It has been a year since I was first enrolled at school and my life has changed a lot.

Current me and a number of different kids from the Community are going to a private school, but some of our parents are already talking about transferring us when we are older.

But that is for later. The biggest changes to my life have been these 3 kids that kinda took me in as their friend, so I guess I have friends now. The first two are Twin little blonde girls named Astra and Luna.

And they are like fire and water, completely different other then their similar appearance.

Thankfully Luna like to have her hair down so its not to hard to tell them apart if they are not talking, because when they are talking, its very easy to tell them apart. And lastly there is Norman, or Norm to his friends.

He is most certainly a muscle head and loves to work out. I told him it isn't normal for a kid to work out so much, but he genuinely seems to enjoy it, and just says since he started early, he will be super strong in the future!

Honestly just trying to keep Astra in check as she would try to fight other kids who were making fun of us, or just staring at us, as we kinda formed out own kid gang.

With Luna, you were likely find her doing something like reading, gaming or even painting, some alot of times we would have to drag her away from what she was doing to come hang with us.

Norm, what can I say that hasn't already been said. He was certainly a unique person, he was actually into a lot physical things, include Gardening.

I was surprised when I first saw him taking care of his patch of his back yard he had converted into a garden.

You wouldn't expect a guy that has a weight bench, albeit a small one, in his room to be gardening, but he says he likes to work with his hands, so I understand that.

Me and this little group have had some fun over the past year, becoming near inseparable as we became great friends.

We always seem to find ourselves at any of our 3 houses, doing something as a group.

Not long ago, people started referring to us as the Double duo, as it was 2 boys and 2 girls.

After we were done hanging out for the day, we would always split in enough time to get our school work done, well they would do the school work.

Most of the time I had completed mine already and had time to study what I wanted, currently I was using some of my coding knowledge to do some light hacking.

Not having access to premade hacks or anything to help with even the small amount of ice of some of the devices has made it hard to learn hacking in general, and a little dangerous.

I was working through the minimal Ice on this old laptop I got from one of our neighbors when I was looking for some tech to tinker with, that the ice froze and locked me out before it sent something out to me.

I wasn't able to disconnect in time, the cord only retracting to my wrist as the Daemon worked its why through my systems.

Clearly this was a minor daemon as I was holding it off with a small version of Ice I had, trying to fight it.

But it didn't last long, the daemon got through and Shorted one of my eyes before my defenses could come back up to finish the now compromised daemon.

I may have survived this little hacking event but I am surely dead when my mom find out I burned out an eye.

Relegating myself to get it over with as it was actually morning currently on one of my off days, I went to look for mom to tell her.

Seeing she was just finishing her coffee and about start working on something, I though this was the best time.

"Mom, I have been learning coding and all that and ....... I kinda had an accident. Will looking at some code from an old computer, I guess it thought I wasn't meant to be there, and the code seemed to attack me, and now I can't see out of my left eye." I tried to look sheepish while saying to make it seem like I wasn't actually trying to hack, just to learn the code.

"Sweety, thats to be expected when you look at somethings code, code for a device is considered private and you need to be careful about that. But I am sorry you had that happen, we can go to the doctor and get this looked at for you! Go get ready if you can, I just need a minute."

I slung on my small jacket and put on my socks and shoes, patting my pockets in a small muscle memory for my wallet and phone.

Chuckling to myself that everything was now in my eyes instead, I walked up to the front door and walked out to set on one of the chairs on the porch.

A few minutes later my mom exited the house wearing a pretty big jacket, and motioning me to get into the car.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

I got him, and it took my mom a little extra time to get into the car with the big jacket.

Now all ready, we set off toward the gate.

After leaving I noticed the land around us hasn't really changed much in the last year.

And I am once again falling in love with Night City as we enter again and head towards the doctors office.

Upon arriving at the office and we get inside.

I see the doctor is at the front desk talking with the nurse there.

As we approach, he sees us and states "I wasn't expecting you for a bit long, what seems to be wrong?"

"Well Jason was learning "Coding" and ended up on the receiving end of a defensive program, and has a burned up eye, maybe worse. So I wanted to get him checked for rogue soft, and hardwire issues." My mom stated in a matter of fact, practically air quoting the word Coding as she did.

"Ok, Then something real simple, come on back, we are dead today." he was motioning us to follow as we went back to the same room I was in last time.

"Hop up here, and put on the mask right there. Don't worry, its not knock out gas this time, I have it set for a low effect gas to take the edge off while we take care of things." He was saying while walking to the other side of the room to get a cart with a big machine on it.

He rolled the cart over to me, and on the front it opened enough for my hand to lay on it while he took my plug to plug into the machine.

"Now, let look at these eyes." He took out a small Cylinder device and was waving it in front of my face, frowning as he looked at the Results, clearly showing in his eyes.

"Nothing permanent, thankfully, but the eyes are toast. The fact that I can tell you can see out of one of them at least is surprising. From the damage I see, it was a simple but effective daemon called the "Lights out" daemon. It is rare that it is used anymore thankfully, because it attacks the sender as well as the receiver, that is why its not used anymore."

"With this, we will need to replace the eyes, if you are fine with it, I can do it now as I have a spare set just like yours. Its simple and you don't even need to go under for it."

"Ok, I will be back with everything I need and we can get this done." He said while getting up and leaving the room.

Since I was here, I wanted to see if I could get anything chipped to help me, so I asked.

"Mom, would it be possible to get something else while I am here? Something to help protect again those little demons or whatever they are, and something so I can record my study material so I can review it at my own pace? I feel like that would really help!" I said, getting happy/excited at the end to show I loved learning.

I know doing this would win here over, and I could see it on her face that she didn't like the idea of chipping more, but unable to resist her little sweety with the puppy dog eyes, she answered.

"I think Dr. Micheal should have something simple for both of these needs, we will see." she said trying and failing to hide that the look had effected her ahah

As my mother and I say there, I saw a smile slowly spreading across her face, like she though of something she wanted to ask. "So, how have you and your friends been? I always see you with them, but you never tell me much about them."

"We are good, just doing kid things. Honestly, I didn't think I would make friends so fast, so haven't really had to much time to learn about them myself."

"And what about Astra and Luna, do you have a "favorite friend"?" she was clearly smiling now, and I understood why.

"No mom, its not like that, we are just friends. I....."

She cut me off, "Ooh I understand sweety, we will talk about it later, Sam is back!"

At that, the doctor entered, with my mother asking about what I wanted.

"We actually had a simple double deck for both of those, so its just a slot in, and should be the same as the eyes, don't even need to go under." He went over to the Container and pulled out two slim boxes, setting it down next the the Round Thermos that he brought with him, likely containing the eyes.

"yes, I think thats best, a simple deck mod to add is the best. He can learn on it, and if anymore "Coding" concerns come up, I am sure he will want an upgrade later. Regarding the recorder, if it is the simple one, what is the difference?" My mother stated and asked regarding the two items.

Why my mom and dr. micheals were chatting about the specs of the two in slots I was getting, the doctor was prepping me to get them done, and replace my eyes.

After a few minutes the doctor stop talking with mom long enough to say "Put the mask on and take a deep breath, this next part will feel a little weird, because you were knocked out the last time I did it. You won't go under but it will help." So I did just that.

And like before where I felt a small bit of numbness, now with the deep breath of whatever that was, everything felt sluggish and numb. And it was good that he told me to do that.

Because when he went about removing the broken eye, It felt very wrong, and like being ticklish, It made me want to move away, but I resisted.

After he got the eye unhooked and out he said "Normally even men or women move alot during that, as they describe it as a feeling of things crawling over your skin, so you did very well there jason. And to avoid you have to look at me with your eye, would you like for me to turn it off before I remove it, as both eyes are a pair and need to be replaced."

"No, I will need to be use to it incase in the future I may need it done again."

"Strong boy you have here Roxxy." He said smiling

My mom now smiling wide simple state "Don't I know it!"

It was dark for longer then I would have liked, but it felt equally as weird feeling when first new eye was put in.

When the room came back into vision, I released some of the tension that I had unknowingly built up as I had no eyes.

"It will take a few moment for the eyes to finish full setup. While they are adjusting you could have blurred vision or low contract while its leveling out."

"Its already clearing up, so I think its all good!"

After letting the eye adjust, the doctor went about opening the port plate on the back of my head, which I didn't know about.

And installation was as simple as him plugging a device into to port on my head to download and instal the software for the devices that he put in while the download was happening.

All in all, it was very fast and everything was setup within a few minutes.

"Everything should be up and ready, plug in here." He said pointing to a device labeled test device on the top.

After plugging in the doctor explains, "Ok, this is just to test the defense of the hardware, to make sure its working. If it doesn't work, it will change your eye color to white and thats the only thing it does." He said and then pressed the button on the device.

Not even a second later I saw lines of code appearing on the left and right sides of my vision, and then a small notification in the top left stating, defense success.

"Yep it worked, I got the notification"

"Great, well my work is all done here! If there is any issue, come on back to me!"

At that, my mom lead me out of the room, and not wanting to wait I stopped, causing my mom to look back at me, and I started recording.

I didn't tell her I was testing the record, I simple said "I just wanted to make sure my eye color didn't change, love you mom!"

"Ok, love you too sweety, lets go, This jacket is making me burn up."