Evasion (3 page)

As his classmates were fooling around with just getting that simple five lines of code to work, Scotty found himself immediately bored and tried to use the basic understanding to create something a little bit more complex.

So he modified it to the following:

10 PRINT “HELLO SCOTTY!”

20 PAUSE 3

30 CLS

40 PRINT “HAVE A GREAT DAY . . .”

50 PAUSE 1

60 CLS

70 PRINT “. . . BUTTHEAD!”

80 PAUSE 5

90 CLS

100 PAUSE 2

110 GOTO 10

This particular program printed “HELLO SCOTTY!” then cleared the screen, then the words “HAVE A GREAT DAY . . .” appeared, then the screen cleared again, then “. . . BUTTHEAD!” appeared, before the routine would repeat.

It had, essentially, been Scotty’s first “hack” – taking an existing program, understanding how it worked and then manipulating it to do something that he wanted, rather than the original intention of the teacher!

And, of course, being satisfied with the result, but wanting to experiment with what else he could do, he tweaked the code to remove the final “clear screen” prompt – he changed the program to the following:

10 PRINT “HELLO SCOTTY!”

20 PAUSE 2

30 CLS

40 PRINT “HAVE A GREAT DAY . . .”

50 PAUSE 2

60 CLS

70 PRINT “. . . BUTTHEAD!”

100 PAUSE 5

110 GOTO 70

By removing lines eighty and ninety he had learned that the code was numeral in nature and didn’t need to follow a particular pattern – he could skip or insert numbers – so long as they were in numerical order they worked fine. This meant he could insert nine statements between any of the existing lines.

He also determined that by clearing the final “clear screen message” and not returning back to the original first line, he could alter the manner by which the program worked.  By returning the statement that allowed him to print “. . . BUTTHEAD!” on the screen repeatedly, the program ran through the original statement, the second one, and then the punch line, which repeated.

It was a rudimentary hack of the original program being taught, but it kept Scotty enthusiastic about what else could be done.

“Cool!” the student beside Scotty had said when he saw Scotty running the program beside him.

A few other students at the desk beside him looked and started laughing, asking him to break the program and repeat it again.

Then the teacher, Mr. Prescott, came over – and this had likely been the determining factor that meant embracing computer programming or forgetting about it as one of the simple experiments children do when learning something new in school.

Mr. Prescott had originally frowned, in that manner that teachers had to frown upon witnessing students behaving out of the expected order of things – but then a wry grin crossed his face and he stood there nodding, his red hair and red beard bobbing and swaying slightly behind the movements of his head.

“I see you have grasped the rudimentary elements of BASIC, Mister Desmond,” Mr. Prescott said.

“Yes, sir,” Scotty said, looking down at his desk, unable to meet the teacher’s eyes.

“That’s not what I had instructed you to do, is it?”

“No, sir,”

“When the bell rings for lunch, you will stay here and help me tidy the computer lab for my afternoon class.”

“Yes, sir.”

Scotty sighed a bit of relief. He hadn’t been sent to the principal’s office; nor had this landed him detention. Cleaning the lab for a few minutes after everyone else had been dismissed was a relatively easy punishment.

So when the bell did ring fifteen minutes later and Scotty stayed behind, he learned he wasn’t being held back for punishment, but rather, for extra work. Interesting work.

“You’re pretty adept at using the computer,” Mr. Prescott said to him just a second after the last student left the class, casting a weary glance back at Scotty as she walked out. The teacher’s elbows were on the table and he had tented his hands together, stroking the underside of his red beard with his two intertwined index fingers.

 “Yes, sir,”

“The program you wrote was juvenile in nature.”

“Yes, sir,”

“But you can do better,” Prescott said, putting his hands down on the desk and pushing himself up to his feet, an intriguing glimmering spark in his eyes.  “Much better! You have an undeniable talent, and I think it would be worth your time to continue to explore this, to work at it. Are you willing to work at it? Are you willing to work hard at learning more?”

Scotty was confused. Mr. Prescott seemed excited. He had been expecting him to ask if he was willing to be better, not act in a juvenile fashion.

“Uh, yes, sir!”

“Excellent! Computers are going to be an integral part of our future, Mister Desmond. If you embrace them now, learn all you can, the world will be yours!”

Scotty and Mr. Prescott never left the computer lab for the entire lunch period – Prescott walked him through even more programming language options, complex routines, taught him additional commands and programs and, by the end of the day, Scotty was marveling at how easy it was to create stick figure animations on the screen.

The next day, Mr. Prescott taught him more about the wonder of what he could do using BASIC programming language.  He took the boy under his wing and showed him the amazing possibilities that lay before him. By the end of the month, after a series of ongoing personalized tutorial sessions at least every second day, Scotty’s skill at programming in BASIC ended up surpassing his mentor’s own ability. Scotty started teaching his master new tricks, new options.

“You’ve got a real gift for this,” Mr. Prescott bemused one late afternoon when they had been working together in the computer lab after school. Despite the fact Scotty had moved well beyond his mentor’s skill level, he still fed off of the encouragement, praise and guidance the middle-aged man provided. And Prescott’s unwavering belief in Scotty, his willingness to push him harder, to help him achieve higher levels of skill, helped feed Scotty’s confidence, his self-worth – all at a time when that was one of the most important things to develop in a young teenager’s mind and heart.

“Thank you,” Scotty said in return, a proud smile erupting onto his face.

“No, my young friend,” Prescott replied. “Thank YOU!”

And that ongoing relationship, of course, led to Scotty’s real passion. When the Commodore Pet was replaced by the Commodore 128, and, simultaneously, when Scotty’s parents purchased the Commodore VIC-20 for the home, he continued to practice his BASIC programming skills; then moved on to PASCAL.  He watched the television show
Bits and Bytes
featuring Billy Van and Luba Goy, knowing virtually as much as the show’s host (Van) and his computer-connected mentor (Goy), but still marveling at the wonder of computers.

Prescott also introduced him to various computer magazines, such as
Computer & Video Games
and
Compute!
and Scotty reveled in the monthly columns and articles by programmers sharing their programs, which would be typed out in long form for avid readers of the magazine to key into their own computers to try out on their own.  Scotty, of course, tried them all, and often experimented with adapting their codes into his own. He even submitted a few of his own adapted codes to the magazine after some encouragement from Mr. Prescott.

Which led to Scotty actually writing a monthly column for
Computer Programmers Monthly
, one of the many magazines Scotty ended up subscribing to.  Scotty used a pen name for these articles, and Mr. Prescott submitted them on his behalf.

Scotty wrote these articles under the name Commandor (a word that combined Commander and Commadore) Mr. Prescott handled all of the submission of material, including cashing the checks and ensuring Scotty received his payment. Scotty kept this alter ego to himself – or between his mentor and himself – it was almost like a superhero secret identity.  Scotty quite liked the idea of having an ability, a “super power” so to speak, that nobody else knew about.  Mr. Prescott was like Scott’s own personal superhero buddy, mentor and support system, a combination of Mister Miyagi from the Karate Kid movies and Alfred, Batman’s personal servant.

Throughout the years, even when he moved off to University and seldom saw Mr. Prescott – who retired the same year Scotty graduated from university – the secret identity was something only the two of them shared.

That had been the start of Scotty’s pseudonym, or what became his hacker name.  The magazine only lasted about four years before being replaced, but there had been enough of an underground community of hackers, and, as bulletin board systems, the precursors to the internet, came on the scene in mid-to-late 1980s and early 1990s, Scotty found a whole new group of anonymous colleagues who were part of the hacker scene.

As the bulletin boards eventually gave way to the Freenets and other online communities that became the Internet and World-Wide Web, Scotty, as Commandor became a well-known hacker.

Though he maintained a regular career as a talented computer programmer, Scotty kept up his secret hacker identity. Which eventually led to the hacker lifestyle, which led to lucrative jobs, and being able to choose which of the many opportunities that were offered to him, such as the one that drew him to Sudbury.

After years of working in IT, Scotty had a sideline of business in which he would work on various hacks, both personal and professional; the demand for his skills became so huge that he had at first dropped down to part time and took on some tasks. But after a while, the workload was so demanding and the money he was able to make so lucrative, that he ended up creating a business around it.

Calling his computer services GEEK SUPPORT SERVICES (or GEEKSS) for short, he issued invoices for various innocuous tasks such as network maintenance, computerized consulting, and viral protection software (Yes, he had even developed a popular virus protection and firewall program that he distributed a freemium version of, but which had advanced capabilities for a low monthly fee); half of the time, the invoice stated service X, but they really got service Y, which was some sophisticated hack, and the money issued to him was far higher than the minor amount that appeared on the official invoice.

So, in the guise of offering a GEEKSS service, Scotty had come up to Sudbury to meet with a client, but was able to perform the “dutiful son” role as well. He hadn’t often been able to combine his personal work-life preferences with a family duty, and so relished the opportunity.

But, as the morning dragged on, and the hospital staff kept popping in to advise them that the surgeon who was scheduled to see Scotty’s father had been delayed, yet again, with complications in the earlier scheduled surgery, Scotty became anxious.

He father, ever the jester, had joked about the delay.

“Maybe,” he said, leaning over to where Scotty had his nose buried in
Cuckoo’s Egg
by Clifford Stoll, and indicated with a sideways jab of his thumb an older gentleman who had been sleeping quite undisturbed for the past hour despite the hub-bub of the waiting area filled with no less than a dozen patients and their families “I’ll slip my identification wrist bracelet onto that old fart and slip out of here, pop down to the lake and throw a line into the water. Might as well see if I can pull a trout or two out of the lake while I’m waiting.”

Scotty smiled at his father. It had always been about the fishing, hadn’t it?

“Go ahead,” Scotty had grinned. “I’ll create a distraction across the room while you make the switch and slip out.”

The two men laughed, but Janelle Desmond, Scotty’s mother and Lionel’s wife, just shook her head at them before returning her attention to the paperback romance novel she had brought.

Scotty thought about that. Both he and his mother had brought a book to keep themselves occupied while waiting.

But not his father.

Nope. Lionel Desmond could easily just sit there, content to be consumed by whatever he reflected on while he sat there stoically observing all of the other people in that hospital waiting room.  And he had always been like that for as long as Scotty could remember. It didn’t matter where, it didn’t matter when, Lionel Desmond would either sit like a statue or seem to take in the surroundings entirely, or he would, on occasion, connect with those around him, often injecting his trademark brand of humor into a situation, putting others around him at ease.

Amazing how he could “work a room” like that – seem to almost instinctively determine what a room needed best – either solitude and quiet reflection, which he seemed to do well (and something that likely lent to his ability to sit for hours in a boat on a lake while fishing, just floating there quietly in the calm tranquility of the natural surroundings, absorbing the world around him and patiently waiting for that tug on his fishing line), or forging relationships with strangers and helping to put others at ease.

It was a skill that neither Scotty nor his mother seemed to possess. And, though he occasionally found himself offering the world a bit of his father’s bizarre brand of humor, Scotty didn’t seem to possess that natural ability to blend and mix with people, to forge friendships and quickly attained relationships.

He was more analytical, introspective, and good with inanimate objects, data and puzzles. Which was likely one of the reasons he adapted so easily to computer programming.  He could easily consume himself with a programming challenge for days without tiring of it. But engaging in the small talk associated with colleagues and friendships was taxing to him.

He would do it out of necessity, of course, but would much rather spend his time focused on code, on exploring the intricacies of the manner by which a string of characters in a particular format could command the control of a computer-controlled environment.

It was likely the reason he didn’t have many friends.

No, he could count, on a single hand, the number of people besides his parents that he had forged any lasting relationship with – something that lasted longer than the time associated with a particular chapter of his life.