Chương 152: 57. House Hunting Is Serious Business 2

Aida's message came in while I was back in the Lower House dormitory, shoes off, giving myself exactly three minutes to let my brain go blank. The terminal buzzed once on the desk. Not the rapid-fire group chat bombardment of people relitigating bathroom counts and the fate of civilization—a single, clean message, restrained in the way of someone whose punctuation could pass an upper-class etiquette exam. I looked down. Aida Rosen Right.

The Defense Committee Chair's daughter, now glowing on my desk like a gilded dinner knife among the sticky notes, fleet management textbooks, and the half-finished can of cherry cola. I opened it. The message was short. Aida Rosen: Preliminary confirmation—Platinum Bridge is viable. Aida Rosen: Two properties currently available, both vacant within the officer residential system. Aida Rosen: One is better suited for multi-person unit living. Three main floors plus rooftop laundry level, with elevator.

Aida Rosen: Pre-practicum readiness preparation is a defensible basis for the application. Aida Rosen: Finalize your internal conditions and I'll push further from there. I stared at those lines for a full five seconds. Then, with complete sincerity:"… Shit." Not at Aida. At the Federation. Because before this, Platinum Bridge Street had been an abstraction.

The kind of place you glimpsed through the Academy shuttle window and instinctively thought the windows there probably have more dignity than our entire dormitory building. And now someone had just told me, in the same tone one might use to say there are two cans left in the east campus vending machine: Viable. Not a dream. Not a rumor. Not an institutional joke that first-years could entertain briefly before accepting reality. Actually viable. …

Power really did have a very tangible texture when it started to corrupt.

"What's wrong?" Maki's voice came from my left. I looked up. She was standing by the desk, freshly washed cup in hand, the ends of her hair still slightly damp. She'd taken off her uniform jacket and was just in her shirt and vest—one layer less of the Kushima Family High-Performance Management Module armor, which somehow made her more dangerous. Because when people look more like people, it's easier to forget they're still perfectly capable of managing you. I turned the terminal toward her.

Maki leaned down and scanned it—not fast, but precise. When she finished, she only said:"Faster than I expected."

"What were you expecting?

'If we hear back within a week, the Federation wasn't drunk today'?"

"Something like that." I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling.

"So it's real. There's actually a three-floor officer residence with rooftop laundry and an elevator sitting there, waiting for eleven first-years to move in."

"Provided the conditions are finalized, the application rationale is correctly framed, and the unit designation holds up." She handed the terminal back, tone steady.

"Also, you need to not look like a group of Lower House kids who just spotted a gingerbread house."

"That's going to be difficult," I said honestly.

"Right now I feel half like I found a loaded weapon and half like I'm watching national budget funds slip through a side door into officer housing." Maki looked at me.

"You'll still take it."

"… Yes." Damn it. That was the most disgusting part. You could condemn it as corrupt while using it to maximum effect with complete composure. Because once you'd survived this long, you started understanding: the system wasn't something you were supposed to like. It was something you were supposed to dismantle, exploit, and strip for parts before it got its teeth into you first. Jess picked that moment to push the door open, two cans in hand.

She took one look at the two of us—me staring at a terminal, Maki watching the person staring at the terminal—and her eyes lit up.

"Oh, I know this atmosphere. Either someone just confessed successfully, or someone just made the system bleed."

"The second one," I said.

"Even better." She set the drinks on the desk.

"Show me where the Federation demonstrated its dirty-but-useful side today." I pushed the message toward her. Jess read it, drew a sharp breath, then very slowly, very solemnly, pressed her hand to her chest.

"Shit," she said.

"I suddenly feel like becoming a model citizen."

"That sentence is an insult to the entire Federation's civic education program."

"I apologize, but I'm not taking it back." She turned to me, grinning like someone had just announced free military pay starting tomorrow.

"Shimo, group chat. Right now. I want to watch Harvey's soul transcend from pure pragmatism directly into real estate consulting." The image was too vivid. I actually laughed. Then I opened the group chat and dropped in the key points from Aida's message. Shimo: Aida responded. Shimo: Platinum Bridge is viable. Shimo: Two properties available, one is three main floors plus rooftop laundry level with elevator. Shimo: She wants us to finalize our internal conditions first. The moment it sent, the group detonated.

Jess: AHHHHH I KNEW IT corruption is civilization's lubricant!!! D: Focus. How do three floors get divided. Harvey: Wait. Don't celebrate yet. Three main floors plus rooftop laundry? This isn't student rental housing. This is officer residential. Akari: Obviously. Platinum Bridge. Roy: Is this real? We're actually discussing Platinum Bridge? That Platinum Bridge? Lan: If that's the layout, eleven people could have full floor allocation. Stop screaming and start on configuration.

Jess: Lan is so scary, I love her so much. Roy: I wasn't screaming. As an ordinary poor person I'm just experiencing mild worldview damage. Harvey: Go repair your worldview on the side. We're meeting. Watching the messages scroll, I felt a sudden urge to applaud all of us. Someone else's first reaction to this news might have been: officer housing, oh my god. Our first reaction was: good, now let's discuss floor configuration and bathroom count. Not maturity.

A deeply unhealthy but genuinely efficient survival instinct, jointly produced by the Academy and field training. D pulled the thread back on course, as usual. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. D: Broad framework first. Men's floor, women's floor, common space floor. Lan: Agreed. Cleanest traffic flow. Akari: Eliminates a lot of pointless friction too. Jess: By friction do you mean domestic friction or adolescent friction? Akari: Both.

Harvey: Common space floor needs to seat eleven people eating simultaneously, hold meetings, and have room to spread materials. Ideally a corner for basic gear maintenance too. Roy: Rooftop laundry, full support. Please remove all wet clothes and training gear from the living floors. D: Elevator stays. Shimo: Stays. Books, gear, people—all of it. Jess: Especially for transporting certain people who fall asleep in the library at midnight. I looked up and glared at her.

Jess was perched on the edge of her bed, smiling like one of her life's greatest achievements was landing these moments with surgical precision. Maki picked up the thread without missing a beat.

"There's another benefit to the elevator," she said. I looked at her.

"Which is?"

"If someone gets injured later, or if we need to transport bulk practicum materials, we won't have to haul everything manually." Jess blinked, then produced a smile of deeply questionable moral character.

"Kushima, that's very official-sounding, but I feel like what you actually mean is: 'This way, if Shimo falls asleep somewhere again, I can get her back to her room more easily.'""I didn't say that," Maki said.

"You didn't say it. Your entire existence is broadcasting it." Instant response. I took a deep breath and forced myself not to throw the pillow. Because the group chat had moved to round two. Lan: Lock the structural framework first. Lan: 1. Men's floor Lan: 2. Women's floor Lan: 3. Common space floor Lan: 4. Rooftop laundry Lan: 5. Elevator Harvey: Reasonable. Bathrooms, kitchen, dining, and room types come after. Roy: Wait—what if the women's floor turns out to be louder?

Jess: That comment has a distinct sexist undertone. Roy: No, it's an objective assessment based on your constant talking. Jess: Wow, you actually grew a spine. Akari: I support physically soundproofing Jess. D: Focus. Bathrooms. Reading the chat, I realized D was genuinely invaluable. No matter how far off the rails a conversation went, he'd drag it back toward something resembling actual business. The kind of person who looked like a blunt instrument and functioned exactly like one.

"How do we word the bathroom requirement?" I asked. Maki had already opened her terminal and pulled up a blank template.

"Don't specify numbers yet," she said.

"Write: Each floor requires sufficient bathroom facilities to prevent congestion during peak hours and avoid schedule interference." I frowned.

"That sounds very bureaucratic."

"Which means it's more likely to be approved," she said calmly. … Right. That was what I'd been finding increasingly irritating about her, and increasingly unable to argue with. I spoke in plain language for the atmosphere. She wrote in the language the system understood. Put them together and somehow it became something you could actually take to the Federation and negotiate with. I added the line to the group. Shimo: Don't specify bathroom numbers, specify purpose.

Shimo: Each floor requires sufficient bathrooms to prevent peak-hour congestion and schedule interference. Harvey: Works. Lan: Reasonable. Roy: Please add "minimum standard of civilization." Jess: I support enshrining civilization in the application. Akari: You're all very loud. Then came kitchen and dining space. This one ran longer than I'd expected.

Because has a kitchen and kitchen eleven people can actually use were completely different concepts, and has a table versus everyone can sit down without stabbing each other with forks were clearly not the same thing. Harvey laid out the hard requirements quickly: Adequate cold and freezer storage. Separate zones for food ingredients and medical cold storage. Lockable shared cabinets. A communal dining table that doubled as a meeting surface and materials workspace.

Lan added with characteristic precision: Kitchen traffic flow couldn't conflict with the main entrance. Dining area shouldn't face directly toward the primary sleeping zones. Both the men's and women's floors should connect directly to the common space, to avoid people wandering the building like ghosts at midnight. I couldn't help typing: Shimo: Lan, why does this sound like you're designing a small forward operating base? Ten seconds passed before she replied.

Lan: Because eleven people living together is basically that. … Fair. I couldn't argue with that. Then the most dangerous topic: room configuration. The moment it came up, the group's energy slid from practical discussion to probing the edges of civilized behavior. Roy: For the record, I support separate rooms. Jess: You're just scared of being murdered for snoring. Roy: That's also a survival requirement. D: Open dormitory is not happening. Akari: Agreed. Long-term it always ends badly.

Harvey: All singles is too expensive and fragments unit cohesion. Lan: Doubles or a mix of doubles and singles is more balanced. Jess: Question for the group: is there any chance certain two people on the women's floor might voluntarily share a room, thereby reducing costs, improving solidarity, enhancing interpersonal bonds, and optimizing study efficiency? I stared at that sentence. My eyelid twitched.

"She's calling us out," I said.

"I know," Maki said. Far too calmly. Calm enough to make me more alert, not less.

"Why do you look completely unbothered?"

"Because the format she's describing isn't wrong." Maki entered a line into her template without her eyes moving.

"Doubles are genuinely more efficient."

"You'd better be talking about room efficiency." This time, Maki finally looked up. The look was quiet, unhurried, and carried a very inconvenient degree of honesty.

"I am talking about room efficiency," she said.

"As for other kinds of efficiency—that depends on the quality of the roommate." … Damn it. I had a sudden strong urge to bury my terminal in the desk. Jess was already laughing silently on her bed, still feeding the fire. Jess: I support the mixed doubles arrangement. Jess: Reason one: reduces mutual destruction in open dorms. Jess: Reason two: lets us observe which pairings won't result in casualties. Jess: Reason three: I'm curious who cracks first because their roommate is unbearable.

D: You'll be in the top bracket. Jess: Thank you for the recognition. The conversation moved to parking. Less charged here—purely practical. D: We have adults. Minimum two spaces. Roy: If we actually move in, grocery runs, gear transport, back-and-forth between the school and the residence—all of it. Harvey: Even if nobody has a car right now, claim the spaces. Borrowing, renting, coordinating later is all easier with spaces than without. No parking is the real death.

Akari closed the whole section with one line: Akari: We're not renting housing. We're preparing a retreat point. I went quiet for two seconds. Then had to admit she was right. From a certain angle, what we were doing wasn't finding a place to live. We were finding a container—one that could hold eleven people's bodies, gear, rhythm, sleep, food, and emotional states all at once, before finals. If it held well enough, we'd arrive at the ship one layer less destroyed.

If it didn't, the unit would be ground down before we ever departed. Maki must have noticed me staring at the messages again, because she slid her organized conditions summary to my side of the desk.

"Look," she said. I looked down.

She'd already structured it cleanly: Priority Housing Conditions (11-Person Version) Men's floor Women's floor Common space floor Rooftop laundry Elevator Sufficient bathrooms per floor Kitchen and shared dining space for eleven Adequate cold storage / lockers / lockable shared cabinets Separate rooms preferred; open dormitory unacceptable Minimum two parking spaces Application rationale: pre-finals unit readiness and independent study requirements Looking at that list, I felt something strange settle in me.

Not because things had gotten simpler. Because something that had been a tangle was starting to grow handles. I photographed it and posted it to the group. Shimo: Use this version for now. Shimo: Nothing submitted today. Conditions only. Shimo: Anyone with additions, say so now. The group went quiet for about half a minute. For people like us, half a minute was approaching something sacred. Harvey replied first. Harvey: This works. At least it looks like it was written by people who haven't completely lost it.

D: Works. Akari: Agreed. Roy: This is the first time I've actually felt like we might end up on Platinum Bridge. That's terrifying. Lan: Terrifying but useful. This works. Jess added last: Jess: One additional request. Jess: If we actually get in, someone has to let me take a photo on day one. To commemorate the first time this pack of Lower House delinquents legally moved into officer housing. I read that and laughed out loud.

"What?" Jess looked up from the bed across the room.

"Nothing." I set the terminal down.

"Just thinking—the Federation's machine probably didn't anticipate a group of first-years sitting here having the most serious possible conversation about how to strip its subsidies and residential resources down to the bone." Jess smiled wickedly.

"Wrong. It definitely anticipated that." She stretched out.

"What it didn't anticipate was that we'd make a requirements table first." Maki added, with perfect composure:"That's what separates this from opportunism." I turned to look at her.

"Your family calls this kind of thing civilization?"

"No." She held my gaze, tone steady—almost too steady.

"My family calls it basic competence." … Fair. Very fair. Also very punchable. That night's discussion didn't spiral further, because everything that could be decided had been. What remained was turning the conditions list into a formal version Aida could work with—and waiting for her next message, telling us which of the two Platinum Bridge properties was more like somewhere people could actually live. When I put the terminal down and got up to shower, one feeling was becoming harder to ignore.

This had stopped being it would be nice if we got it. Squad 144's life was being moved, piece by piece, onto a different track. From broken school dormitories and collective management and passively accepting whatever was arranged—toward a building that might have an elevator, rooftop laundry, separated floors, and possibly parking. It felt absurd. It felt corrupt. It felt very Federation. But honestly— I was starting to want to see Platinum Bridge Street with my own eyes.

Specifically, to find out whether the exterior walls really were that expensive shade of off-white I'd been imagining.