I, Hacker: Chapter 1, Part 4: “Offline Shadows”

 
The cursor was still blinking when I heard her again — just a knock, light and tired, against my bedroom door.

I minimized the terminal, even though I didn’t have to. Habit, maybe. Or guilt. Or the unspoken agreement between mothers and sons not to show each other the things that kept them awake at night.
She cracked the door, leaning her shoulder against the frame like she didn’t have the energy to stand upright anymore. Her uniform was wrinkled, stained near the hem with something that looked like pasta sauce. Her eyes were dull behind her drugstore glasses.

“You're actually gonna eat tonight?”

I blinked. “I thought I did.”

“You thought wrong,” she said. “Come on. Before I fall over.”

We ate in the kitchen — just the two of us, like always. Spaghetti again, made with discount-brand tomato sauce and dollar-store noodles. The garlic bread was toast with butter and a sprinkle of salt.
I picked at it with a fork that had one bent tine. She ate in silence, her legs crossed under the table, one foot tapping a tired rhythm on the linoleum.

“So,” she said finally, “that modem thing work?”

I looked up, trying to gauge whether the question was curiosity or suspicion. Her expression gave me nothing.

“Yeah,” I said carefully. “It... connects to stuff. Kind of like... message boards. People talking.”
“Anyone I know?” she said, half-smiling.

“No.”

She nodded like that was the answer she expected. Not a follow-up, not a lecture. Just silence again.
She took a long sip of iced tea and set the glass down with a clink.

“Your father used to disappear into things, too,” she said suddenly. “Not computers, though. His thing was a garage. He’d go out there, pretend he was fixing the car. Most of the time he was just hiding from me. Or you.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Thought he was building something once,” she continued. “A cabinet. Took six months. Came out like a leaning pile of garbage. Didn’t even have doors. Just stood there in the garage until it fell over one winter.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Lot you don’t know about him. Probably better that way.”

I scraped my fork against the plate, pretending to chase sauce.

“Do you ever hear from him?” I asked quietly.

She looked at me — really looked, like she was weighing something.

“Sometimes,” she said. “A letter every few years. No return address. Just ‘hope you’re doing well’ and a hundred bucks.”

“Do you write back?”

“No,” she said. “I already wrote him off.”

We sat in silence again, the kind that fills a room like smoke. She eventually stood, grabbed her plate, and ran water over it in the sink.

“You keep your head straight, okay?” she said without turning. “I know you like that machine, but don’t let it swallow you whole.”

I nodded. “I won’t.”

She didn’t answer. Just finished the dishes, dried her hands, and went to her room.
Back in my own room, I flipped through my notebook — the cheap spiral-bound one I’d repurposed from biology class. Inside were command notes, scraps of code, BBS numbers, random ideas for programs. I’d drawn a diagram the night before: a flowchart mapping how to build a login screen that locked users out after three wrong tries.

At the top of the page I’d scrawled:

> SECRETS NEED DOORS

Below that:

> DENT42 – PRIVATE – DO NOT READ

I knew it wouldn’t stop anyone. Not really. But writing it felt like something. Like a declaration. A little fortress in ink and intention. I tucked the notebook under my mattress. Not the best hiding spot, but good enough for now. I sat back down at the machine and stared at the blue screen.

> READY

I typed in a few test lines, then deleted them. I opened the modem software again but didn’t dial. Not yet. Outside, the streetlights flickered once, then steadied. Somewhere far away, a siren wailed and faded. Inside, I sat with my fingers hovering over the keyboard, the weight of my father's silence still lingering in the room like secondhand smoke. And still, the cursor blinked.