"Eat, eat, eat, food, food, food" James began hearing the figure's thought. James was surprised. "Eat? Wait, was that an animal all along?". The figure appeared to be a big cat, as it steadily approached James. James knelt, but the cat stopped abruptly and stared at James with a blank expression. "Danger, danger, danger. Defense, defence, defence" the cat then began to meow warily as James.
James wanted to calm the cat, but he was not sure what to do, since he had never acquired a pet. James scratched his head before an idea popped up in his mind. It might be possible that if he could hear other people's thoughts, he could as well cast his thoughts to the person.
This might just be a hypothesis, so it might not work, but it's better to try anyway. He then said simple phrases in his mind and focused on the cat, trying to send his thoughts to its brain.
"Friend, friend, love love" James thought, as he could not think of any other word he could say to appease a cat. The cat that was meowing ceaselessly stopped meowing and stared at James blankly. Did it work?
The cat began approaching James steadily, before licking his fingers and blinking slowly. It worked! James could not believe it, his seemingly ridiculous idea worked. He gently stroked the cat's fur and stared blankly.
He picked up the cat and headed to return it to the owner. James thought began to wander. If he could project his thoughts to people, does it mean that he could change people's way of thinking?
As James thought of it, the idea suddenly became impractical. No way pushing sentences to people's minds would change their thinking. The mind is a mysterious workhouse. A person can think a hundred thoughts a second, so it doesn't matter if he said something to a person through telepathy, the brain would always clear it out immediately.
The reason he was able to change the cat's perception of him was that animals were simple-minded creatures. They cannot form complex thoughts and aspirations that humans were capable of.
James knocked from door to door, but no one responded. Perhaps because it was night, no one would want to open a door for a person at this ungodly time of the hour.
James headed back to Martha's home and sat on a flat floor. The cat, on seeing James motionlessly staring at his smartphone, yawned tiredly and slept next to James.
As he was coding, something popped up in his mind, which caused him to open his eyes wide. "What if I make money from coding? I already know so much about programming as veteran programmers do. This idea made James slightly satisfied, and he promptly typed a URL to a website which brought him to a freelancing website.
After signing up, he was taken to a page, asking him to post his "gig". James went ahead and created a gig, briefly explaining his services. When he was done, he published it and waited for someone to contact him.
02:44 am. He kept practising his knowledge, while from time to time, checked his inbox, but unfortunately, there was no response. James went back to the website and double-checked the gig he created but found nothing wrong with what he wrote. "Then why are people not requesting my services?" James wondered.
Then he logged out and logged in as a client user, and searched for his gig, acting like a potential customer looking for eligible programmers. He could not find his gig anywhere, so he began scrolling down. James did not know how long he held the scroll button before he eventually found his gig, in the four 447th position. James was taken aback. Why was his gig so far down?
James then realized something. It was not because his account was faulty. He was a new user, so of course, he would not be treated the same way as the ones that have spent many years on this platform. There are millions of users on this website anyways, so it was not surprising to find himself lost in the sea of other freelancers.
For others, they would try to work hard to get clients and possibly earn reviews so their account slowly climbs the ladder up to other potential clients, but James does not have the time to do that. Instead, he remotely controlled his computer to restart and boot from another partition, the partition he installed his Linux OS.
After waiting for a while, his computer automatically connected to his smartphone, and James could see that his computer had booted completely to his Kali Linux.
James then started a website attack shell. He targeted the freelancing website, not to steal their data or anything illegal, but to tamper the database to fool the server that he had been on the platform for a very long time. He changed the date of his registration, changed the number of his account from 477th position to 7th position.
After completing his objective, he closed the terminal and botted out of the Linux OS to Windows. Moments later, the computer booted completely and connected to his smartphone, and James promptly visited the URL of the website and checked his current position, and sure enough, he was in the seventh position.
James was satisfied, so he turned off his smartphone's screen and waited. His smartphone's battery was running low of charge, so he wanted to manage it as much as possible throughout the night.
03:01 am. James received his first message. He turned on the screen and stared at the screen. It was from the freelancing website. A client had bid him create the backend of his new website, with an incentive of $1000.
That's a great start. James thought without smiling.