13 Every Grain of Sand

For hours now, she'd trudged through the rough sand, the soles of her feet burning, the blistering sun hanging directly overhead. She wiped the sweat from her brow and ran a hand through her hair, which thankfully was back to being red again. She was all alone in the desert, and the need for a disguise had exhausted itself.

When she first arrived at the desert, she was forced to give the Wolf a head start. A wide-open space was hardly the greatest hiding spot and had she followed her target more closely, he would have undoubtedly discovered her. The last time she had eyes on the Wolf was back at the GravPod station, and now she feared that she was wandering around aimlessly.

"You're sure this is the way?" asked Britney.

"Most probably," Nina responded.

Britney sighed. "How can you even tell? The only thing here is this cursed sand!"

"Enhancing..."

Britney froze. A trail of foot tracks appeared in front of her, seemingly out of thin air. "How the hell did you do that?"

"It's called Reverse Environmental Modeling," Nina said. "By using probabilistic modeling along with historical temporal data, I was able to recreate the conditions of our target's venture through the desert. The foot tracks that you see before you represent the most probable path. It was created by retracing the position of every grain of sand back into its original position, essentially negating the effect of the blowing wind. With great care I indv-"

"- Thank you. Erm... that was enlightening," she interrupted. "But I meant how did you make the foot tracks physically appear in the sand when they weren't there a moment ago?"

"The Eye acts as a gateway between what your eyes see and what your brain registers in your vision. A way station of sorts, but for sensory data, constantly sharpening your senses and drastically improving your ability to interpret what you experience. Modulation technology works in the same manner. In essence, you trick the brain into thinking it's seeing something that is not there. A different face perhaps. Or footsteps in the sand,"

"Wait so not only are you in my head, but you can control what I see?" Britney said, alarmed.

"With Nerulink enabled you and I are one. The sooner you realize that the sooner we can reach harmony."

"Like hell we are! You're here to provide assistance. A tool to be used. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Resisting will only hinder our productivity. Your productivity," Nina said, a hint of irritation in its voice. "Do you want me to remove the footsteps?"

"No they can stay," she said, kicking at the sand.