Things did not run according to plan

He’d been sitting at his laptop for a while now, staring at a list of names of people he’d recently met, and not typing anything about them. He rubbed his hands over his face and sighed, ‘Come on Zach, get it together, focus on the plan.” He moved over to Josephine, he’d already written things in there about her. Surely it would be easy enough to continue to add the file.
 
“You don’t want me as a friend. “
 
“Just because you have opinions about yourself doesn’t mean they are the same as how other people feel or think. “
 
He could feel his heart sink in his chest. Mental note, next time he went under the knife, get that replaced. “You only went to apologize because a mechanic of her skill is needed. No other reason.” He frowned as he had difficulty believing his own words.
 
Fine, not Josephine, Jinn then. Start with the assets about him that benefit the plan, then the means to exploit him.
 
“Well. Then we make a decent pair of social awkward friends.”
 
Jinn. He was jealous of Jinn. He had magic. He was accepted by the folks in Usher. He was happy. Socially awkward, physically fragile (at least in appearance), wealthy, there was so much of him that he could see in Jinn.
But Jinn was happy.
 
He winced as he felt the pain in his head. He could feel the seams squirming. Okay, not Jinn. Dot. Dot would be easy enough, child actress, now running a video store. Barely had any connections with the wealthy anymore having left Cloud 9. Dot could easily be written off.
 
“Honestly, I'm really happy we've reconnected.”
 
"You should come with me, though.”
 
He just stared for a while at the screen again. Dot. She reminded him of better times. They weren’t great times, but they were better than now. He’d questioned why he’d agreed to go with her to the event at the museum, but deep down he knew the answer. For while he might be able to forget everything that had happened.
 
The last name on the list. Liz. He sighed in relief; Liz wouldn’t be a problem. Liz understood him. She hadn’t said it directly, but he had heard her. Chrome was evil, and he had chrome inside him. She knew on some level there was something wrong with him. Right, do Liz, then work on the others.
 
“So yes ... You are a rebel. Maybe not a criminal or a revolutionary, but a rebel."
 
He froze up. His right hand moved to the desk’s top drawer and opened it so he could look inside. Inside was a Gatewatch sidearm, his medication, and then that awful book he’d been gifted on his 21st birthday. He slowly pushed the drawer back closed and shut off the computer.
 
“Tomorrow. We try again tomorrow.”