Chapter 6: ISOLATION PROTOCOL
Three days in the warehouse.
I'd established a perimeter using debris and broken equipment—anything that would make noise if disturbed. Early warning system, primitive but effective. The single entrance I could see from my sleeping position. The broken window served as an emergency exit.
Fort Morgan. Population: one cursed soul.
The routines helped. Wake at dawn. Check perimeter. Inventory supplies. Plan the day. Stay alive.
I'd made contact with Rikka exactly once since the cantina disaster—a dead drop near the pawn shop, message left in a coded format she'd taught me during my second delivery. No face-to-face meetings. No risk of accidental contact.
Your courier is going dark for a while. Will resume when safe. Here's the gold chain as a deposit on future work.
The chain was worth more than I owed her for information. Rikka would wait. Fixers understood the value of patient investments.
The credit chip from the cantina had held 340 credits. Combined with what I'd earned legitimately, I had 540 total. Enough to survive for a few weeks if I was careful.
But survival wasn't the problem anymore. Understanding was.
I'd converted a section of the warehouse into a laboratory of sorts. Not for chemistry—for self-experimentation.
The stolen items from the cantina were laid out in careful rows. Each one represented a data point. Each one told me something about how the ability worked.
Passive activation: skin-to-skin contact triggers automatic theft.
Item selection: appears random, but there might be patterns.
Timing: instantaneous, no delay between contact and transfer.
Destination: can be directed somewhat—pocket, hand, ground nearby.
Repeatability: multiple contacts with same person yield multiple items.
But there were gaps in my understanding. Big ones.
Could I control what was taken?
Could gloves block the transfer?
Was there a limit to how many items I could steal from one person?
And most importantly: would this curse ever give me a choice?
The kid appeared on day three.
I was sorting through the datapad's contents—mostly useless personal correspondence, but a few interesting financial records—when I heard movement near the entrance.
Too light for an adult. Too careless for a threat.
I grabbed the vibroblade and pressed myself against a pillar.
A small figure slipped through the gap in the debris. Thin, dirty, wearing clothes three sizes too big. Humanoid but not human—the skin had a faint purple tint, and short tendrils hung from the scalp instead of hair.
Mikkian. A Mikkian child.
The kid couldn't have been older than eight or nine, standard years. Street rat, from the look of it—one of the countless orphans the galaxy's conflicts had produced.
The kid spotted me and froze.
"Don't hurt me."
Basic, heavily accented, voice trembling.
I lowered the blade. Slowly.
"I'm not going to hurt you. What are you doing here?"
"Looking for salvage. Didn't know anyone was here."
Lie. Kids always know who's around.
"Looking for salvage, or looking for someone to rob?"
The kid's chin lifted slightly. Defiance despite the fear.
"Same thing, sometimes."
I almost smiled.
"Get out. This area isn't safe."
"Nowhere's safe."
True enough.
The kid took a step forward, eyes scanning the warehouse interior. Looking for valuables. Looking for opportunity.
"I said get out."
"You're hiding. I know hiding. I won't tell anyone."
"How generous."
"For ten credits."
And there it is.
I reached for my pocket—and the kid moved.
Fast. Street-quick. Before I could react, small fingers grabbed my wrist.
The jolt.
Something appeared in my hand.
The kid jerked backward, eyes wide, staring at the object I was now holding.
A toy. Hand-carved from some kind of wood. Shaped like a spaceship—crude but recognizable. Y-wing, maybe, if I squinted.
The kid's most treasured possession, now in my palm.
"How did you... that's mine. THAT'S MINE!"
The kid lunged for it. I stepped back, holding the toy out of reach.
"Stop. STOP."
The kid stopped. Tears streaming down those alien features.
"Give it back. Please. My mother made that before she... please."
Damn it.
I looked at the toy. Then at the child. Then at the ceiling.
Think, Morgan. What just happened?
The theft had occurred, but the item was... wrong. Not wrong in a moral sense—though that too—but wrong in terms of the pattern. Every other theft had produced random items. Useful things. Valuables.
This was the least valuable thing the kid owned. A wooden toy worth nothing to anyone except its owner.
Why?
I'd been desperate not to take anything important. I'd wanted, in the moment of contact, to minimize harm.
And the ability had responded.
Active selection?
The thought crystallized. What if intent mattered? What if, during the moment of transfer, I could influence what appeared?
I gave the toy back.
The kid snatched it and clutched it to their chest, backing toward the exit.
"What are you? What did you do?"
"I don't know."
Honest. Terrifyingly honest.
"Don't tell anyone about this."
"I won't. I swear."
"And don't come back here."
The kid nodded frantically and fled.
I stood in the silence they'd left behind, staring at my empty hand.
Active selection. Intent-based control.
If I could choose what to take, the ability transformed from curse to weapon. I could steal specific items. Target specific threats. Build specific advantages.
But the experiment needed confirmation.
I tried focusing on the pile of stolen goods. Imagined one specific item—the stylus—appearing in my hand.
Nothing happened.
Own possessions don't count. Or already-stolen items don't count.
The ability required another person's ownership. The selection required another person's presence.
I needed a test subject.
The bounty hunters found me first.
Not the original two—these were different. A Quarren and a human woman, moving through the industrial sector with purpose. I spotted them from a rooftop where I'd been scavenging water collection equipment.
They were showing a holographic image to workers. Asking questions. Getting pointed toward the warehouse district.
Rendo Vesh raised the bounty. Or the cantina incident connected to Ven Calder.
Either way, I was running out of time.
I watched them for twenty minutes, noting their patterns. The Quarren was the brains—asking the right questions, parsing the answers. The woman was muscle—blaster on her hip, stance that said military training.
They'd find the warehouse eventually. Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow.
Or I could find them first.
The thought was cold. Calculated. The thought of a man who'd learned to survive in war zones.
If I could touch the Quarren—deliberately, with intent—I might be able to steal something useful. Identification. Credits. The bounty puck with Ven Calder's face.
And if active selection worked the way I suspected, I could choose what to take.
Hunt the hunters.
I followed them for two hours.
The Quarren and the woman worked methodically, checking warehouse after warehouse. They were thorough. Professional. They'd find my hideout by nightfall at this rate.
But they made one mistake: they split up.
The woman took the north section. The Quarren took the south. Standard efficiency protocol, but it left each of them vulnerable.
I chose the Quarren.
The alley was narrow, shadowed, perfect for an ambush. I waited behind a stack of shipping crates, controlling my breathing, watching the Quarren approach.
One touch. One test. See what happens.
The Quarren passed my position. I stepped out behind him.
"Don't move."
He froze. The tentacles around his mouth writhed with agitation.
"Ven Calder. We've been looking for you."
"Turn around. Slowly."
He turned. His hands stayed visible—smart.
"Rendo Vesh wants you alive if possible. The bounty's higher for living cargo."
"How much higher?"
"Fifteen thousand. Five more than dead."
Value has increased. Bad news.
"I'm going to touch your shoulder now."
The Quarren's eyes narrowed.
"Why?"
"Because I want to see what happens."
I focused. Concentrated on a specific image: the bounty puck with Ven Calder's face. I visualized it clearly. Held the image in my mind.
Then I touched his shoulder.
The jolt came.
Something appeared in my hand.
The bounty puck. Exactly as I'd visualized.
The Quarren's face twisted with confusion. His hand went to his belt—to the empty clip where the puck had been.
"What—how did you—"
I hit him. Not hard enough to kill, but hard enough to drop.
He crumpled.
I stood over the unconscious bounty hunter, holding the proof of my curse in one hand.
Active selection confirmed.
Intent mattered. Focus determined the target. I could steal specific items from specific people, as long as I knew what I wanted and could visualize it clearly.
The rules were becoming clearer:
Passive theft: automatic, random selection, triggered by any skin contact.
Active selection: intentional, specific targeting, requires focus and visualization.
Ownership requirement: can only steal what someone else owns.
Gloves: seemed to block passive theft from the Twi'lek, needs more testing.
I pocketed the bounty puck and disappeared into the industrial maze.
The woman would find her partner eventually. She'd call for backup. The hunt would intensify.
But I had what I needed: understanding.
This power could be controlled. Directed. Used.
The question was no longer whether I could survive in this galaxy.
The question was what kind of person I'd become while doing it.
I found a new hideout that night—a maintenance shaft beneath a defunct processing plant. Smaller than the warehouse. Harder to find.
The bounty puck glowed in my hand. Ven Calder's face stared back at me, rotating slowly in blue light.
Fifteen thousand credits for my head.
Not enough to attract the best hunters, but enough to keep amateurs coming indefinitely.
I needed to clear this bounty. Fake my death. Become someone else.
But first, I needed more credits. More resources. More allies.
The datapad from the cantina had contained some interesting information—shipping schedules, contact lists, access codes that might still work. Not enough to build an empire, but enough to build a start.
I began planning.
Outside, Nevarro's night wrapped around the city like a shroud. Somewhere out there, hunters searched for a dead man's face. They'd keep searching until they found closure.
Give them closure.
The thought took shape. A plan, rough but workable.
The crashed freighter was still out there, in the wasteland. Damaged, salvageable, full of evidence that Ven Calder had been aboard.
What if the hunters found it? What if they found remains?
Not real remains. Planted evidence. Enough to close the bounty.
I'd need help. Resources I didn't have yet. But the framework was there.
Survive. Understand. Plan. Execute.
Four steps to building anything.
I settled into my new hiding spot and started working through the datapad's contents, searching for the tools I'd need to kill Ven Calder for good.
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