1.3

"Where are you?" An angry voice called out of the phone I'd instinctively answered, without glancing at the screen, won't make that mistake next time. My poor eardrums.

"As of today, I no longer wish to be your daughter Mr. Lee. So give up your hopes of marrying me off to some dandy and sign the paperwork when it arrives tomorrow, 'kay?" I answered bluntly, then hung up.

Quickly, I blocked him and every other member of the Lee family and their staff then turned back to the laptop screen.

Its specs were a lot less than what I was used to dealing with, but it was good enough for now. Being a computer science major she had at least invested some of her cash into herself.

Taking longer than I had hoped, I hacked into the server, passing their checks to enter the chatroom to try and find my first job in this world.

Money was everything. No matter what world I was in.

[Q: A newbie has entered]

[InfiniteGrilledCheese: Oooooo it's been a while]

My lips quirked at the names, quickly scrolling through the reactions to my entry.

Of the many, these two I recognised. Both had been good friends in my other life; however, because of me, both of them had met their end too young.

Sighing off those bitter memories, I typed into the chat, where I had used my old online name.

[Eve: Gimme a job]

[InfiniteGrilledCheese: Not even a hello, how rude.]

[Eve: Gimme a job that pays enough and I'll ship you a lifetime supply of bavarian smoked cheese]

[Q: Is she one of your peeps cheeseboi?]

[InfiniteGrilledCheese: WTF?]

A few others messaged in between our chat, many of which were dissing me for being arrogant. I clicked my tongue.

I had died six years ahead of this world's current timeline. Any job given to me now should be light work, but how could I explain that?

[Eve: Q give me a test, then job me accordingly]

Q was the one in charge of these ragtags of society. Her death... My fingers trembled at the keys, hesitant to type further. If I involved myself with her again, would she somehow die the same way?

I wiped my tears with the sleeve of my jumper and turned my attention back to the screen. Q had sent me a direct message.

I opened it up to see the fairly complex encryption she'd sent my way.

Five minutes later I cracked it and sent her a message.

[Eve: ready to gimme a job yet? I want the best-paying one, I'm dying of poverty over here.]

Going off the rough calculations I had done earlier, Fay had barely left herself with enough to last the year.

[Q: Here's the job, there's a bonus for quick completion, though don't come crying to me later if you cannot do it.]

I opened the file to see the client wanted me to delete a specific set of blueprints from Global Tech. Surprisingly, this was my new, and soon-to-be disowned, father's company.

The blueprints I needed to delete were for a robot that was to be produced for home sale only for the elite. Which for the current timeline, sounded like something out of a sci-fi novel. There was a bonus as well for deleting as much data around it as possible.

Fuck. There'd been no mention of robots becoming commercialised this early in my timeline, this truly was a parallel world.

Still, the job offered me a minimum of a hundred million dollars. To destroy one project. It would likely cost the company more than it would even pay me.

What did I care? It was too early for robots. The first batch of them in my timeline had even caused a few human deaths. I was doing the world a favour. This had nothing to do with it being that bastard's company…

"Stop justifying yourself and get on with it," System chided me, making me wish I could just pry it from my head. Why did I stupidly even agree to allow this freeloader to join me anyway?

"We're inseparable now," it teased, then catching onto my annoyance, it remained quiet as I dug my way through Global Tech's firewall.

"Fay."

Speaking of freeloaders.

"What?" I snapped to Fay's roommate, Sam, as she staggered drunk through the door. Glancing at the clock it was now two in the morning. I'd not long erased all records of that project from the company's servers, all the way to daddy CEO's private devices.

Classes begin again tomorrow and she was out getting wrecked yet again. I was bitterly jealous that she was out playing whilst I was slaving away for my luxurious new life.

"Damn, you look worse than me?" She laughed, then stumbled and tripped on my laptop wire. Instinct kicked in and I grabbed her dress, her nose hovered only inches from the floor.

Blushing, she picked herself up, "thanks," she mumbled.

"Go take a shower, you stink," I gloomily sniffed in the delightful scent of booze, wishing to drink some myself.

All shyness was gone, she rolled her eyes and went into the room's private ensuite.

Though the building was mediocre, these were at least some of the better rooms, with only two to share and a private bathroom at least. However, it also cost her twice as much as the rooms below that shared four. Now I was stuck with this extra cost.

I entered the server again, after hearing the water running.

[Q: Was that really you?]

[InfiniteGrilledCheese: Holy Fuck, marry me Eve I want your babies.]

[Eve: Pay up]

Five minutes later the money made its way into my temporary offshore account. One hundred and fifty million. Nice.

[Eve: Pleasure doing business with you Q, contact me never]

I deleted my account and all traces of my hacking into the server from the laptop. Wiping it clean as if I had never touched it for anything but the online clothes shopping I'd been doing in the background.

"Changing your look?" Sam crept up behind me to glance at my screen.

"Something like that," I muttered in reply.

"Good, you have a rocking bod, but always hide it in those frumpy clothes," she tutted, then took herself to bed.

After finishing buying enough new clothing to fill my wardrobe, I wearily dragged myself over to the single bed, frowning at its firmness compared to the one I had slept in at the hotel.

In a short while, I drifted peacefully into sleep with the help of System. Since I didn't want to destroy my new liver with my previous life's method.