Rood

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Roo'd by Joshua Klein

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Roo'd
by Joshua Klein
Fed was 18 when Tony got roo'd. He'd been prepping for early college admission with late-night com-classes, goggled in and finger-cramped over nasty circa-2009 C++ code examples while longing to toss it in for time to scan some flashy Java virii. Tony had been gone from his life for at least a couple years, five years his senior and a failure, as far as their folks saw it. Bailing out of a prestigious single-course curriculum at MIT, the rumor was that he'd crashed and burned on Pakistani kraft; carefully engineered cold cells delivering a prolonged payload of top-flight methamphetamines directly to the spongy flanges of his right hemisphere.
"Coulda been a genius" Fed's father had said when he'd said anything about Tony, which wasn't often. He had never said much, plugged in as he was basically 24/7 to a Grecko-Roman massively-multiplayer game world based out of a datahaven in the Balkan Islands. Fed's Dad had been an in-game Wizard, administering illegal betting and avatar trades through a Russian triumvirate. About the time Tony had washed out of MIT their Dad's game servers had been pulled by marketeers and put to use in a retro Furry MUD. Without the reassuring virtual community of brother-love Fed's Dad had simply faded away, dissapearing the same way Tony eventually had.
Fed's Mom was unfortunately much more present. Plugged in all day to secretarial comstats turning nasty boardroom sharkfights into regurgitated memorandums suitable for shareholders, she was the bland paste that put a shine on corporate "accountability" clauses. Every night she got home and either popped a tricyclic and a red stripe lager, settling in for a long night of Disney-produced medi-dramas, or mixed vodka and an MDMA-derived german sports drink and went out with Bark. Bark was not Fed's favorite in the long line of boyfriends his mom had had, mostly because he insisted on trying to win points with his Mom by palling around with Fed. All Fed wanted was to be left alone to goggle in and wrench his brain around the tightest code he could find, teasing it apart byte by byte until that singing satisfaction of comprehension flooded his brain. One day Fed was going to change the world, and he'd figured out early that you didn't get to change the world by sitting on your ass.
But it was because of Bark that Fed started seeing Tony again. Bark'd come over for dinner, which was really just an old-fashioned form of foreplay, and had somewhere along the line decided that Fed should keep his tray with theirs on the jittery fomica platform that served as a kitchen table.
Fed had just unplugged when Bark's yelling had shook through the plyboard walls between his room and the kitchen. Fed ignored it and ran his finger around the mounting post on his right leg. He wiped off the excess antimicrobial grease on his jeans and held it up under the lamp to inspect his work, noting with a grimace the spreading crack in the plastic housing on the shin. Grunting to himself he slid it home and felt it catch. He leaned his head back against the water-stained wallpaper. His head hurt.
He'd been living on Hawaiian time for weeks, running the normal classes locally and power napping until the start of the courses on the islands. EST plus Hawaiian - which always ran late - was burning him bad, but he wanted the computer virus background something fierce and Hawaii was the only place that offered it. Everywhere else was too political. Fed sighed and finished socketing his legs on before shuffling down the hall.
"There we go. Like a family" Bark'd said, as though it held some meaning or weight which might translate across the tautological divide between them. Fed stood in the doorway, the kitchen's grease-stained wallpaper rendered in clean RGB scan lines on the inside of his goggles, his chording keyboard clenched tightly in his right hand.
Bark slapped a meaty paw against the sole empty chair. "C'mon, it'll be fun! Your Mom even fried 'em on the George Forman. And I have a new mesquite margerine spray - got it promo from work today. You'll love it." Bark worked as a distributer and "display maximization consultant" for Easy-Pick, the line of closet-sized convenience stores painted into corners of gas stations and confectionary shops.
Fed sat down at the table and flipped one goggle cup over his eyebrow, his other hand keying in the combination for single-handed chording.
"No computers, Fed" his Mom said. "How about we just enjoy each others' company?"
Fed's jawbone tightened,