Twitch
Mark Bailen
Copyright Mark Bailen 2012
Smashwords Edition
Table of Contents
The boy ran through the forest on metal legs, moving fast and jerky. A chrome bird flapped through the haze and he leaped over it. He landed in a pile of pine needles and kept zooming. His legs were powered by a fuel-ticker implanted in his hip. He had four speeds, a hydraulic boost, and an evasion algorithm. The boy darted through the drop shadows and linked to the big board, a universal map which transmitted directly to the back of his skull. He spotted a mars-shaded dot shifting below a cliff. The boy bounced over a creek and scanned a small clearing. Beyond the foliage rested a modified bear with grape fur and a carbon-steel jaw. The bear was eight times the boy's size and could kill him with one swipe, but he was not scared. Not with his legs! He launched upward, somersaulting and landing within three-hundred pixels of the beast. The bear growled.
“Don't be mad.” The boy raised a digit. “I just want to be friends.” In the sky above, the kernel pulsed and reflected off the bear's fangs. A curiosity glyph materialized above the animal's head. The boy generated a hello in the ancient protocol but before he could transmit, an alert fired. His shell had been traced and his profile popped up on the big board. “Dang it. I gotta run.” The boy sprinted straight for the bear, leaping. He held both knees and sailed over the animal, pinching its snout. The maneuver scored him seven-thousand-three-hundred-and-sixty-two bonus points. “Later!” The bear harrumphed and headed for the creek.
The boy's name was Twitch. He was a skinny kid, fifteen with blond curly hair and rosy cheeks. He wore a shadowy trench with six inventory pockets and elbow pads. He also had a bad case of jitters which caused both his arms and legs blur. As the boy bounced down the trail, a voice echoed from above. “You cheated.” His Uncle Steadfast was hunched over in the high branches. The elder man had a silver pony tail and ear bolts. He wore a moss trench, a tartan skirt, and a disrupter. A half-dozen shiny widgets danced in the sky around him. They were fist-sized contraptions, connected by digital pipes and darting in and out like hummingbirds.
“I need my legs.” Twitch squinted through the canopy.
“Do you need to jump higher than the trees?”
“No. . . But it was fun.”
“It won't be fun when they erase that bear.”
“Nobody saw me!”
His uncle poked a widget and it squealed. “I did.”
Twitch dropped his head. He reached down, toggled off his legs, and stomped data in the snow. An artificial cloud appeared on the horizon. The boy blinked at the puffy mass and watched the landscape redraw. He peered back at his uncle. “How's the twiddling?”
“Good. Except I got a bug.” The elder man clapped and the widgets interlocked. They spun in the air, forming a orbiting system. The man poked his hand through the looping widgets and the engine coughed.
“Looks good to me.” Twitch held up a thumbs and sat beneath the tree. He didn't have the patience to learn fate hacking. The boy stood again. His body was shaking, still maxed-out on energy. “That's probably the last bear in the legacy forest, right?” He shadow-boxed with the tree. “How does it survive?”
“Instinct,” mumbled his Uncle Steadfast from above. The man's eyez were thin sparks. “They forgot to scrub its brain.”
Inside the incubator, a neptune screen crackled. The incubator was an old programming shack that had crashed in the forest a dozen upgrades ago. Its hull was painted slate and fiber hung from the ceiling. The incubator had no power, no direct access, and no running water, but for Twitch, it was home. He sat on an ergo stool and removed his boots. Aunt Earnest teleported into the hub and whistled. She was a tall woman with creased cheeks. She quick-sorted some hash and syrup while printing a stack of pancakes and placed the fuel in front of the boy. Twitch clapped and his taste buds amplified. He heaped on auto-generated berries and took a bite. The pleasure was immense. For over a half-cycle, the boy disconnected.
Uncle Steadfast entered the hub, shaking his head and aiming a thumb. “The boy cheated.” The elder man's spine had been damaged in a mashup campaign. He was perpetually bent at thirty-three degrees. “And he got traced!”
“Twitch.” Aunt Earnest winked. “You should know better.”
“I wanted to see that bear.” Twitch chewed. “He's my friend.”
“Your friend wants to eat you.” Uncle Steadfast frowned and rubbed his neck where he had a faded tattoo of a rat. “Besides, how can it be friends with you? You didn't make protocol. Not one stinking bit. Did you forget everything I taught you?” He again pointed a thumb. “You rely too much on your gizmos. Tomorrow, I want you to find that bear without your legs.”
“Huh?”
“You heard me. No gizmos. No evasion algorithms. And stay in first gear.” His Uncle Steadfast arranged his own pancakes and took a bite. “Boot yourself before the kernel rises, hike into the test box and track down that critter.” He spoke with his mouth full. “Access your sensual data. Sniff it out. Walk straight up to the bear and make protocol. Give it a goddamn hug. And while you're at it, install a replicator and do something useful. But no legs! One day you'll be stuck without these gizmos and then what?”
“I don't need gizmos.”
His uncle raised his eyez. “You scared?”
“No.”
“Low level?”
“No!” The boy's arm spasmed and he knocked over a cup.
“Oops.” Aunt Earnest handed him a wipe.
“Don't get all jittery.” Uncle Steadfast itched his beard. “Remember, the low level is your true source. Everything else in memory is garbage. Bonus points. Gizmos. Even the forest we live in is garbage. Garbage, garbage, garbage. Access your instinct, kid. It's the only thing that's real. Your lowest level is your highest tech.”
“Whatever.” The boy swallowed and faced his elder. “Fine. I'll do it.”
“And no checking the big board either.”
“What?”
“I don't want the admins tracing you.”
“But, that bear. What if it sneaks up on me? It's huge.”
“Yep.”
“And it has a hydraulic jaw.”
“Yep.”
“And carbon-steel teeth.”
“Yep.”
“And it hasn't eaten for days!”
Uncle Steadfast laughed. “Stop shaking. Relax. I'll be right behind you.” He squeezed the boy around his neck. “To collect your bits.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
Aunt Earnest circled the hub. She had cropped hair, a thin mustache, and she wore a jump suit. “You boys have bigger problems than that bear.” Her eyez twinkled. “The admins are testing data storms. Nobody is supposed to be in the woods.”
Uncle Steadfast waved. “It's not their woods.”
“Three lags were killed during the last upgrade.” She tapped a thermos. “They got chased out by a data storm.”
“Not a problem.” The man belched. “The boy will out run them.”
Aunt Earnest stared towards the middle distance. “It's not the boy who I'm worried about.”
When the kernel rose, the boy's head buzzed and Uncle Steadfast nudged him awake. “Get up, node.” Twitch rubbed the crusties out of his eyez. He had stayed up late, hooked to a trance screen and watching mashup campaigns. They were entertainment challenges that his uncle hated, but Twitch sneaked access at night. He imagined himself fully upgraded, fighting killer robots, and saving a high-scoring girl. Yeah, right. The boy emptied his head of static and tugged a molded case from beneath his sleeper. Inside the case was his least and most favorite possession—his legs. Twitch attached the gizmos and turned them on silent mode. He walked into the hub. Uncle Steadfast sat in the dim box, sipping electro-syrup. On the table was a schematic, a replicator, and a map showing the trails across the legacy forest. “Morning.”
“Already?”
“I just heard the generator kick on. Take my fill-teen, a tube of syrup, and grab that replicator. I'll follow you in a cycle.”
The boy tried to steady his jitters. He snatched the replicator without letting his uncle see and shoved the object in his inventory pocket. The replicator was cold and oblong.
“Go straight for the test box. If you get pattern-matched, shut off your eyez. Don't let any root boys trace you. And don't go over fifteen clicks.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And if you see any data storms, flip on your legs. Start hopping like an amped-up jackrabbit. Got me?”
“I'll be fine.” Twitch stood tall and saluted like a mashup player.
The boy exited the incubator and his breath turned to thin exhaust. His shell shimmered as he climbed into the domain. The pines trees were scattered and infinite. The air tasted like zinc. As he moved through the woods, he felt taller and more alive. Twitch recalled the many hikes that he had taken with his aunt and uncle, exploring the legacy forest. They were slow hikes, but worthwhile. Together, the trio had discovered hidden lakes, broken challenges, robot colonies, and lost animals. And then, a few upgrades ago, his uncle had bartered for the legs and everything changed. The gizmos were discarded parts from standard memory. They were mashup equipment and they let the boy fly. Twitch learned how to run again. He practiced jumps, inverts and flips. He penetrated deeper into the forest and sneaked through the test box. He spent entire days by himself.
The boy's eyez adjusted to the gloom and he spotted a turmeric fox. The two-headed creature trotted near the path and a warmth entered the boy's navel. Twitch transmitted a reply. “Yes, I agree,” he said to the fox in the ancient protocol. “This is a dangerous path.” Twitch transmitted a goodbye and climbed a gully. A readme flashed across the forest floor:
WARNING!
ENTERING A TEST BOX
DEADLY DATA AHEAD
At the border of the test box stood a disabled firewall. Instead of crawling beneath it, Twitch reached to his hip and toggled his power boost. He somersaulted into the zone. One jump wouldn't hurt, right? When he landed in the admin area, his resolution improved and the trees became photo-realistic. The sky was squared-off and crystallized. Twitch peeked at the big board but only for a split-cycle. His proximity was clear. The boy hurried down the trail, entering a stand of neon. Hidden among the juniper was a thirty-space cable-puller. It was a disabled bot with its claws rusted shut. Twitch circled the giant robot and returned to the trail, cutting a path towards a cascading stream. He found the creek edge and bent on one knee, dipping his fill-teen and filtering out the dissonance. The boy took a long drink. He listened for the bear, but heard nothing.
When the kernel had reached shoulder height, Twitch started to worry. Maybe I hiked too far? Maybe the bear went around me? He fought the urge to peek at the big board and instead scanned the drop shadows, attempting to pattern-match. Nothing moved, not even an artificial bird. Where are you, big guy? Twitch found the clearing where he had seen the bear on the day before. In the cube tops, a cloud appeared, a misty gray bulk. Twitch eyed the churning mass and hummed. It was huge and expanding. The boy's heart sank. Shoot. I better turn back. Twitch lowered his eyez and plotted a path back to the creek but as he scouted his retreat, he smelled a musk. Twitch recorded the scent and a growl reverberated through the test box. A stick cracked far above and the boy smiled. I hear you, clumsy. The bear was making a wide approach to its favorite stream. Artifacts of spruce shook on the ridge. Twitch pumped his legs. He hand-planted and leaped between two boulders, but forgot that his legs were on low power. Whomp! The boy fell roughly on his back and dumped half his oxygen. A bruise activated on his hip, twenty pixels in diameter.
Twitch sat dead center in the clearing, wiping cones off his back. He stood up and registered the pain in his leg. Ouch. The trees above swayed left and then right. The boy felt a chill as the bear materialized near the boundary. It snarled. Twitch recalled his uncle's orders. Stay Calm. No gizmos. The kernel glistened off the animal's grape fur and its jaw buzzed. “Hi, mister bear. Remember me? We're still friends, right?”
The bear blinked, stepping sideways, scratching against a sapling, and giving the boy a chance to run. He launched and grabbed a lower branch, swinging and clinging with both knees. For a moment, Twitch thought he would escape but the branch snapped and he tumbled. Something in the bear triggered. The animal sprung forward with its claws extended and swiped the boy, making cross-hatches in his trench and tossing him on all fours. Twitch rolled against the trunk. The bear caged him and its metal fangs hung above. Its molars were can openers. Its fur was pungent. The bear transmitted a laugh.
“Let me go, bit brain!” Twitch lowered his finger to his power boost and tried to steady his hand. With the extra juice, maybe he could escape?
As Twitch auto-positioned and prepared to leap, he glanced into the bear's eyez and the creature convulsed. Its fur changed tints and the boy paused. You awake in there? He felt a thick steam enter his belly, a percolating burst of low-level protocol. The bear was trying to speak. Twitch smiled and removed his finger from the power boost. “You're not going to eat me, are you?” He stood tall as the bear redrew itself. “You just want to make protocol. Well, go ahead, you big idiot. Say something!” The bear transmitted a stuttering hello and dropped its snout. The boy laughed. “Okay. I hear you.” He exported a sympathy routine and his friend-counter incremented by one.
The animal's nostrils leaked corruption and its fur was covered with data mites. The bear pushed its head into the boy's chest, giving a kind but powerful nudge. Twitch smiled. He rubbed the animal's scruff and felt a broken transmitter. The bear flicked its ears and opened its jaw, revealing three gateways. “Oh, right! I nearly forgot the replicator. Don't budge.” The boy reached into his inventory pocket and pulled out the oblong object. He leaned inside the mouth, rising on his tip-toes, shoving the object in the bear's throat and reaching nearly up to his shoulder. The replicator clicked into place and beeped. “How does that taste? Not so good? Well, don't complain. It will save your butt one day.” Twitch freed his hand and scored another forty-two-thousand bonus points.
Something cracked from the clearing below. The bear shut its jaw and stiffened. “You hear something?” The animal lowered its head and shuffled around a fallen pine. The warmth in the boy's belly ebbed. “You going? Okay, fine.” The bear exited through the distortion and was gone. “Later.”
A half-cycle later, Uncle Steadfast emerged from an emerald path. He looked askance at the boy. “How did you manage that?”
“You saw it? The bear hugged me!”
His uncle nodded.
“And it didn't eat me!” Twitch picked up a stick and swung it. “We pattern-matched and everything. I even installed your replicator. You should thank me for that, uncle. I had to climb in its mouth and gah! The thing had awful breath. But I scored a ton of bonus points!”
“I'm proud of you.” The elder man patted the boy's shoulder.
“I did it, right? I made friends with a bear!” The boy snapped. “I mean, why was I so jittery? That bear wasn't gonna eat me. It had to be coded to be nice to people, right? Either that or it's half-brained. Or emo. Or it thinks I'm a bear too?”
“You're babbling.”
“We're friends now, me and the bear! You saw it, right?”
“Sure.” Uncle Steadfast nodded at the horizon. “We better start moving.”
Twitch scanned the cube tops. The artificial cloud had tripled in size and now spun over the trees.
“Use your legs and start hopping.” His uncle secured his gear. “I'll be right behind you.”
“No way, uncle. We're sticking together.”
Three cycles later, the sky was full of sparks and the cloud blotted out the kernel. Lightening rippled through its guts. “It's following us,” said Twitch.
“Yep. They got us on the big board. Looks like those root boys finally found me.” Uncle Steadfast grimaced. “Aunt Earnest is gonna kill us, if we're not dead already.”
“Let's run. The firewall can't be too far.” They ran through the woods but Twitch easily kept ahead, even with his legs on low power. When the rain started, his uncle dropped far behind and Twitch reversed, finding his elder bent over a log, heaving. The wind snapped their trenches. The thunder echoed. A bolt of lightening arced from the sky and struck a nearby pine, slashing it in six.
“You go!” yelled his uncle. “Turn on your legs!”
“No!”
The man shoved the boy. “Go!” His face was pale.
“I'm not leaving you!” Twitch bit his lip and yanked the man through the static. The wind stung as two more bolts dropped. One danced on the ground for a quarter-cycle before getting sucked back into the sky. Twitch glared up at the menacing cloud. It spun like a drain and a new cluster of lightening formed, claw-shaped. “Here it comes again!” Eight spider legs descended from the sky, hitting with sonic cracks. Over a dozen trees turned into fireballs. Corrupted data soaked their shells as giant limbs crashed to the forest floor.
“Get away from me! ” His uncle pointed at a clearing. “Take off your gizmos and access the low level. Go find the perfect spot. Now!”
Twitch shook his head but his uncle hurled forward, shoving the boy backwards. The elder man pointed fiercely. Twitch stepped back, feeling airy, as if his shell separated into pixels. “Uncle?” Another cluster of lightening fell and Twitch drifted, letting his mind empty. He removed his metal legs and stood tall.
“Find your spot!” His uncle huddled in the shadow of a large boulder, digging through his inventory, seeking something. “Get on the low level, kid!” A calm seeped through the boy's mid section. The dirt turned cobalt and a fluorescent line scribbled across the clearing. Twitch followed the line, using his eyez and legs to auto-position. The lightening bolts swooned from above, falling like yo-yo's. A data wave crashed and he covered his ears. The forest became brighter than daylight.
Twitch kept his eyez closed for a full cycle as a cascade of random numbers swirled around him. His skin felt slimy. A giant pine toppled and the earth rose, tossing the boy up and then down. He stood and watched finger-shaped lightening walk through the trees. The bolts hunted in small packs, searching with algorithmic speed. A scream came from the large boulder. “Uncle Steadfast?” The elder man was caught in a ball of lightening. “Uncle!” His shell turned monochrome and was elevated five-hundred pixels off the ground with his arms and legs jerking. The thunder cackled. The lightening pulsed. “Uncle!” When the man was released, his body seemed to explode, core-dumping as he fell to earth. Twitch ran towards his uncle, but another pack of lightening fell, blocking his way. The boy covered his face as the bolts showered the ground in front of him, just missing.
A cycle later, the rain turned to drizzle. The cloud expired. The forest silenced.
Twitch sucked in the ionized air and peeked around. His metal legs were buried beneath a smoking tree. The boy climbed the stricken pine and hobbled towards his uncle. The man's body was crumpled in a ball. His trench was charred. His boots fragmented. A fist-sized hole went through his chest. “Uncle Steadfast?” Twitch grabbed the man's shoulder. “Uncle Steadfast!” The boy shook the man but got no response. His uncle was dead.
Without his legs, it took Twitch all morning to reach the incubator. Aunt Earnest stood cross-armed behind the hatch. When their eyez met, she seemed to know what happened and screamed. The boy lowered his head and stepped into the hub. His aunt threw a handful of fobs at him. “You stupid, stupid boy!” The woman teleported in random directions, blinking off and on, knocking over the food printer and cutting her forearms. Vermilion splattered the incubator floor. The boy's lungs constricted. He tried to speak, but couldn't make protocol. He limped into the back chamber and fell on the floor while his aunt wailed. She didn't sound human.
Twitch couldn't process what had happened. Nothing made sense. Uncle Steadfast had been the strongest node the boy had known. The man had survived over seventy mashup campaigns. He was patched over a dozen times. He had opted-out of standard memory, joined the fate hackers, and escaped to the legacy forest. He was invincible. Until now. Twitch leaned against his sleeper and his legs hummed. Another cycle passed before his aunt entered the chamber. She was dizzy and top heavy. “I'm sorry.” Her eyez were unfocused. “Tell me what happened.” She lowered her shell next to the boy. “Is he still alive? Did they get him?” Her words sounded as if they came from a squawk box. The boy opened his throat and shook his head. After a micro-delay, the words poured out, barely audible. He told his aunt about the data storm and how his uncle was caught. He told her about the core dump and the hole in the man's chest. He said he thought his uncle was dead. She nodded. “Okay.” After the story, his Aunt hugged him. “I'm going to die here too,” she whispered. “In the forest like him.”
“Me too.”
“No.” His aunt stood and swayed. “I'm sending you back to standard memory.”
“What?” The boy jittered.
“It's time, Twitch. Your registered dad lives in the privileged space. You need to have presence like a normal kid.”
“No.”
“You need to make friends. Real friends. Not a two-headed fox or a modified bear. You need to do the things a boy is supposed to do. Earn bonus points. Get in trouble. Kiss a girl.” Her eyez were dusty and her power light dimmed. “The forest is no place for a boy. Not anymore. We're too many versions behind.” She hugged herself and her fingers dug divots into her arms. “Damn that man. Why did he get traced?”
“It's my fault.” The boy's teeth chattered. “I wanted to see the bear.”
“Don't say that, Twitch.” Her hands fell to her sides. “You did not kill your uncle. The root boys did. They had him on a critical path and made him worth millions in bonus points. His fate was set.” Her shell had faded, turning sepia. She started to sob. “Tomorrow, you must take me to his shell. We need to erase him, quick. Otherwise they'll be coming for you.”
They started hiking after kernel-rise. Aunt Earnest used her signal repeater to call an opt-in trooper and a huge man appeared at the incubator with his six-legged dog. Together they entered the test box and hiked to the clearing. The dog sniffed out the man's body and the trooper hit the animal on the muzzle. “The man's dead all right. Game over. And it looks like he was trying to fate hack.” The trooper kicked a widget that sat on the forest floor next to the body. “You want him erased?”
“Give me a cycle, please.” Aunt Earnest hurried over to Uncle Steadfast. She buried her face into the man's shoulder and whispered.
The trooper turned and spat. “You nodes need to stay out of this domain,” he grumbled. “Can't you read?” The man toggled some buttons on his elbow and a vacuum telescoped from his arm. He waddled over to Aunt Earnest. “Okay, lady. Back off.” She kissed Uncle Steadfast and moved away. As she retreated, she grabbed the widget from the dirt and tucked it into her inventory pocket. The trooper powered-up his elbow and aimed. Uncle Steadfast fizzled, one line of resolution at a time. Twitch covered his eyez and limped back towards the collapsed tree. He bent and touched the smoldering bark.
When the trooper finished erasing, he walked up to boy. “Nobody ever survived a data storm.” The trooper was a giant construct, projected from standard memory.. He had a filtered torso and a cowboy hat. His shell was extremely high rez. “You're stupid, but lucky.” The man's brightness made the boy shade his eyez.
“My gizmos are under that tree.” Twitch pointed.
The trooper picked his teeth. “We'll get em.”
On the hike back to the incubator, three scramblers flew across the butterscotch sky. They were fighter planes with mashup logos on their wings and they left fuzzy contrails. Twitch watched them dip over the horizon. Why are they here? Do they know? Are they honoring Uncle Steadfast?
A few days later, the opt-in trooper again appeared at the incubator. The giant man stepped into the hub without sending an alert and stood over Aunt Earnest. “You need to leave the forest, lady.” He aimed a finger at Twitch. “The boy too. You need to find a throttle colony and quit stealing access. You've got ten days.” He tossed an eviction routine on the incubator floor and waddled out. The code began eating away at the hub. That afternoon, Twitch's registered dad called from standard memory. Aunt Earnest handed over the signal-repeater and hurried into the back chamber, whimpering. Twitch lifted the receiver.
“Son? You there?” It was a familiar voice. “Are you in the legacy domain?”
“Hi, dad.”
“Twitch! It's awesome to make protocol. Gee, I'm sorry about your uncle. Or whatever he was.” The man paused. “Did you catch any viruses?”
“I don't think so.”
“Awesome. Totally awesome. And you're transferring back to standard memory?”
“I have to.”
“Awesome.” The man sounded drowsy. He worked in the privileged space as a media wonk. He was high from all that data. “I have an extra closet and I'll score you a blank profile. Won't that be nice? You'll like my closet. It's an air-tight blister, identity safe, and climate controlled. I'll even score you access to the beta partition. It's where the cool kids have presence.”
For the next few days, Twitch found it impossible to stay warm. He wore two sweaters beneath his trench and huddled near the neptune screen. He packed and repacked his inventory while his aunt remained in her sleeper with her arm hooked to sedative pump. The eviction routine continued to eat away at their home, leaving patches of dead space. Twitch walked around the hub like a ghost. He tried to deactivate the routine, but it was encrypted and his fingers passed right through. Maybe it would consume his aunt too? Every time Twitch tried to talk to Aunt Earnest, she turned away.
On the morning that Twitch was supposed to transfer to standard memory, he took a final hike through the woods. His metal legs had been damaged by the tree, but after some tweaking, they worked okay. He followed the path towards the test box, keeping on low power and carrying his uncle's fill-teen. When he reached the big boulder where his uncle had died, the boy started to cry. He could not stop. He wiped his tears and hurried down the trail. After locating the creek, a cloud materialized in the cube tops. Twitch raised his fist above his head and screamed. “Murderers!” He threw rocks at the sky but they fell hopelessly to the ground, making thuds. On the other side of the creek, he thought he smelled the bear, but turned back before the cloud got too near. “Good luck, friend.”
When Twitch reached the firewall, two men stepped from behind a large pine. They were headless runts. Root boys. The men had bright, bubble-gum bodies encased in racks with caterpillar wheels. Serial numbers were embossed on their bellies and liquid crystal eyez swirled from their chests. “Greetings, young man,” one wheezed. “The admins are searching for you.”
Twitch started to jitter. He reached down for his toggle button.
“You survived a data storm which makes you an edge case. You are interesting.”
“Very interesting,” said the other.
“You must be analyzed. We have put you on a critical path and made you worth over two million bonus points.”
“More than your uncle.”
The boy glared. “You killed my uncle.”
“False,” wheezed the second runt. “The man entered a test box and made illegal access to standard memory. Your Uncle Steadfast should have stayed away from these woods.”
“They're not your woods!”
“False again.” The first runt twiddled a joystick and his arm climbed. “Come with us, young node.”
“Screw you!” Twitch toggled his power boost and jumped. He soared over the root boys and landed beyond the firewall.
“Come back.”
Twitch jumped again, off-balance. He tripped and tumbled down the trail. A line of corruption spurted overhead and the bits rained down, turning the undergrowth to fuzz. The boy scrambled through the distortion and kept jumping until he reached the incubator, leaving the root boys far behind. After packing a zip meal, Twitch grabbed his inventory and exited the hub. He bounced all the way to the backport. He didn't say goodbye to his aunt. He didn't know how. A half-cycle later, Twitch sat on a hopper, transferring to standard memory.
Kisme had the most traffic in the beta partition. Her numbers were twice as high as the kid in second place. She wore platinum braids, a sculpted nose and peppermint-dipped skin. Her skirt was two millimeters too short and her busty was two sizes too small. Her arms jingled with access bands. When Kisme walked across a skyway, she was trailed by an entourage of belly creepers and wannabes. Insect-sized bots enveloped the girl, recording every move and expression. The bots gave Kisme an ever-present silver sheen.
Kisme was joined by her two best friends, Bell and Sunday, and bling alerts went off. Every kid in the domain stopped to stare. Everyone seemed to admire the girls. Everyone except one. A tall boy with rosy cheeks leaned against the curved skyway. He stood alone with unregulated posture and blond curly hair. He wore a shadowy trench and had a pair of strange metal legs. The boy stared blankly into the legacy domain. “What's that node's problem?” Kisme said. “He hasn't checked me out. Not even once. My numbers flat-lined.”
“Ick.” Bell said. “He's below half.”
“I can't even see him,” said Sunday. “Lemme turn off my filter.”
The three girls folded their arms and pondered the low-scoring boy. “How sad. He doesn't even have one registered friend.” Kisme blinked her beveled lashes. “Maybe we should assign him a coping algorithm? Or a fake follower? Or a bee bot?”
“Are you emo?”
“No way, Kiz.”
“Girls, please.” Kisme wagged a finger. “Think about your karma score.” She generated posh pose 48S and strutted down the tube with her theme song blaring. Kisme stopped directly behind the boy where she waited. . . and waited. . . and waited. For some reason, he didn't detect her presence. How was that possible? Even in standby, his eyez should be ringing like corruption alarms. Was he offline? Amped? Brain-dead? Kisme rolled her eyez. It looked like she would need to speak. “Cheery oh.” The boy turned and his eyez dilated. His mouth fell open. A line of drool rolled over his lower lip and he made a barely-audible squeak. The entourage giggled.
“Can you talk?” Kisme made cute pose 22L. “Or is that broken too?”
Twitch glanced around the skyway wondering if the girl was actually making protocol with him. Nobody had ever spoken to him in the beta partition before. The boy focused on the girl's eyez, waiting for an opportunity to make protocol. Did she blink? Should I talk now? Or now? Or maybe now? Twitch cleared his throat. “Hello!” He spoke way too loud and cupped his mouth. The wannabes made chuckle glyphs.
“What are you? A lag?”
“Me?” Twitch looked around again. “A what?”
“You know, one of those kids from the legacy domain. Maybe you transferred in from a throttle colony? Or an access slum? We had a lag trying our challenges last year. She was an awful girl. She couldn't maintain her smarty score above ten. Probably you have emo issues. Or your developers have a virus and they can't score enough bonus points to afford a decent blister?”
“I live in a blister with my registered dad.”
“Oh really? So what's with your profile? It's completely blank. And your posture? And those gizmos on your legs?” She raised a slender eyebrow. “They look like sewer fobs!”
Bell and Sunday laughed.
Twitch peered down at his legs. He thought they looked pretty cool. “I need them.”
“Oops.” A pixelized tear fell from Kisme's eyez. It was an auto-response.
Sunday and Bell drifted backwards. “Let's flee, ultra girl.”
“Yeah, Kiz. I'm losing followers standing next to this boy.”
Kisme nodded and her eyez retreated. For a split-cycle, the girl stood frozen and her knees buckled like a vectorized puppet. Twitch stared at the girl, confused. Are you still there? Did somebody unplug your fuel ticker? He glanced around the skyway and noticed that other kids were frozen too. The wannabes were zapped. The belly creepers compressed into balls. Even the posers were stuck in non-official poses. The entire expansion had been zombified. Who hit the pause button? Twitch considered sneaking away, but then he felt a spark as Kisme popped back into real-time. Her lashes fluttered. “Um, that was stupid.”
“What?”
“You didn't see it? Oh, duh. You're in standby. Let me translate. The expansion just got blitzed by a spam wave. Totally invasive. It was an ad for a mashup campaign. Victor Net is fighting kill bots inside a gut pile.”
“Cool.”
“Cool? Um, not really. I find it disgusting, but standard memory wants every kid to opt-in.” Kisme leaned towards the boy and the spark increased. “Most kids sit there and consume the spam, but not me, right?” She pointed at a candy-cane rocker on her wrist. “I was upgraded with a toggle switch. I can opt-out whenever I want.”
“Nice.”
Behind the girl, the entourage started to wake. The wannabes stretched. The belly creepers cooed. The posers made micro adjustments to their shells. Kisme tapped a manicured finger to her lower lip and assumed coy pose 82E. “Anyway, your traffic is far too low to be a friend. But I can loan you a bee bot. Imagine how noticeable you'll be? A bee bot from Kisme! It will seriously up your presence.”
Twitch eyed the swarm of bee bots that buzzed around Kisme's head. They looked like hyperactive gnats. “Um, no thanks.”
“For real?” Kisme wrinkled her nose. “Yeah. Whatever. See you, but probably not.” She huffed and walked down the skyway. Her entourage followed.
The beta partition was made of four air-tight pods, each containing a sealed level with tightly controlled challenges: the emo level, the group-think level, the scifi level, and the synergy level. In the center of the expansion was also an exodome where pre-release kids practiced junior mashup. A nest of skyways connected the pods so the kids never needed to leave. The entire expansion was controlled by an artificial intelligence built inside a shiny orb that hovered above the emo level. The pods were corruption free and identity safe. The air was enhanced by over ninety-nine brain boosters.
Twitch ignored his eyez and continued to stare into the legacy domain. Beyond the windoze was a giant sandbox containing a barren desert interrupted by a few barren canyons and even fewer barren mesas. The boy wondered how long he could survive out there. The air was mostly corrupted. His original forest home was over three-hundred clicks away. Maybe with an extra fuel ticker he could make it? But he would have to cross an access slum. And a test box or two. He would probably get corrupted. Or permanently erased.
An alert shocked the boy. He was approached by a genderless clone in a poblano uniform. “Node named Twitch. You are a quarter cycle late for your next group-think challenge.” Twitch ignored the clone. His eyez followed a line of gamers as they auto-naved down the hallway. These kids wore sleeper shells and waste-removal pumps. For some reason, the clones never bugged them. “Are you ill?” The clone poked Twitch with a feeler.
“No.” The boy shoved the feeler away.
“Emo?”
“Maybe.”
The clone chugged. “Please accompany me to the emo level for a challenge of seven-hundred-and-fifty-five thousand evaluation questions.”
“Wow. That's a lot.” The boy kicked the wall. “Okay, forget it. I'll try group-think.”
The clone's head turned a full circle and blinked turquoise. Twitch followed it down the tube.
“Group-think is the most important challenge that you. I. They will ever attempt,” said Mr. Null, the one-hundred-and-fifty-three-year-old developer. The man's skull was a patchwork of plasto plates, hidden beneath a comb-over. He had three rickety eyez, a wrinkled tie, and an tungsten-splattered shirt. Puffs of a soda fizzled from his back end. As the old man bumbled down the aisle, he dropped a tablet on each console. “I. We. You have spent the first few challenges learning. The pure beauty. Joy. And efflorescence. Of group-think. Today we. Her. You will finally experience what I call. That. Which. Was. Huh? Oh. . . forget it. Here is your official. Beta tablet. It. They. He will accompany you. Them. Me. Everywhere. Sorry. My. Her. That. Its processor. Has difficulty. With pronouns. Anyway. Where was I? You? Them. Oh, right! Here. There. Inside each tablet are stored fourteen million. Delicious. Blissful. Intoxicating multiple choice. Questions. That you. I. She. Will personally memorize.”
Twitch was placed at an ergo console in the back of room next to a roid boy, a plasma note-taker, and two wannabes. The roid boy was fifteen-years old but he was already seven-foot tall and had grafted muscles. He was training for junior mashup and had perk-o-pumps attached below his armpits. The gizmos delivered the boy a steady stream of synthetic hormones, supplements, and lofties to offset the rage. Twitch wondered why all the junior mashup players had to be so big. He wanted to play too.
The roid boy licked his lips and peered across at Twitch. “Pimping legs,” he squealed.
“Thanks.”
“I bet you can jump a goddamn click.”
“I need them,” said Twitch. “They're normalizers.”
The roid boy blinked his ping-pong eyez. “If you try to jump me with those tardies, it's game-over.” He blew a kiss.