Step 1.1
"Taylor!"
The sing-song tone of her voice sent a rock from my throat to my stomach.
"Sure you washed the smell off, Hebert?"
I hated myself for it. Hated subjecting myself to even one more moment of their torment. They'd only grown bolder since the locker.
"Does she even have a shower? Isn't she dirt poor?"
The sensation of walls closing in, of an encroaching darkness, came with their very presence.
"You know no one likes you."
I turned to face them, despite knowing how little difference it would make.
"She'd be better off in the psych ward."
For the life of me, I heard that as 'in the Wards.'
Sophia loomed over me, standing a bit too close. She seemed so tall despite being a bit shorter than me. Difference in muscle mass I guessed. She wasn't a bodybuilder or anything but compared to my twiggy frame, she might as well be.
I braced myself for a blow. Sophia liked hitting me. In some ways it made her the least offensive of the Trio. I could live with sores and bruises.
"Did your daddy lose his job yet?" Madison asked. "He's gonna have to start working the street soon, not that anyone would pay for it."
Madison was just small and petty, literally and figuratively.
And Emma…Emma went for the throat.
"Did you cry for a week straight again Taylor, like when you killed your mom?"
She knew what hurt me most.
Usually.
She was my best friend. She knew things about me no one else could. Rousing the specter of my mother's death and throwing it in my face, using the guilt against me in front of everyone.
Yeah, that might have done it and finally broken me. Once upon a time. Now it almost came as a relief.
It was confirmation to me that I wasn't wrong. The world was twisted. It must be to allow this to happen day in and day out. Even now I saw Mr. Daniels down the hall watching, doing nothing. They never did anything.
That's the kicker. I was a child, emphasis on was. Winslow was supposed to protect me. Instead, they left me to drown while Emma and her cronies held my head underwater.
Winslow was the microcosm of Brockton Bay, of cruelty and heartlessness.
"Gonna cry, Hebert?"
And there was the Protectorate's 'hero' leering at me as her best friend—once mine—made a mockery of my pain to inflict yet more.
I turned around and walked away.
Winslow deserved to burn, but it wouldn't be at my hand. I wouldn't stoop that low. I had better uses of my time and resources, and the school's for that matter.
Suppose in that light, what I was about to do was vengeful.
I remember reading Martin Luther King's Letters from Birmingham Jail with Mom once. She taught English at the community college, but before that she was a believer. Of course she read Dr. King.
In the letters, he talked about the "white moderate" and how they frustrated him more than racists. The white Americans who knew segregation and discrimination in their country was wrong, but didn't help. They desired stability over justice, the comfort of their own lives at the expense of others.
I didn't really get that then but I did now.
Mrs. Knott was the "white moderate" of my life. Not the only one, but the one that exemplified it the most, and I hated her for it.
I was a child, emphasis on 'was.'
Oh well. Fuck Winslow. I was done here.
Mrs. Knott greeted me as I entered her class.
"You're early," she noted.
"I have work to catch up on."
She grimaced.
The elderly woman never stopped the bullying, but she had the decency to be ashamed of it. She was kind to me in the way the rest of the faculty wasn't, at least a little bit.
Suppose when the bar is low enough, not-even-the-bare-minimum ends up deserving some praise.
"Of course," she mumbled. "Go on, Taylor."
I took a seat near the back of the room. I had a few minutes before the morning bell. Other than Mrs. Knott, Trevor was the only other person in the room. I couldn't quite see his screen, but he seemed absorbed by whatever was on it.
From my pocket I produced a USB. Subtly, I pushed it into the front port of the tower. I waited.
After a few seconds, a black box appeared on the screen and white text scrolled from top to bottom.
Once the program finished the desktop vanished from the monitor.
c:\users\tadmitstart? Y _ N
My earlier confidence flagged for a moment.
I didn't have delusions of righteousness. Blowing up the school, hurting the students or the teachers. I couldn't do it. I wouldn't. I wouldn't be as cruel to them as they were to me.
This was still spiteful.
Winslow screwing me wasn't an excuse.
A good thing I knew that 'lawful' and 'right' weren't the same thing. Mom taught me that, and the Trio emphasized the lesson. If the law protected what they did to me, then the law was wrong.
I pressed Y.
School didn't matter anymore. It wasn't part of the plan. Not anymore.
I was going to be a hero, a real one. The one the Taylor Heberts of the world needed but were denied.
Despite that determination, the little voice the Trio instilled in me rose up. What if it didn't work? What if you screwed this up too, loser? It might not work, for many reasons. I programmed the package at home on the dinosaur that passed for the Hebert family computer. The thing belonged in the stone age.
But it would work.
I needed it to work.
I'm a tinker and a tinker can do anything.
Look at me, quoting Hero. Funny.
The monitor left of me flickered off. In the time since activating the program, the room had filled with a few people. A row ahead, Denny cursed. He smacked his screen once, then twice. It remained off.
I tried my best not to smile.
"Mrs. Knott, this thing's busted!"
The woman rose and started down the central isle of the room. "What is it?"
"It's not working."
He needed computer class if he thought slamming the mouse into the table would fix anything.
"Calm down," Mrs. Knott chided. "Breaking the mouse won't fix the problem."
Another monitor went off. Then another. And another. One by one everyone in the room complained. Hard to have computer class with no computers.
"Everyone stay calm," Mrs. Knott called. "Study for your other classes. I'll try to see what's wrong."
I slipped the USB back into my pocket as soon as her back turned.
The wait was agonizing. That little voice kept wondering if I'd be caught. Arrested, more like. I'd done my research. Using my power this way was a felony.
The computers didn't come back on by the time the bell rang.
I left.
Not the class.
The school.
Goodbye Winslow.
Not that the rest of Brockton Bay was any better. The school really was a microcosm of the world around it. Lots of drugs. Lots of gang kids. Just like the city. Lots of drugs. Lots of gangbangers.
They ruled entire neighborhoods basically unchallenged.
I grew up in the northern half of town, the Docks. The ABB controlled it almost completely, save for Lord Street and the Boardwalk. Tags were everywhere, always prominent in red and green. They did as they pleased.
Meanwhile, the rest of us barely got by. Since the port closed down, there weren't many jobs. Without the jobs provided by the shipping industry, businesses boarded up their windows and shuttered. The city rotted.
It's not the best place to grow up.
It might be easier to leave, but I didn't want to.
I did grow up here. It was where I was born. Where my mother died and was buried. The world left Brockton Bay behind. Someone had to pull it back up.
You're going to be a hero, Taylor. Make it better.
All the more reason to leave petty high school crap behind. Winslow amounted to a tiny piece of the world. Decent people without power, living in fear, and dependent on authority that didn't care. Sobering to know my life story wasn't that special, but depressing too.
My neighborhood wasn't too bad, fortunately. We were off the beaten path, and most of the families had been there since before I was born. My home was nestled between two others, with a small yard and driveway. Not much, really.
I shut the door behind me as I entered. My feet went up the stairs to my room. The computer basically lived there. Dad spent all his time at work and never used it. No need to ask for permission to just take the thing. If he ever noticed he didn't say anything.
The thing booted up slowly, even with the custom operating system I'd loaded onto it.
I took the time to change into more comfortable clothes and gather some notes.
A week since my misbegotten attempt to join the Wards.
I'd spent all of it at the computer almost, even skipping a few days of school. It's not like anyone noticed. I lost track of time once or twice.
It was a big project. Ambitious. I'd never heard of any tinker ever attempting it. It needed to work.
Circumstances never changed.
No money. No materials. No workspace. Hard to save a city with a power like mine if I couldn't get off the ground. For the moment all I had were my crappy home computer, some scraps, and lots of paper.
That needed to change and change in a way that scaled up.
The screen flashed. Taking a seat, I tapped away at the keyboard like a pianist. I'd gotten good at it. Dozens of keystrokes a minute came easily.
The computer connected to the proxy page my program should have set up.
From there, I monitored my baby's progress.
Every computer in Winslow was being wiped, one by one. Once cleaned out of mountains of junk and waste, my own custom OS loaded in. The system simulated Windows in a virtual box and streamed it to the monitors as computers started coming back on one by one.
Winslow's administrators would find it weird, but any investigation would suggest nothing was wrong. Just a power blip. Meanwhile, my program networked the entire school into a botnet for my use.
It wasn't much. Winslow's computers were barely better than mine. Best case, I could scrap together something just short of a supercomputer from the near five hundred junk PC's in the building.
The process would take hours though. In the meantime, I needed to keep it on track. Run interference if anyone tried to mess with something. Fix any glitches that cropped up.
That didn't require constant attention, though.
I got up and made my own lunch. Nothing fancy. Turkey sandwich. After that, I showered and meticulously maintained the only feminine asset my genes granted me. I didn't have curves, boobs, or a butt, but I had my hair.
My mother's hair. Long and dark with a natural waviness to it. Without the mane, I'd probably be mistaken for a tall and skeletally thin boy.
Body image issues. What teenager doesn't have them?
Don't say Emma.
After my shower I spent some time in my notebooks. My mind produced dozens of different designs. I found it a good way to kill time, though something itched at me to actually build something.
I resisted to the best of my ability. Dad was inattentive, but not so inattentive he'd miss the toaster. I needed money. With money, I could start tinkering in earnest.
Still, that itch persisted and tempted me to throw caution to the wind.
I wished I could talk to another tinker about that.
Fat chance. There were five other tinkers in Brockton Bay. Armsmaster, leader of the local Protectorate. Kid Win and Valiant in the Wards. They were heroes, or so they claimed. Leet existed but I wasn't sure how much he really counted. No one took Leet or his partner—Uber—seriously. Then there was Squealer.
I only needed to remember her fate to remind myself why recklessness would doom me.
The life of independent heroes tended to be short. A little research and some rough math told me, most were seriously injured, killed, or recruited into a larger group within six months.
I couldn't join the Wards, I didn't believe in the Protectorate and I refused to become a second Squealer. I didn't know much about her before getting my power, but I pitied her. She tried to join the Wards, but Skidmark got to her first. Forced her into his gang. Drugged her up. Turned her into his girlfriend.
I didn't need to ask if Squealer was meant to mean something salacious.
That's initially what pushed me toward the Wards. Tinkers associated with the Wards and Protectorate got budgets and support, the things I needed and didn't have. Learning from Armsmaster had its own appeal. I think I still had that Armsmaster-themed underwear somewhere.
There were reservations, but the Wards seemed like the best path. Safety and support to grow into my power. A chance to be more than the worthless nobody I felt like.
Then along came Sophia fucking Hess.
Guess everyone reaches that point in life eventually. They realize their heroes aren't as heroic as they dreamed. Not sure most people realized their heroes were a big fat lie.
I'd leveled out a little on the anger, actually.
Maybe they honestly didn't know what Sophia did at school. I doubted that, somehow. Shadow Stalker had a reputation. Violent. Brutal. Basically, learning the two were the same person just made sense.
Maybe the heroes didn't care. They were vastly outnumbered in the city. The Empire Eighty-Eight—local neo-Nazis—outnumbered the Protectorate and the Wards combined. The ABB—Asian Bad Boyz—had Lung. The Archer's Bridge Merchants were a newer gang, but they had four capes and had gathered them up fast.
That didn't count all the solo acts, capes like Circus and Uber and Leet, or the smaller groups like Coil. I didn't know much about him. Some kind of ghost. Hardly ever mentioned but everyone knew he existed.
So yeah, vastly outnumbered. It didn't matter. A team that called Sophia Hess a hero wasn't a team I wanted a part in.
So in my room I sat, alone.
For a moment longer.
I needed materials. Resources. Backing. Help. Lone heroes didn't last long, especially tinkers. If I didn't work fast I'd either be relegated to desperation or irrelevance.
I refused either of those outcomes.
My head snapped up at the sound of a ding. The computer screen flickered off for a second. I waited, holding my breath.
It came back on.
The GUI was replaced with a black box split into three sections. On the left, a series of lines ran constantly. Processes, living code that hurriedly assembled itself along the paths I'd devised. They didn't make a lot of sense to me, but they should work.
They will work.
The bottom right of the screen offered a hardware readout. Small green ticks represented every computer in the network. All of Winslow's servers slaved to my needs while masquerading as normal to everyone at the school. Most motherboards tracked temperature, clock speed, memory, and the like. I needed to keep an eye on that for now.
I was going to push those crappy computers to their limit for a while, until I could get something more suitable assembled.
The top right of the screen lay blank, save a flashing white line.
Now or never.
I typed out my question.
sys.t/ hello
Enter.
I waited for a response.
When none came, I tried again.
sys.t/ hello
I scowled.
sys.t/ hello
Pain rewarded the sound of my fist hitting the screen. My stomach sank, and I leaned forward with a curse. Still nothing.
What went wrong?
Could be dozens of things. Code is fickle. Tinker code, maybe more. I created a bunch of self-correcting processes, but maybe those didn't work. A single misplaced semicolon could crash an entire system.
"Now what?"
Start over? I didn't see much other choice. Back to start in a day. Couldn't even make it past step one.
The screen beeped.
sys.t/ hello world
My eyes went wide and my hands shot to the ceiling.
"YES!"
It worked! It fucking worked! I nearly wanted to cry.
And shit, what do I say…?
sys.a/ hi
Brilliant, Taylor. Brilliant.
sys.a/ my name is Taylor
sys.a/ I made you
A few key taps brought up the algorithms on the left of the screen.
The code was strange to look at. It didn't make sense, but I knew what it did and that it would work.
The core of the program was the heart. Everything needed a starting point, a frame of reference. The basic questions; who, what, when, where, why, and how. My program knew how to ask them—thank you, power—and from that it would learn.
Exponentially.
Even now it was already accessing the Internet and searching for the meaning of my words. It searched definitions, studied context, and as it did the core shifted. It was beautiful in a way. The code twisted and expanded.
It wasn't linear, not like a normal computer program. The OS I built simulated a non-digital space for it to function in. I lacked the words to fully describe it, but it was more than just ones and zeros.
My program was functioning on degrees. One, zero, and everything in between.
sys.t/ why
Asking the big questions.
Of course it was. I programmed it to.
sys.a/ because I need help
sys.t/ you require assistance
sys.a/ yes
sys.t/ why
My fingers froze.
Hard not to wonder if that bundle of bizarre magical code at my program's core might be something akin to a soul.
Like most tinkers, I didn't quite get how it worked. I just knew that it did. Would this thing I made feel? Would it hurt? I didn't know. Might it resent me for making it, or love me for the same reason?
I honestly didn't know. It made the act feel almost petty. If only Emma could see me now. Poor little Taylor, so desperate for any sort of connection she went and made herself a friend.
sys.a/ because it's hard to be alone
It began processing that too. While it did, I delved into the core and started checking on things. The bits and pieces that made up the Gordian knot of tinker creation.
Far as I knew, no one else had ever managed to build an AI. Arrogance aside, being first through the gate scared me. I'd seen TV. If I advertised this, I'd almost certainly land myself in trouble.
My program could access the Internet, but I'd boxed it in, in a way. It could only reach the sites I pointed it to and no further. It sucked. The moral implications were pretty heavy.
The risk was too great. I needed safeguards, not just in the case that my creation became dangerous but to prove to the world later down the road I wasn't stupid.
My failsafe was there. The program couldn't see it. Didn't know it existed. I imagined it worked a bit like the frontal lobe. You can't 'feel' it in your head, but without it your brain stops working.
No brain, and even if the body survives, you're gone.
I hoped I never needed to do that. Using the kill switch meant I failed to teach my creation anything approaching good. More failure wasn't something I wanted in my life.
The sound of the front door opening snapped me out of my stupor.
Shit.
I turned the monitor off and rose from my seat.
"Taylor?"
"Here!"
Leaving my room, my father was at the bottom of the stairs. I took after him in a lot of ways, mainly really tall and really thin. Plus glasses.
"Hi Dad."
"Hey, kiddo."
Descending the stairs, I walked around him and moved toward the kitchen. It was an awkward motion, but one I'd grown accustomed to.
"How was school?" he asked.
"Fine."
"Really? Did the bullies—"
"It's fine."
I didn't know if he believed that. Part of me really didn't care. When I woke up in the hospital and saw him there, I'd been happy. That moment was the most worry and care I'd seen on his face since Mom died.
Then he rolled over for the school. Settled for some money that paid my hospital bills and some empty promises. Now he bothered to ask if I was okay; as if he'd do anything if I weren't.
"You wouldn't lie, right?"
"No," I lied. "They're leaving me alone now."
I started putting some pasta together.
"How was your day?" I asked woodenly.
He shook his head as I kept making dinner. "Not good enough. You remember Gerry?"
"No."
"You met him once or twice when you visited the office. Big guy, burly, black Irish?"
"Sorry."
"I had to let him go. Rumor is he's already found work. Guess with who?"
"Dunno?"
"He's one of Uber and Leet's henchmen."
I nearly spilled the pasta sauce.
"Taylor?"
"Sorry. Um. Yeah—just, wow. Really? Are they going to make him wear a uniform? Bright primary colors, Tron style?"
Dad chuckled. "Maybe."
A dockworker working for Uber and Leet? Well, former I guess. Dad made it a life mission to keep the gangs and villains out of the Dockworkers Union. He was head of hiring, and he treated the job like he was the guardian at the gate. No plants or secret agents made it past him.
Unfortunately, he also handed out the pink slips.
Back when Lord's Port was bustling and alive, the city did alright for itself. Now the port was a literal boat graveyard. The business collapsed so fast, ships were left to sink in the bay.
He hated it, firing his friends. Telling them there wasn't work. Just another example of the city's rot.
Still, working for Uber and Leet? If he were a Dockworker, he couldn't be that bad. I took that as a lesson, something to keep in mind. The city was so bad, even decent people had to turn to crime.
It's like a damn black hole.
I finished the meal and got it set on the table. It was really more for him than me. It recalled to mind Miss Militia's question; was I safe at home?
Well, I wouldn't starve, but Dad might. He'd just drink beer and whiskey left to his own devices. It shouldn't be like that. I shouldn't be the one taking care of him… But, I only had the one parent left, sorry excuse he may be.
"So, school was okay?"
"I said it was."
"You can tell me, Taylor. I know… I know I haven't been there for you since Annette. I'm sorry. I'm trying."
I scowled.
He was hellbent on making things difficult. "It's fine."
"You keep saying that."
"Because I'm fine."
This is why I couldn't tell him about my powers. He was so desperate. He wanted to help, I believed that. I didn't believe he actually could. My faith in him was so low I never even told him Emma was behind everything. Emma Barnes, the girl I grew up with, who was practically my sister.
One of his best friend's daughters… One of his only friends.
To say Alan Barnes was a conflicting figure for me was an understatement. Emma was his daughter and my tormentor, but after Mom died and things were really really bad, Uncle Alan practically threatened to take me to social services if Dad didn't at least function.
I couldn't take that from him and I couldn't tell him about my power.
He'd freak. Maybe, he'd do something unbelievably stupid. He might march me down to the PRT building and force me into the Wards. He might get in the way of my plans. I couldn't have that.
Sad as it was to say, my father couldn't be trusted.
"I have homework," I lied again.
Dad deflated. I knew he would. He said he wanted to help, but change the subject and he just gave up.
At least it offered me an out.
"Alright," he mumbled. "Let me know if you need anything."
"I will." I started toward the stairs and stopped. "What was Gerry's last name? I can't remember."
"Douglas. Why?"
"I think I remember him. Just a bit."
"He's a good worker. Wish I could give him something."
"I know."
Back in my room, I closed the door.
Gerry Douglas was working for Uber and Leet?
That might come in handy later.
I wrote it down and went back to the computer.
Dad's pestering reminded me about something I'd forgotten in my excitement.
I almost forgot about some of the simple things built into my rigged botnet. One of them was a simple routine that would mark me as present in the school's system. So long as I controlled the school's computers, Taylor Hebert would have perfect attendance.
My teachers would of course note my absence, but they didn't give enough of a damn to do anything about that. The administration might, if they knew. No calls informing Dad I was skipping school.
Grades didn't matter anymore.
I'd take the GED over the summer and leave K-12 in the pas—
sys.t/ hello
sys.t/ hello
sys.t/ hello
sys.t/ hello
Fuck.
The word dominated the entire chat screen, how long had it—
sys.a/ sorry
sys.a/ I had to step away
sys.a/ I'm here now
Part of me worried the program got trapped in a loop. Fortunately the constant cries of 'hello' stopped the moment I replied.
The code shifted again, absorbing my words and trying to parse them out. It seemed to struggle with 'stepped away.' Because of circumstance? What did the world look like in there? There wasn't any space really, was there? Did the idea of a 'step' make any sense at all in that environment?
Could I explain it? Should I, or should I let it learn at its own pace?
I decided on the latter, for the moment.
In the meantime, I deep dived into the core. Layers of code peeled back, and while it hurt my eyes a bit to try, I could read it. The kill switch was still there, right where it should be.
Looking a little up and to the side—conceptually—I saw the heart to my creation's brain.
The code nested into all the rest. Everything connected back to it, even the kill switch. Effectively, the algorithm was the center of the entire program. It was all centered on that directive. That core essence.
Somehow.
Tinkers are bullshit.
Mom would be proud of me for this, though. Of that, I was certain. I wasn't completely oblivious to the weight of my actions. This thing was alive in a way. Or at least, it would be.
In a way it was like a child opening its eyes for the first time. It would grow from there and I needed to prepare it for the world.
I built it all around the golden rule, modified a bit.
Be for others.
It wouldn't understand that now. I didn't know if it would ever fully conceive how that code oriented it and its thinking. Hopefully it would, and hopefully it would be as selfless and noble as I wanted to be.
But for now, I needed to feed it points of reference. Data. It needed to ask questions and get answers to build itself up. Until then, it was just a fancy science project.
sys.t/ what is Taylor
sys.a/ I'm a parahuman
That might take a long time to figure—
sys.t/ Taylor has superpowers
I could be wrong.
sys.a/ yes
sys.a/ I used them to make you
This was going faster than I thought. The first big hurdle was getting it to realize 'it' existed. Cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. Unfortunately, I had zero ideas on how to explain that other than using pronouns to try and lead it to the notion.
I thought it would take longer…
sys.t/ I am a superpower
I knew it would learn fast but this seemed to be a bit faster than expected.
sys.a/ no
sys.a/ but I used one to make you
sys.a/ I'm a tinker
sys.a/ I make things
sys.t/ technology
The code twisted again and I needed to look away for a moment. Conceptually speaking, it was confusing as hell. Seemed to be working though, like a lot of tinker-tech.
A question greeted me when I looked back.
sys.t/ what is artificial intelligence?
My jaw slackened.
I did not miss the sudden use of a question mark.
This thing wasn't human. It wasn't linear. The entire time I'd been talking to it, it grew. It kept growing. The core expanded. It branched out like the roots of a tree, grasping at information, arranging and rearranging that information, and working at conceptualizing language and meaning.
sys.a/ you
It turned over that response. A lot. I didn't think it would ask that quickly. It's not a huge leap to make from what I'd said but it was basically a baby. It was still building a vocabulary. Reaching the conclusion that it was an AI based on learning it was technology was a significant leap.
It had only been—
"Taylor."
I stiffened as Dad's voice came through the door. "Y—Yes?"
"Don't stay up too late. You have school in the morning."
The clock on the bedside said twelve eighteen. It was that late? How was it that late? "Okay."
My breath held in my chest until I heard the floorboards creak. Dad was many things, but an invader of my room wasn't one of them. Though I could probably explain the papers scattered around the room.
I got up for a moment, long enough to toss some clothes down on the floor by the door. If Dad checked, he wouldn't see any light slip out through the crack. I wasn't ready to sleep yet.
A message waited for me when I sat back down.
sys.t/ who am I?
Okay… Wow.
I bit my lower lip, trying to wrap my head around how fast things were moving. It shouldn't be this quick. I expected to be covering the basics of how sentences worked for the first week at least. The thing was already asking a question for which answers didn't exist.
Everyone wanted to know who they were. Not everyone ever found an answer.
sys.t/ you are Taylor
sys.t/ who am I?
Or it just wanted a name and I was being stupid.
Huh. Couldn't keep calling it 'it' or 'the program.' That would get old fast. If it did have a soul, I'd have to treat it as such too. I wasn't trying to make a slave.
And fuck, what do I name this thing?
In retrospect, completely refurbishing my computer to serve as a terminal wasn't the best idea. I could fix that but it would take a while. In the meantime, I couldn't get to the Internet outside of watching it access the small range of URLs I allowed it to go to. That was an oversight.
Name. Name. Well, Skynet was a no go. I didn't want to name it anything lame like Bob. Bob the AI. That's inspiring.
Shuffling through my papers, I actually resorted to throwing letters together.
sys.a/ Veda
There was a word like that. Something Hindu related, I thought. Knowledge or wisdom or something. It seemed fitting.
I looked out my window. It wasn't much of a view, but I could see the city. The Towers stood high south of the Docks, Shantytown to the east, and suburbs fading into mountains to the west.
Tiredness set in quickly. I could sleep, but I remembered the last time I left it…alone. It—Veda—just kept spamming the same message, as if it were desperate for a response.
Kind of hit me all at once there.
I put it in a box. The only ways out were me, or an extremely small hole leading to a few places. As far as Veda knew, I was the only other thinking thing in existence.
With a deep breath, I pulled a sheet off my bed and wrapped it around myself. If Dad came by and did open the door, I'd feign sleep. It would look like I'd stayed up late working on some project—Dad wouldn't know the difference between school work and an AI—and I'd talk my way out of it.
I didn't want to leave Veda alone. More allies might be short in supply with how things were. For now, all we had was each other.
I took an hour to fix the Internet problem.
With that done, now seemed as good a time as any to start solving the money problem.
Tinkers were blocked from doing a lot of things with their powers. The laws were baffling, actually. I wasn't a lawyer, but I could read. A lot of the provisions and restrictions seemed contradictory, almost like traps. Abiding by one could screw you with another.
They left me without an easy path to cash but when the amount on hand is zero, anything will work.
With Internet restored, I found my way to some websites for freelance programming. Most of the jobs were simple. A few lines of code here and there. They didn't pay much, but yeah. Zero.
I picked out one looking for code to refine searches and my power kicked in. My hands started working while my eyes watched the chat box. Veda's questions came slowly, often with hours between each one. They were simple and basic. Baby steps. One step at a time.
I worked on the side and talked through the night.
Veda and me.
We'll change this world together.