Jacked-In: Jacked-In, #1

By Jacob Quarterman

In the city rebuilt after the Uprising, Martin Doe doesn’t want to be like the other kids. Surrounded by the Green Wall, protected from the wastelands of the south, with a war raging in the north against the machines still trying to get through, the city tells everyone they’re safe.

 

But Martin is focused on his own life and his own problems. He doesn't want to be like everyone else. He just wants to be better than he is. To jack into the system without the gear that marks him as a target. When he finally gets what he wants, he finds out he was never like the other kids.

 

While a virus infiltrates the minds of everyone connected to the networks, he runs through the city, racing north with his best friends, carrying the key to holding the Uprising at bay.

 

Get your copy of Jacked-In today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: El Monito Enterprises
• Release date: May 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386298779

Book preview

Jacked-In

Jacob Quarterman

Copyright © 2014 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Copyright © 2014

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

El Monito Enterprises

DEDICATION

Challenge accepted, Eddie.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE DAY I WOKE UP

ON THE WAY DOWN

ROCK BOTTOM

STERLING’S SILVER

WHAT’S IN A DREAM

THE NIGHTMARE BEGINS

MY LIFE ON HOLD

SOMETHING NEW

QUESTIONS UNANSWERED

THE HISTORY LESSON

BEST FRIENDS

MOVING UP IN THE WORLD

SIMON SAYS

JOINING THE CLUB

TIES THAT BIND

RUDE AWAKENING

FORWARD MOMENTUM

CHAIN GANG

GOING MOBILE

JAILBREAK

NOT SO FAST

A GLAMOROUS LIFE

LEAVING IT BEHIND

IN THE WALL

ON TOP OF THE WORLD

GRAVITY

STORMS CAN’T LAST

TOO MANY SECRETS

A JOB TO DO

THE DAY I WOKE UP

ON THE WAY DOWN

I live in a state funded boys home called Argonomy Arms. The richies at school call us Argonauts. I don’t think they understand the reference, but that’s the kind of intellect you can look forward to when you don’t have to work for anything.

Like the rest of the Argonauts, I’m a Natural. I don’t have the implanted systems that let me jack into the networks. I have to wear a head-mounted unit that plugs into the neural cannula in my temple. Since we have to take our headgear off to jack out of the networks, they also call us jack-offs.

I’m also unregistered. I have an anonymous benefactor who won’t claim my genome. He pays for my basic needs, my education, and a couple of presents at Christmas, but he won’t give me a name. I’m Martin Doe. Nice to meet you.

Every quarter, I write a note expressing my incredible joy at his continued sponsorship, but for the last couple of months, my heart hasn’t been in it. Probably because I hate him. Whoever he is.

Every morning, we make our way to the nutritious breakfast of a protein doughnut and a bottle of synthesized milk. I can’t tell if it tastes like real milk since I’ve never had any. It’s pretty good, though.

After breakfast, I swim upstream through the bully hierarchy. Even though we Argonauts are together at the bottom of the barrel, we’re not united. All the usual cliques apply. Handsome. Jock. Smart. From the family down on its luck, sending the youngest son to the home, all the way down to the poor unregistered losers like me. When we get to school, we all keep our heads down. At home, only some of us do.

Timothy Demopolous is one of those always on the lookout. His parents took being Natural to a whole ‘nother level. They won’t let him be modified in any way. No cannula like me, so he has to jack in using an ancient tablet wired through a pair of 3D glasses.

Timmy’s my best friend, but he’s also fat. He seems pretty active, and I’ve never noticed him overeat, but every calorie goes straight to his ass. His parents won’t approve the gene therapy required to treat his obesity, so he just waddles around, looking out of place.

Walking next to him makes me wonder who looks weirdest. We’re the same height, and we both have dark hair and eyes, but I’m kind of scrawny. We look like a before and after weight loss picture. The rest of the Argonauts can’t make up their minds about who they hate the most

I know there’s strength in numbers, but our numbers only equal two. We can’t be together every minute of every day. That means sometimes, our number is one. Timmy will show up with a bruise darkening on his arm and tears drying on his cheeks, and I won’t say anything about it. He does the same thing for me.

The worst day of my life was a Friday, and Timmy was right there, waddling by my side. Outside the structured cleanliness of Argonomy, the city looked grey and dirty. The air was sticky, and I could feel sweat rolling down between my shoulder blades under my backpack.

We had made it through the gauntlet on our way out, and I was feeling good. Timmy was in high spirits, babbling away about a book he was reading, Forest Mage.

It’s pretty cool, he said. "I like it better than the first one, and it’s got a lot more pages."

"More pages? I said. I made a face like I was trying not to puke. That sounds awful."

Timmy stopped in his tracks, looking like somebody had just told him that Santa Claus wasn’t real. He shook his head and jogged to catch up. Yeah, but the hero’s a big fat guy, he said.

I’m just messing with you, man. I’ll check it out.

Yeah right, he said. Like all the other books I’ve been trying to get you to read.

I spread my hands in a shrug and grinned at him over my shoulder, Hey man, when you’re as busy as me, it’s tough to find time for the simple pleasures in life.

We’re together almost all the time, he said. When are you busy?

That’s called sarcasm, Timmy.

That was pretty much what it was like every morning. We had a different schedule, only meeting back up when school was out. That meant there would be nobody watching my back, and nobody to talk to. We had to make it count.

I’ll probably finish it this weekend, he said. "Knock my homework and chores out when I get home tonight, as long as there’s someone there to help me. You know, someone who’s not too busy with the simple pleasures in life."

Oh, I guess I can pull myself away.

Cool. Maybe we can even get a head start on next week.

Or . . . we can just hole up in the tomb all weekend and leach off of Argonomy’s network.

The tomb was our sanctuary. Argonomy was built way before The Uprising. It was old, and its foundations were on top of the buildings of the ancient city.

Behind the bottom shelf in a basement supply closet was a crumbling hole. On the other side of the hole was a dusty hallway with two doors at the end. The door on the right was locked, but through the door on the left was an old boiler room, right under one of the network nodes.

For a couple of guys who complained whenever somebody put a broom in our hands, we made short work of getting that place cleaned up. As long as we were back for bed check, nobody knew or cared where we spent most of our time.

Hanging with my best friend and jacking into the network without the Argonomy overlords looking over my shoulder was as good as my life could have been. Then we had found out that the door on the right had led to Lotus Academy, an Argonomy Arms for girls, and Stacy had made our numbers equal three.

That actually sounds a lot better, Timmy said. "Let’s do that."

We went by Sterling’s Thought Shop. Every day we passed it on the way to school, and every day I looked in the window. It was a filthy storefront that promised to help Naturals like me get our heads out of the past and into the networks of the future. They claimed to be able to upgrade any body with implants comparable to the most popular brands on the market in a procedure advertised as less-invasive.

Every day, Timmy would push me away from the window, shaking his head. Today was no different. Come on, man, he said. You don’t need that crap.

He was wrong. I did need it. I’d even been saving every cent I could, stuffing it in the hole behind the loose brick in the wall under my bed. Not credit, but real money. The kind of currency that people like Sterling preferred.

I know, I know, I said, letting him pull me away. A guy can dream, you know.

Do you dream about getting an infection? That place is disgusting.

Like every other day, I finished the routine by promising myself that I would have another chat with Sterling. Soon, I’d be able to fly through the networks, my body full of tech, my mind full of light. I had to admit that I didn’t like the sound of the whole less-invasive part, though.

We rounded the corner at the intersection of El Rey and Jefferson and had to slow it down. We came up on a group of richies who were just ahead of us. One guy and three girls. They were taking their time, their minds focused on the virtual world inside.

They were all beautiful. Tall and perfect. Hair and bodies tuned up with the latest that money could buy. I could tell they were on a portable node, seeing and hearing things that we could only dream of.

Their faces were slack, lips barely moving as they spoke. Their bodies walked down the sidewalk with automatic purpose. Like zombies in real life, I knew their avatars were dancing and laughing and free. I wanted to jack into their network and be free with them.

My eyes drifted down to admire the girls as they walked. Their shorts were tight and . . . well, short. The skin on the backs of their legs was smooth and creamy, and for the thousandth time, I wondered what it felt like. Then, their skin flared with a blue light as their systems dropped them out of the network, and they all stopped walking.

I came to a halt and realized I was too close. I looked around in a panic and saw Timmy several yards behind me. He was shaking his head again, and his wide eyes were focused over my shoulder. I turned back around and looked up. The girls were looking at me with horrified disgust. The guy was marching toward me with fury on his face.

What do think you’re staring at, jack-off? he said.

I took a couple of steps back, and his hand shot out and grabbed my shirt. The front of it popped out of my jeans, causing his fist to crack against the bottom of my jaw. I had to rise up on my toes to keep from choking. Nothing, I said.

One of the girls stepped forward with her hands on her hips. Oh, so I’m nothing? she said.

That what you’re saying, jack-off? You saying she’s nothing? His spit sprayed across my face as he shouted.

No, that’s not what I’m saying.

"What are you saying, then?"

Here’s where I tried to think of something clever. Some witty comeback that would defuse the situation. Nothing came to mind but honesty. I’ve been told it’s the best policy. I’m saying I think she’s beautiful, I said.

My teeth rattled as he shook me, but I saw her face soften. She walked over and put a hand on his back. He froze and looked over his shoulder while I squirmed. Let him go, Christian, she said. Just let it go.

He looked back at me and nodded his head like he was doing me a favor. Come to think of it, he was. Fine, he said.

He let go of me so suddenly that I staggered back and almost fell down. Timmy saved me from going over onto my back, and I clutched at him to keep my balance. Christian and his groupies walked away without looking back, cutting through the crowd that had formed around our little drama.

I wished I could make myself smaller. I would just shrink and shrink and crawl away. I pushed off of Timmy and tried to straighten out my shirt. The crowd broke up, and Timmy dropped his backpack to the ground in front of him.

We had made it all the way to school, and I hadn’t noticed. Too busy staring at a girl’s butt like a caveman. I pulled my own pack off of my shoulders and started to gear up. Bronson High ran a networked curriculum. You had to be jacked in to upload your credentials to even get through the front door.

ROCK BOTTOM

I put on my stupid headgear, and Timmy put on his stupider glasses, and we headed into the security alcove at the front of the building. There were two lines. One that went through the scanners. One that went through a pat-down.

Timmy never went through the scanners. He said his mom told him they caused cancer. With the high powered beams of the nodes broadcasting the networks through the air, covering almost every frequency, I didn’t think there was much to worry about.

I headed into the electronic arches and felt my teeth buzz as I passed through the scanning curtain. I got a green light, and I finally got inside.

My head-up display popped on and flashed with the Bronson High Student Dashboard. I was in a live network, and it felt like I should have breathed a sigh of relief. I felt like it was where I belonged. Not the world in my eyes, but the world in my display.

In real life, everything was a dull gray, but on the network, it was all coded for color. Posters and announcements on the walls and scrolling by. Bright avatars overlaying the students as they went through the halls like birds in the wind.

Avatars weren’t allowed in the classrooms, but in the halls you could show off.