Chapter 4: The Transaction 10:05, June 2nd, 2035. (4 days, 1 hour, 55 minutes before the fall.)

A retro, old-fashioned bell jingled brightly as I pushed the heavy door open, but that’s where the quaint, nostalgic vibe stopped. The place wasn't so much a shop as a workshop that had metastasized into a tech museum, a chaotic landscape of silicon and solder. The air was thick with the smell of hot solder and ozone. Wires in a rainbow of colours snaked across tables, and gutted carcasses of old consoles and servers formed precarious towers against the walls. Motherboards and chipboards, glittering with tiny gold teeth, covered every available surface like metallic lichen.

Behind the counter, a lanky, geeky-looking young man with a wispy attempt at a beard was wearing a bulky set of VR glasses, his hands twitching as he navigated some invisible battlefield. As the bell rang, he flinched and called out, his voice slightly muffled, “Out in a minute!”

I waited, the cocaine-fuelled patience making the clutter seem fascinating rather than oppressive. After a moment, he yanked the headset off, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the real world. His gaze landed on me and travelled from my dishevelled hair, down my body, and came to a rest on the high-heeled shoes I had placed on his counter like a strange offering.

“What can I do for you… Er, miss?” he asked, his voice a mix of curiosity and a tech’s inherent wariness.

I produced the watch from my pocket and slid it across the counter. “Do you know anything about these things?”

His eyes flicked down to the device, then immediately drifted back up to my cleavage. “Yeah. XBand series 4. What do you want?”

“Can you reprogram it?” I leaned forward slightly, lowering my voice. “Can you, um… make it so it… doesn’t follow its protocol?”

A slow, understanding smirk spread across his face. He looked me up and down again, the appraisal blatant. It was obvious he liked what he saw. “Sure thing.”

“So, you can stop it from doing things I don’t want it to do?”

“Er, yeah… It’s not exactly legal. You’re talking about a full jailbreak. Root-level access.”

“I don’t care about legal,” I said, the words sharp and fast. “I just need to be able to use it without it using me.”

“OK, what do you need?”

“Can you stop it from always following protocol? And stop it from contacting all sorts of people, hospitals, therapists, without asking me first?”

He let out a low whistle, picking up the watch and turning it over in his hands. “That’s quite a big ask. If I do this, it will no longer be under warranty. It won’t be able take updates. It will only be able to interface with the public NET. All the normal services will be there, but sooner or later, you’ll wanna update, and you won’t be able to.”

“I don’t give a shit about updating. Just do it.”

“OK. That’ll cost you… Cash. Let’s see…” He made a show of thinking, his eyes drifting back to my chest. “A thousand kroner.”

“A thousand? I don’t have that much cash. I pay digital.”

He shrugged, the smirk returning. “That would be two thousand kroner, then.”

“Shit… OK, fine. Just do it.”

“Up front.”

“I can’t do that!” Frustration boiled over. “I need you to fix it for me so I can pay!”

His gaze was cool, predatory. “Three thousand kroner, then.”

“You what?”

“Three thousand. You won’t get a better offer.” He couldn’t keep his eyes from my shoes or my breasts, his mind clearly calculating more than just the price of a jailbreak.

A dangerous, desperate idea crystallized in my cocaine-sharpened mind. I met his gaze and held it. “And this shit will work?” I asked, my voice dropping to a conspiratorial purr.

He just nodded, mesmerized.

“Look,” I said, leaning so far over the counter that our faces were inches apart. “Do this for me, and you can get to see them. Feel them.”

His eyes widened, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. “What? What are you talking about?”

I took both my hands and cupped my breasts, lifting them and squashing them together over the neckline of my dress. “I mean these puppies. And the 3000, If you just do it no questions ask”

I swear he almost wet himself. A sharp, involuntary intake of breath hitched in his throat. He looked at me, blinked, and then did a full, comical retake, as if his brain had to reboot to process the offer. A faint, pink flush crept up his neck.

"Can I... get a selfie with them?" he finally managed, his voice dry and raspy, like stones grinding together.

"You mean these?" I laughed, a harsh, brittle sound in the cluttered silence. I hoisted them a little higher, the fabric of my dress straining. I knew it. I was totally, utterly unfair, wielding a weapon I despised. But I was riding a shitload of coke, fuelled by pure desperation, and I had absolutely nothing else to offer. My dignity was already lying in pieces next to a hipster's bed, and my financial autonomy was locked inside the very device he was now holding. This was the only currency I had left.

He just nodded, a sort of dazed, lopsided smile cracking his face. It wasn't charming; it was hungry.

"Yes. Anything you want, champ," I said, the term of endearment tasting like acid on my tongue. "Just get it fixed."

That was all the motivation he needed. He snatched the watch as if it were the Holy Grail, laying it carefully on a pristine anti-static mat. The shift in his demeanour was instantaneous. The fumbling, awestruck boy was gone, replaced by a focused technician. He produced a set of micro-screwdrivers and began dissecting the watch's casing with surgical precision.

As he worked, he fell into a muttered monologue, a stream of consciousness directed at the tiny machinery. "Right, bypassing the primary security enclave... interesting they still use this substrate... a little jump here, and we can access the root directory... have to be careful not to trip the factory kill-switch..."

It was a dense thicket of jargon. I couldn't figure out if he was talking to himself, showing off for me, or if this was just how his brain operated. I leaned against a stack of old computer towers, the initial coke-fuelled confidence beginning to wane, replaced by a jittery exhaustion. The world started to narrow to the intense focus of his hands and the low hum of the shop.

Then, it happened. An eerie silence fell. The muttering stopped. His hands went still. He didn't look up, but his entire posture was one of waiting. The silence stretched, becoming heavy and awkward. It was clear he had asked a question and was awaiting an answer I hadn't heard.

I cleared my throat, the sound unnaturally loud. "Can you repeat that please," I said, my voice softer now, stripped of its earlier bravado. "Just the last bit."