Into the BeanStalk: Book One of the Jack: Cyberpunk Series by J. Paul Roe

Author:J. Paul Roe [Roe, J. Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-03T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:

TRUST

I rushed to put on my old clothes – there’d be time to try the new stuff later – and reached for the intercom button. Damn. I’d left the panel pulled away from the wall, wires bare and twisted together. Sloppy.

I shoved the whole mess back into place and pressed the call button. Nothing. And again. No reply.

“Skitz,” I hissed.

“Zoroaster!” I yelled, turning to the new plan of banging my carbon fiber fist against the door until someone answered.

A few seconds later, the door popped open, and Mallus leaned in with a curious look on his face.

“Geez, you okay?” he asked. “You know there’s an intercom, right?”

“I broke it,” I said, pushing my way past him. “Where’s Z? I think someone sent me a…secret message. While I was sleeping.”

Mallus gave the busted intercom panel a quizzical look, then followed me into the main room. “Shouldn’t be possible, Jack. Z’s neurocom cracks make you a ghost on the network.”

“Then he didn’t do ‘em right,” I said.

Mallus chuckled. “Don’t let him hear you say that,” he added. “Look, maybe someone with skills got through. Who do you think sent the message? Another psycher like Z?”

“No. Just some girl I met once.”

Mallus shrugged. “I’ve had dreams about girls I’ve ‘met once’, and they sure as hell weren’t secret messages.”

I shot him a disapproving look. He was shaping up to be one of those people who didn’t take anything seriously. I didn’t like those people.

“Dude, what did you do to this thing?” Mallus called out from the bunk corridor after turning his attention back to the intercom panel.

The question made me think of what I had done…and more specifically, what I’d heard.

“Mallus, can I trust Z? Like really trust him?”

“I do,” he replied. “Why?”

“Don’t screw with me. I can’t shake the feeling that all this is too convenient. And that I’m being used somehow.”

“You know how street kids get so used to things being bad they can’t understand why anything would be good?” Mallus asked. “That’s you right now.”

“So I’m just ‘a naive street kid’, then?”

Mallus finished messing with the intercom panel and closed it back up. He keyed the button and spoke into it. “That’s not what I meant,” his voice echoed through the speakers in the NetOps room.

I rolled my eyes.

“You think I’m from some exec family?” he continued, the frustration on his face turning to something more grim. “My mom worked at a stall selling refurb appliances. And my dad…well. If he wasn’t blacked out in some bar, he would hack the pay terminals on vending machines.

“But now?” I asked.

“They both died years ago. From the contaminated water in Golden Gate back when that all went down.”

“I’m sorry.”

He looked away, closed his eyes for a long few seconds. “The point I was getting at is that I know where you’re at right now. Not knowing how to trust anybody. Figuring everything good is just there to get your hopes up before something else goes to skitz.”

I nodded. Maybe he could take some things seriously.

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