The Astral Hacker (Cryptopunk Revolution Book 1) by Brian Terenna (best ebook reader .txt) 📗

Where are you?” I hear him call from a distance.

Footsteps approach, and my breathing accelerates.

“Oh, who cares about this anyway,” he says and walks away.

I breathe a sigh of relief. At least there’s that. Luckily, he wasn’t a robotic security guard. They would never let anyone escape.

 After a while, Sunny says, “Fae? Are you in there?”

I groan as I stand and push the top open.

“What are you doing in there?” he asks. “That’s for trash.”

I manage to pull myself over the edge and drop to the ground. My injured ankle strikes the pavement, and another wave of pain nearly makes me vomit.

“Fae, you’re bleeding. I knew I shouldn’t have left you.”

“It’s not bad, but my ankle is hurt too.”

“Let me scan it to make sure it’s not broken. I’ll learn how to splint it if necessary.” He runs his eyes over my ankle and nods. “It’s not broken. It must be a sprain.”

“Good. We have to get out of here. Hand me that,” I say, pointing to my stick. “Help me up if you can too.”

His arm extends as he lifts me up. I push on my stick and manage to stand. Pain throbs in my ankle, but I grit my teeth and bear it. I’ve faced worse in my third hell.

I limp down the alley, leaning on Sunny and my staff.

“Did you get food?” he asks.

My stomach growls at its mention, but I can barely think about eating with all the blood in my mouth. “I got some. I’ll eat later.”

“We should find a house. Even though Stroudsburg has high occupancy rates, section L has several abandoned homes. We won’t have to walk far. I’ll lead us to them.”

With a hand resting on Sunny’s head and another on my staff, I hobble along in a jolting step-leap movement that sends waves of pain through my ankle. After a short but agonizing walk, we come across a boarded-up house. Bottles and other trash are strewn about in a yard of foot-high grass and weeds.

“Here?” asks Sunny.

I shake my head. It’s obviously abandoned, but something about it doesn’t feel right. “Let’s go a little further.”

After another painful distance, we find another abandoned house. The red and blue siding and sloping roof can’t help but remind me of my childhood home. “This is good.”

We sneak around to the back. One of the windows is missing two boards, but it’s still too small of a hole.

“We’ll need to pry off a board.” I tug at one, but it’s too strong. I sigh.

I scan the backyard, looking for something to use. Oh. I pick up one of the boards that has previously been removed and wedge it between the others. “Help me push this,” I say.

Sunny’s arms extend to grab our lever.

“One, two, three.”

We push, and the board pops off. I help Sunny inside and then jump in myself.

Sunny’s eyes offer just enough light to allow us to navigate through the dining room. The musty air makes me wrinkle my nose.

I try a light switch. It doesn’t work.

“Sunny, make your eyes brighter so we can see.”

He does, and the room illuminates. A few rats scurry away into a hole in the wall.

Not quite as welcoming as I hoped. “I’m going to see if the water works and use the bathroom. Shine your eyes here, but don’t look.”

Across from the toilet, an old coffee mug sits on the sink. It reads, ‘Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.’

Looks like another freedom lover lived here.

The water is still on, so I wash the blood off my face and out of my clothes the best I can. I brush and floss, then return to the dining room.

My stomach growls.

“Sunny, toss me one of those protein bars.”

He rummages around in my bag and throws me a bar. I tear it open and devour it, remembering all the times that I pushed on my empty stomach to dull my hunger pains.

 I do my best to clean an area with my foot and then find a blanket in a closet to sit on.

I sigh as the pain in my ankle finally dulls. “We just need to stay the night, and I’ll be healed enough. Then we can find another place.”

I scan through other news to distract myself, unable to handle my new reality yet.

One reads, ‘The Oversight Committee has rejected a budget increase for the NIA.’

Good. Those losers deserve nothing.

Another says, ‘The South American tech corporation Neurôdados is leading Xyphotech’s Evo in the race to bring their brain implant to the international market.’

Let’s hope they both lose.

A third says, ‘Anna McCloud, a Cardinal Post board member, removed from duty after a schizophrenic break.’

Diablo, that’s strange. I click on the article.

A hologram of a plump white woman with a puffy face and gray hair appears before me.

I search for important information and find no family history of mental illness, and that she was unresponsive to typically successful medications, just like Barbra. Weird. She’s the third suddenly schizophrenic woman in Stroudsburg in a week.

Something is going on, but I’m too tired and in pain to care right now. I’ll figure it out later.

“Alert. New Infoworld Media article about Barbra,” says my q-link.”

I prefer less biased news than the huge media company reports, but oh well. “Read it.”

“Breaking news. Barbra Scavo, fifty-six, found dead in her home on Lindon Street,” says Chim.

Her dead body invades my thoughts, and I grimace. I’ll miss you, Barbra.

“It has been ruled a murder,” says Chim. “Police are hunting for the primary suspect, Fae Luna, Barbra’s foster child.”

☼☼☼

A jolt of fear shoots through me, and I bolt up to