We called our band the Extreme Licks. Not the best name ever, but everything had to have the word extreme somewhere if you wanted to sound shiny back then. Our logo was a big tongue with arms and legs jamming on a guitar. Looking back on it I have to chuckle. We thought it was such a clever name. Now I’m amazed at the naivety of our youth. Despite the “clever” name and logo we actually became a success. We were bringing in real money when we graduated from high school.
Humanity had played with hacking in the later part of the twentieth century, but mobile computing and satellite communications brought interdependence on computers in the next that made war on that level possible. The Americans, the Chinese, and the Russians began the Second Cold War when their relations frayed, but the Islamic Brotherhoods soon joined them. That was when the war went hot.
Thanksgiving Day is a day set aside by our government to give thanks to God. It has usually been in thanks for a good harvest, though at times it has been thanks for surviving a war. I know it can be hard to think of things to be thankful for today, but we should. We live in a great country, where our dreams can change our future. I write stories and make money because people like you buy them. You help me live my dream. So I give thanks.
Julie and Alex were the brains of the band. They said we needed different instruments. I figured three guitars was just fine, but they said the sounds would work well from different…things. They lost me on the music theory, but I was willing to give it a try. Alex learned bass guitar and Julie claimed the acoustic guitar. Me? Well, I got to play the field. Fiddle. Mandolin. Banjo. Sometimes I even played the violin. I played whatever the song called for and loved it.
By the early twenty-first century, most hackers had melded into one of two groups. Some worked for governments or corporations, while others did it for fun or other reasons. Many cut their teeth in the various cultural movements of the time and created the idea of hacktivism. Some did good. Some did bad. We only survived in the end because of those that did good.