Gather information

“...and Mommy looked through her books again and found that’s totally normal for boys your age!”

“Becka.”

“It also said that it’s important for parents to give love and affection when that happens as it’s a natural reaction of the body to vaccines!”

“Becka!”

“So don’t worry my little angel! Mommy is not angry with you! She will-”

“Mrs. Robinson!!!” That finally shut her up, even if now she looked extremely offended. “Stella might fire me. May I rely on your support?”

“Oh! Absolutely!” I breathed out the tension I’ve been feeling. At least now I only need to find a way to get Lucy under my thumb- “I always thought you were too young for this place! Mommy will take care of you!”

“...No. That’s not wha-”

“And you really need to learn when it’s proper to use Miss instead of Misses! I'm not _that _old!” And just like that she ruffled my hair and went back to work.

I breathed the tension back in and almost choked on it. At least Veronica will be fine as long as I do good work. Alright two targets: one is an annoying teen that somehow decided to still be a part of goths in the second decade of the 21st century, the other is a crazy MILF who wants a kid to take care of so badly she is willing to slot in a 28 year old into that role. Worst part is that even with my cheating powers I have no way of getting what I want from them. At -100 both won’t ever do anything I say.

Unless...

I get out my phone and launch the app again. Wow. That’s not the UI I made… Doesn’t matter. Menu. How to. There! “-100 to -80 = This person will not take commands from you unless they literally have no other choice.”

Yes! There is a way out! I just have to… to… Now how do I leave them ****? I could maybe overpower them, but… Let’s be honest. I’m not the best at being physical. Most of my worth is in my head (that I for some reason never use). So a confrontation is just as likely to go in their favor. Plus I have nowhere to hide them while I’m working on them. And wouldn’t I be the most likely suspect?

No. **** is out of the question. But what else could I do? I don’t know about anything else that would potentially work. ...Haven’t I just had this exact conversation with myself?

Information. I needed information to move forward. And I had a few ideas of how to find it.

Coming back home I sat behind my computer once more. I opened the browser and began searching. ‘Vulnerabilities in <insert restaurant’s router model here>’, ‘Tracking cookies’, and other ways modern techno-wizard could ruin someone’s life. I would’ve probably been put on some kind of watch list just for this, except security lessons also came with online anonymity lessons.

Half way through implementing this, I realized that I might be able to incorporate the “Submission Acceleration API”. Maybe not, but I owed it to myself to at least read through the documentation. Half an hour later I was coding like my fingers were on fire.

By the time I went to sleep it was ready. All that was left was to use it.