Beep... beep... beep...

  The alarm clock is my truest and most hated enemy. Six in the morning. Waking up in winter is especially lousy: it's pitch black outside the window, and an arctic chill blows from under the blanket. But I forced myself to get up. A short warm-up, sneakers, three layers of clothing—and out onto the street.

  On the run, the freezing air literally pierced my lungs, burning my throat with every breath. But I didn't slow my pace. In the Corps, no one is going to ask if I'm cold or not. By half-past six I returned home, covered in frost, quickly washed up, and grabbed a bite of whatever God sent.

  The subway, as usual, was packed tight. I stood leaning against the handrail and looked at my reflection in the dark glass of the tunnel. Another half a year. The home stretch, and I'll trade the school blazer for bio-armor.

  By 7:40 I was already at school. I walked past the "WE NEED YOUR HELP" poster, lingering on it a little longer than usual. Soon. I lingered by the Exterminator Corps poster. Half the school year is behind me. Just as much more, and I'll be able to trade this stupid blazer for bio-armor. 'Soon,' I thought. 'I will be among you.'

  First period—history. I walked to the back of the classroom and took my rightful place at the last desk. I laid out my notebook and pen—the standard ritual. The class hummed, kids exchanging news, until the teacher walked in. But not alone.

  Following her, a kid walked into the classroom. By the looks of it, fourteen or fifteen years old, really small. But the moment I looked at his face, an icy jolt ran down my spine. His eyes. They had no whites. At all. Just solid, impenetrable blackness, like spilled ink.

  A shiver ran through me. At one point, his gaze locked right onto me. It got genuinely creepy. He whispered something to the teacher, smiled cheerfully, and... pointed his finger right in my direction.

  'What?' flashed through my head.

  I decided not to guess and use my proven method. 'Well, let's see what you're thinking about, new guy.'

  Click. I dived into his consciousness.

  Usually, people's thoughts are a stream of words or images. But this time... It was like crashing into a monolithic concrete wall at full speed. My consciousness flared with pain. I doubled over sharply and coughed, grabbing the edge of the desk. My throat constricted, sparks swam before my eyes. What was that?! Never before had I run into such a hard block.

  "Hello, class," the teacher's voice sounded as if from far away. "We have a new student. His name is Arkgrim."

  'Arkgrim...' I repeated to myself, wiping away the tears that had welled up. 'Even the name is creepy.'

  "Teacher!" someone shouted from the front rows. "Are you sure he didn't get the wrong room? He looks like he's ten! How did he get into the senior class?"

  "I'm fourteen," the kid spoke up. His voice was calm, even bored, but the situation didn't improve because of it.

  The teacher merely threw her hands up—meaning, his papers are in order—and gestured toward an empty seat for him. Right next to me, of course.

  Arkgrim walked over and casually flopped onto the chair. He didn't take out any textbooks. Instead, he slowly, with some sort of investigative interest, looked me up and down.

  "You're a weakling," he dropped instead of a greeting.

  I froze.

  "What?" I asked again, not believing my ears.

  No "hello," no "what's your name." Just "you're a weakling." I already knew I wasn't going to get along with this guy.

  But he wouldn't let up. Arkgrim leaned closer and whispered:

  "Listen, what was that just now?"

  "What are you talking about?" I tried to put maximum indifference into my voice.

  "Well, that... Were you trying to get into my head just now?"

  My heart skipped a beat. I went cold. How did he...

  "Uhh, I don't know what you're talking about. You're mistaken," I said quickly, looking away. "You just look scary, even though you look like a kid."

  "Hey, hey!" he raised his eyebrows indignantly. "What do you mean, kid? There's barely any difference between us... How old are you anyway?"

  "I'm seventeen."

  "See, only three years. Basically the same age," he smirked, and his black eyes glinted for a moment.

  I decided it was better to steer everything into a formal channel before he fished out any more from me.

  "Leon," I reluctantly held out my hand to him.

  Arkgrim seemed to buffer. He stared at my palm for a whole minute, as if seeing it for the first time in his life. Genuine bewilderment could be read in his gaze. Finally, he slowly, as if tasting the action, shook it.

  'He's weird...' I thought, feeling my palm still tingling after that mental strike. 'Very weird.'

  For the entire history lesson, Arkgrim did anything but study: he would lean dangerously on his chair, testing the laws of gravity, or just sprawl out on the desk like a jellyfish washed ashore.

  "Why aren't you writing anything down?" I asked in a whisper, nodding at his blank notebook.

  "It's booooring," he whined, not even lifting his head. "How do you guys even sit here? This is a voluntary lobotomy."

  I was about to decide that he was some unrecognized genius who found the curriculum too primitive, but then the teacher called on him.

  "Arkgrim, since you're having so much fun, answer this: who was the first Prime Minister of Japan?"

  The pause stretched out. Arkgrim stood with a completely blank face for about thirty seconds, as if his operating system had frozen inside.

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  "I don't know," he finally delivered. "Is it important? Does he owe me money?"

  The class snickered. The teacher only sighed heavily. Apparently, he didn't qualify as a "genius" after all. At the same time, Arkgrim didn't even try to whisper—if someone said something to him across the desks, he answered in full voice, ignoring all the rules. I used to consider myself a hermit, but this guy... he was just walking chaos.

  When the bell rang, Arkgrim jumped up, looking around in fright.

  "Recess?" he asked me, looking as if I had just informed him of the opening of a portal to another dimension. "Is that like... rest?"

  'Did he just walk out of the woods or something?' I thought, but said aloud:

  "Yeah, ten minutes of life, and then the next circle of hell. Physics or math."

  "Ahhh," he collapsed onto the desk again.

  "Hey, are you going to the next class?" I slung my backpack over my shoulder.

  He lazily cracked open one eye, assessed the situation, and reluctantly dragged himself after me like a sleepy zombie.

  In math, the teacher immediately got down to business, writing out the conditions of the problems on the board.

  "Number seventy-one, let's begin."

  Arkgrim didn't even open his textbook. He just cast a sidelong glance at my book, froze for a second, and announced to the whole class:

  "The answer is one."

  The teacher flinched, dropping his chalk.

  "What is your... Arkgrim, right? Alright, let's assume. And number seventy-four?"

  Arkgrim looked at my page again, chewed his lip, and a minute later delivered:

  "Seems like X equals three, and Y is four."

  Dead silence hung in the classroom. The teacher adjusted his glasses and slowly said:

  "Arkgrim, come to the board. Show us your solution steps."

  "Seriously?" the kid's voice held so much laziness you could scoop it with a spoon. "Walking again?"

  "If you solve it correctly and write everything out, I'll allow you to sleep in my classes until the end of the term."

  That was the magic word. Arkgrim's face changed. He didn't just walk—he literally flew over the desk, grabbed the chalk, and started scribbling formulas at such a speed that the chalk crumbled and flew everywhere. It looked like some crazy dance. A couple of minutes later, he tossed the nub of chalk into the tray and looked triumphantly at the teacher. The answer matched.

  The teacher looked like he was either going to cry from happiness or call an exorcist right now. And Arkgrim, not waiting for praise, dashed back to his seat and instantly went "offline," burying his face in the desk.

  My opinion of him made a sharp 180-degree turn. He's either a cheater, or there's a supercomputer hidden in his head.

  At lunch, I literally had to pry him out of his sleep, poking him in the shoulder.

  "Hey, wake up. Class is over. Food is waiting."

  "Food?.." Arkgrim slowly lifted his head, and his black eyes suddenly flared. "It's lunch now?"

  He trudged after me to the cafeteria, still staggering from sleep.

  "Listen, Arkgrim, what school did you transfer from anyway?" I asked, trying to get this freak of nature talking.

  "Huh? What? I... I don't know. I don't remember."

  "What do you mean, 'don't remember'? Are you messing with me?"

  He just stayed silent, staring into space. I was starting to think he was ignoring me, but then we entered the dining hall.

  The moment I opened my lunchbox, Arkgrim transformed. He straightened up sharply, his nostrils flaring.

  "Food... FOOD! Give it! Give it to me!"

  "Hey, easy there!" I covered my rice with my hand. "The serving line is over there, go buy some."

  He dashed toward the counter as if a Snake-level Kaiju was chasing him. A couple of minutes later, he returned with a mountain of trays. It had everything: noodles, burgers, some kind of soup, a mountain of rice, and three desserts.

  "Um... are you sure you're going to eat all that?" I looked at this mountain apprehensively.

  "Yeah-yeah-yeah..." he muttered, and drool was actually starting to leak from the corner of his mouth.

  And then the show began. Arkgrim started annihilating the food with the efficiency of an industrial shredder. He didn't eat, he "devoured," tossing chunks into himself at such a speed that I genuinely feared for his esophagus.

  Our classmates—Mark and a couple of other guys—sat down with us.

  "Oh, hey Arkgrim!" Mark said cheerfully, waving his four arms. "You really owned that math teacher! Wanna introduce ourselves?"

  Arkgrim, without stopping his chomping, grumbled something unintelligible, not even lifting his gaze from his plate.

  "Hey man, slow down," one of the guys laughed. "We just want to chat. Where did you come from?"

  "Nope," Arkgrim cut him off clearly and distinctly, swallowing a huge chunk of meat. "Food is more important. Talking later."

  The guys exchanged glances. Such audacity was something new.

  "Alright... enjoy your meal, 'genius'," Mark grumbled, and they walked off to another table.

  I looked at Arkgrim. He sat there, smeared with sauce, absolutely happy and completely focused on his noodles. It seems this school year promises to be very fun. And very weird.

  During the next class, the vice principal came for Arkgrim and asked him to step out "for paperwork processing." As soon as the door closed behind him, our homeroom teacher sighed heavily and stood up from his desk.

  "Listen up, everyone," the teacher's voice sounded uncharacteristically serious. "You've already had a chance to meet Arkgrim. Surely many of you have noticed his quirks, a certain... wildness, and a complete lack of subordination."

  Silence fell over the classroom. Even Mark stopped whispering with his buddies.

  "The boy's situation is extremely difficult," the teacher continued. "Some time ago, he was in a terrible car crash. His parents died on the spot. Arkgrim survived by a miracle, but suffered severe amnesia. He remembers absolutely nothing from his past. His audacity or strange behavior is not out of spite; he simply doesn't understand how to behave 'properly,' his social norms have been erased. Please, treat him with understanding."

  A sympathetic murmur swept through the room.

  'What a fate...' I thought, and something pricked inside me. 'No family, no memory, alone in a huge city.'

  A couple of girls in the front rows even started sniffing, wiping away tears.

  "And one more thing," the teacher added, lowering his voice. "He has seizures. If you notice that he's feeling unwell or acting irrationally—there are special pills in his bag. He must take them immediately. Is that clear to everyone?"

  "Yes, sir," the class answered in chorus.

  About ten minutes later, the door flew open, and Arkgrim literally flew into the room. Not a trace remained of his former "mystique"—he looked absolutely happy. Flopping down next to me, he immediately started pulling handfuls of expensive chocolate candies out of his pockets. My gloomy thoughts about his "tragic fate" instantly vanished upon colliding with this fountain of energy.

  "Look what the principal poured out for me!" Arkgrim held out a piece of candy to me. "Great guy, funny. We're bros now."

  "You were with the principal?" I raised an eyebrow in surprise. "What did you talk about?"

  "Oh, he was hanging some nonsense on my ears..." Arkgrim waved it off, unwrapping the foil with his teeth. "Something about the age difference, about some 'bullying,' like, so I wouldn't get offended if I get teased. Basically, he talked a lot, but his candies are top-tier, so I forgave him."

  At that moment, the idyll was interrupted by a sharp, piercing squeal. Half the class's pockets vibrated simultaneously. I quickly whipped out my smartphone.

  [EMERGENCY WARNING: MINATO WARD, YOKOHAMA. TIGER LEVEL KAIJU DETECTED.]

  Arkgrim curiously peeked at my screen over my shoulder.

  "Kaiju... hmm. Are those those overgrown monsters? And what's a 'Tiger'? Another classification for people who like charts?"

  I recalled the teachers' explanations.

  "A Tiger is a level three or four threat. Serious crap, regular police can't handle it, only the Corps."

  "Ah, got it," Arkgrim nodded, continuing to chew. "A system for panicmongers. Thanks for enlightening me."

  I suddenly frowned, looking at him.

  "Wait, why didn't your phone beep? The notification goes to everyone within the city radius."

  Arkgrim patted his pockets in puzzlement.

  "My phone?.. Ah, it was lying in my bag somewhere."

  He fished out the device, and I couldn't help but whistle. It wasn't a smartphone, it was some work of art: thin as a plastic card, absolutely bezel-less, without a single logo or brand name. When he tapped the screen, the display flared up with such sharpness and richness of colors that my brand-new flagship looked like a cheap plastic children's toy next to it.

  "Whoa..." I exhaled. "What model is that? An import? From some laboratories?"

  "No idea," Arkgrim shrugged indifferently. "They handed it to me along with the apartment keys."

  I took the gadget from him—the screen was strangely warm to the touch. I quickly found the app store and downloaded the official Kaiju detector for him.

  "Here, take it. Set up the alerter for you. Now, when those creatures start crawling, your 'space-phone' will yell along with ours."

  "Okay," Arkgrim tossed the phone back into his bag. "Although, to be honest, candies worry me a lot more right now than some tigers in another district."

  I looked at him and smiled involuntarily. A math genius, an orphan with amnesia, and the owner of future technology, who values free chocolate more than anything else in the world. Things definitely won't be boring with this guy.