Chapter 5: Little By Little

Chapter 5: Little by Little

My head still hurt a little, but it had been worth it. Buse kept glancing at me from time to time during class. It had actually worked. I guess I could go talk to her now. But no. I had to make sure.

Once my headache faded in the middle of class, I focused on Buse's mind again. This time, I was going to play with something simpler. I adjusted her nervous system so that whenever she saw me or stood near me, her heart would start beating faster. Even I was surprised that I could do something like that. But this time, the headache was barely noticeable. Since I hadn't added any thoughts or information, I didn't need to take anything from her either. I'd only changed settings that were already there. There was one problem, though. Normally, I wouldn't get hungry until noon, but right now it felt like my stomach was eating itself.

The human brain uses roughly 20% of the body's energy. Relative to its mass, it consumes an enormous amount of energy. Most of that energy goes toward neurons generating electrical signals and synaptic activity. In other words, transferring information. Which was exactly what I was doing.

I was starving. I needed to eat something immediately. Luckily, break finally came, so I rushed outside and bought a few snacks from the cafeteria. Yeah, the system didn't work for free: headaches, extreme hunger, and pieces of my memory. But those were insignificant. What actually mattered now was talking to Buse.

I walked over to Buse. She was alone. The moment she saw me, she froze for a second, and I could see her cheeks turning slightly red. Or maybe the air conditioning was just too warm. I smiled and said:

“Hey, Buse. How are you?”

Buse stared at me for a second, her eyes slightly wider than usual.

“I'm good, Illumina. How are you?”

She was calmer than I'd expected. Whatever. I needed to get to the point.

“Thanks for asking. I'm good too. Actually, I wanted to ask if you'd like to grab a coffee with me tomorrow. Only if you want to, of course.”

Buse's eyes widened a little more, but she tried not to show it. She smiled.

“Sure. Why not?”

I couldn't believe it. It had actually worked. I guess dreams affected people more than I'd expected.

Of course, the nice moment didn't last very long. It took Kenan about a minute to show up. He threw his arm around my shoulder and laughed as if we were friends.

“So, dude, what are you and Buse up to? Mind if I join you?”

As he said it, he roughly ruffled my hair. The meaning was simple. He was trying to assert himself over me and make me look small in front of Buse. I'd expected this. But things are different this time, Kenan.

I focused on his mind and went inside. I was only going to leave one or two thoughts behind before getting out: “Maybe I shouldn't mess with Illumina. You never know what that guy might do.” But I knew that alone wouldn't be enough, so I planted the real bomb afterward: “Ali said the other day that Zeynep broke up with her boyfriend. Whatever happened with that? She's pretty, too...”

What I'd take in return wasn't difficult to find. While looking through the surface-level information in his mind, I saw that his girlfriend had recently cut her hair. Yeah, that would make a perfectly good exchange. Now Kenan would leave me alone for today, and the next time he met his girlfriend, they might end up having a little argument. You deserved it, Kenan.

Kenan stared blankly into space for a second or two, then let go of me and walked over to Ali. I turned to Buse and said:

“Then I'll see you tomorrow at the café next to the school, Buse.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure.”

Done. I'd taken care of it. But this was only the beginning. From now on, even if they didn't want to, people were going to respect me. Maybe even love me...

But I'd realized something today. If I kept practicing on cats, I'd slowly lose my human traits and turn into an animal. A heightened sense of smell, night vision...

So as I walked home, I already knew exactly where I was going next:

The children's playground...