The Making of Socket Greeny

by Tony Bertauski

  “I don’t care.”

  “We need to know.”

  “No, we don’t.”

  “We attracted some real power, Chute. That wasn’t an accident.”

  I didn’t know which way to flop. Chute was right. We got lucky; we shouldn’t push it. I didn’t want to go to jail or, worse, put my mom through it. A fight after school was just kid trouble.

  But there was something going on. And deep down, I wanted to know. Deep down, I’d always felt like there was something bigger to life, some truth behind the curtain that I wanted to know.

  I’m behind the curtain.

  “The air,” I said. “It wrinkled just before the footstep.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about.” Streeter punched his open palm. “Wait, what?”

  “Back it up.”

  It took three times before he saw it, the subtle heat waves. He seemed to be going along with it at first, just to keep me on his side. Then I told them about the hallway. And what happened when I disappeared in the vault room. The memories. The flapping colors and silver flashes. The strange grip on my arm.

  “Sounds like you fell through a trip world,” Streeter said. “Maybe some sort of virtualmode bleedover or fracture, I don’t know.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Chute said.

  “I needed time,” I said. “It just feels... I don’t know.”

  I didn’t want to say it. It was more likely Streeter was right, that I was starting to burn the line between skin and sim. But I couldn’t help feeling this way.

  “It feels like... like I’m remembering.”

  “Remembering what?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Memory extraction.” Streeter snapped his fingers. “The roots got to your head. As soon as they touched your memories someone pulled you out.”

  “Someone?”

  He shrugged.

  “Whoever it is,” Chute said, “maybe they don’t want you to remember.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Streeter said, distantly. “But why you?”

  I shook my head. It was all too much. Why would anyone want to protect what was in my head, or keep me from remembering it? I was nobody. Still, there felt like something behind the curtain. And the curtain almost got pulled back. Someone stopped it.

  Or something.

  “What makes you so special?” Streeter mused.

  “You mean why isn’t this about you?” Chute said.

  “I’m just saying, why would someone with this much power be protecting us? Or Socket, whatever.”

  “You’re missing the obvious,” I said. “That air wrinkled in the hallway. And under the bleachers, too.”

  It took a moment. That sort of anomaly in virtualmode could be a coding error. But in the skin? Maybe it was brain burn, that I was starting to cook, but I know what I saw and all of this happened in the skin and in virtualmode. It wasn’t a hallucination. Something was out there.

  Someone is steering.

  “Play back the library part.” I scooted my chair forward. “There has to be something else.”

  “Are you both tilted?” Chute said. “You’re actually going to follow this?”

  “I’m sorry,” Streeter said. “This is for people with balls.”

  “I’m going to stuff you in my shoe.” She snatched the flash drive out of the computer. “And keep you from more trouble.”

  “And you think I don’t have a backup?”

  She stared at the memory stick. A deep sigh. “Why?” she said. “Why do this?”

  “Because it’s there, Chute,” Streeter said. “And someone is daring us.”

  “Nobody’s daring shit.”

  “Someone’s watching,” I muttered.

  “Who?” she asked.

  “Because Socket has a secret,” Streeter added.

  We both looked at him. Chute was silent. We both had the same secret. The way he smiled, I wasn’t sure where he was going with this. But no one would care about Chute and me.

  “What?” I finally said.

  “I don’t know. And neither do you.”

  He held out his hand. Chute tossed the flash drive back, shaking her head. There were breadcrumbs to follow. We might end up getting boiled for soup. Or find a pot of gold.

  There was only one way to find out.

  As it would turn out, no one could’ve guessed what was behind the curtain. Least of all, me.

  I SHOT UP FROM THE couch.

  An empty bag of chips fell at my feet. It took a moment to catch up, heart pulsing in my ears. I was at home with the television on—a sci-fi flick I’d seen a thousand times about artificially intelligent machines and the illusion of reality.

  The ceiling fan wobbled, the chain dancing in the uneven churn. I couldn’t remember turning it on, but it was welcome. My hair stuck to my forehead, shirt soaked through.

  I was dreaming. It was a strange sound like laundry hanging out to dry, the snapping of linen and tumbling of wet towels in blazing heat—

  I heard it again.

  All the lights were off. The house was dark except for the television. Shadows danced off furniture, splashing shapes on the walls. I muted the volume.

  “Mom?” My throat was tight. I sounded like a third grader and tried again, deeper this time. “Hey, Mom. You home?”

  The thought of announcing I had a dog crossed my mind. I stood outside her bedroom door, hand on the knob, and counted to three. Then ten. Then started over, swearing if I didn’t hear anything that I’d just leave it alone. I threw the door open.

  The room was spotless.

  I found the light switch. The bedspread was without a wrinkle. The pillows fluffy without a dent. Everything just as she left it a week ago. Endorphins kept me wide-eyed.

  Her dresser was clean, no knickknacks. A lamp at her bedside with a glass of water waited for her return. Nothing was out of order, unlike the rest of the house—pizza boxes and empty bottles, a not-so-subtle punishment for abandoning the job of Mother.

  A job she hardly seemed to care about.

  There was no evidence that someone had been in her room, none at all, but someone had been here, I could feel it. Yes, I feel it. I’d been sleeping alone for a week, and now I had a raging fever with the urge to shed my skin.

  It was close to midnight.

  I pried apart the blinds with two fingers. The outline of a maple was barely visible. Something in the branches flashed. That feeling was back, the one that told me someone had been here. Someone was watching. Only this time something flashed a pair of golden orbs in the canopy. There were three pairs altogether.

  It could be cats. All of them sitting in the tree and staring. And blinking very slowly.

  I checked the window to make sure it was locked, then went to the kitchen. I turned the television off and sat back in the dark to let my eyes adjust. Easing to the back door, hand on the light switch, I took a breath.

  Hey.

  My thighs liquefied. I flopped over the kitchen counter and raked my hair.

  What’re you doing? Streeter’s voice vibrated in my head.

  I touched my cheek. “Right now? Having a heart attack.”

  Nice.

  I flipped the switch. Light flooded the backyard and the neighbor’s cat leaped over the fence.

  Am I ruining your beauty sleep?

  Of course, he’d been planning a seek-and-discover mission. I half-listened as I fell onto the couch and booted the television.

  We go back to the vault.

  “Good one.”

  Chute doesn’t have to know.

  “She’ll find out. Then she’ll kill you.”

  She’s not the mom, Socket. Get some balls.

  I called up a list of messages. Mom left one every day. They started with an apology, something came up, make sure I brush my teeth and do my homework. It was long-distance parenting, like she was reading from a script that she wanted to feel but couldn’t, a fake-it-till-you-make-it attempt that was stuck in fake m
ode.

  I queued up Mom’s last message, the one that told me to clean up the house.

  “Why?”

  I want to help you.

  “That’s hilarious.”

  Seriously.

  “Look who’s tripping.”

  Whoever duped us has some big guns that I’d like to cop and you’re the key. That vault triggered something. Let’s find out. Come on, man.

  “You just want to help me.”

  And you don’t want to know?

  Was I curious? I was more scared. To see your true nature is a hell of a show. What if I didn’t like it? Would ignorance be better? As it would turn out, I wouldn’t have a choice.

  None of us do.

  “Get Chute on board and I’m in.”

  He took a long pause. [Gearheads on Friday. I got us three seats.]

  Getting her on board would be more impossible than returning to the vault. I tapped out and leaned back, yawning. I played Mom’s last message, the one where she apologized, told me to clean up, asked me to call her back, she couldn’t help being gone. She looked so tired, so stressed. Just like all the messages, except for the last part.

  “Be careful, son,” she said.

  Son. She never called me that.

  I tapped my cheek and called her name. The call clicked through. Maybe she was sleeping. More likely she was just too busy. Something rustled in her room again.

  I was back on high alert.

  I grabbed an old skateboard and nudged her door open. Everything was still in order. I eased into the room and looked under the bed and in the closet with the skateboard ready to swat whatever was in there. I peeked through the blinds. The cats weren’t there.

  The glass of water was still on her nightstand. I stopped in the doorway. A small black flash drive was next to it.

  That wasn’t there before.

  4

  “Here.”

  I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. Streeter stood over me with a glass of water and two aspirin. I threw my weight forward to escape the beanbag, the vinyl sticking to my arms.

  “Gramma said take them both.”

  I chased them with heavy gulps and collapsed. Hair was plastered to my forehead, the bag felt like a pot of boiling water.

  “You go to a doctor?” Streeter asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You look great.”

  “Allergies or something.”

  “Like breathing?”

  “You want me to go?” I attempted to crawl out. “You can do this by yourself.”

  “No, no. Not what I’m saying. Just wondered.”

  I rolled back and sucked on an ice cube. I didn’t want to go to the doctor. I should’ve, but then I’d have to call Mom and then she’d ask all kinds of questions. This happened every once in a while, anyway. I’d get a fever and then it’d be gone, like some sort of passing heat wave that came with the seasons. Mom used to say it was growing pains, but I never heard of juvenile heat flashes. I stopped telling her about them.

  The doorbell rang.

  “She’s late,” Streeter growled.

  He went to let Chute inside, but his gramma beat him to the door. Five minutes went by. No one came over to Streeter’s house without catching Gramma up with life.

  I dug the flash drive from my pocket and turned it over. It was short and black. No markings or manufacturer’s logo. Just a blocky little memory stick that wasn’t there the first time.

  “Whoa.” Chute walked into the bedroom.

  “I’m fine.”

  She put her hand on my forehead. “You’re hot.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No, I mean fever.”

  “I just took something.”

  “What are you doing?” Streeter closed the bedroom door.

  “Socket’s sick.”

  “He’s fine. Overheated, that’s all.”

  “He’s got a fever.”

  “So what? I get them all the time, take a pill, it goes away. Probably a virus and there’s nothing you can do about that.”

  “We shouldn’t be doing this, not today.”

  “Look, we’re not running a marathon, Chute. We’re just spending an hour in virtualmode. He’s a big boy.”

  “We stop by a pharmacy,” she said. “Run a scan. If it says he’s all right, we go. If not, we don’t.”

  “Deal! We’ve got one of those. If he checks out, are we good?” He didn’t wait for an answer and left the room in search of the HomeMed. What she didn’t know was that he’d hacked the thing a long time ago. Pretty handy when you want to stay home from school.

  Chute closed the door. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine, really.”

  She continued staring. Everything felt wrong, but how could I tell her that without dragging her into it.

  That’s how I felt.

  Sometimes I felt a bit guilty falling for her. There would come a day that I blamed myself for dragging her into all the trouble. It would be my fault that she would suffer so much. If I could just ignore her, walk away from my feelings, then she’d have a different life. Would that mean it would be better?

  Or just different?

  It didn’t matter. I couldn’t walk away from her any more than I could wish away the fever.

  “Let’s just do this,” I said. “We look, we go home, everybody’s happy. We’re not running a marathon.”

  “You need sleep.”

  She was right about that. But going home wasn’t going to solve that.

  “Here we go.” Streeter marched in with a small leather pouch, unpacking the contents and slapping them across my forehead and arms. A few seconds later, he turned the tablet toward Chute.

  “Boom.”

  Later I’d learn my fever was almost a hundred and three that day. It would get up to a hundred and seven. That was impossible. My organs would be shutting down. Streeter would later confess that the device was broken, that he’d hacked the software too many times. That it couldn’t be a hundred and seven.

  Streeter shook the tablet at her. “When did you become such a mommy? You’re a kill queen.”

  “This isn’t virtualmode.”

  “What’ve you got there?” He was talking to me, but I’d zoned out. This was going to drag out and I was getting tired. He pointed at the flash drive.

  “It’s blank.”

  He wiggled his fingers. I’d already plugged it into a laptop and there was nothing on it. No mystery to it. Mom brought computer stuff home all the time. The flash drive had to be hers; I just didn’t see it the first time.

  And the flapping sounds were just laundry.

  “Where’d you get this?” Streeter asked.

  He studied it like a jeweler. I told him, but he didn’t believe me. I decided not to tell them about the cats.

  “I told you, it’s blank.”

  “It needs a virtualmode port, ding-dong,” he said. “You don’t have one.”

  I hadn’t noticed. Streeter mumbled about advanced USB ports, something used in virtualmode coding. Then he dug a set of VRs from a drawer and strapped them over his eyes.

  “Let’s leave,” Chute whispered to me.

  “I can hear you,” Streeter whispered back.

  Honestly, I felt better now that I was out of my house. Sitting around was making me depressed. I’d rather be busy with a fever than staring at a television with a fever.

  “Huh,” Streeter grunted. “It’s empty.”

  “Yeah. Like I said two seconds ago.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t have a port.”

  “Still empty.”

  He turned toward me with oversized VRs swallowing the top half of his face. “For a second there, I thought you were special.”

  “Never said I was.”

  “You’re a gift to humankind, Socket Greeny. Look at that hair.”

  I crawled out of the beanbag and stripped the VRs off. He blinked heavily, cussing. Grandma called, asking if we were ready. Chute
wasn’t happy, but she went with us. We were going to Gearheads for the last time, that was Streeter’s promise, swear to God.

  I left the flash drive in the room.

  “WHAT’S WRONG WITH HIM?” Chief said.

  “We think it’s Ebola,” Streeter said.

  I chugged the ginseng tea Chute bought. Chief could evidently see my death aura.

  “Don’t infect my gear.”

  Streeter led us into the back rooms of the former massage parlor. The hallways were narrow and dim and cold enough to keep ice. Chute rubbed her arms. A kid about our age came out of our room.

  “What’re you doing in there?” Streeter asked.

  “Getting it ready.” He held the door open.

  “You work here?”

  “Just started.”

  There was no reason not to believe him. Chief didn’t let people wander around the rooms, and he hired high school help all the time. We believed him.

  And that was all the difference.

  There were four oversized chairs arranged in a short line and facing the same direction, like a movie would play on the wall. It smelled like cleaning solution and bath salts. Streeter fell in the front chair and passed back a slide box of transplanters.

  Never lease transplanters, he always said. They suck.

  I dropped in the chair behind Chute, the plastic cover crunching under me. She popped over the back like a puppet.

  “How are you?”

  “Better,” I lied. “The drink was good,” I lied again.

  “We got an hour,” Streeter said, “and we’re running low on crypto.”

  The clatter of Streeter’s flash drive found a port in the chair’s control panel. The lights dimmed. Breathing slowed. I considered leaving the transplanters on my lap, but he’d come out for me. Just before I went inside, the room wrinkled. I pulled out but it was gone. When I planted the second time, the air remained still.

  Chute was already inside, her sim an animated version of her skin, complete with the red ponytail. She was staring at the barbarian dialing a hovering display of controls.

  “We better not be going out,” she said.

  “We’re not,” he said. “We’re staying on the stick.”