Beanstalk.exe

“Jack…. JACK!” he heard his mother screaming.

“two times…. yep its chore time” Jack mumbled to himself knowing his time to relax and brows the net was at risk if he didn’t respond soon.

He opened his door to shout back “yeah what’s up mum?”

“Get your lazy ass down here got a delivery that needs doing!” she ordered.

“Coming” He turned back into his room to grab a jacket, it was usual for him to do local deliveries.

His family provided…’specialised goods for specialised customers’, he could guess what they were but strangely enough his parents didn’t want him getting too involved. Still wanted him to do the odd local delivery despite that, he suspected it was out of necessity or maybe they didn’t trust him being alone in his room all day?

‘Either way, duty calls’ he thought to himself, arriving downstairs in the kitchen parcel wrapped in brown packaging.

“About time, address is next to the parcel do you know where that is? Remember to place it in the carrier bag then in your backpack, anybody starts to follow you” she began to explain.

“Head to a public place like a shop or something and call Caz, I know mum” he finished for her.

“that’s my boy, feel free to get a small treat when you got the cash. And I mean small! If you try to pull a ‘they didn’t pay me ‘ on us again so help me “ she warned giving him a quick kiss on the forehead.

Jack nodded, he tried his luck in the past and didn’t want to experience the consequences once again, especially as he’s 15 now apparently that made him “man enough” for proper punishment, whatever that was.

Back packed he grabbed his trainers and headed out to his bicycle and began to cycle to his delivery point. These ones were usually simple enough, to on lookers he simply was delivering something from the shop to a friend.

About halfway to his delivery he spotted the force of chaos that was Dresden or ‘Drez’ as he likes to be called.

“Hey Jackie boy! Slow down I’ve got an offer for ya” Drez waved to Jack.

“What is it this time Dresden” he made sure to use his less preferred name.

“Now now don’t be like that, has the Drez ever led you astray? Im guessing you’re on a delivery right?” He correctly guessed, reaching behind him to reveal a familiar package in a carrier bag. “How about you do a job for me too?”

“What’s the pay? Where’s the delivery point, and what’s my cut?” Jack enquired, Drez’s deliveries were hit and miss sometimes, his customers were either very generous, or very…unstable.

“Oh, this aint the usual stuff” Drez removed the brown packaging, revealing a computer like helmet.

“I know you like to surf the net, I also know you know your way around computers and code and all that stuff” He pats the box “this thing has some special software built in, gives you access to the good stuff online, untraceable, unlockable”

Jack scoffed at that, sure that Dresdon had been had, computer hardware and software develops rapidly, nothing is truly untraceable or unlockable. His thoughts must have been shown on his face as Drez continued.

“hey, I know it sounds too goo to be true, something like this would be worth major big bucks right? All im asking is that you give it go, do some data mining, you send me what you find, I sell the data to some paranoid types, we get easy money. Its even got its own access to the net so you won’t have to worry about connection speeds, and yea it even plays those VR and deep dive VR games…even the 18+ plus you wouldn’t normally be able to get, I can get extra ports if you wanna explore those games ya know?” Drez teased.

“I-No-you” Jack stammered, blushing at the thought “Fine but I want to try it out somewhere else, no rules or anything just want to make sure you haven’t been had over…again”.

“You wound me brother!” Drez says dramatically, holding his hand over heart “fine use my 3rd safe house, by the 18th” He pulled a key out of his pocket and held it out for Jack to take.

“sure, the place that smells like bad feet” He said with a grimace taking the key “I have to finish this delivery 1st “

“Fine, fine, I will leave this in the safehouse. Oh, and that smell is the smell of progress and victory! “Drez declares.

“Sure, later Dresdon” Jack says as he mounts his bicycle and continues on his way. His mind was racing on how he would use his new found gadget, as well as what he would need to check to make sure its safe.

The delivery went off without a hitch, after stopping off at a shop for snacks and drinks he went to the third safehouse, bad feet smell greeted him to confirm he was in the right place.

It was a studio flat, a kitchen, a bathroom and a small living space that had a sofa, TV and a small dining table with two chairs.

On the table he saw the device that occupied his thoughts all afternoon, if he had to describe it, it was like a motorcycle helmet but with the bottom chin part removed, there were also two gloves that could be paired up with the helmet, supposedly supposed to simulate the feeling of various things.

Jack quickly stomped down particular thoughts of promised 18+ programs.

If there was one thing he could complain about, it was the colour choice. It was a bright red, yellow and blue.

Inspecting the device further he found something printed on in very fancy letters ‘magic beans’, he sighed at what he assumed was Drez’s humour at work.

He read the set-up instructions, plugged everything in and begun calibrations for a deep dive, this wasn’t something he thought he get a chance to use until he was an old man, these things were expensive!

He locked the door and sent a text to his mother explain he will be back later. His response was to be back by 7 or feel her wrath. It was 2pm now so that sounds good to him.

Helmet on, he laid down on the sofa, feelings of giddiness filled him as he held is finger over the power button.

“Link Start!” he shouted, giving in to his urges to quote one of his favourite shows.

He felt himself get dizzy, groggy, like he was waking up after a long sleep. As he caught his bearings he looked around and down at his arms.

He was in an abyss it seems darkness all around aside from a menu, just like out of some of his video games just in front of him.

His arms didn’t look like his own anymore, instead it looked like a polygon avatar.

One of the boxes on the menu had the number one in brackets, he had a message. Probably a system set up thing. He moved his hand to push the button like he would in the real world.

“Hey Jackie!” A holographic image of non-other than good old Dresdon appeared in front of him.

“Good to see you got this running all right, a few things you should know! First your avatar, for now you got the default polygon one as well as a special one that you need to use to access the special program, I think you’ll like it.” Drez said with a chuckle.

“once you activate the program it will supposedly send you into a virtual interface that simulates the world, I have asked for a training program or something but apparently the guy who made this wants to see how you do, don’t worry he’s on our side and wont interfere with our business ventures!” Drez says with a grin. “anyway, good luck and have fun! Make sure to let me know how it goes and if you want any changes to software or hardware, you’re the artist here im the businessman, together we will make magic!”

The image of Drez faded away, he played around with settings to familiar himself with the deep dive system. He found a timer that was supposed to kick him once it ends, he hoped it worked while he used the special program. Checking the time, he saw it read 15:30, he had technically had three and a half hours he could play around with but he set the timer for 3 hours, best not to tempt the wrath at home.

Now it was time to check out the special avatar, he navigated the menu to the avatar selection, he saw the ones he owned along side many that were for sale, anything from custom human avatars or even premium ones that allowed you to be an animal of some kind, the prices on those were enough to buy your own house!

He only had 3 available to him to use right now, one was the polygon one he was using now, the next was one labelled self-scan, essentially it tried to recrate your image as the avatar as closely as possible.

The one that stood out was one with the name of ‘01100001 01100010 01100011’, the body had the shape of a human male but was entirely made of binary code. He chose the avatar and clicked yes on the conformation box that appeared in front of him.

For a few seconds he felt the same groggy waking up feeling as when he 1st started the device. He checked his hand and arms and saw the collection of zeros and ones constantly changing and flowing around his ‘body’.

“All right Drez” Jack said with a smirk “you were right this is cool”.

He looked around for a new option and found it behind the menu itself, his newfound respect and admiration for Dresdon lesson when he saw the name of the program.

“Beanstalk? Really?” Despite himself he chuckled at the joke that he knew Drez must have had a hand in, “magic beans and the beanstalk, lets hope there’s no giant!” He said as he pushed the button to launch the program.

Upon pushing the button his vison was flooded with binary code, after everything settled down he was in a virtual copy of the safehouse. Floating above his own simulated copy. The simulation was full, it was more like a 3d blueprint outlines of everything, curiously his body at binary running through it.

He moved his avatar hand outwards to poke himself when it opened up a new window full of binary code, he didn’t understand any of it. He tried the same with many other things in the safehouse, most furniture had far smaller code, but it was all the same, he would reach out, hit an area around the object and a window would appear with binary code. The window would then seem to be absorbed, he assumed, into his avatar. He wondered if this is what the Data Mining would be like once Drez gets instructions.

The only thing that had a code as long as his own body was the helmet itself. Again it all meant nothing to him, he decided to try to learn binary if possible, it would probably help him find the more valuable data.

Moving was almost like he was flying, it took focus to move but it still felt amazing.

He continued to tap and test out his new data mind, he found that animals and plants had a large code than things like cars or buildings, but the largest was always humans. He just tapped random people and gathered their data, at least he assumed that’s what he was doing.

Once the novelty wore off his mind wandered to the man who had granted this opportunity.

“I wonder what ‘old Drez’ is up to” He pondered as he floated to one of his hang outs. However once he said his name he found his vison flooded with binary, when everything cleared he was in one of Drez’s safehouses, with Drez in front of him.

Jack wasted no time in tapping Drez, to his dismay it still opened a window full of binary code, “no secrets revealed yet”.

Drez for his part was more focused on making faces in his mirror, it didn’t surprise Jack in the slightest.

What did surprise him was the apparent Teleportation power he had! He decided to test again and spoke random things, he tried to say random places like the cinema or beach. Nothing happened.

“Mum!” He tried while lazily floating in the street, his vision was full of binary once more and he was no longer in the street. Looking around he found he was in his parents’ bedroom.

Looking further around he found he found his parents, in their bed…not sleeping.

“Oh god no! Caz! Caz! Take me to Caz!” He shouted with desperation, although his eyes were closed, he felt the familiar sensation of being moved, but this time it took longer than before.

When he opened his eyes he was not greeted with the virtual world that he was ready to explore.

Instead, he saw what looked like run down shack, he saw a fold up desk with monitors on, one screen had what looked like a program running, it had 3 windows open. The 1st had various images of objects, the second a section with the oh so familiar binary code and the last one he could make out that was text.

They were everything he had been tapping or ‘data mining’.

‘What the hell, what is this?!’ he wanted should out loud but found his voice made no noise.

He looked to the other screen to find it was a stream of some sort. But it was showing a red exclamation mark with a message below stating, ‘Signal lost, searching’.

‘Drez, what the hell have you got me into now’ Jack thought to himself. Suddenly a pop-up box appeared in his vison, pointing to something in the background, following the pop up he found a familiar face.

The body of a certain Dresdon was inside what looked like a capsule pod straight out of a sci-fi, he was wearing a familiar helmet although not the same colour as his.

Next to Drez’s pod!? Was a lady in a well-worn white lab coat, she was talking into a handset that was connected to a control panel attached to the pod.

His view was interrupted by the body of a male walking towards the monitors, he seemed to plug something into the computer.

A loading bar appeared over the warning message, once its complete the stream updated to show exactly what Jack was seeing.

‘What the hell! What the actual hell!?’ The thoughts raced through his mind.

The new male turned to stare seemingly exactly at Jack, ‘ Of course its him’ jack was greeted with Caz’s face looking him.

Jack could make out Caz Saying “Jack? You in there?” Before a sudden beeping assaulted his mind.

His vision was blocked by binary code, he felt dizzy and groggy and found himself back in the smelly safehouse of Drez.

He shot up from his laying down and threw the helmet off him, he was struggling to breathe.

He has seen enough sci-fi to theorise what that meant, was it just a trick? A prank? Is he still in the helmet? What’s real?

Every question just seamed to make it harder to think, harder to breath.

He felt his vision blurring as tears began to form, his breaths grew short which then made him feel lightheaded.

He vaguely registered the door open, and then felt someone place their arms around his shoulders.

“Deep Breath Jackie, Deep breath.” It was Drez, but was it Drez? But what was the other Drez? “Focus on your breathing brother, don’t fight any feelings just let it happen”, Dresdon advised.

Jack fought to push all other thoughts from his mind, focused on the feeling of Drez’s arms over his shoulders and his own breathing, he felt a lump in his throat but didn’t fight it.

Jack puked out in front of him.

“there we go Jackie let it all out, keep breathing nice and slow we’ll explain things later-“Jack tried to focus on Drez’s voice but couldn’t stay conscious.

“You promised he wouldn’t be involved!” Jack vaguely heard a voice yell, his mother’s.

“We didn’t expect his compatibility with the program to be that strong” that was Caz’s voice.

Jacks tried to sit up and got a sharp headache for his effort. He recognised his living room and was laying on the sofa.

“Whoa there brother, best to take it slow you’ve been through a lot” That was Drez ok then.

Jack’s head laid back down and he felt the headache recede a small bit, still throbbing.

“I am so confused; someone please explain to me” Jack didn’t get to finish his demands as he was assaulted by a barrage of hugs and kisses from his mother.

“Oh, Jack thank god you’re awake. Are you ok? Does any thing hurt? How’s your vision? Can you feel your toes? Here have some water” his mother placed a glass of water to his lips.

Jack accepted the drink, the cold water feeling very good on his throat. He placed his hands on his mother’s “Im ok mum, got a headache and a lot of questions” He turned his gaze towards Caz and Drez.

“Before we explain anything Jackie we got a red pill / blue pill situation for ya” Drez warned. “No actual pills as such but a choice you got to make brother, now is the only chance to make it. “

“Red pill we won’t do anything, we will explain everything and weather you like or not you will be stuck with that knowledge.” Caz began to explain “Blue pill we are able to reset your memories and remove everything from when you used the beanstalk program”.

“Not a fan of the names of all those by the way” Jack chimed in with a groan, sitting up slowly despite a protest from his mother. Caz and Drez both chucked upon hearing Jack’s comments.

“Start the blue pill process! He won’t be involved in this craziness!” Jacks Mother protested.

“No, Maria, let jack Decide” Jacks Dad spoke for the first time.

“But dear” Jacks mum tried to protest.

“Mum” Jack interrupted “thank you, but I want to know what’s going on, everything” Jack made sure to make eye contact with everyone there, Caz, Drez and Jack’s Father all nodded in recognition of his decision.

Jack’s gaze met his mothers, a silent conversation occurred through their eyes.

With a sigh Jack’s Mother gave one more hug.

“Fine go head explain everything to him, the two worlds, the research, everything” Jack’s mum relented “I will make somethings to eat and drink, its going to be a long night after all.

“Ok brother” Drez said as he sat down next to Jack, placing his feet on the coffee table next to sofa. “Why don’t we start with what you saw and we can take it from there”

“Take your time, we aren’t going anywhere and will answer any and all questions that you have” Caz added.

“Ok then” Jack said, his voice serious “First things first, Magic Beans!? Beanstalk!?”