dwell on that.
All of that running around was only the first stage. The second was the entrance examinations. Or more precisely, first the preparation for them. And that — by all that is Zen — was not easy. The moment I actually sat down to gnaw through the granite of knowledge, I understood just how far behind life I had actually fallen. My education from Munich Polytechnic in the thirties was hopelessly obsolete. What they cover in schools today used to be handed out with a diploma.
I'm exaggerating, of course. But only slightly.
And this was Moscow State University, for what it's worth. Eight applicants per place. No paid enrollment track.
Someone might say I had the experience of studying at a university in Vasya-Sensei's world, in the twenty-first century no less — and the material there was harder. Yes. I thought so too, right up until I picked up the preparation assignments for enrollment. My brain had to grind through things it hadn't touched in decades. There were moments, bent over physics textbooks and calculus problem sets in the Kamar-Taj library, when I could practically feel steam coming out of my ears. I even forgot to train sometimes, so buried was I in studying.
The young apprentice mages — the new ones — started mistaking me for one of their own. Then they'd glance at the books I was reading, or peer at my notebooks where I worked through problem solutions, and their eyes would go wide and they'd back away convinced I was at minimum a Master. The reverence in those wide eyes was something. Suo was endlessly amused by the whole situation. She took to addressing me in front of others as "Master Viktor," which irritated me to no end. But I could hardly reprimand her with those same people watching. And afterward, the problems and formulas would knock every other thought out of my head anyway.
But I managed it. I prepared, I sat the exams, I passed, I got in. At the bottom of the competitive threshold, certainly — but then I'm not a genius. I never was.
---
Naturally, I hadn't expected my document tampering to conceal me from the vigilant eye of the KGB. I'm not so naive. That work wasn't for them — it was for the university administration. It was obvious my wild mug was too well known in their circles to be misidentified at first glance. That's precisely why I hadn't bothered changing my name, either. More trouble than it was worth.
All the same, when I saw Natasha in my study group — I was disappointed. An irrational feeling. But it was there. The feeling that I, with all my vast experience and cleverness, had been played for a fool again, standing right there. All it needed was a military salute and a "Good day, Comrade Colonel" to make the humiliation complete.
"You too," I muttered darkly by way of hello.
"Pure coincidence, Viktor Iv— Vitya," she corrected herself. Her eyes were wide and honest. Barely laughing. Almost.
"Sure," I grunted and exhaled heavily. "How did you even find me?"
"Coincidence, happenstance," she kept up the act. Then she caught my look and sighed. "People who know your face were sent to the best universities in the world. Standing orders: watch."
"But why universities? I discussed them with Fury — not with you."
"A few brochures were left on the table in your office," Natasha said, with a small shrug.
"Zen," I muttered, and couldn't hold it back. How had I let myself slip like that? I was genuinely losing my edge. Galling.
Though — what did it actually change? I'd made such a name for myself over these years that the only place I could disappear now was some Zulu desert, or deep Siberian taiga, or the Amazon jungle. And even then, probably not. But as I said — what does any of it change? Absolutely nothing.
---
If You Like The Story Drop a Review
~Read Advanced Chapters on: p@treon/Amiii_
~Every 150 PS = Bonus Chapter!
~Push the Story forward with your [Power Stones]