Code Jumper

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  “You… hacked us?” Brendan asked mostly cogently, showcasing that it wouldn’t be too long before my brain-mind could start making some mouth-words.

  “Only a little,” Hugo replied innocently, “more a… forced AR experience. Like a surprise beta test.”

  “Dude,” I slurred, “no. You big many screwed up. You… you… you made me think me was soup!”

  “To be fair, you made you think you were soup.”

  Brendan was not having that, “No, Eddie’s right, he’s not makin’ a whole lotta sense, but he’s right. You didn’t ‘surprise beta test’ us, you Bill Cosby’d us.”

  It took me a moment longer than it should’ve to realize what Brendan meant by that, but in my defense it was a pretty old reference, and it didn’t really get brought up again until the day he died and all those people… you know what? Probably irrelevant, onward.

  “Hey,” Hugo snapped defensively, gesturing to the cups, “these are highly complex and meticulously made devices, not freakin’ flunitrazepam.”

  Honestly? The fact that he could pronounce flunitrazepam without breaking a sweat did make me slightly more confident in his ability to make tiny robots that hijacked the chip in my head.

  Still wasn’t a great feeling though.

  “You do know how much these chips cost, right?” Brendan snarled, his voice more or less completely back to normal.

  “Well, yeah. I paid for them.”

  “And you know what, shut up,” Brendan quickly said as he realized that Hugo had answered his first question, “happens if you mess up, yeah? You ever brick a phone? Because I’m guessing it’d be like that, only instead of a useless smartphone, you end up with a wheelchair-bound vegetable.”

  Not going to lie, I immediately thought about a carrot riding around in a wheelchair when he said that, but I wasn’t about to jump in with something that inane on what was teetering between a fight amongst friends and a workplace dispute.

  One would end with one or both of them looking stupid, and the other would end with my boyfriend getting taken out back and being turned into a wheelchair-bound vegetable.

  Great, now I’m thinking about vegetable Paralympics.

  “I understand your concerns,” Hugo finally said after a few seconds of intense staring, “but think about what this could mean for the world out here. Imagine if you could play something with that level of real contact without having to worry about diving into Re.Gen permanently? Plus, I tested it out on myself a bunch of times before I put you guys through it, which was a right pain in the ass considering I had to activate the system while also slipping into the system.”

  Things fell silent for a while after that as not only did Brendan accept that Hugo would never put us in any actual danger, but the rest of us recuperated at varying levels of speed and success.

  Kathy was up and on her feet before any of us, but she couldn’t stop blinking, and Tony was stuck to the couch for longer than any of us, but he’d gained full control of his voice and thoughts while I was still struggling with remembering how to breathe.

  “You guys feeling any better?” Hugo asked anxiously as he checked his watch, “By this point I was back to normal.”

  “That’s what happens when you put four people in a thing that you’ve only put one person in.” I said with what was supposed to sound as snarky, but instead came out sounding like I’d recently been hit by a car.

  “Server overload… interesting hypothesis…” Hugo replied ponderously before looking off into space as he did when taking a mental note, then quickly snapping back to reality, “Anyway, I think Brendan should drive you three home, he’s got his head mostly together.”

  “Not before we get paid.” Kathy growled, “And there better be a damn bonus in there for putting us through that, and a coupon for a mental health clinic.”

  Hugo rolled his eyes and smiled at that, angering Kathy further as he walked into the kitchen and grabbed the four envelopes off the counter, “No coupon, but yeah, you’ll find a bonus in there that oughta sate your thirst for my blood.”

  He wasn’t kidding, as soon as he’d thrown it to me and I’d felt the weight I knew that he’d managed to pull some money out of somewhere that he probably shouldn’t have.

  “Six large for Eddie, fifteen for Kathy, and two grand each for Brendan and Tony.” the boss said as he tossed the envelopes to each of my coworkers, “We happy?”

  “Why do they get two grand?” I asked, realizing only after I had that I was complaining my boyfriend getting more money.

  “Because they earned it.” Hugo replied matter-of-factly, “Business has been good, and while you guys pulled in a good amount tonight, Tony and Brendan have consistently brought in bank. Or need I remind you about your little screw-up?”

  “No, no, I’m happy.” I said as quickly as I could, pulling myself out of the spotlight and making Brendan feel less like I didn’t want him to succeed in one swift move.

  “Good, now get out of here and get some rest, you’re all on the early shift, and I don’t want it to get to four-oh-one before I start seeing Code Jumpers goin’ to work.”

  If we were in any other job I’d have been making fun of the fact that he had such a stick up his ass about clocking in, but he had a damn hard job to do, and if just one of us was late, or if he took longer than a second to send out the notification that we were available for jobs, it’d screw up the entire system, which reminded me of something.

  “Hey,” I said as everyone else turned to leave, “there was a bit of lag on my end, any idea why?”

  “Wasn’t on your end,” Hugo clarified right before the rest of the Code Jumpers could pile on with ‘me too’s, “some guy wants us to get something into the game. Apparently he’s got friends in Re.Gen, and apparently they made some kinda deal that the last one to drop would have to give the rest somethin’, ain’t nothing we haven’t seen before.”

  “But why the hiccup?” Kathy asked.

  Typically, we worked on a need-to-know basis, but Hugo didn’t seem to mind filling us in on the details when it came to stuff that offset our work by full hours.

  “Client sent me the files and it glitched the system for a few nanoseconds. I’ve since combed through ‘em and haven’t found anything out of the ordinary, so you’ll be delivering them tomorrow. And no, I won’t tell you what package they’ll be coming in.”

  I wasn’t fully sold on the idea of having to deliver something that had screwed with the code, but at the same time it wasn’t my job to be fully sold on what I was delivering.

  “Sounds good,” I lied, “see you tomorrow.”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN

  By the time Brendan had dropped me off at home we’d all returned to normal and, after looking at the clock and seeing it was past seven, realized how tired we were.

  “Do you want me to stick around?” Brendan asked as the others went to their cars.

  I kind of did after the night we’d had, it would’ve been nice to have some company, but at the same time I could see that he was pretty anxious to go join Kathy and head home.

  Also, if he’d have hung around we’d have stayed up all night and I would’ve been absolutely screwed for the following morning.

  “Nah, I think I’ll just turn in early.”

  Brendan tried and failed to hide his beaming smile before surrendering to it and giving me a kiss, “You’re the best. I’ll see you in morning, okay?”

  I nodded, masking the small pang of pain I felt with him leaving, “See you in the morning.” I said, realizing that everyone seemed to be saying goodbye to me before I was ready.

  After staying as long as seemed socially necessary with my waving, I turned around and headed back into my cold, empty house with a tired sigh.

  “Don’t think things are working out with that one…” I muttered to myself as I tossed my envelope of cash onto my couch and flopped down next to it, “Too… dissimilar.”

  I’d
been trying really hard with Brendan as I had a history of flaking out on relationships too early, but despite his looks, charisma, and the sex, I just couldn’t find myself connecting with him on a deep, personal level.

  Problem was I couldn’t bring myself to break up with him, we worked together after all, and I wasn’t quite able to pull the ol’ faithful ‘be a dick until he dumps me’ move because that’d mean losing Kathy, which I simply wasn’t willing to do.

  The whole thing sounded so childish as I went over it in my head, though I couldn’t help but rationalize it as me needing to get through the awkward phase of relationships that starts when you’re twenty and still having fun, and ends when you’re in your mid-thirties and still haven’t dated anyone for more than a year.

  Don’t get me wrong, I was still young, but I wasn’t that young, and I did want to get married someday, which just wasn’t going to happen with Brendan.

  “Come on Ed, pull yourself together.” I said, chuckling weakly as I remembered I should probably remove my bionic leg before things got screwy, “Always with the making jokes about your missing limb, never not with the making jokes about your missing limb…”

  I got my leg off without much trouble despite discovering an issue with my fingers not working properly, courtesy of Hugo’s AR no doubt, then got ready to crash out for the night on the couch, figuring it’d be for the best if I didn’t have to shamble out of my room at the crack of dawn.

  “Set alarm, oh-eight-hundred hours.”

  There was a quiet sound in my head as the alarm activated, kind of like a whistle I’d heard years before, letting me know it was safe to doze off.

  And yes, I regretted not having a shower the instant my eyes slid shut.

  FLASHBACK THREE: TRILOGY

  “Have I heard of Re.Generation?” I scoffed, “Have I, the guy with two laptops, a pretty hefty rig, and more USBs than most people have cutlery, heard of Re.Generation?”

  “A yes would’ve gotten your point across fine,” Hugo replied disinterestedly, “and it would’ve made you look like much less of an ass.”

  I didn’t appreciate being called an ass, but at the same time I was far too intrigued to start complaining about getting treated with more respect.

  “Alright, fair enough.” I said with the most neutral face I could make without talking through my teeth, “So, what’s up with Re.Generation?”

  “I have a job that incorporates the game.” Hugo said with a sly smile, “But I’m gonna have to ask you a few questions first.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Well, that gets us past the part about how willing you are to operate without asking too many questions.” my future employer said in amusement, “Next, is it true that you’re a lucid dreamer?”

  And boom, I was uncomfortable again, “Ho… I… Yes, yes I am.”

  I decided in that moment that it was probably for the best if I just assumed that he knew almost everything about me that had ever been stored electronically, which meant a whole lot of recordings stored on my therapist’s computer that I explicitly told him to delete.

  “Good, next question, are you accepting of having a chip put in your head?”

  “Cool Ranch or Russian mind control?”

  “Neither,” Hugo chuckled, “those newfangled ones that are basically a smartphone for your brain.”

  I didn’t want to tell him, but I was actually deathly afraid of those things. They’d been all over the news for over a year, and all I kept thinking was that getting a virus on your phone sucked, getting a virus in your brain is horrifying.

  That’s actually the exact reason I’m not cool with nanobots either. Trojan Horse? Try Trojan ‘My arm! My arm! Why do I keep hitting myself!?’ Horse.

  “They sound amazing.” I said surprisingly more convincingly than I’d expected.

  “No they don’t, they sound horrifying, and you think so too.” Hugo replied with a smile, “Don’t worry though, these things are totally off the grid. Hacking isn’t an option.” said the guy who would one day force me into an AR horrorscape, “But the fact that you’d be willing to go in knowing the risks tells me you’re the right man for the job.”

  “And what is this job?” I asked, relieved that Hugo seemed to not only understand my fears, but also share them.

  “It’s simple really, you dive into Re.Gen temporarily, make a few deals with some less-than-savory code, and collect a good amount of coin from those you’re selling to.”

  “Why? Not like you can use it.”

  Hugo scoffed and shook his head, “You’re the second person to say that to me today, and just like her I’m gonna tell you that you need to think big. Well, actually, you have to think back. Were you around back when you people’d hack accounts, shuffle all their valuables around so they were nigh untraceable, then make separate accounts filled with said valuables and sell ‘em off to eager noobs?”

  I felt somewhat hurt that he thought that I wouldn’t know about the days of old tech MMORPGs, but I also figured that he didn’t want to go in assuming I knew everything and having to backtrack later.

  So, with a somewhat heavy sigh, I let out a dejected “Yeah…”

  “Cool, same basic principle.”

  He’d lost me.

  “I’ve lost you, haven’t I?”

  Glossing over the fact that he was obviously psychic, I nodded, “Sorry, I just don’t really understand what you’re gettin’ at.”

  Hugo shrugged, “I don’t blame you, I’m not exactly the best at explaining what’s going on in my head. There’s a lotta noise.”

  ‘Probably shouldn’t be recruiting people then.’ I thought to myself with a mental smirk.

  “Alright, so you wanna walk me through it, step-by-step?”

  “Oh, yeah, course. Well, as I said, it’s the same basic principle as what guys like us used to do with MMORPGs of yore. Simply put, I collect RL cash from prospective divers, you collect the Re.Gen currency up to that value from players in exchange for goods and services, I store it in sleeper accounts that will then be given to our clients when they dive.”

  “So, what? Some schmuck gives you a million, real, US dollars and I go into the game and collect a million fake dollars? That doesn’t seem like a fair trade to me.”

  “You’re right, which is why I don’t do that.” Hugo clarified defensively, “There is an exchange rate that I adhere to, ten bucks gets you ten grand, hundred gets you a quarter million, etcetera, etcetera. I’ve done all the math, so you don’t have to worry about that, all I need is people like you who can temporarily dive into the game and get the in-game cash.”

  “People like me?” I scoffed, “Do I really look like I’m capable of doing something like that? What about security measures? And what if people try to rip me off? I ain’t exactly capable of chasin’ after or running from crackheads.”

  A smile spread across Hugo’s face at that, “That’s where you’re wrong kiddo. There’s a reason I needed a hacker like you, one who was intelligent, capable of lucid dreaming, and skilled at hacking. In Re.Gen you’ll be like a god among men, able to shape and change the world to your will.”

  “Heh, and I suppose all that’ll go unnoticed, eh?” I mocked, suppressing the undeniable feelings of excitement that were bubbling away inside me.

  “It won’t, but you’ll be capable of saving yourself before things get dangerous, it’ll just be a matter of pulling yourself out. Kinda like forcing yourself to wake up.”

  He really wanted me in on the project, if he didn’t he would’ve left the moment my shield of snarky backchat and general rudeness kicked in, but I still wasn’t quite sure I wanted to commit to something like what he was proposing.

  I was at an impasse. On one hand I didn’t know if I could handle the work, and I sure as Hell didn’t know if it was safe. While on the other I was struggling to find new ways to cover my tracks, having an employer who was looking out for me certainly wouldn’t go amiss.

  Also, you know, I’d just lost
my week’s groceries.

  “I’m in.” I said confidently, shooting out my hand and praying to all the Gods that the job was still on the table and I hadn’t just made a complete ass of myself.

  Hugo let me feel that way a while, although clearly out of surprise and not spite, before finally taking my hand and shaking it firmly, “Welcome to the team, Code Jumper.”

  MY MORNING ROUTINE

  I woke up with a jolt, the alarm doing its work without having to make a sound or vibration. Not going to lie, it was unsettling, but I got used to it over the course of the first few months.

  It couldn’t have been earlier than three, but the gentle, albeit still dark blue hue that filled my house was all the light I needed to get around.

  “Breakfast,” I said as I happily reattached my leg, “I think I can squeeze in breakfast.”

  And I could, none of that cereal and hastily chopped fruit either. No, I had bacon, pancakes, hash browns, and sausage to kick off my day.

  I felt like a Goddamn champion.

  That feeling kept on growing too as I finally moved my envelope of cash to where I stored the rest of my ill-gotten finances.

  “I’ve really gotta find a better place to store this.” I said as I looked on happily at the mountain of envelopes in my closet, “Eh, I’ll sort through it over the weekend.”

  I knew then that that was a lie, but I also didn’t mind looking at the fruits of my labor in their disorganized fashion.

  A lot of people have unmanageable piles of receipts, or mounding heaps of newspapers, but I had a messy stack of neatly wrapped cash.

  “I could just look at you all day.” I muttered lovingly before turning my attention to the clock hanging over my bed and saw that it’d taken me far longer than it should’ve to make breakfast and look at a pile of money.

  Cursing under my breathe, I ran around and started getting my wakeup gear ready, which meant having a bowl of dates out, a joint lit and ready to go, ensuring the VPN and router were green across the board, and making sure the camera was filming before dashing over to the couch, detaching my leg as fast as possible, and laying down.