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What the story might leave out is that Ashton's family is in a lot of trouble, Mom alcoholic, Dad MIA a long time ago. Mom's boyfriend is a physically abusive guy and thinking about that prick gave him strength to do just one more rep on his 200 lb bench-press routine. He could never quite fit in with the rich "middle class" kids from the big cities, preferring to drink Pabst Blue Ribbon with his high-school buddies, get stoned and listen to 80s hard-rock. On one or two occasions, he read Hacker News but thought ... well, the readers here might get angry but our farm boy thought all of them were sheltered dweebs who did not know a damn thing about how real life is like. On one of those occasions where their crowd was full of freshman girls who were really looking forward to getting wasted and laid that night, in drunken stupor Ashton heard Wayne calling out to him. He hasn't seen Wayne since he joined the Army 2 years ago. Man it was good to see him again, he's the kind of buddy who'd get in a fight for you without asking a single question. Wayne knows what's up, Ashton thought to himself as they talked about Wikileaks and f__king sh__ up. Giggly girls just kept interrupting his conversation and, irritated, he asked one of them if she would give away a government secret if all it was doing was covering someone's ass for raping some 9 year old dancing boys in Afghanistan. Janice just clammed up and some of her ditsiness immediately disappeared. Not having much to say, feeling put on the spot, a bit shamed and a bit embarassed, she remembered him well that night, but that's another story. Wayne and Ashton went to Bobbie's Diner to sober up with some greasy burgers and shoot the sh_t. Soon enough they weren't talking about tits, even though Janice had a really nice pair... Wayne kept telling him how much of cool stuff the military really does and how he could hook him up. Man, Wayne knows what's up, he thought to himself. Besides, if it came to working with guys like Wayne or the dweebs in San Francisco, it was a no brainer.... That's at least how Ashton thought about things back then... but then again, he was only 20. Nowadays he spends his time working for DISA on new worms. Everyone needs a botnet nowadays, even the government. It's really cool work, he learned a lot. But he knows damn well that's something he's never going to be able to talk about. At least Wayne gets to post bullshit on Twitter as th3j3st3r, he thinks to himself. His $80k salary is pretty damn good, and even his Mom is better, she dumped that dickwad. Though she is really getting old, all that alcohol just turned har brain to mush and she sometimes doesn't make sense. Maybe it'd be better he went to Silicon Valley, but then, just glancing over at the picture of him, Janice and their adorable 3 year old made him say "fuck no!" loud enough that his officemate looked up at him with that "dude, are you allright?" look.. He would've never met Jen and would probably still be chasing money like a wannabe pornstar in Los Angeles... |