"Be well," Traveler and the room faded to black, but Devin did not notice. He continued staring into the cube and the incredible amount of data within. It was like a warm fire, which he huddled around, browsing its contents.
"Hey!" Devin jumped at the instant message alert. He was running invisible mode to avoid distractions, but BlackSheep was well aware of Devin's anonymous browsing habits. He needed a break from his new toy, so hitting the "Accept" button came without much thought.
The connection established and BlackSheep popped into existence before him. He smiled at the anime-style cartoon girl with big-brown eyes, pigtails, wearing a catholic schoolgirl uniform, and accessorized with a nose ring, tribal tattoos, and lace stockings. This was BlackSheep's avatar.
"Wanna play a game of chess?" her doll pirouetted and gently flapped her arms. Devin blushed awkwardly at this.
Anonymous avatar, he reminded himself, and cognitively slowed down his accelerated heartbeat.
"Sure," he replied and logged into the game room to meet her waiting at the table she had loaded.
BlackSheep held out two cartoon mitten hands. "Left," Devin said and she opened the pouty fist to reveal a white pawn.
"Devin takes offense!" she announced as he pushed the king's pawn forward two spaces.
Devin dug BlackSheep's style. Her base-stats were 24y.o. SWF residing in Toronto whose interests were limited to music and chess. He was terrible, however enthusiastic concerning the latter, and all he knew about the former he'd learned from her. For whatever reason, she enjoyed his company, and maybe that was his reason for enjoying hers. She was easy-going, without hang-ups. BlackSheep simply didn't give a $#!+.
Devin stared at the knight BlackSheep casually added to the mix. The slight snicker she let escape as she set the piece let Devin know there was an advanced scheme at work here, and he set himself to deciphering it. So much of chess was foresight; how many moves a player could see into the future before the variables grew too many, chaos theory set in, and unpredictability reigned. If he took her pawn, she would take his with the second pawn, which he would take with a knight, which she would take with the bishop, then they would exchange knights, and he would have to bring out his queen to even the pieces-
"WHO'S FLATLINE?" Devin's instant messenger raged, wrecking his train of thought. He instinctively blocked the user as if it were a spammer and swallowed uncomfortably.
"I want to know who your friend is!" the voice roared inside Devin's head, overriding his block. Before he could react, a connection established, banishing BlackSheep and the game room. Devin found himself face to face with a hunch-back of a cyborg bristling with saws, claws, and guns.
A vise-grip clamped down on Devin, rendering his web-navigation inoperable. The cyborg's neck telescoped out from its metal body and one eye extended from the half-human, half-robot head, scrutinizing Devin's disembodied eyeball. The human half of the cyborg's mouth smiled, revealing toothless gums and strands of saliva.
When it spoke, a chorus of harmonized artificial voices came out, "I slaved over that dungeon for two years. Then that mutant-mutt comes along and corrupts it so badly I can't even restore from my back-ups! My employers need to know who to sue."
"So look him up," Devin snapped, and considered the word employers. This guy was a vectorialist.
Daggers stabbed Devin's brain through his eyes as the cyborg overrode the VR helmet's display safeties, blasting him with stunning light. "Don't you dare pull it off!" the chorus warned and Devin's hands froze to either side of his head. "I've got your system pegged and I'll fry it all inside out."
Devin's mind went right to the newly acquired Library of Congress and his hands fell to his sides, "You'd go to prison."
"The company lawyers wouldn't allow that," saws, claws, and drills darted and danced before Devin's eyes. He noted an Iron Fist logo on one arm subtitled "Clan War Machine," "What's Flatline's name?"
"I never looked it up," Devin said truthfully, "I only know him by handle. You're a vectorialist. You've got the connections, the software, the corporate sponsorship," he spat this last out in disgust. "Why don't you find him yourself?"
The pressure was off and Devin could navigate once again. "He's completely anonymous. It's impossible," the cyborg said, suddenly tired. "He'll try this crap again and I'll be there to get him. I'm on to his technique. You just watch yourself Devin Matthews in Norfolk, Virginia."
Then Devin was in the chess room again, BlackSheep staring at him with one eye quirked, "What the hell wazzat?" she practically squawked.
"Huh?" Devin shook his head and looked at her dumbly.
"Your avatar just dropped dead! It was freaky. I've never seen that before." The doll stood up on her chair to leer over the board at him, "Are you okay? You're voice is a little fuzzy."
Devin nodded, "I think I just got schooled by a vectorialist."
"A vectorialist?" BlackSheep exclaimed. "You mean like 'corporate sponsorship,' let's-see-how-many-lawyers-we-can-cram-up-your-butt vectorialist? What'd you do to peeve off one of those?"
"I didn't do anything," Devin raised his hands defensively, a gesture his avatar could not replicate. "A friend of mine trashed the guy's server."
"That's not smart," Blacksheep stated.
"I think you mean that's not wise," Devin corrected. "It was very smart."
"You be careful with that crowd. Elite hackers have a high turnover rate," BlackSheep warned.
"Yeah," Devin smiled to himself and tried to sound nonchalant, "I'm watching out for myself."
"Uh-huh," she sounded skeptical; "We can finish the game another time. It's way past my bedtime, which means it's time for you to be getting ready for school."
Devin checked the clock, "Dammit! I forgot to go to sleep again!" He logged out without saying goodbye.
"Up! Up! Up!" three claps accompanied Devin's mother's command, jolting him upright. He paused there, eyes swollen shut, feet dangling over the bed's edge. His breathing labored with the exhaustion of having fallen asleep only an hour earlier.
"Whu-?" he moaned before she yanked him to his feet and marched him downstairs to the dinning room.
"You were up all night again weren't you?" she accused, dropping a steaming bowl of fruit and whole grains down in front of him with a clatter. "I'm going to find some new cyber-nanny software."
"Mmpf-" Devin swallowed a spoonful of fruit and cereal, "I'll just bypass that too."
His mother shook her head and turned away to get some coffee, "You've got your father's intelligence, but you don't have his data. Everyone he worked with was smart, but he was the most valuable when the agency privatized. All of that proprietary data in his head is what got us all of this."
"And the cheapskate still won't buy me an SDC," Devin muttered.
"You're not responsible enough Devin," she said, sipping from her mug. "You'd lose yourself in one of those things, forget to eat and sleep. Kids your age have died in them."
"Hmpf," Devin frowned. "Then you guys could at least increase my allowance. I ran out of music before midnight."
"Learn to budget," his mother stated unsympathetically.
"People didn't have to pay each time they wanted to watch a movie or listen to a song in the past," Devin said. "It was called the 'right of first purchase.'"
"People also paid a lot of money for that one song or movie," his mother countered. "They were called CDs and DVDs. They took up space and you were limited to your own collection. Now you have everything at your fingertips. So what if you have to pay for each experience?"
"We don't have everything," Devin scoffed. "We have what our service providers allow us access to. A different provider has different movies, music, and games.