Notice:

The contents of this story is purely fictional. The content matter of this story concerns love between males teenagers. It is a story of friendship, love, some violence and profanity. If this is not what you like reading or it is illegal for you to read this material because of age or laws go somewhere else. This story is copyrighted by it's owner and may not be copied or published elsewhere without the owners permission.


Author's note:

First of all many thanks to those of you who have written. And many thanks to Jason for his fine editing.

In case you missed this part yesterday.

It's been fun writing this story for you. I'm not the best writer and to be honest the only reason I ever write is to hear from you guys and to make new acquaintances and hopefully a new friend. That's my pay for writing new friends and I can definitely say I was over paid for this story. Not only did I make a great new friend, but he's also a writer. His name is Jamie.

Now I am an avid reader from the classics to sci-fi/fantasy. And when I read, I really get into the story and mentally live the story - I've been a hobbit, a star fighter, a knight, a hero and a villain - if it is a good, well-told story.

Well, Jamie sent me the first 7 chapters of a sci-fi/fantasy novel he is writing to get my opinion.

I couldn't believe how fantastic this story was. How well written. How it made me feel. Jamie, in my humble opinion is one of the greatest writers I have ever read. I mean to tell you he is phenomenal! Right up there with the great writers of all time.

I begged for more, and more and more and now I have read nearly the whole novel and I am totally in love with this tale.
It's a wonderful story about love, trust and friendship. And if you are like me you'll laugh, cry, get angry, get happy and swoon reading it. Jamie tells me he wrote it for gay youth, but the more I think about it, the more I think it's a story for all.

It is a story that I think should be published by a mainstream publisher. It's a book that should be sold through the major booksellers.

So, why am I telling you all this?

Because I have a dream and I think Jamie share's this dream, which is to see this novel published in the mainstream and I figure that maybe one of you knows or has a friend who knows or even a friend of a friend who knows, someone in the mainstream publishing world who might be willing to look at this novel with the view to publishing it. If you do please write and tell me!

How much do I believe in this writer and this story? Enough that I have decided to do a Flash animation of this story for the web in hopes of attracting a big production house into buying the movie rights. If any of you want to help me on this project let me know.

Enjoy the remaining chapters of this story.

Love,

Sam Lakes

sam_lakes@hotmail.com


Mother
By
Sam Lakes

Chapter 19

At least it wasn’t something hard that I hit with my head. It was some lady’s shopping bag.

I quickly flipped over expecting to see Keith’s killer but he wasn’t there. Suddenly from behind me I heard a deep male voice, “You all right, young man?”

I looked back to see a really big guy in a security officer uniform.

“Yeah,” I said getting up and looking all around for the guy who had been stalking me, “Yes, I’m all right, thanks.”

“You shouldn’t be running in the mall. You could hurt yourself and others.”

“I’m sorry, some man was stalking me. I-I think he killed someone I knew.” I continued to look around frantically, “I got to go I wasn’t supposed to leave the hotel.”

“You want me to escort you back to your hotel?”

I nodded.

The guards name was Ted and he walked me back to the hotel and actually escorted me to my hotel room. Of course, I was in trouble cuz Dad opened the door.

I thanked Ted and walked in. Dad closed the door.

“Where the heck have you been?” he asked in not too happy a voice.

“Haircut.”

Dad looked at me first with a sort hardened, mad look and it sort of faded to a soft, fatherly look. My bottom lip began to tremble because I could still feel the fear and I knew something bad was about to happen. I kept thinking about the premonition of Dad getting shot.

Dad did the right thing he pulled me into an embrace and I began to cry quietly. After a few minutes I finally said quietly, “Dad, I saw him. I saw the man who killed Keith. He saw me at the mall and was following me until I ran into Ted. He’s the one that was in…that…that’s going to shoot you. Dad, I don’t want you to die and I’m so scared you will.”

“Colt, it’s okay to be scared, but remember I pulled you back from the edge…you didn’t die. You’re here. You, me, we are a team. I won’t die. I know that because you are here. Whatever part you weren’t supposed to play, you will play. Colt, for the first time in our lives we have a chance to be free from our past, to move on as father and son into our futures, whatever they may be, without that fear. I don’t know why all this occurred, if it was predestined, or fate, or just a coincidence. I don’t know and I don’t care, all I care about is you. I love you Colt, I always have and I always will and I am the proudest father in the world because I have you in my life again. Nobody, nobody will ever take that away from me.”

Chase had walked into the room and over to us. Dad reached over and pulled him into our hug. We stayed like that for a bit then I kissed Chase on the lips and then he kissed me.

“Well, I can see you two don’t need me,” Dad said quietly then he gave each of us a peck on the cheek. As my embrace with him dissolved Chase took me in his arms and we kissed passionately.

The rest of the day passed fairly quietly and that night Chase and I had an awesome love making session. It was the best ever and our love was, and is, so intense. I know that we are for life. I had a hard time sleeping so I watched Chase sleep for a bit then decided to make some major alterations to mother.

The next morning Dad woke us. Not much was said on the way to the complex.

“How are you doing this morning?” Dad asked as we walked to the entrance of a building.

“Bit edgy. Did you get a vest?” I asked quietly.

“Not yet, but I will.”

“When?”

“When I get the chance. Don’t worry, the call me ‘Lucky Smith’ ‘cause I have a way of dodging bullets” he smiled.

Dad signed us all in through security and we were given visitor badgers, which were fluorescent pink and had the word VISITOR printed on it.

“Here’s your property pass for your Power Book PC and one for the MaineFrame PC” the guard said giving the Power Book passes to me.

“Except for this main corridor you must be accompanied by someone with a permanent security badge. There are some areas you are not allowed in either way. What to see my office?” ask Dad.

“You have your own office?” asked Arb “Neat!”

I spent the walk memorizing the things I saw and learning the general layout.

“Where’s the computer room?”

“Which one?”

The main one where Ops should be.” I replied.

“It’s in G-4,” said Dad.

“Where’s that?”

“That’s one of the areas you can’t get into. Very high security. I can’t even get in there.”

“So where is it?”

“Well, I’ll show you the first door you enter to get there. There are four or five gateways after the first door, which you must have a pin and badge for. The next is retinal scan and handprint plus badge. The third access is a mantrap. You walk in speak the password and your name and it checks your weight. If you don’t pass the alarm goes off and you wait for security to free you. Next to last is another man trap, but it does a retinal scan, finger print and voice print and if your heart rate is up or you fail any of the other tests it will set off an alarm and again you wait for security Finally, the last door you sign your name, thumb print and voice print when you speak the password and the door to the computer room opens automatically.”

“What do we have to do to get access?” I asked.

“They’d never give it to you.”

“Why?”

“One your not a government employee, two you’re only sixteen years old and three, you don’t have the security clearance to get in there.”

I wanted to say ‘I bet I could get in there’, however, it would have ruined my plan so I didn’t.

Dad opened the door to his office. It wasn’t huge, but then it wasn’t small and had a relatively nice view of the parking lot and surrounding woods. There were pictures of me on his desk and a couple on the walls. There was only one picture of mom, but it was the best. I picked it up “I love this picture of Sarah. She is so beautiful,” I said.

Dad tried calling Kevin, but there was no answer.

“We’d better get to the meeting.”

“Can I leave the PB here? We really don’t need it. Can I plug it in it needs a recharge?”

“Sure” said Dad.

“Let me check out Mother before we go. It will only take a second.”

I opened up the PC with the label ‘MaineFrame PC’ and started it up. Rapidly enter a succession of commands, which flew by the screen so fast that nobody could read them. A message appeared briefly which said ‘momconnect’ then ‘accessing’ and then changed to ‘I’m in’ .

If you haven’t been expecting them like I was you would have missed them. A sequence of numbers flashed by and finally the word ‘nctrl’ flashed and ‘comm linked pda - comm linked clone’ flashed on the screen.

“Okay everything seem A-Okay,” I announced as I put the unit into sleep mode and handed it to Arb “All yours professor.”

I noticed they passed a door with the label G-4.

We had ten minutes before the meeting and I drank three glasses of orange juice and three glasses of water. Dad stepped out in to the corridor for a few moments long enough for me to say to Arbor, Chase and Melanie “Guys when I go to the rest room you keep them occupied for thirty minutes.”

“Doing what?”

“Anything surf the net at various speeds? Don’t do heavy proximity only light I’ve changed mother and if you do anything over one T1 it will overload her. Play a chess game or Counter-Strike. You’ve got to keep them busy for thirty minutes or until I return. Then, we will blow their socks off!”

“Okay. Where you going?” asked Arb.

“The main computer room.” I smiled.

Dad came back in the room as I was having yet another glass of water.

“Maureen Eilson, this is my son, Colt,” said Dad.

“Pleased to meet you,” I responded as I directly confronted her.

“And this is Arbor Maine, Chase Mansfield, and Melanie Maine, Arbor’s cousin.”

“Hello,” they said.

“What’s your job?” I asked.

“I’m the Senior Operations Manager,” she said.

“Wow! You’re sure better looking than Fatman Spiney at the university’s Op Center.”

I could tell that she wasn’t impressed with that statement.

“Of course, you’re a lot more intelligent. Fatman Spiney just sits around half the day downloading porno from the Internet and eating twinkies”

She tried to smile politely.

“Poor, Spiney, he pretends to be knowledgeable, but …Hey, Arb we ought to video tape Spiney someday when we grab all the T1’s and 3’s. See the U has about 4 T3’s and 10 T1’s and when we surf we grab the full bandwidth for about thirty seconds which is long enough for all sorts of alarms to go off.”

“You surf the net for thirty seconds?”

“Yeah, but we download about 40 gigs of data.”

“What do you surf for?” she asked.

“Various stuff mainly research from other universities and research consortiums.”

“What about news groups?” asked Eric Mallory who had just entered the room and the conversation.

“Rarely, I’m not into explaining to people the physics of computers or how to install software. Newsgorups are mainly for the ignorant and perverts. Of course that’s just my opinion.”

“But didn’t you send out a challenge a few weeks ago for chess.”

“Yes. But we decided to drop the project because by our calculations it would have taken five minutes to beat every challenger and Fatman Spiney would have gotten on to our game and I’d get suspended from the U.”

“So which one are you…Colt or Arbor or Chase?”

“I’m Colt, and you are?”

“Eric Mallory” he responded as his eyes darted about occasional attempting to grab a look at the boy’s crotches. “How old are you guys anyway?”
“I’m sixteen and Arb is eighteen, Chase is fifteen and so is Melanie.” I decided that I didn’t like this guy and saw that he was definitely perverted.

I went and sat down next to Maureen Eilson and whispered “I don’t like him he’s creepy.”

She smiled slightly as she didn’t like him at all and had kicked him out of Ops a year ago.

I continued in a low voice “I think you have some dishonest people working here. You see with Mother - nickname for MaineFrame PC - we can do a lot more than most computers and I wrote a super trace route routine and the indications are very positive that you have an interceptor program buried in your system.”

“What an interceptor program?” she asked quietly.

“It sits around and intercepts messages, e-mail, documents whatever if they contain keywords most pass through. A number get diverted and further checked and then either routed on or re routed to whoever installed the program or had it installed or just bit-bucketed. See in order for my program to do a full trace route Mother has to take control of the system for about a minute maybe two. To do that I have to link her into your main mainframe.”

“But we run virus checks all the time. So…”

I interrupted her “I know and you could use up 90% of your CPU time running virus programs and still never find them because - it’s not a virus…it’s a spy! And my bet is whoever planted it, planted it over a long period of time, probably several months to avoid detection. I could explain the procedure to you, but suffice to say that, that’s why I can grab the T1’s and 3’s at the U. I worked in Ops at the U for three months.”

“I don’t know, Colt. Sounds pretty far fetched.”

“I know, let’s say I can get to the main computer room, would you believe me?”

“I guess if you could do that I’d have to believe you, but then I think you’d also be able to walk on water. There’s no way possible, without proper authorization, anyone, even someone as smart as you could do it,” she said.

“Would you do me a favor?”

“What let you in?” she laughed.

“No, just help keep the guys going until I get back?”

“Okay. But where are you going?”

“Don’t tell anybody, I’m going to you main computer room.”

She smiled. Knowing that I’d never get past the first door.

“Five security checks after the first door. Right?” I asked.

“No. Four” she replied.

I smiled and shrugged my shoulder’s saying “Well, it really doesn’t matter.”

All the attendants finally arrived and Al Nichols “Okay we’ve got four guest here Colt Smith, son of Paul and his friends Arbor Maine, Chase Mansfield and Melanie Maine. These four have a demonstration to show us of Arbor’s Dad Keith Maine’s PC called MaineFrame PC. I’m told it’s very unique and is one of a kind. Supposedly ahead of our times. Mr. Maine died of a heart attack a little over a year ago. They have also requested access to our main frame as they suspect some ill goings on.”

“Like what?” asked Belkirk snidely.

“Well, like there’s a program sitting on the lines that intercepts messages and documents and re-routes them to someone who decides what to keep, route on or bit bucket. It’s not a virus so virus programs won’t detect it. It’s basically a spy” said Arbor.

Eric Mallory suddenly looked uneasy.

“This is completely absurd, Al. To let a bunch of children have access to our system!”

“Well, I feel we need to hear them out and discuss the matter and then I’ll adjudicate. Yes, Colt”

“Excuse me, Mr. Nichols, hum, I…uh,” I appeared embarrassed; “I drank to much water and wondered if you could excuse me for a moment so I can go to the rest room? The PC was named after him - Maine Frame. Arbor or Chase can start the demo and answer most of your questions. I’m really sort of excess baggage.”

Chase gave me a funny look, he knew I was up to something.

“Sure, just ask the security guard where to go,” replied Al.

I ran out of the room and down to the restrooms without asking the guard as I had already spotted them.

On the way back to the conference room I stopped at the door G-4. I took my PDA computer and keyed in G-4 and pressed the enter key. The door unlocked and I looked both ways then entered. I took off my visitor badge and put it in my pocket.

I walked down the corridor and came to two doors. “Shit!” I entered a message “MAP G-4 to MAIN COMPUTER ROOM ACCESS NUMBERS”

The message back was “INVALID COMMAND”

I typed: “SHOW PATH G-4 TO MAIN COMPUTER ROOM.”

The answer was
“G-4
C-44
D-98
A-02
MC1”

I keyed in ACCESS C-44. The door opened. I walked down the corridor rapidly until I found D-98 and walked into the mantrap and out the other side. Where I meet a guy going the other way.

“Come on, hurry up.”

“Sorry,” I said and moved out of the way while the guy entered the mantrap going out.

I looked at my watch I’d been gone eight minutes and sixteen seconds. I ran down the corridor and came to A-02, the second mantrap, I pressed A-02 and walked in. The door closed behind him. Nothing else happened. Nothing happened despite what I did. I kicked the door, screamed at Mother several times and still nothing.

There were no alarms going off unless they were silent, but then nobody came. The sweat was pouring off me. Finally after eight-minutes and 20 seconds the door, which I was leaning on, opened and I fell out. I ran as fast as I could to MC1, keyed in MC1 and the door automatically opened.

The shift operator looked up and saw me.

“Hi, Colt Smith.”

“No, Garret Bennings” he said.

“Hi, Garret. I’m Colt Smith. Please before you ask, I am older than thirteen! My Dad who is 48 is still getting carded! Genetics!” I laughed. “Listen, Maureen sent me here to help you. It seems some politician has got some bug up his ass and so now she’s under the gun to get the last two years system backups so they can be scanned by some program, to do something. Anyway she sent me to give a hand loading them into the hopper. So, I’m at your service!”

“She should have called me.”

“Well, I guess she figured I’d tell you. She’s having some meeting with Belkirk, Nichols and Mallory! Belkirk is being a real jerk! Maybe there’s an e-mail.”

“Typical, of Belkirk and his minion Mallory!”

“Yeah, he’s a real pervert!”

“You got that right. Maureen kicked him out of here about a year ago.”

“Well, let me check my e-mail,” said Garrett.

I waited until he turned away then I sent an e-mail to Garrett using the PDA.

“Oh, here it is! Just arrived. ‘Help, Colt - Maureen’ She must have been in a hurry there’s no signature.”

I ignored his comment.

“Well, show me were the tapes are, so we can plezzze the senator or whoever!”

“Follow me.”

In sixteen minutes we had all the tapes ready to be picked up by the robot loaders and scanned. I worked furiously and did three quarters of the work.

“So, how do you feel about fielding some heat,” I asked as I typed away at the PDA.

“What do you mean?”

“Well the program that we have to run is going to occupy about 100% of the system resources for about five minutes - I mean you can probably get away with saying it was some sort of program loop.”

“As long as I don’t get fired. What’s that?”

“Latest hi tech gadget. Don’t worry if anybody gets fired it’ll be me. I’ll take the rap.”

I hit the enter key. Mother had estimated three minutes and twenty-five seconds. After two minutes the phone started ringing and Garrett just hung up on the first caller and then took the phone off the hook.

Garrett smiled at me and said “Hey! I’m working on it!”

“You’re my kind of SysOp!” I laughed.

I opened Garrett’s book covertly and slipped my Visitor Badge in between the pages noting the page number.

“Wow look at that robot rip! I’ve never seen it go this fast ever!” exclaimed Garrett.

My attention was on the PDA.

Mother reported “Scan completed successfully. Analysis beginning”

“Well, it’s done! So, I’m out of here.”

“Hey nice meeting you Colt.”

“Nice meeting you too.”

“By-the-way, where’s your badge?”

“Uh…right here, latest tech!” I replied holding up the PDA. “Watch.” I entered ‘ACCESS MC1’ and the door opened.

“Wow” said Garrett.

I left and ran down the corridor to the mantrap and entered A-02 the door opened and I walked in and the door closed behind him. The door in front didn’t open.

I type on the PDA ‘ETA release A-02’ the reply was ‘7min24secs’. “Damn I must have hit an extra zero”

“Mother Connect Demo PC live Colt” I entered.

“Hi Colt where are you I’m running out of things to say and Belkirk is getting pissed so it Mallory. Eilson is helping, but she’s running out of things to ask”
“I’m stuck here in a mantrap for the next 7 mins”

“Tell them the truth about who created Mother and that Keith was trying to protect me and in the process he and Alan where murdered by persons we will name shortly. Tell them there is an interceptor program in their system and it’s the same as having a spy amongst them and we will reveal the author and who is behind it. Oh, and click on audio so I can hear too.”

Over my PDA I heard Chase saying, “I’m sorry. We have a confession to make. Arb’s father, Keith Maine, didn’t invent the MaineFrame PC. Colt Smith created it. Colt’s IQ is off the charts he’s been programming since he was five by the age of eight he rewrote Arbor’s mom’s doctorate thesis quote because there where a couple of things wrong unquote. Two years ago he persuaded Professor Maine and Arb to help him build a new computer. The result is a laptop computer that out performs any super-computer in the world by a factor of 5 to 1 at that time since then Colt and I along with Arb and Melanie have ten times that! In the effort to protect Colt, Professor Maine was murdered and then his friend Alan and Arb was nearly killed, basically left for dead. Paul Smith can confirm this. Only four people can use this PC.” Chase paused.

“Password protected?”

“Yes. Sort of,” answered Arbor.

“You expect me to stay around and listen to some sixteen year old pass off this BS. Sorry Nichols, I’ve got better things to do with my time” a voice like Belkirk said “I wouldn’t give these kids access to the cafeteria much less our system and I will fight that all the way up the line!”

Chase typed “Belkirk left in a rush”

“OK,” I typed, “Tell Maureen to call Garrett and ask him to tell you what’s at page 304 in the book he was reading.”

I heard Maureen’s voice, “Garrett, Maureen Eilson, here. Tell me what is at page 304 of the book you are reading?”

A pause then, “No. Thanks for your help”

“Tell Maureen, sorry I still don’t walk on water, but I can go through doors. Ha-ha.”

“Hi Colt Maureen here, Well in my books if you can go through doors it’s the same as walking on water! By-the-way, where are you?”

“I’m using a PDA to comm with Mother. I’m stuck in A-02. Nope the door opened. Oh, he’s a nasty boy - Eric Mallory has been downloading for thirty 32 hours, jpeg files from male erotica!!!! Keeps them in a directory called ‘proj3831’ hmmmm 31+38 = 69!”

I heard Eric Mallory’s voice as I left the mantrap, “I agree with Belkirk. My answer is No. I’m not going to let our systems into the hands of some teenage gamers!”

“Well, I’ll admit we play computer games, but we do it in our own time and personally I think it’s better than spending 32 hours of your working week downloading porno from male erotica news groups!” Chase said.

I heard a flustered voice say, “I…I…I won’t stand here and let you accuse me of that!”

“Well, I guess we can dump the directory proj3138! Which you set up!” Said Chase angrily.

“Ask him to confess…just got analysis interceptor program installed by E. Mallory,” I typed.

“Care to confess, Mallory. We’ve got proof and we’ll also have proof of some programs you installed on the system.”

“All right I did it! I installed the interceptor,” confess Mallory.

I exited G-4 when then the message on the PDA gave the name “Belkirk” as the receiver of ricocheted messages.

“Shit!”

“Colt, I wondered where you were.” It was Belkirk.

“You fucking murderer!” I yelled as his arm went back to take a swing.

Unexpectedly, someone with a vice-like grip grabbed my arm and then covered my mouth in a split second.

Belkirk sneered. “Colt meet Horace. Horace meet Colt. You had a mutual friend what was his name…Oh, yes, Alan Benison.”

I was terrified as the man holding me turned me around. My foot swung back and I kicked as hard as I could for my 135lbs size hitting Horace directly in the shin. Horace just smiled as he spun me around covering my mouth again and applied pressure to a pressure point on my body. All that could be heard was a muffled scream of pain.

“Take him to he heliport on the roof,” ordered Belkirk as he went towards the conference room.

“Now you can walk peaceably or I can apply pressure to another part of your body. Peaceably?” asked Horace.

I nodded and glanced around.

“Oh and if you think Mitchell will come to your aid, well we’ve already eliminated him.”

“You’re gonna die for that and for Alan, but most of all for Keith!”

“Oh, I don’t think so” Horace responded, “Now move it!”

I reached in my pocket and typed on my PDA and pressed enter.

“What have you got in your pocket? Come on take it out!” said Horace as we walk along.

I took out the PDA and Horace grabbed it.

“What is this?”

“It’s a calculator and I was just calculating the seconds ‘til you die.”

Horace dropped the PDA on the floor and stomped on it then picked it up and shoved it into my hands saying, “You’re calculating days are over. I think I’m going to enjoy killing you. Move!”

I slid the PDA into his back pocket.

“Horace where are you?” I heard.

“Almost to the roof,” answered Horace into a two-way radio.\

“Good, we need the password for the PC out of the kid. You know how to get it. Out”

“All right punk, what’s the password?” asked Horace as the reached the roof.

I said nothing and then next thing I knew a big fist hit me in the gut and then several times in the face sending me across the roof.

“Now I’ll ask again, nicely. What’s the password?”

I looked at him, my face now covered in blood and closed my eyes. The big guy reached down grabbed me by the shirt and lifted me up. Then he applied pressure to a pressure point and I let out a scream, which was drowned out by the helicopter’s engine noise.

Belkirk and Mallory came out on to the roof “What’s the password?” he asked.

“I’m working on it!” said Horace with an evil smile then he applied pressure to my left arm and there was a snap and I screamed in pain.

“Fuckyou!” screamed Colt.

Horace’s foot crashed into my rib cage and I scream again in pain as three ribs cracked.

“Now what’s the password?”

“The password is fuckyou. One word lower case.”

Mallory opened the PC and powered it on.

A message on the screen appeared ‘Enter Password’

Mallory typed the password. The screen cleared and then ‘Welcome to MaineFrame PC - WARNING POWER OFF WITHIN FIVE MINUTES WILL ACTIVATE IRREVOCABLE SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE’.

The three ran off to the helicopter as I managed to stand up. The door burst open and Dad came out shooting at the helicopter. I saw Horace take out his gun and fire back hitting Dad in the shoulder. I realized his dad never got a vest and I ran towards him trying to shield my dad screaming, “No! Dad get down!”

Some shots hit me in the back flinging my body forward and landing in Dad’s arms. The copter took off.

“You’re hit!” I said.

“I’ll be okay.”

“They’re going to crash any second…my last instruction to Mother was to shutdown their systems.”

Paul looked at the helicopter and saw it going out of control then it crashed and burned.

“Keith said this would happen. I guess I should have listened.” I smiled slightly. My body felt numb.

My body went limp in Dad’s arm.

I heard Chase, scream, “Noooo!”

“Get the medics up here and I want a medical helicopter here NOW!” Dad ordered.

Suddenly, I could see everything. I could see the helicopter burning in the distance. I could see Chase. My sweet boy, my love. I could see him holding my body in his arms and crying.

“Colt! Come back! Please, I love you! I love you, Colt.”

Then things went dark again.

To be Continued