Strangers and Soldiers (Book Two of The Upgrade Trilogy)

Do Big Things

TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide is mentioned in this chapter. Read at your own risk.

The next three days were the longest days of my life. I can barely remember how I made it through them without losing it.

On the first day, thinking nobody would want to see me, I stayed at the Penthouse, and pretended to be sick.

"Are you sure you're not feeling well?" Lola asked me, concerned.

"Honestly? I feel awful." I lied. A part of me hated lying to her, but I didn't want to go out in public until I had this mystery of my hundred-year-coma solved. "But don't worry about me, Lola. I'll be fine."

Her eyes were full of pity. "Okay, but just call me if you need anything, okay?"

I nodded slowly. "Thanks, Lola."

That day, I spent researching what I'd missed out on in the past century. It was a lot, but I'll simplify it:

In 2056, invented by a man named Dennis Oppenheimer, something called the WorldBrain came into existence. It was used by all people, so instead of using cellular devices, they could connect using their thoughts. This technique was called The Link, and pretty much everything was named after it. LinkTunes, LinkPad, LinkPhone, Linkapedia, et cetea, et cetera.

I also discovered a few percent of people followed a religion known as Strakerism. Strakerism was the belief that the story a guy named Kyle Straker made, which had to do with aliens creating humanity, was true. In order to understand that a bit more, I had to download the story for myself. It took me a full hour to read the story through, and when I did, it all came crashing down on me.

That night, the night of the campout I attended with Trevor and his girlfriend, was the night a human Upgrade happened. It affected every human on the planet, except a small few that were known as the 0.4. Everyone else was referred to as a 1.0.

That meant I was a 1.0.

Right?

Yet, in the back of my mind, that didn't seem to add up completely. I knew it should've, but that didn't explain why I'd been passed out for a hundred years, and why I'd called myself a "hybrid" in front of Mrs. Wilberton. Unless I was some strange mixture of both 0.4 and 1.0, which I doubted was the case, I should've died a long time ago.

So why was I still alive?

The second day, I spent looking up information about Strakerites. I discovered they had a meeting prepared, and according to hours of hacking (thank you, hours spent searching up hacks and coding for Minecraft), the date of the meeting was....in exactly a week. Their location, well, that's classified, but it was somewhere walking distance from the Penthouse.

I also tested my Link Diary.

File: 127/22/00/fgh

Source: LinkData\LinkDiary\Ethan_Macknamara\Personal

<LinkDiary On>

Is-is this thing on?

I can't tell.

Am I just supposed to think what I want written on this diary?

Yes?

Okay.

My name is Ethan. I'm eighteen years old, and I live in The Penthouse. I used to have a girlfriend named Tess, but by now, she's probably dead.

What else is there to say?

Oh yeah. Just two days ago, I woke up from a coma that lasted a hundred years. Don't know how I'm still alive, but yeah.

<LinkDiary Off>

The LinkDiary was nice, but I'd never been much of a journalist or a writer, so it wasn't exactly my style.

The third day, I actually went back to the hospital I'd woken up in, in order to gain more understanding of the world now. It brought me a feeling of nostalgic, being back there, even though it had only been three days.

Let's just say I didn't find anything of interest there.

That night, as Wendy, Lola, Gordon and I were about to return home, they took a detour.

"Uh, guys." I spoke up. "Where are we going?"

Wendy gave me a look. "Tyrone Van-Padilla's concert. Remember?"

Of course! The concert! How could I have forgotten?!

"Four, please." Lola blinked four times, as a signal of sending four LinkDollars to the cashier.

The cashier didn't even look at us. "Have a good show."

And a good show we were about to have, indeed.

-----

It was as we were taking our seats that everything took a turn for the worse.

There were three guys sitting in front of us, and we were near the front, thanks for asking, that had been talking smack about Tyrone. And I, being the idiot that I am, had to eavesdrop.

"...Dude, can you believe how many girls come to these things?" One of the guys snickered. "Tyrone Van-Padilla freaking sucks."

One of his friends nodded in agreement. "Only twelve-year-olds go to his concerts. Everyone else must be dumb or something."

"Tyrone Van-Padilla should kill himself." The third said, which led to his friends bursting out laughing.

"How is that funny?!"

It took a split second too long to figure out who that came from: me.

All three guys turned around, and glared directly at me.

"...The hex did you just stay?!" The guy in the center snapped.

I should've apologized. I should have taken back what I said, and never opened my mouth ever again.

But I didn't. Something inside me turned on, like a switch. Suddenly, I felt my dark side come to the front of my brain, the side that nobody wanted to see.

"I said, that's not funny." The words came out of my mouth like someone else was inside me. "How dare you think suicide is a joke?! Do you know how many Americans commit it?! Let's see, 30,000 individuals, per year!"

"Ethan, sit down!" Wendy, who had given off the tough attitude for as long as I'd known her, looked panicked. "You can't talk to those guys like that! You can't-"

All I had to do, was glare at her, and she sat down and shut up.

I returned my attention to the guys sitting in front of us, not realizing how many people were watching. "You think you're real cool, don't you?! Well guess what, you're not! You can't come to a concert if all you do is hate on an artist, and laugh about how great you are for saying he should kill himself! Do you how many people would be, broken if he really did it?! All his family, all his friends, and every single one of his 'twelve-year-old fans'! AND IT WOULD BE ALL YOUR FAULT!!!"

There was silence.

The next thing I knew, the guy in the center had grabbed be by the collar. "Nobody speaks to me like that, you whiny little bitch." He growled.

With little breath left, I muttered back to him: "I do."

And I grabbed his shoulders, pushed, and shut my eyes tight.

I felt myself being dropped, as I felt faint. I heard a scream, but didn't want to look.

"You killed him. You-you killed him."

I opened my eyes nervously, scared of what I was going to see.

The friends of the guy who had picked me up were staring at me with big eyes. To my left, Lola was in tears, and Gordon and Wendy were comforting her. Girls were screaming, and fleeing the concert hall.

On the stage, yes I pushed him that far, lay the body of the man who'd called me a bitch. Blood was pouring from his head, and onto the stage.

He was dead as a doornail.

I had killed him.