Chapter 2: First Target.
Third thing I noticed was that, every single one of the targets had been women although that did nothing to dismiss my confusion because not every woman I saw had the panels.
The fact that only a select few triggered the display left me deeply skeptical and more than a little creeped out.
What was the criteria? What did "Potential Target" even mean? And what was a "Mission"? The whole thing felt like a video game I'd never signed up to play, but it was clear completing missions related to a target was some obvious criteria.
The "Difficulty" stars ranged from zero to three so far, but I had no idea what succeeding or failing entailed. Was there a reward? A punishment? Was I supposed to do something?
'I can't just keep ignoring them forever, can I?' The thought circled in my head for the hundredth time that day. It was a terrifying prospect to engage, but the passive observation was driving me slowly insane. The mystery was a constant itch in the back of my skull.
"Excuse me… Sir? You've been awfully silent for a while now. Is it… is it okay if my order is checked out so I can leave?" The voice, tentative and slightly impatient, sliced through my spiraling thoughts and yanked me back into the fluorescent-lit reality of the convenience store.
My head snapped up. "I'm terribly sorry," I said quickly, the automatic customer-service apology kicking in before my brain fully caught up. I focused on the girl on the other side of the counter.
She was young, probably just out of high school. A brunette with hair the color of dark honey, parted neatly down the middle and tied into two long, heavy braids that rested on the shoulders of her oversized grey hoodie. She wore large, round glasses with thin silver frames that magnified her eyes, giving her a perpetually startled look.
A light dusting of freckles was scattered across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks, a detail I noted and then, in a weirdly protective mental shift, decided to reframe.
'They look more like dimples, to be honest.'
Something about her, the careful braids, the oversized clothes, the way she held herself with a kind of fragile earnestness.
Staring at her silver braids, baggy clothes and fragile demeanor, I found myself
triggering a sudden, vivid memory of a certain someone.
'She reminds me a lot about Ophelia from a few years back.' The image of a little girl with a wide, cheeky, gap-toothed grin and radiant, mischievous eyes filled my head. Ophelia was the daughter of an old neighbor, back when I lived with my relatives in a quieter, less prominent city two states over.
As for why I lived with my relatives back then, it was because I was unfortunately orphaned at a young age.
I can say for a fact that being orphaned at ten does something's to a person.
Skip a few years forward, I got old enough to enter college but my dear relatives couldn't fit the bill, me being a stubborn brat back then decided to try fending for myself, leaving home and attending a public college, I had to say, it wasn't easy since I had to pick up a few jobs to keep myself afloat.
Even while I had been the one to leave them, my aunty and uncle still tried to send me some funds from time to time, of course, being who I was, I was too guilty to spend them on myself, which led to me sending it back along with some of my earnings from my part time jobs over the years, now I was about to become a final year student but the bills had gotten so much that it was quite a lot to bear these days.
Shaking my head slightly, I got back to work. " Let's see here, you got..…" I tried to inject some jovial warmth into my voice to make up for my earlier zoning out, the practiced retail smile feeling stiff on my face.
Alas, My sentence died mid-air as my gaze finally landed on the items she'd placed on the counter for checkout.
My lips involuntarily pursed, pressing into a thin line of disapproval. Sitting there between a pack of spearmint gum and a single, sad-looking banana were two six-packs of canned, beers.
The brands were the kind marketed with bright colors and nice designs to highlight the alcohol within. To sum it all up, They were the default choice for teenagers who didn't know any better.
My eyes flicked from the beer cans back to the girl's face. Her previously tentative expression had tightened. The "Nervous and Pressured" from her panel was now written in the subtle tremor of her hands where they rested on the counter's edge, in the way she couldn't quite meet my gaze, and in the new, faint stutter that infected her voice.
"W-Whats the matter…?" she asked, the attempt at nonchalance so transparent it was painful.
'Trying to buy drinks as an underage… these kids never cease to amaze me,' I thought, a wave of weary helplessness washing over me. It wasn't anger, really. More a deep, tired sense of 'of course this is happening now, on my shift, when my life has already been hijacked by mysterious floating text.'
I'd heard stories from other clerks, seen the training videos about checking IDs, but I'd never had it happen to me. There was a first time for everything, apparently.
"Ma'am, I'm afraid I have to see some ID before I can help you check these out," I replied, keeping my tone polite and professional, the way the manual said to. No accusation whatsoever.
"Of course! Why didn't you say so?" she chirped, the reply coming too fast, the pitch a notch too high.
It was utterly unnatural, like the sound of someone reciting a line they'd practiced in their head.