Chapter 4
Zen
I sit on my bike and watch until the door closes behind Lexi, and I know she’s home safe. Although she’s the prettiest woman I’ve ever met, and we actually have tons of stuff in common, at twenty-one she’s way too young for me. She’s also emotionally vulnerable from the loss of her father a few months back.
After dropping her off, I try to put her out of my mind as I ride home. She’s just a woman, and there are dozens of them in my world ready to jump onto my cock at a moment’s notice. I don’t need the one who’s too young and still recovering from the trauma of losing her father to a violent death—even if she’s the most amazing woman I’ve ever met, and we have tons in common.
I make a concerted effort to focus on all the positive things in my life. A nice night ride was foremost among them. The night air is crisp, and the crescent moon is lighting my way like a beacon. As my tires eat up the road, all I can think about is how lucky I am to be living my best life. I park in the back of my shop and enter through the back.
My computer repair shop is set up on three levels. The shop is on the first floor, my apartment is on the second floor, and a couple of friends of mine reside in the basement. They get free rent and a decent wage for working in my shop in exchange for keeping an eye on the place when I’m out on Legion business. They’re pretty good at repairs but I pitch in during the evenings and most weekends to handle the more complex jobs. Walter and Rob are outstanding human beings.
Exhausted, I head right upstairs to my apartment because the repair shop has been closed for several hours. My apartment is modern to the point of being futuristic. There’s motion-activated strip lighting running around the top and bottom of my walls. I made sure the large windows offer a good view of the night sky and the city lights.
My living room is a more elaborate version of my office at the Savage Legion’s clubhouse. I have a huge curved monitor taking up space along one wall, with three curved monitors above and below my big screen. My gaming chair is a leather, zero-gravity cockpit-type chair that vibrates to ease tension after a long, hard day. I have the best desktop computer that money can buy. It’s a tricked-out beast of my own making.
But that’s where most of the magic stops. The rest of my apartment is just sleek, modern, run-of-the-mill furnishings in muted grays, black, and white. It comes off as a techie’s mancave, which is kind of what I intended when I created it.
I grab an energy drink from my fridge and drop down into my gaming chair. While my club brothers party their asses off through the night, I usually spend my time online engaged in all kinds of virtual work. I’ve always been a guy who believes in hustling so I can be flush with cash. I like nice things, and I like working online. It’s another one of those win-win situations.
I fire up my desktop and jump into the digital world I love so much. The moment I log in under my personal screen name instead of my professional one, friends start reaching out to me. My handle is Architect because I like building up things and people rather than tearing them down, like so many other gamers. I remember being disgusted by GamerGate and did everything humanly possible to tamp down the discord.
My first message of the night says:
Architect, where have you been? I’ve been waiting on you to sign on.
It’s a message from a newbie gamer wanting to suck my brain dry again about the World of Wonders game, the most difficult virtual reality game ever invented. It isn’t even a real game sold in stores. It’s something hacked together to challenge the human mind’s ability to extrapolate and apply digital information, make us reconsider everything we thought we knew about ethics, and rethink our understanding of physics.
The questions begin coming hard and fast, each with a cash offer beside it. People offer me money for answering their questions—not a lot, but enough to make it a worthwhile way to earn some extra cash. I’ve been making money in a variety of ways since my college days, and I try never to leave money on the table.
What’s with the second quest?
I thought I knew right from wrong but now I’m not so sure.
I can’t get past the AI guardian on level twelve. Bruh, this is a mind fuck.
How do I unlock the alternate reality feature?
Do I need to study fucking quantum physics to play this game?
Did you design the game or design an AI who in turn designed the game?
Why the fuck is this game such a mind-bender?
I chuckle to myself at how desperate my online friends and acquaintances are to find the answers to their queries. They’re all so close yet so far away, and the program wouldn’t allow them to proceed without learning the grisly lesson they’re meant to learn every step of the way.
I start answering their questions as I perform the normal operations of my day. I check my personal emails, take a peek at my social media, check my crypto accounts, and skim the news.
Before long, I’m getting pulled into several games at once. Players want me to help raid castles, solve riddles, and fight the AI bosses. I do the best I can. With each job I complete, my cash app button jingles as another happy customer makes their payment. I get the easy jobs out of the way and double down on the more complex ones, like test-driving a new game, creating a bot to track clicks on a newly emerging product, and giving reviews on how authentic AI interactions are on a particular platform. By the time I’m finished with all the paid jobs and my energy drink, I don’t have much juice left in my tank.
That’s when I get a text message from my sister.
Lori: Cody, I need to talk to you right away.
It’s hard to tell much from a text message, but she sounds tense.
Me: I’m pretty wiped out. Can this wait until morning?
Lori: Okay.
Me: How about I stop by in the morning, and we can talk it over at breakfast?
Lori: No. It’s something personal. I don’t want mom and dad to hear.
Me: Alright. I’ve got to get up really early. Set your alarm for six in the morning and we’ll go for a drive somewhere.
Lori: That sounds perfect, bro. Thanks.
I close my phone and crash out on the bed, kicking off only my shoes. After tossing and turning, I can’t get comfortable, so I pull off my shirt and jeans. That helps tremendously.
Concerns and worries plague me as I tumble off to sleep. I hope whatever was going on with my little sister doesn’t turn out to be too serious. Unable to sleep, I worry that she’s being bullied, ended up unexpectedly pregnant, or has decided to take a gap year after getting into Stanford University.
That last one would be the worst. I could put a quick stop to any bullying and support a medical solution if that’s what she wanted to deal with an unwanted pregnancy, but mom and dad would absolutely lose their everlovin’ minds if she didn’t end up at that prestigious university she got into. Stanford wasn’t one of the twelve universities recognized as Ivy League, but it was referred to as the Ivy League of the West for a reason. It was certainly not an opportunity to be passed up.
I don’t want her to go through what I went through when I dropped out of Cal Tech. Our parents became incredibly focused on my future to the point of becoming overwhelming. I finally had to threaten to go low contact to get them to ease up and allow me to find my own path in life. I didn’t want that kind of stress for Lori. She’s only eighteen and has a bright future ahead of her.
***
I drive to my parents’ house at the crack of dawn the next morning and find Lori standing outside, waiting anxiously for me. I slow down and pull over right in front of her. Lori rushes forward, opens the passenger side door and jumps into my vehicle, the one I brought both because it was freezing outside and because we couldn’t have a nice talk with her on the back of my bike due to the loudness of the motor.
The second she’s safely inside, I ask, “Are you safe? Did someone threaten or hurt you? If they did, I’ll have a conversation with them.”
“No, it’s nothing like that.”
I pull away, and start driving. “Is someone bullying you? Are you pregnant or dropping out of college before you even get started?”
“Jesus, no! It’s nothing like that. To be honest it’s worse.”
“What could possibly be worse than not getting to go to college?”
“You’re red hot. Not getting to go to college is the right answer, but it’s not because I want to quit.”
“What is it then?” I can’t imagine what might keep her out of college after managing to get into such a good one. Giving her the side-eye, I ask, “Did you flunk your senior year?”
“No, of course not. I’ve been doing odd jobs online for years and have pretty much saved every penny for my college education.”
“The fuck? Mom and Dad said they have your college fund covered.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, they do — if they withdraw over half out of both of their retirement accounts.” Her eyes tear up, “I don’t want them to do that.”
I turn the situation over in my mind. My parents both have good jobs, and they paid for my first semester of college. I wouldn’t say they were relieved when I dropped out after one semester, but they were quick to point out the benefits of community college and learning through internships. Shit, that makes sense now. They had over-promised on being able to afford college and were robbing their retirement accounts to make good on those promises.
It occurs to me to wonder how she could have saved so much money. Tuition at Stanford was upwards of sixty-five grand a year including books. “How the hell could you afford tuition? What was your plan for college?”
Without batting an eye, she explains, “I got a partial scholarship that pays half of my tuition every semester for as long as I keep my grades up. They offered me a work-study job, but I turned it down because my current online work pays better. I know college classes will be harder than high school classes. I have to make every hour count. I figured that if I needed to pick up extra money I could always scramble around online for extra cash.”
Now she had my attention. My kid sister had better not be selling feet pics or have an OnlyFans account. That was a no-go for me. I get my emotions under control and ask, “What is it exactly that you do online?”
She stares at me for a brief second before replying, “You know, whatever makes money.”
“No, I don’t know. I know what I do to make money online and I’m pretty sure you don’t do IT stuff like me.”
She snorts a laugh, “Heck no, that’s not my specialty. I do a bunch of stuff. I try to focus on what takes the least amount of time for the biggest payout.” Sighing, she continues, “I have monetized social media accounts for Angel.”
“Wait, is that why you put your cat in all those stupid outfits and take a million pictures of her?”
“Yeah, why else would I waste time primping my cat? I mean, she’s a long-haired beauty, adorable, and loves the attention, but for me it’s just a way of spoiling my cat and earning a tidy bit of change each month.”
When I don’t answer, she adds, “I also make website themes, edit pictures, design flyers for local events, and find gigs for small time local entertainers and DJs for a cut of the proceeds. I have an OnlyFans, an online recipe book dedicated to copycat recipes and—”
“Stop,” I demand. Pulling the vehicle off the road, I tell her, “Go back to the OnlyFans.”
She rolls her eyes, “It’s an OnlyFans dedicated to ASMR videos.”
Fearing the worst, I ask, “What the fuck are ASMR videos?”
Her eyes go wide, and her eyebrows shoot up. I know this look. It’s the one she uses when she thinks her older brother has lost his fucking mind.
“Don’t look at me like that Cody! I can’t believe you’ve never heard of ASMR. It stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. Basically it’s something that happens to your body when you hear certain noises, like whispers and stuff. I record sounds and people pay to listen to them.”
“Are you being serious right now?” Her story seems absurd, but I can’t see my kid sister being provocative online either.
She pulls out her phone and shows me her page. “You should subscribe for doubting me.”
“Sure. It’s for a good cause,” I tell her, relieved she’s not doing nefarious things. “I’m still not sure the math is mathing, sis.”
“Trust me, it pays well,” she says.
“Okay, I’m almost sorry I asked because we’re getting off track here. If you’ve saved a bunch of money what’s the problem? Do you need any more? I might be able to help.”
Her face falls, “I lost all my savings. Someone stole the money.”
“How much are we talking about here?” I ask. Then add, “How was it stolen? Did you have it in a bank account or was it crypto?”
“I had a cool hundred grand in crypto, which combined with my partial scholarships and the money I normally earn online, would have been enough to get me through a four-year degree program, and maybe even through a master’s.”
“Tell me you used a cold wallet with a seed phrase?” I say. That’s the most secure way of storing offline with a recovery phrase of random words.
“Of course not. I used a soft wallet because I wanted my cryptocurrency to be accessible to me online.”
A feeling of dread rises in my chest—soft wallets carry a higher risk of being hacked. “Which soft wallet did you use?”
“I used CryptoLock. I did my research. It’s a very secure online storage wallet.”
Some of the anxiety twisting in my gut loosens. “You’re right, CryptoLock is pretty secure. What device did you use to set up the account?”
“My laptop. I brought it with me because I knew you would start by looking there first.” She unzips her backpack, pulls out her laptop and hands it to me.
“Is it okay if I keep this for a few days?”
She nods, “I have my old one that I can use for now.” Looking all kinds of anxious, she asks, “What do you think the chances of recovering my cryptocurrency are? I need that money to put with my scholarship to pay for my first semester of college within the next thirty days. If I miss my payment window, they will automatically disenroll me.”
“Don’t worry. Whatever you need for the first semester, I’ll cover. Just let me know and we’ll get it paid. It’ll buy us time to figure this out.”
Tears spring into her eyes, “Thanks, Cody. You’re the best big brother ever.”
“You know I make pretty good money now. Even if we don’t get your crypto back, I can still help you with your tuition.”
“That’s really nice of you, but after my scholarship and what I earn, I’m still short almost twenty grand a year.”
“That’s a lot of money, but I can definitely pay that if it comes down to it. Either way, you’re going to your dream college, and you don’t have to rely on Mom and Dad pulling money from their retirement to make it happen.”
Her hand comes up to rub at her chest. “This has been stressing me out to the point that I’ve been having chest pains.”
“We’d best get you to a doctor.”
Her head jerks up to stare at me with surprise. “No, bro. I don’t need a doctor. My chest hurts like I’m heartbroken, not like I’m having an actual heart attack or something. I just need my money back. I worked hard for that nest egg.”
“You sure about that? I only ask because this isn’t the time to zig when I should zag.”
“I promise you that I’m fine physically. I’m just freaking about losing most of the money I spent years earning.”
“Most?”
A ghost of a smile curls up the corners of her mouth. “I’ve always kept five grand in my savings account for emergencies, five hundred bucks in my underwear drawer, and another hundred bucks in the cash app I use. I’m not flat-ass busted as in I can’t buy myself a burger. I just can’t really afford college without relying on you or our parents unless I can recover my cryptocurrency. Plus it pisses me off to think of someone else frittering my money away on whatever the hell strikes their fancy. I want my money back and coming to you was my best chance of recovering it.”
I just shake my head. “Aren’t you a hard-working hustler, just like your older brother? I gotta say, you’ve got me beat when it comes to emergency money, you’ve really thought things through.”
She swallows thickly, “We went through a few hard years with our parents. All I know is that I don’t like feeling hungry and being too poor and helpless to do anything about it.”
“You know that it wasn’t their fault, right? Dad was out of work for a few years because of back surgeries and Mom really had to kick it into high gear to keep a roof over our heads.” I reach up to scratch the back of my neck. “I honestly thought you were too young to remember that.”
“All I remember is that Dad was in bed all the time, and when Mom was at work sometimes, I didn’t eat all day, you would take care of me when you got home from school.”
“I did the best I could under the circumstances,” I reply.
“My favorite days were the weekends, because you always made pancakes. Remember?”
Glancing away, I nod. What I don’t tell her is that pancake mix was cheap and easy for a fifteen-year-old to make.
“Look,” she says. “I’m not emotionally scarred by what went down back then, I understand it wasn’t neglect, and I never went properly hungry. I just don’t want to find myself in that situation again where I’m helpless. I’m a big girl who can fend for herself. The problem is, I don’t even know what I did wrong, so I can’t fix it in the future.”
“I get it. We’ll keep our focus on finding your crypto and worry about everything else later. Meanwhile, you need to contact your college and get the exact amount I need to pay and where I’m supposed to send it. Got it?”
She nods. “Yeah. And thanks for everything you’re doing to help me. I appreciate it more than you know.”
“I’m your big brother. I’d be insulted if you didn’t come to me first, especially with an IT-type problem.”
“If anyone can fix this, you can, bro.”
I have another question for her, “Did you ever share your seed phrase with anyone?”
“Of course not. I’m not an idiot.”
***
I mull over the situation as I drive her back home and then head to the clubhouse. Once I’m inside my office, I open her laptop. Her password is carefully printed out in neat handwritten letters on a Post-it note with the words ‘thank you’ underneath and her seed phrase for CryptoLock on another sticky note.
Once I boot up her laptop, I go straight to her online wallet and type in her seed phrase. Sure enough her wallet is empty. I begin a forensic analysis of her transactions. It looks like she’s been putting crypto in the wallet for years as a cushion. I honestly hadn’t thought she’d remember what life was like when she was a kid.
Memories of those dark times rise in my mind unbidden. Dad was flat on his back in bed, but he still looked out for Lori during the day. He’d read her books and they’d nap together. Mom was gone all the time and on the rare occasion I saw her, she was too exhausted to talk much. To say she was emotionally unavailable would be an understatement.
I remember dropping all my extracurriculars like chess club and debate club in high school so I could be there for Lori in the evenings and help dad with his daily living. It was hard. We had our cable turned off a bunch of times and even our electricity once. That’s when I started picking up online jobs, so I could earn money to help out and buy food. I’d go to the store and stock up on whatever was cheap and edible. I bought ten-pound bags of pancake mix, cheap syrup, ramen noodles, instant potatoes, canned veggies, hamburger, and hotdogs. I used to buy these big cartons of popsicles because they were cheap, and she considered them a real treat. Jesus, that seems like forever ago.
Lori stuck to me like glue when I came home after school. We’d watch cartoons in the living room while I worked online. I was young and moving too fast to even realize how hard I had it. My whole family was having a hard time, so it felt normal for me to do what I could to help out. I was fifteen and Lori was just a little kid. Now she’s turning eighteen and I’m thirty-one.
Shoving all that out of my mind, I get back to trying to figure out what happened to her crypto. Tracking digital information is my specialty and there’s no way in hell I’m gonna let some asshole steal her life’s savings.