“Spongebob is on!” she said more intelligibly, raising her head from the pillow for a moment.
“All right!” said Justin, and he was gone in a flash.
Ray struggled out of bed. The bulldozer tumbled off the sheets and he found it again with his feet. “Ouch.”
He smiled at the shapely form of his wife in the sheets. Her dark hair flowed over her pillow in disarray. He thought of climbing back into bed and curling up to her, but there wasn’t time. With a sigh, he touched the snooze button on top of the clock radio to silence it for ten precious minutes as he headed for the shower.
Thursday had begun.
Sarah filled a bowl of cereal for Justin and managed to get most of his clothes on. His shoes were still off, however. Shoes were never easy to get onto Justin, it was always a careful negotiation. That was Ray’s job, as he didn’t have to be to work until nine for his office hours, while Sarah had to be in by eight.
“You’ve got to drop him off at school today,” said
Sarah, passing him in the hall on her way to shower. “I don’t think he should be walking this early, it looks like rain.”
“Yeah, daddy. I don’t want to walk,” chimed in Justin.
“No problem,” mumbled Ray, forcing a smile. He was determined not to let his true state show through. Sarah had been asleep when he came in last night and didn’t know just how late he had stayed at the lab. In truth, the shower had made him feel almost human, but now he was fading again fast. He knew he needed to eat, that would keep him going for awhile.
Sarah halted in the hallway and turned to look at him. She narrowed her eyes. “You sound like a toad in a well,” she remarked. “Are you sick?”
He shook his head, grinning weakly.
Her suspicions grew, and she came up to him, looking up at her tall husband critically. She laid a hand on his chest. “Just how late were you out last night?”
Ray shrugged, feeling like he’d been caught at something. “Uh, maybe midnight or so.”
“Or so? Maybe one-or two?”
Ray shrugged again, but made no denial.
“Hmm…” said Sarah, frowning now. “You don’t need to kill yourself to run that lab, you know, Ray. They only give you twenty percent release time for it and you spend eighty percent of your time there.”
“We had a problem. There was some weird activity on the net. We couldn’t shut down for maintenance,” said Ray. He kissed her on the top of the head and escaped to the refrigerator, where he got out the milk and poured himself some cereal in a paper bowl.
“You know,” said Sarah, following him. “If Brenda was more attractive, I’d be wondering about you two.”
“Yup,” said Ray around his spoon. “You know me, I’m a chubby-chaser.”
“Chubby-chaser! Ha!” shouted Justin, looking up from his half-eaten, half-spilled breakfast. Then the commercial ended and the cartoon pulled his attention back like a magnet.
“What kind of weird activity?” asked Sarah.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready, Babe?”
Sarah frowned and crossed her arms.
Inwardly, Ray groaned. When Sarah felt protective, she turned into a detective. “It was Nog. He was eating up twelve gigabits at once and FTPing all over the place.”
“ Twelve gigabits? You mean the Nog?”
“Yup, the very one that followed you around after night-classes in college and sent you all that e-mail.”
“Yuck,” said Sarah. “Does he still have a forked-tongue?”
“I imagine so. Old snake-man, they used to call him.”
“I never knew how that happened to him.”
“No?” asked Ray, smiling. “It’s his braces. He worries at them with his tongue while he’s coding, sort of a nervous habit. After getting the tip cut a thousand times, he’s developed that V-shaped wedge of missing flesh. You know, I don’t think he’s even had those braces looked at for years. They should have been removed ages ago.”
“Gross!” shouted Justin. Sarah made a face and shuddered. Walking fast, she headed down the hall to the bathroom. “Well, I don’t think you need to stay so late, not even for Brenda, and certainly not for Nog.”
Ray smiled blearily into his paper bowl, quickly tipping it up to drink the remainder of the milk while his wife was out of sight. For some reason it upset her when he did that. He looked over and noticed that Justin was doing the same thing for the same reasons. They grinned at each other.
Then he glanced at his watch. “Oh shit!” he whispered.
“Daddy said a bad word! ” shouted Justin.
They were all going to be late.
… 83 Hours and Counting…
John Nogatakei, known to most people as Nog, or The Nog, sat in the dark den of his apartment. The majority of the light in the apartment came from the combined screens of his four computers, all of which were running, even the notebook on his lap. The room glowed from many soft sources of light. Odd shadows shimmered on the walls when Nog or one of his screens shifted. Only one sliver of clear white light could be found in the apartment, a sliver which filtered through the cracked-open refrigerator in the apartment’s tiny kitchen. Nog had been in such a hurry to get back to his computers the last time he had taken a brief break he had left the door hanging open. The fridge hummed quietly to itself, attempting in vain to cool the entire apartment.
Nog didn’t like natural light. His pale skin was clear evidence of this. During the day, when Nog slept, offensive sunlight was kept at bay by layers of aluminum foil and duct tape, which covered every window, even the sliding glass doors.
All activity in the apartment centered around the living room, which had evolved into a combination of office and bedroom. Shelves climbed every wall to the ceiling, each tier overflowing with software boxes, video disks, manuals and magazines. The forgotten bedrooms at the back of the apartment were used as further storage. The kitchen, besides the ajar fridge, contained only a microwave, paper plates and cups and plastic utensils. If food couldn’t be microwaved on a paper plate, Nog didn’t eat it.
Unexpectedly, the largest of the monitors came to life. It spread over an entire wall and was paper-thin. The screen flickered wildly for a moment and somewhere a speaker chimed. The big screen paused, and then the notebook on his lap began to flicker. Someone was trying to get in touch with him using a chat utility over the net. Nog worked his tongue around in his mouth. Talking to unknown strangers, even over the net, made him nervous. He didn’t open a communications path right away, instead he got the userid of the person calling and checked it out. It was from a student account. Nog frowned and worried his tongue against his teeth. Why would a student contact him? Why tonight, of all nights?
He checked further. Something flashed by on the screen that caught his eye. He scrolled it back up and learned that the student had not logged in for months, in fact, the account had never apparently been used before now. Nog wriggled his tongue. There was a familiar twinge of pain and a tiny amount of blood oozed into his mouth. It tasted salty.
He opened a pathway.
Who is it? he typed.
The reply swam into being on the screen: It’s me.
Nog considered dropping the connection. He didn’t like people who fooled around and played coy with him on the net. He liked to do it himself, of course, but not when he wasn’t the one in control.
Identify yourself or be switched off.
It’s your own personal Santa Claus, you fool. The one who gets you the things you don’t know how to get yourself.
Nog chuckled to himself, and stopped lacerating his tongue. He relaxed back into his chair and switched over to his notebook for easier reach. Like what kind of things? he typed.