Assorted Ancient Texts

SSDD

***A short story exploring a type of psychic hacking job, no idea what inspired this.***

Every usual nationality is present in the food court of the massive mall. You have your typical chinese cuisine, the hot dog and pretzel vendor, the pizza stop. The intense and powerful aroma of all the food around me is a little more than distracting. I am here to do a job, not to eat. My client payed me a lot to go to this mall, and promised more after the job is completed. A lot more. A mental deep breath regains my concentration as I sit at a table and scan the food court with my aggressive eyes that are hidden behind the dark cover of sunglasses. I spot a suspicious-looking young man eating his chow mein. I check my digital watch.

12:43:21 pm

I look back up and take a deep breath as I stare at the young man through my sunglasses. He is looking around nervously as he does a horrible job of hiding his cover, which in turn makes me decide to use two proxies. I look towards my left and out of the corner of my eye I notice his gaze shifts over me for a second before leaving as he scans the room. He is sensitive. I have only payed attention to him for a moment and he already senses my presence. He just doesn't know where I am - and he is my target.

I locate an old woman sitting with her toddler son at a table roughly 5 meters from my target. I could proxy the woman, but the toddler's mind would be too pure to cover the signal. I pick the mexican cashier at the pizza stop roughly 8 meters to my target's 9 o'clock. Two proxies should buy me a full minute or two, depending on how good this guy is at tracing. I already know he will sense my presence in his head the instant I'm inside so I am depending on these two proxies.

I focus on the cashier and set up a link to his mind. He looks up as if someone tapped him on the shoulder. I send him a subconscious affirmation of safety and he scratches his ear as he shrugs off the strange sense. I establish the link and set up a series of 4 loops that retrace their own path through his mind before redirecting back to me. He is thinking about his newborn daughter at home with his wife. Unimportant to me. Satisfied with my setup so far, I look to the old woman and increase the signal. The link bounces from the cashier to the woman and the cashier looks around again. I'm increasing the strength of the signal a little bit too rapidly to be unnoticed amongst the conscious chatter of his own mind. Fortunately, a co-worker walks by and greets my cashier and in turn distracts the proxy holder. I establish a link with the old woman, who does not even bat an eyelash at my invasion of her mind. She takes a bite out of a pretzel while I set up another 4 loops with the same reference I.D. as the ones I set up in the cashier.

Finally, contempt and believing in my abilities, I feel I am prepared enough to hack my target. I boost the signal threefold and feel as my consciousness flows from the cashier, through the old woman, and right in front of the young man. With one final step, I jab the link into his head and silently pierce the weak firewall he set up when he sensed me moments ago. I have probably about 12 seconds before he realizes I am poking around. Weaving through recent visual memory, I find what I am looking for: a memory of an interaction with a man named David. This young man met with David before going into the mall to eat. Wait...he and David walked through the mall as they discussed something. David...is in the mall!

The young man suddenly looks up and stares directly at the old woman. For a second his face shrivels up in confusion before he abruptly turns to look at the cashier. Not a full second after his eyes land on the cashier, does his gaze snap to the woman again. My loops are working. I realize I only have a few seconds before he either gives up on locating me and runs, or actually finds me. I throw my stealth out the window now and rampage through his mind. David followed him through the mall. The two of them had lunch. David was waiting for someone. Suddenly David left and told the young man to wait. David went to the bathroom only minutes ago!

I sever the link to the cashier, my first proxy, and get up. I now know what David is wearing and go to the nearest food stop to order something to eat. I order whatever is on display and pay with a credit card. I take a tray and place the package of food on the plastic board as I walk past the young man and deploy a quick and dirty cloak from his sensitive mind. He gives me no thought as I pass by him and he continues to look around the room for the source of the invasion. As soon as I am behind him I place my tray on a table and keep walking towards the bathrooms at the back of the food court. The bathroom doors are at the end of a long hallway with a water fountain at the end and a vending machine right next to it. I walk down the hallway and open the men's room door.

Silence. I know David is in here. I know he heard someone enter the bathroom. I walk at a normal pace to the last and biggest stall at the end of the room. A push to the door reveals that it is locked. Someone voices their opinion on my intrusion,

"Hey! Occupied!" It is David's voice from the young man's memories.

"My apologies." I turn around and notice that there is no one else in the bathroom. The stall's door is unlocked with a hard kick that sends the lock flying and bouncing off the tiled wall. Before David can open his mouth to yell, a punch to his mouth bounces his head off the tiled wall and renders him dazed. With a chokehold, I render him unconscious and lean him against the back of the toilet. The stall door is closed and I search his pockets for anything I could get information from. I take his cell phone and wallet: the phone for my client and the wallet for some extra cash. I hear a door open and silently get up and unbuckle my belt. As I open the stall door I buckle my belt absent-mindedly and slowly walk towards the sink. The other man looks at me curiously. The lockless stall door catches his eye and he stops mid-stride. Before he can turn around, I grab him by the side of the head and slam him into the granite countertop of the three sinks. I quickly drag his body back into David's stall and similarily raid this man's pockets. A business card says Lowell, Richard. A gun is hidden in the hollow of his back which gives me enough proof that this man is not just a shopper. This was the man David was going to meet. I swipe another wallet and then leave the bathroom.

As I exit the hallway, the young man I hacked just moments ago passes by me. In his hurry he doesn't notice me, and I start to walk a little faster. I wade through the crowd and exit the food court. I head for the exit of the mall and right as I leave I notice a security guard at the entrance pick his radio off his belt. I cast another cloak and the security guard walks right past me as if I don't even exist. These are not the droids you are looking for.

My car beeps in response to the clicking of the button on my key and I get inside. Calling my client, I turn on the bluetooth connection. I notify my client of a job completed and he gives me a location to meet. A few minutes later, I hand him the cell phones and he hands me an envelope. We both get back in our cars and drive away.

Same shit, different day.