Vaska decided to set up camp a couple stories in a stack a few towers deep. There weren’t any landlords—once the police had stopped pretending to care about the old laws and gone away—we’d given them a short hop with a tight knot. No, you just had to plug in and check who’s display or panel you’re fucking with to makes sure if you mess something up, you can take them and their goons. One time I knew a kid who pulled out a panel on the top of a stack. He, “Just wanted to see how the air was up there.” Well. He didn’t take the panels out carefully, he just pulled and ripped chords until he could shove the boards out. Turns out he’d fucked up a bitcoin hardware wallet for some smalltime mercenary group. They plugged a few quarter-inch cables into his neck jacks and blasted static through his brain until it boiled.
Fun stuff.
So anyways.
Vaska looked around the street. All of the ground-level spots were already taken up by merchants and programmers. The removed sections were made into ramps or staircases, roofs and caves, still connected to each other with thick chords bound into bundles used like ropes and firemen’s poles. There were places for Jews, “you”s, and Tank Girl’s crew, you name it The Stacks has room for it. Vaska picked out a small place above their favorite Chinese food chain, “The Great Mexico Wall”. They took bitcoin and had kiosks all over! All you gotta do is throw some bitcoin at it and your food will be flown fresh from (supposedly) China within ten minutes or your money back. Great stuff. I pulled up my web wallet and held my finger over the pin, waiting for the familiar prick to give the drone my sequence to follow.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Hey! Vaskya!” Lanis waved at them.
“Sup Lanis”
Lanis was a roaming modder who Vaskya’d ran into too many times for it to be a coincidence. Vaskya knew there had to be some ulterior motives, “Still following me Lanis?”
“Funny, I was about to ask the same question.”
There was a healthy silence before they both nodded at each other and went on their separate ways.
“Hey, wait! I almost forgot,” Lanis turned around and half jogged over to Vaska, “Didn’t you say you wanted a third jack? I should have the parts to do it in a couple days.”
Vaskya put their hand on their neck and felt their two quarter-sized holes. The jacks allowed anyone to had them to plug into stacks, and by association the internet, and surf it mentally. You can have displays installed in contacts, I do, or you can try just purely surfing mentally. But I don’t know anyone who does that if they can have the contacts. The reason you’d get more jacks is because you can’t always update the software of the last plug. So the first plug I got was for in-head music, vision and memory replay, and a really basic timer. The second allows me to get online and the third is for topical epidermal modifications. Moving and smart tattoos, etc.
“Nah, I don’t even know where I’d put a third one.”
“most people just shove it under the other two. Haven’t you heard though? They made a plugin to download facial features and race.”
“Soundsssssssss,” Vaska held out the s until they could think of a word that was sufficient, “innovative”
“Hey man, I’m not a philosopher I just install mods.”
His hands were always the attractive amount of dirty. Where it’s noticeable, but not unsanitary. And they had that nice rough feel, of work, from labor, from instruments. Vaskya shook their head, “Catch you later Lanis,” and walked away.