Chapter 2: Plug In
"Brother, your back early!" Madi, short for Madison. Was Ayden's thirteen year old sister. She had brown hair matching her brother's, but her eyes were green compared to his hazel eyes. She was short, around five foot one inch, but she was still in her growing phase. Adyen was six foot one and had a decent build, but that meant nothing when you added in cybernetics. Cybernetics went beyond human strength.
Cybernetics could do more than just replace an arm or an eye. It could replace your entire body if you so choose to become a full cyborg. It was heavily regulated, but it was something that many have slowly moved towards since it would mean eternal life. But this did not change human behavior. Humans were still human, after all.
Madi ran forward and hugged her brother. Out of everyone in the world, she loved her older brother the most. He was her world, and she would do whatever he asked because he worked so hard and sacrificed everything for her. Ayden might not think she knows everything he does for her, but she does. She knows just now how hard he works and how much he goes without so she can have her current lifestyle.
"Brother, why are you home so early? I thought you would not come home until the regular time. I was going to cook dinner for you tonight." Madi pursed her lips as she backpedaled on her feet and looked at her brother with a bright smile.
"Some things happened. Don't worry about it. How was school?" Ayden asked as he took off his jacket and hung it up. He decided not to worry her over losing his job. He walked over to the far side of the living room, where he had a small table set up to work on things, and placed the headset down.
"The same~ Amanda got the highest score on the test today and beat me by half a point. I was kinda upset about that, but it was my own fault because I missed a single comma in one of my sentences… Sometimes I type too fast and end up making such small mistakes!
"Anyway! Brother, make sure you eat well today. If you don't eat, you won't have the energy to make it through the day. You already work so hard…." Madi looked at her brother while pouting her lower lip. She wished her brother did not have to work so hard. This was why she was willing to work hard in school to make sure when she graduated, she could get a good job and take care of her brother in the future!
"Don't worry. I get plenty of food intake." Ayden replied with a smile before continuing: "About your tests, instead of turning it in quickly, just take an extra minute or two to check over everything. I know you do the tests fast but being first to hand it in is not as important as getting everything correct."
"I know! I learned my lesson. Although I am friends with Amanda, she always has this cocky look when she gets a higher score than me. It makes me want to trampler all over her next time!" Madi pumped her fists in the air as if showing fighting spirit, which Ayden chuckled at, but he seemed to have missed the flash of light that streaked across her eyes.
The two siblings chatted for most of the night. Madi spent as much time with her brother as she could before having to go to sleep. Only then did Ayden move to his small workshop table. Their small apartment was all metal walls and pipes that ran across them. The sound of running water could be heard running through them at all times. The living room had a broken couch with no legs that Ayden found on the side of the road and cleaned up. A holo tv he had fixed up so his sister would have some entertainment and keep up with the current trends.
They also had a small refurbished computer he had found and repaired. It was an older model, but it was fine for looking things up on the cybernet. Cybernet was the replacement for the internet. Cybernet was free since it was how everyone stayed connected, and it flowed through the entire world. Anyone who had a port could connect to it if they had the right cybernetics. Otherwise, you had to use a computer or a mobile to stay connected.
Ports were installed at birth, so it was rare for anyone not to have one, but to have anything beyond that was another story. While some cybernetics only cost a few hundred credits, it was still a lot for Ayden to afford. He had been saving up what he could to have his sister's eyes replaced so she could freely connect to the cybernet like the other kids, but even just saving up seven hundred credits was hard for him.
After their parents passed, Ayden dedicated his life to giving his sister a future. His only wish was for her to be able to have a bright future and live a good life and not end up like many of the girls he sees on the side of the road who are doped up on cycraze. Kind of nanobot that, when injected, puts you into a fantasy world. People affected by said drug will go into a blank state where they will not even know what is happening to them, and it is highly addictive.
"This goes here…. And this…. Oh? This connection seems to be loose." Ayden messed with the headset until he finally got to a point where it seemed everything was fixed. "Let's try it out…. Hopefully, it won't fry. I did replace a few things."
He put the headset on and plugged it into his port, and switched it on. The name Central Labs flashed across his eyes before the screen went black. "Did I miss something?" He was just about to pull the headset off when the screen flashed once more, and the world around him changed to a white room with a lot of menus. "Good, it worked!"
Ayden was quite excited. If he could really make money while sleeping while he searched for a day job, he would definitely do it since it would really boost his baby sister's life. She could maybe even get a few cybernetics. This thought alone was enough drive for him to work even harder. That day when he saw his father for the last time before he passed away, his father asked him on his deathbed to take good care of Madison. It was a promise he would keep for a lifetime.
"Alright, what's next? Calibration, it seems…. Let's do this and then download the game those people were talking about. I think it was called CyPunk Online….."
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone