July 15th

I was still weak and sore, but in the few days since I'd successfully stolen some credits my mood had completely turned around.

Greatly enjoying not being hungry, I had spent the last two days trying to improve my programming skills. Upon reassessing my piggyback program I realized how shoddy it really was. I hadn't taken into account protections on the target's omni-tool and simply assumed that they wouldn't notice someone directly connecting with their signal. The connection with the batarian's omni-tool had failed when his device's protections kicked in. I had been very lucky that the salarian I stole from had felt so secure that he didn't have any anti-malware programs running. Besides that, my code was incredibly inelegant, the program practically brute-forced its way in. Now that I wasn't starving, I was able to think clearly and see where I had gotten desperate and sloppy.

I decided to put some of the improvements I'd made to use by getting more credits. I was more cautious than the last time, not staying in front of one store for too long and only stealing five or ten credits per person. It took a while but at the end of it I had another thirty credits to my name.

My neck ached from being bent over for so long. I went to rub it and my fingers got caught in the mess that was my hair.

Due to a lack of bathing facilities I had not only begun to smell bad, but my hair was now in rather large mats. I wasn't too sure what to do about it. I didn't have anyone to impress and it wasn't a health hazard, so I just let it be, but it was annoying and uncomfortable as hell. I hadn't seen a barber anywhere, as far as I knew humans were the only sentient species with hair, and I didn't have a pair of scissors on me.

After thinking on it for a bit, I opened the fabrication module's blueprint creator and made a passable outline for what I wanted. In the alleyways that I now called 'home', I started poking around in the various garbage bins and grabbed any pieces of ceramic I could find. Once I'd found a handful of the stuff, I put it all in my left palm and activated the omni-gel converter, turning the fragments into an opaque goo that the 'tool conveniently caught in a mass effect field. Then I started up the fabricator. In under a minute, I was holding a ceramic knife. The blade was only four inches long and looked brittle, but it was very sharp. I returned to my hole in the wall and set about carefully cutting my hair.

Unwillingly, I remembered the last time my hair had been cut. I had been trying to cut it myself on a whim, but only managed to make it look like a mess. My mom took pity on me and cut the rest of it so it was even. She wasn't even all that upset with me, she just laughed and called me a dork like she usually did.

The homesickness I had been bottling up bubbled up to the surface, and my hands stilled.

I had no idea what happened in my universe. Did I go missing? Was I in a coma? Was I found dead? Any of those would have devastated my mom. I had been a large part of her life and she had been my everything. It had just been the two of us for years.

Mom's boyfriend I wasn't sure about, but I knew I must have mattered to him. He wouldn't have bothered to teach me things the way he had otherwise. He frustrated the hell out of me sometimes but I liked him a lot. He and Mom were great for each other, and I could at least take comfort in knowing he'd take good care of her now that I was gone.

And his daughter, who had been camping when I left, would come home to find me gone and everyone else upset. She wasn't my biological sister but I kinda cared about her like a stepsister and my leaving, one way or another, would probably upset her a lot.

My boyfriend would be inconsolable, I knew. He really was just a big, sweet teddy bear and he adored me for reasons I never understood. We had a lot in common, gaming, music, books, and I felt like I could talk to him about anything. The thought that my disappearance, or death, would hurt him so much just tore me up inside.

I might not ever see any of them ever again, and it hurt to think about it. I grabbed all those thoughts and feelings and pushed them down again.

I knew it wasn't healthy to repress things, but I just couldn't deal with it. So I locked it all up again and finished cutting my hair, trying hard to not think.

July 17th

I leaned up against the wall of a gunshop, my eyes glued to the door of another shop across the way. I saw a female turian walk up and down the aisles looking for something. She grabbed something, a new food processor it looked like, and went up to the counter with it. She activated her onmi-tool, and I turned on mine milliseconds before the cashier did. Thirty seconds later she was walking away with her new appliance and I was walking away five credits richer.

With more practice I had gotten faster at siphoning small amounts of credits. The damn omni-tool still malfunctioned often, but I discovered a timing to it and avoided using the device if it was due to freeze or restart soon.

I idly ran my hand through my now very short hair. At its longest it was only four inches, and the lengths greatly varied. I had just cut without any styling, or much of anything, in mind and now my hair looked ragged and uneven. I didn't care all that much as long as it didn't get caught on things. The ceramic knife had managed to not break in the process, and I had it in one of my many coat pockets.

Cutting through an alley that I knew let out near a clothes store, I was walking past a branch off when someone came out of the other alley and shoved me against the opposite wall. I stood up and made to run, but the sight of my attacker stopped me.

It was another human, a guy wearing a dark red jacket and black pants. He looked to be older than me and a few inches taller. He was holding a pistol. And it was pointed at me.

Oh shit. Shitshitshit-

"Give me all your credits and you don't get hurt."

My brain got stuck in an auto feedback loop of 'oh fuck he's going to shoot me fuck fuck fuck' and my vocal chords malfunctioned. I just mutely stared.

That was apparently the incorrect response, because the man started yelling. "Did you not hear me the first time? Give me your credits, you dumb bitch! I will not hesitate to shoot you!" He stepped closer, bringing the gun close enough to my head that I could feel the muzzle.

I felt a rush of adrenalin flood my system, and a switch in me flipped on. My mind was suddenly clear.

I cataloged facts: I was being held at gunpoint. I had my back against the wall. The person holding the gun was much larger than me. I had my omni-tool and a fragile knife. I formulated a plan. Step one was to distract him.

My mouth felt like it was moving on its own. "You'd kill one of your own species? Even with how everyone else here treats us? That's low."

He cocked his head to the side and grinned. "It's just survival, baby. Those alien fucks don't give a damn if we starve. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. And you gotta give me everything you have. Now."

Overconfident, sexist, 'macho'. Thinks he's a 'big man'.

"You call holding an unarmed girl at gunpoint 'survival'? You're not much of a man if you have to resort to this."

The man's face contorted with rage. "What did you say?!" He took another step forward, his eyes entirely focused on my face. My hand inched toward the pocket holding the knife, unnoticed.

"I said, you're not man enough to go after another guy, you have to shake down a little girl." My mouth was still moving unbidden, even as my mind thought through the actions I intended to take.

Left hand knocks gun arm up, right hand stabs the leg. Turn on omni-tool, activate sabotage program. Escape.

He was shaking with fury. "You little bitch-!" I dimly registered the hand not holding his gun raising to strike me. I struck first.

My left hand pushed the arm holding the gun up and away from me, my right stabbed his left leg with the ceramic knife. The blade didn't go very far before it broke from the pressure, but it caused him enough pain to stagger back, growling. I dropped the now useless handle, quickly turned on my omni-tool, queued up the weapon sabotage program and used it on his pistol. I ran out into the street and attempted to blend in with the crowd.

I mindlessly walked with the stream for several minutes before I turned off into a deserted alley and sat against a wall.

Then the switch turned off.

Ohmyjesusmotherfuckholyshit! He had a gun! He was about to shoot me! In the head! Fuck!

I was shaking. My vision wobbled, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I pulled my knees to my chest and began to rock back and forth, a strangled noise escaping my throat.

I could have died there. He was going to shoot me. I was going to die. He would have shot me in the head.

The more analytical part of my brain, cordoned off from the sheer hysteria that had overwhelmed the rest, was curious as to why I was having such a strong reaction. I had already been shot at, and hit, before. The hysterical part of my brain told the calm half to shut up.

Eventually the shaking passed, leaving me dazed and blank. I began planning to make more knives.

July 19th

My thumb rubbed the hilt of a ceramic knife in my pocket reassuringly.

I was walking the alleys again, which had become more unnerving and unfriendly as of late. Where once I had felt, if not safe, somewhat comfortable away from the people out on the street, I was now tense and worried. I had forgotten in my familiarity that this was Omega.

I needed to find somewhere else to live. The hole wasn't going to cut it anymore.

After my daily stealing spree, I turned my eye to the various apartment complexes in the district. There were a few family-sized apartments, luxurious bachelor pads, and multi-story dwellings. Then, there were the small tenements that barely qualified as 'homes'. My price range was extremely small, given that I was trying to not attract notice with my pilfering, and so I was stuck looking for the smallest one I could find.

I searched for a while before I found a complex with a sign on the outside that was flashing brightly. I had no clue what it said, but given the flashiness I suspected that they'd just opened. I went inside and entered into small lobby with a desk off to the right. There were stairs going down straight ahead, and down there I saw doors marked with what I guessed were numbers. At the desk was a batarian with reddish-tinged skin. He looked up from a datapad and motioned for me to come over.

"Human," he began, tone a bit more pleasant than I was used to, "are you here for a room?"

I paused for the briefest moment before nodding. "Yes. What's the pricing?"

The batarian put a hand on the desk and rattled off, still in a pleasant voice, "It's two hundred for two weeks, three hundred for a month and five hundred for two months. Once you've paid it's non-negotiable, but at the end of your time you can pay a different amount to continue renting."

Fuck, I've only got a hundred and forty.

I almost turned and left, but I thought it over some more.

I could quickly scrounge up another sixty, then use those two weeks to save up...

The batarian seemed to have noticed my hesitance, because he added, "If you want a room you should hurry, they're going fast."

I sighed. "There's some stuff I have to do, but I'll be back later with two hundred, okay?"

"Alright," he smiled, "I'll look for you later."

I left the apartment complex, shaking my head slightly. It was unusual, having a batarian be so nice to me, but there were always exceptions I supposed.

I managed to collect the needed credits after a few hours, though I was a bit too reckless for my comfort. I left the markets quickly, casting glances over my shoulder. No one came after me, however, and soon I was back at the apartment complex. When I walked in the owner was talking with a turian, but he left quickly and I was waved over.

"I have your two hundred credits." I said, activating my omni-tool. He turned his on as well and I transferred the money over.

"Then I have your room." He sent a data packet to my 'tool. "That'll tell the door to open for you. It's the fourth one to the left."

"Thank you." I nodded to him.

"You're welcome." He went back to his datapad, and I made my way down the stairs.

I couldn't read the numbers on the doors, so instead I counted.

"…two, three, four."

I stopped at my door and touched the red, glowing access button in the middle of the door with my 'tool. It turned green and the door opened.

It was tiny, smaller than a bathroom, with a cot, toilet, sink and standing closet. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. After a few moments of fiddling, I figured out how to lock the door.

I tested the sink, which produced cold water only, and the toilet, which functioned just fine. The closet was small, but considering I didn't have anything to put in it besides what I was wearing it was irrelevant. I sat down on the cot. While it wasn't the most comfortable bed I'd ever seen, it was infinitely better than the floor.

It didn't feel like home. But it would do.

[Edited 2/26/2017]