Private Attorney Rodion Raskolnikov!

“You’re saying we’re under arrest?!”

“Correct,” Faust says. “On account of the murders.”

Sinclair throws his hands in the air. “Since when has murder ever been illegal?”

“Won’t LCA provide us an attorney?” Ishmael says, staring very pointedly at the man at the front of the bus. “This is a big company, right?”

Vergilius pushes at the gap between his brows. “No. They will not be providing us with an attorney.”

“What’s the big deal?” Rodya pipes up in her usual, casual whine. “We can still defend ourselves, right?”

Dante rubs their hands together nervously, and begins to fidget. <Well, yeah, but- and no offense to you guys, but aside from maybe Faust->

“Faust is unable to participate in legal matters.”

<I don’t think any of us have enough knowledge of the law to do that!>

“Have some faith in us for once!” Rodya says.

<I always have faith in you, that’s my job! Except… for, well… does anyone here know the first thing about a court of law?!>

The bus goes uncharacteristically silent.

“Oh… did I never mention it?” Rodya scratches the back of her neck.

<M-mention what?>

“Ohh, you know,” she sighs and huffs, looking out the bus window. “Well, you know, it’s just…” And then, instead of elaborating any further, just sighs and huffs again.

“Well? Out with it, lass!” Heathcliff demands. “Don’t keep us waiting.”

“I have a law degree. Uh, not really in practicing is the problem, more of the theoretical stuff, but I took a couple classes in criminal law and contract-“

“You,” Heathcliff starts,

“Have a law degree?!” Sinclair continues,

“And you never mentioned it to us?!” Ishmael finishes. “Do you know how much trouble you could’ve saved us when T-Corp — or, or U-Corp came knocking on the bus door?! I had to talk to them myself because you all were sleeping through it! I don’t know shit about this kind of stuff and you—!”

Gregor turns to the woman of the hour. “Hey, this isn’t another one of your bluffs, is it?”

“Pshaw, what? Come on guys, is it all so hard to believe?”

Hong Lu raises his hand politely. “I thought poor people didn’t go to university?”

“You have to go to university for a law degree?” mutters Heathcliff.

“Yep!” Rodya pats herself on the chest. “Busted cheek-and-ass to get there, fell into some debt — a lot of debt — but I pulled up my bootstraps and got there in the end!”

“You gambled your way out of it,” Meursault deduces.

“That’s why I’m the best! Man, it was cool for a bit but then every single course was about theoretics and history and it was just so boring. Couldn’t back out of it or it’d be a waste of money, so… now you know!” Rodya pauses, before deliberately turning to Meursault. “And gambling was only to get through my final year, excuse you!”

<What did you do to pay off the rest of your debt?> Dante asks.

“Before that I used to sell essays and stuff to editorials, made a bit of spare change that way. Most of the money just went to the publishers and stuff, and well, I stopped receiving royalties once I went to prison.”

<You what?>

“Ah… yeah, collusion and treachery and all that, and then I had to pay bail… and you can’t really gamble in prison — or, well, you can, but only for material objects like food and entertainment and stuff, so for real money they let me write some more. And I didn’t have much to do between forced labour, and they don’t pay us for that, so that’s how I got out of that pickle! And that’s the tale of Rodya~”

Hong Lu applauds her. “You wrote essays from prison? Wow, Rodya, that’s very impressive! What a wonderful life you’ve lived!”

Rodya giggles, but before she can respond, a finger is suddenly pointed in her direction; Yi Sang’s eyes widen — he stammers, mouth gently agape as he searches for words, and then says: “You’re him.”

“...Huh?”

“You’re Dostoyevsky!”

The bus turns and stares at his rather incredible outburst, at the volume at which it was raised and his evident excitement over it. Rodya smiles. “...The one and only.”

“You’re Dostoyevsky!” he repeats, louder, standing in perhaps the greatest fit of energy Yi Sang has ever expressed. “The persecuted scholar from Y Corp., you’re him! I have- I have your works, right in my room, your essays and books — On Crime, I have the original newspaper edition in my collection…”

“Oh,” she laughs. “Those old things? Ew, I’d hate to read what I wrote way back then.”

“You revolutionised humanitarian studies for the past decade,” Yi Sang says, taking a step closer to her.

“Ah, well, good to know I’ve got at least one fan!”

“Oh, no, I despised your theories!” he exclaims with much excitement. “Dongrang and I would argue endlessly over the very prospect of the theories proposed in your essay — if there was such thing as an ‘extraordinary person’ as written, if such extraordinary people would be permitted to commit crimes in favour of their extraordinary ideas, or even if there were such clearly divided classes — it was preposterous! — he on the defensive of your works and I against the notion.” Yi Sang takes a deep breath, giddy with joy. “You… you are Dostoyevsky.”

“Hah, I guess. Or maybe I’m not anymore. I wrote that ages ago, I’m not precious over it or anything.”

“F-forsooth, my dearest compatriot Yi Sang, but couldst thou slow down just a smidgen?” Don Quixote exclaims. “I have nary an understanding of what revelation has occured! Who- who is this Dostoyevsky character?”

“It’s just my pen name,” Rodya says before he can get a word in, but Yi Sang doesn’t seem to hear her.

“Dostoyevsky was an acclaimed Y Corp. scholar famous for working betwixt the academic realms of the psychoanalysis of the human condition and the socio-political state of the City’s most dangerous corporation—“

“It’s not that bad-“

“One of the only published scholars from any of the City’s Backstreets, he challenged the very institutions upon which the world of academia is constructed and fought back against existing epistemologies of utilitarian thinking by drawing upon the fallible nature of the human psyche to the point where he was imprisoned and held under the law multiple times! Following, different pseudonyms were ascribed to the same person, such as, um, what was it? Lev, that was you, surely, earlier on in his, no, your career before taking upon the moniker Alexei…”

“Stop, this is so embarrassing!” Rodya whines. “I don’t know what you’ve heard about me, mister, but that’s all nonsense! I didn’t … revolutionise anything, those were just my mad ramblings as a kid.”

“The most radical of ideas come from children, Rodya, you only needed the practice to enact upon your theories.” Yi Sang smiles at her, then Don Quixote. “His– her most radical and polarising concept was the categorisation of humanity into two categories, not by any kind of class or, say, skilled talent, but instead by ordinary and extraordinary; the will to enact upon one’s goals, thus allowing them to step free from the social chains in which the ordinary are bound.”

“That is a kind of skilled talent though,” Rodya counters, “It requires a certain ability to be able to do that, and you have to train your ability to overstep these boundaries. I’m just saying that some people are innately born into conceptualising that ability rather than…” she trails off, suddenly aware that she’s caring more than she indicated she would. “You know, um… yeah.”

He smiles at her. “And what say you? Do you still believe in the extraordinary?”

She doesn’t respond. “I… well, pushing all the theoretical stuff aside, isn’t it sorta obvious? Like not everyone’s the same. Some people are built for greatness, some aren’t, you know?”

“Are you one of the extraordinary?”

“No.”

“You have extraordinary ideas.”

“An ordinary man can have extraordinary ideas,” she retorts. “You’d know if you’d read my essay.”

Yi Sang claps his hands together in excitement, and begins pacing up and down the centre of the bus, receiving bewildered looks from the jury watching. “The very idea that there is an inherent, biological counterence that predisposes one to bring great change to society, repeated only once in perhaps a million people, is, in my mind’s eye, quite preposterous — antithetical to the very theory of evolution, this inherent quality contained in the soul or what not. Tell me, Rodya, no, Rodion Romanovich — would you prefer Dostoevsky? — are you familiar with my works?”

She snorts. “I was held at one of your prisons, so architecturally, yes I’m very familiar.”

“The panopticon. You used it as a model for one of your works on social theory, only after when you were imprisoned.”

“Clever. But your writing? No, they weren’t in my field of research… and, well, the way you write is pretty hard to read.” Yi Sang blushes in embarrassment, half ready to give an apology. “I knew some people who spoke of you but never read up myself.”

“Ah… ah, well, then would you consider me extraordinary? I do not mean to sound arrogant or the like, but my work, my technology, it has taken lives in the pursuit of a revolutionary goal to change the existing course of society as it stands now, correct? Mirror world technology is increasingly being used to disrupt the flow of time, is that not extraordinary?”

“...I’d say so,” Rodya says, bewildered by the volume at which he delivers his frantic monologue.

“But I am not extraordinary, that is to say, I myself am not special, because the ideas that revolutionise the world are not mine to begin with. I do not wish for revolution — I do not dream of the extraordinary, yet I am also not a tool for the revolution to occur because these inventions, these buildings of mine are, at times, solely my creation. What now? What now that the creator is not extraordinary, but the creations are? Did I have the right to take those lives? Did I take those lives in the first place? Where, you would say, draws the line between the ownership of one’s actions, because after all if one carries out misdeeds, or orders an army to destroy a country, one who is extraordinary would be able to do so without remorse, correct?”

Rodya nods without particularly thinking — “That’s right. But it wasn’t you who gave those commands, and it wasn’t your ideas that spurred this to happen. It was another extraordinary person that used you, an ordinary person, who obeys and complies and lives life happily when under the command of others, to execute their extraordinary ideas. You are instrumental.”

“So you are saying it is the ideas that is the distinctive line between extraordinary and ordinary?”

“It’s the remorse! Any idiot can have crazy ideas about revolutionary worlds and how the world changes, but nobody has the guts to go and do it! Those who have the strength to execute their ideas and not back down from the destruction required to create a new world, rather than frolicking in the mathematical ideal of their theory for the rest of their lives, only those people are extraordinary, are useful, are Übermensch like you or Faust or, or…” Rodya only now realises how much she’s raised her voice — although most people have quieted down to listen to her exchange, the bus is now dead silent aside from the sound of Yi Sang clapping. Rodya flushes. “Or… you know, whatever. I-I’m a bit over it, you know? Whatever, like let’s live life as it is! Who cares about why people end up like they do, it’s really what we do that matters. It’s all nonsense I made up when I was young and mad anyway. I don’t believe in it anymore.”

“So you care not for the theory, and only the execution?”

“…Yeah?”

Yi Sang takes a step closer until he’s almost right up against her seat. She tilts her head up to look him in the glassy black eyes, gently crinkled around the edges in genuine enjoyment of their conversation. “Like someone extraordinary.”

It strikes her like a hot iron brandishing her heart. “…Yeah. I guess so.” Like-extraordinary; extraordinary-like. An imitation of the real thing, a mirror reflection that has its lefts as its rights and its rights as its wrongs.

“If you care not for the intricacies of your own theories, may I say just one thing, Dostoevsky? Rodion Romanovich?” Yi Sang can’t stop the smile that rises on his face; a similar one is perpetually plastered on her cold lips. “…Rodya?”

“Sure.”

“Without the definitions assigned thus far, nor the weight of the meanings in which you have changed the world of theoretical philosophy: I think you are rather extraordinary.”

“I know I am,” she says with a grin.

“How wonderful,” Yi Sang beams in return. “How wonderful— would you care to discuss this with me further at a later date? Perhaps after work, we could…”

“What is this, a date?”

“No!” he exclaims a beat too fast, “No- I- um-”

“Ah, Yi Saang~” she whines, drawing out his name. He turns the brightest shade of red he ever has, enough to rival Sinclair in colour, “What’s with that response time, huh? At least think a little before you hurt a girl’s feelings.” With that joke the air is lifted. Neither can wipe the smile off their face — only one is icier than the other.

There’s a knock at the bus door. “Oh, what the hell is it this time?!” Rodya snaps.

A loud, mechanical siren whirrs to life before blasting a robotic voice loud enough to shake the Sinners in their seats. “Limbus Company, Bus Department, you are wanted for evading court orders!”

“Ahh… right. I forgot about that.” Rodya stands up. “Well, good luck guys! I’m going to–”

<You’re not going anywhere!!!>