Run the Numbers

Chapter Two

Charlie Eppes was standing in front of the blackboard in his office working and didn't hear Dr. Larry Fleinhardt enter due to the music blaring from the ever present headphones he wore. Larry smiled at his colleague and stepped over to tap him on the shoulder and get his attention. Charlie turned and seemed to take a moment to register that someone was interrupting his train of thought before smiling and taking off his headphones.

Larry looked very smug and said, "I have a surprise for you."

He set a box on the desk. Charlie looked intrigued and opened the box, pulling out a small satellite dish. The dish itself was only 24 inches in diameter but with the stand and aerial it sat in a 40 inch square box. Charlie raised his eyebrows.

"You are giving me direct TV? Larry I don't watch a lot of TV."

Larry, looking even more smug, sat down and crossed his arms over his chest.

"My department did a bit of unofficial work for the Simtech Research Labs so they have allowed us some minimal band width on their satellite as a form of unofficial payment. With that dish my friend, you can uplink directly to the school's mainframe."

Charlie's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree.

"Mind you Charles, we are only being given a limited bandwidth on the satellite but after hours when there is less company usage you should be able to have a clear connection from home instead of camping out in the computer lab when you are working on some particularly vexing calculation."

Charlie immediately pulled out the installation instructions and began scanning through them. Larry looked at his watch then reached over to pull the instructions down from in front of the young man's face.

"I've got a class. I'll drop this by the house tonight for you."

Charlie looked up quickly and said, "I'm done with classes for the day. I'm going to go install this beauty right now!"

Larry pointed to the blackboard and said, "What about that?"

Charlie waved the previously engrossing equations away saying, "Oh that can wait."

"Charles, how are you going to get this box home on your bicycle?"

Charlie stopped for a moment and picked up the box seeing how difficult it would be to carry then looked down at his satchel full of papers, books and all his personal belongings. He looked back at the satellite dish then up at Larry.

"Your right, this would be too unwieldy to manage so…" and he bent down and picked up his satchel and handed it over to Larry "Would you mind dropping this by the house tonight?"

Larry chuckled and shook his head as he watched Charlie carefully repack the box.

"Charles are you serious?"

Charlie looked up at Larry completely nonplussed and said, "You can't possibly dangle connectivity to the main frame in front of me and then say I can't have it until later."

Charlie having packed the dish safely back in the box made for the door. Larry leaned over and picked up Charlie's bicycle helmet and tossed it to the younger man.

"You might want this."

Charlie caught the helmet easily and plopped it on his head wearing a big grin

"Charlie, be careful OK. Keep your mind on the road not on that dish!"

Charlie looking perfectly innocent said, "I'm sure I have no idea what you are talking about Larry."

"Charles…" Larry replied with an accusatory tone.

Charlie smirked and said, "Don't worry; I will get home in one piece! I promise."

He strapped on the helmet and picked up the box. "See you tonight then?"

Larry picked up Charlie's satchel and followed him out of his office scratching his head and smirking as Charlie took the stairs two at a time. "Just like a kid in a candy store."

Charlie arrived at the house and left his bicycle propped against the tree out front then headed immediately for the garage. He pulled out a ladder and set it up against the side of the house. Then he got an electric screw driver and took a moment to figure out a way to carry it up the ladder without having to hold it and decided to tuck it in his jeans. He took the dish out of the box and climbed the ladder to the roof.

He looked around for a moment then carefully stepped up onto the roof. It wasn't very steep but he wanted to be careful for he didn't want to risk dropping the dish. It took him only a few moments to reach the peak with the dish and the drill. He sat the peak of the roof and looked down toward the edge. Until that moment it hadn't really occurred to him how high his house actually was.

He took a moment to admire the view from this vantage point. It was quite peaceful up here. He could hear the wind rustling in the trees, the crack of a bat hitting a baseball as a neighbor down the street played with his son, the songs of various birds and the barking of a dog off in the distance.

After carefully placing the dish just to the side of the peak of the roof positioned so that the wiring would drape down the roof in front of the rear attic window he took the first screw out of his breast pocket and the drill from his waist and began drilling the dish to the roof. Drilling the dish to the roof was easy enough but drilling the aluminum sheaf protector over the wiring that ran down the roof took a little more time and nerve. He had to come close enough to the far edge of the roof that he felt a little vertigo when he could clearly see over the edge.

Once he had finished and made his way back to the peak of the roof he held the drill up and blew lightly on the tip like a gun slinger in an old western smiling broadly to himself. He adjusted the dish's position slightly while in the distance another crack of a baseball bat rung out. Seconds later Charlie felt a blinding pain erupt in his head as the baseball hit him over his left eye.

The initial impact blinded him momentarily and he felt rather than saw himself drop backward off the peak and down the side of the roof. Then he felt nothing except the tingling sensation you get in your gut when you are falling. Before he could clear his mind and see properly he hit the cement of the walk next to the house with a monstrous crash. His head exploded in pain and he saw flashes of brilliant light as his skull cracked open and he was barely aware of the second impact as his head bounced off the sidewalk only to hit again splitting his scalp even further.

The next thing Charlie became aware of was something wet and slightly warm on his face. His head was pounding and his ears were ringing badly. He slowly opened his eyes but couldn't register what he was seeing. Something white and furry was directly in front of his face. A moment of panic flooded through him and he rolled away from the thing that seemed to be right on top of him. He instinctively brought his right hand up to the back of his head. It was still pounding and he felt a sticky wetness in his hair.

The dog that had been licking his face started to bark but the sound was oddly distorted in Charlie's ringing ears and he couldn't see properly. Everything swam in and out of focus. He got shakily to his feet and tried to move away from the sound of the barking dog. He was incredibly woozy and wavered on his feet. He reached out his right hand as he began to tip sideways and it hit the glass of the window to the dining room steadying him.

That distorted noise was getting louder and all he could think was to get away from it as he staggered forward out toward the street. Some primal instinct told him to keep moving but everything was fuzzy and the dizziness was making him nauseous.

The sound that he was fleeing from had faded away but now new unidentifiable sounds around him propelled him further. As he crossed the street the thunderous sound of a large truck rumbling past sent him into a panic. He could not decipher the loud sound through the jumble of sensations assaulting his confused senses. He looked around trying to focus on anything, but he had no idea where he was and nothing around him looked familiar.

He had wandered into a small park near his home and fell over a bench that he hadn't seen as he staggered along. Once again he felt himself falling. He lay there for a moment seeing nothing but the blue sky filtered through a canopy of leaves. The quick movements of two squirrels scampering along the branches of the tree directly over him drew his attention. He tried to follow their journey through the labyrinth of wood and green but the light was fading away. The sounds around him began to grow fainter until everything was black and quiet.