6:30 A.M. glowed in electric blue on the clock radio. There was no buzzer, only sappy music and overly energetic deejays that laughed too much at their own weak jokes and hokey sound-effects. It was a family tradition to awaken to the most annoying morning show that could be found on the radio. The annoying ones kept you from going back to sleep.
Sarah groaned beside Ray, rustling the covers. Ray cracked his eyes open, feeling the mind-numbing shock of awakening long before the body is ready. Further shocking him, he found that his son was sitting on the bed beside him, quietly pushing a plastic bulldozer around, making white mounds of the ruffled sheets.
On the radio, the music shifted into high-gear-something with a lot of guitars and what sounded almost like yodeling.
Three hours, he thought. Three hours sleep and two technical lectures to give. He knew that he would burn today. His eyes would burn and his muscles would burn and the blood would seem to pound in his temples and cheeks and behind his eyes. He could fake it though. He was an old hand at that. He wasn’t so tired that he couldn’t function. He realized vaguely that he was exercising an old habit he had of calculating how much sleep he had gotten and then estimating what kind of shape he would be in for the day. He did it automatically, the way you might calculate how far you had to drive and how much gas you had left. Today, he didn’t have much gas, but it would have to do.
The music had cut out now and the deejays were playing kazoos to intro the helicopter-based traffic report.
“Turn it off,” croaked Sarah, her normally sweet voice sounding like the speech of the dead. No one moved toward the radio, but Justin, realizing that they were awake, lost all signs of mercy. He revved up his bulldozer, his lips buzzing for sound effects, and began ramming the orange plastic blade into Ray’s ribs.
Ray was too stunned by lingering sleep to respond at first. Disappointed, Justin stepped up the assault a notch, rolling the treads up his father’s side and over his bare chest. A hair or two was pulled.
“Is that your bulldozer?” asked Ray, his voice croaking with sleep.
“Nope. It’s a gray van daddy, and it’s commin’ to get you.”
“Whatever it is kid, knock it off,” rumbled Ray, closing his hand over his son’s small hand and the offending toy. He resisted the flash of anger that urged him to toss the toy across the room. He sighed and relaxed. It wasn’t Justin’s fault that his dad had had only three hours sleep.
Justin giggled and struggled free. He went back to lightly nudging Ray’s ribs. “I’m gettin’ you Daddy,” he said.
Ray knew what was expected. He grabbed his son in a bear hug and squeezed him, rubbing his knuckles in his blond hair and tickling him while he growled in his ear. “Outta here, kid.”
“No!”
“Go watch TV,” said Ray, feeling the instant pang of guilt all parents feel when they utter those words.
“No!”
Sarah mumbled something into her pillow. Ray slapped her rear lightly.
“What did you say?”
“Spongebob is on!” she said more intelligibly, raising her head from the pillow for a moment.
“All right!” said Justin, and he was gone in a flash.
Ray struggled out of bed. The bulldozer tumbled off the sheets and he found it again with his feet. “Ouch.”
He smiled at the shapely form of his wife in the sheets. Her dark hair flowed over her pillow in disarray. He thought of climbing back into bed and curling up to her, but there wasn’t time. With a sigh, he touched the snooze button on top of the clock radio to silence it for ten precious minutes as he headed for the shower.
Thursday had begun.
Sarah filled a bowl of cereal for Justin and managed to get most of his clothes on. His shoes were still off, however. Shoes were never easy to get onto Justin, it was always a careful negotiation. That was Ray’s job, as he didn’t have to be to work until nine for his office hours, while Sarah had to be in by eight.
“You’ve got to drop him off at school today,” said
Sarah, passing him in the hall on her way to shower. “I don’t think he should be walking this early, it looks like rain.”
“Yeah, daddy. I don’t want to walk,” chimed in Justin.
“No problem,” mumbled Ray, forcing a smile. He was determined not to let his true state show through. Sarah had been asleep when he came in last night and didn’t know just how late he had stayed at the lab. In truth, the shower had made him feel almost human, but now he was fading again fast. He knew he needed to eat, that would keep him going for awhile.
Sarah halted in the hallway and turned to look at him. She narrowed her eyes. “You sound like a toad in a well,” she remarked. “Are you sick?”
He shook his head, grinning weakly.
Her suspicions grew, and she came up to him, looking up at her tall husband critically. She laid a hand on his chest. “Just how late were you out last night?”
Ray shrugged, feeling like he’d been caught at something. “Uh, maybe midnight or so.”
“Or so? Maybe one-or two?”
Ray shrugged again, but made no denial.
“Hmm…” said Sarah, frowning now. “You don’t need to kill yourself to run that lab, you know, Ray. They only give you twenty percent release time for it and you spend eighty percent of your time there.”
“We had a problem. There was some weird activity on the net. We couldn’t shut down for maintenance,” said Ray. He kissed her on the top of the head and escaped to the refrigerator, where he got out the milk and poured himself some cereal in a paper bowl.
“You know,” said Sarah, following him. “If Brenda was more attractive, I’d be wondering about you two.”
“Yup,” said Ray around his spoon. “You know me, I’m a chubby-chaser.”
“Chubby-chaser! Ha!” shouted Justin, looking up from his half-eaten, half-spilled breakfast. Then the commercial ended and the cartoon pulled his attention back like a magnet.
“What kind of weird activity?” asked Sarah.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready, Babe?”
Sarah frowned and crossed her arms.
Inwardly, Ray groaned. When Sarah felt protective, she turned into a detective. “It was Nog. He was eating up twelve gigabits at once and FTPing all over the place.”
“ Twelve gigabits? You mean the Nog?”
“Yup, the very one that followed you around after night-classes in college and sent you all that e-mail.”
“Yuck,” said Sarah. “Does he still have a forked-tongue?”
“I imagine so. Old snake-man, they used to call him.”
“I never knew how that happened to him.”
“No?” asked Ray, smiling. “It’s his braces. He worries at them with his tongue while he’s coding, sort of a nervous habit. After getting the tip cut a thousand times, he’s developed that V-shaped wedge of missing flesh. You know, I don’t think he’s even had those braces looked at for years. They should have been removed ages ago.”
“Gross!” shouted Justin. Sarah made a face and shuddered. Walking fast, she headed down the hall to the bathroom. “Well, I don’t think you need to stay so late, not even for Brenda, and certainly not for Nog.”
Ray smiled blearily into his paper bowl, quickly tipping it up to drink the remainder of the milk while his wife was out of sight. For some reason it upset her when he did that. He looked over and noticed that Justin was doing the same thing for the same reasons. They grinned at each other.
Then he glanced at his watch. “Oh shit!” he whispered.
“Daddy said a bad word! ” shouted Justin.
They were all going to be late.
… 83 Hours and Counting…
John Nogatakei, known to most people as Nog, or The Nog, sat in the dark den of his apartment. The majority of the light in the apartment came from the combined screens of his four computers, all of which were running, even the notebook on his lap. The room glowed from many soft sources of light. Odd shadows shimmered on the walls when Nog or one of his screens shifted. Only one sliver of clear white light could be found in the apartment, a sliver which filtered through the cracked-open refrigerator in the apartment’s tiny kitchen. Nog had been in such a hurry to get back to his computers the last time he had taken a brief break he had left the door hanging open. The fridge hummed quietly to itself, attempting in vain to cool the entire apartment.