The muse is on a roll. For the moment anyway. We're getting closer to the Auggie we've come to love.

I tried to insert a link to the purple ALVA Satellite Refresheable Braille Display that Auggie has on the show, and is mentioned here, but the link would not come out right after I saved it. That sucker is around $10,000! Yes, Charles is quite well-off.

I keep forgetting that I do not own Covert Affairs or Auggie. They belong to USA and the awesome Christopher Gorham.

Thanks again to resourceress7 (Marisa Bennett) for her invaluable assistance.

Chapter Six - Of Mice and Keyboards

Ever since Jane – the infuriating woman had a name – had literally made him crawl, Auggie had become less frightened of his not being able to see. He had learned a lot that day – both about himself and about the world around him. And he was beginning to have confidence in his ability to differentiate various locations in the building by smells and sounds, and different people by their scents, footsteps, and voices. Not only that, he was also starting to see the cane as a useful tool that had kept him out of trouble on more than one occasion.

Now he was on his way to a surprise. Or so Jane had called it. He was supposed to have met her in her office five minutes ago, but he'd gotten involved in his Braille lesson, and lost track of time.

As he turned into the corridor leading to her office, he stopped for a minute and listened intently. Jane was coming down the hallway toward him with a male voice that he did not recognize. He wondered if he was the surprise, or at least delivering it to him.

"Auggie," Jane said brightly, "I'd like you to meet my husband, Charles."

"Nice to meet you, Charles," Auggie said as he quickly shifted his cane into his left hand and stuck out his right. He was momentarily flustered by the action when he remembered that Jane had said her husband was blind.

"Nice to meet you, too, Auggie," Charles said as he grasped Auggie's offered hand. Auggie hadn't been expecting a firm handshake in return. Or at least not that quickly.

Jane must have seen the puzzled look on his face as she stage whispered, "I gently guided Charles' hand into yours."

"For which I thank her. It's a bit awkward otherwise," Charles said lightly, without a trace of embarrassment.

"We need to go to the library," Jane piped in. "Auggie, do you know how to get there from here?"

"Sure," Auggie said with confidence. He'd been there many times in the last week. He much preferred staying in his room listening to audio books he found in the library, to hanging out in the residents' lounge. At this time there were no residents he could really relate to; most were much older than him, and had lost their sight due to gradual eye conditions later in life.

Once they had reached the library, Jane vocally guided Auggie to a smaller office to one side of the main room. Auggie opened the door and entered, his cane sweeping from side to side before him until it struck what sounded like a chair. He stepped closer to it and felt around the area a bit. On the tabletop in front of the chair, he located what seemed to be a computer keyboard.

"Yes, Auggie," Jane said almost before he could react, "it's a keyboard. We're in the Center's computer room."

"Jane said that you were skeptical about a blind person using a computer effectively. I volunteered to come and show you that it is possible. Takes some specialized software and accessories, but it is very doable."

Charles walked up to where Auggie was standing and took a seat in the next chair over. "Sit. I'll show you how."

Auggie pulled out the chair and sat beside Charles. His curiosity was in high gear.

"Jane tells me that you're into computers?"

"Yeah, I have a degree in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. I was a Security Consultant for the government before they called me back up and sent me to Iraq." It wasn't a complete lie, but it was enough to, hopefully, show just how 'into' computers he had been.

"Jane, hon', make sure the door's closed. I don't want to disturb those in the other room with the computer's voice." Behind him he heard the latch click. "Okay, Auggie, go ahead and explore what's on the table in front of you. Tell me what you've located."

"There's a standard keyboard on some sort of raised platform with buttons on it," Auggie said as his fingers examined the keyboard he'd located a few minutes ago.

"That's a highly specialized piece of technology called a refreshable Braille display. This particular model is an ALVA Satellite, made by a company called Optelec. I have one in my office that the firm bought for me. And I have one at home that I bought for myself. They're quite pricey, but well worth the cost if you're in a job that uses computers a lot." Auggie felt the keyboard shift position to his left, and then Charles' hands locate his. "Lay your hands on top of mine and I'll give you a quick tour."

Auggie did as he was instructed. For the next few minutes he listened to Charles explain the use of the keypads that controlled the onscreen cursor, and the thumb keys that controlled the Braille display and other features. As Charles' hands landed on each item, Auggie slid his fingertips down to examine them.

Shortly, Charles tilted his hand and Auggie took that as a sign to remove his hands from the back of Charles'. He immediately heard a soft click and the sound of a desktop computer humming to life. Before long, a monotone computer voice came from the speakers to his right and left, telling him that the computer was booting. Then it announced the main screen had been reached.

Auggie then heard clicks on the keypad and the voice reciting what he assumed to be the program icons on the screen, stopping at 'Internet Explorer'. A few more clicks from the keypad and he heard the voice say 'G-O-O-G-L-E-period-C-O-M.'

"What would you like to look up?"

Auggie was so impressed that he momentarily couldn't think of anything. Then he had an idea. "August David Anderson." It had been a while since he'd searched his own name. Behind him he heard Jane giggle in amusement.

"Ok, type it in," Charles said. The voice relayed the letters in his name as Auggie typed them in, and it even said 'enter' as he pressed that key. Charles showed him which keys to press to toggle through the search results, and he listened to the computer recite each one. Lots of results, but none that matched him. Secretly he was pleased that nothing came up. CIA security at its best. He was but a ghost in the real world still.

For the next – he wasn't quite sure how long it was – Auggie sat fascinated by the way that Charles was able to navigate all sorts of sites and programs. He was slightly surprised when Charles mentioned that not all web pages were fully accessible to the screenreaders, despite a law that said they must be. Charles had then gone on to explain the simple steps it took – little things like adding alt text to images and captions or transcripts of audio/video files – to make them accessible.

By the time Charles was done with his discourse, Auggie was feeling that maybe it was possible for him to regain some of what he'd thought that he'd lost now that he could no longer see the monitor. But that voice - he wondered how long it would take for it to completely annoy him.

"Doesn't that monotonous voice get to you?" he suddenly asked.

"Sometimes. That's where the Braille display comes in. Here let me show you."

Auggie felt Jane lean over him and move his hands. "Here's that area again."

After a moment Auggie's fingers felt the bumps of the Braille cell fly by his fingertips. He felt his heart sink. Would he ever get proficient fast enough to use that? "Can you slow down the speed of the display?"

"Of course. Remember where I said the control for that was?" Charles asked softly, without reproach. "You can read it a line at a time, then hit this key and the next line will pop right up."

"Oh, Duh." Auggie said lightly, remembering and allowing his thumb to locate the control on the front of the device. "That's better," he said, and was finally able to discern a few words with much effort.

"My Braille is a bit rusty."

"Huh?" Charles and Jane exclaimed nearly in unison.

"When I was a kid my best friend in scouts and I studied all sorts of codes for a badge in communication. We were fascinated by the way that Louis Braille adapted Charles Barbier's Night Writing into a usable form, and in the patterns inherent in the way that each letter and punctuation mark was laid out. We used to write secret notes to each other by making little dots with a pencil on paper. It's been a while, but I can still remember what a lot of the symbols look like. The shape of the letter T always made me think of a crooked little cactus."

"So, you're somewhat familiar with it then," Jane said more as a statement than a question.

"Yeah. Never thought that I'd ever have to use it for real, though," he said sadly and with a slight tinge of anger.

"When we're kids we never think anything bad is ever going to happen to us," Charles acknowledged.

"Yeah." Auggie sighed. "How long did it take you to become competent with this computer setup?" Auggie asked changing the subject.

"Not long. A couple of weeks, but then I was already a proficient Braille reader by the time that this sort of thing came into being."

"How long have you been without your sight?" Auggie asked. He still had trouble with the term BLIND, especially as it referred to himself.

"I've been blind longer now than I ever had my sight. I'm blind, Auggie. It's just a word. It describes a state of being. It's not a bad word. The term does not offend me.

"I'd just turned twenty-one when I started having trouble with my vision. Nothing serious, but I had it checked out. Turned out I had a brain tumor that was starting to grow around the optic chiasm, where both optic nerves come together. By the time they were able to operate I knew that there was only a forty percent chance that I'd come out of surgery with my vision intact. Of course I was hopeful, but I was also a pragmatist. I wanted to be prepared emotionally to be blind when I came out of anesthesia. Even if the tumor hadn't been removed I was going to be blind eventually. The only good thing, at that time, was that the tumor was benign.

"I had to heal and regain my strength after the surgery, but even while I was recuperating I had lessons in Braille and Activities of Daily Living at home. I was still living with my parents, and they were wise enough not to baby me. Sometimes I thought that they pushed me too hard too soon to become independent. I was young and I didn't exactly relish some of the changes I had to make, but I made them. Yes, there were days when I wanted to give up, but I didn't. I was able to get on with my education and only missed one semester. I was a Political Science major and had always wanted to go on to law school. So my life plans weren't drastically derailed. Not as much as Jane tells me that yours seems to be."

"Maybe not as much as I thought. Is there a way to represent every possible character in Braille, for computer programming?"

"Yes, actually there's a standard Computer Braille Code, a Braille ASCII Code, and some codes that make use of the extra two dots at the bottom of the Braille cell. Once you get standard Braille down, you should have little trouble learning them. Most Braille displays support the eight-dot format, even if you just use it to indicate where the flashing cursor is in your document."

Auggie pondered for a moment, the gears turning as he thought of all the things Braille and computers could let him do again.

"Oh," Charles continued, "and there are smaller, more portable devices with Braille displays that you can connect to other devices." He dug into a bag for something. "Here's one called a Braillenote - it's a PDA with Braille and speech output, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and USB connectivity. I use it to keep up with my calendar, take notes, read books and other large digital files, use the internet, and it can even connect to my cell phone, and send documents to printers and Braille embossers if I want hard copies," he said as he placed it in Auggie's hand.

It was only about four by seven inches - much smaller than the ALVA, because it did not require a QWERTY keyboard. Instead, it had the 10 or so keys required to enter Braille characters. He sat entranced once again as Charles showed him how it worked. "Awesome!" was all that Auggie could say.

He spent the rest of the morning talking to Charles about many things that he was either curious about, or still downright frightened of. When the three left to head to the dining room for lunch, Auggie had a better attitude about a lot of things.

He knew that he really had to buckle down on a number of skills and tools that he'd only been playing around with in the last few weeks. Instead of drudgery that he had to get through, those things finally seemed valuable - they mattered. These were skills he would actually be using in real life. Ugh, real life. This was real. It was still hard to think of himself as being a blind person now and forever. But at least now he saw some possibilities for his next steps. He would make a life for himself, one way or another.

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