Chapter 3: Dumber than she looks.
She immediately ducked her head and began rummaging in the small crossbody bag slung over her shoulder. The fumbling was obvious, but I made no attempts to utter a word.
'This is definitely her first time,' I mused in my head, a strange mix of pity and irritation swirling in my gut. She was bad at this. Really bad. The performance was almost endearing in its clumsiness.
"Here it is," she announced with forced triumph, finally pulling out a worn leather card holder. She extracted a state ID card and slid it across the counter to me with a hand that shook just slightly.
I let out a quiet sigh I hoped she didn't hear and picked up the card. A quick glance confirmed everything I already knew. The girl in the photo on the ID had the same braided hairstyle, yes. But the face was definitely different.
For one, it was rounder, with a forced, stiff smile for the DMV camera. More importantly, the birth date listed was clearly over three years ago. The math was easy. She was seventeen. The ID was a very poor, very obvious fake, probably bought online or borrowed from an older cousin who looked nothing like her.
'Figures,' I thought to myself, my mind already moving past the simple fact of the fake ID to the panel that had been hovering beside her all along. I glanced briefly at the girl. Her eyes, magnified behind her glasses, were doing a frantic dance, darting left to the automatic doors, right to the aisles, down to her shoes, anywhere but at me as she waited for my verdict.
While noticing that, it suddenly occured to me that the "Psychology State: Nervous and Pressured" definitely wasn't just about getting caught buying booze.
And then, as if on cue, the panel before me shimmered and updated.
[POTENTIAL TARGET: Marian Kim]
Age: 17
Status: Highschool graduate.
Psychology State: Nervous, Pressured.
Mission Difficulty: 0 stars.
[Would you like to accept the mission?]
Two new lines of text, glowing with a slightly more urgent cyan hue revealed themselves to me. And below her stats, two simple, square buttons appeared, superimposed on the glowing panel
[YES] and [NO].
' I knew these things mustn't be for show but I was kinda hoping they were...'
The sight of the new question startled me for a moment but I was quick to regain my composure, after all, it'd been telling me to that the panels were related to missions so of course it shouldn't be a surprise for it to ask me to complete one already.
'I can definitely see why she's nervous,' I thought, my eyes squinting slightly as I studied her. 'But pressured…' The word left a vivid taste in my mouth.
A young girl like her being pressured mustn't be simple.
I said that yet I instantly came up with several reasons in mind.
The only reason she'd be pressured to do this, to walk into a store alone and attempt a clumsy, illegal purchase, was if someone else was pushing her.
A friend daring her? A boyfriend? Someone who wouldn't take "no" for an answer? They were practically lots of reasons.
'It said she's a high school graduate. I'm not one to point fingers, but I have my bet on her being here because of her friends.' A wave of genuine, aching sorrow for her washed over me.
Not the patronizing kind, but the recognition of a specific, vulnerable moment.
The summer after high school, that liminal space where you're supposed to be an adult but still feel like a kid playing dress-up, desperate to prove you belong, to keep up with everyone else and not be left behind.
I'd felt shades of it myself. I felt sorry for the girl, standing there in her hoodie, her future a blank page, currently being scribbled on by someone else's expectations.
[Would you like to accept the mission?]
The prompt pulsed softly, Infront of me.
' it wouldn't hurt if I did, I mean, it basically said Zero stars.'
The easiest difficulty I'd seen so far. What could the mission even be? To stop her from buying the alcohol? To give her a lecture? To call the cops? The last thought made me feel sick.
Ruining a kid's life over a dumb, peer-pressured mistake felt monstrous. But just selling it to her felt equally wrong. She was visibly terrified.
'Alright,' I decided, the thought firming into resolve. I mean, it is ranked zero stars. How hard could it be? And to walk away from someone so clearly in a bind, just because I was scared of my own weird circumstances, would make me heartless, right? This wasn't about the panels anymore.
Right now, I felt like it was about the girl Infront of me, Marian, who looked like she might jump out of her skin.
I made a choice. Not with a voice command or a mental shout, but with a simple, deliberate focus. I looked at the glowing [YES] button in my vision and willed my selection.
A soft, almost inaudible chime, like a distant notification, sounded in the recesses of my mind. The [YES] button brightened for a second before the entire panel dissolved into shimmering pixels that faded away. No fanfare, no new instructions. Simply gone in the blink of an eye.
But I had a mission now. Or I was on one. The next move was mine to make.
' Let's give this a try.' A plan, half-formed and instinctive, clicked into place. I looked from the fake ID in my hand back to Marian's pale, anxious face.
"You know what?" I said, my voice shifting, adopting a tone of mild, self-deprecating annoyance.
"I think the lighting right here is a bit bad for checking these tiny dates." I gestured vaguely at the harsh fluorescent tube directly above the register. "Lemme move a bit so I can see it properly." I offered her an apologetic, slightly sheepish look.