**Kimber**

I want to cheer, I’m so close to discovering a powder I can use for bombs and bullets, but Marcella decided to drop a bomb on me instead. She’s moving to Reno with a team for up to a year, and I’m not allowed to go with her.

“I know it’s a crap time for it Kimber, but Medvedev approved my infiltration strategy and if we don’t strike now, he may be petty about it later.” My mentor explains again as she funnels powdered A-Cyanide into capsules. She tried to get me to work on an aerosol version, but I refused to try to make an insanely lethal chemical more weaponized.

“Yeah, it’s suspiciously timed, Marcie. I’m close to intermediate Alchemy, no team has accepted my placement, and you’re getting a long-term placement at least a day’s drive away? I give it three days after you leave before someone tries to put a collar on me and chain me in the yard.”

“Nothing I can do about the Alchemy thing. We made a deal over that. However, you haven’t been put on a team, because Haley is going to put one together after I leave and I want you to accept the offer. It’ll be an Internal Affairs gig, so you’ll get some investigating, questioning, and perhaps some infiltration work in.”

“Empress bless you, I could use a break in the monotony of crafting.”

My mentor scoffs at me, “Just don’t let your explosive dreams distract you on jobs.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll save the deep dive into dork-dom until I start charging my own ammo and I’m big enough to use a fifty cal rifle.”

“Don’t drool into the mixture, you’ll spoil it.” She chuckles at me.

“Bah, a girl’s got to get excited about something, and I really like guns and grenades.” I sigh with a smile, knowing that I could be really happy about my progress if it weren’t for the fact that Marcella has to go.

“What’s this mean for my access and accommodations at large?” I fiddle with my aether dosing apparatus while she gathers her thoughts to answer me.

“Yeah, that’s a concern. I can pay for a room at the Club for you until you get Intermediate with Alchemy, and you’re not a member yet, so it’s hard to say. On the other hand, Warram treats their craft masters really well. You’re not a master yet, but you’re probably the only alchemist within a few hundred miles. Certainly the best funded. Make sure you get what you think you need included in your contract, as they will absolutely try to take advantage of you.”

“But because of my class, I can lean on my contract because the System will enforce it. I like where that’s headed.”

“Just don’t reach so high that Medvedev or one of the other officers decide to be petty for years after. Oh! I just remembered, I should show you the merchant interface for the Exchange.”

I watch her pack up, throw my glass gear in the washer, and rigorously wash her hands, arms, and face. When she finishes packing up the poison powder into my hazards safe, we walk out and shut the vault behind us.

The Club’s lobby has a kiosk that is locked for weapons and hazardous materials, but we shouldn’t need that kind of access for her to show me this.

“We haven’t used the order features since I see you every day, but once you unlock a crafting class you get another tab on the exchange for orders, sales, and exchanges.”

You don’t use the Exchange very often, but you can also use it remotely within a thousand miles of a Settlement Ansible, assuming you’re not completely void of aether.

Oh, so because I have magic, I can interface from anywhere? That’s solid, wait, can I bypass local restriction on the Exchange?

That depends on if the restriction is limited by the kiosk or the Domain that you are in. I doubt it is a common problem as Humans don’t carry enough aether to access the ansible without a kiosk or a personal interface that would piggy back off the nearest Kiosk or ansible.

Alright. I’ll experiment when I get moved back to Warram. Can we arrange a search and sale window side-by-side so we can do comparisons? She chimes affirmative.

“With this order for your fast acting balm and one for energy chews. As we haven’t posted an order like this before, the System doesn’t have a base price, so I’ve listed a price that I would like to pay. Once you make the items and click the ‘complete order’ button, the Exchange takes the order and either stores or delivers the items. For the Club, the items will re-post for sale and will be held in some-sort of extra-dimensional storage until they are bought.”

“Cool. It’s good to know that I can put in orders and not just use what’s listed.”

Since you can access the Exchange remotely, you can also pay for personalized delivery.

“Oh, now that I have to try.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Try what?” Marcella asks.

“Tova, my AI, just told me I get cool perks that I want to try.” I walk over to the break area, look around to make sure that no one else is around and order and select a snack. A cute little sushi boat appears in my hand.

/A fee of 1 Mark has been applied for delivery. You are not currently eligible for Astoria’s delivery discount./

Ah, the Astoria discount applies to Empire controlled economies. Earth is an exclusive zone like a Vasal state. You can apply for citizenship to get those benefits once you reach tier 1.

I’m not even going to pretend that I know what Empire and Vasal zones and economies mean. I forgo the chopsticks and smear the spicy green paste onto my fish nuggets with my fingers. The Astorian fish is tingly with aether too. Marcella is looking at me like I’ve been hiding secrets from her.

“Don’t look at me like that. Tova just alerted me that I can do this. She doesn’t get this kind of knowledge unless I ask or it becomes relevant. Like when my benefactor is about to leave me.” I shrug.

“So is it like a personal relay, or something else?”

“Ugh, from what she explained, it’s much more versatile than that. Speaking of, you should put your Exchange restrictions on the building and grounds instead of just your kiosks. I could probably order a gun right now.”

She pinches my lips and shushes me. “That could be a game changer for any team you’re on. Hells, you can even have secret craft projects! Kiosks purchases can be tracked, but I doubt yours can. Oh. My. God.”

She then drags me back up to our room and then chitters like a small rodent about selling side projects untraceably, and other situations where she wished she had the ability on several jobs she’d been on. “You could totally smuggle stuff with no one the wiser!”

I chuckle at her, “Slow down Marcie. I know I’m a part of a criminal organization, but I don’t need to jump into the crime part that completely. Plus, the delivery fee isn’t cheap.”

“It’s hard! If you were tier 1 I would pull you along with me to do jobs. A sniper that can make custom explosives, and a tier 3 infiltrator? Good night that would be a good time.”

“Holyshit! Tier 3? Empress, I had no idea.”

“Uh, yeah. Medvedev and I busted our asses to get ahead of the curve, which paid off when the War started. We could create safety, so we collected and developed talent as we carved out a place for us. My focus changed dramatically after my sister was killed, and now I’m trying to build a different kind of community since some of the power struggles have stabilized.”

“Speaking of, when do I get to be a part of this community?”

She sighs and looks away from me. “The quick version is that as long as you’re under contract with Warram, you can’t. Once you get out from under the Alchemy contract you’re going to sign, and reach tier 1, we’ll talk to the board of directors about it. The normal rules weren’t followed for the algorithm selectees, so you’re essentially Warram Holding’s child until you’re 16. Because Earth is a lawless Protectorate, Parental Rights differ from zone to zone, and in Warram, we can agree to basic contracts for you. Right now, you’re mine, but you can supersede any agreements I’ve made for you, if you contract separately with Warram. That’s about as much as I can volunteer on the subject.”

“Wow, they’re really going to pull a fast one on me aren’t they?”

She nods, “I certainly would want you beholden to me if I were them. Oh, one last piece, make them agree to components separately if you can. Jumbo contracts are notoriously easy to hide things in.”

“Is it better if I just don’t sign anything?”

She snorts and laughs at me. “No can do. I already agreed that you’d do alchemy for them, but no more than two months at a time, and no more than 60% of your professional time per year. If you don’t decide to include anything else, I have agreed to that for you. If you don’t mind doing more alchemy, use your time as a bargaining chip. Enough of that though, I want to order stuff.” She taps her fingers together excitedly.

In an attempt to get in the right mindset, “Sure, but you pay for the fees too and I get a bag of caramels for the session.”

She stares into my eyes, then flicks my nose, “Deal. Now show me your menu.”

The next hour saw me bored off my ass while Marcella ordered an arsenal and set up a fund that I can use to buy supplies for her personal orders. She put in enough for another ten batches of A-Cyanide. She also made me promise to keep her apprised of my recipe list.

“I get new mod points at eight right?” She nods at me. “I skipped the primer this time, but I’ll have to invest in it next time, I think, especially if the Org. wants me to be the staff alchemist. Until then, I should put Warram on the hook for buying recipes they want me to cook.”

“Yeah, you should, but remember, we used to have someone and some of that info is stuff that you should have picked up with the basic codex or whatever. I’m not sure they were magically inclined themselves, but explaining that Imbuement was far more important to you than a recipe list—and cheaper than charged Aether Crystals—should get you some leeway until level 8. You skip an alchemy option again, you’ll definitely be paying for recipes yourself.”

“That primer better have the secrets to life in it since it costs two points.”

She scoffs at me, “My mods cost three to five points right now. But they’re also proportionally powerful.”

“Do they always have a mix of craft stuff?”

“Nope. I occasionally get Track related things, like a poisoners handbook, or data on medicine and disabling nerve clusters. Tier ups are a strange beast: you almost always get a free mod that gets picked for you and a gift from the system. The free mods are usually desire reinforced things, like your body changes. Tier ups are currently the only know way to get attribute adjustments without magic or tech pumping. The data’s not great on trying to reliably change attributes through tier ups, it’s something Danielle was hoping to see when you had your body changes.”

I smile at that, “She doesn’t realize that the power I had in this longer frame gives me more speed, though slightly less power overall.”

“That and the Talent you have that almost makes you faster than me. That’s a freak of a talent, even if you can only power it a few times a day.”

“The talents pool well with each other, but I do not know why I got berserker talents.”

Maribel gathers me up in a hug and rubs my back. “Don’t think of it like that. You now have ways to control your feelings or use them as fuel. As Danielle and Renfroe said, when it comes to the System, intent matters, and with aether, doubly so. Now that you’re a magic berserker of justice, you should probably be mindful of where you want to go with that.”

“Ugh, too much thinking make Kimber itchy.” I hug her back, thinking I’m in for a long rough patch before things get better.