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

her much of anything about my real life, partly because I wanted to escape it.

Nav squeezes my hand. “Come on. You can trust me.”

She was always there for me in-game, but I hesitate as a crazy thought pops into my head. What if she was involved with Barbra’s death somehow? Maybe she joined the game and befriended me as some kind of plot?

No. That’s too crazy. Besides, I’m the one that contacted her. She’s taken good care of me and seems as kind as I remember her.

I lower my head so my curls drop in front of my face. “My mom is dead, and my dad left before I was born. While they were together, he made her promise not to get a brain implant. They were only together for six months before he went on the run from the NIA, though.”

“Those scumbags. What did they want him for?”

I shrug. “I can only imagine. I’m not even sure if my mom knew. Years after he left, she got an early model Evo. It had a rare malfunction, which caused a stroke. She lived for a few days, but it was too much on her system. It’s as if my father knew there would be an issue.”

She squeezes my hand, then rubs my back. “I’m so sorry.”

I shrug, still looking at my lap. “It’s nothing compared to the pits I fell into afterward.”

“The foster homes?”

“Yeah…but I don’t want to talk that.”

“Do you know anything about your father?” she asks.

“Just before my mom died, she gave me a letter that he wrote. I only keep it because it’s one of two things I have from when my mom was alive. I also tried to search for him on the mesh once. It was weird, though. I couldn’t find anything.”

“That is strange,” she says. “What was in the letter?”

“After saying he loved me and that he wished he could stay, he warned me against brain implants, specifically the Evo, just like he warned my mother. He also said they’d only hold me back if I were anything like him.”

“My father opposes the Evo too,” she says.

“Interesting. My dad also wrote about meditation. According to his letter, he believed that a person could do amazing things if they focus their mind. Sounds like a bunch of nonsense to me.”

“I’ve meditated for a long time. There’s actually tons of research to support his belief. People have controlled their heart rate, temperature, medical conditions, blood pressure, and more. Lately, it’s been helping me deal with things,” she says, a sadness darkening her eyes.

“I heard it’s healthy too,” I say, trying to make up for my dumb comment.

“So, are you ready to tell me what happened?”

I opened up about my parents, but this is much bigger. I hesitate.

“You saw in Silent City that I’m empathetic. How many noobs did I help out?”

I nod and giggle. “It took up half of our time.”

“We can’t all be Miss Efficiency. But seriously, I’m not the type to screw people over. And as long as you’re straight with me, you can trust me.”

I gaze into the pools of her eyes, looking for confirmation.

“Not only was I a crisis counselor, I was going to start an agency. I’ll keep everything we talk about confidential.”

Here we go. I tell her that Barbra is dead but don’t go into specifics. Then I let my walls tumble and tell her about my trials afterward and how I’m wanted for murder. She’s surprisingly easy to talk to. Maybe when this is over, she can counsel foster kids as part of my blockchain project.

“That’s cracked. You can never trust the police to get anything right. Should be abolished. Lucky for you, you came to the right person.” She holds up a finger. “One sec, though. Cube, activate nature projection three,” she says into her q-link.

Bushy trees and vibrant flowers appear around us, and a bright orange sun shines from the ceiling.

“That’s better,” she says. “Now tell me the details of what happened to Barbra.”

A wave of sadness passes through me, but I force it away. I switch to a cross-legged position and rub my knees. “Barbra had two recorded schizophrenic breaks where she went to the hospital. She received medication that should have worked and then a booster medication that was almost guaranteed to work. But then she had a third break, where she stabbed herself in the chest with scissors. She also wrote a suicide note on the wall in blood.”

“Oh my God. That’s horrible,” she says, squeezing my arm.

I lower my head, feeling the weight of the loss.

“It seems like a cut and dry suicide. Why do they think it’s you?”

“Unfortunately, I took the scissors from her chest. My fingerprints are on them.”

“Okay, still,” she says. “She wrote a note. It should be obvious.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“Someone else might recommend you go in for questioning and try to smooth it over,” says Nav, “but I don’t trust the police.”

“Me either. Plus, there are other things. My bank account and Progs account were both gone.”

“What do you mean gone?” she asks.

“I called customer services, and there was no record of my accounts.”

“Why wouldn’t you hold your own crypto keys?”

I sigh. “I don’t know. I never thought it would be an issue.”

“Either way, the police are not allowed to touch your accounts until you are convicted and, even then, it’s a process.”

I throw my hands up in frustration.

“Okay. I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but it feels like there’s something wrong here. Maybe you could be accidentally accused of murder, but they wouldn’t delete your accounts unless something else is going on.”

“There’s more. I told you about Barbra’s schizophrenic breaks, but I also came across two other local women