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  Trace had never heard of cursive before, but that is indeed what the pages were written using. It also wasn’t some mysterious code, so much as an ancient method of writing that had been employed so a person could continue writing without lifting their quill, pen, or other writing instrument of the time. Truly, people used to be barbaric.

  Unfortunately for him, knowing it was cursive, and knowing how to read cursive proved to be two entirely different things. The subject was so old that he was having difficulty simply finding a decent language add-on to install that would automatically help. Most of the repositories that stored them had either gone down or been corrupted at some point in the past.

  People simply didn’t have a great need for knowledge on the subject anymore.

  The entire time he was searching for the cursive add-on, he was also helping Ko move things around on the sixth floor. Most of the items Sevorah had purchased for when Ko eventually got her own clinic had been already put on their appropriate floors. In a few cases, that hadn’t been possible due to ongoing construction or a need for room down below. When that happened, all those items came up here.

  At the moment, Trace was working with Ko to label each piece of equipment so they would know where it went. Specifically, the first or second floor with rooms listed on the tags as needed. They moved each of those closer to the elevator, while still maintaining a decently sized walkway for future items to be brought in.

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  Please take a moment to rate the story. As the author, I am only putting this story on RoyalRoad at this time. If you are reading it anywhere else, please let me know as it was stolen.

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  Anything, not going down to her clinic floors was being moved farther inside the floor. They were keeping track of what went where for Sevorah, as a lot of this equipment would someday go to Anna when she started her clinic. Not all of it, some of it truly was Sevorah’s spares that she wanted to keep for when her own equipment went on the fritz.

  “Hey, is the manager Stick-Point set you up with, going to be alright with Hannah? Weren’t they helping you find a receptionist already?” Trace asked Ko tiredly, as they shifted one last piece into place.

  She cursed and hung her head. “Ugh, I’ll have to call him and let him know about her. I still need the other receptionist either way. Setting this place up is so much work.” She whined.

  “I still have to get the walk-in fridge and freezers finished on the third floor as well. I’m having the floors reinforced in those sections, because, well… they’re both practically secure vaults. Nice thick walls, with secure doors and everything. Not quite on the level of that door in your basement, but it will be enough to turn away most casual thieves.”

  “Has Sevorah had to deal with that many break-ins?” He asked, suddenly worried about something that had never even occurred to him before.

  “Not a lot. Most people know better than to be that stupid, but it does happen from time to time.” She wiped some dust from her face and pushed the button for the elevator. “Maybe, once a year, to every other year? It varies. I’m hoping that by having the inventory fridge and freezer on the third floor instead of the first floor, it will help keep everything a little safer as well.” She shrugged. “I guess we’ll see.”

  “I’m glad you’re the one doing this and not me,” Trace told her, being completely honest. “Just watching you is a little overwhelming. If I had to do this,” He shook his head. “I don’t know if this is naturally you, or Sevorah’s teachings, but in my opinion, so far, you have been doing great.”

  She started to thank him, only to bounce on the toes of her shoes as she turned to fully face him. “Speaking of naturally me-” Trace quirked a brow at that particular segue. “I’m going to see my mother tomorrow. Feel like coming again?”

  He chuckled and nodded. “Sure, she seemed like a nice woman the last time around. As long as she doesn’t have a problem with it, then I certainly don’t.”

  They took the elevator down and glanced in on the room where Hannah was sleeping. She was still strapped to her bed.

  “How long are you going to leave her like that?” Trace asked as they headed towards the front door of the building.

  “At least the rest of the night,” Ko replied, locking the door behind them. She needed to return Sevorah’s car. “I need to speak with Deckard later. Before we begin this beta-test on the mental portion of the GHOST System, I’m thinking that one more item needs to be added to the menu screen.”

  She stopped by the tiny car, looking around to make sure no one was around to overhear the conversation. “There needs to be something that can help them, and myself judge their current mental state. I know it won’t be perfect, but if it can create a baseline average for the individual, then it can alert them and me when they are getting close to having a problem.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Trace scowled at her and slowly shook his head. “I don’t like it, Ko.” He held up his hand before she could say anything. “I’m sure he can come up with something. That’s not the issue. It’s actually a good idea; I personally like it. What I don’t like is what it will mean for you!” He pointed a firm finger at her. “Being a mender is more a lifestyle than a job already. I’m just worried about what is going to happen when you add another responsibility onto the already extensive list. What happens when you’re the one in need of help because you took on too much, only no one is there because you pushed everyone away? Don’t tell me you honestly think Hannah was always alone. She made her choices.”

  Ko flinched and pulled back from his finger, a look of thoughtful concern coming over her face. “Someone needs to do it.” She replied softly.

  “I agree. I’m not saying otherwise. What I am saying is if you are going to be going down this route, make sure Hannah isn’t your only assistant. You’re busy enough as it is at Sevorah’s clinic. Don’t make it worse on yourself. Let’s try and make it easier instead when you open your own place, yeah?”

  She slowly nodded her head in agreement. “I’ll send the manager a message as soon as we speak with Deckard.”

  Trace snorted. “Yeah, I forgot to mention that I’m not even sure when that might be. I told him about our meeting with his parents, and he’s been AFK ever since.”

  She grimaced. “I can’t say as I am surprised by that. I’d probably be equally confused and just all-around out it if I learned my parents were alive and they didn’t come to see me immediately after they learned the same.”

  “Same, I’m sure there are some weird thought processes behind their decision, but I don’t understand it.” He scratched his cheek. “Your plenty welcome to come over and try to get his attention regardless though.”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s fine. I’ll try tomorrow on our way back from visiting my mom.”

  ***

  On his way down to the basement, Trace grabbed the data prism he had received from Hobin-Jin. He would plug it into the desk computer down there after removing it from his network. No matter how safe the man had professed it to be, he would never attempt to plug it into his NetConnect even if he used the same method as he had before. Only fools, or people with extremely good firewalls and skills, did that.

  His firewall had been tweaked by Deckard when he first had the NetConnect installed. However, that was before the man had truly begun to explore the net and all the changes the last hundred-plus years had wrought. So, while it might be decent, there was little chance that it would be able to stand up to any of the viruses, worms, RATs, or even the DAEMONs that had started to become popular within the last few years.

  The desk computer, on the other hand, was something that Deckard accessed fairly regularly. As such, he had been performing updates on certain systems of it somewhat regularly.

  Sitting down in front of his desk, he plugged the data prism into an open port. It was one that he had already set to send everything to a virtual environment. The same thing was possible with his NetConnect. He had even done it before. There was a difference between what regular people were capable of, and the programming wizards at a corporation.

  Plugging anything he had been given by a corpo into his NetConnect was low on his list of things to ever willingly do.

  On the screen, a folder sprang into view, revealing only two text documents. One with his name on it, the other filled with question marks. Trace tapped a finger against the desk for a couple of moments while he thought. Text documents weren’t something you put on a data prism; they simply didn’t take up enough room. Even though data prisms weren’t exactly worth a lot, it was still beyond overkill to use one for something like this. A simple encrypted message of some form would have sufficed, or other file drop system, really.

  That meant that there was another reason for the presence of the data prism, than what he was seeing. Now, a couple of months ago, he was practically illiterate when it came to using computers, let alone being able to program on them. He had always been too poor to touch one, let alone afford one. It was a weakness that had since been taken care of.

  He navigated through the computer to device information and selected the attached data prism. What he found lent some insight into the situation, not much, but enough that he was now curious enough to click on the text document. The data prism contained two partitions; it was, in effect, acting as two separate drives. The one with the text documents was incredibly small, the second was… quite frankly impressively large, and also completely full.

  He was glad he hadn’t attempted to plug this particular data prism into his neck.

  Swiping all the extra windows closed, Trace triple-checked the state of the virtual environment and then opened the document with his name on it.

  On the screen, a simple message and prompt appeared.

  ‘Answer the following questions to gain access to the document; you will also need to give your device privileges to access a camera of sufficient clarity for scanning purposes. - G1gl3Myte’

  After accepting the prompt, he had to answer five questions, all related to the conversations they had during the dinner a couple of nights before. After answering them, a pop-up asked him to plug in a camera. It took him a few moments to figure out how to give the virtual environment access to the camera, upon which it scanned his face and torso. Only after going through all that did the text document itself finally open.

  He also noted that there was one other change. In the folder with the documents, the second one had its name changed from a bunch of question marks to ‘Deckard’.

  Well, if there was any doubt remaining before that moment, it was gone now. This data prism had come from Deckard’s father, David. Something that the document itself explained, if only briefly, not that it particularly needed to be expounded on more than it was.

  David, known as G1gl3Myte, was one of the larger shareholders in Vinna-Kwoi. He would be asking Hobin-Jin to deliver this data prism to Trace and Deckard as a favor when he visited the corporation later. He and Atraxia, Meredith, were done playing nice and had decided to begin throwing their weight around. Now that Deckard was back in their lives, or at least he would be soon, it was time to finish what they had started so very many years ago.

  They were going to fix humanity.

  The document ended on that slightly ominous tone, telling him that he needed to give the data prism to Deckard next to receive the rest of their instructions. It would seem that he was merely the messenger in this case to ensure the message got to Deckard.

  At least the young man -if that term actually fit in this case- could be assured that his father hadn’t forgotten him.

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