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Mrs. Kaiser unlocked the door to the third floor 'apartment' (really a well-renovated attic) and led her new boarder inside. Jeremy set down his bag with a sigh and looked around the space that would be his home for the next year. There was a low ceiling and wooden floors that almost certainly creeked. On one side, he could see the kitchen area: it was about the size of a postage-stamp, but it included a gleaming-clean kitchen sink and a sturdy wooden table along with the promised stove-top, microwave, and mini-fridge. The 'bedroom' area was mostly out of sight- hidden by an oriental-style painted screen- but Jeremy could already tell that it was much smaller than he'd imagined.
"You know," he said as he sat down at the table, "If I didn't know how lucky I was to even find a place for rent this close to the campus, I'd probably be having second thoughts about signing the lease right now."
"Ha! You wouldn't find a better place than this, that's for sure, dearie." said Mrs. Kaiser as she retrieved the necessary paperwork from her bag. "Now, you've already given me your damage deposit. For the utilities, you pay for what you use, so I don't recommend using more than you need. Rent and insurance money are a flat monthly rate, very reasonable you know, and if you'll just look this over and sign both copies, we will have come to an agreement." Jeremy looked over the paperwork. Everything seemed to be in order, except…
"The insurance money is separate from the damage deposit, right?" The old lady nodded. "This doesn't specify the insurance provider, or the type of insurance. What exactly am I paying for, here?"
"It's just a standard safety insurance fee," she said, waving a hand dismissively. "It's part of the package. My boarders pay me, I pay the insurance provider, and we all rest easier for it." She nodded once, as if that was all that needed to be sad on the matter.
"Listen, Mrs. Kaiser, I wasn't born yesterday," Jeremy said,looking her in the eye. "Right now I only have a minimum wage job and the occasional good grace of my family to live on. I have student loans to pay off. I need to buy food, I need to buy some over-priced school books, and I need to pay rent. What I don't need is some arbitrary extra 'insurance fees' driving up the cost of living. So if this is a scam…" he trailed off at the look the landlady was giving him.
"It's insurance money," she said, enunciating slowly and carefully. "I mentioned right up front, in my add even, that this is a safe neighborhood." She paused, noting his expression, and softened slightly. "You're not from around here, are you, dearie?"
"Wha-? I'm from Lewiston, actually. Still part of Michigan, just not nearly as close to the lakes as Metro City. What's that got to do with anything?"
"People in Metro City generally understand about making insurance payments," she said leaning back. "There's a sort of understanding about it, at least in this part of town. You've heard of Megamind, I assume?"
"Who hasn't? Alien supervillain out to kill Metro Man and take over the world. He's supposed to be a genius, but he's most famous for having the lowest success rate on record-"
"That all depends on how you measure success, isn't it? Metro Man is still alive, that's true, but Megamind might win against him sooner or later just through sheer stubbornness!" She chuckled, shaking her head. "But that's not what you want to hear about, is it, dearie? You want to know about that extra fee with your rent. Well, to put it real blunt and straight-forward... Megamind runs a protection racket in this part of town. As a property owner, I owe him protection money every month on the dot, and he doesn't like late payments. What that means for my boarders, is a small monthly insurance fee, to be paid with the rent." Jeremy stared at her, then glanced nervously around the clean, spartan space that he had been planning on renting for the next six months at least. The space that was apparently under the 'protection' of a notorious supervillain.
"Isn't that- I mean- You said this was a safe neighborhood!" he exclaimed, feeling slightly betrayed. "You said this was a safe part of town, but you're saying we have to pay tribute to a supervillain?! That's- That's crazy, that's illegal, you should do something about it! Call the police, or, or Metro Man! Metro Man would be able to sort it out, right?" Mrs. Kaiser stood up and glared at him.
"You are not going to talk the the cops about this if you want to stay under my roof, young man. Or Metro Man either! Do you think that showboat actually cares what happens to people in this part of town?" She asked bitterly. "This neighborhood is safe because we pay protection money to Megamind. You ever heard of Psycho Delic?"
"The drug-lord?" he asked, thrown by the sudden shift in topic. "Yeah, I've heard of him. He has his base of operations here in Metro City, right? And he's supposed to be some kind of super..."
"That's right dearie. Psycho Delic came to this city about five, six years ago and took over the drug trade almost as soon as he arrived. He's got this sort of smoke power, see, with just a wave of his fingers he can get you addicted. Stimulants, depressants, roofies, hallucinogens- you name it, he's got his own monopolized brand of it ready. The cops couldn't touch him. Metro Man, he made some very nice speeches about addiction and saying 'no' to drugs, and he arrested a few dealers and busted a meth lab." She clenched her fists. "That's practically nothing!"
"I assume that Megamind took more… definitive action, then," Jeremy said. "He probably wasn't happy about this guy moving in on his territory." Mrs. Kaiser smiled a hard, satisfied smile that was rather disturbing to see on her elderly, usually sweet-looking face.
"He hunted down Psycho Delic's lieutenants and took them out. Four of them were turned into little blue cubes and mailed to the police station in a box lined with enough photo evidence to see them locked up for a long, long time. Rumor has it that the fifth one was fed to the alligators."
"Wait, Megamind turned these guys into cubes," Jeremy said, eyes wide, "And having evidence against them is still an issue?!"
Mrs. Kaiser explained about the de-gun, and how Megamind mostly used the non-lethal settings, as far as she knew. Jeremy asked, and his landlady talked, and he eventually came to something like an understanding. A small insurance fee really wasn't unreasonable, all things considered. And in this part of town, there were children playing in the streets without fear of getting shot. In this part of town, you didn't have to worry about shady drug dealers or random hate crimes. This was a safe neighborhood.
Jeremy Cook signed the lease and paid the first month's rent, plus the insurance fee, upfront. Outside, a cluster of brainbots patrol the darkening city streets, while children draw chalk sketches on the cracked sidewalk.
In this part of town, there is an… understanding about things.
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