Before I head towards the Academic Sector some preparations are in order; this is a big ship, simply walking there would take over a week, and let us not forget that I’m traveling via ventilation ducts. This was going to be a long journey; it will take a month traveling through the vents – that’s ignoring rests and various other complications that might pop up. I should stock up on at least a month and a half’s worth of supplies before I head out.

At first I thought about using the maintenance shafts to get there since they have less security barriers and I’ve pillaged most of the codes to get through them, but after consulting my mental map I understood why the maintenance shafts had less security measures; it was an isolated system. A large and complex maze system, yes, but compared to the entire ship it takes up a miniscule space. The ventilation system has more security measures in place since it is connected throughout the entire ship, if something disappears inside maintenance it’s still fairly contained but if it disappears inside the vents it can reappear literally anywhere.

I’ve been utilizing an obsolete access to both in a boiler room to switch between the two systems so I never noticed it before, but the two are entirely different systems. At no point do the maintenance shafts have direct access to any ventilation ducts, the maintenance shafts simply have their own air circulation system.

I typically prefer to use the ventilation systems for infiltration despite the higher security since you can see who is on the other side before you enter, and I’ve learned most of the codes in the area so I don’t set off any alarms. The maintenance shafts are less secure and thus easier to relax in though.

Today I plan on using the vents to sneak in to food processing, I plan to sneak out a few ration bars every day to prepare for the journey, and find a spare water canteen or two so I have less stops to refill on water. I currently have eight ration bars stocked up, I can live off one a day, if I can take six bars a day I should be set after I finish my current stock.

When I entered the boiler room to access the vents on the seventh day on the way to the food processing plant I saw someone in the boiler room. They didn’t see me so I snuck closer to check if they had anything useful. They had their lunch with them and a canteen filled with warm, aromatic tea. The tea could be emptied and the canteen used as a water canteen so I wanted it, but unfortunately his lunch pack was on the other side of him, right under his nose no less. My chances of grabbing the container undetected were virtually nonexistent, especially given that it contained some prepared tea rather than simple water.

I looked around to see what I could do, if I couldn’t find anything I would just give up, I couldn’t kill him either since it would give my existence away.

No, wait… I could kill him so long as it seems like an accident.

I glanced around again thinking of an ideal way to kill him. He seemed to be performing maintenance on the boiler. There were various pipes scattered around the ground, those could be used. I currently lack the physical strength to swing the heaviest ones around, but a slightly smaller one will do the trick.

I snuck a little closer and slowly picked up a pipe that was a little heavier than I would have liked and raised it above my head as I came closer. I swung downwards with all my might and hit him over the back of the head. He collapsed forwards, hit a pipe and bounced back towards me – collapsing onto me, I dropped the pipe and tried to catch him. I then lowered him to the ground and positioned him naturally. There was no blood, I stared at him waiting for a breath, there was none, it was a quick and simple death. I lifted his head and rolled a pipe underneath to make it seem like an accident.

Now that he was dealt with, I could claim my prize; the canteen. I stood up and stepped over his body towards my prize. As I was bending down to pick it up I heard the door open. I quickly grabbed it and bolted towards the vents. It was time to get going. They would eventually figure out the truth, I didn’t have much time. The room was a bit of a maze, so I didn’t have to worry about being caught myself but sticking around would still be a bad idea.

As I hurriedly crawled away I heard a high-pitched scream reverberating through the ducts. I never looked back, even though killing people is supposed to be a bad thing humans didn’t actually seem to be all that averse to it, not with all the murder that happens at the hands of other humans for wars started over petty things. Thousands of years later and humans remain the number one cause of human deaths in the galaxy.

I encounter a closed shutter and punch in the override codes, it immediately opens for me. After passing through the shutter I turn around and close it again. I kept moving and didn’t stop to look back, I was nearing the edge of known territory, I would need to obtain more codes before I could safely travel further. It was a good time to rest so I came to a stop and investigated my mental map of the maze with Dawn.

Dawn, we’ll need the codes for the upcoming area before we pass through, any suggestions?

< (Duh, of course I do! We’ll either need to find maintenance workers assigned to this area to get the codes off their dead bodies!... Or we could just sneak into the nearest Maintenance HUB and steal them from there, that would be much easier I suppose…) > (Dawn)

Where’s the nearest HUB you mentioned?

< (Awww, you’re no fun!... Fiiine, I’ll guide you there, but I don’t know the codes to the actual access vent, so we’ll have to steal those from somewhere befo-) > (Dawn)

We can sit in the vent while we pillage knowledge from an off-duty worker or something.

< (Fiiiiiiiine, we’ll do it your way, party-pooper.) > (Dawn)

Great, start guiding me there.

After another half-an-hour of crawling through the complicated maze to Dawn’s directions we arrived in front of the access vent to the Maintenance HUB. There was nobody inside so we had no choice but to wait for another hour or so until someone finally showed up. Dawn got straight to work on sifting through his mind for the appropriate access codes. It took another hour to get what we wanted from the man napping on the bench.

Once again I had to wait for the room to clear out before I could move, since there was nothing better to do I just kept scanning the contents of the man’s mind. He seemed to be a fairly high-ranked individual, it turns out he even had the codes to access the primary mainframe.

Eventually the man woke up and left the room, I used the codes to remove the grate and slipped into the vacant room. It was small and there was a layer of dust on everything, I was probably lucky anyone even showed up in here, chances are that nobody will come and disturb me either.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

After a moment, I found a computer interface and sat down in front of it. I logged in using the profile of the man from earlier. It took me a few minutes, but I eventually found maps of the ventilation system for the entire ship, along with several master codes. With this I no longer have restrictions on where I go in regards to the vents. Dawn will store all the information for me so I won’t have to worry about forgetting it.

I stood up and stepped away from the computer, back towards the vent I came in from. I crawled into the vent and sealed it up behind me. I continued crawling towards the academic sector with Dawn giving me directions. Thanks to having all the access codes, I encountered very little trouble on the journey and it was rather uneventful and boring.

After almost a month, I was running out of supplies, but had successfully reached the edge of the academic sector. There were two levels with the same layout, the higher level was more spacious and grand – presumably for the richer people. Various schools of different levels which formed a circle around a pseudo town, in the middle of the pseudo town there were two large apartment blocks – presumably the dorms. In the last month, I’ve grown, but not much, I about two years older than before in appearance, so I should look for clothes my size. The best places will either be in the dorms, or one of the junior schools.

I opted to start by observing the students, this would help me figure out which school is which and where I should go. I plan to invest an entire day on this, I’ve come so far and it would be horrible to get caught now.

I began my observation of the school district by choosing a school at random, they seemed to be in the middle of class when I arrived. This seemed to be an engineering class as they were talking about the interaction between supporting motors, judging from the layout of the class it is probably at university level. One teacher stood in the front and explained terms I could only vaguely understand thanks to the mechanic’s knowledge from before, the students sat around the teacher in an amphitheater-like structure. This was obviously not the building I was looking for.

I moved on to another building and found a primary school filled with kids, from tiny toddlers learning to count to young kids who could barely do multiplication. The oldest kids were about eight, not quite, if I hadn’t grown it may have worked. I had no choice but to move on to the next building.

The next building had what I was looking for, it was a middle school. I started exploring the school but the kids had already left. There seemed to be security guards roaming the school so I would have to be sneaky if I left the vents.

Eventually I left the vents and dropped down into the school building, making sure to keep a mental map as I went. I kept my steps as light as possible to avoid alerting the patrols of my presence. It was surprisingly easy, so long as I avoided ending up in front of them they wouldn’t notice me. I explored the school for a while and eventually found two locker rooms side-by-side. It took a moment to figure out which side was for who before I entered the girl’s side. This was the most likely place to hold what I needed.

I quietly approached and checked the contents of each locker, most were empty but a few held sportswear. Eventually I found a torn uniform in the bin, humanity is as ugly as ever. The uniform consisted of a white buttoned shirt, a red tie, a smart grey vest with buttons and a low hem, a light brown overcoat, a dark blue skirt with light blue plaids, brown stockings, and normal black shoes – or in this case ‘shoe’.

I donned the torn uniform despite the tears, finding only one shoe was also unfortunate. Even a tattered uniform would be less conspicuous than what I was wearing before. I stashed my original gear behind the lockers temporarily. It was time to complete my disguise, I walked over to the basin and pulled out the coal from before. I began to stain my hair black with it and wash the evidence away in the sink.

Suddenly I heard footsteps coming down the hallway, this was going to end badly. I had already started panicking when suddenly Dawn intervened.

< (Calm down, I’ve got a plan! Quickly crouch in the corner and start crying!) > (Dawn)

I don’t know what Dawn is trying to pull, but I’ll follow her plan for now.

I rushed over and crouched in the corner, I started to make tears flow and made soft sobbing noises. This eventually attracted the attention of the guard, things were looking bad. The guard threw the door open and started reprimanding me.

“Hey! You’re not supposed to be- ah…” (Guard)

He froze as his flashlight found me, I wanted to make a break for it but Dawn told me to keep the act up.

The guard came a little closer and crouched in front of me, I was still crying and pretending not to have notice him.

“Uh, hey… Are you okay?” The guard asks sincerely with concern. I understand what Dawn was aiming for now.

< (Okay, now just repeat after me while keeping the act up, don’t ask questions. “Home”) > (Dawn)

” … Home…” (Tiama)

“What was that?” (Guard)

< (“I want… home”) > (Dawn)

“I want… home” (Tiama)

“Home? Shall I take you back to the dorms?”

< (“No… just, home”) > (Dawn)

“No… just, home…” (Tiama)

“… Got it. Here, take my hand, I’ll take you to the station.” (Guard)

< (“… Thank… you”) > (Dawn)

“… Thank… you.” (Tiama)

“It’s ok, which district do you live in?” (Guard)

This is not a question that has an answer. DAWN!?

< (Ummm… “three”?) > (Dawn)

“… Three?” (Tiama)

“… Oh, I see… It makes sense now… I’ll send you to the district, but I can’t follow you all the way”

Somehow ‘three’ was good enough.

Dawn, what now?

< (Just say “its ok”!) > (Dawn)

“… Its ok” (Tiama)

“Thanks.” (Guard)

The guard gave me a pitying look as he guided me by the hand. I just kept the tears flowing and continued sniffling occasionally. We came across another guard on the way, the one leading me whispered the details to the other one and was allowed past without further questions. Eventually we reached the exit to the school. This outcome was good, he seemed to be taking me back to one of the residential districts; that was my original goal, now I don’t have to worry about the security checkpoint.

After leaving the school we turned left and walked a for almost an hour without turning down any of the side roads, we eventually reached a security checkpoint where the sentry was half asleep in his chair. He drowsily stood up as we approached and shot us questioning glances as we neared him, he snapped out of his drowsiness as we became clearer. After we got close to the sentry, the guard who was guiding me stopped and crouched down to my eye level. While staring straight into my eyes he put a hand on my head and said “Just wait here for a second, I’ll be back in a moment. Be brave, you’ll be home soon.”

He walked over to the other guard and they started whispering to each other while shooting me the occasional glance, I wiped my tears away with my head hung for effect. It seemed that they had finished consulting with each other and one of them approached me with an accepting atmosphere, he bent down to meet my eyes and started speaking to me.

“I can take you back to your district, but I can’t go with you, is that ok?” (Sentry)

< (Just nod) > (Dawn)

I nodded and wiped my face again.

“Here, follow me” (Sentry)

I was guided into a vehicle of some sorts, I curled my knees up to my chest and hugged my legs for effect. I just kept quiet the whole trip with my head buried between my knees. Eventually I felt him nudge me on the shoulder, “We’re here” he said.

I raised my falsely tearstained face and looked at him.

“Thanks…” I said quietly.

The sentry circled the vehicle to my side and helped me step out, he then said his good byes and went back to the driver’s seat and left. I finally lifted my head to find out where I was after he started driving away.

Filth, that was all I could see. This was obviously the slums. I suddenly understood why neither of the guards wanted to guide me all the way home. This place was the worst possible place a little girl could have landed up in; with public order extending only a few meters from the public transport stations, a hellhole that is supposedly filled with vermin and minimal military presence.

Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise? There are practically no military forces around to catch me, I can do whatever I want and don’t have to worry about being found.