Jacked (2 page)

Jahn shook his head.

“No, boy! You’re important, just bein’ you.” His voice fell again and his eyes took on a faraway stare. “I knew it from the first else I never would’ve…” He blinked and looked at Tar. “Just stay away from the Black Shirts and be safe. How many fixers do you suppose are out there? How are we ever goin’ to get back to what we had if no one can make this junk work? No, Tar, you’re real important.”

Tar looked down at the steps. Uncle Jahn was wrong. He was just an undersized boy whose parents were killed in The Crash.

After a minute of silence his uncle asked, “Did you find anything good today?”

“I guess so.” Tar shrugged before a grin split his face. “I found one of those boxes that shows movies when you plug it into the screen. Mr. Keisler told me he would buy the next one I found. I also got a couple of the little machines that people did math on. I can get rid of those at the school.” His excited words practically tumbled over each other, pushing the previous ones out of the way.

“Sounds like a good day.” Jahn patted Tar on the shoulder and stood up. “Come on and get something to eat. You can go see Keisler and the others before lights out.”

Tar nodded and walked up the stairs with his uncle, on the way to where they slept on the third floor. Every step creaked beneath their feet. He concentrated on the noise rather than how much his uncle used him for support as they went up.

#

“Tar? Tar, honey. One of the coils on my stove won’t get hot anymore. Will you come look at it?”

He stopped in front of the middle-aged woman as several young kids ran around him. On the higher floors residents had their own kitchens, unlike his and his uncle’s quarters. Down there everyone had to share a kitchen and common area and their
apartment
was really nothing more than a room two strides across with beds like sideways tubes built into the walls.

“Will it get warm at all or did it go brick, Mrs. Gillis?”

She smiled.

“If ‘brick’ means ‘broken,’ then yes, it is. I turn it on high and it stays cold as a stone. But something smells burnt.” She laughed. “You kids and your funny sayings these days. I suppose I was just as bad when I was your age.”

“Yes, ma’am. It sounds like a wire fragged, uh, fell apart. Don’t turn that burner on, just in case. You don’t want to start a fire.” He readjusted the backpack on his shoulder. “I have to go to Mr. Keisler’s right now. I promised to do something for him tonight but I think I have some extra wire in my room. If not, I’m sure there’s some in the basement. I’ll come back in the morning, Mrs. Gillis, if that’s okay.”

“Oh, that’s fine. You’re a good, young man, Tar. I don’t know what we’d do without you around here.”

Tar started off again, making his way around some adults as they chatted outside their apartments. Kids played in the hall, every once in a while earning a few sharps words to keep it down. It went this way every day once residents came home from work and the sun went down. It was not safe to be out after dark and, unless you liked to read, like Mr. Martinez who had a whole room filled with books, or like Mr. Keisler who had some machines that still worked, then the only thing to do in the evening was talk with your neighbors. Sure, some folks locked themselves away behind barred doors like Mrs. Burgen a few doors down from him and his uncle on the third floor, or the Wendohlsom family who had almost all of the top floor. Most residents found ways to spend time with each other, talking to the person beside them to keep up with gossip and bits of news scrounged from around the city.

He had gone a short way when he heard someone call his name: “Hey, Tar! You got a minute?”

A big man sat on a folding chair outside an apartment. His muscled arms and thick-jointed fingers were blackened from dye, and on his lap was a heavy piece of canvas with a carburetor laid out in several pieces.

“Something wrong with your truck, Mr. Lionel?” Tar had always been nervous around the man, partly because of his size, which made him feel even smaller, and also because the man never asked him to fix anything. All he really knew about Lionel was he worked at a city-owned factory and he was handy with automobile engines, at least, the old ones that could still run.

“Oh, this? Nah, I’m working on this for one of the guys at the plant. He got some bad gas and really gooped it up.” Lionel picked up a glass from the floor and took a drink. “I hear you’re pretty good with your hands, too,” he said while casually looking at the pieces in his lap.

“I do okay.” Tar felt the sweat trickle down the back of his neck and onto his shirt collar.

Lionel twisted his head slowly from side to side, glancing up and down the hallway.

“I hear you can sometimes find apps, apps that still work.” The man looked straight into Tar’s eyes.

“I…I’ve been lucky. Not everything was fragged.” His face started to sweat and he felt that same sinking feeling in his stomach from earlier in the day when the gang had him surrounded.

Lionel nodded and reached behind his chair, pulling his apartment door closed with one massive hand.

“You know my Janie?” The man had a daughter a year or two younger than Tar. “Her birthday is next week and her mom and I want to get her something nice. I never put much into school work, even back when I was your age. I always liked to work more with these than with this.” He looked at his hands before pointing to his temple. “But my Janie, she’s a thinker. It might be nice for her to have one of those little book machines that she could use for school.”

Tar felt a little weight come off his shoulders. A little.

“I’ve seen ‘em before,” he said, not wanting to tell the man he had two hidden in his cubbyhole of a bed. They were bricks but he’d have them fixed by morning.

“Probably pretty expensive.”

Tar nodded.

“Yeah, they can be. It kinda depends on what’s on them if they’re a good app or not. Since The Crash there’s nothing in the air for them to talk to so they can only do what is already inside the box.” Tar remembered Jahn’s lecture about trust earlier in the evening and looked away from Lionel. “At least, that’s what I’ve been told.”

“I thought so. But hey, sometimes you do things for your kids that you wouldn’t do for yourself, right?” The big man laughed and the deep rumble made Tar look at him. “If you run across one that works I’ll pay a fair price and,” the smile left the man’s face, “I’d be real thankful. You might even say I would owe whoever found it a big favor if they ever needed help.”

Tar nodded.

“Tomorrow, the next day at the latest,” he said.

Lionel returned the nod. They had an agreement. The man picked two carburetor pieces up with his massive fingers and delicately slid them together. “Have a good night, Tar.”

“Good night, Mr. Lionel.”

The boy walked the rest of the way to Mr. Keisler’s apartment. The scene repeated several more times along the way—some people asking for help with a broken machine, others looking for items they could not find themselves. Tar had not lied to Uncle Jahn when he called himself adware—a person who found and sold items to others—since it was how he helped them afford to live in a nice building and put food on the table. Lots of people lived in what his uncle called
flop
s and were lucky to eat one meal a day.

“Tar! Good to see you, lad,” said Mr. Keisler when he answered the knock at his door. “Come on in.”

At first glance, Mister Keisler’s apartment appeared to be smaller than the others on this floor but the man walked to a bookshelf along one wall and pulled on the top book on the far left shelf. It leaned out and the small click of a latch sounded through the wood.

“Sounds like I better put some oil on that.” Keisler smiled as he pulled the bookshelf towards him, revealing an open doorway behind it. “I wouldn’t want Mrs. Wills to hear it. That nosy, old bitty will want to know what I’m hiding and she’ll tell everyone in San Jose if she finds out.”

The woman next door to Keisler was more than willing to pass on the least bit of gossip she heard and it didn’t matter to her if it was true or not. Tar tried to avoid her as much as possible.

“I found what you wanted,” he said.

Keisler’s eyes flew wide and he clapped his hands like a happy child.

“I can’t believe it! Tar, you are a miracle!” The man walked to a table and cleared space for Tar’s backpack. “Does it work?” He laughed and slapped himself on the forehead. “Of course it works!
You
found it. Do you know what’s on it?”

“No, I didn’t have any way of banging on it where I grepped it,” Tar said as he reached into the pack and brought out a black, plastic box with an outlet cord. “There weren’t any connecting wires lying around in the shop. Do you still have the other ones I grepped a few months ago?”

“Ah, let me see…” Keisler went to a stack of boxes and rummaged through the contents. “Hmm, they were, ah! Here they are!” He brought back three wires that were connected so that three plug-ins were on each end.

Together they fit the wires to the box, and then to the back of an old television set in the corner of the room. Keisler hooked the box up to the closest outlet.

“Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.”

Keisler turned on the television and the box. A series of numbers flashed across the front of the box but, after a full minute of waiting, nothing appeared on the television screen except for black lines.

“Damn!” said Keisler. “It’s not coming through. Can you do anything with it, Tar?”

Tar frowned and grabbed the box with both hands. He closed his eyes and let his mind flow through the tingling in his palms. A minute later he let go and sat down in a chair.

“It should work, Mr. Keisler. Maybe everything on it is 404. Or maybe there was never anything saved in it, maybe it took all its pictures from the air.”

“You’re probably right.” Keisler sat down on the end of the small sofa and looked like he was going to cry. “I didn’t realize how much I wanted you to find one that worked. You know, just a reminder of how it used to be.”

“I’m sorry.”

Keisler looked up.

“It’s not your fault, Tar. I had trouble getting these things to work even before The Crash.” He laughed. “One time I called a repairman and found out I just had it on the wrong…” His voice trailed away.

“The wrong what, Mr. Keisler?”

“The wrong channel, boy!” The man leaped up and grabbed a much smaller box from the top of the television set. He began pressing buttons on its face.

“Channel, what channel? Three? No, four!”

Suddenly a new picture popped up on the screen. Now a bunch of words could be seen.

“Aha! It works! Oh my god, Tar! It works.” Keisler plopped down on the floor and sat cross-legged only about three feet from the television. “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.” He read down through the list, occasionally reaching over and pressing buttons on the front of the box that Tar had brought to make the words move up and down on the screen.

“The memory on this DVR must be full. Almost 500 hours of shows are on here. Here are some talk shows, hmm, some news broadcasts. Wonder what they thought was important enough on the news to keep? Ah, a bunch of movies—oops, there’s one you’re not quite old enough to watch.” The man smiled, nodding his head and winking at Tar before looking back at the screen. “Looks like whoever had this before was a science fiction fan. There’s a bunch of shows from the
Finding Home
series. It was about a spaceship that had to search for a new planet for people to live on after the Earth was destroyed. Oh, my! It can’t be!” Keisler whirled around. “This has every episode of
Firefly
! I loved that show when I was your age. Well, maybe a little younger than you. Too bad it was only on for a short time. Just a year or so.”

He stopped talking as the lights in the room dimmed, then went back to full strength.

“They’re getting ready to turn down the power,” said Tar. “I’d better get.”

“Wait, lad, I haven’t paid you yet.” Keisler stood up and trotted out of the room. He returned a few seconds later with a handful of bills.

Tar stared at them for a moment before he looked up.

“Mr. Keisler, this is more than we talked about.”

“I know, I know, but this DVR has more shows saved on it than I could have ever dreamed about.” Keisler folded his arms across his chest. “Plus I’ll bet you didn’t find this in our neighborhood.”

Tar shook his head.

“That means you took some risks to get this for me. The least I can do is pay a little more.” He placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “But I don’t want you to make that a habit. If the Black Shirts found you because you were looking for something for me…it’s not worth it. Promise me you’ll be careful.”

“I will, Mr. Keisler.”

The man smiled. “If you’ve got time tomorrow after supper, come up and we’ll watch some shows together. I’d tell you to bring Jahn but I know he won’t come.” He playfully pushed Tar. “Now get out of here and go back to your bed before you have to walk downstairs in the dark.”

Chapter 3

Tar smiled as he walked down the block. It had been a good day so far. The burned-out wire in Mrs. Gillis’ stove had been easy to replace and he had finished two more small jobs around the building before he grabbed his backpack and one of the two tablet machines he had fixed yesterday and headed for the school. The screen was ready to light up as soon as he sold it to Toby. He was Tar’s best friend, one of the few he had close to his own age. Toby had been talking about wanting a tablet for at least a year. Tar would still charge him for it of course, a little bit anyway, but his profit had come from Mr. Keisler and more would come later after he delivered the second machine for Mr. Lionel’s daughter.

A few women shook their head at Tar as he walked down the sidewalk, probably disapproving of his not being in class. But nearly every shop owner waved to him through windows or came to the door to greet him. Although he had dealt with nearly all of them at one time or another no one signaled for him to stop and talk or barter today.

He turned the corner toward the school, a massive, low-lying structure that took up more than three blocks. It was actually four buildings linked together by long hallways crisscrossed in a pattern like a spider’s web.