Hacker Academy

Flash

When I open the door to the dorm, Unix is wide awake sitting on her bed.

"Hey, Ada." She says with a smile.

I tense up as she watches me walk to my side of the room. I take my jacket off, and I still feel her eyes on me. Usually, in the mornings she would jump around and holler until all the dormitories our floor would wake up. She's acting too un-cheery.

I look at her for a moment and give her a you-are-not-acting-creepy-at-all smile and sit at my desk. But before I can start hacking, she speaks.

"So, Hacker Number 999, huh?"

I close my eyes before opening them again and facing Unix. "Yeah, I was hacking yesterday night and I guess I just..."

She shrugs and gives me a nonchalant smile. "It's fine, it's fine. You're a great hacker, there's no denying it, Ada." She looks away. Awkward silence envelops us.

I fidget with the loose hems of my shirt until I hear her speak in a faint whisper.

"Hey... You know I've been kicked out of Hacker Academy before, right?"

I nod slowly.

"Well... I can't do that again. I have no home, no family. If I get kicked out again I-"

Unix starts crying. I feel so helpless. I can never comfort anyone. When the head of my sister's bear tore off, she cried a pool and I didn't say a word until I sewed the bear's neck and handed it back to her. When father left us, I didn't tell mom we'd be okay, I didn't even hug her. Instead, I rushed to my piggy bank and gave her the few pennies I saved. That is what I can't stand about me. I can accomplish, but I cannot comfort.

Maybe I could comfort Unix though.

"I could uhm... teach you some tricks to hacking."

She looks up at me and her eyes are sparkling. "Really?"

In an instant, she stops crying and goes back to the cheery girl she is. Clumsily, she gets off her bed and grabs her chair to sit beside me. Her hands are on the back of her chair and legs dangling off the side. She looks like my sister paying close attention to the story I'm about to tell her. I chuckle and point to her screen.

"Okay. You see your username?" I raise an eyebrow.

She looks at me in confusion. "Yeah, what's wrong with it?"

I scratch my head and point to it again. "CuteUniForever1000GOOO is not professional. Your clients are going to think you're crazy." I stopped for a second because that was true. "Change it to something... Hackery."

Unix scoots away from me to change her username. She looks at me and snickers.

"What?"

"The way you say it is really un-teacher like. Hackery." She giggles again.

"Hey, I'm trying here." I was about to rant when I realize I'd much rather hear her laugh than cry. I hide my smile.

It's well into an hour and we still haven't covered the actual hacking. Unix is dangling off her bed, and I'm deleting cat videos.