Chapter Eight - Getting Prettied Up

I had my gear, and some regrets.

It was weird. I'd only had my power for a day and a bit, and already I was thinking of ways to change the way I lived the entirety of my life.

I could have spent a subjective eternity figuring Jane out to get what I wanted without that hassle and without the risk.

And I decided not to.

It wasn't that time was no longer important to me. It was more that I wasn't a perfect being. There would be no perfect run for me. I didn't have a memory sharp enough to keep track of a million tiny permutations.

So, instead, I needed to just... do my best, learn what I had to, and improved as well as I could within the limits of my mind.

Maybe once I had enough cash I could invest in memory magics of some sort?

It was mostly speculative, but there was a lot of media that talked about the occasional mental magic or mage that could use more 'mental' magic.

In any case, using that kind of thing was beyond me at the moment. For all that there had once been an age of a 'free' internet, that was long past. The arrival and opening of portals across the world destabilized things terribly, and what we had now was fractured and a lot less wild. In some ways that was better, but in many it was worse.

I made note of that, actually. Getting information would be precious. As an E-ranker I had been allowed to get some information, but the fetters were still there, and still potent.

E-rankers were people with the potential to be useful. It wasn't actually a sign that they were capable. Not without other, supporting elements.

Not to say that I wasn't pleased that I was an E-ranker, but the step from E to D was enormous, and once it was official, I'd be allowed to access a lot more information on magic and portals, things that were denied to the common citizen, at least within this city.

In anycase, that was a plan for later, maybe the day after my interview and the first portal attack? I'd have the paperwork by then, probably, to prove my ID. That ought to give me access to some better resources.

I didn't go straight home. Instead I stopped by a coffee shop a few blocks over and slid into the washroom. There, I set a new Save. It wasn't wise, maybe, to lose the previous one, but... dammit, what was the worst that could happen at this exact point?

I then ripped all of the clothing Jane had sold me apart at the seams. It was base paranoia, but I was afraid that there would be some sort of tracking device or something suspicious stuck in the clothes.

The only thing I found was a business card from Full-Auto Stranger-Danger with a phone number written on it surrounded by stars and hearts and the words 'call me' and Jane's name at the bottom.

I stared at it for a moment, then rolled my eyes.

I didn't ditch it when I reset, though. It was at the bottom of the bag anyway and fishing it out would take too long.

So I made it home and stuffed the outfit in an old purse. One of those oversized ones that were all the rage a few years back. When the time came to invade that portal tomorrow, I'd get changed first, then see what I could do.

Right... that left me with...

It was a few hours short of noon. I had nothing to do.

"Dammit," I muttered.

I did have appointments in the afternoon. Nails, hair, and picking up the dry cleaning. But with a fresh Save and about seven hours to waste... well, no, it was more than that. I could do anything I wanted for hours on end.

I could nap, but I wasn't tired, mentally or physically. I could train some more... maybe head back to Ctrl-Alt-Delts and see if Natalie was there. I had a bit of pent up energy and it wouldn't hurt to use it up.

I grumbled and wasted a solid hour doing nothing, then I decided to at least make the best of the time and learn something with it.

First, I found some online courses on knife fighting. There were some simple motions there, some tips and tricks videos, and it would only help to become familiar with the grip, weight, and feel of a new weapon.

That got boring after two or so hours.

Learning new stuff was strange. Every skill I'd ever had to learn had a sort of bell-curve with the amount that I could learn. The start had a slow but steady increase in the amount of new things I'd pick up, but the deeper I went, past the initial hump, the less I'd actually learn, and the more specialized the knowledge would be.

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Trying to learn the guitar had been like that for me. I'd gotten past the 'this is how you hold it' phase in a few hours. Three lessons had been enough to play a few chords, know how to tune the thing, and follow along to the simplest of simple songs.

It would take another thousand hours to refine those basics into actual skill.

In theory, I had those thousand hours right now.

But how much could I actually absorb?

I decided that I might as well test it.

The old guitar shoved haphazardly into a closet came out, then I had to clean the thing off from three years of accumulated dust. I... had forgotten some things, but they came back as I strummed along. Within an hour I was about eighty-percent as good as I'd once been.

Three loops and a subjective nine hours later, I was bored with it, even if Reloading removed the pain in my fingertips.

Dammit, I'd never get to keep any calluses if I didn't practice in the 'real' timeline, would I?

So... I was back to the start, and still bored. I turned to the internet and asked it what to do if I had infinite time to pick up any new hobbies. Most hobbies were wasted on me. Painting and such was cool, but the goal of that hobby wasn't just learning to paint, but creating something.

Maybe, but no. Besides, I had none of the materials for that or any other hobby that involved making anything physical.

Languages...

Languages was a good idea. I'd had French lessons in school and they'd been enjoyable. I spent an hour downloading pirated language-learning software then practicing with it, and that was actually kind of fun.

How many languages could I learn, given infinite time?

Probably none. Not fluently. Well, no. I could. I'd have to make a Save before talking to someone actually fluent, then go back and try again, and again. Maybe a language teacher? I wouldn't even need to pay them.

That was a cool idea. It would still take a lot of real-world time to set up and such, but I had nine months of real time, and more of my own, personal time, to figure that out.

Would it help in the end?

I found myself suddenly frozen with indecision. Was I wasting my time, learning pointless skills like playing an instrument and speaking a foreign language (poorly) when I could spend all of that same time deep-diving the corporations, guilds, and individuals responsible for the breach?

"Crap," I muttered.

And then I kept on playing, because that might have been true, but it didn't mean that I had to do it right now.

Having eternity to get to it was not good for my tendency to procrastinate because it just meant I could do everything forever from now.

Later. For the moment, I had a lot of stuff on my plate.

The 'true' version, the last Reload of that Save point I'd made, I spent doing some of the same research I'd done nine months ago. Looking up Luna Corp, seeing what their interview process was like, digging up some info on the corp.

I now knew that past-me had run into a lot of PR bullshit, but even that was a good reminder of what I was embarking in.

Then, when the time came for real and I didn't want to Reload the same afternoon for the... I think sixteenth time, I left the apartment.

I definitely felt tired. Not physically, of course, but my mind was a bit sluggish. The same feeling I'd get from drinking a bit, or staying up way, way past the time when I should have been asleep. It was a sort of mental fog that I really didn't enjoy and couldn't help but be aware of.

Still, the appointments I had didn't require great thought. I had my nails done. Cuticles clipped, gloss applied, edges trimmed. Then it was a few doors over to a hair salon where I paid far too much to have a young lady fuss with my hair and 'tsk' when I asked to cut it a little shorter. My hair tended to be very voluminous at the best of times. Too much so, even. If I didn't pay attention to it, it would be a rats nest on my head.

Finally, picking up the dry cleaning.

By the end, I was down to single-digits in cash and my bank account had just enough in it that they wouldn't close it down on me sight-unseen.

It was enough.

Tomorrow, after a long night's much-needed rest, I was going to get my old job back, and maybe a bit more.

***