The Wizard's Butler

by Nathan Lowell

  Roger nodded and held up the boxes. “What are these?”

  “Network repeaters. Plug them into an outlet within twenty feet or so of the access point in the closet or each other and any authorized device can link to the network.”

  Sam knew her business. Within ten minutes she had established network access to the ground floor. She walked around with her small laptop open, checking the signal strength from the front parlor back through Roger’s quarters and all through the kitchen. She stopped at the kitchen prep table again. “Okay. We have network. I’ll set the firewalls while you boot up that bad boy.” She nodded at the laptop box.

  He recognized the brand and model well enough to know that he’d never have been able to afford it. The specs on the end label just reinforced the idea. He slipped the machine out of its packaging, the smell of foam and plastic filling the kitchen. A mouse and power cord came nested in the foam cradle. It took him less than a minute to plug them both in and fire up the computer.

  “It’s a bit oversize,” Sam said. “I went for the seventeen because it’ll be your only device and you’re not going to be lugging it around town.”

  “It’s gorgeous.” He found the power button and pressed it. A familiar loading screen came up and asked for credentials. He started down the set-up tree.

  “What do you want the network name to be?” Sam asked. “Sixteen characters. Shouldn’t be the house or the address. We can hide it but still shouldn’t be something traceable.”

  “FBI Surveillance Van?” he asked.

  She snorted. “Not my first choice.”

  “How about capital P, Parsons 1900.”

  She looked at him and blinked. “That mean something?”

  “Parsons was Shackleford’s father’s butler back at the beginning of the last century.”

  She typed it in. “Password?”

  “Capital P, Pixie, capital D, Dung, 2020.”

  “Not dust?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “If you were guessing, would you guess dust or dung?”

  “Fair enough,” she said. “A special character?”

  He looked over at her. “Interrobang before the numbers.”

  “Interrobang?”

  “Technically a question mark superimposed on an exclamation point? Use question-exclamation?” he asked.

  “I know what it is. I thought you weren’t a computer geek,” she said.

  “I’ve a thing for funny glyph names. Like that pound sign thing? The hash mark?”

  “Yeah?” she asked.

  “Octothorpe.” He shrugged. “I ran across interrobang somewhere. It’s not a glyph but it stuck with me.”

  She rattled a few more keys. “I’ll leave the access point visible for now. When we have the machines hooked in, we can hide it from the public.”

  Roger nodded. “This is hooked in. Going through its setup.”

  “Let’s get the machine installed in the library, then. I can’t wait to see it in place.”

  “Ah, about that?” Roger said.

  She stopped halfway to the back door and turned to look at him.

  “Remember the last time you were here? He was having a good day?”

  Her face clouded. “Not so much today?”

  He shook his head. “Just go with it. I have no idea what we’ll find. If he’s too bad, we’ll just stage the boxes in the upstairs parlor. I can probably figure out how to plug them together when he’s doing better or asleep or something.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” she said.

  He shrugged. “Just wanted to make sure you were prepared if we go in there and he starts swearing at Perkins or something.”

  “Perkins?”

  “His last butler.” Roger shrugged. “Occasionally he thinks I’m Perkins.”

  She shook her head. “That’s got to be hard.”

  “It’s usually not much of a problem. I’ll answer to anything except late to supper and since I’m also the cook? I eat first.” He grinned. “Let’s get the machine up there and see where we are.”

  Roger took the awkward box while Sam took a pile of smaller ones. Outside the library door he paused to put his down. “Lemme just check.”

  She nodded.

  He knocked on the door and entered. “Your computer is ready, sir.”

  Shackleford looked up from his book—the wrong book. Roger braced himself. “Excellent. And the delightful Ms. Bitters?”

  “Bicker, sir. She’s here to do the installation.”

  “Of course. Ms. Bicker. My apologies. Show her in, Mulligan.”

  Roger stepped back into the hall to usher Sam in.

  She smiled at him in passing and grinned at Shackleford. “Good morning, Mr. Shackleford.”

  He rose from his chair, holding the book in one hand, his place marked with his finger between the pages. “Ms. Bicker. Lovely to see you again.” He swept the room with his free hand. “Please, don’t let me get in the way of progress.”

  She nodded. “May I use the end of the table, sir?”

  “Of course, of course. Would you like me to leave the room while you work your magic?” He practically beamed at her.

  “Not necessary, sir.” She looked at the new desk. “That looks like it had always been there.”

  “Carpenter is a miracle worker,” Shackleford said. “Cartwright by name. Third or fourth generation. Knows his business.”

  She nodded and rolled the top up while Roger brought in the awkward corrugated box from the hall. “That’s your monitor, sir. I had it custom designed for this room.”

  “You build them, too?” Shackleford asked.

  She laughed and shook her head. “No, sir. I know some craftsmen around town who take stock components and dress them up. One of them made these pieces.” She pulled the top open on the awkward box and reached in, pulling out a large monitor dressed in brass. The base consisted of a slab of greenish stone. Brass arms reached up to hold the sides of the display with broad brass knobs on each side. “I knew we couldn’t match the wood so I asked for a brass look.” She placed it on the table. “It tilts to adjust for your preference. Just tighten the knobs to hold it at the angle you prefer.”

  Roger marveled at the monitor but Shackleford seemed entranced by it.

  “It’s beautiful,” the old man said, reaching out to stroke the top of the frame. “How clever.”

  “Wait until you see it set up,” she said, taking the monitor to the desk. She adjusted the shelf to the correct height and placed the monitor on it, stepping back to gauge her work. Nodding, she fished in the box again, pulling out two cables—a power cord and a thick video cable. She finished wiring the monitor and turned to the smallest of the three packages she’d brought up. “This is the actual computer unit,” she said. She held up a wooden box with brass hinges on the back and a brass key plate on the front. It looked like a mahogany jewelry box. A line of sockets ran along the back, just under the hinges. “We’ll plug everything in here.” She pointed to the back and looked at Roger.

  He nodded. “Got it.”

  Sam pulled the power cable out of its packaging. She plugged that into the base unit, fed the plug end down the hole, and slid the box into the gap formed between the monitor shelf and the desk after connecting the video cable. Then, she pulled a small key from her pocket, placing it in the keyhole in the front. Ducking under the table, she plugged the two power cords into the power strip mounted under the back edge of the desktop.

  She packed all the loose material back in the cardboard box and set it aside in favor of the wide, flat box she’d carried. “This is your keyboard and mouse. Same guy did the work on the monitor, and I’m stupidly pleased. If you don’t like these, I’ll take them back.” She pulled out a brass-and-leather-bound keyboard that looked like an early typewriter on steroids.

  Shackleford’s eyes widened. “That’s a work of art, isn’t it.”

  The mouse looked like a solid brass puck with its three buttons fitted so closely the seams hardly sh
owed. Sam flipped over the keyboard and mouse to show Roger the battery hatches on the bottom. “It’s all wireless but the lifetime on them is really good. Weeks if not months.” She placed them on the desk in the appropriate places and stepped back.

  Shackleford walked over and gazed at the setup. “So this is a computer,” he said. “I never imagined that we’d see the likes in the house. Or believed we might need it.” He glanced at Bicker. “I’ve heard tales.”

  She smiled at him. “Turn it on with the key.” She pointed to the key in the base unit.

  He reached forward and gave the key a twist. A faint whir sounded and the monitor flickered once, then flipped up to an image of the house itself, taken from a height.

  Roger stepped forward and looked at the picture. “Where’d you get that?”

  “Drone image. I took it myself.” She grinned. “Why?”

  “Just curious. Looked like the kind of thing you’d see on a real-estate brochure.”

  The computer finished booting and a small window opened asking for username and password.

  “What do I put?” Shackleford asked, sitting down at the keyboard, his two index fingers hooked in the air.

  “We set it up for you as jpshack for the username and 1wizard as the password,” she said. “I tried to make it as simple as I could for you to get started, sir.”

  He glanced up at her and nodded. “Thank you, Ms. Bicker. Very thoughtful.” He pecked his way through the login, painfully slowly from Roger’s perspective but his face brightened in delight when he pressed the enter key and the image of Shackleford House was replaced by a browser screen. “Now what?”

  “Type what you want to see in the little slot at the top, sir.” Sam pointed to the address bar. “Hit enter and you’ll be given a list of things available on that topic.”

  He started to type but nothing happened. “I’ve missed a step,” he said.

  “Use the mouse, sir,” Sam said. “Put your hand on it and you can move that little arrow up until it points to the slot. Use your index finger and press the button.”

  Shackleford put his hand on the mouse and looked back and forth between the screen and his hand several times before managing to push the mouse into the correct position.

  “Now click, sir,” Sam said.

  He clicked and the vertical blinking line came up.

  “Type what you want to see.”

  “Anything?” Shackleford asked, looking up at her.

  “Well, pretty much anything. Lots of things you probably don’t want to see, but just because you don’t want to see them, doesn’t mean nobody else does.” She shrugged. “It’s still a more or less free internet.”

  He focused on his keyboard and pecked out “genealogy.”

  “Press enter, sir,” Sam said.

  “Oh, yes. Of course.” He nodded and pressed the key. The screen immediately filled with suggested genealogical resources. He looked up. “Now what?”

  Sam gave him a brief rundown on the various features on the page, particularly how to identify links and advertisements. She had him click a link and use the back button to move backward. “Experiment, sir. Try things. You can’t break it. You just need to be careful not to take anything at face value. The internet is infested with scammers, many of them criminal.”

  The old man frowned. “That sounds less than optimal, Ms. Bitter.”

  “It is, sir, but we’ve installed some powerful protections. On the machine and in the network itself. It’s as safe as we can make it. Some simple rules. Don’t tell anybody your password—which is why you should change it because we all know it now.”

  He nodded.

  “Don’t tell anybody your credit card, Social Security, or Medicare number.” She looked at Roger and glanced at Shackleford.

  Roger nodded. He didn’t know if Shackleford was on Medicare or eligible for Social Security. He pulled his notebook out and made a note.

  “That seems logical,” Shackleford said. “Treat everybody as if they’re just looking for a way to pick your pocket.”

  “Until you establish their bona fides, yes, sir,” she said. “There are millions of reputable players out there. You can always ask Mulligan if you have any questions.” She looked at Roger. “Right, Mulligan?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Shackleford sat back in his chair. “So this is like a library.”

  “Yes, sir. A library of digital materials. Also a catalog of items for sale. If it’s for sale anywhere, you can find it here.”

  “Anything?” Shackleford asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “Almost. There are some legal limits, even online, but it’s a global network. Things that might be illegal in the US aren’t always illegal in other countries. You could probably order them, but whether or not they would be delivered? That’s a different problem.”

  He nodded, pursing his lips. “Yes, Ms. Bicker. I take your point.” He glanced at the last box. “And that?”

  She grinned. “A printer. If you find something you’d like to keep a record of, you can print a copy. It’s not as pretty as the rest.”

  He stood and stepped back. “I’ll get out of your way.”

  The printer was a standard black plastic inkjet model that tucked neatly onto the shelf under the desk. She plugged it in and turned it on, waiting for the machine to cycle through and ping. “No paper in it,” she said. “You have to keep supplying it with ink and blank paper, but it’ll print anything you want in gray scale. I’ve got a larger color printer that Mulligan will care for.”

  “Sounds complicated,” Shackleford said.

  “It’s only different,” she said. “By this time next year, you’ll wonder how you got by without it.”

  Shackleford glanced at Roger, one eyebrow raised.

  “I’m familiar with the technology, sir.”

  He nodded. “Very well. Is there anything else you need to do here, Ms. Bicker?”

  “No, sir. We need some paper for your printer, but we can clear out the trash and leave you to it. Do you have any questions for me?”

  “I’m sure I will as soon as you leave the room,” he said, smiling.

  “That’s generally the way it goes, sir.”

  Roger helped her bundle up the empty boxes and loose packing material. Most of it went into the monitor’s box. He paused with the load in his arms. “Will there be anything else, sir?”

  “Not at the moment, Mulligan. Thank you. And thank you again, Ms. Bicker. I look forward to entering the digital age.”

  “You’re welcome, sir,” she said.

  Roger followed Sam into the hall and pulled the library door shut. He went down the stairs and into the kitchen, sliding the packaging into the corner by the back door. “I’ll get that broken down later,” he said. “We have a big printer?”

  “Well, bigger. The color laser is a pretty hefty beast compared to that inkjet. Also noisier. It’s in the van along with a case of paper, spare ink for his printer, and a spare cartridge for the laser. All of it’s wireless. Can you link his printer into the network?”

  Roger shrugged. “Probably. If I run into trouble, I can always look it up on the internet.”

  She laughed. “True.”

  “That’s a pretty sweet rig you got for him.”

  “The guy does great work. It’s not going to win any prizes as a gaming rig, but as a general office machine, it’ll do the job.”

  “I don’t think we’ll be hosting any LAN parties,” Roger said. He remembered the ballroom. “At least not right away.”

  Sam frowned. “What was that look?”

  He shook his head. “The house has a lot of surprises. The ballroom is a conference center. One of the wings is set up as classrooms.”

  “You know this place used to be an orphanage and a boarding school?” Sam asked.

  “Didn’t we have that conversation already?” Roger asked. “I’m more concerned that he won’t still be here a year from now.”

  Sam’s eyebrows ros
e at that. “Is he sick? Beyond the dementia?”

  Roger shook his head. “Seems healthy as a horse. Has no trouble dressing himself and getting around when he wants to. I should be so healthy at his age.”

  “Does he ever come downstairs?” she asked.

  Roger shrugged. “He hasn’t as long as I’ve been here. I serve his meals in the library. He’s pretty focused on his research.”

  “You know, getting him out more might help his mental condition. A little exercise? Some mental stimulation.”

  “You a doctor now?” Roger asked, smiling at her.

  She laughed and shook her head. “No. My grandmother had to deal with Gramp for his last few years. She always claimed he was better after his walk around the block in the morning.”

  Roger nodded, thinking he had a lot more than recipes to research now that he had internet.

  “Well, let’s get this printer set up and I’ll get out of your hair,” Sam said, glancing at the clock. “I suspect you’ve got luncheon to prepare.”

  “I’ve got it mostly taken care of already. It’s soup and salad day. I just need to warm the soup and whip up a little dressing. Only take a few minutes.”

  “What kind of soup?” Sam asked.

  “A minestrone today.”

  “Did you make it?”

  He laughed and shook his head. “Canned. I think I’d like to try my hand at it, though. One of the reasons I wanted to get internet.”

  “Not just porn, then?” she asked.

  He laughed. “No, not just porn.”

  “You know, big houses like this usually had a cook and housekeeper.”

  “To take care of a whole family, sure. One old man?” Roger asked.

  “Yeah. I take your point. Come on. I’ll grab the paper if you’ll lug the printer.”

  Roger followed her out to the van and dragged the last of the equipment in. It only took a few minutes to set up and load the laser printer. Sam used her laptop to trigger a test page to make sure it was communicating on the network and closed down her gear. They added the detritus to the pile of trash by the door.