Matthew and the Stone

by Bob Blanton

  “Man, what an idiot,” he said hollering at himself. He got up and inspected his bike then grabbed his backpack and sat down. He pulled his laptop out and turned it on. “Man, oh man, please be OK,” he said under his breath. All he could think about was how his mother would feel if he had to spend another twenty-five hundred dollars on a new laptop computer. As the Microsoft splash screen came up, Matthew breathed a sigh of relief. He ran a quick check on the computer then turned it off and stuffed it into his backpack. He brushed himself off and got back on his bike to finish going home just as Jennifer came out of her house.

  “Matthew, are you okay? I saw you crash into the hedge and I thought you might really be hurt.”

  “No I’m fine,” Matthew said. “My backpack slipped off and I lost my balance trying to catch it.”

  “Well you’re lucky you landed in the hedge,” Jennifer said, “it’s a lot softer than the pavement.”

  “Yeah, thanks for planting it,” Matthew said. “I’ll come back and help trim it if you want me to.”

  “Don’t worry, the gardener will be here on Monday,” Jennifer said. “He’ll fix it up.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you around,” Matthew said as he got on his bike and rode away before she could ask any more questions.

  His mother was working on dinner when he got home.

  “Mom, did you ever get that translation done for me?”

  “Oh Sweetie, I forgot to give it to you. It’s in my purse. Professor Kendel said it was probably a prank, so I didn’t think anything about it.”

  “No big deal.”

  Mrs. Brandt went to the den and got her purse. “Here it is, I didn’t even read it,” she said as she handed Matthew an envelope.

  “Thanks, Mom.” Matthew hurried upstairs to his room. He opened the note. The words on the stone were written down with the translation below. There are three translations: 1) “Under the Eye of Rune Merlin,” 2) “The Eye of Rune Merlin,” 3) “Under the protection of Rune Merlin.”

  Matthew sat down at his desk and pulled out the list he’d been making. “I’m not so sure this is a hoax. How about applying a little scientific method here,” he said to himself. He organized the list into two columns.

  “No clear pattern yet. Let’s try some more people,” Matthew said. He tried to see Carrie, but couldn’t. He checked whether he could see Emily. No problem, she was driving her car away from the country club. He tried Brianna, no.

  “How about my cousin, Jack?” he thought, but again he couldn’t bring him into vision. After an hour of experimenting he had not added anyone to the ‘can see’ list. But the ‘can’t see list’ was getting longer. He’d added most of the teachers at school as well as most of his classmates. Nobody else was making it onto the ‘can see’ list.

  Can See Can’t See

  Emily Jennifer

  Jason Alex

  Tyler Brianna

  Sissy Cousin Jack

  Mom Aunt Jane

  Gran Barry from school

  Mrs. Jefferies

  Mr. Jackson

  Matthew couldn’t think of anyone else to try, so he turned his attention to figuring out what he could control. He thought of Emily again, and he was seeing her in her bedroom. She must have just finished showering because her hair was wet. She was wearing a pair of shorts and a tee shirt. She was singing a duet with her little sister, Sonja. They were singing …. shaking their shoulders and dipping toward each other as they treated the brush they were using as a microphone. Matthew tried to expand the field of view, and after a few attempts he was able to zoom in and out on the area. It was like walking closer or away from them. Then he tried to change the angle of the view. He was able to look around the room, and eventually he was able to pan around Emily and Sonja with his camera. It was like playing a virtual reality game. As he thought about moving around, his virtual self would move, and the view would adjust appropriately. The two sisters were still heavy into their duet, something they obviously practiced often. They had the routine down pat, pointing a finger at each other as they alternated who was singing.

  Matthew then decided to verify that the image was in his mind as he expected. He’d already figured out he needed his eyes open to see it, but that could just be a mental trigger. He put his hand in front of his eyes to see if it interfered with the vision. At first he couldn’t see his hand, and that bothered him so much that he lost the view of Emily, but then he could see his hand. He brought Emily back into view, and the two sisters were still into their duet. Matthew thought it looked like a lot of fun.

  Again, he put his hand in front of his face, bringing it closer until it was touching his nose. When his hand bumped his nose, he lost the view. “Inconclusive,” he thought.

  “Brinnng,” his cell phone started ringing.

  Startled, Matthew jumped and grabbed for the phone. Picking it up, he said, “Hello.”

  “Hi Matt, it’s Simone. Bill Peterson called,” she said. “They’re having some problems with their web site and server setup. We need you to come in and work on it.”

  “No problem,” Matthew said. “I’ll come right over.”

  Matthew hurried; Bill Peterson was a new client for WebMasters.com. Matthew had set up a web site for their golf tours. It showed all the golf courses they offered trips to, with details of each hole. It allowed their customers to play a virtual golf game on each course so they could get familiar the course before their trip; it even allowed them to download the game into their virtual PlayStation so they could really play it. The web site had been a huge project for Matthew, and had been a big success for Peterson. Their bookings had gone up a hundred percent since they had introduced the site.

  As he started to rush out the door, Matthew paused for a moment and thought about Simone. Instantly he could see her at her desk. She was decked out in a nice African print dress and matching hat. “Huh, I wonder why I can see Simone?” he thought. “Well at least I’ll be able to confirm this one when I get to the office.”

  When he arrived at the office, Simone was waiting by the side door dressed exactly as he’d imagined her. She motioned him in. He walked over to her, and she gave him a light hug as was her usual habit and whispered in his ear. “You should sneak into your office and try to get this problem figured out before Jake sees you,” she said. “He’s been a bear since Peterson called.”

  “I’ll bet,” Matthew said.

  “I put all the information we have on your desk,” she said.

  “Thanks, Simone. I’m sure it won’t take me too long to figure it out,” Matthew said. “Just try to keep Jake off my back for a few minutes.”

  “No problem, Sweetie. I should be able to stall him for another 30 minutes to an hour,” she said. “He doesn’t know I’ve gotten ahold of you, yet.” Simone gave him another hug and then shooed him into the side door.

  Matthew snuck into his office. His office partner was on vacation this week so he didn’t have to deal with him. He logged onto the server and read through the notes Simone had left for him. Customers were having problems with the virtual golf game. They were skipping holes and going from one golf course to the next. Matthew checked the log file for the Peterson web page. The last entry was from Larry, his absent office mate. Larry had added a new golf course in New Zealand just before he had left for vacation. He checked the data base integrity, and it quickly became apparent that Larry had fouled it up. The link reference table for the new golf course did not have enough memory allocated. It was overwriting the master reference table, something Matthew thought he had made sure couldn’t happen. As he searched further, he realized that Larry had hacked the new golf course into the program itself instead of using the tools Matthew had provided.

  Matthew restored the database and program on another server. He added the new golf course using the correct tools. Then Matthew sent out a notice to the users that the web page would close in five minutes and they would have to reestablish access. He set the timer on the server to shut dow
n the program and waited. “OK that should take care of that. Good thing Simone let me get in to fix it before Jake could start yelling at me. I would still be in his office trying to explain something that I hadn’t had any time to investigate. Now, why can I conjure her?” he asked himself.

  The timer on the server went off. Matthew deleted the old database, moved the new one over and made it live. Then he started a backup of the server so if there was a problem later, they would use the new backup to restore it. “Don’t want them loading Larry’s hack back on.” He updated the log and put the server back online. He was taking a risk bringing it back online before he tested the site, but he thought it was worth the chance. He was pretty sure he’d fixed it, and he wanted to get Peterson happy as soon as possible, before Jake figured out he was in the office. He checked out the interactions using a program that he had written. It would simulate multiple customers accessing the site and playing golf on the courses. He had the program start 250 simultaneous games at different golf courses, twenty-five on the new one alone, and let it run.

  Matthew sat back and watched the log file as the program ran. No errors were being reported. He figured he’d let the test program run until Simone or Jake called him. He thought about Simone again, and there she was, working at her desk. She was tracking the calls on the Peterson account. She didn’t have to handle them herself, but she could track the activity at the call center for any account. The graph showed the calls coming in at a high rate all day, much higher than normal and way higher than Jake could afford for long. There was a spike in the calls when Matthew shut the server down, but they were tailing off quickly.

  “Good boy, Matt,” Simone said as she watched the call rate dropping.

  Matthew tried to see Jake, no dice. “He must be in his office not 30 feet away, why can’t I see him?” As Matthew thought about the office, it came into view. Matthew was so surprised that he lost his concentration and the office disappeared. He relaxed and thought about Jake again, nothing. But, when he thought about the office, there it was. Jake was talking on the phone with Mr. Peterson.

  “Bill, we’ll get it under control,” Jake said. “I know you need that site working. My call center is handling the calls.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “We’re telling the customers that it’s a temporary problem and that we should have it fixed shortly,” Jake said.

  Jake listened to Mr. Peterson, adding some uh-huhs in here and there. “Yeah, I’m sorry, but all we can do now is fix it,” he said. “I’ll let you know as soon as the status changes.” Apparently, Mr. Peterson had a few more words to get off his chest and Jake just kept on with the uh-huhs. Finally, Jake said, “Right, as soon as I know anything, I’ll call you. I’ve got your cell phone number right here. All right, bye now.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got your cell phone number etched on my eyeballs,” Jake said to himself as he hung up the call with Mr. Peterson. He jammed the intercom button for Simone. “Simone, did you get ahold of Matthew yet?” he yelled.

  Simone’s voice came back, “Yes, Matthew should be in his office now,” she said. “I think he’s fixed the problem. The call rate is dropping like a stone now.”

  “Well get him in here,” Jake said, hollering into the phone.

  Matthew met Simone in the hall. “Jake wants us in his office,” she said as she came up. They immediately headed down the hall to Jake’s office.

  “What the hell happened?” Jake yelled as they entered his office.

  “You shouldn’t swear in front of Matthew,” Simone said, giving Jake a disapproving look.

  “I’m sure he’s heard lots worse at school,” Jake replied, “now tell me what happened.”

  “Someone messed up the database, adding that golf course in New Zealand,” Matthew said. “I’ve reset the program and database and added the new course myself.”

  “Good,” Jake said.

  “Now it looks like everything is working,” Matthew said. “My test program shows no errors yet. I’ll let it run for another hour just to be sure.”

  “You do that,” Jake said a little more subdued. “I thought you had it set up so it was safe to add new courses?” he asked, giving Matthew a doubtful look.

  “It is, if you use the tools,” Matthew said. “This one was hacked in. I saved all of the customer order information, so there shouldn’t be any lasting problems.”

  “Damn that Larry,” Jake said, pounding the desk with his fist. “He said it’d be no problem to add the new golf course. Doesn’t he know how to do it?”

  “I don’t know,” Matthew said. “Obviously not, the directions and tools are right on Liz where they’re supposed to be.” Liz was the name of the in-house server they used to do most of their development work.

  “Liz was down most of last week being rebuilt after that virus attack,” Simone said, “So Larry wouldn’t have had access to the tools.”

  “Oh yeah, he told me that, but he said he could figure it out anyway,” Jake said. “It was a rush order. Peterson was starting a big ad campaign for a Down-Under Golf Tour for the winter season and needed the new course added,” Jake said looking a little sheepish. “But Larry should have asked for help if he couldn’t get it done right. OK, you two go back to work, I’ll call Peterson and try to smooth his ruffled feathers.”

  As they left Jake’s office, Matthew whispered to Simone, “Larry never asks me for help.”

  “I know, Sweetie, he’s too threatened by you. You’re so young and so much better than he is. He can’t handle the competition so he tries to prove he’s as good as you,” Simone whispered back. “Don’t worry about it; it’s his problem, not yours. You just go on doing things the way you do and let Larry worry about himself.”

  Matthew went back into his office and checked the status of his test program. Over 7,500 holes played and no errors. He shut the program off and sat down. Simone was such a good friend. She’d been helpful since he’d started work at Webmasters.com. The two of them had bonded immediately. It took Matthew awhile to get used to Simone hugging him and calling him sweetie but that was just the way she was. And besides, he kind of liked it. She was a beautiful woman and really smart. He wondered why she didn’t try to do something else besides being an administrative assistant; he’d never had the courage to ask her. Although she always pried into his life, she tended to be a little secretive about her own. All he knew about her was that she was a single mom with a little boy named Jalin. She was the first black person he’d ever really gotten to know well. There were a couple of black teachers at the school and a few black students but he didn’t really know any of them. Simone never said anything about being black or about race. She was just Simone, someone special because of her character, not anything else.

  Matthew always felt special around Simone. She treated him like an adult without forgetting that he was only fourteen. So she never made comments or asked questions that he wouldn’t be able to answer because he was so young. For instance, she never made driving analogies when talking to him, because she knew he didn’t drive and wouldn’t have a good reference to pick up on. Instead she always used things that he could identify with. “That must be it. Simone and I are good friends. She’s someone whom I think of as a complete person, not just someone whom I know superficially,” Matthew said to himself.

  While Matthew was finishing his projects, he went back to practicing with his new vision. This time he used Simone as his focus. Again, he was able to zoom in and out and move the virtual camera around at will. In fact, it was much easier this time. “Must be the practice,” Matthew said to himself.

  He continued working with his virtual camera. He thought, “Let’s see if I can walk it around outside.” He visualized moving through the front door and outside. His virtual camera went right through the glass door and into the parking lot. It seemed like it blinked off as it passed through the glass, so Matthew took it back and tried to pause it inside the glass. It went off as soon as he tried to push it into the
glass. After a few tries Matthew realized that he could pass through the glass if he was visualizing it passing through, but if he tried to stop it inside the glass it would turn off and he’d lose awareness of where it was. “Very cool,” he thought.

  Matthew moved his virtual camera back into Simone’s office and put it right in front of her face. He figured if she saw him, he could pawn it off as a joke, but Simone just went on working as though nothing had happened. Positioning the view between her and her computer screen had no effect on her. He changed the view from looking at her to looking at the screen. Still no effect, she kept humming and typing at the keyboard.

  “It must be like a one-way mirror, I can see out but they can’t see in,” Matthew said to himself.

  Matthew went back to experimenting with the virtual camera. After a while, his computer started beeping with a reminder about the dinner at Jason’s house. Jason’s parents insisted that he occasionally bring his friends over for dinner so they could meet them. In this case it was Jason’s father who wanted to meet Matthew, since Cara already knew him from his tennis lessons. So Matthew packed up his stuff and headed out.

  “Bye, Simone,” Matthew said as he rushed out the side door. “See you next week.”

  “Bye, Sweetie,” came her usual reply.

  Opportunity Knocks

  After showering and changing, Matthew was waiting at the curb for Jason to pick him up. He could hear Jason’s Lexus a mile away as he revved the engine coming up the hill. Soon the blue Lexus SC turned the corner onto their street. Jason pulled up beside him, “Hop in, man, and let’s go,” he said having to holler over the stereo.

  Matthew climbed in and Jason pulled away from the curb with a roar. “Hope you don’t mind this dinner thing,” Jason said. “My dad has this thing about having my friends come over for dinner once in a while. That way he gets to make sure you measure up.” Jason had to shout over the stereo and the roar of the car.