Thankfully the door wasn’t locked. I fled the apartment in a fashion that would have shamed Olympic athletes. I didn’t stop until I was on the streets.

[What the hell was that?!] I asked while barely breathing. I desperately needed some exercise. A wet noodle was in better shape than me.

[It was pretty obvious. You got another offer for sexual relations.]

[Don’t give me that cold A.I. logic act now… I heard you back there! You were just as surprised as me!]

[His offer wasn’t something uncommon, but your paranoia is contagious! Even I expected something dangerous at the end from the guy which is ridiculous. I have modules that slightly shape my personality to fit the host better, but this is too much. You are toxic!] she blamed me.

[Woah! Who told you to be like me? I don’t like being me, who needs another me?]

[Just… forget it!]

[Don’t get butthurt with me because you try to be cool like me, and then you realize I’m not cool at all.]

[Shut up, or I’ll send your contact information to Andrew,] she said menacingly.

[Who the fuck is Andrew?] I asked while throwing my hands in the air.

[Oh my creator! THE GUY FROM 2 MINUTES AGO!] she shouted back.

[Whoa… calm down there. No reason to get your RAM bunched up like that.]

[Why can’t you be normal?] she sobbed.

[Wait! Did you just threaten me to give my number to the guy that tried to double up on me after his wife?!] I had to stop in my tracks.

[Yes.]

[... fuck you, Genna!]

…

[Pfffft,] she burst out laughing like never before and I did the same.

We had a good laugh out of that.

[What a ridiculous date. My boss drugged me up and took advantage of me. Then she basically kicked me out the morning after, and her husband invited me to breakfast which he followed up with an invitation for some morning hanky-panky,] I said while still having a few giggles.

[It’s an interesting story if you put it like that but I wouldn’t say that she took advantage of you. If I remember correctly - and I always do -you were pretty eager to-]

[WAH-WAH-WAH-WAH-WAH,] I started shouting and slapping the sides of my mask where my ears would be like I wanted to avoid hearing what she had to say. [You know nothing about the night!] I said finally when she stopped talking.

[Yes Sir! I’ll label the recordings from yesterday as “NOTHING”.]

[I swear to God I’ll lick a battery,] I threatened.

[Why?]

[Wouldn’t it hurt you?]

[Why?]

[Like… electricity and your nanites...]

[You’re an idiot. These comments hurt me more than anything could.]

While talking, I was walking on the streets mindlessly. I had no idea where I was, and I didn’t even pay attention, so I just walked around like an idiot. When I came off of the adrenaline high from my clutch escape I was left with an aching body. All I wanted was to get home now. I was planning on not talking to Genna for a few days to punish her for the mean comments but it only lasted for 2 minutes. I had no idea where I was and how to get home without her.

The following days were pretty uneventful. I licked my battle wounds and rested my worn out body for the rest of my off day. Workday came quickly, and I was struggling to keep my soul inside my body.

“Spaceport Docking Permissions,” I read the title of the chapter with a yawn like I wanted to swallow the desk in front of me whole. “Class 2 and above spaceships are not allowed to dock in Class B and below Spaceports,” I continued one of the lines followed by another yawn.

“What the… this is cryptic as shit! They made this complicated on purpose so more people would fail the test,” I moaned while leaning back in my chair.

[Stop complaining. This is just the Basic knowledge, and it is as easy as it gets.]

My answer was more moaning and slowly slipping down on my chair like a slime. Learning a book of rules and regulations wasn’t exactly the useful side activity I was expecting when I bought this. I was stupid for believing that something like this would be interesting or by any means exciting.

Thankfully, I didn’t meet with Kal yet. I knew it was bound to happen in the near future, but I sure wasn’t looking forward to it. I went over far too many scenarios about our meeting and what I would say. The whole situation was weird as hell to me. I never considered myself sexist, but she asked me out on a date… more like told me we were going on a date, paid for everything, spent the night together and the morning after she technically kicked me out. I should have felt wronged in a way, but in reality, I didn’t have anything to complain about. I enjoyed every part of that night. My only discomfort came from my slightly hurt masculinity and maybe the part where her husband wanted a piece of me too. All in all, I didn’t regret anything about it, and I would have loved to go out with Kal more, but I knew it wasn’t going to happen.

A little later I got a house call for delivery from the system. The automated system told me when to do what so it was my immediate boss. The jelly bean took me to another faceless, copy pasted skyscraper apartment complex. Each passing day this city looked more and more depressing. Perhaps I should take a tour around the planet sometime. I couldn’t believe this was the best that it could offer.

[I never asked before, but what’s this planet?] I asked Genna while approaching the room for the delivery.

[This is the second habitable planet of the Fengar System and the second colonized planet of the fungari,] she explained.

[So this is a mushroom people planet. Are they generally this boring?] I asked while pointing around with my head.

[It’s safe to say that typically, they have a mild taste towards artistic values,] she tried to put it nicely.

I reached my destination, but there was no response from inside even after I banged on the door. I was starting to see a pattern here. If the robots failed to deliver something three times the delivery would fail even more because the one ordering didn’t give a rat’s ass about their package. I wished I could just take it home with me and say that I succeeded with the delivery. It would have been nice, but I couldn’t do that for several reasons. First of all, I promised Genna that I wouldn’t steal deliveries like this anymore and secondly, it would be the noobiest mistake anyone could make. Even the stupidest person could connect the dots if this gets reported and those dots would light a straight way to me.

I wouldn’t be able to explain what I expected; it was simply on a whim that I tried reaching for the metal plate on the door that opened it. To my absolute surprise, the door slid to the side with a gentle sound.

“Erm...”

[Aium?! What are you doing again? Why can’t we have a quiet day for once?] complained Genna.

[I didn’t mean to open it… I mean I did, but I didn’t think that it would just open,] I said with a shrug.

I peeked inside, but from the bright hallway, I couldn’t see much in the dark room. I took a careful step inside.

“Hello? Anyone home? I’ve got a delivery here for,” I said and looked down at the package for the name, “Karlone Poper.”

There was no response.

[This isn’t in accordance with the protocols,] complained, Genna.

[I figured… Come on, be a bit more flexible.]

I walked in deeper and my eyes slowly adjusted to the darker room. The apartment was bigger than mine, but it still had only one room. The walls were filled with colorful decorations of some kind of moving game or movie posters. There were several shelves filled with various unknown gadgets. On the bed, I could see some light source, and when I took a closer look, I realized someone was lying there. My first thought was that the person was dead. I rushed up to her - as it turned out it was a girl - and realized that she was okay. She was wearing a helmet that had lights running through the sides. I could see her chest rise and fall and I was only checking out that area in particular because I was concerned about her health. By the way, she was flat.

“Hello?” I asked loudly, but she didn’t respond. I tried again with a few claps to get her attention, but there was still no response.

I was about to kick her legs, but Genna stopped me.

[She’s deep in VR. Must have turned on the undisturbed function. You shouldn’t bother her anymore; she won’t hear you. Can we leave now? This is a severe invasion of her privacy.]

I stared at her for a while and then around her room. I could have done anything. A stranger was standing by her unconscious body in her own home. This whole world bothered me so much. It was like they were screaming for trouble in my eyes. This level of stupid naivety was when you slapped the back of their head and asked them if they were right in the head.

While looking around, I had a dark thought. It started as a tiny seed, and within a few seconds, it slowly turned into a wicked plan.

“Thanks,” I said to the girl with a smile then left her room and door closed behind me.

[Well done. I almost thought that you would do something really bad the-] commented Genna but I interrupted her by knocking on the neighboring room. [What?] she asked now.

There was no response to my knocking. I tried to open the door, but it didn’t work this time. I tried two more doors with the same result, but the third one opened up.

“Hello?” I asked into the darkness. There was no response, so I walked in.

[Okay. I get it. I’ve been mean recently, and you are trying to get back at me. I’m sorry, I’ll behave from now on. Can we get back to your workplace now?] pleaded Genna.

[Sure, just give me a minute.]

[For what?]

I didn’t respond to that one because even I wasn’t sure yet what I wanted. The room was the same size and design and just as I expected there was a goblin lying on the bed with a VR mask on his face.

“You there?” I asked loudly, but he didn’t even twitch. “These people seriously need some red pills in their lives,” I said with a shake of my head.

[Are you having a brain aneurysm? I can’t see anything wrong from here, but there is clearly something going off in here.]

I looked around the barely lit room. I spotted several potential candidates. For example, the metal plate before the goblin sized wardrobe or the thin rectangular box on the table in the corner of the room.

I asked Genna about them.

[What are you planning Aium? I don’t like where this is going,] she asked suspiciously.

[Answer please!]

[The metal plate before the drawer is a dresser. It dresses you up as its name would suggest. The box on the table is a linbog musical instrument.]

[How? That’s just a metal slab,] I said with a frown.

[They use their claws to scratch different parts of the instrument with varying speed and strength to produce different sounds.]

[Sure… Obviously, that’s how they use it… So, do they worth anything?]

[The dresser is pretty expensive. The Karwalma Log, the linbog instrument doesn’t worth much.]

I walked up to it and tried lifting it. The dresser was super heavy, but it was still manageable.

[So, Genna. I think we are taking this.]

[What do you mean?!]

[I mean we are bringing this with us,] I explained.

[NO! I mean how is that even an idea for you? Do you seriously want to steal again?]

[It’s just a dresser. Nothing that would be missed and look at that guy;] I said while pointing with my head towards the bed, [he’s a potato. Do you really think he would miss something like this?]

[Your reasons don’t matter if you do something wrong like this… You promised me you wouldn’t do this again.]

[I promised you that I wouldn’t steal deliveries like that again and I intend to keep my promise.]

[Why do you have to do this? You have a decent job; even your lie letters work to some extent. Can’t you just be normal?] she asked with a weak voice.

[I need the money so I can buy a ship of my own. I’m bored out of my mind even though I promised myself I wouldn’t waste my life away like this... and these people,] I looked at the goblin on the bed, [they are making me itch. It wouldn’t hurt them to get a little sense of reality back, especially for potatoes like these.]

She didn’t respond to that, so I continued.

[Look Genna. I want to take this and do some stuff to earn some extra credits, but before I do any of it, I have to ask you if you will report me or something. Last time I was reckless and didn’t even consider what would happen. This time I intend to ask the questions in time. Would you be cool with this or...]

[Nonsense question. I wouldn’t be okay with this… but… I wouldn’t report you. I absolutely disagree with this but I’m not going to ruin us either to punish you for it.]

[It’s just a piece of convenience equipment for a guy that probably spends most of his days in an imaginary world chasing catgirls for his make-believe harem,] I argued.

[You have an awful lot of prejudice towards someone you met a minute ago,] she added.

[Whatever. Let’s go before someone sees us,] I said and picked up the dresser plate from the ground.

The failed delivery in one hand and the dresser plate in the other I walked out of the room and the door slid closed behind me.

[Damn it Aium… Why do you have to be like this?]

[It’s nothing serious. No real harm was done. A little excitement with a side of free cash.]

She could only follow that up with a weak moan.

I jumped into my jelly bean with the plate in my lap and headed back to work.

After a while, Genna asked me, [Why did you go to another room to do this? The girl’s room was full of expensive equipment.]

[Good for her. I wouldn’t dare take something from someone I was supposed to deliver to. That’s just asking for getting caught. Someone with the right access to information can easily connect me to the missing things.]

[Uuuugh… your criminal way of thinking worries me greatly,] she complained.

[It’s just common sense… You should look it up. Pretty good stuff.]

It was all a spontaneous idea, but I was surprised how well Genna handled it this time. I thought she would right away refuse to go with this. I made it to the jelly bean safely and went back to work. I hid the dresser plate among my regular clothes in the back room.

I had a few things to figure out to make this work, but I had the basic idea. Genna tried to squeeze me for some information, but I would wait with it until we were home.

When we arrived home, Genna attacked again.

[So, what do you want to do with it?]

[You must have a guess at least. You are supposed to be the clever one among us,] I said with a small laugh while putting down my stuff and getting my shoes off.

[You want to sell it on the online market.]

[Close, but not perfect.]

[Then what? Come on, I’m still mad at you for doing this and you holding back information like this is just making it worse,] she threatened.

[I want to sell it, that’s right. I’ll need access to the online market. I would need some help with that, but the first step is something entirely different. I wouldn’t call myself a bright fellow, but at least I have something up in here,] I said while pointing to my head. [I wouldn’t sell this like this. If someone seriously starts looking for his missing shit, it wouldn’t be impossible to track it down if it appears on the market.]

[Then what do you want to do with it?]

[I’ll sell it in pieces, and I have just the right fool for the job of taking it apart.]

Genna was still antsy about the whole thing, but she still helped me set up an online market access. It would have taken no more than 5 minutes but choosing a name turned out to be a huge headache. After careful consideration and nearly two hours of debate with Genna, I managed to make my final decision on the name “The Menacing Duck”. It was silly, eye-catching and made no sense. It was perfect. Well, maybe not for those who had that strange phobia where they fear that a duck is watching them… Acceptable losses.

It was pretty easy to set up sales on the online market. I had a Public Product Market Access which meant I was able to sell Public Products. Most of the stuff on the market was under this category, but for example, the BioEnhancements were Restricted Products, and they were only sold by Empire approved sellers. All you had to do to sell something when you had Market Access was to add the information about your product and set a price. If you wanted to be extra nice you could use a cheap scanner on the product and with that, you could attach a perfect 3D holoscan of what you wanted to sell. The scanner wasn’t anything special or expensive, so I ordered one without hesitation.

When someone bought something from me, I would have to send it to the buyer with delivery. Since I wasn’t a proper shop, I had a longer delivery time than most other sellers because I had to go and do the sending by person. It was a little inconvenient, but I had a brilliant idea for this too. My workplace had tons of empty boxes, and nobody would notice a few missing. Also, I could just go in anytime and push my box into the hands of a robot, and they would just go with it. I wouldn’t have to pay a single credit for sending them, but the buyer would pay for the delivery. Absolutely brilliant. Most of my co-workers are fucking clones, they wouldn’t notice me being there, but if any of them did, I could always come up with a cheap excuse.

The last piece of my new business empire was Kevin! I didn’t remember his name, but I had a Genna, so it worked out. I had the perfect… well, an acceptable guy to take apart any stuff and give me back the valuable parts that are worth selling. He was in my debt so I could easily convince him.

Early morning next day I called him, and he was pretty surprised I contacted him. I explained to him that I might have a small business opportunity that might interest him. I told him that I had second-hand items and I needed someone that could take them apart and give me back the parts that are worth selling. He was a bit reluctant, but in the end, I managed to convince him since he was short on money. Unfortunately, after the explosive incident, he was politely kicked out of GreenHut. He had to go somewhere else nearby where the rent was a bit too tight for his situation. We agreed to meet up.

His new place was 30 minutes away from GeenHut. It would be a little inconvenient to walk so much every time, but I had time on my hand, and the little exercise wouldn’t hurt either.

Kevin’s room was a mess. When I saw his room after the explosion, I thought it was like that because of the explosion. Now I was sure that the explosion made things more orderly in his room. There were several desks with countless gadgets, pieces, and tools. Kevin didn’t really care about the status of his room. I showed him the dresser plate, and he eagerly took it apart in a few minutes. He seemed experienced enough in it, but I still backed up to the other side of the room.

He showed me which parts were worth something and which were trash. I put the valuable parts into a box I brought with me and asked him how much I should pay him for this. To my absolute delight, he said that it wasn’t much of a work and he would be satisfied enough with the leftover parts. He could find a use for them one way or another. I was a bit skeptical whether he was telling the truth or not but Genna backed him up. She wasn’t an expert in this field, but she could make some general observations.

I wouldn’t be able to acquire too many stuff since I rarely had to do house deliveries and even then I couldn’t just haul up everything, but it was still a nice way for a little more income. One step closer to heading off into space.

Roka Beferent’s POV

Staring into my fireplace while my home office was shrouded in darkness always helped me to soothe my mind. Something about staring into real fire always calmed me down. Importing quality wood from another planet cost me a fortune, but it was definitely worth it. Life should be savored with the finest that it could offer.

I took a sip from my drink and looked at the glass in the fire’s light. I savored the taste. I ran out of books to read so I just quietly enjoyed my drink near a warm fireplace this evening. I would have to fix this predicament with the lack of reading material. I missed reading something palpable during the evenings.

[Sir, you have received a report. The priority is high.] Unfortunately, Anne interrupted my introspection.

[Display!]

A holoscreen popped up in front of me with said report. It came from one of the spaceport supervisors on planet Remora II. It was a response to my inquiry from a while back about a certain individual that somehow managed to board a spaceship there without an IDChip or even the knowledge of the Empire’s language.

The report contained the detailed results of an exhaustive investigation on the matter. They went through every available information about the flight in question and even questioned every person that had contact with the passengers of said ship.

I frowned and sat up straight in my chair. If this was true…

I gave a perfect description of the individual in question in my inquiry. He had certain features that made him more distinguishable. The report revealed no signs of this individual on their end around the spaceship’s departure time. According to the flight attendant of the ship the person was sitting in a seat that should have been otherwise empty when the spaceship landed.

This was troubling for several reasons if we considered the other events from my unique meeting with this individual.

[Anne, schedule a call for Aium Roowe the first thing tomorrow morning.]

[Yes, Sir!]