by Ben Winston
“If I had a butt, I might be scared!” Sarah giggled.
“Sarah, is Vic in class or busy with something else at the moment?” I asked.
“His schedule has him in his office right now. Do you want me to ask if he has a moment?” Sarah asked. Before they’d left, both the Professor and Carl had agreed to try the Digital Zen subroutine.
“Hmm, nah; just drop him a message asking who I need to contact for massive amounts of computer room and storage,” I asked.
“Okay, message sent.”
“Thanks Sweetie,” I replied.
“No problem... Daddy!” She giggled again.
Since we couldn’t tear more apart until Sarah was moved, we went to see if Julie had gotten her stuff packed. Most of the household furniture would be left since we’d be able to refurnish our new quarters.
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Christy and I went to visit her parents Thursday morning. She’d called them the night before to let them know she was back, but staying the night with me. From the grin on Christy’s face, her mother was very happy about the situation. We’d decided that we’d wait until the weekend to tell her parents about the new ‘job’ she’d gotten.
Surprisingly, Christy’s dad, Harold, (‘call me Hal’) didn’t do the whole threats or intimidation thing. After talking to him for almost a half hour, I asked him about it.
“It’s simple, Son. I don’t need to do the standard protective daddy thing with you. Firstly, Christy is the happiest I’ve ever seen her. There is no way I’m going to mess with that. Secondly, after getting to know you a bit, I can see that you were made for each other. Yes, you’re a little younger than her, but so what? You’re both happy, and that’s all that matters. I’m fairly certain that I’ll be walking her down the aisle really soon,” he replied calmly.
“I’d say that’s a pretty good bet, Sir,” I replied.
“With her doctorate, I’m sure it’s a moot point, but do you two have a plan for supporting yourselves?” Hal asked.
“Yes Sir, we do. We’d planned on waiting until this weekend to fill you in on that,” I said as Christy and her mother came back in the room.
“Fair enough,” he said. We kept our visit short, and after discussing it with our lovers, we invited Christy’s parents over for a cookout on Saturday.
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Friday night rolled around, and the whole family ended up going to the meeting. When we got there, the small parking lot was almost full of cars. In the small auditorium where the meeting was about to take place, we were waved to the front by my former Computer Science teacher, John Sandbar.
We all got up to the front, and he took my hand. “Good to see you, Eric!”
“Thanks John. Please allow me to introduce the rest of my family. This beautiful lady is my mother, Julie, next to her is her friend, Jamie. The super-cute girl beside her is her daughter, Ellie, and I think you already know my fiancée, Dr. Christy Rogers,” I said, making the introductions.
He’d shaken all the lady’s hands and nodded to them as they’d been introduced. “It’s procedure for the first two rows here to be reserved for people that have business with the board. We’re the only people for tonight.” He gestured to two other very pretty women that were sitting at the end of the row talking quietly. They were so focused on each other that John actually blushed. “Uh, I think I’ll introduce you to Holly and Vera after the meeting.”
“Since we only take up one row, why don’t we let some of the older people that are standing back there have the second one?” Jamie said.
Nodding agreement, Christy, John and I escorted some of the people that were in need of a seat to the row behind ours.
Seeing that we were finished getting the second row filled, Superintendent Bock called the meeting to order. When they finally got to the ‘new business’, he indicated that he had two items to bring before the board.
“Ladies and Gentleman, I’ve been asked by Principal Eichens to present a request for early graduation on behalf of one of his students. This petition carries with it the support of the entire staff of the High School. Although this student is a senior, he has asked for early release for personal business. I have also been asked to request your approval in this matter by the Board of Regents of The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Your approval is the final requirement to make Dr. Eric Cowan’s PhD official.
“For reasons of National Security, an explanation for this highly unusual award cannot be given. However, I’ve been informed he has surpassed all required qualifications for this award. So, I think the question about his knowledge has been answered.” He turned to look at Eric. “Dr. Cowan, would you please approach the podium?”
I was surprised Majestic had allowed such a threat to security, but then again, a lot of the older generation takes the words ‘National Security’ to heart. It’s the questions from the younger ones I was worried about. I stood at the podium and smiled at the members of the board. “Good Evening,” I said.
“Does anyone have any questions for Dr. Cowan?” Superintendent Bock asked.
“Hundreds, but I’m sure he can’t answer any of them. Do we actually need to vote on this, or can we just hand him his diploma and let the lad sit back down?” Erin Garcia asked, getting a chuckle out of the crowd.
Seeing the rest of the board was in agreement, he bent down, signed the document in front of him, closed the cover, and held it out to me. As I walked forward to take it, the room behind me stood up, clapping. After shaking Mr. Bock’s hand, I moved down the bench shaking hands and thanking the rest of the board.
I dropped back, handed Christy the diploma, and gave her a quick kiss. Shaking hands with John, I nodded my head back toward the podium. “Come on, you know the next item is the program. Grab your girlfriend and let’s go.”
“Hey, you have four beautiful women in your family, why can’t I have two?” he teased back as he helped a blushing Vera to her feet.
“I’m only sleeping with one of them John!” I teased back.
“I’m not that kind of friend either, young man!” Vera replied, still blushing.
We made it back to the podium as people took their seats. Mr. Bock smiled at us, but the rest of the board looked confused.
“Dr. Cowan, Mr. Sandbar and Ms. Dylan are here because of the second item of new business.” He looked at the three of us. “Who wants to start?”
John indicated he wanted to begin, so I moved and let him have the mic.
“Ladies and Gentleman. In case you don’t know me, my name is John Sandbar. I teach most of the computer classes for the high school and try to help Ms. Dylan when she needs it. Being aware of the security issues our district has been having with its computer system, I put the task of developing a solution to the problem to my advanced students as a ‘final exam’ for the class.
“The idea was that these advanced programming students would create either a data encryption program or a network firewall to keep intruders out. I did not intend for the exercise to be anything other than academic. My most gifted student, however, decided that a different approach was called for.” He turned to me, and waved me up to the mic.
“Thanks, Mr. Sandbar,” I said then turned back to face the board. “When Mr. Sandbar put this before us, I felt that I needed more information in order to fulfill the requirements of the assignment. So, with him standing over my shoulder, I hacked into the school’s current software. I didn’t look at anything other than my own record, and I didn’t change anything.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, it took me less than two minutes to get into the secure area and to the point that I could actually change things. To me, this was the real assignment: to make the most secure program I could while retaining ease of use.
“Now, I would like everyone to know, the only secure computer is one that has been literally crushed and shredded; and even then it is, theoretically, still accessible. The program I wrote is as secure as I
could make it. I used the same cryptography that the NSA uses as a basis for their security system. There are also other security methods in place, but I think you get the idea.
“It’s my hope that the program I wrote and have given to the school district will ensure the security of not only the student’s grades, but also their personal information as well.
“During the final stages of writing the program, I’d asked Mr. Sandbar to look it over, test it out, try to crash it, or try to hack into it. I later learned that he’d asked Ms. Dylan to give it a workout too. In a moment, we’ll try to answer any questions that you may have, but I want all of you, including the assembled parents, to know that I have officially and legally surrendered all rights to this program to this school district. If you so decide, you may sell copies of it to other schools in order to supplement your shrinking budget.”
As I stepped back from the mic, Superintendent Bock came to speak again. “Just so everyone is clear on what Dr. Cowan has given us; we now own the copyright as well as the distribution rights for a program that is far superior to our existing program – the same program we spent twenty thousand dollars on originally, and continue to pay ten thousand a year on for upgrades. He’s given us his source code, a very easy to understand user manual, his programming and debugging notes, and full ownership.
“That means we no longer have to buy the service packs from the company that’s been extorting money from us, plus we can also market it to other school systems and colleges. We are talking about potentially millions of dollars for the district. I feel I should mention that when he brought this to me, he asked for his early release before I knew anything about the program. He said he didn’t want it to influence the decision over early graduation.”
A few questions were asked and answered; I’d heard later that the school board decided to set up a non-profit group to handle donations. It seems other businesses – as well as a few private individuals – began donating money, profit from a certain product sold for a certain amount of time, or a day’s proceeds to the local school system. When the state tried to completely cut the school’s funding because of the donations, it made national headlines.
The next day, Hal and Cindy Rogers came to the house for the cookout. They accepted the ‘secret government job’ story so readily, it was like they fully expected it. Maybe they were so happy to see their girl smiling and glowing with love, we could have told them the truth, and they would still have wished us luck. By the end of that weekend, we were ready to begin our new lives and move to the moon.