Synthetics don’t seem to have replaced the human workforce to quite the extent I initially thought when I first started looking around. So far on this outing, all the shops I glanced in seemed to have normal human staff, and there were plenty of people doing menial tasks alongside synthetics. Now that I was paying attention, I realized that most of the taxis had human drivers too. It looked like there was probably only one local company that had a fleet of automated taxis from the liveries I had been keeping track of.
The shops along this road gradually faded off as I walked for what seemed like an hour or two to be replaced by a commercial area occupied by various office buildings with full parking lots and surrounded by plush residential neighborhoods. I might not have been using the most efficient search pattern given I had just gone straight down the road in the opposite direction of the park I had stolen a paper from, but I was mindful of needing to get back to my fuel when I wasn’t used to where I was yet. Eventually, I turned around when the lack of foot traffic or other robots around made me a little nervous about being noticed even with how little attention people paid to me thus far.
I made the extended return towards my hiding place not having learned anything useful really, although I had seen some nice-looking buildings at least. I don’t know what the locals thought of them, given they had all been what would be the normal style, but all the colors and geometric shapes of the facades were cool looking. I could only sneak glances with my eyes since I wanted to avoid acting out of place, with every building so new to me it felt like a waste I had to do it this way. I didn’t really have a goal at the moment, besides maybe picking up more supplies, so not being able to stop and take things in was a bit grating.
Just as the shops started to appear again, I discovered that I had passed a library without realizing it on the way out. Although even knowing of it now wasn’t much help, it’s not like I could just walk in and start picking up books. Maybe people send couriers or something to do that, but I feel like it would be pretty obviously out of place for me to do so.
After crossing an intersection, the crowd was light enough that I could see another distinctive feature of this version of Orchardville - little areas of vending machines. I had seen this particular one before, it had a few drink and snack machines, with stuff I would have expected back home as well as fresh food like sandwiches. There was someone at a machine as I approached this time though, the late afternoon traffic has picked up enough to make it more likely. I was startled to overhear the thick slab of a contactless payment wallet when he tapped it against one of the vending machines.
\Offer Card Token - 8NX4 - Johnson H\ The wallet said, which seemed like a remarkably short token for a credit card. It still had that overlaid set of other sounds, but they seemed more… dense, for lack of a better term, than I would have thought for the simple code.
\Confirmed valid\ The vending machine responded after a hefty delay as the bottle dropped out of it.
Before I could think better of it, I turned to duck into the alley beside the cluster of machines. I watched the guy wander off drink in hand from the cover of a piece of the building’s facade, repeating his card’s code in my head while wondering if I dared try what I was considering. I don’t think he looked badly off or something and my curiosity was itching, but it was still fairly busy with foot traffic so I couldn’t try immediately.
Once I couldn’t see anyone go by for a few minutes, I crept over to the vending machine. Glancing over it for a moment to find something cheap, I typed in the item code for a water bottle that was the smallest it seemed to offer. I took a breath hesitating for just a moment, what if my attempt summoned the cops or something?
\Offer Card Token - 8NX4 - Johnson H\ I said attempting to approximate the wallet’s voice, as I did, I realized the overlay of what I was saying was completely different from what the man’s wallet had said, already committed I finished the sentence. The delay was just long enough to make me start to metaphorically sweat bullets while resisting the urge to look around for someone looking at me.
\Confirmed valid\ The vending machine said as a water bottle dropped into the outlet. I stared at it for a moment then grabbed it before dashing into the alley, not even thinking about if someone was watching anymore.
I spent a few frantic moments looking around while moving from building to building, certain I would hear sirens or someone shouting at me at any moment. I spent a few minutes hiding beneath a set of stairs with the dumpsters nearby shielding me from view before realizing there was nothing but the usual sound of cars going by. The vending machine had confirmed it as a valid purchase after all, so why would there be anyone after me.
I stared down at the water bottle in my hand. Fuck I had just stolen someone’s credit card or something. I’m not sure I could still remember it after the panic but yikes.
I immediately attempted to return to my hiding place, having done more than enough sketchy stuff for the day already. it took longer to find my way back than I really felt comfortable with, it turns out I had gotten myself a bit lost in my panicked flight. I considered going out to find some more food but I was worried that I might not be able to find my way back in the night, so I elected to just stay and reread the paper again in the meager light that remained.
----------------------------------------
The rain pattered against the roof just beyond the overhang I was hiding under, the little splashes disturbing the soggy paper floating atop the puddle that had formed around my feet. I hadn’t thought to move my stolen newspaper somewhere to stay dry last night and it had already partially dissolved by the time I had woken up.
I felt filthy without having cleaned my joints for two days and those weren’t exactly spent static sitting around either. Discovering that I had slept under where the water from a broken eavestrough dribbled down the side of the building only heightened my misery. Every time I moved tepid water would either move further into my body or dribble out through gaps in my skin. My clothes looked to be in a pretty sore state too, almost entirely soaked and starting to get blotchy from whatever was in the water on the roof.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
I didn’t really appreciate the hours of staring out into pleating water, I couldn’t nap it way or read something to occupy myself. All I could do was lean against the wall while descending into a depressed fugue of wondering how the others were.
Even excluding my being gone, we had been ambushed, and had it not been for Molly shielding us I expect we would have been dead in moments. As it was, I couldn’t know that they hadn’t been caught in the blast, or if they were able to get away had they not been.
Beyond how they were physically I can’t imagine anyone is doing well mentally, I’m ‘dead’ from a supposedly routine task turned deadly ambush. How do you even react to that? My parents and Kat must be beyond devastated. There haven’t been any deaths that I could remember in our immediate family, but dad could barely get through the death of an uncle a few years ago.
How would they even learn of it? Would Summers go and say something to the equivalent of hey your daughter died because the wackos who tried to kidnap her got pissed off by our meddling or something. Maybe Molly would be the one to do it, she never seemed like one to push jobs like that on others…
.
.
.
Sometime after I had a soggy lunch the heavy rain faded into a drizzle, I decided to head out into it rather than remain in my funk. If nothing else I will be increasingly easy to notice as I get filthy and I need to secure more food. I had a vague idea of what I could try to do tonight for the first part, but I needed to get some resources to enable it first.
I started by trying to stay in the alleys as a little more confident that I could find my way back and I was reluctant to be out in the open myself to anyone given how obviously soaked my clothes were. I eventually gave it up after I had to keep on peeking out onto the streets to try and find what I was looking for, if nothing else my clothes had dried a bit from the heat I put out.
I attempted a few casual acts of thievery as the rain completely halted and people slowly returned. The first opportunity I had was taking a marker from a clipboard while a person was overlooking some robots hauling furniture out of a moving truck. I similarly stole a notepad from a rotating carousel under the front awning of an open-fronted corner store a block later while the proprietor was counting the coins someone was paying them in. I stuffed both items into the waistband of my skirt hidden under my tank top, grateful the cap of the marker had a clip on it to hold it in place.
After a few more minutes of wandering, I had my next target in sight.
A delivery synthetic was making its way down a side street entering and exiting the backs of the businesses that faced out onto the major street one over. I cautiously followed just in range of being able to hear them. I probably could have been closer as they never made the slightest attempt to look around or do anything besides the menial task of delivering bundles of bills or letters, but I was still being paranoid. I was hoping to see if I might be able to steal an access code like with the person’s credit card yesterday, it looked like I was in luck too, as the only thing that changed building to building was the parcel number.
\Access code 2C424yCj8x – parcel 0959414\
After the third use of the same code, I scribbled it down on my notepad along with the length of the parcel number. I guess I have the absolute minimum for tonight. I probably could test out the code now, but I was a little reluctant to attract any attention from a shopkeeper or employee I might encounter from trying to open some random business’s back door.
A few minutes later I nicked someone’s baseball cap that had been hanging on the corner of a bench while they ate. I assumed that there would probably be security cameras around for my attempt tonight and anything that would obscure me a little and hide my distinctive hair would help.
A couple of hours of wandering while trying to figure out places I might try to burgle tonight brought an exciting discovery, a building that the automated taxis were entering and exiting from on the regular. When I realized they all were using the same code upon their return, it immediately put the place on my list of buildings to try and get into. Another code joined the first on my notepad before I made my way back to my food stash. I am pretty sure the state of my clothes was starting to jangle to people as I had noticed at least a couple of glances at me on the way back as the number of people picked up. Which only put greater urgency on trying to get some replacements tonight.
I nicked some more fuel from a different construction site after it quieted down in the evening. After that I waited till somewhere around midnight before I went a few blocks over to where I knew a women’s wear store was from my scouting in the day, pulling my hair up under the cap as I went. I kinda felt stupid without anything else but I hadn’t seen any scarfs to steal or anything like that, and I had been wandering around in the same clothes for a while so it’s not like I was being that stealthy.
I went to the back door of the unit first, hoping maybe it would let me in and I wouldn’t have to do this from the street where the occasional car still went by. This was in an alley rather than a back street so I wasn’t certain it would work, while I hadn’t seen any delivery synthetics down those before I was hoping the buildings were just as over-equipped as elsewhere. I took an unnecessary deep breath to steady myself then tried to imitate the delivery bot from before.
\ Access code 2C424yCj8x – parcel 0696969\
Kinda childish but I needed a number and why not.
\Access Granted\
Holy fuck, the security is bad around here.
I pulled the door open and looked around into the stock room that was immediately past the entrance. At first, I didn’t see or hear anything while glancing around. Then a whir started, and I realized there was a security camera on a gimble off to the right.
\Turning left\ I was startled to hear it declare.
\Can you turn right\ I grumped back.
\Overriding default action - Turning right\ It declared.
What.
You’re kidding.
People, this is why you don’t internet of things your house.
\Hold there\ I asked experimentally when it was facing the wall.
\Holding Position\ it agreed.
OK then, I guess stealing the cap was unneeded then. Surely this says the security here is insanely naïve if I can get away with both stealing the codes I hear around me and can order a security system about, let alone hear it chatter about what it was doing.
Well regardless of my luck, it is time to take what I need. Sorry shop owner, but I have no money and don’t intend to take more than the minimum. Mind you I had chosen this place because I thought it was part a part of a chain as it had a bit too much corporate branding going on for me to quite think it was an independent retailer.
A few tense minutes later I had a local style of a dark grey pleated skirt and a grey sleeveless shirt that appeared to be formed out of triangular pieces of fabric sewn together, I had tried them on quickly then pulled my old stuff on not wanting to get any oil on the new. I grabbed a t-shirt off a discount rack to use as a rag along with a pair of panties and bra then tossed everything in a plastic bag to keep it dry if it rained overnight. I probably could have or should have gotten more stuff, but I was sort of hoping to go unnoticed as a few things disappearing could just be chalked up to shoplifting or stocking errors.
As I made my way out the back door, I paused before closing it. \Resume normal operation\ I asked the camera.
\Returning to default path, turning left\ It agreed, I let the door drop behind me while I shook my head in confusion then made my way back to my hiding place.