Terra and Sly spent the rest of the night hopping from one public tap to another, taking care not to create a pattern of travel that was too obvious in case their activities were being tracked. At each of the public booths with one-way displays inside the three glass walls, Terra had slipped in a one credit chip, selected one of the cheap games to play, and tried to change the outputs in whatever ways Sly told her to.
They had started with the ancient card game Solitaire. All she had to do was tell the game to switch the positions of two cards.
Her first attempt had been about as successful as trying to tattoo a client while flailing around in the dark. The tap's screens had each been filled up completely by copies of the two card images she had tried to switch until the data leak she had caused short-circuited the interfacing system. The loud error sounds that had accompanied the flash of light just before she went darting out of that booth had drawn a lot of attention in the middle of the night, so she hadn't tried again until she'd passed another dozen blocks. Sly had lectured her the entire time about how she was supposed to gently push her will onto the tap, not punch through it.
So of course her second attempt had been too soft.
[You still have to want to change it.] Sly instructed when nothing happened.
Very slowly, like trying to find the right pressure for sketching with a new brand of pencil, Terra had increased how much force she was putting into the desire for the cards to switch places. When something had finally happened, the ace of hearts had shown up where the four of clubs had been, but the four had not replaced the ace. Instead, there were simply two aces. She'd moved one ace up to the building piles and intended to add the second, just to see what would happen, when Sly had slapped her cheek with his paw from his perch atop her backpack.
[Do you want to short-circuit another tap?]
Of course she hadn't, but she'd made him walk after that.
It didn't take her long to figure out her mistake. She had been thinking about the changes she wanted to make one at a time, rather than holding them together in her mind as a single change. It seemed like such a simple mistake, but correcting it proved to be much trickier than she'd expected. A human mind wasn't very good at multi-tasking. Terra's mind in particular was like a muscle she had not exercised in years. She could see the image she wanted in her head as a whole, but she couldn't easily make herself combine the two changes necessary to achieve that vision into a single, unified action.
When she had tried to cheat by switching one card, then the other, Sly had not been impressed.
[When you alter the screening results, you're going to have to do it all at once. A full-fledged system might not notice your tampering directly, but it will be alerted if a reading that was supposed to be static is altered.]
"I could just change my name." Terra suggested.
[That won't be enough. You'll need to hide your Capacity and talents too.]
"Even though you and I are the only ones that know them?"
[We aren't. The other bounty hunter that got away registered your talents with my parent system's records when he made his report on the encounter.]
"How do you know that?"
[By communicating with my parent system, of course. This is its planet. Its influence is everywhere, and I am its seed. Your father would have to block my access on an admin level to keep me out.]
So she had tried for hours to make multiple changes together. When she had managed it with two cards, Sly had pressed her to do three. When she had done that, he had her switch to a different kind of game that involved multiple pieces that had different functions. By having direct access to her mind, he had known exactly how she'd eventually managed to switch multiple cards at the same time by grouping them into a single unit in her thoughts. He used the more complex game to make her realize that wouldn't be possible every time.
By dawn, they had wandered into a much wealthier part of town. Terra was hungry and tired, which hadn't been helping her concentration. She'd been stuck trying to alter a game piece's shape and a token's color or the number a die had rolled and the action card that was drawn for hours. She was also certain if she had to click through one more ten-step tutorial to a colorful children's game, she was going to scream.
When they passed the next park, she told Sly: "I'm going to eat my granola bars and crash in a bush. Wake me if someone calls the authorities or something."
[Fine. If you fix your face first.]
"What's wrong with my face?" Terra asked him defensively.
Sly gave her a flat look, then a screen popped up in her vision. An old image of herself, with short hair, freckles hidden under make-up, and no piercings stared back at her.
WANTED UNHARMED: Terran Starmer XI. REWARD: ¢1,000,000.
Even though the picture was old, had a more masculine bone-structure, and other minor differences from Terra's current appearance, there were enough similarities that someone wouldn't miss them if they were looking for her. Especially since now, the bounty listing had an update beneath it.
Last seen with shoulder length hair, multiple ear piercings, shoulder tattoos, black tank top, green cargo pants. May be disguised as a woman.
"Alright, I get it." Terra said, willing the window closed with a snap of her newfound control over such things. She didn't trust him not to keep it open just to rub it in her face. More. "It's a miracle no one has stopped me yet with that update..." She added in a mutter while seeking out the park bathrooms. She kept her face down.
[It has been dark.]
Terra's frustration mounted, but she held her tongue.
In the bathroom, she used the deadbolt to lock off the entire women's side. It wasn't the kind of lock that needed a key and could be opened from the outside without much effort, but the scraping of it would give Terra the warning she needed to stop shifting if someone was going to come in.
First thing after securing the door, she changed into a navy blue sweater to cover her tattoos and black joggers. She pulled out all her piercings, tucking them away with care into a case Sly had made her grab that held her extras. After the studs and bars were out, she used her shifting talent to close the piercing holes.
She looked into the mirror as she made more changes, so that she could assess as she went if they made her look different enough. Her eyes went green, then black, before she settled on rich brown. Her hair was next. She let it grow down to her hips. She tried it curly and ginger first, but even with her freckles, that made her stand out too much. She didn't bother trying out blonde, deciding to go with a simple lank and black look.
[Are you done preening?] Sly asked, his artificial mental voice droning out in what was clearly an impatient whine.
Terra reached down and scratched him behind his ear. "Soon, little boy."
[I'm not really a cat.] Sly protested, despite the fact that he had leaned into her fingers. [Or a child.]
"Uh-huh." Terra said dryly while she pulled her new silky black hair over her shoulder in order to braid it. She let her thick eyebrows thin down into elongated, tapering shapes while her fingers worked.
Last of all, she reluctantly shifted her cute button nose- which she had been born with and adored all the more because her father had hated it- into one that laid closer to her face with a subtle hook.
Satisfied she looked nothing like herself anymore, she twirled around with out stretched arms and asked Sly: "So? What do you think?"
[I think you're going to look suspicious sleeping in a bush.]
"Anyone would." Terra huffed, dropping her arms and putting her scattered clothes and cases back into her bag. The joggers didn't have pockets big enough for all the granola bars and water bottles the cargo pants had held, but she intended to demolish half of them before leaving the bathroom anyways, so she forced the rest down into her over-stuffed bag.
Food and a nap did wonders for Terra's mood. Especially since she'd let Sly talk her into climbing up into a tree, rather than hiding down under a bush. By propping a book up on her legs once she'd wedged herself into the tree branches, she'd been able to appear as if she was up there reading instead of sleeping.
Sly made a very convenient alarm clock. His direct link into her mind meant he had been able to wake her as soon as she'd gone through a REM cycle, so she felt more rested than some mornings when her old styled alarm clock had to tear her from her dreams after a late night of reading.
With a fresh head on her shoulders, the struggle to improve her Hacking skill became a lot more tolerable, even if she was still floundering just as much to make it work.
They had crossed more than half New Port City's length, zig zagging from tap to tap, before Terra finally figured out a way to do what she needed to in a manner that Sly was satisfied with.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
It was a simple trick, in the end. All she had to do was lay out every change she wanted to make in her mind while holding the pressure of her will too light to effect the changes, but active. Maintaining the pressure was the key. Like tracing the lightest of sketches, if she let up, she'd miss a line, but if she pressed down, only the part she was currently touching would be added. Just like she couldn't have drawn a design out in one smooth motion, she couldn't have thought through each change of influence while also applying them simultaneously. However, when making a tattoo, she had been able to put the outline of her designs onto her client's skin in a smooth, quick manner with a stencil. By keeping her intent focused but not forceful while Hacking, it acted like a sheet of transfer paper for her to lay out her intentions on, holding them in a state of limbo. When she was ready, she just increased her will on them all at once.
It had taken until well into the afternoon for her to feel it out, but when she finally did it, Sly had actually been impressed.
[I didn't really think you'd be able to do it until I showed you.] He'd admitted. [It's not a natural thing for a human mind. I expected you to be stubborn about if for a few days while I recharged or get impatient and feed me more street lights.]
His grudging not-praise left Terra feeling inordinately proud. "Well now we don't have to wait. Ready to get off this rock?"
[Not so fast.] Sly had said, catching her pant leg on a claw when she started to turn in the direction of the nearest space port. [First, you need to get faster. You won't have five minutes to adjust the results of a screening. You'll only have the second it takes to run.]
So they had gone on like that, Terra catching rest and food where she could, never staying in one part of the city for long, until she could consistently start a game up and make the changes she desired in it as soon as it loaded. Each time, she got a little faster with the practice, but the biggest help was realizing she could lay out her intentions as far ahead of time to the games loading as she wanted, so long as she could hold her concentration until it did.
Which of course prompted Sly to add distractions while she waited. A lot of those distractions had involved teeth and claws. Each time her templates fell apart at his painful distractions, she was increasingly tempted to dump him down a sewage drain.
Two days had passed by the time Sly was satisfied enough with her level of distraction management to say they were ready to go.
[After one more test.]
"Urgh." Terra groaned. "What now?"
[Now, you fool a screening.]
Terra's first thought was to point out that would be risky, but she stopped the thought before it could reach her tongue. Of course it was risky, that was the whole point. They couldn't afford what would happen if they ran that risk for the first time in a busy space port instead of at a- hopefully secluded- tap.
[No, not a tap.] Sly said, trotting up to a bench. He jumped onto it and turned back. [I don't have that much faith in you. You're going to manipulate my screening.]
"Oh." Terra said, sitting down next to him. "That's a better idea."
A few people walking nearby turned to give her odd looks for seemingly talking to a cat, but they didn't stop. She still looked nothing like her bounty posting. Today she had lightened her skin to make the curly red hair and blue eyes work. She was also very plump, a trait she had chosen in rebellion against her growling stomach. And because she thought it made her cheeks look cute under the freckles and curls.
[Do you remember what you need to change?] Sly asked, cutting off her thoughts about what she looked like before she could get started again.
Terra sighed heavily, switching to speaking to him with her thoughts so that no one else would look closer at them. 'Name, Capacity, no Hacking, and Talents.' She was pretty sure he'd been drilling her on it in her dreams while she napped.
[Good. Now go.]
She was startled by his lack of warning, so fumbled the attempt the first time, but managed it easily on the second go. When she knew to wait for it, she could feel the influence gathering and taking shape just before it entered her mind to analyze it. While it was pulling away with what it had learned was when she enacted her adjustments.
Terra Baker ⛝
Human - 24 - Female - First Order
Stats
Brains: 5
Brawn: 7
Finesse: 8
Heart: 6
Capacity: 6
Trained Skills
✦✦✧ Athletics [ - ]
✦✦✧ Drawing [ - ]
✦✧✧ Disguise [ - ]
✦✧✧ Performance [ - ]
✦✧✧ Persuasion [ - ]
✦✧✧ Streetwise [ - ]
✧✧✧ Cooking [ - ]
✧✧✧ Gaming [ - ]
Skill Gifts
-none-
Talents
Regeneration [Unenhanced]
Sly flopped down onto his side on the bench and stretched out languidly. [Good. We can go soon.]
'Soon? Why not now?' Terra asked, more than ready to be done with her homeworld.
[Because the ship I have in mind for you is leaving in the morning. Wouldn't you like a good night's rest and a real dinner?]
Terra's stomach roared an answer before she could.
[Exactly.]
----------------------------------------
The next morning found Terra feeling like a person again for the first time since she had left Drew's parlor four days earlier. Once she could alter screenings, she had been able to check in to a hotel without fear of discovery. The cheap mattress had given her the best night of sleep she'd had in a very, very long time. She'd never bought a bed for her apartment. Getting her reading chair up the stairs had been difficult enough to convince her she didn't need any other furniture that hadn't already been built into the place. She'd spent her nights sleeping in her reading chair, or on a pile of blankets on the floor.
While the complimentary breakfast bar food hadn't been anything special by comparison, she was still grateful to be heading out onto the New Port City streets for the last time with a full belly.
Entering the space port was a much less exciting affair than Terra had expected it would be. She had never gone into one because of the screenings at the security gates. Travelling off the planet with her parents had always happened in their private ship, which docked and launched from the personal pad at their home. She had always imagined the public space ports would be full of interesting people and aliens, busy sales stands, and tourist gift shops.
In reality it was a lot of waiting in lines and repeating the same thing you had said a few minutes ago to someone new. There were stores and shops, but they were clean, glass-fronted set-ups with rows on rows of identical products rather than the festival like explosion of variety and color she had imagined.
By the time she reached the last point in the check in process, she had nearly zoned out completely. She was half in a daydream, repeating her name and purpose yet again to the security officer in the booth when Sly cut into her thoughts sharply.
[He asked what ship you are boarding.]
'What? Oh. That's a good question. Which ship am I boarding?' Terra asked him quickly in her thoughts while out loud she was apologizing to the official waiting on her to get to the point.
[The Chariot. Under Captain Surith.]
'Does Captain Surith know I'm boarding?'
[Not yet.]
That seemed like trouble to Terra, but for the time being, she gave the information to the man handling travel. He ran her through a second screening, double checked it against the record of the screening she'd done at the front gates, then let her into the line that would take her to the ship pads.
"The Chariot's scheduled for take-off in fifteen minutes at pad 13. You'd best hurry." The man said to her in a bored voice.
"Thanks, I will." Terra assured him as she hurried along. 'Maybe we should have come last night after all. Those lines were awful.'
[Maybe you shouldn't have gone back for a second muffin.]
'Easy for you to say. You don't eat.'
The two of them picked up their pace until they were nearly jogging up to pad 13. A series of machines were running final checks over the outside of The Chariot. They rolled around the much larger space ship like a flock of birds picking the teeth of a predator. Beneath the ship, a platform was lowering down to take in supply crates every minute or so.
A large woman with rich brown skin and bushy black hair cropped short was overseeing the loading process. Each of the woman's biceps were nearly the size of Terra's head. Her torso was wide from hips up to ribs and vast from ribs to shoulders.
Terra swallowed hard while Sly gave her a look of utter disgust.
[Really?]
'Shut up.'
The woman turned to look Terra over from head to toe when she stepped onto the ship's pad. "Who are you?"
"Terra. Terra Baker. And this is Sly." Terra said, gesturing down to where Sly had been keeping pace with her a moment before.
The place she had gestured to was empty. She looked to her other side, then up.
Sly hadn't stopped where she had. Instead, he had picked up his pace in approaching the ship. When Terra spotted him, he was leaping onto the loading platform as it lifted into the ship.
"Sly!" Terra shouted after him, aghast at his methods.
The woman looked down at a watch on her wrist. "You've got 2 minutes to tell me what you want or get your cat off my ship. I suggest you get your cat."
"He's not... Are you Captain Surith?" Terra asked, deciding she didn't have time to waste explaining Sly until she knew if this was the person she needed to talk to.
The woman chuckled as she returned to her work, hoisting up one of the last three crates as if it weighed no more than a pillow. "No, I'm just loading a month of supplies onto someone else's ship for fun."
Terra felt a shy smile creep over her face, despite the fact her familiar had put her into a difficult position. If she didn't convince this woman to let her aboard, she might get separated from him. She had no idea what that might do to her or him. "Can I help?"
"Knock yourself out."
Terra lifted the second to last crate. It weighed much more than a pillow. She was decently strong, but clearly no where near the captain's strength. Which meant the captain had probably had a system bond at one point in her life. Maybe she had been an athlete on another world. B15-Terra only celebrated VR sports, but there were plenty of worlds that enjoyed watching Second Order athletes dominating a field with their physically enhanced bodies.
Sly was still no where to be seen when the platform settled onto the pad again.
"Jenkins! Where's the cat?" Surith shouted up into the open loading bay while she placed her crate onto the platform.
"What cat?" A high tenor voice asked, echoing down.
"No luck with your kitty it seems." Surith said.
"He's not a cat. He's a familiar." Terra said as she laid her crate down on the platform next to the captain's. "He said I should come with you."
"Is that so?" The woman asked with a laugh while she grabbed the last crate. She walked back onto the platform without setting it down, looking Terra over again with more interest than suspicion this time. "Didn't leave a lot of time for an interview."
"Terra Baker. Skilled with art and athletics. No skill gifts. One talent." Terra said rapidly. She held out her hand, then looked down at the crate the captain was still holding and dropped her arm. "Sorry."
Surith smirked at her, then threw her head back. "Bring us up, Jenkins!"