Chapter 50 Rules of High Society

Ted was back, his calf, as he said, back in top shape from overdoing it with the sports tournaments. Luke was surfing the net while Sarge was telling anecdotes from the past. Luke really wondered if the old days were as great as the old guys said. 

"Sarge, someone's standing over there looking at us," came from Eddie, who was looking out the window. 

Sarge went to the window.

Judging by the look on his face, he didn't like it at all.

"Sarge?" came from Eddie. 

"Oh, nothing," came from Sarge. 

"Yeah, right, they looked like they were shitting their pants. "

Sarge seemed to be thinking, but continued with the lesson. They discussed the rules of conduct in high society. Luke groaned inwardly at the subject. Especially since Sarge was writing so much on the blackboard. 

The classroom door opened a crack and everyone looked, even Sarge. But no one came in. Then, for the first time, Luke saw Sarge startle and jump up like a rabbit, or so it seemed to him. Uther, dressed as if he had been running, stood next to Sarge and looked at the blackboard. The class was also very confused. 

Sarge seemed to calm down, Uther looked from the blackboard to him. 

"Are you teaching them this?" 

"It's in the syllabus..."

Uther looked back at the blackboard.

 Sarge was about to say something.

" Who the hell are they?" came from Zikane, Luke thought, a highly styled brunette. 

Uther took a piece of chalk, went to the blackboard and started to cross things out.

"Man, man, George, this is all out of date."

Sarge seemed to have an idea.

" Then tell my students the rules of high society. " 

Uther looked at him, then at the class and grinned. He put the chalk on the table and turned to the class. 

"The lower you are in the hierarchy, the more you have to kiss the ass of those higher up." 

Luke looked at his classmates, some of whom looked at Uther uncomprehendingly, others with a 'what the hell' expression on their faces. Uther sat down on the edge of the table and reached into the pocket of his gym shorts. 

"What kind of shitty explanation is that?" came from Ted.

Uther looked at him unimpressed. 

"It's about market value, how much you're worth on the market. Let's take you." 

Uther pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, took out a fag and tapped it against the pack.

"Parent upscale middling cattle company, before the outbreak it would have been higher. But now the market is down. But that never stopped your father. Others say end of career. " 

He lights a cigarette. 

"Even when there's an outbreak, high society acts as if nothing has happened, because..."

He took a drag on the cigarette.

" They live in their own little bubble, overpriced real estate with armed security, e-waste, etc. etc. You're an athlete by the looks of it. So you have 2 paths, that of the athlete. The better you are, the faster you move up, but if you make a mistake."

He grinned and blew out the smoke. 

"All the way down or you go to your father. Where you can stand knee-deep in cow shit while you work your way up. Stable standing in high society in return. " 

Ted grits his teeth and clenches his fists. 

"The super rich buy their way out of mistakes. Have henchmen to clean up the mess for them. "

"Yeah?" came aggressively from Ted. "How big do I have to be to beat you? " 

Uther pulled on his butt. 

" Beat me how? "

"Somehow! "

Uther grinned. 

"Good, then this is your first step," he held up Ted's wallet and cell phone. 

Ted stared at him in disbelief and fumbled hastily. 

" And before you jump up, a little mental game for you and everyone. "

Ted shook with aggression. 

"How?" Ted jumped up and sprinted towards Uther, taking a swing at him. Luke had a feeling Uther wouldn't even move, he moved his hand casually and Ted went down holding his cheek. 

Uther looked at him, exhaled a cloud, opened the wallet and looked at the ID.

"Theodor," Uther tossed the wallet to Ted.

" So George can stick to his curriculum. Behavior like that can cost you everything in high society. " He pointed at Ted. 

" You have to be careful who you're dealing with. "

Leo raised his hand. 

" Boah Leo, you're in grade school?" came from Eddie.

Uther looked at Leo.

" Ah yes, the one with the hand up. "

Leo stood up.

"If everything on the board is wrong, how is our old school supposed to integrate us into society?" 

Uther took a drag on his cigarette.

"You must have had chaperoning nights where you were taken to little galas."

Leo nodded. 

"Well, you had to be carefully introduced to high society. Your school called them gala evenings. Noble, stunning looking women who took the boys by the hand, gentlemen who showed the girls around."

They looked at him uncomprehendingly.

Uther sighed. 

"You're all just fuck meat or marriage material for the old farts and hens, what they can give their idiot children. "

" How would they know? "

Uther grinned.

"Simple, the idiots tried it on my godsons and immediately regretted it," he stood up. 

"So I executed them on the spot and the others did nothing and why?"

Sarge rubbed his temples.

Ted looked at him defiantly, he grabbed Ted by the head, lifted him up, which shocked even Ted, and whispered something in his ear. Ted turned white and just nodded. 

Uther let go of him and pressed his cell phone into his hand. 

"So why didn't they do anything?" 

Ted went back to his seat in silence. Luke wondered what he'd been told that Ted was so quiet now. 

"Then I'll tell you." 

Uther took a drag on his cigarette. 

" High society, as lofty as they present themselves, when the first plague was over, they were 0 at the start. "

" Not all free states... " 

" Pff George, please. The ones that still had enough after that defected to me." 

Another grin.

"The rest are still paying me interest."

Leo raised his hand again.

"Uh, but how ... Sarge said..." 

Uther stubbed out the cigarette butt in Sarge's ashtray. 

"I built the infrastructure during the plague, even afterward in the Freestates there, and because everyone wanted to keep their beloved things." 

He grinned diabolically. 

"I supplied them, jewelry, alcohol, food, drugs, that is!" 

He clapped his hands.

"When high society has someone to whom they owe capital, there are voices that say, just because the money is there, what about the status? 

From the government side, I had a passable rank, from a monarch before she died and her heirs tore each other apart, I still had a knighthood and a title."

"And how did you manage that? Our history teacher said you must have done something extraordinary back then." 

Uther tapped his finger. 

"Rebuilt their kingdom and purged it of parasites."

Luke looked at Sarge, who gave Uther a very skeptical look at the last sentence.

"Luke's grandfather had something like that too, though later. I remember," he looked at Sarge. 

"You'll have to do without Liz for a few days."

Sarge blinked. 

"Okay. Why... " 

" She and her sisters are going to visit their godfather."

Eddie leaned over to Luke.

"Dude, you'll have a clean slate, I..." 

Uther looked at Luke.

"He's coming too."

"He'll need an excuse."

Uther unclasped his hands, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Sarge took it and opened it. He let him through and looked at Uther. 

"Is there a reason everyone here has signed this? "

" Sure. Everyone's coming. Okay, Alex, only for a day or two because of appointments, but I'll take everyone. "

Luke got goose bumps.

" Everybody? Like where? I mean, it's an outbreak. " 

Uthger grinned. 

"A new point for you to learn. Upper society always pretends that there is no such thing. There are areas that are barely affected or not affected at all, rather small areas on a world scale. Take my company's catchment area, they're still safe. "

"But where?" Luke asked. "The last time Tes said camp and then ski, you dragged us to the South Pole where it was freezing. "

"It wasn't that cold." 

"I had the flu after that and almost didn't make it back."

Uther grinned. 

"Didn't you say you went skiing? And fell into a lake? " came from Leo. 

Luke looked at Leo.

" I did, then his buddy grabbed me and said: Man, that's no way to ski, a man skis differently, or a man goes swimming in cold water," he imitated a Swede. 

" Only to land with a loud bang in what he thought was a frozen lake. "

" Oh, you can do that well."

He looked at Uther.

" Sure, he had to learn what his wife speaks too, or his mates, what the hell kind of language is that? "

He pointed at Uther.

"Honestly, what kind of hobbies do they have? Why naked wrestling, tug of war, jumping races in the snow? 

" 

Uther grinned. 

"Then explain that to your class, because they haven't guessed who I am."

Luke groaned. Everyone was staring at him.

"Do I have to do that? Can't I just pretend like they know?"

Luke saw punishing looks from Leo and Lina. Ted didn't care, he was still angry and Eddi was thinking. 

Luke hung his head. 

"He's Liz and my mom's godfather." 

"He said that himself, Luke..." came from Leo with a hiss. 

Luke looked at Leo.

Eddie stood up.

"Now I know!" 

Everyone looked at him.

"You're Luke's father!" 

Uther looked at Sarge. 

"He's creative." 

Sarge sighed. 

Luke looked at Eddi, looked at Uther.

"Is Berta still here?" 

Uther looked at the ceiling.

" No, but she has offspring. " 

" What a pity ... " 

" I'll show you before we go." 

He smiled and Leo looked at him questioningly.

" Who is Berta?"

" His de facto pet, his mother used to hate it, except for Liz the others did too. Ever since he'd seen her for the first time when he was 6, he'd wanted to see her once a year, feed her and touch her. "

" Oha..." came from Eddi " Eh why not Liz?" 

" She was allowed to play chaperone, using the time to stuff him with fast food and race around on her motorcycle, much to Luke's chagrin. " 

Sarge sighed.

" That is why she always showed up with the bike and got into more trouble than usual. " 

Uther tapped him on the shoulder.

"George, you put the bike on her. " 

He sighed.

" Unfortunately..." 

" Oh Oh," a blonde hatch, I think her name was Silke, stood up.

"You're the guy from the group that was at the parent-teacher conferences, my mom said you used to be a warmonger." 

Uther put his head to one side and looked at Sarge. 

"The media is calling me a warmonger?" 

"Well, that's the least of it."

Uther grinned.

"Well, she guessed right. I'm the one your parents cursed so much for treating them like slaves and she couldn't do anything about it because..." 

"You're higher up the chain?" came cautiously from Tina.

" True, I only went there anyway because Alex was in my ear and wanted to see what my money was being wasted on. "

"I thought Grandpa was paying..."

" No, I invested in the school when it opened, Luke. "

" Shouldn't Mom have gotten Rabat then? " 

" If it had been up to me, she would have sent you there for nothing. But Alex wanted to do something. So he paid. Which I later paid him back. "

Everyone stared at Luke.

"Come on, kids, would it have been any different? Instead of grandchildren sponsored by the army or a corporation?"

They looked at him. Lina raised her hand.

"I have questions because your wife spied on us when she was here. "

Uther looked at her.

"Yes?" 

"Did she get in trouble?" 

Uther seemed to think.

"Oh, that's what you mean. Well, she's more overprotective than Luke's mother in some ways. She would have loved to keep Luke as her cuddly dwarf forever when he was six. "

Luke felt a cold shiver run down his spine.

"Yeah, I told her she couldn't do that. But at the same time, I thought, if something like that is stored in the system of the boarding school. What else have they recorded about you? The parties? The little adventures with drugs, sex, cheating, gambling? "

Everyone fell silent. 

Uther sat down on the edge of Sarge's table and clasped his hands in front of him.

"Well, I'll tell you from the bottom up. The school spied on you and then sent you to the rich. 

The ones who were money hungry to a rich sack of shit or a chick who drank and fucked all the time. Well, go to the rich people's parties and then pass them around like cheap meat. You end up getting knocked up by somebody."

"How do they know?" 

"Oh, when you're on the road that long, you pick up a few things. Sometimes people line up at my door and puke their guts out about what happened to their kids. The rich hate me because I treat them like everybody else. 

Let's take your last mega party where some of you were there. Nothing happened to you. Because they needed money and one of them wrote to me. Because I'm such a good person. I said yes. Then I sent someone there as a representative and security guard. Who then played the guard dog. "

Lina seemed to think. Luke had avoided it back then and luckily Tes had dragged him to a tournament. 

"But there was nothing..." 

Uther grinned. 

"Right, because they didn't dare. They took me very seriously, as I said, I executed the idiots who tried to use my godsons as party fodder. When they resisted, I destroyed them. Money, real estate, valuables, companies, me, that's the world of the rich.

"Aren't they afraid that one day someone will defeat them?" 

"If that day comes and that person defeats me. Does that person deserve to get everything, children. "

Uther looked at his watch. 

" Ah Sarge, I'm going to take Luke now, enjoy the time off with Liz. Unless you miss her already and can't part with her. "

Sarge looked at him.

"At least then I can do my stuff without her bothering me."

"If you say so, come on Luke." 

Luke got up and grabbed his stuff.

"Have fun, dude!" came from Eddi. 

Luke looked at him doubtfully. They left the building, an SUV was waiting outside, they got in and the car drove off immediately.