“Hey! Kid!” The cab driver snapped me out of my thoughts. “Wake up! This is as far as forty five bucks will take you.”
I looked outside and saw tall stone buildings, but I couldn’t make out what any of them were. I’d been hopping from bus to bus and cab to cab for days and I’d lost all sense of location because everywhere I went it was raining.
“Thank you.” I handed him the money and stepped out of the car.
Within seconds, the thin jacket and tattered jeans I was wearing were completely drenched. I had an umbrella in my backpack, but I knew pulling it out now was useless.
I walked through what appeared to be a college campus—there was greenery and buildings every few feet, but each building I attempted to get into was locked.
I apparently needed an access card to get in. A Harvard University access card.
I’d been accepted into Harvard months ago, but I never wrote back to confirm. As soon as I’d read that their top computer science graduate from the past year was a guy who developed a mini computer—something I’d done when I was fourteen, I decided that there was nothing they could teach me.
I saw a group of students holding the door to a lecture hall open, so I rushed past them. I walked down the hallway, peering into every classroom, cursing when I saw that they were all filled.
Once I was at the end of the hall, I slipped inside a dark classroom and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Nice of you to join us on time. Have a seat in the back please.” The lights came on and a blond haired man in a tweed suit stood up behind a podium. “Anytime now, son...”
The class laughed and I walked up the steps, taking a seat in the last row.
I ignored the itchy feel of damp denim against my skin and looked up at the board: Summer Course, Advanced Software 4100.
All the students had laptops and state of the art data configuration boards on their desks. All of them looked way older than I was.
I guess this is a senior level course...
“So...” The professor moved the projector screen from the center of the room. “We’ve been deconstructing our hypothetical company ‘Beta Link’ and so far we have three people in the running for the best computer: George Hamilton II, Lindsay Franco, and William Dane. Could the three of you come up here and show the class what you’ve built please?”
They took their places up front and explained their computers in the most mundane voices I’d ever heard. It was bad enough that their computers sucked, but their sense of arrogance and know-it-all attitudes were even harder to bear.
They have access to the best technology in the world and this is the best they can come up with?
“Very impressive!” The professor clapped. “To everyone else in this room, you have quite the competition if you’re going to get an A. Does anyone have any questions for George, Lindsay, or William?”
No one raised their hand.
“No one? No one has a question about how they developed their processors? You’re just going to let them walk away with the top grades? I can only give out a certain number of A’s you know. There is a very steep curve in this class and I will be putting it to use...”
I raised my hand.
“Yes, you.” He pointed to me. “What do you want to ask?”
“Those aren’t really the best computers, right? You’re just using those three as an example to make the rest of—the rest of us work harder, correct?”
The room erupted into murmurs. Everyone looked back and forth between me and the professor.
“No. I’m not,” he said. “These are indeed the best computers in the class, and seeing as though you didn’t bring yours to critique today makes me feel like they’re definitely better than whatever you built. But, since you seem to think that—”
“George’s computer will crash in six weeks.” I crossed my arms. “He’s over-compassing the ram drive with unnecessary wiring. One too many shut downs and it’ll never turn on again. Lindsay’s computer, if you want to call it that, is using all the wrong materials. Unless everyone else in this class is using sticks and stones, a computer with recycled coils and used wiring should never be considered a good computer. Technology isn’t up to date enough for eco-computers yet. And William’s computer, though impressive to look at, is—actually, he pretty much copied Dell’s earliest model and re-drafted a few mechanisms. Any high-school student with half a brain can do that.”
The room fell silent.
The professor took off his glasses and rubbed his forehead. “Class dismissed.” He shook his head and the students rushed out of the room, as if they were scared he was about to explode.
I stood up and walked down the steps, ignoring the intense glares that were coming from the three computer clowns who were putting their toys away.
“Wait, you.” The professor waved at me. “I want to talk to you for a second.” He waited for everyone to leave the room. “What’s your name?”
“Bill Gates.”
“Your real name...”
“Jonathan Statham,” I murmured.