The first place I went looking for Jenna was in her workshop, which, incidentally, also served as her sleeping quarters. With the ship handling itself most of the time, I usually found her in there.

Now, however, as I knocked on the door, there came no answer. At least not from inside the room.

Instead, her voice carried down the corridor leading up to a main area which was connected with the ship’s control room.

Right…

We’d be entering civilized space soon. The ship needed its pilot. Making my way over, I found that Jenna had set up shop on the tables there instead, tinkering with her gear.

Whatever eagerness I’d felt just then wasn’t long lived beneath the searching gaze the woman greeted me with, however. Her eyes swept me from head to toe, only to narrow as she saw those few band-aids I’d managed to slap across my hands.

“I swear, you’ll end up cutting off a finger before you learn to stop playing around with that knife,” she scolded, but as I just gave my usual shrug – arguing about it would’ve been pointless — she let out a heaving sigh. “Have you at least stopped running those horrible torture programs on your UI?”

“It’s for my training…” I vaguely began, only for her to click her tongue in displeasure.

“May the light of the Triumvirate know that I’m glad I only have daughters,” she said. “Dealing with you boys is like having a second and third husband around. Light, spare me.”

She shuddered, and seeing the opportunity, I jumped at the chance to change the subject. “So, have you made any progress?” I asked. “Mikayes seemed to think that you might have.”

Although Jenna didn’t seem quite finished with her motherly lectures, now, she couldn’t help but smile. “I have,” she eagerly said. “The upgrades should now fit snuggly into your current UI, more or less reworking it from the ground up without replacing it.”

That had ended up being a large point of contention over these past months. Jenna still couldn’t understand why I’d want to keep even a single part of the ugly toy currently strapped to my arm, nor had I been able to explain it.

Not fully, at least.

Perhaps I was overly cautious, but I didn’t want to risk losing even a single one of the System features I currently possessed. Most likely, they were inherent to me, but I didn’t want to chance it.

Either way, it’d left Jenna with a lot of extra work and hoops to jump through, but now, as she slid the parts towards me, she seemed no less satisfied because of it.

“And you are still sure that you don’t want a fully mental interface?” she asked. “Even if brain grafts are off the table, we could go for an implant into the eye? It would make the entire experience more user friendly.”

As usual, I shook my head.

“I’m fine with it this way,” I said.

Even if my plan was to prevent it, if the System ever went down, those kind of things would only become a liability. It might turn me blind or, worse still, if I were unable to shut them down when needed, be used to track me down by a compromised System.

“The kid is worried you’ll start replacing his every limb with metal if he’s not careful,” Mikayes chimed in, having come over to leisurely slip into one of the two pilot’s chairs. “And she really would, kid, if you let her. She’s obsessed with those things.”

“I would not,” Jenna objected with a huff. “Yamien here is adorable enough as it is, without any extra metal. Though—” she leaned over to slip a pair of glasses onto my nose — the same pair Celian had given me, just with a couple of extra features, “—some nice tech does make him look strappingly handsome.

Stolen story; please report.

“Do you have the software to hook them up?” she finished, having given me a pleased nod.

“I’ve had it ready for a week,” I said, readily handing her the data chip. It had been finished for over a week, even if I’d been polishing it until deep into the night.

Some of Jenna’s usual hesitation marked her movements as she took the chip from me – a hesitation that would only deepen as she hooked it up to her computers to look over the code within.

Although she tended to stubbornly insist on treating me like the child I looked like, no matter what I told her, these were the few moments when she couldn’t.

Within that chip lay centuries of experience, built on the backs of great teachers, fantastic peers, and the amalgamation of a thousand other works I’d scavenged over the years.

Now, Jenna couldn’t help but solemnly ask, “You wouldn’t let me copy this code, would you?”

“If you want to.” Í shrugged, only to earn myself a gaze as if I’d just told her that deep space was made of chocolate.

“You really mean that, don’t you?” she asked. “This would be worth a fortune at whatever market you chose to sell it at. You know that, right?”

“Only if I had the right connections or a big name to back me up,” I corrected her. I’d already thought that angle through extensively. “And that’s not taking into account my current looks, or the fact that the large corporations don’t take kindly to someone accidentally infringing upon their domains. As of now, beyond my own use, these codes are mostly useless to me.”

Truth be told, a lot of the things I’d made habit of using over the years were scraped from said corporations dead servers in the distant future. Even with the modifications and improvements I’d made to them, it would still be awkward if anyone made the connection.

A quick buck wasn’t worth the risk of entering the hit-list of some of the galaxy’s most influential people. Not yet, at east.

“Fair enough,” Jenna said, scratching her neck as she kept looking over the code. “Well…taking this for free would make me even worse of an adult than I already am. You’ve done more than enough for me already, and taking this would—”

“Hold on now, let’s not be hasty!” Mikayes cut in. Ever since ‘fortune’ had been mentioned, he’d become stiff as a plank in his chair. His hands were no longer shoveling crunchy snacks into his mouth, and now, his feet slipped down from the control panel.

It was with a wide smile that he approached us.

“I thought I heard…”

Jenna flicked off the screen holding the code with a cold expression. “Mikayes,” she scolded, “both of us are too much of adults to take advantage of a child like that.”

“Now, now, I’m not taking advantage of anyone here, I’m just opening up the conversation,” he said, arms wide as if to embrace us both. He came to a dead halt as Jenna bared her sharp teeth at him, though, his eager eyes swiftly turned my way. “Isn’t that right, kid?”

“I thought this conversation had been open from the start?” I frowned, having just slid over my wrist towards Jenna so that she could begin implementing the upgrades. His use of ‘kid’ had become even more frequent as I began to outgrow him, and even now, he couldn’t help himself. “You paid for 225 credits — along with some scraps — worth of riches. You’ll get the appropriate return on your investment, don’t you worry.”

“Let’s not be like that,” Mikayes said with a long face. “I didn’t know…”

Jenna just laughed. “That’s what you get, you money rubbing miser! This code alone is worth more than the entirety of this ship, and you’re getting none of it.”

It was with great distress Mikayes watched Jenna pull out a plastic card from her pocket. “Look here, Mikey, this is how it’s done,” she continued, clearing her throat as she held it out towards me with her most overly-acted tone, “Here, Mister Yamien, I’ve charged this card with some pocket money for you to use as we land. Just because I so adore you so much.”

“How very kind, Miss Jenna,” I quickly followed. “Were the programs I helped you implement satisfactory, or do you need some assistance?”

“Pricks.” Mikayes sulked, returning to his chair. “The lights just came on, by the way. Shouldn’t you see to that, Jenna?”

With a grin, the woman leaned over to ruffle my hair. “I’ve charged it with fifty credits, enough to not matter if you should lose it,” she quietly whispered. “Just let me know if you need more. The software you’ve given me over these past months really is invaluable.”

I gave her a smile as she stood up.

It was actually me who’d asked her for the card last week. She could’ve wired the credits directly to my UI, but this was less traceable. With this, I’d just be a ghost that popped up one time, bought a few things, and disappeared – quite popular out here on the rim.

I was still considered a dead child of a tragic incident, and the Stratos Apolytos did not take kindly to runaway conscripts.

“You okay with the rest on your own?” she asked. We’d just entered civilized space. The ship needed its pilot.

“No worries,” I said.

Implementing my own software I could manage.