Book Excerpt - - - Friends' Advice

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     Matt is bored with his social media friends and is trying to lighten Santos’s mood by texting, “How’s your enhanced homework? Mine rocks against the hard place.” Santos is his hacker friend and fellow Clubmate.

     He surfs around for new drone videos until Santos finally texts back, “It’s too easy until I have to memorize stuff, but now I’ve got lots more time to code.”

     “That same break-in multitool? You should have Snipe write it for you.” Snipe is Santos’s digital assistant.

     “Snipe can’t do this. It’s too creative. I’m assembling a call-in skillset and it takes imagination.”

     “That does sound like fun. Don’t miss school assignments?”

     “I like the test preps.” Besides managing their texts, their assistants are curating their schoolwork.

     “Duke gives me a good rundown, but it’s been on a morality kick lately.” Duke is Matt’s digital assistant.

     “You need it.”

     “No, it wants to know why we have strict rules but then nobody follows them. Why some people always get away with stuff. And about free will. Makes my head hurt. Go to voice?”

     Santos sounds distracted, “Like I said. You should pay attention to any advice you can get,” then he sounds closer, “Ha! Hey Duke, how’s he doing? I mean really. Is he cleaning up his act?”

     Duke drawls, “Keep in mind, due process is a bullet!” This gets a quick chuckle.

     Santos presses, “What do you say to a guy who’s on the wrong track?” He makes it sound like the beginning to a joke.

     John Wayne (Duke, when it plays-up its namesake persona) says, “Hey, stupid! Where do you think you're going? Get back there with the herd, you muttonhead!”

     Matt cuts in, “Okay, American hero. That’s enough personality.”

     “Duke, we need to make Matt funny again,” Santos’s wry comment holds an edge, and Matt stops as if he had seen a light flashing in a dream.

     “Hey buddy, you there?”

     “Uh. Yeah.”

     “You sound like Marcus when I wake him up.”

     Pause. “You think I’ve been off base?”

     “Quite a bit. We’re trying to swim through the shit and you’re stirring it up.” Santos’s tone softens, “What’s been eating you?” He lets it hang there.

     “You should tell him,” Duke says just in Matt’s phone.

     “Uh...” Matt’s mind wants to spin and he finds himself blurting, “Yeah. I’m an asshole. Even I don’t like hearing myself,” before he can censor himself.

     Santos makes noises of agreement, and Matt continues, “It’s just so... frustrating. The kind of people that get ahead. Having to kiss their ass.”

     “Those are the people who deserve to get hacked.”

     “Well, I just... hafta do something. Don’t let `em get away with it. Whatever it takes...”

     “Ya gotta give it time.” Santos sighs heavily. “You’re all wound up, wanting to kill `em yesterday, when the rest of us are busy figuring it out today, so we can get the upper hand tomorrow.” He likes the sound of it. I should write this shit down.

     Matt just snorts, thinking about the Duke-ism, ‘Tomorrow hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.’

     Santos continues, “You’re messing it up with your lady. Hit the reset.” His impatience comes through. “Now that we’ve got the really hot data,” with management’s email encryption finally broken, “Let it filter out for a while. With Marisa, use your time to...” have a girlfriend.

     “Kiss and make up?”

     “Show her you’re one of the good guys... The nice guys. Right now, even you don’t like you.” Well that’s honest. Santos grunts nervously, leans forward and wiggles his workstation’s cursor to keep the Unicode window up on his right screen. “Er, uh, I’m in the middle of a debugging treasure hunt right now...” Then he has inspiration. “You should get ahold of Nate. Now there’s a guy who knows how to dish out the crap, keep together with his women, and have fun. The band’s in town, right?”

          <~~~>          <~~~>          <~~~>          <~~~>          <~~~>

     Nate is easy to reach on a weeknight. “Hey Matt. How’s that important busy life going?”

     Ugh. He sounds like Mister Vacation. “Oh, the usual. School, politics, wrasslin’ bad guys.”

     “So I hear. You have a reputation.” Nate makes it clear this is not a good thing, then lightens up with a bad Cuban accent, “You got some ‘splainin’ to do.”

     This is worse than Santos. “Yeah. Well, about that. I know I’ve been jumping the gun a bit, maybe being kinda pushy about it.”

     “People are lined up waiting for an apology. Of course never apologize, just give ground. Bend with their viewpoint and they’ll get over it.” When Nate’s brother pisses his dad off, he gets out of it by agreeing with everything the old man says, and soon they’re buddies again. Nate laughs, “You’ve got some sucking up to do.”

     “Maybe I have lost perspective...” And everybody’s saying the same thing.

“Yeah. You catch on quick.” Finally, dumbass. “Hey, you are coming to see the band... Invite all those friends you’ve been pissing off. I’ll give you passes. It’s an early pre-show... Sending it now.” Nate speaks with a pleasant confidence Matt didn’t know he was capable of.

     “He’s changed,” Matt says later, when Marisa accepts his call. “Like, more settled down.”

     “My dad says that he’s good to work with. ‘Helpful and sharp.’” She stays tentative, but they are talking.

     “Uh... and... maybe I should settle down, a bit, too,” the last stumbles out of him. “Uh, you have a point, and maybe we should let the Unifly stuff play out.” There’s silence. “We really did win last time, but now maybe we should... Get ahead of them more? Before bringing it down.”

     “Char? What do you think?” Char is Marisa’s digital assistant.

     “He’s apologizing. You could accept, but keep an eye on him.”

     Matt flares, “I’m not apologizing,” then quickly pulls back, “Maybe it would be better to let it build for a while.” He hears Nate’s offhand tone in his head, “And besides, maybe you’re right. We could make use of Unifly while we’re there. Maybe make a name for ourselves...”

     Char tells her, “He’s said ‘maybe’ half a dozen times,” and Marisa sighs.

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