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Ch.1:Say She Plays Pretend

  [CONGRATULATIONS, USER, FOR BEING INDUCTED INTO THE SELF ENHANCEMENT SYSTEM! ALSO KNOWN AS S.E.S., PLEASE CHOOSE YOUR STARTING STAT.]

  -

  BODY: The best weapons are the organic ones!

  BRAIN: See more, feel more, be more.

  SENSE: The ethereal does not escape your grasp.

  -

  Alex groans at the blinking notification on her E.V.Os, the thrum of her heart sending fresh pain to her cranium. Rain patters onto her pink bomber jacket, washing away the blood matting her curls as her face rests against the cold concrete.

  Today’s fucked, isn’t it? First she gets jumped by a pair of two-bit gangers, now some netrunner with a sense of humor’s installed malware into her precious eyes. She musters another groan at the massacre that’ll follow this indignity, it sounds too much like a whine for her sensibilities.

  There are plenty of reasons for blood to flow down these streets, not that the residents really need an excuse. One of those reasons being attacking a prominent gang member’s daughter. She actually feels bad for the gangoons who thought she was an easy score. Technically they were correct, they just didn’t have a complete picture of the consequences.

  Her father’ll slaughter those fools.

  As though she completed some sort of ritual to summon the man, her E.V.Os. blink a call in her periphery from one Sayyid Fatmah. Alex rolls onto her back to stare at signs of nauseating neon, alongside grey clouds that mirror her progressively deteriorating mood.

  She accepts the call, and for just a moment there is silence, which is promptly broken by the sound of her father’s exuberance straight into her pounding brain.

  “Habibity! How’s the walk? Make any new friends?” her father says with the enthusiasm of a hyperactive toddler.

  “It’s going great, baba. Absolutely peachy, having the time of my life in fact.”

  “Your sarcasm is impeccable,” he says. “What happened?”

  “Nothing! Was just…taking a longer route, thought I’d test myself,” Alex says, chiding herself for her carelessness.

  Their line is silent for a few beats, leaving her nerves to slowly climb the mountain of anxiety. In this moment she couldn’t be more certain that she fucked up, waiting for him to call out her ruse and gather up a hunting party.

  Then the moment passes.

  “That’s great! Oh, I’ll have to tell mama weh what is weh, is it a typo baba, they’ll be so proud of you!”

  “How are they by the way?” Alex asks as she covers her eyes with her arm, eager to change the subject. “Gidou is still pacing around like an idiot isn’t he?”

  “Oh, you know him Alex. Can’t go a minute staying still when you’re out in the world”

  “I’m gonna have to hear him complain about his knees again aren’t I?”

  “Sounds about right, make sure to get him something, maybe some organic beans hmmmm?”

  “Like I have the money for that,” Alex scoffs. “Alright dad, gotta go, this walk isn’t going to finish itself.”

  “Of course, I love you.”

  “Love you too baba,”

  Alex sighs in relief as the call cuts off. Got a bit too close there but it worked out. Her dad’s too much of a sweetheart to think Alex could possibly lie. She stares at the signs above her, advertising less than legal ventures for those with many vices.

  The kind you don’t really want to advertise honestly, but it gets given a pass so long as it’s out of sight. No one’s really willing to police that shit. Too expensive really, which makes enough sense for Alex to where she doesn’t question it.

  She struggles through the infirmity she’s been burdened with her whole life, rolling onto her side and slowly pushes herself up off the ground. Feeling every motion in her cranium along the way. The bleeding stopped, so there’s that.

  Maybe she can salvage this.

  She gets up to her feet, using the alley wall as a support, shuffling her way back to the crowds as she searches her GPS for a local flesh maestro. She finds one not that far off, and their prices are acceptable enough for a quick patch up.

  She shuffles with renewed vigor onto her destination, not really pushing through the crowds so much as following the tide, switching the direction when it’s needed. More than a few dickheads push and curse her out and all that jazz. She just ignores them, if they knew who she was then they’d be giving her the red carpet, despite her muscular dystrophy.

  Eventually, Alex hears the chimes of digital bells as she walks into the clinic…or at least what should be a clinic.

  Did she walk into a barber shop?

  Alex looks at her GPS again, nope. She's in the right place.

  She shrugs and walks up to the counter, where a man clearly engrossed in his interface sits. She knocks on the counter and gets no response.

  Alex does it again.

  Still nothing.

  Alex can feel her temper flaring at being ignored, but she calms it down. He’s just engrossed in something, that’s perfectly reasonable. Surely he’s not ignoring her on purpose.

  “Hello?” she says. “Is this Jane’s Healing Rain?”

  His eyes flicker to her, but return to whatever he was doing.

  “We don’t do full body muscle reconstruction, kid, and I doubt you have the money for it anyway, go somewhere else.”

  Alex’s eyebrow twitches, that’s okay, no need to stoop to his level.

  “I’m just looking to get my head patched up. Got jumped earlier and don’t want anyone at home to worry.”

  He just rolls his eyes. “Patch-ups are a thousand creds.”

  “Bullshit! I saw your prices online!”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Pay up or fuck off, kid.”

  “Fine,” Alex grumbles.

  -

  Walking up to her apartment complex led to the usual greetings, bikers nodding at her or hollering their hellos, a few even asked about her mother. They may act all hard, but Alex knows they're really just a bunch of softies. She reciprocates the pleasantries with a few of her own, but it’s all just surface level.

  The Anubis Road is a large gang, one of the biggest, and her relationship with them is more of an amalgam than anything personal. Though there are a few she’d label a friend, like the anxious beefcake sitting on a bench and tapping his foot in the apartment lobby. Staring into space as his interface shows him something evidently troubling.

  Alex gives a wide smile and kicks Ikram’s foot as hard as she can. It’s nothing that could hurt, not with her feeble strength, so she isn’t exactly worried.

  The boy blinks, regaining focus before turning to Alex with a scowl.

  “Wassup grump,” Alex says. “You busy doom scrolling?

  “Fuck you. I don’t doom scroll, I keep myself updated.”

  “Suuuuure. So what's been happening? You’re scrunching your brow extra hard today, and that’s usually a bad sign.”

  He sighs and taps on an empty spot next to him on the bench. Alex cheerfully obliges, albeit a bit slower than usual because of the brain damage. He doesn’t seem to notice, or just doesn’t comment. She’ll take either of the two honestly.

  As soon as she sits down she gets an interface request from the boy beside her.She hums and accepts, and is promptly shown a video of a bunch of gangers in a gunfight with one another.

  “Hmmm, The Kingdom and Bastion are at it again? I’m positively shocked, why has this got you all in a funk again?”

  “Look closer,” Ikram grunts. “The group on the bottom right, by the Richardson.”

  Alex does as he says and directs her gaze at a small group of assorted green alongside-

  “The House Of The Living,” Alex muses. “That's not good, what’ve they got to do with those two children?”

  Ikram shrugs. “Dunno, but if they're making moves on central Arthas…”

  “Then we’re going to have to interfere,” Alex infers.

  He nods, and Alex can suddenly understand his anxiety. She doesn’t share in it, a war won’t really affect her. Considering she isn’t in any shape to be useful, and baba can handle himself well enough. But him? He’s old enough to get called on, and well enough where he’ll be expected.

  Alex puts a hand on his shoulder.

  “It’ll be okay, no one wants a big war, likely you’ll just have to do some supply runs.”

  “I’m not scared,” Ikram shrugs her off. “I’m more than ready for some blood! It’s just…a little earlier than I thought.”

  Alex rolls her eyes. “Oh I’m so impressed,look at the big strong ganger you’ve become. Do me a favor and fuck off with the machismo, it doesn’t suit you.”

  “Go home shithead. I’ll treat you to a crèpe later if I end up being called on, but for now I’d rather not have a bee buzzing bullshit into my ear.”

  “Not bullshit if it’s true,” Alex says as she struggles to get up to her feet. “But I’ll see you around boyo, gidou’s been worried sick. As he always is, and I’d rather not be the reason he needs a new heart.”

  He just waves her off and she chuckles as she gets on her way, walking past one of the many elevator halls until she reaches section G. She takes a left and calls for an elevator with her cybernetics rather than press the button. Nice perk of E.V.O’s, you don’t need to open doors yourself once you get them, you can just politely ask the building interface to open it for you and it will!

  A necessity for cripples like her, and on the plus side E.V.O’s aren’t even that expensive compared to contemporary cybernetics, so she could afford it without cutting too heavily into the funds for important shit like her family's health, and baba’s upgrades.

  The elevator digs open and she shuffles inside alongside a few other gangers. None of them seem amenable to conversation, just giving the waif her space, for which she is grateful.

  Eventually the metal box dings at the twelfth floor, signaling for Alex to exit. She's too slow to make it before the door starts closing, but one of the gangers holds out an arm and triggers the sensors, keeping it open for a few moments longer. Alex gives him a thank you to which he nods, leaving her to enter the hall. It’s only as she slowly makes her way to room 1206G that she realizes how tired she is. She has been walking for a while compared to her usual, what with the detour to that goddamned flesh maestro.

  Alex takes a deep breath, centering herself as she connects to the apartments network, authenticating her identity and unlocking the door. It slides open with a silent hiss, and she steps inside to be greeted by immaculate gray walls leading into a hallway to a large living area.

  Alex takes a seat at the storage bench and struggles out of her runners, she’s surprised they didn’t steal those. Could easily make one or two hundred creds with the pair, and anyone who’d mug a waif like her is surely desperate enough.

  Maybe they just didn’t recognize the brand.

  Isn’t that lucky? She can’t exactly pretend nothing happened if she comes home in her socks, what kind of tale would she have spun for that? Charity?

  Yeah, they’re about as likely to believe in unicorns.

  “Sweetheart!” a voice that sounds like it’s gone through too much tuning says in fluent arabic, Alex lifts her head to behold her gidou walking over to her with a wide smile on his face. “You were gone so long! The kofta’s gotten cold! Come, come, me and your grandmother cooked up a storm to celebrate. Jania’s even got lisen ausphour simmering on the stove, all for you.”

  “With milk?” Alex says hopefully

  “Of course!” gidou Rakim gasps. “What do you take us for girl? I’m hurt!”

  “Sorry gidou, just had to make sure.”

  The old man grumbles his curses as he moves down the hall. She finds it a bit offensive that someone in their second century can move around all spry while she’s subjected to this, but she’s never voiced that, it would just make him feel guilty.

  Gidou’s too sweet for her to hurt like that.

  -

  [CONGRATULATIONS USER]

  Alex stares at the blinking notification as it taunts her, she can bring it up on command just like any other app she has to upload into her interface. Which is kind of funny considering she can’t find the source code. There’s this thing with neural links, it’s mostly an isolated system. Latching on to local networks as more of a…tether than actual connection. Part of a lattice so grand it’s too convoluted to send information from one end of the city to the other, as it was designed.

  It means that hacks can’t be done on a large scale, and hackers can’t hide in their basements to get shit done. Unless they venture into the Wide Net…but that’s getting a little off topic. The point is that whoever somehow uploaded malware into her system without her neural link identifying it is both extremely resourceful and was somewhere nearby.

  That’d narrow down the suspects dramatically if she brought this to her dad, and that would be the smart thing wouldn’t it? He has the backing of a gang large enough that they could track them down. There’s just one small problem.

  There’s no source code. She’s checked, multiple times. Even connecting her U-line to her computer, creating virtual copies of her system and running multiple advanced diagnostic procedures.

  Nothing

  It’s as though the words written so plainly in her mind weren’t there at all.

  But she can interact with it. The apps right there, it’s logo is some dumbass macho man flexing like an old world bodybuilder.

  She stares at the words, goes over them in her head a few times for posterity's sake. Right in front of her interface is undeniable proof that she’s going insane, that her mind is taking cues from her body and choosing to fail her.

  Her mind is all she has, she doesn’t want to lose it. She’s already a burden to her family as is.

  Through all this, Alex’s focus has been drawn to one specific part of the notification.

  BODY: The best weapons are the organic ones!

  She’s been staring at it this whole time. Just…contemplating. Most likely this is her psyche playing a fucking prank on her, most likely she’s losing her mind, most likely. So she’s…decided to say fuck it.

  Say she pretends this is real.

  Could she walk, properly walk? not hobble like an emaciated gremlin? Would she be able to run?

  Could she climb around the city's urban sprawl like some kind of monkey? She was always into those videos, mostly because it was something so far away from what she could hope to accomplish.

  [YOU HAVE CHOSEN {BODY} AS YOUR FIRST STAT, ASSIGNING APPROPRIATE BEGINNER SKILL…]

  [SKILL ACQUIRED

  ACCELERATED GROWTH: Your muscles grow faster than what should be possible]

  [PROFILE:ALEX FATMAH

  STATS

  BODY(1)

  ACCELERATED GROWTH: Your muscles grow faster than what should be possible]

  ***

  Index

  Baba: dad

  Gidou: grandpa

  Lisen ausphour: Orzo

  Weh: and

  Habibty: my bro/sweetheart (female, literal translation is “my love” but it’s used in other contexts as well)

  Habibi: my bro/sweetheart (male)

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