I was working away in our brand new study, built with the insurance money collected after the fiasco with the chimney, connecting the multi-core cables into their various sockets. I’d just finiahed and was standing back to admire my work when Uncle Hobart breezed into the room, clicking his dentures as usual.
"So this is what all the secrecy's been about, then," he said, prodding the VDU with a dirty finger, leaving a greasy smudge on the screen. "I thought it might be some’at interesting but it's just a bleedin' computer."
"Just a computer," I snorted. "Let me tell you something, mister. This is a multi-patched, one hundred and fifty-gigabyte hard drive, voice activated, off line variant, with integrated tipple-pegs. It's got spring-node protectors on the topics-coaxial and Snap-On jack points on the cover panels. Its... its... its…" I ground to a halt, running out of descriptive nouns.
Ignoring my outburst, Uncle Hobart picked up the brightly coloured, cord free, multi-channelled mouse. "What's this then?" he asked, turning it over.
I slapped his hand. "Will you please put that down," I demanded.
The mouse hit the desk with a sickening thud and Uncle Hobart winced. "There's no need ter be so bleedin' 'eavy 'anded," he chastised me.
"Well don't touch things you don't understand," I said sulkily, picking up the mouse and examining it.
Uncle Hobart snorted, gave me a penetrating look, then left the room in a huff. A few minutes later I heard the sound of a beer can snapping open in the kitchen. Turning back to the thick computer manual, I began working out how to load the numerous programs.
*
"Oh hell, not again!" Pushing back my chair, standing up angrily, I clenched my hands in frustration. During the three weeks since I’d taken delivery of my new toy, it had repeatedly lost every file I’d created, most of which had taken hours to produce. Exhaling noisily, I sat down at the keyboard again. "It must be a bloody virus," I muttered to myself. "Either that or the ruddy thing just doesn't like me."
"What'cha on about now?" Uncle Hobart butted into my thoughts. "'Ow can a machine 'ave a virus, yer cretin? Yer'll be telling me next that it's caught a bleedin' cold." He giggled inanely at his own cleverness.
I glared back over my shoulder at him. "Look," I said, trying to sound calmer than I felt, "I know it's a bit hard for someone your age to understand all this technological stuff, but believe me, there's something wrong with this computer."
"Couldn't just be that you're doing it wrong, I suppose?" he suggested quietly.
I ground my teeth, turning my attention back to the screen. "I told you you wouldn't understand, didn't I?" I muttered under my breath.
Uncle Hobart stood behind me, gazing down at the screen over my shoulder, breathing stale beer fumes down the back of my neck. I twitched my shoulders irritably. "So 'ow're yer going ter fix it, then? Take it's bleedin' temperature?" he asked, bursting into another fit of the giggles.
Slapping the palms of my hands on the table, I glowered up at him. "There you go again," I shouted. "You just can't stand it when somebody knows more about something than you do, can you? All you can do is stand there and take the bloody piss. Well you're nothing but a bloody moron, do you know that?"
"What yer on about? Got a mind like a well oiled machine me." Uncle Hobart tapped the flickering screen with a dirt-encrusted fingernail, leaving more greasy smears behind. "Nothing I don't understand about them there computer thingees."
I jumped up. "Okay then, sit down," I ordered angrily, pointing at the chair.
"What fer?" he asked, alarm suddenly flooding his face.
Grabbing him by the shoulders, I forced him into the chair. "Sit... down... in... the... bloody... chair," I repeated through clenched teeth.
"What fer?" he asked again, squirming about as he tried to prise my fingers loose.
"Because I want to see just how clever you really are." I was beginning to enjoy the feeling of power that had suddenly overwhelmed me. "Well, come on then. Show me how bloody wonderful you are with computers, then."
Uncle Hobart fidgeted about in the chair for a few seconds, then looked up at me. "Ain't got me glasses with me, 'ave I?"
"No problem. Just tell me where they are and I'll go and get them for you."
He fidgeted about a bit more, then held up his hand. "'Urt me 'and gardening, didn't I? Can't use the computer like that, can I?"
I smiled at him sweetly. "Of course you can. You can use the mouse, or better still, I'll type it in for you."
Uncle Hobart eased himself out of the chair, staring down at the floor. "Aye, well," he mumbled, shuffling his feet about, "I can't stand around 'ere all bleedin' day playing silly computer games. I've got work ter do." Avoiding my eyes, he shuffled his way to the door.
"I take it that you can't do it, then?" I called after his disappearing back, making the most of my small victory. The door slammed loudly, shaking everything in the room.
*
Rooting around in the bathroom cupboard, I tried to stop the jumble of bottles, cartons and tubes from falling into the sink. "Damn!" I muttered through clenched teeth. "Where the hell are they?" Finally, having locating the bottle I wanted, I faced the usual struggle of trying to undo the childproof lid before being able to wedge the tablet into the hole in my tooth. I bit down, my face twisting in pain, then went back to the kitchen to sit dejectedly at the table, feeling extremely sorry for myself. Uncle Hobart offered me a can of beer, I shook my head. "Toothache," I explained, prodding my cheek gingerly. "I've stuck an aspirin in it, but it doesn't seem to be doing much good."
"That's no surprise, Peter boy," he replied brightly. "If yer've used one o' them pills out o' the bathroom cabinet, they ain't aspirins. They're me pessaries fer me 'emorrhoids. I stuck 'em in there fer safe keeping."
Looking at the ceiling, I clenched my teeth in frustration, which was a bit stupid, as it forced the pessary deeper into the cavity. "Why the hell is it that every piece of shit life throws about always has to land in my lap?" I moaned. "Why me, why not you for a bloody change? What is it? Have you got three sixes tattooed across your arse or something?"
Ignoring my outburst, Uncle Hobart hissed open another can, then smacking his lips, he burped, pointing over his shoulder. "Fixed it, ain't I?" he said.
"Fixed what?" I growled around a mouthful of fingers, busily trying to extract the pessary with a sharpened matchstick.
Uncle Hobart's eyebrows rose as I gave a strangled scream. The tip of the match had slipped into the cavity, jangling an already thrumming nerve. "Yer computer thingy," he continued, unperturbed by my antics. "I found out what yer was doing wrong."
"Have you been messing about with my computer again?" I responded angrily. "I thought I told you..." I winced, taking a deep breath. "If you've broken ..." but was unable to finish, choking on the matchstick, now lodged in the back of my throat.
"Yer 'ad the rat thing stuck in the wrong 'ole in the back," he told me, raising his eyebrows in surprise when I stuck the whole of my fist into my mouth.
Finally managing to dislodge the offending piece of wood by swallowing it, I retorted, "Mouse! It's a bloody mouse!" spraying bits of soggy pessary across the table at him.
"Rat, mouse, don't make no odds ter me," he replied, shrugging. "Yer still 'ad it plugged in the wrong bleedin' 'ole."
"Just leave my things alone, okay?"
Looking hurt, Uncle Hobart wrinkled his forehead in protest. "But I fixed it fer yer, didn't I!" Getting up, he flicked a piece of tablet from the front of his shirt, nodding at the ceiling. "Come on, I'll show yer," he said, crooking a dirty finger at me.
Following Uncle Hobart up to the study, I stopped just inside the door, gazing in wonderment at the profusion of flickering numbers scrolling down the computer screen, almost too fast for the eye to follow. Uncle Hobart pointed at the red light blinking on the modem. "Sailing the Network, ain't I?" he said proudly.
"Surfing," I corrected him. "Surfing the Network."
"Aye, well, anyway, I found this 'ere game." He clicked the mouse on a shortcut in the bottom left corner of the screen, which abruptly change to show a complicated maze. Flashing in the bottom right-hand corner was an icon labelled Listener - National Network.
I took a closer look and could see it was no maze, but a line diagram of some description. Uncle Hobart moved the cursor to a junction where two lines crossed, double clicking the mouse, and the small numbered square alongside changed from green to red, blinking rapidly. Then, all the lines radiating from that junction turned orange, the message, Lines out - alternative routes being processed, scrolling along the bottom of the screen.
Uncle Hobart grunted, clicking his dentures. "Far as I can make out, yer got ter turn all these 'ere lines orange before the computer can turn 'em back ter white again. I ain't quite figured out all the rules yet, though. Watch." No matter how quickly Uncle Hobart clicked the mouse to change the white lines orange, the computer turned them back to white again and after watching for some time, I got bored. It was getting late so I went off to feed the sheep, leaving Uncle Hobart tapping away at the computer like some demented professor, his dentures clicking faster than the keyboard.
*
"What'cha looking at this for?" Uncle Hobart asked, plonking himself in his armchair, changing the channel with the remote control. "Yer really watch a right load o' rubbish," he went on, clicking open a can. I sat quietly fuming, knowing from experience that protest would be futile. Sliding the remote down the side of his chair so I had no chance of using it, Uncle Hobart saluted me with his can. "East Enders is on in a minute," he said, sounding almost proud of the fact.
Sighing loudly, I tried to concentrate on the end of the News programme that was now showing.
"...the Prime Minister agreed to meet the delegation next week for exploratory talks. And now for an item that has British Telecom extremely puzzled."
"I found out 'ow ter do it, yer know," Uncle Hobart suddenly piped up. I looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "The computer," he explained, "I found out 'ow ter win that stupid game."
I nodded absentmindedly, turning my attention back to the news.
"...a spokesman informed us earlier today. British Telecom still haven't discovered what caused their computer system to crash, but an internal investigation has been started, looking into claims that a terrorist hacker may have caused the problem, which even shut down their Listener satellite communications system. BT are denying the possibility that anyone could hack into their highly sensitive Listener satellite, a spokesman stating that the safeguards built into the network would make this impossible. Coming up next the..."
I looked hard at Uncle Hobart and he frowned back at me. Then we both jumped to our feet and ran for the study. There, emblazoned across the computer screen, under a flashing BT logo, was the message, System Compromised. Intruder Traced. Police Notified.
"Oh shit!" I muttered quietly.
*
Sergeant Shooter leant back in the armchair, took a sip of beer from the frosted can, and smiled at us. "Well, I'd say you were ruddy lucky to get away with that one," he said. "Yep, I reckon if I hadn't have been held up by those road-works at Croat Village, I'd have caught you two red-handed." He raised an eyebrow, taking another quaff of his drink.
I glanced at the floor, tapping my foot. "I'm sorry Sergeant, but as I told Detective Inspector Grunt, I really don't know anything about all this."
Shooter studied my dirt-encrusted fingernails while pursing his lips. "You know, I owe a big thanks to whoever it was that messed up BT's computer system."
I looked at him, interested in spite of myself. "Oh?" I said.
He nodded. "Yeah. You see, just before it crashed a couple of hackers were in the middle of diverting money from the Bank of England to an off-shore account and somehow, BT's system going down plugged them into my PC at the police station. You should have seen the look on their faces when I turned up on their doorstep with the heavy mob." Shooter chuckled to himself. "They thought they'd worked out a foolproof system and couldn't believe it when we showed up." Shooter shook his head, laughing quietly at the memory. Then getting up, he placed his empty can on the table before giving us a hard stare. "They'd have got away with four billion pounds if someone hadn't thrown a spanner in the works," he confided. "Imagine that."
Uncle Hobart and I stood in the front yard watching Sergeant Shooter walk towards his car. Halfway there he stopped, looking back over his shoulder. "It's a real pity we don't know who plugged us into the hackers," he called back to us. "There's a thousand pounds reward for whoever it was that put a stop to that little scam." Waving his hand, he shrugged his shoulders. "Ah well, it'll make a nice contribution to the police charity fund, I suppose."
As Uncle Hobart opened his mouth to speak, I kicked his ankle, hard. Swearing under his breath, he clicked his dentures angrily. Shooter noticed our little exchange and smiled knowingly, easing himself into his car. Slamming the door, he wound down the window. "So long, hope I don't see you again too soon," he called, driving off. Then changing his mind, he braked, leant out of the window again, pursed his lips, and nodded at the field. "You know," he said, "I wouldn't leave that computer buried out there too long. It just might take root."