M. Matheson's Blog - Posts Tagged "computer"
Character Fact from the Eagle Claw Hack
My Latest short story 'The Eagle Claw Hack' is being well received.
The protagonist Bill Tompkins is a retired high school teacher and frustrated indie writer who enlists his fifteen-year-old neighbor, Narwhal 'Nar' Schmidt, into a plot to hack Amazon and FORCE sales of his book.
I patterned Nar after a real person I know, only the real person was better looking than Nar. The following is an excerpt from my story describing him:
Out in nature, a narwhal is an ugly single-tusked whale, and the name unfortunately fit this boy. Six-foot-four in his stocking feet, he wore a black trench coat that seemed stitched to his back. If you ever caught him eyeball to eyeball, it’d make you wince, but Mom loved him. Maybe. His cheeks were bloated like a chipmunk hoarding nuts, only all the cute had been stomped out of that face. A bulbous nose hooked slightly to the side, and his teeth were yellowed from a 24-7 infusion of energy drinks. One tooth was missing – a canine – and the empty hole winked at you when he spoke. The kids called him “Frankenstein,” and it fit, but he needed no defenders. He could take care of himself. Oddly enough, all that ugliness was contradicted and nearly cancelled out by an amiable voice; he had a great face for radio. And, once you got past his appearance, he had a charismatic presence.
Nar was the sharpest knife in the drawer with or without grading on a curve. He could make an ancient computer do headstands, run around the block, and hack into NSA servers, all without breaking a sweat. He once fired up a broken-down-boat-anchor PC belonging to Mister Tompkins after only five minutes tinkering in its antique BIOS.
No one talked much about it, afraid it might somehow set a doomsday scenario into motion, but they believed Nar would be the most likely candidate to shoot up their school or blow up the world, if the time ever came. The school authorities were so terrified, they placed him in a continuation school where, compared to Nar, the teachers were idiots. They made a few passes at dumbing him down to the level of the rest of the students, which ended with them asking him just to stop answering all the questions because “You're making all the other kids feel bad.”
Being in that school was not much different for Nar than Siberian exile for a feared political dissident, and all over a silly incident of a virus – actually a worm – that infected the school district’s computers. Every time the keys N-A-R were struck, CD drives would pop open and continue to fly in and out until the proper key was struck. Any time anyone in the district typed words such as NARROW, ANARCHIST, NARRATIVE, CULINARY, DICTIONARY, RUNAROUND, or NAR Schmidt, their CD drive would snap open and shut like a hungry snapping turtle. Of course, this was frustrating for everyone; the only remedy was the keystroke Q, which is the least common letter in the English language. Nar volunteered and permanently fixed it for them. There was a trial in the principal’s office, just Nar and the principal, and he was banished to continuation school without any evidence against him.
The boy I patterned him from shared the following traits.
1. He was huge and wore a trenchcoat.
2. He was the sharpest knife in the drawer.
3. He did fix my computer as in the story.
4. He did write a virus and send it to the school district, which made the CD drives open and close at certain keystrokes.
5. They did banish him to continuation school because they were scared of him.
6. The school did try to dumb him down and told him to stop answering all the questions in class.
Ever more entertaining stuff when you know it's a real guy.
I hope you find it as entertaining as I do.
Thank you for taking the time to read and would be thrilled if you read my story and left a review.
On Smashwords- https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...
On B&N- http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-e...
Let's connect up on-
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mikeyznsacto
Like my Facebook Page: http://facebook.com/write.matheson
The protagonist Bill Tompkins is a retired high school teacher and frustrated indie writer who enlists his fifteen-year-old neighbor, Narwhal 'Nar' Schmidt, into a plot to hack Amazon and FORCE sales of his book.
I patterned Nar after a real person I know, only the real person was better looking than Nar. The following is an excerpt from my story describing him:
Out in nature, a narwhal is an ugly single-tusked whale, and the name unfortunately fit this boy. Six-foot-four in his stocking feet, he wore a black trench coat that seemed stitched to his back. If you ever caught him eyeball to eyeball, it’d make you wince, but Mom loved him. Maybe. His cheeks were bloated like a chipmunk hoarding nuts, only all the cute had been stomped out of that face. A bulbous nose hooked slightly to the side, and his teeth were yellowed from a 24-7 infusion of energy drinks. One tooth was missing – a canine – and the empty hole winked at you when he spoke. The kids called him “Frankenstein,” and it fit, but he needed no defenders. He could take care of himself. Oddly enough, all that ugliness was contradicted and nearly cancelled out by an amiable voice; he had a great face for radio. And, once you got past his appearance, he had a charismatic presence.
Nar was the sharpest knife in the drawer with or without grading on a curve. He could make an ancient computer do headstands, run around the block, and hack into NSA servers, all without breaking a sweat. He once fired up a broken-down-boat-anchor PC belonging to Mister Tompkins after only five minutes tinkering in its antique BIOS.
No one talked much about it, afraid it might somehow set a doomsday scenario into motion, but they believed Nar would be the most likely candidate to shoot up their school or blow up the world, if the time ever came. The school authorities were so terrified, they placed him in a continuation school where, compared to Nar, the teachers were idiots. They made a few passes at dumbing him down to the level of the rest of the students, which ended with them asking him just to stop answering all the questions because “You're making all the other kids feel bad.”
Being in that school was not much different for Nar than Siberian exile for a feared political dissident, and all over a silly incident of a virus – actually a worm – that infected the school district’s computers. Every time the keys N-A-R were struck, CD drives would pop open and continue to fly in and out until the proper key was struck. Any time anyone in the district typed words such as NARROW, ANARCHIST, NARRATIVE, CULINARY, DICTIONARY, RUNAROUND, or NAR Schmidt, their CD drive would snap open and shut like a hungry snapping turtle. Of course, this was frustrating for everyone; the only remedy was the keystroke Q, which is the least common letter in the English language. Nar volunteered and permanently fixed it for them. There was a trial in the principal’s office, just Nar and the principal, and he was banished to continuation school without any evidence against him.
The boy I patterned him from shared the following traits.
1. He was huge and wore a trenchcoat.
2. He was the sharpest knife in the drawer.
3. He did fix my computer as in the story.
4. He did write a virus and send it to the school district, which made the CD drives open and close at certain keystrokes.
5. They did banish him to continuation school because they were scared of him.
6. The school did try to dumb him down and told him to stop answering all the questions in class.
Ever more entertaining stuff when you know it's a real guy.
I hope you find it as entertaining as I do.
Thank you for taking the time to read and would be thrilled if you read my story and left a review.
On Smashwords- https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...
On B&N- http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-e...
Let's connect up on-
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mikeyznsacto
Like my Facebook Page: http://facebook.com/write.matheson
