Jacked Read online

  “The Internet,” said Tar. “I read about it in one of Mr. Keisler’s history books.”

  Jahn nodded.

  “Yeah. It started out that the machines had to be plugged in to use it. Wires runnin’ everywhere. Slow as molasses. Then they started to be able to pull it all in straight from the air. Everything was still okay, though. But more and more stuff was put out there. They called it the Sky or Cloud, something like that.”

  “Is that when The Crash came?”

  Jahn gulped at another spoonful.

  “Nah, not yet. See, more and more of the machines were talking in the air and finally some people decided they wanted to talk to the air, too. And not through any machines. So they hooked themselves straight into it. Jacked is what they called it.”

  Tar let out a breath.

  “So that’s when it all happened in their heads, automagically.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, they started calling it the Mind. At first they had to wear these funny hats that covered their heads. Their ears would stick out through holes so they could hear. Damnedest thing you ever saw. They looked like fools.” Jahn laughed at the memory.

  “But think what they could do,” said Tar. “Think about something and you would know all about it.”

  Jahn snorted and shook his head.

  “It made for some pretty lazy people, let me tell you. Why bother to learn anything when somebody else had already done all the learnin’ for you? Bah!”

  Tar chewed slowly on the last of his roll while he stared at the far wall. Neither talked for a few minutes, only the far off conversations of others in the room and the clinking of Jahn’s spoon against his bowl breaking the quiet.

  “Is that when The Crash came?” Tar’s voice was soft. “Those hats made it so the people went hard boot?”

  “Nope, that’s not when everybody died. People kept making machines smarter and smarter and the hats that talked to the air became smaller and smaller. Finally, it was just a little box, right behind an ear.” Jahn pushed away the bowl and leaned back in his chair. “By then it seemed like everyone was jacked in all the time. Scientists, teachers, business people, the government, guys who wanted the newest thing—you had to be in the Mind if you wanted to be somebody.”

  “But not everybody wanted to be somebody.”

  Jahn stared at Tar for a minute before shaking his head.

  “No, not everybody wanted to be somebody. There were different groups that started up. Some said that all the machines were bad. But those were the kooks who wanted us to go back to the long ago days in caves. Not a lot of people joined up with them. But there were others who said machines were okay as long as they weren’t hooked up to people. They said that God had made mankind and that man had made the machines. By trying to tie the two together they thought that men were daring to make themselves gods.”

  “So that’s how the Black Shirts started?”

  “Yeah. But more particularly, Father Eli. He was not only the leader of the Black Shirts, back then he was the one who got them together. He was the one preachin’ and goin’ on TV shows and bein’ in stories in the newspapers and magazines. He was the one who came up with the whole story of how the machines were wrong. He was the one…”

  Jahn’s voice trailed off. Tar watched his uncle stare toward the far wall with unseeing eyes. He finally blinked, the memories that had kept him locked in one place melting away.

  “Anyway, that’s when The Crash came. When all those poor people who thought their machines were the best part of them went hard boot and died. Or worse yet, they went zom and suffered before they died for however long it took.” He laughed but there was no humor in the chuckle. “You know why they called them zoms? Because before The Crash they made movies about these things called zombies. They were supposed to be dead people but they weren’t, and they stumbled around trying to kill living people and eat their brains. I guess those poor zoms really did lose their brains after all.”

  “So that’s how it happened to Mom and Dad,” Tar said, his words clipped. “They went hard boot because they thought more of the Mind than me.”

  Jahn’s head snapped around.

  “That’s not right,” he said. “You don’t know what it was like for them. You don’t know about their work, their dreams. They were…” He stopped and the muscles in his face relaxed. “They were your parents…and you was their son.”

  “But if they hadn’t jacked in they’d be here with us now, with me.”

  “It’s just hard to understand. They didn’t know what was going to happen.” Jahn hesitated for a moment. “No one knew. You can’t keep blaming them. They’re gone now.”

  Two other residents walked past their table, saying hello. Tar waited until they were gone before he looked at Jahn.

  “But what started The Crash when—”

  His uncle held up a hand.

  “That’s enough blog for one night. I’m tired and I don’t want to think about those days right now.” He smiled. “I want to turn in early and get some sleep and you’ve got some reading to do for your lessons. What’s in the past can wait for another night.”

  Chapter 5

  The elderly man squatted in between the rows of beans, pulling out the weeds growing around the plants. He shook off most of the dirt clinging to the roots before tossing them to the side on the nearby concrete. Pull, toss, move. Pull, toss, move. A few minutes later, after duck-walking his way down the rest of the row, he stood up and leaned back, stretching with a groan. He opened one eye and squinted up.

  “Bah! It’s no wonder.”

  A man in a black uniform stepped out from the wall encircling the garden.

  “Excuse me, Father Eli. Did you need something?”

  The older man waved his hand at the sky. Though there were no rain clouds in sight the sun hid behind a gray canopy that was lined to the east by streaks of black.

  “Look at that, Joseph. How in the world am I to grow a decent crop of vegetables if the sun won’t shine for me every once in a while? Remember when the breeze came off the ocean and blew away the clouds and let the sun shine? Now the only things that want to grow are these weeds.”

  “Yes, sir,” the guard answered. “Can I help you?”

  Eli waved his hand as he turned away and moved back down the rows, this time walking upright. Twice he stopped long enough to reach down and toss away another unwanted plant. Each time was followed with another disgusted shake of his head. When he reached the end of the row he stepped up onto the concrete walkway and crossed under a tree to a table and some chairs. He plopped down on a metal-framed seat and reached for a glass filled with water.

  The glass was half-empty when another man entered the garden area. He looked around for a moment before he spotted Eli and marched over.

  “Father Eli, a message from San Jose.” He handed over an envelope with an unbroken red wax seal. “It was delivered by a man in a car.”

  Eli stared at the guard with the words hanging in the air between them. A message arriving by phone from San Jose would have been amazing enough, since only officials and the wealthy could afford a working call line. But the scarcity of gas made the trip from the south expensive, not to mention the permits required to purchase the fuel, which meant this message was important. Perhaps deadly important.

  Eli grabbed the paper with one hand while the other wandered toward his head, raking through his thick gray hair before dropping down to pat against the pocket of his shirt. Still holding the envelope he twisted back and forth in his chair as he looked around.

  “Glasses, glasses. Damnation! Where are my glasses?” He snorted a second later when he spotted the black rims on the other side of the table. The messenger leaned over, retrieving the glasses and handing them to Eli. “Thank you, brother. Wait while I read.”

  The messenger bowed and stepped back a few paces.

  Eli slipped a bony finger under the wax, the dirt in the crevices
of his prints leaving a smudge across the white envelope. A flip of his wrist and the seal broke. He was halfway through the note when a line of sweat formed on his lip. Eli read to the end; it took only a few seconds since the letter consisted of just a handful of sentences but he already knew what he needed to do.

  “Brother,” he said, pausing to wipe a hand over his lips and chin, leaving a line of mud in its wake. “Find Captain Ludler. Tell him I must to speak to him at once.”

  The man mumbled, “Yes, sir,” and hurried from the garden. Despite his haste Eli knew his captain would not return fast enough for his liking.

  Chapter 6

  Although the day was only warm the man’s bare torso and bald head glistened with sweat. He was not a large man but every muscle stood out on his body, snaking beneath his skin like ropes.

  The shattering of glass and screeching of twisted metal washed over him. He swayed to the sounds, his face turned toward the gray sky and eyes closed. A smile broke his lips.

  Ned Ludler reveled in the destruction taking place around him for several minutes like a worshipper seated before a shrine. His eyes finally opened and he looked at the flurry of movement. Blue eyes, so light they were nearly white all the way through, flicked from side to side as he watched his men work.

  “Doing the Creator’s work,” he corrected himself.

  He broke into motion, swinging the sledgehammer in his right hand up and over his head before grabbing the handle with his left as well. The metal and wood paused above him for a moment, and then struck down with all the speed and power Ludler’s muscles could provide. The television could not stop the sledge, did not even slow it down as it rushed for the ground beneath the set.

  Ludler grunted and his smile widened.

  He continued destroying every piece of technology within reach of his sixteen-pound weapon. Computers, monitors, handhelds, even a few bits of old tech he had no idea what they did—though he would never admit that to his men—crumbled beneath the pounding.

  Ludler paused to wipe the wooden handle of his sledge clean so it did not slip in his hands. Some of his men had sledges and axes with polyurethane handles and rubber grips. He frowned upon the idea but did not stop them as long as they were using the tools for the Creator’s work.

  But not for him. The handle on his sledge was ash, made by the Creator and not by man. That was how life was meant to be, the good of what was made by the Creator against the evil made by man.

  The thought made him stop and look at the people standing off to one side of the destruction, huddled together within a circle of his men. It was time to tend to business. He grabbed his gun belt from where he had hung it on the rod iron fence encircling the factory.

  As he approached the group one of his men brought his shirt. He took his time pushing the wooden pegs through the holes, letting them stare at his uniform. It was part of his routine. Over the years he had found the longer he took to address a group the more eager they were to point fingers at each other. If he waited long enough they would claim their mothers were guilty to save their own skins.

  Once his shirt was tucked into his pants, he settled his belt around his waist, checking his gun and the wooden baton at each side. One hand trailed over to the leather pocket on the front, his fingers playing with the snap.

  “What have we got, Lieutenant?” Ludler’s voice caused several of the group near him to jump. They were almost ready.

  “One hundred forty-three were inside the plant, Captain. This lot was in the manufacturing part while those,” the lieutenant motioned toward about a dozen people standing off to one side, “were inside the offices.”

  Ludler looked the smaller group over. All but two were women, and they all were dressed better and cleaner than the larger gathering.

  “Any children?” he asked.

  The lieutenant shook his head.

  “No, sir.”

  Ludler barely nodded in response.

  It had been more than five years since he had found a fixer.

  Well, a real fixer anyway. Of course he had found some adults who had been able to repair technology with what they had been taught or learned themselves. Those people had been dangerous enough, tweaking around inside the plastic and metal until the machines started working again. Technically it was not against the Creator’s laws to have technology and to fix it. Father Eli used some technology and even Ludler would use a telephone if it was an emergency.

  However, he knew those kind of people would never stop tinkering, never stop putting it back together until it was being used on humans again, a blasphemy against what the Creator had made. He chose to act first, to save them from themselves, purifying them before they gave into temptation.

  But a fixer was the ultimate blasphemy. They could fix technology just by touching it, bringing back to life what the Creator had chosen to shut down on the day of The Crash. Ludler had found just three fixers in all his years of searching. The first two had been about five or six years-old, but he had purified them anyway, ignoring the screams and tears. The last had been in his mid-teens, having escaped notice by living a recluse’s life with his grandmother. It had taken a tip from a boy at his school to find him.

  Ludler knew there were more out there, somewhere, and he would not stop until he found them all.

  “Who fixed this technology?” he asked, his voice carrying to the back of the group as he gestured at the pile of broken machines. “Who made it so it would work in the factory?”

  Ludler waited while a murmur rippled through the groups. No one spoke up but he watched several people move their feet while they glanced side to side, never quite making eye contact with the person beside them. One of these was a smaller man in the front row.

  “Okay, have it your way.” Ludler turned to the soldier beside him and whispered, “Test them. Watch the man in the red T-shirt.”

  The lieutenant nodded and, with a squad of men at his back, they made their way through the people. Rifle butts and yelling split the groups into lines. The lieutenant stepped to one of them and handed the woman a small plastic object no larger than a candy bar. After a few seconds, when nothing happened, he took the machine back and handed it to the next person in line. Like the person before the tech stayed quiet and it went that way until the man with the red T-shirt took the small device. A light flickered on its front and a strange, accented voice came from the box.

  “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…”

  The lieutenant snatched the machine from the man. Its light dimmed and the voice stopped. The worker stared at his hands, his eyes unblinking and his mouth open.

  “Fixer!” screamed the lieutenant. The squad behind him surged forward and grabbed the man.

  “No! No! It’s a mistake! It’s not me! Angus is the one who fixes the machines. It’s Angus!”

  The group stopped moving and the man fell silent.

  “Who is…,” Ludler paused and let all eyes turn toward him before continuing loud enough to be heard, “…Angus?”

  He expected the admission to come from the small group of office workers to his left. Instead, a solitary, wavering voice answered from the middle of the group.

  “That would be me.”

  No one else said a word. The group parted and a man stepped forward, his hair almost white if not for all the dirt and soot ground into it, leaving it a mass of gray streaks. His shoulders were stooped and his knuckles gnarled and swollen. But when he looked up into Ludler’s face his eyes shone brightly. The captain thought there was even a hint of a smile at the corners of the man’s mouth, a touch of pride.

  “I’m Angus.”

  Before Ludler could reply, another voice rang out. This time, it was from his left. He turned to look at a man who had stepped out from the office group.

  “Now just a minute,” the man said.
“There is no law against fixing machines that do not attach to people. Those machines keep this factory running.”

  “And you are?

  “Jenson, Thom Jenson. I’m the factory manager.”

  Ludler nodded. “You’re right. There’s no law against fixing machines that do not attach to people. But those machines could be attached.”

  “But they weren’t!”

  Ludler clasped his hands behind his back. For anyone watching him from a distance he appeared to be discussing a point with the man. Those who were close enough to see his eyes, however, knew different. They saw the veil drop over them, the blue deepening and holding the strength of steel. Several factory workers stepped back and Angus, who had been staring defiantly at Ludler, dropped his gaze to the ground.

  “But they could be, and I will not take that chance. Lieutenant, take these two into custody. They will be purified at sundown.”

  The lieutenant shouted orders at the soldiers. It took four of them to drag Jenson from the area, his cries echoing against the factory walls and springing back. Angus, however, walked away with only one trooper beside him.

  “What about him, Captain?” The lieutenant gestured toward the man in the red T-shirt.

  Ludler smiled.

  “Check him again. I’m not sure we got an accurate reading the first time.”

  The lieutenant shoved the machine back in the man’s hands. He cringed, his face contorted around his closed eyes. But this time there were no lights, no man’s voice speaking. The box stayed quiet.

  “Ah, a false reading. Put him back in the group,” said Ludler.

  If possible, the man’s face paled even more. He realized—just as everyone else in the group did—he had been tricked. Because of his cowardice, Angus and Jenson would be purified. He fell sobbing at the feet of some of his fellow workers and they backed away in disdain.

  “What are your orders, Captain?” The lieutenant never took his eyes from the group while he spoke. They both realized now was the most dangerous time, once the captured realized they had been tricked and may not have anything left to lose.