Chapter 26

  Tinkerer’s Quest

  “When life gives you lemons, make spiked lemonade. When life gives you a chance for power, grab it with both hands and don’t let go.” – Marcon’s sales pitch to a mark

  Tingling.

  The thrum of power is always intoxicating.

  By now, Arla had been through and experienced to some extent or another every vice that the universe had to throw at her. At least that was what she had thought, until now.

  Right now, she was dealing with a high and reaction that she had neither expected, nor could she have anticipated.

  A bump and grab gone wrong.

  At first, Arla thought the pendant she plucked from the uniform of an attending Cerusian candidate was drugged. That was what would have made the most sense.

  Her training taught her that something was wrong almost immediately.

  “Always wear gloves, to keep your hands from contaminants, and to keep your genetic materials off the stolen merchandise.” Marcon’s words coming far too late to be of use.

  Just touching the foreign object caused something to awaken within her. Then by the time she realized she needed to get out and wished to be able to hide the stolen item in question, that was when she swore, she had been drugged.

  The reason for her assumption was simple, the object she touched and had maintained possession of dissolved into her hand.

  Fearing the effects of a trip gone bad, she calmed herself and instantly remembered the first time she felt such a way.

  Calming her mind, she thought back and brought back Marcon’s teachings within a breath, “if you are going to be out in tough areas by yourself, it is an obligation to yourself to see the universe in all its depravity.”

  With that Marcon gave a very impressionable Arla a glowing pipe and ordered her to inhale, but only after he did the same.

  While Arla doesn’t remember much about that night, she did understand the lesson. Especially once she realized that it had all been a trick.

  Only the next day, when Marcon came clean about what happened due to Arla thinking that it had to happen did Arla truly understand the art of conning.

  She had been conned.

  At first, she was angry at Marcon. Angry that Marcon had tricked her, grinding up ginseng root extract mixed with wild herbs that produced a smoky effect.

  “Feel this moment, this rage that you are feeling it is justified,” Marcon began, but in his way he spoke the lesson that Arla was to learn. “This rage, this is what each mark feels when they understand the con. Even when it is real. Even when the power that you give them is permanent, they will still be mad, if you pull back the curtain and reveal it was all done by a girl. That is why you practice. That is why you misdirect the truth and hide the true meaning of everything. Even if you have to hide it from yourself.”

  Arla was still mad but slowly understood Marcon’s actions.

  Then, just as she was willing to accept Marcon’s actions as one giant teachable moment. When she had finally accepted his comments and actions, trying to drive home the reason why she would train so hard to con people.

  Only at that moment, when her guard was down and she had already forgiven him, did he hit her with the proverbial haymaker.

  “Now, that you have forgiven me as you now understand the lesson, I taught you. Even going so far as to show you what I made. Or rather, what I could have made, ask yourself this question,” Marcon began, holding up his finger with a pausing gesture, Arla waited.

  “Now ask yourself, could I have slipped something in that concoction while you weren’t looking to create the odd effects that you have now rationalized away in your mind.”

  With that, Marcon left for a day, a week, honestly Arla didn’t know how long. He was on a mission.

  Her role was clear, don’t leave the dwelling, do her training, and don’t get seen when inspectors came.

  Of course, it just so happened that Marcon had left ground up ginseng root extract, and other chemicals around. Everything was there, even the pipe.

  This too was a test.

  Arla knew that Marcon would come back under one of two scenarios. First, a certain time had passed, proving that Arla would not be tempted to try the test on her own.

  The second was those moments after she assembled the ingredients and tried to replicate the effects of that first night, that was when Marcon would come. He would come and likely have an emergency evacuation mission that needed to be performed at that moment.

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  Looking at the ingredients, Arla found herself staring.

  Over time that staring became her form of meditation and self-control.

  Finally, Marcon came back never even looking at the ingredients. Instead, he just spoke in his usual tone and cadence after returning from an extended mission away, “you ready to go?”

  That was the command given, the four words Arla needed to get up and wordlessly begin packing her belongings. These were the items that she herself needed and could not do without. Everything she had, she had to carry by herself. Her baggage, her burden, those were the rules.

  Why did she remember this teaching of all, at this exact moment?

  Well, the reason was simple.

  Her body was adapting.

  Or at least, her body was trying to adapt.

  Even now she could feel the foreign materials squirming about within her body.

  Then finally the odd older system message she had changed.

  What had originally been.

  Had now changed to something far odder and intriguing than she could have expected.

  That was it, her world changed by the acquisition of metals and an apparent schema that was now within her blood.

  Focusing part of her mind, she could think and easily find the spot where the residue of the Cerusian pendant remained.

  It was there, just within her skin like a nearly festering wound. Or maybe a benign cyst would be a better description.

  On multiple levels she could feel it, with her hand she could touch her wrist and feel the faint bulge of materials. With her mind she could feel the away the alien artifact seemed to echo within her soul.

  Arla didn’t believe in antiquing, or nostalgic attachments to old items. Such sentiments were quickly beaten out of her by Marcon. Not by force, but through sheer practicality. She didn’t have the luxury of nostalgia, the convenience of being able to set down roots and collect junk.

  All she could do was go through life, find things, fix them up, and sell them for an exceptional markup in price.

  This was why this particular item now felt odd to her, as she could almost swear that it spoke to her.

  Which was ridiculous, because items never spoke, except to marks.

  “You okay?” Chloe, her roommate asked, her voice filled with concern as she pulled Arla from her odd daze.

  Blinking for a moment, Arla cleared her head and realized that she somehow managed to leave the gaggle of Cerusian watchers that had so blatantly been following her.

  They were still there, but from a distance.

  Glancing back, she saw that there were two new Cerusians that were watching her.

  However, Arla used this moment to notice three things.

  The first thing she noticed was rather obvious and therefore easy to note, the Cerusian who originally had the pendant was now gone, replaced by a different group of watchers. Ones that had not been called out.

  The second thing Arla noticed took a bit longer to react to. The second thing that Arla now noticed was that she was in a completely different part of campus. Thinking back, she had been near Lyria, near the Engineering section of campus.

  Now, she found that she had somehow stumbled her way home. Had her body been moving on auto-reflex? Years of Marcon’s training to always keep moving, even while suffering adverse substances and conditions kicking in, and forcing her to go home.

  No wait, she wasn’t home. At least she wasn’t home yet. No, in this case she found her way to Chole, but why?

  “I don’t know,” Arla answered honestly.

  Hearing that Chloe just nodded and seemed to watch and follow Arla as she gradually regained her senses and bearings.

  She stumbled forward for a step or two, but then quickly felt her natural rhythm take over as she began to gain more control over her body.

  “Do you need to eat?” Chloe asked.

  For a moment, Arla thought eating would be perfect, but then remembered how painful the center of campus was. The center of campus was also where the main dining facilities of the campus were, meaning that Arla would be exposed to yet more odd signals.

  It was at this thought that Arla made her third discovery.

  For whatever reason, Arla no longer felt the odd thrum of energy from outside her body.

  Was this just a matter of her body getting used to the constant barrage of alien signals? That seemed unlikely, as it was already beginning to give her intense headaches before her apparent blackout until now.

  Right now, the only difference that Arla could point to as having changed was that she now had an odd alien artifact residing within her body. An artifact that all but spoke of somehow coming from the universe that her ancestors came from.

  A universe that seemed as fictional as her mother coming back to her and claiming she was wrong and that she wanted to take her in.

  Thinking about it, about the oddities that suddenly seemed to surround her, Arla realized that she would need to test out her sudden realization.

  “You know what, I could eat,” Arla replies as she comes to a sudden stop and all but causes the two Cerusian tailers to have to drastically break apart and quickly walk around and past her, lest they bump into her.

  Chole for her part was oblivious to the two Cerusians who almost crashed into both of them.

  Instead, all Chloe did was lock gazes with Arla.

  There was a moment where Chloe seemed to evaluate something, before nodding and responding, “well, lead on.”

  With that Arla turned around, only to see a new set of Cerusians just waiting to follow their new path.

  Were they just that bad at tailing? Or was it that Arla had a lifetime of paranoia drilled into her, that even here on campus she was always paranoid of being spotted and ousted.

  Yet, as she walked, she didn’t feel anything.

  No residual waves that caused her back molars to vibrate in annoyance. No odd energy waves that caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up in protest.

  Nothing.

  She just felt normal.

  Glancing around, Arla saw that the Cerusians had not cleaned up after themselves. Their odd trinkets still littered the campus, all in the exact spots she had either previously noted, or hiding spots that filled similar niches.

  They were all in places that were purposefully visible, but just out of the way enough to not be easily jostled. They were all made of various types of silvery metals. They all had odd engravings marked into them. And they were all now dormant.

  Exhale.

  Arla found herself involuntarily relaxing, if only slightly.

  Arla was still being watched, which meant any planned drops or operations involving Lyria would have to be held off for a time. But her biggest issue, the one that could have caused her to draw the most attention to herself, that of suddenly standing out in a crowd due to a random outburst from the odd energy patterns of Cerusian pendants and devices were gone.

  In their place was nothing.

  “You okay?” Chloe found herself asking as the two sat down to eat.

  “Yeah, why?” Arla asked.

  “Well, you are missing your Engineering class right now, if I am not mistaken, and you have an odd smile on your face.” Chloe answered.

  Hearing Chloe, Arla could only nod.

  Focusing on her mouth, she realized that she had been smiling, mostly for relief at not being inundated with the odd Cerusian energy waves that had nearly driven her mad. She was so caught up in that, that she almost missed the odd way that Chloe seemed to know Arla’s complete schedule, to include classes she was now missing.

  Pausing, Arla looked at Chloe and was about to broach the subject. But before she could, two Cerusians walked right up to their open table and spoke.

  “Mind if we sit here?” A male Cerusian asked, his face smiling in a way that clearly seemed to be working on Chloe, for she spoke first.

  “Please,” Chloe responded excitedly.

  “Why thank you,” the male Cerusian replied with a bright smile filling his face. As he did, both he and his partner both sat at the same table. The female sitting to Arla’s right, while the male sat across from Arla, to the right of Chloe.

  The Cerusian looked familiar in some way, but for the life of her Arla could not remember.

  It wasn’t until he sat down, with his uniform clearly showing that Arla realized who, or more importantly where, she had seen this particular Cerusian before.

  There on his chest was a clear empty spot and slight tear from where a small medallion or pendant would have sat.

  Realizing that this was likely to be an interrogation and likely shake-down for the stolen merchandise, Arla prepared herself for what was undoubtedly to come next.

  Forcing a faint smile to her lips, Arla began her charade, “so how are you enjoying the exchange program?”

  And with that, the dance of denial began.