Setting up the pieces

If the story was willing to drop a tool in her lap, then Lillianna was willing to use it. In Lillianna's class was girl, Georgina Saffer, who had attempted to become closer to Lillianna for years. During university, the interest had been somewhat more casual, but when they both started work at Lillianna's family company, MaestroTech, it became more intense. Eventually, Lillianna had made clear that if Georgina did not stop immediately, Lillianna would use her influence to get Georgina fired, rather than to get her the promotion she kept hinting at. Georgina had swapped her attentions to Dorothea, and Dorothea had been a much more receptive target.

Getting Georgina to reconsider her options a few years early would not be difficult.

"Your brother is getting married?" repeated one of her friends. "That's so exciting."

Lillianna once again used her combination of overlong pause and fake smile. "…yes."

"You don't look happy," replied the friend, right on cue.

Lillianna looked around as if she was checking they weren't being overheard. In fact, she was making sure that Georgina would do exactly that.

"I feel like such a terrible person for having doubts, I do," said Lillianna. "I mean, my brother is just head over heels for this girl. He'd do anything for her, and he seems really happy."

"What's wrong with her, then? Is she a gold digger?"

The original had not confided in her friends regarding private dirty laundry until many years later, so they had heard almost nothing about Dorothea before.

"No—" said Lillianna, sounding unsure. "Well, not really. I mean, she seems very sweet. She's gentle and well-meaning and even generous. I don't think she's deliberately after him for him for his money."

"But?"

"But she's a little too loyal to her friends," said Lillianna, seemingly in a sudden rush of confidence. "I mean, I know that sounds stupid. That's not a bad thing in itself, is it? I'm loyal to my friends to. But now that they're about to get married, I just think that her first loyalty should be to my brother, you know? And it isn't. Every time she has an argument with him, it's always because one of her friends instigated it. I'm worried that it's only a matter of time before they start coming to her asking to borrow money for this or that emergency, or hire their cousin to this or that job, or fund this or that education. After all, after they get married, some of the company and the money will be hers as well. I'm not sure she has the strength or even the desire to stand against them."

"That will probably change now that they're engaged. I mean, a boyfriend is different to a husband, right?"

"I certainly hope so," said Lillianna. "Oh! I almost forgot. You'll get to meet her soon. You know my brother met her because she started working for MaestroTech? I just learnt that she's the one who is going to be running our industry tour."

"We're having an industry tour at MaestroTech?" exclaimed someone behind them, entirely too loudly.

"Settle down, people!" said the lecturer. "Yes, as you no doubt just heard, we will shortly be having an industry tour at MaestroTech. Thank you for spoiling that particular surprise, Miss Kendrick."

"I apologise, professor," said Lillianna. "I forgot it hadn't been announced yet."

The lecturer just waved at her, but Lillianna took that as an acceptance.

"We have some administrative work to complete. A representative from the company will be joining us shortly to make arrangements, and we would appreciate a student representative joining us. Not you, Miss Kendrick. Any volunteers?"

There was a pause as no-one wanted to appear too eager, but then Georgina raised her hand. Another girl who had been in the process of raising her own promptly pulled hers down again. Sacrificing oneself to do an unpleasant duty was one thing. Being seen to publicly fight over that same duty was something else entirely.

"Anyone else? Very well, Miss Saffer, please join me after the lecture."

As the professor began working through slides, the kitten only Lillianna could see or hear complained in her ear. "Georgina was not the representative in the original story. You're going to get yourself fined."

"Perhaps," said Lillianna, entirely in her mind. She suspected that the communication was never external, even when she did speak aloud, but that was not a thought she was comfortable pursuing. "But I rather think not."

"You've changed the fate of the world," said Kitty.

"Yes, but I doubt it will matter. I can change things Dorothea didn't know about the first time around, things that might have resulted from own different actions, or … things she simply doesn't remember. You confirmed earlier that she was not given any record of this as if part of a novel. That means she's working entirely on her own memories. Do you really think someone like Dorothea would remember the class representative of an industry tour some dozen years in the past? She barely noticed any other person in that entire tour other than me. She spent the entire time trying to suck up to me and ignored everyone else."

Lillianna mentally paused, anticipating that meeting. She imagined Dorothea's treatment of her would be a little different this time.

Halfway across campus, Dorothea was having similar thoughts as she waited in a small office. As she waited, she turned her hand over, first one side up, and then the other. It was a young person's hand. It was odd - she had not considered herself particularly young at twenty-six the first time around. She had considered herself already past her prime, her beauty fading, and facing the last desperate chances of a serious boyfriend followed by marriage before she'd have no choice but to pursue divorcees and widowers instead.

From the perspective of someone who had recently been staring down the barrel of turning forty, things felt different. Her hand was young again. She had skin that was plump and smooth, rather than previously crumpled tin foil inexpertly smoothed back into place. She had so much youthful beauty that she had previously disregarded and squandered. She wasn't going to waste any of her advantages this time around. Fate had given her this second chance, and things were going to be different. She would not be the one cold, alone, and wet, watching the headlights of a truck losing control as it came around the corner. She was going to be rich, successful, and happy. Her enemies would be the ones to have to watch out.

And so she smiled when she thought about her future sister-in-law, sitting comfortably and ignorantly somewhere else on this very campus. The little witch had never liked her. Never thought she was good enough for her precious brother. Had continued to introduce other women to her brother even when Raphael and Dorothea had been firmly married. Most painfully, had mocked and derided her career as an influencer. It had taken far too much time for Dorothea to understand that Lillianna had just been a bitter jealous hater, using her inherited money and power to suppress someone who was better than them. It had taken her until that very last, fateful night, in fact. This time around, Dorothea would not be giving her the same power over her or the same opportunities.

The door opened to a professor, and Georgina. Dorothea she almost forgot herself and greeted the girl as a close friend. But of course, she did not know her yet. Georgina had mentioned, many years into their friendship, that she'd done her industry tour right here at MaestroTech. They'd commiserated over Lillianna, and regretted that they hadn't become friends so much earlier. Well, that was another thing she was going to change.

By the time the meeting was over and they'd finished making their plans for the tour, Dorothea had achieved both goals. She'd made arrangements to meet up with Georgina again, and she'd taken charge of the student presentation. Dorothea would not only oversee running the presentation, but also be responsible for choosing which one went ahead. Last time around, Lillianna had been chosen to give it by a similar 'free, fair and anonymous' system (ha!). When that presentation had been picked up to go to a convention, it had started Lillianna career with an excellent impression from the wider company. She would not get that boost this time around.

As soon as she was alone, the system alerted Dorothea to a new development. "Excellent news! I managed to get you a free sample of a ten point 'hacking' token. Since this is just a sample, you don't get to choose what it does -- the goal has already been randomly selected. But you will get a chance to experience the awesome might and power of the hacking system for free!"

"That's very good news," agreed Dorothea.

The system store was still a little bit of a scary mystery for her, and they must have picked that up. The things on offer sounded amazing and even impossible. For instance, there was an option to change someone's mind. Literally, to make them think or remember something different to what they already did. That option was ruinously expensive though, and she hadn't earned many points at all. The system assured her she could get a loan, but the only tasks that would pay that much off involved changing the fate of a major country. The hacking tokens, on the other hand, while showing a sliding scale of prices, were overall much more affordable.

Dorothea continued, "What's the goal?"

"Raphael has a cousin who removed a very sentimental item from Raphael's house last time he visited, and is now claiming to the rest of the family that it was rightfully given to him by their mutual grandmother. The hack will allow Raphael to rediscover a letter proving that it was given to him."

"A real physical letter?" asked Dorothea. "You mean the hacking token isn't for breaking into electronic systems?"

"It can be on electronic systems as well," said the system, "but it isn't restricted to that. You can hack any form of data, discovering, deleting, or creating. The more extensive the impact, the more expensive token you will need."

"That really is something," said Dorothea, the endless possibilities laying before her. Yes, this particular token was almost useless, but she could see so many things that could be achieved with just a little bit of data change.

"Should I go ahead and activate the token, then?" asked the system

"Wait," said Dorothea. "Give me a second to think about that."

Raphael was not yet the dirty, cheating bastard who had used her and left her behind so heartlessly in her previous life. With her plans, he never would be. She would free him from the poisonous influence of his sister, and make sure that the love they had would bloom and grow. This time around, she would have the life of success and stability she deserved. The love between them was still pure and true.

It wouldn't be fair or just for her herself to hurt him for crimes he had not yet committed, but then again, she wasn't the one who was doing this to him. This was the actions of a cousin of his. The cousin was no doubt retaliating in the only way he knew how from some grievous wrong Raphael had committed against him. It also wouldn't be fair or reasonable for Dorothea to take that revenge away from him. Perhaps this was a lesson that would help Raphael, if given the correct encouragement from her.

"It's alright," said Dorothea. "I don't need to use the token. Let's not unnecessarily interfere with Fate."

"Are you sure?" said the kitten. "It won't cost anything. And you won't get another sample token if you don't use this one. It's this or nothing."

"I'm sure," said Dorothea. "Thanks for demonstration, but just the example was enough. I don't need to see it working to see how valuable something like this could be."

The kitten tried to object again, but Dorothea didn't pay any attention. It was amusing to see it try to upsell her like a clothing store attendant on commission, but Dorothea had more important things to think about. Like how she could use this ability to humiliate Lillianna.