Training 6: IT
Jess settled herself as comfortably as she could into the chair Heero offered to her. Today's training was situated in Heero's room. In front of her, on a table, was a desktop computer; connected to Heero's stylish laptop by a single cable.
Pointing to the cable, Heero explained: "Link - internet." Jess nodded to show she understood.
Then Heero switched the computer on for her and waited for it to boot up properly. All the while humming a little tune under his breath.
'He seems happy . . .' she thought, watching as the boy keyed in the necessary codes to enter the system controls. To Heero, this was the area he was most familiar with. The pinnacle of his skills. So far, the worst thing he ever got was a virus that was affecting the OZ main control system at that point in time. No doubt, courtesy of a certain manic he knew on board the ship.
Thanks to his virus, his whole computer system was reduced to an audiovisual display that replayed itself over and over again, showing a small boy pulling down his pants and mooning the viewer before turning around and sticking out his tongue. On top of that, large bright colorful words flashed across, stating: "Guess who was here?"
In the end, he had to reformat the whole system, wiping out a LOT of precious data stored in it.
Heero stopped humming. Just remembering that incident made his blood boil. It was the cause for the early death of a mission: Blackmail. It also caused the loss of what possibly could be millions worth of dollars! Heero gritted his teeth and fumed.
Meanwhile, Jess quietly moved her chair a little further away from Heero. The atmosphere around the boy had just turned dangerous for no obvious reason. She watched as the pen he held in his hand broke into two between his fingers.
"He . . . Heero?" she tentatively called, tensing her muscles and getting ready to bolt at the tiniest sign of violence. "You . . . ok?"
He blinked as if he was coming from somewhere far. Then he looked at her in surprise.
"What are you doing . . . here?" Jess gave him the look. It was him that brought her here in the first place!
"Oh." He quickly amended and reached over to take control of the keyboard. Keying in some commands, he got the desktop to access his laptop.
"First off, lets do some simple basics of hacking."
"Hacking?"
"Yeah." And he started typing on the keyboards real fast. "See this speed?" he asked without pausing. "This is the first basic you need to have for hacking, especially when you're dealing with uncovered code areas. It's like a minefield in there. The moment you pause, the system will track you almost instantly."
Jess looked at the hands flying over the keyboard. They were almost a blur.
"Th . . . th . . . this . . . FAST?" she gulped, eyeing the hands with despair. "I haven't even taken typing lessons yet!"
The hands stopped in their furious typing. Almost immediately, Heero's laptop started flashing red and giving out loud, continuous sounds. Then the boy turned a shocked face towards her.
"You're seventeen, right?" he asked, his eyes wide with amazement. Jess nodded, unsure why he suddenly asked such a question.
"You've HAVE used the Internet before, right?"
"Well, when I need to check email and stuff . . . You know . . . click your mouse and such . . . USER-Friendly systems . . ."
"You can't type?" he practically shrieked that statement, hands clutching his head. Jess winced. He needn't make it sound like it was a disability.
"You needn't shout," she retorted, folding her own arms. The way Heero was carrying on, he was making her feel like an idiot. "I know how to type."
'Yeah, with one hand and two eyes,' an inner voice confessed but she pushed that voice aside.
But Heero continued to stare at her, disbelieve written all over his face.
"Uh huh."
"Don't believe me? Try me," she challenged, tiling her chin up in defiance. Though reluctant, Heero walked over to his laptop and typed some codes that ended the red flashing screen and the ominous siren. Then he settled into a chair in front of his laptop before nodding to her.
"Go ahead," he commanded, his face suddenly serious.
Jess pulled her chair in front of the desktop and got ready to start. A blank computer screen stared back at her.
"Well?" Heero demanded when she sat there for a whole minute, trying to determine what to do first.
"Umm . . . Access code?"
"Table." Boy! Did he sound pissed. Jess took a quick glance at the table and found a slip of paper with a long line of words and numbers attached to it.
'Hhhmmm . . . First letter: A' she thought and hit the letter on the keyboard. 'Next letter . . . B! B . . . B . . . Hah! Found it!'
But before she could hit the letter, the siren and the red flashing screen came on.
"You're too slow," came the comment after a moment's pause. No doubt from Heero, waiting for her to absorb the humiliating notes of her defeat.
"First try not counted!" she shot back, looking hard at him. "Let me try again!"
"As you wish," he said, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling. With a few quick movements of his fingers, he restarted the security system. Then he watched as the girl typed in the letters again. This time, the siren sounded after the second letter.
"Again!"
Heero sighed. Looks like it was gonna be another long day again.
***
People would usually know when they are at their limit or when it's time to stop. Obviously this girl wasn't born with that kind of sense ingrained in her. Heero sighed as he restarted his security system for the 108th time.
He had better things to do than this!
Meanwhile, Jess stole a glance in Heero's direction. He had propped up his face with his left hand, and had a bored look written all over his face as his right hand moved his mouse. Jess wondered what he was doing at the moment. So far, the only improvement she made was to type up to eight letters before the security system went off. And she wasn't even a quarter through the access code!
And even if he hadn't worn this bored look on his face, Jess would have known he was bored. The screen had stopped flashing red and the siren now played songs whenever it was triggered. This was the tenth song she had heard. And amazingly, it continued playing where it left off from the last trigger.
"Have enough?" he suddenly asked when he caught her looking at him.
Jess nearly jumped a foot out of her chair. That boy had instincts of an animal!
"Wh . . . what makes you think I'm giving up?" she quickly retorted, her hands going to the keyboard. The song was triggered off at the first letter she typed. Jess could feel her face go red. She had type in the letter S instead of the letter A!
"Hn. . . "
At times like this, Jess felt like banging her head against something. The computer screen looked big and inviting.
However, Heero surprised her by getting out of his chair and walking over to her after restarting the security system.
"Wha . . . hey! I'm not finished," she quickly said when Heero pulled the keyboard towards him. But he ignored her, quickly typing in the access code and connecting the desktop to his laptop main system.
"Let's call it a day here, ok?" he replied gently and returned the keyboard to her. "Now you have entered the main controls. I need you to try downloading all the files into here. Do you know how to download?"
Jess puffed her chest out with pride. Back home, she was the queen of downloading when it came to that, especially translations on her favorite mangas.
Giving Heero a bright cheery smile and V sign, she answered: "Of course! Leave it to me!"
"I find that hard to believe," he muttered to himself but stepped back to let her do her thing.
He watched as the girl grabbed the mouse and right clicked. Nothing happened. The girl clicked another time. Still nothing happened. The girl started clicking the mouse continuously and fast. Heero slapped a hand to his forehead.
The girl was a complete computer illiterate!
"Stop!" he shouted, snatching the mouse out of her hand. The continuous clicking was contributing to a migraine that was just starting in his head. Anymore and his head would explode.
Placing the mouse gently on the table and holding back his anger took a great amount of will but he did it. Heero could almost visualize Wufei's reaction to such a situation. The girl would probably be sitting on her fanny outside the room long before this.
"You need to create a backup or go in-between software for this. A link that directly connects you to these files you see before you," he explained slowly, trying his best to make her understand. She was looking at him with that blank look on her face again. Darn if he started wringing her neck in the next few minutes.
"I am going to instruct you on how," he continued, grinding his teeth. "It's very simple."
"Ok . . ." she obediently agreed and waited.
"First, type in: F exe. Open log." He commanded and watched as she did as she was told. A yellow window popped up. The girl gave a squeal of delight and pointed at it. Heero smirked. This was just too easy.
"Now, type in: Crl acs mouse."
"Like this?" she asked and typed it in the pop up window.
"No!" Heero shouted, surging forward to stop her. However, it was too late. The girl hit the enter button before he could catch her hand. The whole computer screen went black.
"Look what you have done!" he scolded her and went running to his laptop. If he was fast, he may still be able to salvage the situation
But Jess had other plans in mind.
"Don't worry," she called out to him. "I've been in dos before!" And her fingers went to the keyboard. Heero ignored her. She couldn't do more damage then she could do now.
* BOOM! *
Heero swerved his head towards the sound and stared. The girl was sitting in front of the desktop, looking really guilty. The desktop was now leaking out thick clouds of black smoke, indicating a massive burnout.
"What did you do??!!" he asked, suddenly afraid to hear what she had to say.
"You sure you want to know?" she returned, trying her best to look pitiful.
Heero left his laptop and marched over to her.
* BOOM! *
A second explosion. Heero slowly turned back his head. His laptop was now spewing out black smoke and its screen was missing its glass surface. Turning back to the girl, he bended over till they were eye to eye.
"YES!" he hissed. Jess swallowed nervously. There was a wild look coming into Heero's eyes and they were starting to shine with a strange light.
"You know when you're left with a blank screen and a blinking cursor?"
"Hn?"
"I typed: undo since that is how you recover things under dos system for windows. And it really did some undo thingies till it started saying invalid command. So I tried doing it another way."
"Hn?"
"Like Crl acs mouse and such since I didn't see it pop out anywhere in the undos things."
"Hn?"
"So it got messy and I thought I clear it up."
"Command?"
". . . Cls . . ."
"Oh really . . .?" Heero bended even closer. Jess tried to shrink as far back into her chair as she could.
"And there was Crl Del, Sys Cls, End Pgm? . . . The program was asking me to do those things . . ."
For a few moments, Heero did not speak. He just continued to stare Jess in the eye, that wild light in it getting stronger by the second. Then suddenly, he straightened up and turned his back on her. Jess heaved a sigh of relief and got off her chair
"Ten seconds." He suddenly threw over his shoulder.
"Huh?" Jess was puzzled by this sudden change of attitude.
"Eight seconds to go."
"For what?" she cried, her suspicions suddenly hitting a high alert.
"Omae O korosu!"
"Eeeeeeyaaaahhh!" Jess ran screaming out of Heero's room, running as fast as her two legs could carry her. "Sssssaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!"
Meanwhile, Heero cocked his gun and chuckled evilly.
Payback time!
Jess settled herself as comfortably as she could into the chair Heero offered to her. Today's training was situated in Heero's room. In front of her, on a table, was a desktop computer; connected to Heero's stylish laptop by a single cable.
Pointing to the cable, Heero explained: "Link - internet." Jess nodded to show she understood.
Then Heero switched the computer on for her and waited for it to boot up properly. All the while humming a little tune under his breath.
'He seems happy . . .' she thought, watching as the boy keyed in the necessary codes to enter the system controls. To Heero, this was the area he was most familiar with. The pinnacle of his skills. So far, the worst thing he ever got was a virus that was affecting the OZ main control system at that point in time. No doubt, courtesy of a certain manic he knew on board the ship.
Thanks to his virus, his whole computer system was reduced to an audiovisual display that replayed itself over and over again, showing a small boy pulling down his pants and mooning the viewer before turning around and sticking out his tongue. On top of that, large bright colorful words flashed across, stating: "Guess who was here?"
In the end, he had to reformat the whole system, wiping out a LOT of precious data stored in it.
Heero stopped humming. Just remembering that incident made his blood boil. It was the cause for the early death of a mission: Blackmail. It also caused the loss of what possibly could be millions worth of dollars! Heero gritted his teeth and fumed.
Meanwhile, Jess quietly moved her chair a little further away from Heero. The atmosphere around the boy had just turned dangerous for no obvious reason. She watched as the pen he held in his hand broke into two between his fingers.
"He . . . Heero?" she tentatively called, tensing her muscles and getting ready to bolt at the tiniest sign of violence. "You . . . ok?"
He blinked as if he was coming from somewhere far. Then he looked at her in surprise.
"What are you doing . . . here?" Jess gave him the look. It was him that brought her here in the first place!
"Oh." He quickly amended and reached over to take control of the keyboard. Keying in some commands, he got the desktop to access his laptop.
"First off, lets do some simple basics of hacking."
"Hacking?"
"Yeah." And he started typing on the keyboards real fast. "See this speed?" he asked without pausing. "This is the first basic you need to have for hacking, especially when you're dealing with uncovered code areas. It's like a minefield in there. The moment you pause, the system will track you almost instantly."
Jess looked at the hands flying over the keyboard. They were almost a blur.
"Th . . . th . . . this . . . FAST?" she gulped, eyeing the hands with despair. "I haven't even taken typing lessons yet!"
The hands stopped in their furious typing. Almost immediately, Heero's laptop started flashing red and giving out loud, continuous sounds. Then the boy turned a shocked face towards her.
"You're seventeen, right?" he asked, his eyes wide with amazement. Jess nodded, unsure why he suddenly asked such a question.
"You've HAVE used the Internet before, right?"
"Well, when I need to check email and stuff . . . You know . . . click your mouse and such . . . USER-Friendly systems . . ."
"You can't type?" he practically shrieked that statement, hands clutching his head. Jess winced. He needn't make it sound like it was a disability.
"You needn't shout," she retorted, folding her own arms. The way Heero was carrying on, he was making her feel like an idiot. "I know how to type."
'Yeah, with one hand and two eyes,' an inner voice confessed but she pushed that voice aside.
But Heero continued to stare at her, disbelieve written all over his face.
"Uh huh."
"Don't believe me? Try me," she challenged, tiling her chin up in defiance. Though reluctant, Heero walked over to his laptop and typed some codes that ended the red flashing screen and the ominous siren. Then he settled into a chair in front of his laptop before nodding to her.
"Go ahead," he commanded, his face suddenly serious.
Jess pulled her chair in front of the desktop and got ready to start. A blank computer screen stared back at her.
"Well?" Heero demanded when she sat there for a whole minute, trying to determine what to do first.
"Umm . . . Access code?"
"Table." Boy! Did he sound pissed. Jess took a quick glance at the table and found a slip of paper with a long line of words and numbers attached to it.
'Hhhmmm . . . First letter: A' she thought and hit the letter on the keyboard. 'Next letter . . . B! B . . . B . . . Hah! Found it!'
But before she could hit the letter, the siren and the red flashing screen came on.
"You're too slow," came the comment after a moment's pause. No doubt from Heero, waiting for her to absorb the humiliating notes of her defeat.
"First try not counted!" she shot back, looking hard at him. "Let me try again!"
"As you wish," he said, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling. With a few quick movements of his fingers, he restarted the security system. Then he watched as the girl typed in the letters again. This time, the siren sounded after the second letter.
"Again!"
Heero sighed. Looks like it was gonna be another long day again.
***
People would usually know when they are at their limit or when it's time to stop. Obviously this girl wasn't born with that kind of sense ingrained in her. Heero sighed as he restarted his security system for the 108th time.
He had better things to do than this!
Meanwhile, Jess stole a glance in Heero's direction. He had propped up his face with his left hand, and had a bored look written all over his face as his right hand moved his mouse. Jess wondered what he was doing at the moment. So far, the only improvement she made was to type up to eight letters before the security system went off. And she wasn't even a quarter through the access code!
And even if he hadn't worn this bored look on his face, Jess would have known he was bored. The screen had stopped flashing red and the siren now played songs whenever it was triggered. This was the tenth song she had heard. And amazingly, it continued playing where it left off from the last trigger.
"Have enough?" he suddenly asked when he caught her looking at him.
Jess nearly jumped a foot out of her chair. That boy had instincts of an animal!
"Wh . . . what makes you think I'm giving up?" she quickly retorted, her hands going to the keyboard. The song was triggered off at the first letter she typed. Jess could feel her face go red. She had type in the letter S instead of the letter A!
"Hn. . . "
At times like this, Jess felt like banging her head against something. The computer screen looked big and inviting.
However, Heero surprised her by getting out of his chair and walking over to her after restarting the security system.
"Wha . . . hey! I'm not finished," she quickly said when Heero pulled the keyboard towards him. But he ignored her, quickly typing in the access code and connecting the desktop to his laptop main system.
"Let's call it a day here, ok?" he replied gently and returned the keyboard to her. "Now you have entered the main controls. I need you to try downloading all the files into here. Do you know how to download?"
Jess puffed her chest out with pride. Back home, she was the queen of downloading when it came to that, especially translations on her favorite mangas.
Giving Heero a bright cheery smile and V sign, she answered: "Of course! Leave it to me!"
"I find that hard to believe," he muttered to himself but stepped back to let her do her thing.
He watched as the girl grabbed the mouse and right clicked. Nothing happened. The girl clicked another time. Still nothing happened. The girl started clicking the mouse continuously and fast. Heero slapped a hand to his forehead.
The girl was a complete computer illiterate!
"Stop!" he shouted, snatching the mouse out of her hand. The continuous clicking was contributing to a migraine that was just starting in his head. Anymore and his head would explode.
Placing the mouse gently on the table and holding back his anger took a great amount of will but he did it. Heero could almost visualize Wufei's reaction to such a situation. The girl would probably be sitting on her fanny outside the room long before this.
"You need to create a backup or go in-between software for this. A link that directly connects you to these files you see before you," he explained slowly, trying his best to make her understand. She was looking at him with that blank look on her face again. Darn if he started wringing her neck in the next few minutes.
"I am going to instruct you on how," he continued, grinding his teeth. "It's very simple."
"Ok . . ." she obediently agreed and waited.
"First, type in: F exe. Open log." He commanded and watched as she did as she was told. A yellow window popped up. The girl gave a squeal of delight and pointed at it. Heero smirked. This was just too easy.
"Now, type in: Crl acs mouse."
"Like this?" she asked and typed it in the pop up window.
"No!" Heero shouted, surging forward to stop her. However, it was too late. The girl hit the enter button before he could catch her hand. The whole computer screen went black.
"Look what you have done!" he scolded her and went running to his laptop. If he was fast, he may still be able to salvage the situation
But Jess had other plans in mind.
"Don't worry," she called out to him. "I've been in dos before!" And her fingers went to the keyboard. Heero ignored her. She couldn't do more damage then she could do now.
* BOOM! *
Heero swerved his head towards the sound and stared. The girl was sitting in front of the desktop, looking really guilty. The desktop was now leaking out thick clouds of black smoke, indicating a massive burnout.
"What did you do??!!" he asked, suddenly afraid to hear what she had to say.
"You sure you want to know?" she returned, trying her best to look pitiful.
Heero left his laptop and marched over to her.
* BOOM! *
A second explosion. Heero slowly turned back his head. His laptop was now spewing out black smoke and its screen was missing its glass surface. Turning back to the girl, he bended over till they were eye to eye.
"YES!" he hissed. Jess swallowed nervously. There was a wild look coming into Heero's eyes and they were starting to shine with a strange light.
"You know when you're left with a blank screen and a blinking cursor?"
"Hn?"
"I typed: undo since that is how you recover things under dos system for windows. And it really did some undo thingies till it started saying invalid command. So I tried doing it another way."
"Hn?"
"Like Crl acs mouse and such since I didn't see it pop out anywhere in the undos things."
"Hn?"
"So it got messy and I thought I clear it up."
"Command?"
". . . Cls . . ."
"Oh really . . .?" Heero bended even closer. Jess tried to shrink as far back into her chair as she could.
"And there was Crl Del, Sys Cls, End Pgm? . . . The program was asking me to do those things . . ."
For a few moments, Heero did not speak. He just continued to stare Jess in the eye, that wild light in it getting stronger by the second. Then suddenly, he straightened up and turned his back on her. Jess heaved a sigh of relief and got off her chair
"Ten seconds." He suddenly threw over his shoulder.
"Huh?" Jess was puzzled by this sudden change of attitude.
"Eight seconds to go."
"For what?" she cried, her suspicions suddenly hitting a high alert.
"Omae O korosu!"
"Eeeeeeyaaaahhh!" Jess ran screaming out of Heero's room, running as fast as her two legs could carry her. "Sssssaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!"
Meanwhile, Heero cocked his gun and chuckled evilly.
Payback time!
