CVETKA KRALJ
The following days were annoying. Frustrating. Miserable. With the convenient last place of the social order inconveniently eaten, there was a battle as to whom to navigate into that place. It was not an overt battle of course, because these things never were, it was a hidden one fought by scheming, rumours, pranks, and other forms of trickery that would not descend into open violence. It made life tedious and to her displeasure, she was not winning. So, she trained a lot instead. At least she no longer had to share her room after Rush persuaded her roommate, Cansu, to live with him.
The sirens started again: another monster approached. The giant creatures in black carapace never attacked the buildings, but no one wanted to chance ending up eaten. Cvetka hid under the bed and waited for it to go away.
There was a knock on the window. Repeated. Ongoing. Gnawing on her mind.
Eventually, she looked towards the window. There was a face peering through the window. Cvetka froze. She recognised that face.
"Sarah‽" she shouted.
"Cvetka? Let me in, will you!" The muted response replied.
"What the fuck happened to you‽" Cvetka shouted. Initially, she said this in regard to the scorpion-thing, but looking at the face, there were many reasons: the skin colour was off. The face had a brownish grey hue that real human skin didn't look like. The face looked gaunt, thin, almost corpse-like. Her lips were thin and had the same colour as her skin. Her eyes were glowing as if she was a cat. Yet, the face was that of Sarah.
"Long story. Can you come outside so we can talk?" she asked.
"How do I know that you are not a scorpion or a spider that is wearing Sarah's skin?" Cvetka wanted to hide but appeared brave.
"I am not as awesome as…" Sarah made a series of clicking sounds. "So that is one thing. But apart from that: You are Cvetka Kralj from Earth. Your parents broke up when you were 9. And the court battle in which no side wanted you was not a good time for you. You ended up staying with Grandma, that is, mother's mother until you departed to Tsanh. And you fought that your… temporary nightly leaks would not make it into court records. Unsuccessfully," she sounded surprisingly empathetic. The word Tsanh had a click in it that it shouldn't have. It still felt as if that had just shattered her social life. "But at least it's over and you don't have a tracking device that, among other functions, shocks you if it notices fluid intake in the 4 hours before your bedtime. Ask my father about that if you don't believe me."
Cvetka gulped: "I will. Can you wait at the compound door until I get a response?"
"Sure!" In the next moment, Sarah disappeared.
Cvetka wrote a message to Sarah's father and then waited for a response.
Instead, he called her immediately and before she could even introduce herself, he screamed at her: "What the fuck are you saying! Just tell me where you are and I have my solicitors there in an instant!"
Cvetka was stunned but murmured: "I am on Tsanh!"
"What‽" Darwin, yes that actually was his name and even worse, he chose it himself instead of his birth name Gennadius, screamed.
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"I am on Tsanh and someone just knocked on my window pretending to be Sarah. So, I would appreciate an answer." Her voice trembled.
He responded quietly: "It is."
"Oh, I see," she responded, "In that case, I will open the door for her, thanks! Take care!"
Just as she was about to end the connection, he growled at her: "Apprehend her so she can return to Rush and I will make it worth your while!"
Cvetka murmured: "I will try."
He was insistent: "Don't just try! Do it!" Then he hung up.
Cvetka walked to the door, cracked it open to see quite the spectacle: in a cloud of dust, something vaguely human-shaped paced to and fro, except that it did so at an alarming pace. It was faster than any unintegrated human had any right to be. She opened the door a bit more. The humanoid figure ran to Cvetka and stopped just in front of her. It was Sarah. Or at least a figure akin to her. "Sarah?" she asked.
Sarah smiled, though that seemed predatory now: "It's not really what I go by these days, but yeah! I generally go by…" there was a series of clicking noises.
"I cannot pronounce that!" Cvetja objected.
Sarah looked pensive for a moment, then responded: "I guess you cannot. But yeah, that kinda ties into my requests for you: please remove my tracker! Even if I was okay with being surveilled constantly, which I very much am not, that shocking thing gets really old on a planet with 16 hour days where no drop of water is ever optional."
Cvetka paled: “I cannot do that!”
Sarah looked downwards: “I am kinda in a bad situation, so this would be deeply appreciated.”
Cvetka shook her head: “I am currently confused by the entire situation. You disappear, are seemingly eaten by a giant monster…”
Sarah interrupted: “Don’t call Shivers-In-Sunlight a monster! Shivers is the best person I came across.”
Cvetka stared at her: “Okay, so please start from the beginning: What happened when you came to Tsanh?”
Sarah shuddered when responding: “I got transported to Rush’s compound because that fucker had apparently bribed the right people. So, I shouted for the system to integrate me already. As you can clearly see, it did. It also asked Shivers to please pick me up and keep me safe until the process ended. And since then, I am on Shivers’ quest with Shivers.”
Cvetka looked confused: “But, the planet is not integrated yet?”
Sarah gave her a lopsided smile: “That is something, I wanted to explain a bit later, but… it already is integrated, just not by us.”
TEKI
The keani had a bad day. Not only was he supposed to chase after a teenager, who somehow gained a movement skill that made catching her hard. Not only did she do something to hide in the sand, not only did she deactivate some of the drones sent after her, but also, she was very active. Sometimes, he took a nap and the tracker reported at the other end of the Kha Zha plane afterwards. He was not sure how she did it, but he was aware of various movement skills. He was not certain how she was able to establish these skills before integration. What he knew was that she had not been able to bring technology.
In addition, the work for the integration was just a cluster. The raising of magic levels had so far been a failure. The orbital structures were working, but were counteracted in some way. Magic levels actually were lower than they were when Teki arrived. He tried to see where the magic went, but it seemed to be absorbed into the very soil. Or rather: It seemed to have been absorbed into different places in the soil and in the sea. Places that were guarded by the local wildlife that barely qualified as intelligent life. Weird, many-legged creatures that live in the conditions of the stone age and had not yet learned how to use any metals or how to employ fire or lava. (However, annoyingly enough, the primitives were able to take down Teki’s drones by hurling rocks or vegetation at them even though the drones were supposed to withstand attacks by anything on this tech level and up to 5 tech levels higher. He was not able to collect most of the scrap, but tech support assured him that the drones should have been able to survive cannonballs.) Teki didn’t even see any use of magic from them. They were skillful critters, but that was it.
He checked the position of Sarah’s tracker. Sarah, or whatever creature had the tracker returned to the compound. He cussed and prepared his own vessel. He would need to go there himself.