Rise to power with my multi million dollars system

What it means to be poor

The chain on Jake’s bicycle skipped again, a sharp, metallic clack that sent a jarring vibration up through his shins and into his hips. He didn't stop to fix it. 

 He couldn't afford the three minutes it would take to flip the bike over and grease the gears with the black sludge he kept in a rag. Instead, he just stood up on the pedals, his leg muscles screaming as he forced the rusted machine to climb the final, grueling incline of the Avalud district.He had been riding for five hours straight. 

 The morning sun had long since passed its peak, replaced by a thick, suffocating humidity that turned the city air into something you didn't breathe so much as swallow. His cheap cotton shirt was no longer a garment; it was a damp, grey skin that clung to his ribs, smelling of road salt and old sweat. Every pore in his body felt like a leaking tap.At twenty years old, Jake should have been at the peak of his life. But as he wiped a smear of forehead grease away with a hand already stained by bike oil, he felt like a piece of industrial scrap. He was a human courier—a biological gear in a machine that didn't care if he stripped his threads.He wasn't an idiot. He knew exactly where he stood in the hierarchy of Avalud. 

 In this city, your worth wasn't measured by your character or how hard you could work; it was measured by the digits in a ledger. To the people in the high-rises, Jake was a ghost. To the people in these middle-class suburbs, he was a nuisance. To himself, he was just tired.He had been playing a losing game since he was three. He had no memories of his parents, only a cold, persistent recurring dream of rain on a windshield and the screech of tearing metal. The car accident that had claimed them had been "unfortunate," according to the state, but for Jake, it was the start of a life sentence. 

  He’d grown up in the St. Jude’s Orphanage, a place where the air always smelled of floor wax and boiled cabbage. It was a place of "domestic duties"—scrubbing floors until his knees bled and hauling laundry bags that weighed more than he did.He had been "lucky," they told him, because a wealthy tycoon had donated enough to keep the orphanage school running. Jake had studied hard, clutching his textbooks like they were lifeboats, but a public education was a wooden sword in a world made of reinforced steel.

  He’d started working part-time at fifteen, scrubbing dishes and sweeping gutters, eventually saving ten thousand dollars over four years of brutal, silent labor.But the world has a way of sniffing out a poor man’s savings. The moment he turned eighteen, the orphanage doors had swung shut behind him. In six months, the "fortune" he’d nearly killed himself to save had vanished. Security deposits, a month of flu where he couldn't work, the inflated cost of a tiny room in the slums, and this cursed, breaking bicycle."Just one more," Jake rasped, his throat feeling like he’d swallowed a handful of dry sand.He turned onto Crow’s Row, a street of houses that had seen better days but still looked down on him. 

 He pulled up to number 142, a squat wooden house with peeling grey paint and a porch that groaned under its own weight. He leaned his bike against a sagging fence, his legs trembling so hard he nearly tripped over his own feet.He grabbed the package from the front basket. It was a small, heavy box wrapped in brown paper, the corners sharp enough to dig into his calloused palms. He walked up the steps, each footfall sounding like a gunshot in the quiet afternoon.Knock. Knock.He waited. The only sound was the distant hum of the city and the frantic buzzing of a fly trapped against the porch screen. His heart thudded against his ribs, a heavy, dull rhythm. 

 He knocked again, harder this time, his frustration leaking out through his knuckles.The door creaked open just a few inches, held by a security chain. An eye peered out, followed by a face that looked like it had been carved out of a sour apple. The man was old, dressed in a stained undershirt that didn't quite cover a protruding belly. He smelled of stale tobacco and the kind of bitterness that only comes from a long life of hating everyone.

 "What?" the man barked, his voice like gravel in a blender.

."Delivery for Miller?" Jake asked, holding the box up. "Marked urgent, sir. I’ve been on the road since seven."

.The man grunted and unhooked the chain. He snatched the box out of Jake’s hand with a surprising strength, not even acknowledging the effort it had taken to get it there. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a wad of crumpled, dirty singles. He didn't hand them to Jake. He flicked his wrist, letting the bills flutter to the porch floor like dead leaves.

 "There. Take your trash and get off my property," the man said, turning to retreat into the shadows of the hallway.Jake stared at the money on the floor. His vision blurred for a second—not from tears, but from pure, white-hot exhaustion. He knelt, his joints popping, and scooped up the bills. Three dollars.

."Wait," Jake called out, his voice cracking. "Sir! The delivery f*e. The depot set the rate at five dollars for this zone. You’re short."

.The man stopped, his hand on the doorknob. He turned back, his lip curling into a sneer. .

"How much?" The man asked 

 "Five dollars," Jake repeated, his heart hammering. He needed that two dollars. Two dollars meant a loaf of bread and a tin of tuna. It meant he wouldn't have to go to bed with a stomach that felt like it was eating itself. 

 "The invoice says five."The man laughed, a dry, hacking sound. He pulled his wallet back out, rummaged through it, and pulled out two more singles. Instead of handing them over, he flicked them directly at Jake’s chest. They hit his damp shirt and fell into a muddy puddle at the edge of the porch steps.

."There," the man said, his eyes gleaming with a petty kind of triumph. "Now take your butt out of here before I find a reason to be unhappy."Jake hastily picked them up, wiping the grey muck off the bills with his thumb. He counted again.

  "Sir... this is still just three dollars. You gave me two singles the first time, and you just threw one. That’s three. You’re still short."The old man’s face turned a deep, dangerous red. 

  "Listen to me, you little brat. I didn't ask for a delivery service. I ordered a part. If the shop wants to send some grease-monkey on a bike to harass me on my own porch, that’s their problem. You should be blaming your boss for sending you on an errand I didn't pay for. Now get lost."

  "It’s a five-hour ride," Jake snapped, his voice finally losing its submissive edge. He stood tall, his fists clenching until his nails drew blood from his grease-stained palms. "I did the work. You’re stealing my time. This is fraud. I’ll go to the police."

 The old man didn't flinch. He stepped forward, looming over the threshold, his breath smelling of sour milk. "The police? You think the Avalud PD cares about two dollars? Go ahead, kid. Try it. But while you’re down there, I’ll be sure to call and report property damage. I’ll tell them you were banging on my door trying to kick it in. I’ve got neighbors who’ll swear they saw you trying to rob me."

 The man’s grin was predatory. He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew that in a world of homeowners and delivery boys, the boy never won."Who are they going to believe?" the man whispered. "A man who’s lived here for forty years, or a kid who looks like he crawled out of a sewer?"

SLAM.

The door hit the frame with a force that made the entire porch vibrate. The lock clicked into place with a definitive, metallic snap.Jake stood in the sudden silence, staring at the wood of the door. He looked at his hands—covered in bike grease, mud, and the smear of dirty money. He looked at the three dollars in his palm. It wasn't just the money. It was the fact that he had done everything right. He had worked. He had survived the orphanage. He had stayed honest. And the world had responded by spitting on him and threatening to throw him in jail for wanting his fair share.

 Something inside him, a tether that had held him to the "rules" for twenty years, finally snapped.

.He didn't scream. He didn't kick the door. He just felt a cold, sharp clarity settle over his mind, a silence that was louder than any shout. The "good kid" from the orphanage—the one who thought hard work was enough—was dead. He had been killed by a two-dollar debt.He walked back to his bike, his legs feeling strangely light. He didn't look like a victim anymore. As he gripped the handlebars, his knuckles turning white through the grime, his eyes weren't filled with exhaustion. They were filled with a dark, calculating fire.He was done playing a game he was designed to lose.Word