Opening a locked door is easy, provided that it's connected to a network. Hack in, pop it open, delete any evidence that I was there. But what about things too old school to be on the network? Old school security is a hacker's bane.

Or...it used to be. But with these powers, I'm starting to get a new perspective on things. On everything. All the world's a mainframe, and the men and women (and neither of the above, thank you very much) merely daemons. Okay, so we have significantly more agency than daemons, but that isn't the point. The point is, I've realized that if I look at reality like a computer system, I can see the code behind it. And I can change it. Not much, not yet, but it's a start. And if I keep doing contracts, I can keep getting better, yeah?

This is going to be interesting.

Luna seems to be doing alright. I can't say all my worries are gone, but she seems amenable to working together in the future. Two kids hacking the planet together! And chatting together. That's pretty cool too.

Aaaaanyway, with her safety off my mind, there's something else that's been nagging me from that last job. I know nothing about medicine, but I ended up being the only one who could stabilize two people with bullet wounds. We got lucky the first aid kit had thorough instructions. Even luckier that they were written in multiple languages, considering I don't read Japanese. If we end up in that situation again, I don't want to leave it to chance. I need to learn some first aid, at the very least.

And how fortunate that my school is offering first aid as an elective on weekends! It covers first aid, AEDs, naloxone, and even the basics of responding to trauma like gunshots. That seems like it covers a pretty wide array of things I might encounter in future contracts. And! I also get extra credit in health class for attending. Win-win!

Luna's fine. She's only trapped in the game, after all, not in reality. I just have to trust that she'll call on me when the time comes to get her out of it. The library is fine. I haven't made as much progress as I'd like, this is true, but I've heard of some interesting things happening in Neo-GENIS that I could maybe make use of.  I'll have to look into this guild that Serge is setting up. I'm not much for writing fiction, myself, so I won't be joining. But perhaps they'd be interested in some sort of partnership.

But if there's nothing I can do about my problems right now, I still need something to keep my mind off of things for a while. Breaking into some networks I'm not supposed to be on is fun, but it's also work, and what I need right now is a hobby, not a job. So let's ride. Just me, the road, and all the other assholes driving on it. Until I get out of the city, anyway. Then it's just the wide open highways of America. Just what I need right now.