As much as it absolutely pains me to say this, no writing was done today. I had planned to write 4000 words, but time was not on my side. I was given an excruciatingly large amount of homework tonight. In fact, I’m not even sure I’ve done it all after working from 4pm to 10:45pm. Okay, I admit – I got 100 words done today. Go me.

30,000 will be tomorrow. This is just a mental note to myself. I can’t afford to go any more days not writing.

EDIT: I realized that if I had five minutes before I went to bed to try and get software on my palm pilot, then I had time to write 2000 words. So I did, and finished right on time for the end of the day, too.

Word Count: 27,046

 

Those with the pins on, besides simply having a Genome strapped to their shirt, handed over information that, in the end, they probably should not have. The clerks and owners had had those pins for quite some time – at least a few weeks. Therefore it would not be irrational for Walters to have picked one up and become curious about it. This spoiled the excitement of the “chase” that Walters had partially been hoping for, but it was quite fruitless to hope for much more. Or was it really fruitless? Now that he knew what the technology was, he could use it on his own to find the thieves.
 
The clerks at the store consistently told him that it was none of his business to interfere. They had, too, noticed that several objects from their stores were missing – many of them trivial objects that would have been thrown out anyway. Why, then, wouldn’t these thieves go through the trash to get matter? That wouldn’t need to anymore, of course, now that the new Genomes were nearly out. But perhaps they wouldn’t want to spend the money. What then? Would they rob the stores of the out-of-development Genomes? What of the righteous customer who truly wanted to buy them?
 
Walters could not believe that he had just called a person willing to dismantle the shape of their body “righteous.” It was a foreign concept to them, who were not in the least bit righteous for changing their own bodies. He corrected his thoughts immediately.
 
In the coming days, and most especially the day before the Genome launch, Walters noticed lineups along major stores. It was similar to the old camp-outs that had taken place whenever a new video game console was just about to be released, or when a new movie with incredible hype was about to hit the theaters – people were camping in front of stores, waiting to get their hands on a new Genome. Not only were they going to hand over money for those lapel pins, but they were also going to hand over money for ATC’s – some of them, in any case. Many would be buying more than one. If they could not find it at once store, they would go to the next, and the next, and so on until they had bought as many as they needed.
 
It was quite scary. These subhumans were not buying their own food. Instead, various groups among the lines collaborated together their waiting efforts and purchased pizzas. Many of them joked about shapeshifting one of the line members into a random food as a joke about modern cannibalism. What was most frightening was that, if they had truly wanted to, they probably could have done it. If there was a market for turning people into sandwiches, it would be made. Walters began to think of names for such a gruesome company, but realized that it would never gain support. More so than being frightened by his own chilling ideas of cannibalistic industries, however, was his acceptance of the lines. He did not mind seeing all of these people lined up. He understood why they were lines up – for the same reason he was observing all of the shops, asking so many questions. The drive was the same – he was no better than they were. He graved Genomes not for use but for research.
 
 
At the NSGR, the day before launch, the scientists were all given a memo about the coming technology. It was to have a mass of bugs. They expected that the next week would be one the toughest and heaviest work weeks of the year – possibly for years to come. Walters cowered in fear of it. He was not prepared for full dedication to the system like this. Something within him was excited for it, but the majority of his conscious told him to get away while he still could. Society and the workplace beckoned him, but his social ears were deaf. He wanted to sleep on the thought and get back to the higher-ups in the morning when he came into work, but at the bottom of the memo was written that attendance to work was mandatory during the next week, when the problems would be at their highest entry rate.
 
During this time Walters would be thinking of nothing by Dr. Reedy, the thieves, and the beta-lapel pin that he constantly kept in his pocket.
 
The day before launch continued with him wandering, one last time, through the pedestrian road. There he finally found what he had been looking for. In front of him – not particularly in front, but not too far away from the front – were people. Or perhaps they were not people. Whatever they were, they were digging through a cardboard box, searching for some item. They were undoubtedly the people that Walters was looking for, and if not then had some relation to them. Their form was so ambiguous that it stuck out as a uniform. Rarely could he detect what sex the thieves were, and if not in human form then he could not tell what they were entirely, and these people fit that description. Rather, they appeared as, from where they stood, ambiguous black blobs of moving mass. It was not a strange occurrence to see these types of people, but gathered in a group Walters could not help but be convinced.
 
 He stepped towards them and took out the lapel pin. Instead of tossing it to them like he originally had intended to, he simply held it in front of his body, displaying its figure for the group to see. He said no words, but the pin spoke for itself. The greedy subhumans were about to grab for it when one of them stopped the group. The man – or perhaps it was a woman – said something, which made the entire group walk away.
 
This was not what Walters had expected. He had expected them to come, tripping over each other, to get the pin, or Genome, or whatever it truly was. Now that they had specifically denied it, he wasn’t sure what it was. But then again, he wasn’t sure if that was the same group of people he had encountered the previous two times. No, perhaps they weren’t the same people, Winston thought. It was reasonable, because it was hard to tell who was who in a twisted culture that gained sanctity in changing its form.
 
He would continue trudging the pedestrian road until late in the night, when the streets became crowded, even more so than usual on this very night, and then went off to sleep in his apartment. It took him quite a while to reach the building because of how long it took him to get out of the pedestrian road. By that time, however, he had hardly been questioning anybody anymore – he was in awe of the lines. So in awe, in fact, that all he had really done that day was stroll the road back and fourth, watching the lines grow with each passing out along every store that had decided to begin carrying Genomes, which at this point was nearly every store on the street.
 
His bed that night felt especially comfortable, but not inviting. He wanted to stay awake, to experience what was going on without becoming part of the trend. He supposed that by now it wasn’t much a trend as it was a necessity for some, if not most. But eventually he drifted off into a deep sleep, clutching the lapel pin Genome still in his right hand as he had been the entire afternoon and night.
 
That morning, before he had fully prepared for the work rush, a knock came at his door.
 
Walters wanted to answer it desperately, not for the simple fact that he nearly never received knocks at his door, but because, at this time, it must be something fairly important. Perhaps he had been given the day off, or by a twist of events had won the lottery. But he had not won the lottery, nor earned a day off. Instead, he earned a visit from one of the store owners – a most odd occurrence. At this hour the owner of a store should still be working to keep control of the ravenous customers who had been waiting till midnight to receive a simple pin, even if they had nothing to use it with, or had bought something to use it with, and were causing trouble around the premises with their newfound technology. But this one was not.
 
The woman standing at the front door was just slightly taller than Walters, which even then was not an impressive height. He head was dominated by a mass of brown hair that, as it reached the end of its lengths, curled into spirals that must have been carefully formed, or even, perhaps, shapeshifted. Such a thought about her hair being shapeshifted – or anyone’s for that matter – had not really occurred to Walters until that very moment. For all he knew, this woman was not really a woman at all. But, for the moment, all he could do was trust his eyes. The rest of the woman’s figure was surprisingly perfect, and it became hard for Walters to shake the thought that her body had inevitably been altered at some point or another. He did not want to address her wrongly, though – that is, in a temper that would easily give away his disposition on shapeshifting. He greeted her cheerfully and awaited her question.
 
“I heard you’ve been going around antagonizing my employees. I’d like to know why.”
 
Winston could not figure out why a person would go through the trouble to ask such a question so early in the morning. He deducted that this could not possibly be her only question. “Why go out of your way so early?” he began, reflecting his thoughts. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you knew the answer to that already. If you don’t–” He yawned in this middle. “Ah, excuse me. As I was saying, if you don’t know the answer, then I’d be happy to tell you, so long as you tell me why you’re here right before I leave for work.”
 
“That’s about right,” said the woman, and let herself in. “If I didn’t catch you now, I would probably have had to wait until after you left the NSGR. That is where you work, yes?” She had entered his apartment and was wandering around, not stopped by Walters. He picked up a glass object and looked conspicuously under it, without making any movements that would denote that she was looking for something. As she spoke, she continued to wander, always keeping her eyes directly on Walters, yet leaving her peripheral vision to scan the surroundings.
 
“Yes, I do work there. But I would still like to know–” he was cut off at that moment. “That’s all the information I’ll need for now. Thanks for the patronage, Greg,” the woman said. She winked, and began to walk out of the room, but Walters stopped her. He did not know where she had come from, other than that her store was somewhere on the pedestrian road, and did not know her motive in examining his apartment. He could not simply allow someone to leave that way. Not without finding out some information of his own.
 
When the question was right at the tip of his vocal chords, about to spring to life and leave his mouth, his breath stopped. He could not ask the question. In a moment he did not know what question he was about to ask – his entire train of thought froze, and then disappeared. It was not caused by the woman, but by himself, and his inability to ask the very simple question: “Who are you?”