"See you soon, Timothy," she whispered, her foot resting idly on the accelerator. "Let's see how you hold up under a sudden surge of adrenaline."
She put the car in gear and vanished into the Chicago night, a phantom moving through a city that had no idea its math was being corrected.
The steam in the bathroom was so thick it felt like a physical weight, pressing against Elena's skin as she sank deeper into the clawfoot tub. This was her sanctuary—a rare moment where the NZT-fueled humming of her brain slowed down from a scream to a vibration.
She lifted a leg, watching the water bead off the smooth, lethal line of her calf.
Too fast, she thought, closing her eyes. The steam from the bathwater curled around Elena like a shroud, but for the first time in weeks, she didn't feel like a ghost. She was moving so fast she was outrunning her own shadow. She needed to stand still long enough for her identity to catch up with her actions.
Breathe, she commanded herself, exhaling a long, slow plume of air—a meditative habit Arthur wanted to begin after his retreat.
The last few weeks had been a frantic, high-speed blur: the cold, metallic terror of the morgue; the calculated flirtation with the night guard to get access to the terminal; the desperate scramble for a new identity while her own brain was still rewiring itself from "male" to "female", from "corporate drone" to "assassin." She had played the seductress, navigated the hormonal waters of the university in a male dominated major, and now she was playing judge and jury for a murderer. Her dwindling stack of cash that reminded her of other urgent matters.
And through it all, there was the constant, jarring static of being in a body that clearly has other needs than her old one. A week ago, she'd been hit by her first period—a biological ambush that had left her doubled over in a bathroom stall, cursing the sheer inconvenience of being female.
Priorities, she thought, watching the bubbles pop against her skin. "Life will always bring pressure and challenges, we just need to sort out how we deal with it," she motivated herself.
First: Money.
She couldn't ignore this topic any longer. The boutique trip had been a necessity, but it had gutted her savings. She thought about Fox's old methods—stealing from the underworld, hitting "clean" targets like drug dens. But the risk was too high. Wesley was still out there, a world she wanted to leave behind. Any illegal splash could draw the kind of attention she couldn't afford.
She needed "clean" money.
Her mind flickered back to Arthur's memories. The latest smartphone had just hit the market. The world was standing on the precipice of the App Store gold rush—a period where people would pay a dollar just to see a digital beer glass empty.
I need a laptop from the company Banana, she realized, stupid locked in system. Anyway, I'll build the classics before they even exist. 1024, Deedle Jump and CrushCandy with enough pay-to-win psychological hooks to fund a small army. Pure, legal, passive income.
She sank deeper into the water, the heat soaking into her muscles.
Next: The University.
She'd been playing the "lethal genius" too hard. It was satisfying to watch the boys stumble over their own tongues, but it was bad tradecraft. A "Vance Phenomenon" would be remembered, researched, and eventually someone would wonder where she has been in her earlier days. She needed a narrative arc to explain why the shy waitress had suddenly turned into a sharp-tongued physics goddess.
She thought of the old Elena and one thing came to mind. The 'Suppressed Girlfriend' story, she thought, a faint smirk touching her lips. She could play the victim of a controlling, dominant ex-boyfriend. She'd "found herself" after breaking the chains. Girls love a comeback story, and they love to talk. By the end of the week, the campus grapevine would have her backstory sanitized and settled.
Then, there was Jules.
She was glad she'd pushed the date back. It wasn't some insecurity—it was the fact that she'd spent forty years as a man and only a few weeks as a woman. The wiring was still crossed. She liked the heat Jules put in her blood, but she wasn't ready for a thing.
I'll use the same story, Elena decided. Tell her I'm fresh out of a bad situation. Tell her I'm not looking for a partner—just new physical experiences. A way to reclaim my own skin.
It was honest, in a warped sort of way. She didn't want a soulmate. She wanted to know how this new, sexy body ticked. She wanted the "fleshly" parts without the anchors of a relationship.
And then, there was Timothy Thorne.
The "M" he so arrogantly claimed to be. To the old Fox, he wouldn't even be a mission; he would be a chore. She would have calculated the wind resistance, accounted for the Coriolis effect, and put a curved bullet through his temple from three blocks away before his morning coffee got cold.
But a sniper's nest in a Chicago suburb was a flare in the dark. It screamed "Fraternity." It screamed that someone was still alive, still practicing the old trade. If Wesley—or anyone else looking for survivors—saw that kind of signature, her quiet life as Elena Vance would be over before her exams.
Besides, a bullet was too clean. Too merciful.
Elena sat up, the water sluicing off her shoulders. She wasn't just Fox anymore. She was more and she owed the girl more than a quick death for her murderer. She owed her a mirroring.
I want to shine a light so bright it burns. I want everyone who ever shook his hand to see the filth beneath his fingernails. He won't just be dead; he'll be debunked.
She wouldn't kill him from afar. She would do it as a personal visit. She'd wait for the perfect window—the moment after he'd summoned Chloe but before the girl arrived.
She visualized the sequence with NZT-enhanced clarity: Deactivate his hidden cameras through a simple power shortage or a simple software override. Subdue him. Put him in his own stockade—the very one where the original Elena had breathed her last.
He would die by the very adrenaline he used to break Elena. She would watch him vibrate into a cardiac arrest, a mirror image of the hyper-sensory torture he'd perfected. Afterward, the 'Master' would be reduced to a punchline. She'd pose him in the very same chair she saw him getting himself off on the old Elena's death, trousers undone, the image of a man who died choking on his own depravity. With Chloe's schedule displayed on the monitor like a confession, the narrative would be set. She would unlock the door, invite the world to see the rot under his skin.
When the police eventually finds him, they wouldn't find a murder scene. They would find a lonely, middle-aged man who had died of a massive heart attack while indulging in his sickest fantasies. A man who literally worked himself to death over a screen.
But first, she thought, her jaw tightening, I scrub Elena from his life.
She would wipe every server, every hard drive, every grainy frame of the original Elena's suffering. She would reclaim those memories, leaving nothing behind but the digital evidence of his obsession with Chloe—the "motive" for his fatal excitement.
Elena reached for the soap, her movements slow and deliberate. The planning felt... right. It was a strange, cold comfort to find herself at the intersection of her two former lives. Arthur's moral compass and Fox's predatory efficiency had finally found a common north in Elena Vance. Most people lived their lives looking away from the predators among them, but Elena was built to look directly at the rot. If the world was too soft to deal with the likes of Timothy Thorne, she would be the hard edge it needed. She would be the shadow that hunts the things in the dark.
She stood up, the water draining away with a hollow, gurgling sound. She stepped out onto the cold tile, her reflection in the full-length mirror looking back at her—wet, beautiful, and utterly lethal.
"Step one," she whispered, grabbing a towel and wrapping it tight around her chest. "Get the flagship laptop from Banana. And a USB stick to prepare."
She walked out of the steam-filled room, already mentally drafting the code for 1024. The lull was over. The predator was getting an income.
The next morning, Elena didn't go to the university. After a short stop in the local IT store she sat in a comfortable coffee shop, her new laptop screen a waterfall of code.
She remembered the "old" world—the one Arthur had lived in. She knew what the mobile market was about to become. It was 2006, and the App Store was a digital Wild West. People were hungry for simple, hit-of-dopamine distractions.
With her mind operating at 100% capacity, coding wasn't work; it was poetry. She spent four hours "inventing" 1024. It was a mathematical elegance that her brain found almost soothing. By the time through with her third latte, she had the framework for Deedle Jump and a match-three game she'd call CrushCandy.
But she wasn't just copying mechanics; she was building a brand. To tie the three games together, she designed a recurring mascot—a tiny, pixelated angel with oversized, expressive eyes and a mischievous halo. She named the character "Angie." In 1024, Angie was the "Divine Intervention," a rare power-up that would fly across the grid to shuffle a stuck lane, granting the player one last hope. In Deedle Jump, she would hover momentarily to catch the player during a fatal fall, a sweet safety net in a punishing climb. And in CrushCandy, she was the "Seraphim Strike," a burst of light that would shatter a stubborn row of sweets.
Angie was the personification of the help Elena wished she'd had in her old lives—someone sweet, someone tiny, but someone who had the power to change the rules of the game when the world got too heavy.
Elena leaned back, a faint, genuine smile playing on her lips as she registered the domain. Angel Games. It was the perfect front. While the world saw a cute, pixelated cherub helping them pass the time on their commute, the woman behind the screen would be using the profits to fund a much more literal form of "divine intervention."
She didn't need a publisher. She just needed a few shell accounts and a clean server.
"Passive income," she murmured, hitting Compile. "The most beautiful words in the English language."
At the university the next day, Elena made a conscious choice. The "predatory model" worked for intimidation, but it isolated her.
In the student lounge, she saw a group of female sophomores struggling with a thermodynamics problem set. Usually, she'd have walked past, a clicking metronome of "don't touch." Instead, she sat on the arm of a nearby chair.
"The second law is a bitch, isn't it?" she said, her voice warm, lacking the razor-wire edge of the previous day.
One of the girls, a mousy brunette named Sarah, looked up, startled. "We... yeah. We can't get the entropy change to balance."
Elena leaned over, pointing a manicured finger at a line of Greek symbols. "You're treating it as a closed system. Think of it like a messy breakup—energy is leaking everywhere. Adjust for the ambient heat loss here."
For the next twenty minutes, she wasn't the "Vance Phenomenon." She was a mentor. She laughed when they joked about Halloway's toupee. She was building a network. If she was going to hunt monsters in the dark, she needed the light of a "normal" life to hide in.
Despite all the things she had to do the upcoming date with Jules loomed in her mind.
Arthur's memories of sex were... okay. Fox's memories were non-existent—after the death of her parents she only worked towards being a weapon to prevent that sort of pain, and weapons don't have needs. But now? Elena was neither and both at the same time and she didn't quite know how that will turn out.
She found herself in a sex shop in Boystown. The shop was a far cry from the neon-lit dens Arthur might have imagined. It smelled of expensive cedar and high-grade silicone, lit with a warm, amber glow that made the stainless steel displays look like art.
The clerk, a woman named Sam with vibrant undercut hair and a "Power to the People" pin, watched Elena with an appreciative, easy-going grin. She'd seen a thousand nervous students, but this one was different. This one was prowling.
Elena picked up a sleek, obsidian-black wand, turning it over in her hands. "The frequency feels... off," Elena murmured, her thumb tracing the seam. "What's the motor's peak RPM? I'm looking for something that offers consistent haptic feedback, not just a jagged vibration."
Sam blinked, then chuckled, leaning against the counter. "Engineering student? You're looking at the 'Symphony.' It uses a brushless motor—quieter, smoother, and it won't stall out when you... well, when you apply pressure."
Elena caught herself, forcing a softness into her eyes that she didn't quite feel yet. "I like to know how my machines work," she said, her voice dropping to a smoky rasp. "But yes. The 'Symphony' setting sounds like exactly the kind of crescendo I'm looking for."
"Exploring alone, or bringing a friend along for the ride?" Sam asked, gesturing toward a display of silk and leather.
"I'm in a period of... self-discovery," Elena replied, her gaze wandering to the more structural items. "But I'm interested in toys for two. Something for a woman to use on another woman. Something... firm."
Sam's eyes sparkled. She walked over to a glass case, pulling out a harness made of buttery soft Italian leather. "If you're the one in charge, you want stability. This keeps everything exactly where it needs to be, so you can focus on her reaction."
Elena ran her fingers over the leather. The thought of Jules flashed through her mind—the way the clerk had appraised her at the boutique. A shiver ran down her spine.
Then, her eyes settled on a piece of hardware in the corner. It was a folding spreader bar, cold and brushed-steel. It looked like a piece of high-end gym equipment until you noticed the locking cuffs at the ends and the padded collar in the center.
"Now that," Sam said, noticing Elena's focus, "is the 'Solitude Bar.' It's a bit of a specialty. It keeps your arms spread wide, pinned to the collar. But the best part? The locking mechanism is on a digital timer. You can set it for up to 24 hours."
A mischievous, dark thrill spiked through Elena's chest. A machine that could hold her captive—one that took the decision out of her hands. A forced "lull" in her own hyper-active life.
"It opens automatically when the time is up?" Elena asked, her voice breathless.
"Every time," Sam promised. "It's perfect for when you want to be at the mercy of the clock. Or for when you want to leave someone exactly where you put them while you go make a coffee... or let them simmer."
"I'll take it," Elena said, the image of herself pinned and waiting—or Jules, wide-eyed and trapped—settling deep in her mind. "As well as the harness and three dildos in small, middle and big. Those work on both ends, yes? And some hemp rope. Midnight blue."
Sam laughed and began to ring up the items, her smile turning conspiratorial. "You sure will have a lot of fun with all this. I am a bit jealous of your friend."
Elena smiled, a slow, predatory curve of her lips. "Oh, I will have a lot of fun. And I know where you work, you know the saying It's a small world."
Finally, there was the matter of the kill.
She sat at her desk, staring at a printout of Timothy Thorne's schedule. She didn't have a FOID card or a concealed carry permit—and getting caught with an illegal firearm would end her university career before it started.
She looked at her African violets.
Exposing him.
Killing him was easy. Making him wish he were dead—making the world see the "Master" as the pathetic, ambulance-dispatching worm he was—that required engineering.
Elena didn't need to break a window or pick a lock to get inside his head. During her surveillance, she'd watched Timothy through his own webcam—a classic Windows vulnerability that a mind on NZT could exploit in seconds.
As she delved into his private servers, she found the true depth of his depravity. He didn't just film his victims; he filmed himself. There already were hours of footage of Timothy sitting in his ergonomic chair, his face twisted in a pathetic ecstasy as he watched the loop of Elena's final moments.
"Perfect," she whispered, her fingers flying across the keys.
She wasn't going to leave the killing to chance. She began coding a specialized worm—a digital "ghost" that would reside on a USB stick disguised as a generic Bluetooth dongle.
The script was an elegant piece of software surgery. Once she plugged it into his hub during the 'visit,' it would execute three phases:
1) The Blackout: It would loop "empty" room recordings to his local monitors while she was physically in the house, ensuring no camera caught her face or her movements.
2) The Purge: It would skim every terabyte of data, using facial recognition to identify the original Elena Vance. Every image, every frame, every scream captured on digital film would be shredded and overwritten with zeroes.
3) The Setup: It would take the footage of Timothy's own self-indulgence—the video of him masturbating to death and suffering—and cue it up to play on the main monitor the moment she triggered the "heart attack."
4) The final stroke of genius was the dongle's exit strategy. Once the task was complete, the USB drive would rewrite its own firmware, bricking the storage partition and presenting itself to any forensic team as a simple, fried wireless mouse receiver.
"You'll be famous, Timothy," she murmured, the blue light of the screen reflecting in her predatory gaze.
She could see it all unfolding: Chloe would arrive for her 'session' only to find the door unlatched. She'd walk into the basement theater to find her 'Master' dead in his own stockade, his heart failed, with his most pathetic, disgusting moments playing on a loop for her to see. Chloe would see the plans he had for her, the terror he intended to inflict, and she would call the police not as a victim, but as a survivor.
The parasite would be purged, the original Elena would have justice, her identity would be safe, and she would be miles away, tucked into her bed, dreaming of her upcoming date.
She hit Enter, the code compiling with a satisfied hum.