The Hacker

         It was his 24th birthday, March 24th, 2424.  All of John's friends had just left the party thrown for him by his girlfriend.  Exhausted, he slouched on the couch, and turned on the TV.  In the corner of his eye he could see his girlfriend cleaning up the paper plates, and plastic cups left by the now-departed guests.  "All this technology and we still need to use paper plates and plastic cups." he thought.

         John Bell, a recent graduate of Edison Earthen University as a computer specialist, didn't have a job.  "With honors." he thought.  What did that really mean?  Was that supposed to give him some sort of an advantage over someone else?  He didn't dwell on it.  He would keep looking for work anywhere he could get it.

         His girlfriend Avril Longmire however, was a very successful Veterinarian, a profession that was very hard to achieve in this day and age, and very prestigious when you did.  She made more than enough money for both of them, but John refused to be a freeloader.  He would work dead-end restaurant jobs before he would let himself be a "kept man".  And so he did.  Working in places such as Fatty Burger and Mrs. Pickles Potato Shack, he earned his own money.  He spent his own money, and paid the bills with his own money. 

         When they had first decided to move in together, they were relatively poor.  Living only on John's meager wages, they occupied various apartment buildings until a mysterious phone call led them to a house with a very conservative rent price.  They jumped at it, and moved in as soon as they could.  They never met the landlord, only visited his house and dropped the rent through a slot in the door that read "Drop Rent Here".  They never questioned the lucky break, but something always told John that one day they would need to.

         John had just got home from work.  The lightly pungent odour of stale overused grease, and frying oil followed him through the house, up the stairs and into the shower.  As he showered he absorbed the warmth of the hot water into his muscles, calming his stress as he washed away the smell of a hard day's work.

         Toweling off, and wrapping his warm robe around him he walked to his office.  The room was filled with old computer parts, neatly organized, that he had salvaged from out of business companies, and friends of his that worked in computer warehouses.  He flipped a large switch on the wall, and the room started to hum as if a large symphony orchestra were tuning up before a grand performance.  Some computers' screens lit up before others, and others still were dim as the system's hardware check silently worked to completion.  The room was cold, but John knew that in 15 minutes, this would be the warmest room in the house.  Possibly so warm, that he would need to open some windows, or start up the industrial strength air-conditioner he had hooked up to the vents in this room.  At any rate, he sat down in front of his desk and adjusted the keyboard and mouse to within easy reach.

         John's desk had 6 monitors directly in front of the keyboard, and two on either side.  This allowed him easy access to nearly all the computers in the room.  This also made it easy to see multiple screens of information, needed for his activities.  Activities that sometimes took hours, and went on late into the night.