Chapter Nine
Reminiscing
I woke up early the next morning to find that it was still dark out and on looking at the clock on my nightstand saw that it was only three in the morning. When my stomach started rumbling a few minutes later a realized that I hadn’t eat since breakfast the day before. From bitter experience, I knew better than to try and sneak down and raid the refrigerator. Turning on the small lamp that was also I my nightstand I started to look around my room. The one thing I noticed almost immediately was the laptop computer sitting on my desk. I had gotten it a few days before as a gift from my aunt and uncle. I was told at the time that it was to be used for schoolwork only and that my uncle and Brad would show me how to get started on using it later that day. Of course with all the things going on this never happened. I started smiling at the memory of Brad telling that he could show me things that would make my teachers envious. If he only knew what I was already able to do with them.
Going over to the laptop I decided to boot it up just to see what it had on it. I was appalled at what they felt was adequate protection for it. I mean it was Ok to a point, but any halfway serious attempt to hack in would be successful. On a whim, I went to my closet to see if the duffel bag I had brought with me was still there. I was more than a little relieved to see that it was. After pulling it out and opening it, I removed the bottom board from it and found that the disks I had placed there for safe keeping were still there. As I stood back up I realized how wet my diapers were. Looking around I saw that Megan for one reason or another had left all the supplies she had used during my last diaper change on top of my dresser. Before taking off my soaked diapers, I made sure that I had a clean one to replace it with. Again I lucked out and found that I had a small stash of disposables in one of my dresser drawers. Once I grabbed one and tossed it on my bed I went into the bathroom and removed the cloth diapers I had on. Once I was done rinsing them out an placing them in their hamper, I walked back into my room and opened up the diaper I had tossed on to my bed a few minutes before. Before going over to get my new diaper on I walked over to my laptop and loaded the first of the several disks figuring that it would be better to get the programs started while I was trying to handle my first solo diaper change.
“This could be interesting.” I thought to myself as I laid done on the diaper after putting on the lotion, powder and cleaning my hands off. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to get the diaper positioned correctly. While pulling the diaper up between my legs I could tell that it wasn’t going to fit as well as if Megan or my aunt would have done it. But I was going to accept it not leaking on me. I finally got the tapes on tight enough after a couple of tries where I was hoping the diaper wouldn’t leak on me. About this time my computer beeped signaling that the first disk had scanned the drives and was ready to proceed.
Twenty minutes later all the changes I was wanting to make to the system had been made. I was pleased, but not all that shocked, to see that the laptop was performing even better than it had been. Taking a few minutes to activate a password I opened up a word processor and started making the first entry into a journal that my counselor suggested I start keeping.
04 August 2010
I’m not really sure where to
begin. These last for months for me have been some of the most chaotic of my
life. And with what I’ll be putting down later anyone who might read this
journal will see what a major understatement this is. I guess though I should
start from the beginning. To my knowledge, I was born about Twelve years ago. I’m
not really sure when since my birthday has never been celebrated or even
mentioned for that matter. My biological mother had me after having an affair
with my father who was a doctor in the medical group she worked for. After
finding out she was pregnant and that my father wanted nothing to do with
either of us my mother started drinking and taking drugs to escape the
situation she was in. These finally ended up taking her life. I soon found
myself getting sent to a group home while they tried to locate my father and
arrange for me to go live with him. This didn’t quite work out as the people
running the home had hoped since I soon found myself being placed in foster
care.
The first family I went to
live with were really nice and realized from the start that I was smarter than
most kids my age. They made sure that I had all the things I needed to help
keep me interested and learn new things. The thing I liked the most about them
was the fact that my nightly wetting accidents didn’t seem to bother them. After
the first couple of accidents I was placed back into pull-ups at night While I
didn’t care for these at first, I soon realized that they were better than
waking up in a wet bed all the time. After a couple of months, they started
asking me how I felt about them possibly adopting me. I was pleased with this
and told them so. For some reason though the adoption fell through and I was
soon getting placed with another family. This went on for several years. Every
time a family would think about adopting me something would happen to make it
so it wouldn’t happen. This only happened at the first couple of families I was
placed with. I was soon getting shipped to a new family every month or so and I
noticed that they were getting steadily worse.
I was finally informed that
my father had finally consented to take me in. I was pleased when I first saw
the house I was going to be living in. I thought that maybe my life was
starting to change for the better. My nightly wettings started to clear up. I
even started to show how intelligent I was with languages and even more so with
computers. Little did I know how bad this would come back to haunt me. It must
have been about a month after I started living with my father and his family
that things started to change. I soon found getting yelled at for the smallest
mistake, and soon was getting spanked each time I woke up wet. Needless to say
that this got me to start wetting more often and heavier than I can remember up
to that time My first real beating came when I went up to my father to ask him
a question and by mistake addressed him as dad. This it seemed was the catalyst
that everyone was waiting for. I was soon getting severely beaten for the
smallest thing. My half-brothers seeing this did their best to get me blamed for
anything they could. This went on for years. The younger of my brothers even
started to bring his friends around to watch me get beaten and in some cases
even help. The worst one of all was a kid names Kurt. One of the worst beatings
I ever got came at the hands of Kurt and my brother it seemed that Kurt’s
parents were getting sent to jail for something and he was being sent off to
live with his aunt and uncle in Arizona. It took me almost a month to recover
from what turned out to be a near fatal beating. All my father and stepmother
did about this was to tell my brother to be more careful next time. Is that
fucked up or what? I almost get tortured to death and all that happens is the
person responsible is told to be more careful next time. To be honest I don’t
really know how I survived all this. I guess whoever is really running things
had other plans for me at that time. Less than a month after I recovered I was
sent over to stay with a friend of the family while my Father, Stepmother, and
brothers went to Disney World for Spring Break
It was all I could to keep
from laughing when I found out that my “parents” and oldest brother had died in
a car crash on their way to the airport. I have to say that I hope their deaths
were long and painful. The younger brother managed to come away with just a
concussion and broken arm. I learned later that his aunt took him in. If I ever
see him again it’ll be too damn soon. I hope that he’s getting the same
treatment at his new home as I was put through at mine. I highly doubt he will,
but hey a person can dream.
After a month at the Wu’s
house, I was told that I was going to live with another family. When I asked
about it further I was told in no uncertain terms that it didn’t concern me and
to keep my mouth shut about it. When the day finally came for me to leave I was
told to pack all my things about ten minutes before I was due to be picked up.
Once Mr. Wu had confirmed that I didn’t have anything but the clothes I came
over with I was led downstairs. This, of course, was after Mr. Wu told me to
stay quiet about what my father and he had done to me. And that if he found out
otherwise, I would simply be made to disappear. When asked about where my other
things were I wasn’t to surprised when the Wues lied through their teeth and
said that everything else had been shipped ahead I knew for a fact that
everything I owned, or was due to receive from the death of my parents had been
taken and sold off to pay for my room and board. I know this because every one
started laughing about how they were able to pull a fast on the courts and
there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it since the money was already
tucked away some place safe.
I have to admit that I was
more than a little shocked when I realized that I and the gal that had picked
me up, I found out that her name was Mrs. Sullivan, were headed for the
airport. I was assuming that I was just going to be shipped off to another
family nearby. With how Mrs. Sullivan reacted to some of the answers I gave to
her questions I’m surprised she didn’t stroke out or something I finally
learned shortly before we landed who was taking me in. It was all I could do to
keep from pissing myself when I hear it was an uncle and his family.
When I finally met my uncle
it was a damn good thing that I had just gotten done going to the bathroom
because I would have certainly wet myself when I saw that I was looking at a
carbon copy of my father. I about jumped out of my skin when I came to a few
minutes later and saw him leaning over me. I’m just glad that I was already
wearing loose fitting clothes and they didn’t see any need to try and remove
them. I wasn’t at all surprised when I was escorted to my room to rest a bit. I
have to say that I was more than a little taken back when I saw the size of the
room I was going to be using. It was comparable to the rooms my brothers had at
their house. I also wasn’t at all surprised when my cousin Megan came in and
placed what I found out was a pair of GoodNites on my bed and told me that my
aunt wanted me to wear them to bed. I knew that since I had mentioned to Mrs.
Sullivan I had a problem with sleep wetting I figured that they would probably
have me wear something like them to bed. Since they had them as readily
available as they did told me that at least one of my other cousins had the
same problem and going off the size of the pants realized it was David.
I knew sooner or later my
aunt and uncle would finally learn about the abuse I had suffered through at
his brother’s hand but I was wanting to keep it a secret for as long as
possible. This turned out to be less then 24 hours after my arrival. I had
apparently pissed my aunt and uncle off by serving them and my cousins’
breakfast like I thought I was supposed to. Anyway after getting talked to I was
sent upstairs to change out of my normal weekend attire of a suit and climb
into some other clothes Well Megan was sent up to help me with this and I guess
she didn’t care too much for the condition of the clothes I had with me. Once
she left the room I went ahead and started dressing in the clothes I had gotten
out. This turned out to be the wrong thing to do because when Megan came back
in carrying some other clothes she started going off a bit that I had gotten
dressed in the clothes that were already laid out for me. Well, to make a long
story short she ended up ripping the off the shirt I had on and got a look at
my back up close and personal. It’s not surprising that she got sick at the
sight. I probably would have as well
This started a chain of events
that would end up with me being in the hospital for almost a month getting
worked on and my parents( I found out after getting out of the hospital that my
aunt and uncle had adopted me.) finding out about my gift for languages I think
my aunt was a bit taken back when she learned I could speak seven languages
fluently. Aside from English that is. I didn’t mention anything about being
able to read and write in them as well but I’m sure that’ll come out sooner or
later. Just as my gift with computers will to. But for the first time in years,
I’m not afraid of someone finding out. I was even asked if I would mind helping
Megan and Brad with their foreign language classes once school starts back up,
if needed.
This is another area I’m a
bit mad about. My step-mother being a former teacher had decided it would be
safer to home school me than it would be to send me to a normal school. About a
week ago my aunt took me to the school they were having me go to this fall to
take some placement tests. I thought this was kind of strange since I assumed
they would just place me in the grade following the one I had just finished the
previous semester. As the tests progressed I found that my step-mom was rather
selective in what she was teaching me. If things had stayed like they were, I
would have been ill equipped to live on my own. But I get the feeling that I
probably would have had a fatal accident when the time came for me to try and
leave home. Anyway, I found that my scores were suited more for the Fifth grade
than the Seventh like I thought I’d be going into. I just hope people don’t
think I’m some kind of retard because of being in the 5th grade at
the age of Twelve. Not to mention still needing diapers.
Well, David had his 11th
birthday party yesterday and as luck would have it, I ended up making a scene
when I happened to bump into Kurt. He made some dumb-assed comment about me
being a good nigger and getting him a new drink. Since he was speaking German
at the time Brad, who had made the introduction, didn’t understand him, but I
could tell that the younger kid with Kurt did understand the words if not the
meaning. Well this set me off and when Kurt turned his head to look at Brad I
decided to make my displeasure known and kicked him upside the head. I know my
parents are upset and they have every right to be. I hope they will take into
consideration my past before handing me what ever punishment they think this
warrants
That brings me up that
brings me up to where I am now. I’ll try to keep things as up to date as best I
can.
I jumped when someone started knocking loudly on my bedroom door. I quickly saved my journal entry and encrypted the disk it was on before shutting the computer down. I had just climbed back into bed when the knocking came again.
“It’s open!” I called and saw Isaac stick his head into my room
“Mom wants to know if you plan on joining us for lunch or do you plan on sulking in your room all day?”
“Lunch?” I asked before looking over at my clock and saw that it was almost One in the afternoon. I was stunned that I had been working on my journal entry for almost nine hours straight.
“Yeah, lunch. I will say she was kind of peeved about you not joining us for breakfast, but Brad smoothed things over a bit by telling her you thought you were on restriction .” I nodded at this.
“OK. Tell her I’ll be down once I get some clothes on.” he just grinned at this when he saw that I was just laying there in nothing but a diaper
“All right, but hurry up.”
As soon as Isaac left I got back out of bed and after feeling the front of my diaper, I decided that my diaper could go a little longer so I tossed on a pair of shorts and a shirt and headed downstairs.
“So nice of you to finally join us.” My aunt observed when I walked into the kitchen.
“Sorry. I assumed that after what happened yesterday afternoon I was on restriction”
“Your father and I haven’t decided yet on that. You were clearly provoked and given what we learned from your grandfather once Kurt had been taken away we’re having a hard time trying to decide. Speaking of your grandfather, he wants to see you in his office later this afternoon to talk to you. And before you ask, I have no idea as to what about.” I was told before I could open my mouth to ask.
“So what had you so captivated that you didn’t want to join us for breakfast?”
“I was setting up the laptop you and Uncle Brian had given me a few days ago. And then started doing the journal that Dr. Owens suggested that I start keeping. I guess I just lost track of time.”
“OK. Just remember what we told you, the laptop is just for school work, and we want Brad nearby to help with any changes you make to it.” I turned a bright red when my aunt added the part about wanting Brad nearby when I started working on it.
“I take it you already made some changes?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I mumbled. Unable to keep eye contact with her.
“Brad after you’re done eating I want you to go upstairs and see what Ian’s done. I don’t want a repeat of what happened to David’s first one.” David turned bright red at hearing his mom mention what was obviously an embarrassing story.
“Sure mom that won’t be a problem.” I smiled to myself at this and wondered if I should warn him about the extra security I added or let him find out for himself. Seeing the look on my aunt’s face when she mentioned David’s little mishap made me decide to warn him about it.
“Uh.. Brad, before you do anything wait for me to join you. I added some extra security and passwords to it.” I told him.
“Sure no problem. Little bro.” he chuckled. I got the feeling right then that we would be heading for a meltdown. I just shrugged it off. It would now be his head that rolled if anything happened since I did warn him about it in front of our mom. The rest of the meal went by quickly with just the usual small talk about what everyone had planned for the rest of the afternoon.
As expected, David and I were led into his room after lunch for a diaper change. Brad followed us upstairs and went into my room.
“I’m going to have to talk to Megan about this.” My aunt muttered when she pulled my shorts down and got a look at the diaper I had on.
“I’m surprised it hasn’t started leaking by now.” she added as the first tape was pulled off.
“Uh, Aunt Mary? Megan didn’t put this one on. I did. I got up early and since everyone was still asleep I thought it would be easier if I just changed myself” I explained.
“Oh. Well, if you plan on doing that I guess we better show you how to put one on properly.” I was told. I was mildly surprised that David didn’t say anything about me being taught how to change myself and not him.
“We normally wait until the person is Twelve or so before we allow them to change themselves.” My aunt told me as she pulled the wet diaper out from under me and started wiping me down.
“Shit!” We heard coming from my room a few seconds later.
“Ian! Get in Here!” Brad yelled down the hall.
“Don’t do anything else! I’ll be there in a few minutes.” I called back as my aunt started sprinkling powder over my freshly lotioned groin We all could still muttered curses coming from my room.
“AH FUCK!!” We heard Brad exclaiming from down the hall. This was accompanied by a popping sound and the smell of burnt circuitry.
“Crap.” I muttered as my aunt quickly pulled my new diaper up between my legs and fastened it closed. I hopped off the table as soon as my aunt tapped my thigh signaling she was done. I raced out of the room as quickly as I could in the somewhat thick diaper I was now sporting.
Smoke was still coming from what till a few minutes ago had been a brand new laptop computer
“Didn’t I tell you not to do anything else till I got here?” I asked rhetorically.
“Well, yeah. But I thought I could handle it.”
“So much for that thought huh?” I said as I walked over to see what the damage was. As expected, I had found that my added security program had done its job all too well.”
“Well, so much for that computer.” I mumbled about the time my aunt and David came into the room..
“Could we take it into the shop and get it fixed?” My aunt asked as I started unplugging the now fried system.
“No chance. The program Brad tripped was designed to completely wipe the hard drive before causing it to overload and burn out. That’s why I told him to stop what he was doing.” I told them while looking pointedly at Brad as I did so.
“I’m sorry I don’t really understand.”
“I designed it as a two tiered program. Brad tripped both of them. If he had stopped when I told him to all I would have needed to do was type in a password and the system would have unlocked and rebooted. No harm done. Since he didn’t stop he made the program think that it was under a serious attack and it executed the second half of the program. All this would be good for now would be a paperweight” I added with a shrug.
“I see.” My aunt replied but I could tell from the look everyone had none of them understood what I had just said.
“Well, David, Ian go get some pants and shoes on and meet me downstairs. We need to leave soon to meet up with Gramps.” we were told as my aunt looked down at her watch.
“Brad, you’re to be home no later than Four O’clock. We’ll figure out what to do once your father gets home.
“Do what?”
“We’re going to figure out what to do about you and Ian’s computer when your father gets home.”
“But I didn’t do anything wrong .” Brad stated a bit heatedly.
“Actually, you did. You didn’t stop when Ian told you to. And I’d watch the tone young man before you find yourself in hack.”
“How was I supposed to know his computer was going to blow up?”
“You couldn’t know. That’s why you should have stopped and waited when Ian told you to. And not another word.” Brad still looked like he wanted to say something but saw that he had pushed too far as it was.
“Now the offer to join us is still open if you’d like to join us.”
“That’s alright. I think I’ll just stick around here.” Brad said somewhat pouting. His mom just let the matter drop with a shake of her head. David, our mom, and I left the house a few minutes later.
“You don’t think I’m in any trouble do you?” I asked nervously as we neared the local FBI office building.
“I doubt it. Your grandfather probably just wants to do a follow up on your case.” I nodded at this, but was still a bit nervous.
“Special Agent Miller will be with you in a few minutes.” We were told by his secretary after our mom informed her who we were. Taking some nearby seats we sat down to wait. Thirty minutes later the door to out grandfather’s office finally opened and we were ushered inside.
“Sorry about the wait. Something came up that couldn’t wait.” We were informed as we sat back down.
“That’s all right. What did you want to see Ian about. You made it sound kind of urgent.” Our mom stated after the pleasantries were done with.
“It is. But before we go into that let me call someone in to give David a tour of the building while we talk.” This told me that we were definitely going to be talking about my case and that it wasn’t for everyone’s ears.
“Aw, you guys never let me hear anything good.” David said with a fake pout
“And for good reason. Remember last Christmas?” David was asked with a raised eyebrow. This was clearly an inside joke since David turned a bit red as he started smiling and both my aunt and grandfather started chuckling.
“Well, that was a mistake. And I did say I was sorry afterwards. Not like Brad this morning.” Came the countered reply.
“What happened with Brad this morning?”
“Ian started using the computer we gave him the other day this morning and he had made some changes to it. Well, I asked Brad to check what Ian had changed to make sure we didn’t have a repeat of what happened with David’s first computer.”
“I can understand that. I’ve seen Brad do some impressive work with computers for a kid his age.” Our grandfather interrupted with.
“True. Only this time Brad was in over his head and melted Ian’s computer” My aunt finished while giving me a small smile. I turned red at this especially when David started snickering.
“No big deal, it’ll still be under warranty. Just take it in and have it repaired.” came the slightly confused reply.
“I guess I wasn’t being all that clear Tom. I mean Brad literally melted Ian’s computer. Ian apparently had placed an extra security program onto the computer and Brad tripped it.”
“Oh. I guess that explains why Brad’s not here then.”
“What? Oh, Brad’s not restricted or anything he just didn’t want to join us after the slight argument we had about what Brian and I were going to about it.”
“I see. Well, what did you have in mind?”
“I was thinking about having Brad work off the cost of Ian’s new computer I think he would learn more from that than if we grounded him.”
“You’re probably right. I know that has worked well with Brain and Connor the few times their mother and I used it on them.” we were told with a knowing grin. About this time the agent my grandfather had requested showed up and once David was out of the room we learned why I had been called in.
“Mary, Ian. I’m sorry to say we blew the case against the Wu’s.” We were told without preamble.
“What?!” I yelled without thinking.
“Calm down, Ian.”
“I’m sorry. It seems there’s a leak in the office somewhere and they told the Wu’s we were looking into them again. By the time we got the warrant they had skipped town.” I could clearly see the disappointment and anger fighting for control on my grandfather’s face.
“What about the servers the Wu’s had?” I asked.
“They were gone. As far as we can tell they took the servers with them.” I smiled a bit at this.
“Don’t tell me. You added another little bug to their system.” my grandfather asked with a smile of his own.
“Sort of. If they’re still in use, I can locate the servers again because of a program my father had me add to the server’s themselves. He wanted a way to wipe them in case they were ever seized by the police. To my knowledge, he never even told Mr. Wu about this. Before I do anything though, I have just one condition.” I started before my aunt butted in.
“Ian, don’t even think about trying to play games at a time like this just give your grandfather the information he needs.”
“Wait a minute Mary. I want to know what the condition is and why before we do anything” Taking this as my cue to continue, I did.
“The only condition I have is that only you have access to anything I find for the time being. As for why, you stated that there was a leak in the office I don’t want this stuff getting out till the leak is fixed. I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t be to surprised if the leak’s name was found on the server.”
“OK. I can live with that.”
“OK. Now there is two ways we can do this. One, I can access and download the servers without them knowing and set things up to where you’d get regular updates on any new items. Or two, I can download everything on the server and then fry the thing. Your choice.
“OK. I’m sure you know which one we’d prefer but so there are no mistakes or misunderstandings I’ll spell it out. You are to access the servers, and download the contents. You are then to set it up that any new data is downloaded to us on a daily basis. Understood?” I nodded at this since I figured this was the choice he was going to make.
“Now then what do you want to call this little operation of ours?”
“{“Retribution”}.” I said with a small smile. My grandfather gave a small smile of his own after a moment. My aunt just sat with a slightly bewildered look.
“Retribution.” I told her after a small pause she started smiling herself I guess she caught the irony of the term.
“All right. Ian we’ll get you started first thing in the morning. What I want you to do tonight is relax and make up a list of what you think you’ll need to get this done. I’ll want you to call me later with the list. We’ll get started first thing in the morning so I’ll be by to pick you about Seven tomorrow morning.” I nodded at this and turned to see my aunt doing the same.
“So who’s ready for some lunch?” My aunt and I were asked.
“I am.” I said enthusiastically. My aunt just groaned at this. Over the last couple of weeks my appetite had grown to were it was almost to the point it should be. I was still on the small side but now it was due to finding out that my metabolism was almost off the chart with how fast and efficiently it was working This caused me to endure more tests to see if there was anything wrong but all the tests came back normal. Our meeting ended at just the right time because my grandfather’s secretary buzzed a moment later stating that David had returned and would it be ok to send him in.
“How are you boys doing?” My aunt asked as we headed out to our car.
“I could use a change.” I answered
“I’m OK.” David said. Going from the look my aunt was giving him I could tell she didn’t believe him for a second. This was confirmed when we got to the car and David was the first one to get his pants dropped after we were lifted into the back of the car. I was surprised that David’s diaper hadn’t fallen off with how full it looked. To be honest, I couldn’t figure out how David could even stand going around as long as he tended to in a wet or messy diaper. I know for myself I normally wanted to get changed as quickly as possible most of the time. For her part, my aunt didn’t say anything she just started to un-tape David’s diaper. I was a bit surprised when I felt my own diaper being un-taped and realized that my grandfather was doing the honors.
We had finished lunch in a bit over an hour and were soon dropping my grandfather back off at his office. David and I both received hugs from him before he walked back into the building. My aunt then took us to a computer store so I could replace the computer that Brad had melted that morning. I about crapped my pants when I saw how much she was paying for it. Or I should say how much Brad was going to be paying for it. Now I could understand why he was in such a foul mood. Since we were in the area, my aunt decided to stop by my uncle’s office to let him know what was going on. We were all shocked by how foul a mood he was in as well.
“What’s wrong Brian?” My aunt asked once we were all back in his office.
“Our system crashed earlier and the tech support company said that all of their reps are out of the office till Wednesday. Advanced System Network My Ass.” My uncle almost yelled.
“Boys why don’t you go wait outside a few minutes while your dad and I talk” David and I were told as we were ushered towards the door.
After a little while of waiting, I started getting a bit thirsty and went looking for a water fountain.
“Hey Ian. I’m surprised to see you here today.” A voice called from an open doorway as I walked by. Turning I saw that it was Dr. Moran talking to me.
“Hey. My aunt, David and I came by to see my uncle since we were in the area.” I told her.
“I’d have to say that was kind of bad timing.” She said with a smile.
“So we found out. Not meaning to pry, but I know a little bit about computers would you mind if I took a look at what set-up you guys have here.”
“I don’t think I should but why not it’s not like you could do any more damage to it right.” I was told with a grin. I grinned a bit also, but I could tell that Dr. Moran saw that I didn’t feel that her joke was all that funny.
“Well, right this way.” I soon found myself looking at their server in disbelief It was the same type of system that my father and Mr. Wu used for their enterprise Without saying another word, I sat down in front of the server’s terminal and typed in a few commands.
“That figures.” I muttered.
“What?”
“Your service provider has you locked out. Uh.. there wouldn’t be any way you guys could set me up with a user name and password would there?” I asked nervously.
“Just a minute.” Dr. Moran told me as she walked out of the closet.
“Here you go.” I was told a few minutes later as she handed me a slip of paper. After typing in the user and password given to me I hacked my way through a backdoor that most people didn’t know about with that type of server Of course I found out about it by accident myself, but there you go.
“Man, this is really fucked up.” I muttered after a few minutes.
“What?”
“With how messed up these settings are it’s no wonder your system crashed But it’s an easy fix. Just give me about twenty minutes.” I announced as I turned back to my work.
“What’s going on here?! What is this Kid doing on our server?!” A voice boomed behind me as I was making some final adjustments.
“This is Dr. Miller’s son, Ian. Ian came in with his mom and brother to see Dr. Miller and asked to see our server when he heard of it going down. I didn’t think there would be a problem so I let him.” Dr. Moran explained quickly but calmly.
“Ian, this is Dr. Roberts the head of our group.” I just waved in response as I finished up what I was doing.
“Dr. Moran. If you could have everyone log off wait a minute and then log back on I think it should be running OK now. And do the same with the printers and faxes and such also.” I yelled. When I turned around I saw that the doctor I had just casually blown off a few minutes before was still standing behind me.
“Sorry about that sir. Pleased to meet you.” I said while sticking out my hand. The server started beeping causing both Dr. Roberts and I to look at it. All the lights were now flashing Green and Yellow.
“That should take care of everything.” I said as cheering started breaking out all over the office.
“Let’s go see your dad.” I was told.
“It’s open.” I heard my uncle call after Dr. Roberts knocked on his door.
“Does this young man belong to you?”
“Yes, he does. Why is something wrong?” My uncle asked while looking at me pointedly.
“Not at all. I just wanted to thank him in front of you for helping get the computers back up and running.” Dr. Roberts said with a smile. As he gave my back a couple of gentle pats.
“Thank you sir.” I mumbled embarrassedly as my uncle said the same.
“I’ll have a check ready for him before you leave today for his services” We were told as Dr. Roberts walked out the door. A few seconds later David was brought back in.
“Would you care to explain what that was all about?”
“Well, you were going on about your server crashing and mom had David and I go wait in the lobby. Then I got thirsty and went looking for a drink and ran into Dr. Moran. And I asked if I could see the server and it was the same type as the one my father had.” was as far as I could get before I started to hyperventilate
“Easy Ian. Calm down and take deep breaths.” My uncle said calmly as my aunt rubbed my back. I noticed she had tears in her eyes. As my aunt tried to get me calmed down my uncle left the room. He came back into the room a few minutes later just as I was starting to breathe normally again.
“I just talked to Alice and she explained everything. So everything is on the up and up. By the way, we never got to talk about why you came over today.”
“It’s nothing really. Brad accidentally melted Ian’s computer this morning. I was just coming by to find out what you thought should be done about it.?”
“Just take it into the shop. It’s under warranty still.” David started laughing at this point and I quickly put my hand over his mouth.
“I’m sorry. I should have told you I meant that literally. Brad melted Ian’s computer. It seems Ian added an extra security program to the system aside from making some other changes and when I asked Brad to double check what was done he accidentally tripped the program.”
“I see and why didn’t you tell Brad about this?” I was asked.
“I did tell him. The program was actually in two parts. Brad yelled for me when he tripped the first part and I asked for him to wait a few minutes since I was getting changed at the time. He didn’t want to and ended up tripping the second half of the program which caused the machine to go into a meltdown.” I explained with tears in my eyes thinking I was going to get in trouble as well.
“I see. What did you have in mind for Brad?” My aunt was asked.
“Well, I doubt grounding would do much good on something like this so I was thinking about having him pay for it through his allowance and doing odd jobs. Your dad thinks it’s a good idea.”
“Yeah, he would.” my uncle said with a rueful smile. After a few more minutes of chatting we left with my uncle telling us he would try not to be too late getting home.
“Ian, why don’t you go up and take a short nap. After all that’s happened today I think you could use one. I’ll have someone wake you up in time for your swimming lesson.” I was told as we pulled into our driveway twenty minutes after leaving my uncle’s office.
“OK.” I didn’t feel all that tired but I wasn’t really in the mood to argue at the time. I figured if I just quietly read in bed or something like that then my aunt would be satisfied with that. Once I walked into my room, I went over to my dresser and took out a pair of Speedos and one of the liners for it. After putting them together, I grabbed the book I was reading off my nightstand and climbed into bed.
“Hey Ian, It’s time to get up.” A voice called.
“Huh?” I mumbled.
“It’s time to get up. Dinner’s almost ready.” The voice called again only thing time it was accompanied by a hand gently shaking my shoulder As all the times before, I jumped when the hand touched my shoulder.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.” Isaac replied looking a bit startled.
“Sorry about that. Did you say Dinner was almost ready? I thought someone was going to wake me up in time for our swim lessons.”
“Don had something come up at the last minute so it was cancelled.”
“Oh. OK.”
“How was your nap?” I was asked as Isaac and I entered the dining room.
“Not bad.”
“Do you think you’ll be OK for tomorrow?” My uncle asked as I sat down.
“I should be.”
“OK, but if you feel like you need something to help you sleep tonight let me know”
“I’ll be fine.” I said with a slightly haunted look remembering all the times my father had drugged me out of my mind just for the hell of it. Because of that, I was extremely wary about taking any drugs. I just got a nod at this.
“All right. Just know that it’s there if you feel that you need it.”
“So Brad, I heard you had a problem this morning with your brother’s computer” My uncle announced with a slight smile just as Brad was starting to take a sip of his drink.
“Jeez, Brad! Cover your mouth next time why don’t you?!” Isaac exclaimed as he started wiping his face off from where Brad’s drink had landed after it had come out of his mouth at a high rate of speed. It was all Megan, David, and I could do to keep from burst out laughing from this but some how we managed.
“Just a small one. It won’t happen again.” Brad mumbled at his plate.
“I see. You call melting a computer a “small problem”?”
“I didn’t think it was going to meltdown.”
“I could understand that. My main question then is, why did you keep going after Ian asked you to stop and wait from him to get there.”
“I thought that I could handle what was going on. I mean I finished my computer course last semester with high marks and I didn’t think that his computer would have anything more than a standard security program.”
“Looks like you were wrong doesn’t it. Ok, this is what’s going to happen. You won’t be restricted for this since it was partly an accident However, you will be paying to replace Ian’s computer.”
“But you said it was an accident?!”
“No, I said it was partly an accident. Had you stopped when Ian asked you to then nothing would have happened. Since you didn’t it makes the meltdown your responsibility. And not another word, or you will be on restriction.” My uncle said firmly when it looked like Brad was going to say something more.
“Now then, you’ll be doing extra jobs around the house and losing half of you allowance till the new computer is paid off. Understood?”
“Yes sir.”
“I would also like you to watch Ian as he sets up his new system so you can see what he did. You never know, you might learn something.”
“I doubt it.”
“What was that?” My uncle asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Nothing sir.”
“Now Ian I have something for you. This is a thank you from Dr. Roberts for getting our sever up and running again. Most of the people there were amazed at how fast everything was running once you were done.” I was told as my uncle handed me an envelope.
“Thank you sir.” I replied as I accepted the envelope and set it beside my plate.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” My uncle asked. I could see the curiosity written all over his face telling me that he didn’t know what the envelope contained. Looking around the table, I saw everyone else was looking at me as well.
Sensing that I wouldn’t get any rest about the subject till I opened the envelope, I picked it up and opened it. I promptly dropped it once I saw what it contained
“Ian, what is it?” My aunt asked worriedly when she saw me go slightly pale Without a word, I picked up the envelope and handed it to her.
“Oh, shit.” I heard her mumble as she looked in the envelope. This caused my uncle to take the envelope and look himself.
“I’ll be right back.” My uncle announced a moment later as he pushed his chair back, stood up, and walked toward his study. He came back out empty handed a few minutes later.
“I just got done talking to Carl. He assured me the check is real and he would like to see you after you’re done tomorrow morning.” We were told as my uncle sat back down.
“What was in the envelope?” David asked.
“Nothing that concerns you.” My uncle said in a way that ended all further discussion on the matter.
“Aunt Mary, I’m about to head to bed. Would you mind giving Gramps a call and giving him this list. I haven’t been able to get a hold of him.” I asked.
“Sure Ian, I’ll take care of it. Have you gone over your new system with Brad yet?” I was asked as my aunt took the list.
“Yeah, he’s up in his room sulking.” I told her with a smile. Thinking back at how Brad was totally pissed about how I was able to show him tricks that he didn’t think were possible.
“OK. Well you go on up and get ready for bed and I’ll be up in a few minutes”
“Ian, I know tomorrow will be a bit stressful for you. So just take things easy and let your grandfather know if things start getting to be to much for you. Okay?” I was asked as my aunt reached down to tuck me into be.
“OK. I don’t think that things will be all that bad. But I’ll let Gramps know if I start getting to stressed.” This earned me a light kiss on the forehead. A few seconds later my aunt was turning off the lights to my room and I fell asleep a few minutes later.