Chapter 2 RAMCheck Chad and Godfrey reached the massive double doors leading to the cafeteria. Godfrey looked them over. "Hardwood? I thought that new schools used some kind of metal for their doors now." Chad knocked on it and a clang sounded. "Guess they did." "They've got to obey the damn fire codes," Godfrey grumbled. The door suddenly flew open, and two women ushered them inside. The cafeteria was filled with round tables that looked to be made of some dark wood, and six to eight students sat at each. Teachers were scattered around the room, each watching carefully over the students. One table in particular caught Godfrey's attention. Around it were seated three girls, one short, the others tall, and one boy, who had a sketchpad out and was drawing. One of the tall girls, a brunette, turned to the door and saw them. "Chad! Over here!" she said, waving her hand. "Come on," Chad said to Godfrey as he waded through the sea of students. Godfrey followed. While moving towards the table, Godfrey caught sight of Ellen, who had become seated at a table with five stunning women, and quickly hid behind Chad. Ellen turned towards Chad, as if she'd seen Godfrey, but turned back to her companions. They reached their table, and pulled up two chairs. Chad eased into the conversation, and Godfrey felt a bit left out until Chad spoke to him. "Jonathan, this is Sarah..." A short blonde across the table waved to him. "Hey!" "Terri..." An Asian-American girl waved at him, her dark hair cascading around her as through a curtain of silk. "He's Alan." Alan looked up from his sketching. "Morning, Chad. I didn't see you come in." "I try to stay out of sight." He smirked. "This school's built for it. I mean, look at us! We're in a rich prep school and we're all well-dressed. We practically blend right in with each other. Oh, and she's Mara," Chad quickly said as the brunette who'd waved at them when they entered shot him a frown. "Of course I am," Mara muttered. "Not like you'd forget my name or anything." "She gets angry easily," Chad whispered to Godfrey. "Be careful what you say." Mara opened her mouth to retort, but at that moment, a woman - slightly dumpy, but dressed in a well-made business suit - stepped up to a microphone and tapped it, causing feedback through the systems. "Don't they know how to work those things?" Sarah growled, snapping out of her chat with Alan. "Apparently not," Godfrey grumbled, rubbing his ears. The woman at the microphone spoke. "Good morning, students, and welcome to Sepharsis Academy." "And good friggin' morning to you, too, woman," Chad muttered. "I'm Lee Sheridan, the director of Sepharsis, and on behalf of the staff here, welcome to the first year of this new school." Polite applause followed, and she continued. "Our facility is fully functional, and we've got a total of seven hundred students this year. There are homeroom lists on the walls, and after you're dismissed, you can go to your homerooms and pick up your schedules. Enjoy your year, and have a nice day!" She left the microphone amid applause, and the people at Chad and Godfrey's table groaned. "Aw, they're letting the fishies go first..." Godfrey said as the freshman class stood and left. "Whatever happened to senior privilege," Mara joked. Alan just kept sketching. At that point, the juniors were called, and Chad, Terri, and Godfrey left the room with the rest of their class. The walk to their homerooms was rather uneventful, except for Godfrey hiding behind Chad and Terri every time Ellen came by. "Geez, Jon, just blow her off," Terri muttered to him after one pass. "It's easier said than done," Godfrey whispered back. "She can't be that evil," Chad said. "She's not that evil," Godfrey replied. Chad and Terri smiled. "She's worse." * * * Nakamura leaned back in his chair. Nine in the morning and nothing eventful. Good. He stood, grabbing his jacket, and walked out the door, shutting it behind him. He walked down the hall, whistling as he did so, and since his attention was elsewhere, he didn't notice the figure slipping into his office. The person in his office wasted no time in looking around. It went straight for the two big black cabinets on the wall - cabinets, it knew, that carried papers and CDs. It tore them open, stuffing three small lists and two CDs into its backpack, then shut the cabinets and ran out of the office's second door just as Nakamura entered through the first. He sat back down, noted that his locked workstation was still locked (with no failed password attempts, he saw), and unlocked it. He then resumed his work - creating student user accounts. "Okay, the next one is... godfreyj... password is his student ID number..." A few clicks later, he was done, and moved on to the next one. A short time later, he was done with the accounts. "I gotta install that new modem driver for our dial-in lines..." He shoved a floppy disk into the drive and clicked Run. After typing A:\setup, he hit Enter and watched the program install the driver. "Please insert your Windows 2000 CD and click OK." Nakamura reached over to the black cabinet and fumbled through the CDs there. "Okay... MS Office 2000... Brood War... Quake III Team Arena... better not let Lee know about that," he mumbled. "Intellimouse USB drivers... Red Hat Linux..." He paused, shuffling through the jewel cases and gem cases on the shelf. "Well, damn. Where the hell is the 2000 CD?" * * * * * Chapter 3 Autoexec.bat The bell rang, and as Chad walked down the hallway, his shoes clicking against the new marble tile, Godfrey caught up to him. "Jesus Christ, these... people... they don't even know how to use Outlook." Chad snickered. "Who uses Outlook anymore? It's virus-prone." Godfrey nodded. "I use webmail. No viruses, and you can see it without loading the messages." "At least you don't have to deal with that calculus teacher. She's evil." "I've got her after lunch." "We're doomed, R2," Chad said. Godfrey laughed, and the pair entered the cafeteria just as Terri caught up with them. She bubbled with excitement. "You guys heard about the cafeteria food yet?" "What could possibly be worse than calculus on a full stomach?" Godfrey rolled his eyes. Terri grinned impishly. "Don't bet on a full stomach. They've had to close the kitchen for the day." Chad's jaw dropped. "The hell?" "They ran out of food! Turns out that they'd drastically underordered the stuff that they needed, and they won't get the real amounts until tomorrow." Terri started laughing. "Relax. You weren't missing anything, from what I heard." "What am I going to eat?" Chad moaned. "I need food!" "They're ordering pizzas," Terri said. "And they're on the house, too. Plus Miss Sheridan's mad as hell about it, so I'd say that we came out way ahead." "What, you don't like her?" "Are you kidding? She's mean! She suspended a kid for having her hair dyed blue!" Godfrey laughed. "Who did the girl look more like, Ayanami Rei or Mizuno Ami?" "Ayanami, but that's beside the point." * * * The figure who had been in Nakamura's office sat down in front of a computer in a lab deep in the school's maze of corridors. It booted the system. "It shouldn't be too hard to get into this thing. If they were using that list like I thought they would..." It pulled a sheaf of paper out from its backpack and flipped through it. "This should have all the student ID numbers and names I need. All I need now is the method they use to create user names... and then I'm in." It pulled out a Windows 2000 CD. "Until then..." It stuck the CD inside the CD tray. * * * The trio of Chad, Terri, and Godfrey sat at their table minus Sarah, Mara, and Alan, who were in their sophomore year and as such ate an hour earlier. As Godfrey ate his small sandwich, some thoughts washed over him, and he spoke. "I wonder what the security here's like." Chad swallowed and spoke. "I had a comp lit class second period, and from what I saw, there are cameras everywhere and then the two armed guards walking around campus." Terri shook her head. "It's sad when they don't even trust their students any more." "No, I mean computer security." Godfrey's grin turned devilish. "I need a soundtrack to keep my mind in focus while I work." "Unless you've got an audio CD, don't bet on using sound," Chad said. "The computers are practically locked down short of just monitors, keyboards, mice, and sound." "I hope someone takes all their mouse balls," Terri grumbled as she bit into her pizza. "Blech, greasy pizza." "That network administrator must be a real son of a bitch," Godfrey groaned. "I gotta talk to him about these things." "Don't bet on it. He's locked up in his office and doesn't come out except to go to the bathroom or to get a drink," Terri said. "I can see his office from the front desk." "Since when are you an office aide?" "Since they screwed up my schedule and I can't get into the classes I wanted." "Which classes did you miss out on?" Godfrey said as he bit into a chunk of pizza crust. "Japanese two, Art two, and creative writing," Terri replied. "Japanese two?" Chad and Godfrey's jaws dropped. Chad managed to speak. "Good god, I speak the language and I couldn't get into that class!" Terri shrugged and took a bite of her pizza. "It filled up quick. Did you try for Japanese one?" "I want a challenge." "Take it. Mr. Nakamura's supposed to be really tough." "He can't be too tough. Your Japanese can't even pass as native, and you're trying for that." "Feh, it doesn't matter." * * * Nakamura ran through his cabinets furiously, throwing CDs and floppies aside in an effort to find the Windows 2000 CD, but all for naught. He collapsed in his chair, brow furrowed in concentration. Nakamura though for a few moments. _I don't have the CD._ _The CD is not in my office._ _Something's very wrong here._ He went back to programming user accounts to take his mind off it. "Let's see... Chad Kinomoto... that translates to kinomotc... now what's his ID number?" He walked to the other cabinet to retrieve the list containing the ID numbers, and when he saw that they weren't there, he sighed. "Oh, hell, Lee's going to have my job for this." He picked up his phone and dialed four digits. "Lee, we've got a problem. A big one." * * * * * * * * * * AUTHOR'S NOTES It's short, I know, but I've got a million things on my mind now, and writing is low on the list. I've got two jobs to deal with now, and as such, I'm working about forty hours a week, both for the local school district and for Best Buy. It's killing me. However, I've managed to continue with "The Kyoto Liddo-Kun," and I've got that mapped out to the end, which is two parts away. I had originally intended to write a lemon side-story to that, but I relented, and as such, I'm not going to do that so I can focus on another six projects I've got. They are: - "The Snow Bunny's Christmas," which is the story that Persephone of Abydos won a while back. It's a yaoi lemon with Touya and Yukito from "Cardcaptor Sakura." - "Cid's Laboratory." Yep, I'm still writing it, believe it or not, even though I've practically abandoned what I did while I had my laptop. - "Castlevania: Cambiata of Eternity." It's a redone version of Clockwork of Night: still in RM2K3, but now with voice acting (good stuff, unlike SotN), a completely MP3 soundtrack (screw the RIAA, this is worth the 2.5-ish mil fine), and custom thingies. - MSMT3K, obviously. I'm thinking that I'm going to scrap the plot I had for the final five episodes and start from scratch. - An as-yet-unnamed Utena/Digimon fusion that I've had brewing for a while in which Yolei is a certain "prince." You'll see. - My "Exile III: Ruined World" walkthrough that I've got posted on GameFAQs. It's quite tiring to update this and fix bugs, so it takes away quite a bit of energy. If you wish to contact me, my ICQ and AIM addresses are on my FFN and FP pages. My website's always up, and it's here: users3.ev1.net/~jchiles/ The top logo's mine, but feel free to check out the rest - Tuxedo Alex's stuff especially. Until later, ja! Tuxedo Jack Tuxedojack at nospam.juno.com July 21st, 2003 "Kanashima ga kowashita, kokoro no, kakera mo..."