Hard Wired Trilogy by DeAnna Pearce (smart books to read .TXT) 📕

see Marco and her mother, but she couldn’t avoid them forever. Not when they lived under one roof. “I’m not that hungry.” Maybe she could just avoid them for another hour or two.

“I can eat both of ours then.” Tricky pulled her along. “I want to talk shop, anyway. I have a theory on how to trap that devil Maxim.”

“No devil-talk over breakfast,” Harini snapped at them as she joined them in the hall.

Tricky mumbled as they continued into the kitchen.

Ari remembered their last conversation before Ari left. Tricky wanted her to find the connection between Maxim and who unleashed the virus. She felt a twinge of quilt at not helping Tricky in that regard. If Maxim had the virus, then there was some sort of connection between VisionTech and Maxim. But Ari barely survived the encounter with VisionTech, never mind finding anything useful to Tricky.

At breakfast with Tricky the morning meal carried on as usual with the exception that Marco purposefully avoided Ari. Harini raised an eyebrow at her once in question, but Ari shook it off. Her mother came in to refill a basket of muffins, her eyes rimmed red. When she was in reach, Ari squeezed her mother’s hand. Her mom gave her a short nod then hurried back to the kitchen.

Ari wasn’t sure what was worse, her mother’s heart-wrenching expression or Marco’s silent anger. She tried to not let the darkness drag her down and focused on the breakfast discussion to catch up on everything that happened.

Soon everyone was cleaning up breakfast and heading off for the morning meeting. In hopes of catching her mom in the kitchen, Ari went to grab another cup of coffee. Sue was loading the dishwasher, but her mother was nowhere in sight.

Sue must have noticed her expression. “Looking for your mom? I told her to go back to bed. She’s struggling since the news.”

“She told you?”

“About your dad? Yes.” Sue wiped her hands on her apron and turned around, leaning on the counter. “We’ve grown close, since she’s arrived. She assumed he had passed, but assuming and knowing is different.”

“Yeah.” Ari grabbed that extra cup of coffee and headed down to the meeting.

In the room, she nabbed a seat next Harini and sipped at the hot, bitter liquid. She appeared to be the last one, and Patrick cleared his throat to signal everyone to be quiet. He clicked a switch to turn on a projector.

“It took some careful hacking on Joe’s part, but we’ve finally got a good look at the program that they used.” Patrick clicked a button and code appeared on the screen.

Ari’s ability to read code had improved drastically over the past year. Characters and symbols stood out as the others blended into actions without extra thought. Similar to any language, it told stories or instructions. There, right at the end, was something she had never seen before. That row of characters looked foreign, but how? If it was original, then how would the systems register it.

“Tell the mundane here what I’m looking at?” Marco leaned back in his chair, several spaces down from Ari.

Patrick circled the new section.

“How can that be?” Tricky stared at the screen and mirrored Ari’s own thoughts.

Joe leaned forward, elbows on the large table. “It has to be in the hardware.”

“But it happened on our end,” Ari pointed out. “How could they mess with our machines?”

“Through the basic processing system,” Patrick said. “There are only two main companies that make VR machines. The smaller companies may or may not be affected as well. We’ll need to take apart our machines and see what we’re dealing with.”

“Do we have anyone capable of doing that?”

“Not an expert, no.” Patrick clicked the button and a list of companies involved in the manufacturing of VR machines and software filled the screen.

“Sketchy and I can see what we’re dealing with,” Blur said, sitting by his sister.

“And if necessary, we can hire someone. There are enough black market techies that it shouldn’t be difficult,” Patrick said.

“I probably have a lead or two on that,” Joe rubbed the back of his hair, which looked recently washed.

“In the meantime, you’re telling me we can’t plug in?” Tricky asked.

Patrick focused on Tricky, frustration evident on his face. “That is exactly what I’m telling you.”

“It’s not like these guys are everywhere. Any hint of trouble and we can run.”

“Wait,” Ari cut off Patrick’s rebuttal. “Why can’t we use this to our advantage?”

There was silence for a moment and Ari realized what she was saying. She wanted to use this program on other people. They had stolen, manipulated, and lied to help their cause and safety, but Ari just suggested they go to the next level and hurt people. Hurt people in the real, where they might not recover.

“What do you mean?” Joe asked.

“We are warpers, why don’t we use this tool to see exactly what these people are up too. Maxim and the board aren’t using this to save orphans and puppies. The world needs to know this is out there too. How many people never wake up from their trip and get written off as another VR coma? Everyone deserves to know that the VR is no longer safe for anyone.”

“You think that will matter?” Joe, sitting across the table from her, steadied his gaze.

“Maybe not to everyone, but to some,” Ari said.

“Let’s sit on this for a bit. We don’t know enough about the program yet.” Patrick clicked off the screen. “While Sketchy, Blur and I check out the machines, everyone else take it easy. Get your exercising in and relax a bit. We all need to be mentally and physically ready to go. We’ll meet up soon.”

Marco was the first out of the room without even a glance for his sister. He needed time. She tried to focus on what she could control.

“Joe,” she called him before he left.

“Yes?”

“I saw you fighting back in the stairwell.”

He nodded and waited for her to continue.

“Do you think you could teach me?”

Narrowing