The Merchants already have a tinker, a woman that I bet was probably a lot like me. Given they don't fit either of the racially focused gang's demographic, I'm guessing Merchants and that terrifies me even more than if it were the Empire. As I said, these two's 'word' means nothing.
The same fate that dozens of tinkers have tripped into, caught when my output was negligible. The smile adorning his face gets sadder as he steps past me, I open the door wider for his bigger friend and the second I close it, I know the fate that's befallen me. I nod anyway, opening the door sullenly and letting the duo inside. "Taylor?" he asks me rhetorically, he's already called me out. They're even harsher when I can see them with my own eyes, angry and pocked like crinkled leather. "Yes?" I ask, trying not to wince at the boy's burns. I open the door slowly, wishing to any and all deities that I'd gotten my next Hexbug design finalized before now.
#Alternative to ghostlab code
I'll play dumb for now, the kitchen is out of sight from the main rooms and I have code words in place, someone will come if I tell it to dial 911. Regardless, I'm going up the stairs anyway, directing a drone to head to the land line and setting my visor down on the handrail when it makes it there. This is… okay, it's not unwinnable exactly, they don't have costumes so one of the two of them being a cape isn't guaranteed. That word means shit, if I had a speaker I'd tell him so. His word? The word of someone who shows up, hacks my drones, and calls me out at my own home? "We just wanna talk," the boy says again, "we're not affiliated with any of the gangs, you have my word."įor a moment, I'm taken back by the absolute stupidity of such a statement. The churning in my gut gets worse when I remember they have my name and place of residence. I take a photo, this is good, if I have their faces, I have something. The younger man looks up at the camera, giving me a sheepish smile and asking to be let in one more time. The second of the two is a much older white man, maybe mid 20's with a wide set of shoulders and a completely hairless head. The thinner blob reveals itself to be a scarred boy, about my height, vaguely Hispanic and with a harsh burn covering the left side of his face. "SORRy." It says, reaching for its wrist and flickering to resemble a normal person. The first smacks its head, sighing out an unintelligible mess of dial up sounds. The second blob whispers into the first's ear, or rather, where the ear would be if it were more distinct. I haven't even had my powers for a week, how do they know about me?! This hexbug doesn't have an external speaker, they want me to open the door but my feet refuse to move. It might be worded as a request, but everything else about the blobs screams confrontation. I swallow thickly, scared out of my mind. "WE'd LiKE tO tALk, MAy we PLeaSE cOME In?" "HeLLo tAYlOR", the voice is a garbled mix of tones, some low but most high-pitched. Or, more accurately, the drone I'd thought was hidden. The pixels of its arms cease to interlap with its chest and its gray hand raises up to wave at my hidden drone. Just as I'm about to give my drones the order to return home, the thinner of the two blobs stretches. Reallocating my army would take time I can't spare, printing more would take twice as long, and even then I can't guarantee these hackers aren't already embedded into the whole network. My mind cycles through a hundred different plans in the span of a second, unfortunately, all of them die by step one. That's actually far more concerning, it means someone hacked my drones! The 'sand' in one lens doesn't match with the other. Comparing the view from below to the one nestled in the empty beehive, I can tell it's a camera trick. The view is different when I switch to the camera below them, silently moving the bug to zoom through the cracks of the wooden planks. They're vaguely human shaped but they're composed entirely out of a messy blur of gray pixels, like little self-contained digital sandstorms. The view I get from the porch is equally perplexing, there's two… blobs standing in front of my front door. I know my hexbugs have complete surveillance over the neighborhood, they're all well hidden and cloaked, the shift change isn't for another two hours so why wasn't I pinged?! This shouldn't be happening, I knew going into this just how vulnerable I'd be at the start. I scramble for the other end of the basement, hastily flicking on my visor before wrapping the makeshift apparatus around my eyes. The sharp sting and warm ache distract me for a moment, letting me soothe the pained digit in my mouth when I realize something. I curse as my thumb keeps going, banging harshly against the Queen and flushing red in pain. The wrench slips in my hand as the doorbell rings.
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