The Hacker

Prologue

They started us with code early.

A hundred years before, one might have been learning the alphabet, but now we sit in front of screens, our chips taking in the basic programs and commands for us to learn, writing out words that alone mean nothing, but together allow the world to function.

I finished typing my final line of code and looked at the peers around me. Even at age five I knew I was different. A little bit taller, a little bit smarter, but not just because my chip processed faster than everyone else's. I was real life smarter, like the ancestors that had founded New America and created the neuro-chips. I was different, like no other coder had ever been programmed to be.

I was placed in Advanced Coding two years later. Since I had progressed leaps faster than all the other Coders of my age group, I was stuck in with the Nine and Ten age group. Every class began with our teacher making us repeat the Rules of Coding after her.
"I will not hack. I will not run illegal programs. I will not create new code unless instructed to." We chorused back to her every morning before we were sent to the computers. I remember that it was surprising to have a living teacher instead of a computer based instructor for the first time, but we all adapted.

I also remember when I asked my question. The one that questioned the three finite Rules of Coding. The one that has shaped my life from that day foreword.

"Why are we not supposed to hack things?" I had asked after we said the Code. Instantly the room quieted and the teacher, who hasn't been paying attention, snapped her head up and glared at me.

"What did you say?" She peered at me over her glasses and I shrunk into my chair, hoping for the whole thing to be forgotten, but a classmate of mine just had to open their nine year old mouth.

"She asked why we aren't supposed to hack, Ma'am," His words spilled out in a messy, but sadly understandable jumble. The teacher rose from her desk and began to walk slowly towards me.

"Well Coders, what do you think? Should we merit a question about the Rules of Coding with an answer or should we simply discipline the asker?" My adopted age group stayed silent, an act of kinship that I would be forever grateful for. the teacher came to a halt above my desk.

"An answer then. Well, Miss Walker Coders must swear to never hack because it tears at the fabric of who we are, and the consequences of a failed hack far outweigh the gain of hundreds of successful ones. Do you understand?" I nodded rapidly, remaining mute. "Good. Class dismissed!"

I had gone back to the barracks that night full of questions that had spun off of one answer. How does one hack? What things can you do with hacking? Could it work on a human? How does it change you?
Can I do it?

My roommate was asleep by the time I made it back from the crowded baths, so I decided I would do a bit of research. I turned on our room's personal computer unit and connected my chip to the coding program with a thought. My fingers stood poised above the screen, ready to write my next fateful lines. I constructed a small firewall so that my activities couldn't be traced, and began to write my code.

After about an hour of work, I had sat back and read over what I had written before clicking run. I gave the code twenty minutes to work effectively, and then ran barefoot down the hall to the baths and peered into the first mirror I could find.

Most of me was normal. A tall, lanky seven year old with frazzled auburn hair, pajamas that fit too loosely after going through two years of Coders before I had acquired them. Just one thing was different. Instead of my usual blue eyes, the ones that stared back at me in the mirror were green.

As I stared in awe of my new eye color, I failed to take in what had in reality just happened. With the small change of pigment in my eyes, I had written out a code that had changed my DNA, the genetic material present in all humans. I had altered my destiny.

With this one program, I became something new.

I had become a Hacker.

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Hello Dwellers of the Interweb!

If you took time to read this story leave any criticisim/compliments/shamless self promotion in the comments because I love to see what you guys think of my writing! This is a fledgling story so bear with me on updates and stuff I swear they will come eventually!

-Fezzes