Chapter 2 – Do I Really Want to Do This?

            Alos stood, his parents staring blankly at him, unsure of what to say. His mother began to talk, but nothing came out. Her feet shuffled around shifting her weight back and forth uncomfortably, fearful of what he heard. The air was palpable, his mother's restless moving was normal when she wanted to get out of an undesirable situation. Finally, Alos’ father stepped forward and broke the silence.

            “He was here on business Alos, nothing more.” his father said in a deep, scolding voice. Despite his voice having a natural tone of power and command, a twinge of hesitance when he spoke, like sparks waiting to catch and grow into the flames of paranoia. Something was wrong, he could see with his parents’ small acts of nervousness subconsciously surfacing.

            “What kind of business?" Alos asked,  “the guy practically dove off the balcony when he saw me.”

            He wasn’t going to let them off the hook that easy, especially after getting a glimpse of the man’s face. His wretched, putrid face of lumpy egg-sack-like boils; just thinking about it made Alos shudder.

            “It is none of your concern. You should know better than to press the issue.” His father turned from him and briskly walked towards his room. Alos’ mother was left standing there, a blank nervous expression still present in her face.

            “Mr. Drawk messaged about you missing class today,” she said, “We pay a lot of money for those classes, your father is not happy about this.” Then, before Alos could ask her anymore questions, she hurried off behind his father leaving Alos standing there.

            Alos knew something was up. The way they all reacted when he showed up on the balcony was fishy to say the least. They looked exactly how he looked when his parents found out he was one of the hackers in a digital heist against several corporations on the Omninet. Nervous, scared shitless, and caught red handed. There was no way he was going to leave the matter alone, he felt like he needed to figure out what was going on and why but the immediate problem was how to go about doing so.

            He remained standing well after his parents had left the room, contemplating how he would obtain the information. They had just left for some political fundraising bull, of that he was sure, but honestly, he mostly felt like they were just trying to get away from his prying. Scratching his chin, deep in thought, he glanced around the room. In the upper corner of the room, there was a camera with a perfect line of sight of where his parents and the man were standing. There was no doubt; the camera must have seen the man. Alos ran, nearly sprinting, to his room and headed straight for his computer.

            The computer was still on from earlier in the day, so he sat down in his chair and rolled up to his desk. The screen displayed all of the regular icons and a small clock in the upper right hand corner which read “7:05 PM”. In the bottom right hand corner, there was a small icon pulsating with enough color flashes to induce a seizure and a small number above it read “4”.

            Alos ignored the overly flashy icon and pulled up an application which he commonly used. It displayed a small search bar, and under the search bar was an empty square space. He pulled up another program and pulled it beside the search bar. The second program window displayed an empty black square with a blinking line.

            In the black square he input, 'Search local Omninet host points'. Below the black square, an image of circles appeared. There was a giant circle, with about twenty size differentiating circles surrounding it. Alos pointed his cursor to one of the circles, clicking on it. It displayed a message which read “HSptC”. That wasn’t the right one. Hotspots were all over his house and the beginning letters started closer to the house's routing computer which was his computer. He then pointed to another, clicking on it. It read “HSptKc.” That had to be the camera.

            After reselecting the black square, he input, “Access HSptKc”. The black square processed for a second or two and then displayed window asking for a password. Instead of inputting a password, Alos reached over and grabbed his Orb which he had forgotten earlier that day. He placed the Orb on its base, and the blinking icon became a bright solid green. Selecting the green icon, a window popped up. One of the tabs on the window read “4 messages.” Alos ignored this and pulled up the BOT tab. It displayed a bright, vividly green humanoid with a similarly bright red circle where its face should have been. Above the BOT (Body Omninetic Tag); it read “0rnj”.

            Alos pulled back up the window containing the black square, it still waiting for a password. He exited the password window and large bold text came across his screen “ACCESS DENIED”.

            “Menelich’s mother, that’s dramatic.” Alos smirked, and laughed to himself.

            After the text faded, he re-selected the black square, this time inputting “Inject 0rnj HSptKc”. The black window processed for a few seconds then displayed a confirmation message. Alos switched back to the window showing his BOT, smirking at his success. He selected 0rnj which changed the display to a myriad of window tabs. One of the tabs read “Launch Omninet” encased in a green box.

            Alos nodded, then clicked on the box.

            Reaching over, Alos grabbed his goggles and then his Orb. He pulled his goggles over his head fastening the strap around the back of his head and clasped his Orb in his right hand. The goggles acted like a window into the Omninet, having small, user interface screens lining the inside that displayed the graphical landscape perceived by his BOT. The Orb was a sensor, which read every electrical impulse of Alos’ nervous system, each impulse being amplified by the nerve implants he had received a few years prior as a gift from a political lobby that funded his parents. By wearing the goggles, Alos could see into the Omninet, by holding the Orb, he controlled his BOT, which was programmed to the impulses of his imagination, acting as a digital avatar in this dimension of digital geography.

            An array of images fluttered through Alos’ goggles. It stopped at a low resolution animation that showed a small boy sitting on a stack of papers, catching sheets of paper as they flew in from above. Above the small boy was a ceiling with a hole and circling around the hole was text reading, “TRANSFERRING DATA...”. The boy would catch a sheet of paper, hop up and sit on it, and then repeat the process, allowing the pile to rapidly stack up beneath him. When the stack got so high that the boy was in arms reach from the hole, he reached up and climbed up through it. A giant message displayed “TRANSFER COMPLETE!”, followed by an image of the small boy looking up at text in the sky which read “Welcome!”. The frame of perspective around the boy rapidly zoomed in on his head, and then as the frame passed through his head, the virtual world of the Omninet appeared, being shown through the eyes (or red facial blob in this case) of Alos’ BOT, 0rnj.

            Once inside the Omninetic domain within the camera, he looked around through 0rnj. The room that was constructed was pretty small for the amount of encrypted Omninetic data that must have been available. The walls creating the boundaries of the room were bright white and below them was obsidian black floor. While there was no distinct light source, the walls themselves seemed to project light into the room without really being luminescent themselves. There were no doorways or pathways leading out, which lead Alos quickly to conclude it wasn’t connected to the main Omninet and instead must have been in its own private disconnected host point. At the end of the small room there was a pile of balls, each about as tall as 0rnj, stacked in a pyramid fashion. He wondered what was keeping the balls from rolling out from under the upper stacks, and why they were even there in the first place when he realized the fundamental reason for the pyramid shape.

            “Bingo.”

            The camera obviously secured its stored data by encrypting it into the Omninetic graphical form. When new data came in, it must have been placed on the top pushing the old data downwards and expanding the base. If this was the case, the old data should have been at the bottom of the pyramid, with the newest file of security footage data being the ball on the top.

            Alos moved 0rnj up to the pyramid and as he drew closer, its sized seemed to magnify. The size of the pyramid more than doubled from where 0rnj had previously been standing. There was some sort of optical illusion manufactured by the distance between the floor and ceiling coupled along with the contrasting coloring of both.

            He looked up at the top of the pyramid making 0rnj raise his arm up aiming towards the ball on top and then like rubber, his arm began to stretch out to the ball on top. It traveled all the way to the top, and then wrapped itself around the ball layering around its radius until a solid grip was secured. Ball in wraps, 0rnj retracted his arm over the sides of the graphical pyramid and then down and over to him. Once he had the ball in his possession, 0rnj’s torso expanded, his abdomen bulging outwards in every direction, small waves of convulsion rippling out from the BOT’s lime green belly. He placed the ball near his bulging stomach and as he did so, a cavity opened up, engulfing the ball whole.

            Alos’ face was flexing and contracting with such force that even the world’s most powerful quakes nodded in respect. The muscles in his chest and abdomen were flexing and relaxing with the aggression of a school of piranhas descending on a kill. Alos’ impulses controlled 0rnj’s movement, so to generate the necessary commands, he had to create imaginary impulses for his Orb to detect and then translate into his BOT’s bizarre preprogrammed behavior. It wasn’t easy, but he’d be a liar if he said he didn’t like it.

            0rnj’s body slimmed to its original state, the ball seemingly disappearing. Then, 0rnj stretched out his hand, flexing his fingers inwards, when a massive lump formed inside the solid green mass of his shoulder and began traveling down his arm. When the lump reached his hand, it transformed into the ball itself and then stretched out to the top of the pyramid of balls, the ball disconnecting and dropping out from his wrist like a drop of water.

            Alos reclined in his chair and placed his Orb back on its base. He slid the goggles up to the top of his head, and disconnected from the camera’s data room. Alos’ face was covered with salty beads of sweat, he wiped some of the sweat off onto his shirt, feeling the imprint the goggles left on his face.

            On his computer, the image of 0rnj reappeared. After selecting his BOT, the myriad of tabs also reappeared. To the right of the image, one of the tabs read “BOT programming”. Alos selected this tab which brought up a window filled with lines of a strange coding language.

            There was a section about halfway down the window, titled “Copied Data.” Alos highlighted all of the code in the section and copied it. He pulled up the original window with the search bar, and then pasted all of it into the square below. The square slowly filled up with green from top to bottom, displaying “CONSTRUCTION COMPLETE” in a small pop up window as it finished.

            The square became a video. In the upper right hand corner of the video there was a time-stamp which read “6:30 PM”. There was a giant play button in the middle of the square and a timeline at the bottom.

            Alos thought 6:30 was way too early, the guy probably wasn’t even there yet, so he selected the timeline at the bottom and dragged it forward slowly. The video skittered along, the fast forwarded micro movements within the room remaining relatively lifeless until a magnecar pulled up to the balcony. In the sped up video, his parents scurried over to the balcony with blinding speed, flung open the balcony door and zipped out onto the balcony. Even the cloaked, disfigured man seemed to fly out of the magnecar and onto the balcony. Alos slowed the camera down to normal speed, preparing to get a good camera shot of the man’s face.

            The camera didn’t have a clear angle of his face, at least for several minutes. The backs of his parents’ heads seemed to fill the frame for what felt like an eternity. He hadn’t realized before but his heart was rapidl beating in his chest. With each pounding contraction he could feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins.

            After minutes of anticipation, Alos could see the back of his head suddenly pop into the view of the camera. As he tiptoed forward, his mother shifted her weight, providing a clear view of the man’s abomination of a face.

            Alos paused the video and zoomed in onto the man’s face. It was difficult for him to look at the image, as it did make him feel quite nauseous, and the longer he looked the sicker he felt. He forced himself to zoom in further until the man’s face took up the entire view of the frame, becoming somewhat pixelated with the lack of resolution, yet somehow remaining just as putrid. Alos cupped his hand over his mouth and turned away, holding back his urge to vomit. Without looking at his monitor, he saved the image, and closed the video.

            After closing the video, Alos turned back around slowly making sure to avoid catching a glimpse of what he knew would make him sick. Thankfully, the window had been closed and an extended sigh of relief escaped his lips. His gut was twisted into fleshy knots, and the acidic bile from his stomach teased the inside of his throat.

            Alos opened the search bar, dragging the newly saved image into it. He hit the search button, and after a brief moment of loading, no results were found. The program was the most powerful search engine on the planet, so for it to not find something was decidedly unusual, bewildering even. He input “-name-” into the search bar to specify what he was searching for, but after another brief moment of loading, still no results were found.

            Alos sat back, stumped.

            After going through all the trouble of extracting the data from the cameras, finding the picture, and then searching it, he thought for sure he would at the very least get some sort of result. At this point, he was unsure of what to do next. His eyes wandered around his screen blankly out of contemplation when his attention was caught again by the pulsating icon. He clicked on it opening up the window.

            The window was his contact list and at the top it displayed “4 new notifications”. Alos clicked on the display and the four notifications appeared. The first was a contact request from Mari. Alos’ heart fluttered like an excited hummingbird and he gladly accepted the request. He had completely forgotten about the events earlier that day, and this was a very pleasant reminder. How lucky he was to have met such a beautiful, genuinely sweet girl. A smile crept across his face.

            The second notification was a message from Mari. It said “I noticed you had forgotten your Orb, so I sent the contact request in case you forgot my BOT too.” Alos laughed aloud at the message, thinking that in just one meeting she had picked up on how forgetful he was. The last two notifications were messages from one of his online friends. His friend's BOT was “Big Beastin'." They had never actually met in the physical world, nor did they know what each other looked like and Alos liked to keep it that way. Being the son of political parents, when people knew who Alos was their behavior would be influenced by their 'prestige' and Alos could not stand that kind of fallacious ass kissing, even when it was directed towards him. It seemed so disingenuous.

            Both messages were the same saying “Meet me in the green district.”

            Where in the green district? It was typical of Big Beastin' to accidentally send the same message twice both unspecific as to what he actually wanted to say. The messages were both time stamped at “5:49 PM”, so Alos figured he was probably still online. As Alos thought about it more, Big Beastin' could probably help him with his search dilemma and perhaps even come up with a suggestion or two. With this in mind, he selected the BOT tab of the window and clicked on the “Launch Omninet” box.

            The loading sequence of the boy sitting on a stack of paper displayed as he pulled his goggles over his eyes. He sat and watched the animation play until the boy reached the top and climbed through the hole. The boy stood staring into the sky and the frame zoomed in until Alos could see the Omninet through 0rnj.

            Alos opened his contact list and sent Big Beastin a message asking where they should meet in the Green District. Instantly, a message was sent back which read “I’m in the shopping center, by the Jenkin’s code shop.”

            0rnj had connected in the green district, not too far from the designated meeting place. He walked down the main street towards a row of tall buildings. Each building had its own brand name, each usually with an associated logo plastered over and over around the building in an attempt to advertise. All of the buildings were in tight rows, one after the other, all along the main street each being owned, managed, and ran by massive corporations. The main street, which was typically crowded with low functionality basic BOTs, was sparse today.

            As 0rnj came into the shopping center of the main street, he could see his friend, Big Beastin', down at the end. Big Beastin' was a dwarf of a BOT in comparison to 0rnj, being about half 0rnj’s height but about twice as wide. He had typical humanoid features, with the exception of his head and left arm. His left arm appeared to be a normal typical humanoid arm with a hand at the end, but Alos knew from experience that this was an illusion. Underneath the false image of the hand, was a spike, sharp enough to split a hair.

            His head, or lack thereof, held a similar story. It appeared as though he had a typical rounded humanoid head atop his shoulders, but this was also just a graphical illusion. In reality there was nothing of data substance there. Like 0rnj, his means of perception came from a large sensor, but since he technically had no head, Big Beastin’s sensor was at the center of his torso.

            Underneath Big Beastin’s feet, there was a silver disk, about as wide as his body in radius. The disk levitated off of the ground, tilting to fly him around wherever he wanted to go. The disk was a part of his body and similar to how the ball traveled up 0rnj’s arm, Alos suspected Big Beastin’s disk could travel to any part of his body that he commanded. This was always unconfirmed though because while Alos was pretty sure Big Beastin' could walk, he had never seen him get off his disk.

            Big Beastin' saw 0rnj down the street and started gliding towards him. As he levitated down the street, he bumped into a few other BOTs along the way, clearly knocking into them but being too small to even be noticed. Alos laughed at the irony of the BOT's name.

            “Hey 0rnj, guess what? I got cloning for 12.” Big Beastin' said flexing his right arm.

            “What does that even mean?” Alos said through 0rnj. “Nevermind that now, you need to see this.”

            Alos pulled up his contact list and dragged the image file of the mysterious stranger onto Big Beastin’s name. The file sent, and gave Alos a confirmation message.

            “OH MY GOD! What is that!?” Big Beastin said, staggering back in disgust.

            “That was at my house earlier.” Alos responded,  gagging at the thought of the man's face.

            “THAT was at your house?” Why?”

            “I have no idea. I was hoping you could help. I’ve already used the image to search and found nothing.”

            “What kind of information are you looking for exactly?”

            “Well I was hoping for a name at the very least. Work title and associates would be good too. My parents were talking to him, and when they saw me come up, the guy flew off and my parents acted like nothing happened. More than a little suspicious if you ask me.”

            Big Beastin’s right hand stretched up to his head, scratching the back. It must have been a subconscious habit, because he did this quite frequently and every time without realizing it.

            “Let me run a search real quick to see if I can find anything.” Big Beastin' said.

            Alos sat for a few minutes in the same place with 0rnj, waiting for Big Beastin' to come back. He sat thinking about the man, and more specifically his cloak. Why was he wearing a cloak on such a warm evening? It had to be at least eighty five degrees out with enough humidity to bathe in. It could have only been to conceal his face, there was no other discernible reason. Though, concealing THAT face, that wretched, zombie-like, cantankerous face, that was too difficult even for such a draping cloak.

            Big Beastin' stood up and then said, “Yeah I got nothing. The results came back with zilch.”

            “That’s what I figured.”

            Alos’ lips tightened and his face scrunched up in disappointment. He was hoping his friend would have more success than he. The thought of trying another search crossed Alos' mind but it seemed a moot point. Alos began to stroke his chin, trying to think of a way he could find the information.

            Then, Big Beastin' snapped his fingers with sudden insight, like a light bulb just popped on over his head. He glided back and forth with nervous staggering in front of 0rnj for a few moments, then said,

            “Hack into your parents’ computer.”

            Alos’ jaw dropped, causing 0rnj’s sensor to contort into a graphic of a stretched rhombus. The idea was so obvious, yet it had never even occurred to him. If there was information to be found about their involvement with this man it would definitely be in their computer database. The consequences of getting caught going through his parents’ files though would be severe to say the least. His parents were involved with the government and probably held classified data. If he was caught looking through that, his parents' punishment would be the least of his worries.

            His mouth opened, and he was about to ask Big Beastin' if he understood the gravity of the matter but stopped himself when he realized he would be somewhat revealing who his parents were, and through that, who he was. He felt stuck between a rock and a hard place.

            “Are there any other ways you can think of to get me info on that guy?” Alos asked, hopefully.

            “Not that I can think of. All we have to work with is that picture, and if it isn’t providing results, searching is pretty much useless. I’d say this is your only bet.” Big Beastin' shrugged and then continued, “So some gruesomely ugly guy was at your house talking to your parents, I’m sure it’s not that big of a deal anyways.”

            “I don’t think you understand, my parents are involved with the government, and I can almost guarantee that guy was not supposed to be there.” Alos figured he could let on about his parents being involved with the government without specifying who his parents really were.

            “I could see how that would make things more difficult.” Big Beastin' said empathetically. “Well if your parents are involved with the government and that guy wasn’t supposed to be there, it might be worth it to see how he's involved with your parents. It could effect you in the long run.”

            Alos didn’t want to get involved in anything; especially if it was regarding corruption. Politicians weren’t exactly known for their loyalty or strength of character and his family consisted of some of the biggest politicians around. Still, Alos knew that if his parents were involved in some sort of malicious activity, it would eventually come back to bite him in the ass, particularly if it was politic related. Sure the consequences would be bad if he was caught, but there was no way they could be worse than getting caught up in whatever his parents were involved in, assuming they were involved in anything at all. That was the hard part, Alos had no way of knowing whether his parents were involved in some sort of scheme, not without diving in.

            Alos stared blankly, his eyes glazed over.

            “My parents are going to be gone tomorrow,” said Alos. “I’ll send you a message before I do it.”

            Big Beastin’s artificial head stretched its face into a wide arrogant smirk.

            “Let me know if you need my help.”