Watching and Listening - An Empires SMP AU

Replace

           "You'll just have to trade," fWhip told her. "I don't think I have anything to trade," False said. Then her phone beeped out a notification and False turned it on. It was a text message from Doc saying that he didn't have any luck and asking where she was. Quickly, False texted her coordinates and asked him to go to where she was. Soon enough, Doc arrived, and the two hermits checked what sort of money they had.

           "Ten diamonds," Doc said. "Only ten?" False whispered. "I thought you brought more!" "Pickpocket," Doc growled. "What happened to your diamonds?" "Pickpocket," False sighed. "So in other words, we're broke," Doc said, folding his arms. "Do you have anything on you to trade?" False asked. He shook his head. This wasn't good. False needed her computer to be fixed as soon as possible before her clone showed any significant relapse into her dangerous habits. Any setback at all was not acceptable.

           Then False felt a tug on her cloak and turned to see a goblin with gold hoop earrings examining it closely. "This is spider silk," She said. "It is?" False said. She thought back to earlier that day when she'd bought it from Katherine to help hide her identity. The princess hadn't said anything about what the pretty cloak was made of but False knew that Glimmer Grove's export was spider string so it made sense.

           "I can trade some of the parts you need for this coat," The goblin said suddenly. False felt a slight ray of hope descend onto her, deep down in this underground alley. "I need enough to fix my computer," False told her. Then the other goblins came closer. "Spider silk's expensive," They said. "How about you trade the cloak to all of us and we'll give you the parts you need for a new computer?" A replacement computer. It was better than nothing.

           "Are you sure this one coat is enough?" False frowned, then immediately regretted what she'd said. The goblins started to think carefully about the potential sale and the prices. "I'll add in ten diamonds," Doc said, pulling out his pouch of money. "How about fifteen?" One of them said slyly. I am not going to be scammed, False thought. "We don't have fifteen diamonds," False said, "But how about you take the ten we're offering and my old computer, if you're going to make me a new one?"

           False had heard that goblins were good tinkerers and could make almost anything out of wonky junk, so she figured offering her device was worth a shot. It was enough to convince them. "We'll take it!" The goblin with the hoop earrings made to pull the battered computer away from her, but False jerked it back. There was something she had to take care of first. 

           She excused herself for a moment and ducked into a deeper alley, where no one was looking. She pushed the power button and the monitor flickered feebly on after the fourth try. False opened up a program that erased all of her device's history and replaced it with harmless-looking stuff. She couldn't have anyone find out about anything she'd been doing in Cogsmeade, and her faithful computer had recorded it all, so her history had to go.

           When that was done, she handed her coat and computer and Doc's diamonds to the goblins and they immediately started bickering over how to split the spoils evenly. The hermits had to separate them long enough for False to get the computer parts she paid for, and for the goblins to assemble it all into a working computer. "You owe me ten," Doc told her as they turned to go.

            False nodded and then noticed fWhip eying her curiously. "You look a lot like a friend of mine," fWhip said musingly, and False felt her blood run cold. "You're a lot shorter, though," fWhip added, and False felt a bit relieved. "Like a hermit." False gulped. She didn't like where this was going. "Really? That's a big coincidence," She said, trying to shrug it off. "What's her name?"

            "False, but she's not really a friend," fWhip said. "I don't really know her that well and I've only seen her like three times, so maybe you two don't really look alike." False let out a breath she didn't know she was holding in. She shrugged noncommittally and she and Doc made their way back to the surface, with the parts for the replacement computer in tow.

---

           Jimena practically ran all over Cogsmeade running errands for False. To enact False's plan to hijack the computer, she needed parts. But since they were being spied on, they had to get the machinery separately and disguise their intentions. Some were secured from the junk heap when Jimena went to reclaim the used parts to be refurbished. Others were 'broken' and pried off of existing machines. One False took from her computer in the iron farm blimp.

           The girls pretended to be busy all day to not arouse suspicions about what False could be doing deep inside her house where no telescope could penetrate. Slowly, little by little, using stolen fractions of time in between errands, a computer chip was being pieced together and programmed. And False couldn't wait to get it to work.

           But of course, running all those errands were tiring, so as soon as the early dinner was eaten up with no leftovers, Jimena jumped into bed and fell asleep quickly. And the other thing that came quickly was the dream. The void again. Jimena flew around, looking for a particular someone to talk to. But he was silent; the void was actually empty this time. Where is he? Jimena wondered, and she flew further.

           Slowly, the void melted away into a chasm of endless light. Jimena was surrounded by 4d pictures that flashed by her in an instant. And she recognized the pictures. They depicted her experiences, things that had happened to her. I remember that, Jimena found herself thinking when she saw them. But there were some pictures that Jimena couldn't remember. They were gray.

           One set of these gray pictures were clumped together. And stood over them was Qiron. Jimena watched him as he emitted blue light from his hands and wound it around the gray pictures. They flickered and fluctuated and began to change, ever so slightly. Then one broke into pieces and Qiron put another gray image in its place, one that he'd created out of his own power. He's replacing it. Jimena thought, and as if he'd heard her, Qiron looked up and saw the girl.

           He thrust out both his hands and suddenly Jimena was gone from the place of light and was falling, falling, falling in the void again. And the dream continued the whole night. When she woke up the next morning, Jimena remembered nothing of what she'd seen.