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  The Making of Socket Greeny

  THE DISCOVERY OF SOCKET GREENY | Book 1

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  Your true nature is a train.

  Either get on board or get run over.

  1

  I am Socket Greeny.

  My story is a long one. An unbelievable one. It’s the sort of story that leaps from dreams or a bad trip. If you refuse to believe it, I can’t say I blame you.

  The details of my birth are confusing, something I won’t bore you with. I had two good parents until I was five. Dad died. After that, it was just Mom and me. Some folks felt sorry for me, but we all die.

  So I thought.

  I was pretty much a normal kid, except for the hair. Pure white, it was. The kind of white that falls on snowflakes or waves a flag of surrender. I didn’t know why and really didn’t care. Other than that, I was just a normal kid growing up in a single-parent home.

  Until high school.

  I remember the day when things started to turn. I know everything about my life, of course, but that day I remember with great clarity. That was the day I felt big change coming. You know the feeling, when something is about to happen?

  True nature was coming.

  IT STARTED AFTER SCHOOL, late autumn.

  It was unusually cold for South Carolina. I was lurking at the edge of the woods, standing beneath the shade of a live oak and blowing into my hands for warmth and watching these jocks bully a short, fat kid.

  There were three of them.

  They were under the bleachers, the same bleachers that in just a few months would be blown to pieces. They stood around the kid that was maybe half their height but equal their individual weight—a poster child for a lifetime of gaming.

  Streeter.

  The jocks lured him under the bleachers by pretending someone wanted to deal off some gear at a good price. Streeter was smart, but dumb as hell when it came to a bargain. He bit hard.

  And I let him.

  Maybe I was bored, or maybe I wanted him to feel a little burn. He was trouble. We all were, but Streeter always raked up the worst of it. It wouldn’t be long before I almost got us killed. And the rest of the world. That was later.

  Right now Streeter was about to take a beating.

  “Hey!” I shouted.

  They watched me approach with a rubberband in my mouth. I twisted my hair and tied it off. A ponytail, I know. Now wasn’t the time to care about that.

  “The white knight,” one of the jocks said.

  I didn’t know his name because I didn’t know any of their names. He was the shortest of the three with the biggest mouth. As leatherheads go, he was the worst kind—a half rung above primate. He’d graduate a razor cut above the minimum. Not that stupidity was a crime, it was just the pimp-walking down the hall that rubbed me wrong, the shoving and third-degree assholery. This was the jerk off that pulled a kid’s shorts down during gym.

  I was looking forward to this.

  “Get on your way, toolbox,” the asshole said.

  “Socket.”

  “Nice. A name douchier than a ponytail.”

  “Calm down, Drake,” Jack said.

  I knew one off their names, but not because he was head lieutenant or captain or major ballboy of varsity sports. He was the one Streeter screwed over. Well, sort of. He screwed over Jack’s brother, Josh. And, technically, we both screwed over Josh.

  But it was mostly Streeter.

  “We’re just talking,” Jack said. “Just talking.”

  His left hand moved in calming gestures, but his right hand was still in his jacket. That worried me. Nobody kept one hand in their pocket. I had a fight ponytail working.

  “As soon as Streeter makes things right,” Jack said, “we’re gone.”

  “How many times did I say it?” Streeter cupped his hands around his mouth. “I. Didn’t. Do it.”

  “The proof is all over my brother’s account. Or what’s left of it.”

  “Technically, there’s nothing left of it,” Streeter said. “That’s what I heard.”

  “Just restore it. Bring back his sims, flush the coffers and rebuild his worlds. We’re all square.”

  “Restore what? Someone cleaned him, Jacker. There’s no undo for that. Besides, he deserved it.”

  “I’m asking nicely, because I know you can do it.”

  Jack was right there. If anyone could restore, it was Streeter. It didn’t matter if he was the one who data bombed it or not, he could fix anything virtual.

  “I’m not a world builder,” Streeter lied. “He lost it all in a fight, so why are you all bent?”

  “You don’t fight fair.”

  “Neither does he. Two wrongs make a right, Jacker. I think we’ve made progress here—”

  “He didn’t deserve to lose everything. He’s been building those accounts since he was five.”

  “Yeah, well, he did deserve it. He’s been working in the dark and you know it. If he wasn’t skimming crypto off everyone, this wouldn’t have happened. Admit it, Jacker. Your brother’s a dick.”

  I knew for a fact that Jack did not like being called Jacker. Especially at this moment. He would’ve tied Streeter’s tongue around his neck if I wasn’t there. Then again, Streeter wouldn’t be shooting off if I wasn’t there, either. Jack walked off the tension. His back was to us, hand still in his pocket.

  Something wasn’t right.

  All the talking was a little out of place. I was so caught up in watching him act calm and rational that I didn’t catch it until it was too late. He was stalling.

  “You’re a turd that lived,” Drake the top level dipshit said. “Your mom should’ve flushed you.”

  “Shut up a second.” I held up my hand. “Jack, what do you want? Streeter said he didn’t do it and said he can’t fix it.”

  I was ready for whatever came next. I could feel it. Usually, it’s the body language that tipped me off, but this time I could really feel it... like some weird energy coming off him in waves. I could feel his thoughts like sound pulsing through the air. I was amped.

  And thought I was imagining it.

  I figured a swift kick to Drake’s thigh would buckle him long enough to throw a bomb at the third jock, whatever his name was. Jack would come at me then, and I’d have to tackle him. At that point, the plan ended and I hoped for the best.

  But that was what I loved about the skin.

  Virtualmode environments and live-action simulated reality could never replace the vibrancy of skin and bone. These were the moments I was truly alive. I sound a little unbalanced, I know. Repressed anger, teenage angst and all that. I get it. I was feeling his thoughts and that wasn’t normal either.

  None of this was.

  Jack tapped his cheek. His back was still to us. I figured he was ignoring me. Drake and I were about to start when I heard Jack answer a nojakk.

  “You got it?” He held his finger to his cheek. “You’re sure? Positive?”

  There was a pause.

  “All right. Good.”

  Jack’s hand finally came out of his pocket. For a moment I thought for sure this party just went to a new level. Maybe he skipped a groove. It wasn’t impossible. This would be the first day in a long line of many that I would learn that lesson.

  Nothing is impossible.
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  I calculated every possible reaction. If that was a weapon in his pocket, could we run or hide? Call for help? Throw sand in his face or stop, drop and roll or beg for mercy. There were a hundred other scenarios, but I couldn’t figure them out in the span of a second. If I only had more time.

  And then the air smudged.

  That was the best way I could describe it. The space behind Jack sort of wrinkled from heat. Something was there and then it was gone like something was hiding in plain sight. There was no other way to describe it. For a moment, I seriously thought he had a weapon. And then Jack tossed something at Streeter.

  It was a phone. An ordinary, black phone.

  “Done,” he said. “And it’s going to get worse.”

  Streeter stared at it like he’d just been handed a broken vial of radioactive waste. Slowly, he tapped it. The screen lit up. I couldn’t see what was on it. The phone sucked the expression of his face. It was the first time I’d ever seen that.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “Come on,” Jack said to the others.

  “Hey! Hey!” I moved quickly, intending to snatch Jack’s sleeve and spin him around. The battle was over and I didn’t even see what happened. I wanted an explanation. Maybe I would’ve got one and maybe history would’ve been different.

  But it did happen.

  Drake intercepted me. I knew he would. He was coiled up, a trigger ready to unload. My quick little grab was all it took. In a court of battle, he would be found guilty of throwing the first swing.

  I was defending myself.

  He threw a wild roundhouse, one of those angry, primitive swings. Clearly not a wrestler or he would’ve taken out my legs. Instead of ducking, I moved into it. My shoulder took the brunt of his forearm, but before he could adjust his weight, I heel-kicked his calf and pushed him backwards, landing on him with all my weight.

  The air went from his lungs like a deflating beanbag whistling. I was in full mount with the intention of putting an elbow on his jaw and crushing his nojakk seed—

  “Stop it!” It was a voice I knew well. Someone I didn’t expect to find us.

  It was enough to give me pause, enough for Jack to drag me off Drake. There she was, red hair bouncing as she sprinted across the field and shouting.

  Chute.

  Behind her was the assistant coach wearing athletic shorts. Drake was on his knees, air whistling through his throat. I’d been there many times, hang-dogging on all fours with a string of drool. Not a fun place.

  “The hell?” the coach said, slightly winded. “Damn it, Drake. Get up. What the hell you doing, son?”

  He didn’t ask me. Didn’t even look at me. Chute, on the other hand, stared lasers through my head. I stared them right back and silently mouthed, You brought a coach?

  Jack explained it was a misunderstanding, and it was all straightened out. Nothing happened, despite how it looked. Drake and I were wrestling, that was all.

  “Tell that to Drake,” I muttered.

  He was picking grass off his lip. It was a dick thing for me to say, but we didn’t start it. Jack’s brother messed with Streeter and got what he deserved. And now Streeter was staring at a phone like it was scrambled eggs.

  Drake was still an asshole.

  “Get the hell out of here.” The coach smacked him on the back of the head. “I catch you around these people again, you’ll stay after practice.”

  These people. He was talking about Streeter and me. That was fine. I wasn’t invited to their party and wouldn’t go if I was. They can play their games and get their grades and get their little homes with white fences and pets named Shamu or Foxy or some dumb shit. There was nothing I could say that would make their lives worse, as far as I was concerned. They walked off and forgot about us.

  Jack didn’t look back, didn’t gloat or smile.

  He was standing up for his brother, couldn’t blame him for that. Whatever was on that phone was a technical knockout. Streeter was standing there glassy-eyed and unblinking or else he’d be spouting all the asshole thoughts I was holding back.

  “You brought the coach?” I said.

  “I didn’t bring the police,” Chute said.

  “You brought the coach?” I repeated.

  “This is so stupid. What’d you want me to do, watch?”

  “I had it.”

  “There was a better way than that.”

  “There were three of them, Chute. They weren’t asking Streeter to the dance. I was just here helping him out and—”

  “And what, beat all their asses? Then what, Socket? Let’s say you knocked them all out, then what? Assuming you don’t go to jail, then what? I’ll tell you what, they get back at you. This is the skin, Socket. There’s no respawn, no starting over. You break a bone and it breaks. This is all so stupid and you know it.”

  “Look, I didn’t start this.”

  “Really?”

  “How’d you know we were out here?”

  “I heard.”

  Yeah, she heard. A lot of things like that happened in my life. Maybe they happened to everyone, those moments where something could go horribly wrong and then it doesn’t. Some people talk about guardian angels watching over them, guiding them away from potholes, steering them in the right direction. I just didn’t believe in that. Not destiny or divine intervention or magic spells. None of it.

  But sometimes, I had to admit, something was steering. Or someone.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Chute asked.

  I explained what Jack said before throwing him the phone. We asked what was on the phone, what this was all about, and Streeter just stared. Finally, he looked up.

  “For dumbasses,” he said, “this is genius.”

  It made no sense. Then again, Chute and I didn’t understand half the gearhead nonsense that drove the virtualmode Internet. Streeter was our captain in all matters of alternate reality. I was a dumbass in his world. No offense taken.

  “They wiped out my account,” he said. And he said it, believe it or not, with a smile. Like what just happened didn’t blow up his life, everything he worked for hadn’t been erased just like what we did to Jack’s brother.

  “This whole thing here, like they were going to beat my ass, was a decoy. This thing kept my alarms from going off”—he held up the phone—“while someone totally whitewashed my account.”

  “Who did?” I asked.

  “Who do you think?”

  Jack’s brother, Josh, I figured. That was who called Jack on the nojakk, who confirmed the deal was done. It was Josh or a virtualmode hitman. That family had more money than a corrupt government.

  “Why you smiling?” I said.

  “Well, because they’re still dumbasses. They think they took all my crypto and stole all my sims, but those were just my side accounts. I mean, come on, my real stuff is stowed away. They couldn’t find it with a virtual drilljack and a million chiselheads.”

  “You sure?”

  I asked because nothing was unhackable. Streeter told me that all the time. In the world of virtualmode, nothing was untouchable. We were all vulnerable. And none of us knew just how defenseless we were. Not even Streeter.

  We were all about to learn.

  “Let’s go have some fun,” he said.

  “What?” Chute said.

  Streeter walked backwards. “It’s on, Chute.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “You’re not my mom.”

  “I’m the voice of reason.”

  He skipped away like he’d just won the crypto lottery, swinging his arms like a second grader.

  “This is so, so stupid,” she said.

  “This is what he does. He lives for it,” I said.

  “You’re not helping.”

  I hooked my finger around hers and leaned closer. I loved the way she smelled. Streeter had already marched halfway across the field; he wouldn’t see us hooking our fingers that way. He didn’t know what we were doing. Stop that, he would say. Fri
ends don’t do that.

  I could hear him muttering up, talking out his thoughts and laying out his plans as we followed. Just beyond him, the air wrinkled. I got that feeling again. I still didn’t believe it, but I could help noticing.

  Something was steering.

  2

  Chute leaned against the wall, her hair a bit longer than mine. At least it was red. The rush to escape school was almost over and we were still waiting for Streeter. She sighed and looked off, refusing to looking at me. She shook her head as I tried to make eye contact.

  “Chute, come on. Just let him do his thing. He’ll get it out of his system, maybe learn his lesson and that’s it.”

  “Then let him. I’m not stopping him.”

  “He can’t do it without us.”

  “You need to stop saving him, you know that. Let him feel the burn.”

  That was what I thought I was doing. But I couldn’t let him dangle. Besides, he couldn’t pull off half the trouble without our help. She knew that. And a little part of her still liked it.

  Her lips were grim, her freckled complexion smooth and pink. I was caught up in her blue eyes, the wrinkles in the corners of her eyes, the tension in her forehead. Guys were always giving her second looks and acting like dogs around her, but she and I were always just friends. It wasn’t like that.

  Then it was.

  One morning, I woke up and couldn’t get enough of her. Maybe it was hormones but whatever. Good thing was she felt the same way. We’d been playing the down low for almost three months at that point. She wanted to tell Streeter and I wanted things to stay the same. Maybe that was why she was resisting my charm about helping him. She wanted things to change, to grow up, to stop being kids.

  I didn’t want to stay in high school my whole life, but I didn’t have plans for anything else. I didn’t know what I wanted. That was the problem. I didn’t like my life the way it was, but I didn’t want to change, either. As my mom once said, grow up or get out of the way. I’d spent my life getting out of the way. But change was coming.

  I was about to get run over.

  The air wrinkled. That was the third time it happened in a week. The first two times were under the bleachers, this time it was in the hallway, a sort of watery reflection that was bending space. There was something different about it, too. Before it looked like summer heat warping the air in waves.