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  Sunday October 9th

  I spent most of Sunday practicing.

  Not on my bank account. That felt too dangerous, too traceable, too much like the kind of thing that would eventually land me in prison. Instead, I practiced on smaller things. The art prints I'd bought, changing their colors slightly, adjusting the contrast. The plant on my windowsill, which I accidentally turned purple before managing to change it back to green. It wilted in the sun. I tried changing the couch, I could only manage to change the color no matter how hard I tried. I couldn't make it a different shape or a different pattern or any more comfortable. Until I could. Tweaking symbols one at a time on what seemed like my 1,337th attempt the couch seemed to shift. Where there was once structure it now sagged and bulged like the fabric was 50% larger and had been filled with additional stuffing to make up for it. It was absolutely hideous and felt like sitting on the world's biggest marshmallow. I loved it.

  Each manipulation got a little easier. The headaches faded from skull-splitting to merely annoying. The nausea became manageable, then minor, then barely noticeable. My body was adapting, learning to handle whatever I was doing to it. I also was out of pain meds which was just as well because my stomach was in knots from the constant barrage of NSAIDs.

  The faerie romantasy played in the background while I was 'working'. The poor unfortunately plain girl had moved on rather quickly to the dark and dangerous fae whom she had once despised.

  "Aurora looked into his dark eyes. She felt the world drop out beneath her as he scooped her up and they took flight. Allister gruffly whispered into her ear. "Let me show you my kingdom.”

  Aw yeah Allister, that's right. Let's go full on Aladdin here. I can show you the world baby. Let's go. Chuckling I went back to my grey blob of a couch and decided to try a dark velvety green. So dark it was practically black. Smiling I was satisfied with what I'd accomplished already.

  Kate was coming over tomorrow with wine and a plan. I should probably have a plan by then. Something that didn't involve "I can manipulate reality and I've already committed what's probably federal bank fraud."

  Maybe I'd just focus on the Daniel part. That was normal. That was revenge I could explain without sounding insane. Looking around I couldn't really explain much else. I'd probably blame it on a mid-life-crisis. What was that called when you were almost 30? A third life crisis? thirty-teen? Eh, I shrugged and focused on Aurora and Allister's steamy 'carpet-ride'.

  * * *

  Monday October 10th

  Monday started much like Sunday had. I spent the majority of the day trying to push my new abilities and find out everything I could and could not do. As I discovered additional details I updated my notebook. So far I’d added Shape Manipulation and Temperature Manipulation to my list of skills. I’d successfully reheated a cup of coffee a couple of degrees when I’d let it set too long and it had gone cool. In addition to the couch I’d adjusted the size of my wine glasses. Increasing the volume they could hold by a small margin. And increased the size of the pockets in my jeans.

  Kate showed up at 7 PM with two bottles of wine, a laptop, and the determined expression of someone who had spent her entire weekend preparing for war.

  "Sorry I'm late." Kate set the wine bottles down. "Chaos has lost his mind. He sat in the middle of my hallway for an hour today staring at the wall. Not sleeping, not grooming. Just sitting there like he was reading something. I tried to pick him up and he growled at me. He has never growled at me. Not once in four years."

  "Maybe he saw a bug."

  "He saw something." She uncorked the wine with more force than the bottle deserved. "He's been off ever since I came back from your place Thursday. I set my jacket on the chair and he climbed onto it and wouldn't leave it alone. Kept sniffing it, and sniffing it, circling it like it was a crime scene. Then he hissed at it and knocked it onto the floor."

  I took a long sip of wine. Kate had been here Thursday. In this apartment. The apartment where I'd spent most of the week rewriting objects with my brain. Where the walls were a different color than they'd been a few days ago.

  "Maybe he smelled the paint," I offered.

  "There was no paint smell, Sam."

  "There was a little paint smell."

  Kate studied me for a beat. Then she shook her head and topped off both our glasses.

  "Okay," she said, pushing past me into the apartment. "I have ideas. I've been doing research. Did you know that metadata can be faked? Like, it's actually not that hard if you know what you're doing, and Daniel definitely knows what he's doing, which means..."

  She stopped. Looked around.

  "Sam. What happened in here?"

  I followed her gaze around the room. The green curtains. The throw pillows. The very very sad plant in the windowsill. Note to self. Plants do not do well when their colors are changed. Maybe it's the chloroplasts.

  "Do you think chloroplasts are important for plant growth and how might I get them back?"

  Kate stared at me incredulously. “Samantha, are you high?”

  "Kidding... kidding relax. I just went shopping," I replied holding up my hands in mock surrender.

  "You went... shopping."

  "Is that weird?"

  "I've known you seven years and I've literally never seen you buy anything that wasn't food or work-related." Kate set the wine bottles on my kitchen counter and turned to face me fully. "You got fired less than a week ago. Most people would be lying in bed eating ice cream from the container, not redecorating."

  "I was lying in bed. Then I got bored."

  Kate's eyes narrowed. She had that look she got when she knew I wasn't telling her something. Which was fair, because I wasn't telling her approximately 90% of everything.

  "Now that I believe... however, the walls are blue," she said.

  "Ice blue. It's called Rainwashed, according to the guy at the hardware store."

  "When did you paint the walls?"

  Shit. "Thursday? After you left?"

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  "You painted your entire apartment on Thursday night."

  "I'm a fast painter."

  "I think they were blue when I came over Thursday."

  "Mmm" I mused. "Must've been Wednesday then."

  Kate stared at me for a long moment. I could see her deciding whether to push. Whether to ask the obvious follow-up questions about how I'd painted an entire apartment in one evening with no drop cloths, no paint smell, no evidence of the process whatsoever.

  She decided not to push. Instead, she grabbed a wine bottle and started hunting for a corkscrew.

  "Fine. Keep your secrets. But we need to talk about Daniel.”

  Thank god. A topic I could actually discuss without sounding like I'd lost my mind.

  * * *

  We settled on the couch with our wine, and after a deep swallow Kate visibly relaxed and rubbed at her temple. “I’ve had this headache all weekend. Must be the stress.” Kate’s laptop sat open between us. She'd created an entire folder of research: articles about metadata manipulation, corporate espionage cases, wrongful termination lawsuits, and even a subfolder about how to prove your designs are not AI.

  "The thing is," Kate said, scrolling through her notes, "they can't actually prove you stole anything. They have files with suspicious metadata, but metadata can be faked. Any halfway decent lawyer could argue that someone planted those files."

  "Daniel," I said.

  "Probably. But we can't prove that either." She took a long sip of wine. "What we need is evidence. Something concrete that ties Daniel to Vertex. Something that proves he had motive and means."

  "And you think you can find that?"

  Kate's smile was sharp. "I think I can get close enough to look."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means Daniel has been giving me looks ever since you left. The sad, puppy-dog 'I'm so grateful someone believes in me' looks. I think he's lonely and paranoid and looking for validation."

  I felt a cold twist in my stomach. "Kate. What are you planning?"

  "Nothing dangerous. Just... friendly drinks with a coworker. A chance to commiserate about how stressful everything has been. Maybe an opportunity to see where he lives, what he has lying around. How hard it must be on him to have been fooled by..." She gave me a long and twisted smile "a clever traitor when all he needed was a mentor. After all you'd had me fooled too." Now she gave me sad eyes and an over-exaggerated pouty lip.

  "That's insane. There is no way you can date him."

  "It's just reconnaissance."

  "It's getting close to someone who destroyed my career!"

  Kate set down her wine glass. "Sam. You're my friend. My best friend, actually, which says a lot about both our social lives. Someone framed you for something you didn't do, and I'm not going to sit here and let them get away with it."

  I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it. Because what could I say? Don't risk yourself for me, I've already committed federal crimes? Don't bother with evidence gathering, I can just hack into his bank accounts with my mind? I can just hack into his accounts! What a brilliant idea. A smile spread across my face. I picked up my wine and took a long drink.

  "Okay," I said. "But be careful. If he figures out what you're doing..."

  "He won't. Daniel's smart about design, but he's dumb about people. He thinks everyone likes him. He's a huge narcissist and all I have to do is play into it." Kate's smile turned vicious. "It'll be fun to let him believe he's gotten away with it, right up until we destroy him."

  This was the Kate I'd always suspected existed beneath the birthday-remembering, happy-hour-organizing surface. The Kate who'd bonded with me over shared hatred, who held grudges like precious treasures, who would burn the world down for the people she cared about.

  I loved her for it. And I was terrified of what might happen if any of this backfired.

  * * *

  "So," Kate said, an hour and a half later. We'd finished the first bottle of wine and were making good progress on the second. "What happened with you and Sarah?"

  I choked on my drink. "What?"

  Kate nodded toward my table, where the cardboard box from Holloway still sat. The photo of me and Sarah was visible on top, our graduation-day grins frozen in time.

  "That photo has been in your box of stuff since you got home, and you haven't put it anywhere. You haven't thrown it out either. Which means there's a story."

  "There's no story."

  "Sam."

  I sighed. Kate had a talent for finding the cracks in my walls. It was annoying as hell, but it was also why we were friends.

  "Sarah was my roommate in college," I said. "You know that."

  "I know that. I also know that every time I mention her, you change the subject."

  I stared into my wine glass. The red liquid was dark, almost black in the low light. I could see the static around it if I looked hard enough, the underlying code that made wine wine and not something else.

  "We were close," I said finally. "Really close. Like... we finished each other's sandwiches close. Stayed up all night talking about nothing close. I'd never had a friend like that before. Someone who just... got me."

  Kate was quiet, waiting.

  "And then..." I took a breath. "Things got confusing. I started feeling things that I didn't know how to handle. And instead of talking about it, instead of figuring it out, I just... pulled away. Took more shifts at my internship. Started staying late at the library. Made myself too busy to be around her."

  "Sam."

  "By graduation, we were basically strangers who happened to share a room. She moved to Seattle after. We exchange Christmas cards. That's it."

  "Do you still have feelings for her?"

  I shook my head. "No. I mean, I don't think so. It's been eight years. I've dated guys since then. I like guys. It's just..." I struggled to find the words. "With Sarah, it was different. She was different. And I was too young and too scared to understand what that meant."

  "What do you think it meant?"

  "I don't know. Maybe I'm bi? Maybe she was just a special case? Maybe I'm too emotionally constipated to form connections with anyone, regardless of gender." I laughed, but it came out bitter. "My mom certainly has theories. She called the other day to remind me about Thanksgiving and to make sure I bring a boyfriend so no one thinks I'm a..." I lowered my voice to a stage whisper... "lesbian."

  Kate snorted. "Your mom is always a delight."

  "She means well. She just has very specific ideas about what success looks like, and 'single graphic designer who got fired for suspected corporate espionage' isn't on the list."

  "Neither is 'queer,' apparently."

  "Definitely not." I finished my wine and reached for the bottle. "The thing with Sarah, it's... I've never really told anyone about that. About how I felt. It's easier to just focus on work, you know? Keep people at a distance. Not risk getting hurt."

  Kate reached over and squeezed my hand. "Samantha. You know you can tell me anything, right? I don't care who you're attracted to or why. You're my friend. That's what matters."

  I squeezed back, feeling something tight in my chest loosen just a little. "Thanks, Kate."

  "Now let's finish this wine and make a plan to destroy Daniel's life. Then maybe you can tell me where the hell you got this couch and how I get one of these horrendously ugly beautiful monstrosities. Because I could definitely get drunk and sleep on this bitch. It's so freaking comfortable."

  I laugh-snorted. "Kate," I said leaning in close "That's the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me."

  She shoved me back "Get out of here. I'm about to be a spoken for woman you home-wrecker.”

  We both erupted into fits of laughter and the tightness in my chest let up and I could almost forget for a second that everything was different.

  * * *

  Tuesday October 11th

  Kate's text arrived at 3:47 PM.

  Kate: drinks with danny-boy tonight. wish me luck

  Me: be careful

  Kate: oh don't worry I brought protection

  Me: ...

  Kate: mace. in my bag in case he gets handsy. What did you think I meant you perv!

  Me: lol. you're insane. Make sure you order something expensive

  Kate: Oh so now I'm cheap and a hoe

  I laughed at her ridiculousness and sent her a gif of a pop singer singing 'work work work work work'

  I stared at my phone, feeling useless. Kate was out there doing actual investigative work, risking her job and her safety to help clear my name. And I was sitting in my apartment, practicing making my houseplant change colors.

  Well. Not just that.

  I'd spent most of the day at the coffee shop, the one with the good wifi and the barista who didn't ask questions when you sat there for six hours nursing a single latte. I'd brought my new laptop and my journal, and I'd started poking around in places I probably shouldn't.

  Digital systems, I was learning, were both easier and harder than physical objects. Easier because they were already code, already structured in ways that made sense to my new perception. Harder because they were connected to everything else, vast networks of data flowing back and forth, security systems and encryption and protocols I didn't understand.

  But I was learning. Slowly, painfully, I was learning.

  I'd found Holloway's external-facing systems. Their website. Their job postings. Their carefully curated social media presence. All surface stuff, nothing useful. But through those systems, I could see echoes of what lay beneath. Internal networks. File servers. Email systems.

  I wasn't ready to try manipulating any of that yet. The bank account had been simple, just numbers in a database. Corporate systems were orders of magnitude more complex. But I was mapping them, learning their shapes, understanding how they connected.

  When the time came, I'd be ready.

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