Reborn in 1994: Internet Empire

2: Reset

       Matty had fallen into a haze. It felt as if he was floating in an ocean of darkness, as tendrils of black started to envelop him. He attempted to struggle, but it was as if his body was paralyzed. At every moment, he questioned himself. Why did he go so willingly? What would become of his underlings? Every doubt and worry echoed in his mind until he was completely taken over by darkness. Suddenly, a bright light peaked through the black, as if the clouds were parting to reveal the sun. He reached out to it, faintly hearing a hazy voice. As he got closer, it started to become more clear.

       “M…?”

“Ma-?”

“Max?”

       “Max! Wake up! Honey, you have school! Wake up!”

       He suddenly opened his eyes to see a middle-aged African American woman standing over him. She gripped his shoulders and shook him vigorously. She was fairly beautiful, although definitely past her prime. Her curly black hair grew in a loose afro and was held back by a headband. She was wearing a loose white t-shirt, and pajama pants. She pierced his gaze with a stern, but loving stare. Mom. Yes, that’s it. This is his mom, he thought. After staring at her for an awkward amount of time, he finally managed to speak up. 

       “M-mom?” he said, still not completely sure if the memories he had seen were completely accurate. 

       “Well of course, sugar! I’d be surprised if I wasn’t!” she said so matter of factly, he was forced to believe her. “Well, your real momma probably wouldn’t scold you for bein’ so messy!”

       She stood back up and picked up a pile of clothes that sat on the chair just beside his desk at the opposite side of the room. The lady shook her head, almost in disbelief, at how messy the room was. 

       “Max, what did I tell you about leaving everything everywhere?” she asked in a tone that clearly told him that she had lost her patience. 

       “Uhh...” He could not bring himself to focus as her incredibly strong creole accent was jarring to him. It was so different from what he was used to. The English being spoken before him was almost as if it were another language, that it caught him completely off guard. 

       She looked at him, her eyes widening with anger. 

       “Boy! I swear if you don’t answer me, you gon’ get it!” she said, as she crossed her arms. 

       “Momma! I’m sorry! It’s just, I think your voice is really nice… now that I hear it again, I mean!”

       He was surprised that his own accent was different as well. It was like a more mellow version of her own. It sounded kind of like the accents Americans would have in the movies he would watch. 

       His mother, clearly flattered by the voice remark, put the clothes down and gave him a big hug. 

       “Sugar, if you havin’ some kind of problems, you can always tell momma ok? Somethin’ about you is strange today.”

       She put her hand on his forehead and shook her head. 

       “Well ya ain’t sick.” she said as she went back to her pile of clothes. “Don’t think bein’ a sweet talker will get you outta cleanin’ your room!” 

       Holding a pile of dirty clothes, she stepped out of the room and kicked the door shut. With that, he was alone again. 

He sat in silence for a while, trying to wrap his head around the situation. In an instant, he rushed to his room’s bathroom and looked in the mirror. Upon seeing the reflection, he jumped back and tripped over his own feet. Slowly, the confused boy got back up and looked in the mirror again. When he took a closer look, he realized that the color of his hair and skin had changed. Now his skin was as pale as snow, and his hair was messy and blonde.

In an instant, all of the memories of this body’s previous inhabitant had rushed back to him. As an infant, he was abandoned by his original parents. A woman named Clio Burner had fallen in love with him as soon as she laid her eyes on him. She took him in, let him go to school, fed him and treated him as if he was her own child. He worked part time,through his three years in high school, in construction to earn his tuition so that his adoptive mother would not have to worry about it. One day, he fell really ill, but still forced himself to work. As a result, once he had returned home, he fell into his bed and never woke up again. This was the story of Maximilian Burner; the true owner of the body that Matty was inhabiting.  

The gravity of the situation set in, as he realized that he was not only starting his own life over, but Max’s as well. For a moment, he fell silent. After a while, he finally spoke and directed it at the old Max.

“Max… I’m sorry for what happened. You must’ve had it pretty rough, huh kid?” He let out a sigh in sadness for the loss that only he himself would ever be aware of. “It’s alright. I’ll take care of Momma Clio. And I’ll make sure that whenever anyone thinks about the name Maximilian Burner, they’ll remember him as a great person. I’ll be you now. You rest easy.”

With that Max, formerly Matty, stood up and surveyed his room. It was a mess as piles of clothes were strewn all over the place. He looked over at the desk, and reached for the newspaper. His first instinct was to look for dates. His eyes widened, as he dropped the newspaper. 

“1994? New York City? I-I live in New York City?!” he yelled, immediately covering his mouth in worry he made too much of a ruckus already. 

He stood in shock, just staring at the newspaper. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he really was in 1994. His cellphone was a flip phone with an antenna, as compared to a smartphone. The radio had a long antenna that stuck out the window. Even the fact that he had a radio was proof that he was in a different time. Looking at everything as a whole, it was completely different from his life in the year 2020.

Max rushed down the stairs and looked around the living room. He noticed a yellow sticky note posted on the very dated looking refrigerator. It was scrawled on with red marker. 

“Sugar, I’m going to work! There’s food in the fridge. Momma loves you!”

Even if it wasn’t his real mother, he smiled at the heartwarming note. He put it back on the refrigerator. With that, he ran back upstairs, changed into a pair of jogging pants and a grey hoodie, took the keys off the key rack, and went out to explore the urban jungle. 

----------

He had never been to America before, prior to inhabiting Max’s body. He looked up at the buildings that looked as if they could touch the sky, and the incredibly well paved roads. Yellow taxi cabs rushed around with reckless abandon, blaring their horns at every instance. He walked by chattering hot dog vendors, yelling out slogans like “We got the best dogs in Brooklyn!” Pigeons would flock in large groups, only to be scared away by the garden variety stray dog, which would bark at them in a frenzy. While most would consider this kind of scenery to be loud and stressful, Max found this to be incredibly new and exciting. With a smile, he approached a fenced basketball court, and watched a relatively lax pick up game of basketball.  

As he watched, he noticed that some of the boys playing on the court had stopped the game. At this point, Max was already so invested, that he didn’t notice that one of the boys was calling him over. 

“Hey, white boy!” yelled out one of the African American kids. At this point, he realized nearly all of them were of African American descent. 

He looked at the boy confused, and pointed at himself just to verify. 

“M-me?” he asked. 

“Yeah! Get yo’ punk ass over here!” the boy yelled, as he threw the ball as hard as he could straight at Max’s face. 

Max flinched as the ball crashed into the hard metal fence, garnering laughs from nearly everyone on the court. 

Once Max realized what this was, he calmed himself, and walked into the fenced basketball court. He knew that the old Max would’ve just tried to avoid confrontations like this; but as much as he wanted to respect the old Max, backing away was just not something he was good at. In moments, he was surrounded by eight boys, who were all bigger than him. The biggest boy, named Trae, would pick on Max every day of his life. At this point, Trae was inches away from Max’s unflinching face. 

“What’chu lookin at, white boy?” Trae said, as he shoved Max backward.

“Ain’t lookin at anything. Can’t see anything’ in front of me right now.” he said, as he shoved Trae back. 

The crowd let out a low “ooh” sound, as Trae stepped forward yet again. 

“Oh, so Maximilian finally grew a pair of balls huh?” he yelled out, addressing his possy. 

They looked on eagerly at the two of them, waiting for the eventual fight to break out.

“Guess so,” Max replied, tilting his head and glaring daggers back at Trae. 

With that, Trae showed a wicked smile.

“Well then, hope yo’ momma don’t cry when she finds you in the hospital, white boy!”

Trae immediately swung his fist as hard as he could and directed it at Max’s face. Luckily, during his time in his old life, he was trained by government martial artists to be able to defend himself, in case anyone had caught on to his occupation as a hacker. Everything moved like it was in slow motion as the adrenaline coursed through Max’s veins. He ducked down, and swung his fist as hard as he could, right into the solar plexus of Trae. The once cocky boy, bent over in pain and desperately gasped for air. However, he was met with another vicious right hook to the side of his jaw. Trae sprawled out onto the floor, completely out cold. The other boys looked at Max, who then extended his intimidating glare at them. Without a word, they all started to back off, clearly not wanting any problems with him. They ran out the gate of the basketball court, and ran off into the streets. Within moments, they were all out of sight. 

Max sighed, and then looked down at Trae, who lay unconscious at his feet. He knew that he couldn’t just leave Trae here, even if he was his long time bully. After battling with his conscience for a few moments, he kneeled down and decided to tend to his unconscious enemy; not knowing what the latter would do when he woke up.