Crossing Infamy

Chapter 5 - Kalix

"You didn't have to..."

"I don't want to hear it, Kals. Birthday presents are not up for debate."

With a laugh, I took the box and carefully unwrapped it, discovering a holo-projector inside. I placed it onto the counter and waved for it to come on. Above the device, a 3D hologram map appeared, showing directions to some place by the shore.

"What's this?"

He checked his watch, and automatically I glanced at the time in the corner of my eyeview. 19:46.

"Well, if you're going to find out, we should probably leave about now."

I watched him with curious suspicion. "What are you planning...?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Well, 'trust' is a strong word..."

"Hey!"

"I'm kidding, of course I do. Well, mostly..."

He reached for my hand and we walked toward the door.

"Liz? Hellooooo, Earth to Lizzy..."

"Ye— Hello, wh— what?" I glance up and find myself in Cache Crash's back room, leaning against the uncooperative cabinet.

Melia laughs. "What're you daydreaming about, Space Cadet?"

"Oh— I was, ah, sorry..."

"It's cool, don't worry about it. I just came to ask if you'd mind handling front desk duty alone for a bit. I have to head to an HRT appointment now, and Kesh was supposed to take my next shift, but they're running a bit late."

"Yeah, sure, I've got it from here."

After searching the cabinet and retrieving the PictoFLASH Speed Charger I came back here to find, I walk back out to the main room to finish helping a customer before accepting my fate as the most socially awkward employee managing desk duty alone.

Seconds, minutes, boring and meaningless time slips by as I help the occasional customer with their misbehaving tech in between long periods of mindlessly organizing shelves. It's a Sunday, so it's not very busy, but having too little to do is almost as bad as too much. Then again, maybe I just need to stop complaining. I've never had a job before. Is this what being an adult is like?

It's kind of a concerning thought, given that I'm not actually that far away from adulthood, but I have this weird feeling like I'll never be ready for it. I've never thought of myself as particularly immature, but I'm starting to realize I've either underestimated the difficulties of living on my own or grossly overestimated myself.

...Probably the second one, if I'm being honest.

In the corner of my eye, a notification pops up from my alerts program.

- NEWS ALERT -

Subject(s): UNBI, xCodebreaker01

Source: A-News (a-news.alla)

Headline: On June 11th, 2120, xCodebreaker01 Fled Tokyo and Evaded the UNBI. Two Months Later, Here's What We Know.

URL: a-news.alla/24-08-2120-codebreaker-two-months-later

The alerts program was one of the first things I set up upon arriving in London, as a way to stay up-to-date on any new information that's a potential risk to my new identity or safety. It's quite a simple program, actually — it just scans new articles from the main four news websites for keywords that suggest it's related to me, and sends the info to my eyeview as a notification with a link to the full article. Often, as seems to be the case this time, it just returns basic news articles with information that isn't really useful or I already know, particularly when I'm the keyword it sees. Sometimes, though, it'll turn up some interesting news on Dr. Blayne, like that interview with a lab tech he used to work with that I watched last week. Apparently, since taking the corporate sponsorship, he hasn't been back to his lab at the University of Munich once. It's like he just packed up his research and... disappeared.