Hacking the Sun [Old Version]

Prologue Part 2 (Optional)

Under the morning rays of a New York City sun, traffic was terrible. Nevertheless, energy circulated around every corner of the bustling streets. Just another restless Tuesday cologned with gasoline, propane, and coffee. Grind to grind, shot to shot, and hot dog to hot dog, people learned to get along with the hassles of one sunrise and the next.

The cover of the New York Post read Premature Elation. In one bench or another, magazine faces told better tales than the information inside. Posters littered the dirty canvas of urban sprawl: corners, fronts, and apartment sides. Everywhere, paperback letters hurled warnings about political affiliations. But the news was of no concern to the street artist; not to the performer, the demo distributor or entrepreneur, and not the morning jogger.

Man's relief from the terror of the morning workday – Smiles. Sometimes they were scarce, despite the homeless man on the corner of Greenwich and Fulton promoting them with a cardboard sign. Alas, the aim of a weekday, even sunny ones, was to keep moving.

So a single wanderer kept going. He contemplated, second-guessed, and watched through his thick sunglasses the day-to-day minutia in the city.

"Watch the road!"

He could barely hear the exclamation outside his headphones, but turned his attention left, toward the street, and found the middle finger outside of a taxi window.

Muffled vehicle engines, ghostly faces under urban boughs. He passed the whites and reds of cement and brick, in the direction of the tallest building he could find, past another tall building. Another squirrel crossed his gaze, past the solemn structure with arches for windows and a cross in the center. Greenery gathered underfoot until he reached the wet squares of New York City's most recent memorial.

Among the souls already visiting the park—venturing through bushes, meditating throughout concrete—he missed one peculiar pedestrian stuck in a phone. He was a young Caucasian wearing a green hoodie, casual jeans, and thick-rimmed glasses. His smartphone maneuvered him, guided his eager steps so that he failed to see the impending trench coat. They collided.

"Ah!" The student grabbed the pool's edge to avoid falling. During recovery, he finally noticed the wanderer.

The wanderer, a taller man enclosed in a white trenchcoat, stood upright and unfazed. His hands automatically reverted to the rim of his thick sunglasses as they met the student.

Meagerly, the student jerked upright; his gaze fell on the sunglasses and large headphones over a beanie. Only vestiges of pale skin lay underneath.

"Apologies!" the stranger exclaimed.

"That may have been my fault," the student said, scratching his head before returning to his phone. "Damn, almost had a Squirtle."

"No matter. It may be that I could have avoided you if my thoughts would only return to what they were."

The student escaped his phone after catching an air of remorse from the stranger's voice. They had collided by a pool, a grand square of black reflection. Placing the device in his pocket, he looked back at the names inscribed in marble rim before turning back.

"Did you lose someone? If you did, I didn't mean to offend. Well, I never mean to offend."

But the stranger shook his head. "These are not the names clouding my thoughts."

"Just out for a stroll? Procrastinating? Same."

"I do wish it were a simple stroll..." And the strange man's eyes swept the ground. Quickly, he looked up. "Excuse us. Questions, they keep stirring in my mind. Can I confide in a stranger like yourself to answer just a few?"