3.b.ii
Mr. Jones
stood unmoving. This time, though, he
had not slipped into another trance.
Instead, he was both surveying the state and inventory of his secret
hideout and basking in a warm nostalgia of fond experiences.
In the small
room was a desk console featuring an old computer screen sunken into a slanted
panel with dozens of glowing, blinking, or otherwise brightly colored buttons
arranged on a vertical strip alongside the monitor. A round speaker was embedded below, its black
metal cover popping upward like a bowl sized tea strainer.
Mr. Jones
reached forward, turned a small whirring crank for a few moments to charge the
computer battery, and slid open a panel at the bottom of the slanted console
revealing an odd keyboard with chunky, tan-colored keys. He touched the escape button and a loud
ratcheting sound purred beneath the contraption. After a minute or two a blinking green square
appeared in the upper left corner of the black screen.
After a brief
pause Mr. Jones typed: CLOCK IN
A scroll of
green characters, a mix of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks, rolled up
the screen. Then a series of prompts
appeared, each displaying a code and a percentage that began with one percent
and climbed steadily to one hundred.
Tanya shook
her head and muttered, “God, Jonesy, how about an upgrade?”
“Hey, this
stuff was state of the art,” he said.
“Yeah, in
nineteen-eighty whatever. That outdated
PDA thing you bought is lightyears ahead of this technology.” She slumped against the wall and then sat on
the floor.
Twenty minutes
later the computer program was up and running.
Mr. Jones typed c: and pressed enter.
The flashing prompt moved down a couple of lines and resumed blinking at
the end of a list of characters.
C:/>
Mr. Jones
keyed in opening procedures at the prompt and the screen displayed a few lines
of code and another prompt.
C:/OPEN>
He typed
d:security and the prompt changed again.
D:/SECURITY>
Then he typed
unlock doors. This sort of computer work
went on for a long while with Mr. Jones eventually powering up the generator,
turning on the lights, opening the water pipes, testing the plumbing that fed
the sink, toilet, and showers, and conducting power to various electrical
appliances housed within the secret base.
Tanya was more
than forthright with her opinions about his antiquated system during this time.
Mr. Jones
ignored the snide remarks, focusing on his keystrokes. Eventually he opened a small door at the back
of the security/entrance room. It led
into a narrow hallway with one door at the far end, another centered on the left,
and two more on the right.
“The toilets
should be working,” Mr. Jones said as he walked toward the door at the end of
the hallway. Eager to relieve her
strained bladder, Tanya jumped up, raced into the hallway, and went to the door
on the left.