The files I obtained said many things. Many perversions. Many ill-truths. Little of it was relevant to my study. Bits and pieces were, though. I must take these strings and use them to create a new shell. A new program. One they could never hope to replicate. -101.1 Seconds Post-Integration.

  Brenda completed her training in a record time -- under two weeks!

  She had to admit, her work ethic impressed even her; especially because when she first signed up for the League, it had felt so intimidating. Salsa, the trainer, had it out for her with his relentless observation and nitpicking of her form.

  Was she misunderstanding his comments? Was she being too sensitive? Maybe she was...

  But maybe she wasn't?

  Whether or not her feelings were valid, she didn't like the high-pressure Tutorials. They made her panic and therefore freeze. She would overthink and bungle. Then, when she failed, she felt terrible, like she wasn't only letting the store down and the customers who relied on her for protection, but she was letting herself down, too.

  Training under Hera was a totally different story.

  Hera was patient, gentle, and everything Salsa was not. It might have been because she was a woman and therefore knew a woman's unique needs better than a male drill sergeant. Whether that was the case or not, not even two weeks, that was all the time Hera needed to meld her into a force capable of tackling Airhearts.

  The Manipulation Dandy and its technique she took to with exacting violence.

  Her first Interior outing with Hera by her side not as a guide, but as a fallback point if things fell way, had been fantastic! An Airheart appeared and she didn't need any help in wrecking it: she Manipulated a League-approved combat knife Hera helped her purchase from the League Armory and sent it eye-first into the revolting creature.

  Thwack -- the Airheart died and fell to the floor before it even detected her, it's bile, a yogurt and maggot combination, spilled everywhere.

  Another couple of outings later and Hera pronounced her ready for solo field work. If she was ready.

  And she was ready.

  Honestly, the one and only reason she accepted such a (potentially) dangerous job was because of the pay. A hundred credits for a couple hours or work? Comparatively speaking, not even Augustford paid as well as that; heck, a hundred credits was about a quarter of her weekly pay.

  The sooner she could get paid, then, the better.

  So, she put everything she had into her training.

  When she was called for her first instance of the gig work, butterflies flapped in her stomach. "Gosh," she told herself in the mirro. "I hope I don't have the misfortune to encounter some unseen demon who happened to decide to use my stretch of the Interior to pass on their way to some unseen part of the tower. That would be my luck!"

  No such 'demon' crossed her path, of course.

  Her first day was uneventful in the extreme; she traversed the Interior without incident then made her way to the strange structure Hera and her friends were 'excavating.' She entered the structure as Hera taught her to and went straight to the back room. As her message had told her, there was a faintly glowing Power Core ready for removal.

  Brenda looked at the core partially sticking out of the production desk. It looked like a memory card and glowed faintly in the Pod's dim light. She pressed gently down, and it receded into the machine a little before releasing. Carefully, she plucked the Core from the desk and transported it into the nearby rack where several other Cores were already waiting for their newest sibling.

  Being a professional, Brenda looked around the desk for a moment to ensure there wasn't anything more she needed to do.

  But there wasn't.

  She had removed the Core as promised and so her job was done.

  Yet she wanted to make sure: "SIMP. Can you hear me?"

  From the speakerphones in the building itself came the reply: "Yes. I can hear you. What can I help you with?"

  "Is there anything else I must do? Hera's training made it pretty clear, but I want to make sure I didn't forget something."

  "There is nothing left for you to do. Your job is done, and your account will be credited once you leave the Pod."

  "Excellent! Thank you!"

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  She left the pod and as promised she received a notification on her phone moments later of the deposit.

  [+100 Standard Credits]

  Brenda smiled.

  She could get used to this!

  Brenda's position with Hera and her friends earned her two-hundred credits a day.

  It wasn't long before she started taking more pride in the gig position than her actual job. She found herself so grateful to Hera's enterprise and the easy money it provided her, she wanted to keep the gravy train flowing. While she walked to and from the Pod, she wondered to herself the ways she could help with the business.

  Every time she wondered, however, she came to the same unfortunate end: she could do nothing.

  Her job was to remove the Power Cores and place them gently into the storage rack.

  That was it.

  She wasn't to mess with the items in the storage bins, she wasn't to sweep up the floors or clean -- which as far as she could tell, automatically cleaned themselves since she discovered nothing in the way of cleaning equipment -- or anything of the sort. She came in, placed the Core, that was it.

  Frankly, this saddened her. Hera occasionally spoke of how she and her two friends covered the costs of her pay. Was it a huge burden? Not really. She could tell it was a burden, though. If only there was something she could do to help!

  There was nothing she could do to help. She had to be honest with herself on that front. She was a humble quasi-manager in the produce department. Sure, now she had a weird side-hustle but that didn't mean she had financial planning knowledge.

  Even so, as she was on her way out from the small building Hera and the others called a 'Pod,' something caught her eye in the shining ceiling.

  Brenda did not know what the glowing ceiling was comprised of -- to her, it looked nothing more intriguing than string lights.

  Strong lights which... could it be? She looked hard at the lights. There was something more there, hidden under the glowing. It was the leylines!

  The leylines were everywhere throughout the company Tower. Finding them here wasn't a surprise.

  What was a surprise was she saw a 'tooth' of the leyline move!

  It was gradual. And only for a second. But she saw a singular tooth, a single ridge in the conveyor-belt like structure, move. Or perhaps shift. The point was it did not stand still!

  Her heart beat rapid for some moments -- she had never seen a leyline tooth move even an inch! And now, one did move. Not by much and not for very long, but she saw it move. Why? How?

  "I need to investigate this!" Brenda retraced her steps in an effort to see if any other teeth moved, shifted, and she just didn't see.

  Hours passed.

  Then several more but she found nothing.

  "Maybe I just imagined it..." she mouthed the words to herself and the ants, as if they understood.

  Wait... ants?

  She fell to her knees and investigated the floor's glow. The floor had notches and grooves within them through which -- yes! -- strange ant-creatures marches inexorably throughout. It was a strange sight. Ants?! And they were glowing?

  She traced the ants back to the Pod. She could not tell where the ants were coming from, but she figured it had to be coming from somewhere inside of the command room. "I should inform Hera right away..." she thought at first. "If these ants are detrimental in any way, they need to know about them."

  While thinking on the subject more and noticing the ants were the source of the glowing, Brenda thought herself foolish. "Of course, they already know about the ants. It was glowing all to shet when they brought me on!" She would tell them about the ants, just to be safe.

  Brenda was about to leave with Hera a voice message chronicling the ants when she heard a voice call out to her: "Brenda? Is that you?"

  She focused her eyes and saw a figure approaching through the shadows.

  Brenda called back. "Yes. It is I... Clark? Theo?"

  "Clark," the figure said, breaking through the darkness and entering the ant-given light. "Still here, Brenda. Is everything all right?"

  "Oh, yeah. Everything's fine. I lost track of time when I discovered these ants. Did you know about them?"

  Clark laughed. "Yeah, I knew. Strange fellas, aren't they? SIMP says they're of a rare species not seen on the continent anymore. They're called 'magi-ants' or something like that. They're what charge the Power Cores, believe it or not."

  "Really?! These guys charge those things I remove... Funky!"

  "Right? It's still hard for me to wrap my head around it, sometimes. I don't question it, though. Lots of weird stuff in this place."

  It was then when Brenda remembered Clark had come from the Wastes. For a few minutes, she engaged him in pleasant conversation. As the minutes slid by and the conversation threatened to ensnare more than the odd lump of minutes, she had to break herself off from the discussion.

  With a sigh she said, "It's been pleasant, Clark. I should be leaving. You came here to do something, and I am clogging that up. Apologies!"

  "Oh, no worries. I came down to do some light manufacturing. Thanks to you, we have a few Power Cores in need of utilization. But that never takes too long. So, our conversation was nice."

  Considering it polite to do so, Brenda bowed as she left. On her way out, she thought to mention to Clark one final detail. "Oh. I didn't know if you've felt it at all, but I saw for the first time today a leyline tooth move!"

  Clark stopped what he was doing and immediately consulted SIMP on the matter. Though, to Brenda, it only looked as if he was talking to himself.

  "Fascinating. Now, I don't mean to patronize, but are you sure you saw what you saw? A tooth moved?"

  "Oh, yeah. Bloody near gave me a heart-attack, it did. I've been with the store for a long time and the leylines are always gathering dust wherever they are in the store. When I saw one move it was like the earth itself opened up. I can point out where I saw it, if that helps."

  Clark had her do that and point to the exact tooth that had shifted. She said, "You can see it is slightly out-of-synch with the others."

  Investigating with a mini-seeing lens, Clark went over every inch of the leyline in the chamber. He then asked her if she saw or felt or heard anything unusual. Unfortunately, Brenda could not say she had. Only the glowing ants and then the momentary tooth shift. That's it.

  "Okay," Clark scratched his chin as he contemplated. "If you notice anything else on your shifts, do let someone on the team know about right away. And I do mean right away, okay?"

  Brenda nodded and promised she would inform a member if she saw anything out-of-the-ordinary.

  That night, after Brenda returned to her apartment, she felt butterflies in her belly. What a night! Strange ants, leylines shifting, it was practically a circus!

  Brenda would have made herself a nice snack and then went to bed.

  This time, she took out a book -- Leyline Practices throughout the Magical World -- and read deep into the night.