Read Online Silence - eARC by Mercedes Lackey, Cody Martin - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mercedes Lackey, Cody Martin
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him.
“Okay, the next thing is, I am going to be doing a lot of messing around with your lappie,” he told her. “First, I have to turn a crap-ton of stuff off. Like, there is no way you’re going to be able to download updates. So updates will have to wait until you get somewhere there is wifi and you have a couple of hours to kill. Or until I get them, which will be when I get somewhere there is wifi and have a couple hours to kill.” He made a face.
“Is that a big deal?” she ventured.
He shook his head. “I’m going to give you an obscure browser in place of what you’re using, and nobody really targets it for viruses.” He pulled a thumb drive out of his pocket and began working. “Basically there is a lot of stuff that thinks you’re on broadband and wants to be connected all the time, and turning it off is a pain and hard unless you know what you’re looking for. Which I do.”
It was strange, sitting there in the silent house, listening to someone tap on the keyboard. She couldn’t remember ever not having music or something on. Or hearing people in the other apartments, maybe their TV or music, and street noises. It was really strange, hearing the house do random creaking noises, or a gust of wind rattling the glass in a window.
She got up and got Seth another soda, and leafed through a magazine she’d brought with her from the city. Finally, Seth was done.
“Here.” He plopped the laptop in her lap, plugged the phone cord into the back. “Double-click this—” he pointed to a new icon that said “Dialup.” “I’ve turned wifi off for now, otherwise your lappie will keep trying to find a connection.”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “I had to do that at home, otherwise it’d try to randomly connect to other peoples’ servers, and ewww. You never knew who was spoofing to hack your accounts.”
“Exactly!” he beamed at her, as if she had said something really clever. A box came up, and it was obvious where she was supposed to put what in for the new ISP. Her laptop immediately began to make all the weird noises his had, and she looked at him in alarm.
“No stress!” he told her. “The first was the dial tone, then the computer doing the dialing. Then the handshake signal—that’s your computer talking to the router at the ISP. Then the signal where it verifies your account. Then—” There was a sound like static that cut off. “—That was the clear signal, and now you’re in.”
He walked her through the really, really basic things he had set up for her. Flash was off. Most graphics were off. Email was this…well, it looked like a page of text. Facebook was barely possible, in an even more primitive version than was on her phone. “You probably won’t be able to shop,” he told her. “Most online stores need higher graphics than the connection will support. So what you need to do is get phone numbers and order catalogs. But hey, this is better than nothing, right?” He looked at her so hopefully, that she had to agree with him, but…it was kind of like trying to watch a movie on a TV where only a fourth of the pixels were working. Yeah, you got the idea, but it wasn’t…enjoyable.
But she thanked him as sincerely as she could, and the two of them went back to the bookstore. At least…she had people she could talk to now.
* * *
Three days later, she had given up on the trips to Makeout Hill. The texts from her friends had dwindled to a handful, and more of them had unfriended her. The only unsullied bright spot was the delivery of the mattress and goodies. Now, at least, her bedroom looked nice and she had a bed she could sleep on without ending up feeling like she’d slept on rocks. The featherbed had gone to rest on top of the equally bad mattress in one of the other three bedrooms upstairs.
Dad had sent her what had at first glance looked like a huge score, two enormous boxes of DVDs and CDs. But on closer inspection, they were all used, and three fourths of
“Okay, the next thing is, I am going to be doing a lot of messing around with your lappie,” he told her. “First, I have to turn a crap-ton of stuff off. Like, there is no way you’re going to be able to download updates. So updates will have to wait until you get somewhere there is wifi and you have a couple of hours to kill. Or until I get them, which will be when I get somewhere there is wifi and have a couple hours to kill.” He made a face.
“Is that a big deal?” she ventured.
He shook his head. “I’m going to give you an obscure browser in place of what you’re using, and nobody really targets it for viruses.” He pulled a thumb drive out of his pocket and began working. “Basically there is a lot of stuff that thinks you’re on broadband and wants to be connected all the time, and turning it off is a pain and hard unless you know what you’re looking for. Which I do.”
It was strange, sitting there in the silent house, listening to someone tap on the keyboard. She couldn’t remember ever not having music or something on. Or hearing people in the other apartments, maybe their TV or music, and street noises. It was really strange, hearing the house do random creaking noises, or a gust of wind rattling the glass in a window.
She got up and got Seth another soda, and leafed through a magazine she’d brought with her from the city. Finally, Seth was done.
“Here.” He plopped the laptop in her lap, plugged the phone cord into the back. “Double-click this—” he pointed to a new icon that said “Dialup.” “I’ve turned wifi off for now, otherwise your lappie will keep trying to find a connection.”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “I had to do that at home, otherwise it’d try to randomly connect to other peoples’ servers, and ewww. You never knew who was spoofing to hack your accounts.”
“Exactly!” he beamed at her, as if she had said something really clever. A box came up, and it was obvious where she was supposed to put what in for the new ISP. Her laptop immediately began to make all the weird noises his had, and she looked at him in alarm.
“No stress!” he told her. “The first was the dial tone, then the computer doing the dialing. Then the handshake signal—that’s your computer talking to the router at the ISP. Then the signal where it verifies your account. Then—” There was a sound like static that cut off. “—That was the clear signal, and now you’re in.”
He walked her through the really, really basic things he had set up for her. Flash was off. Most graphics were off. Email was this…well, it looked like a page of text. Facebook was barely possible, in an even more primitive version than was on her phone. “You probably won’t be able to shop,” he told her. “Most online stores need higher graphics than the connection will support. So what you need to do is get phone numbers and order catalogs. But hey, this is better than nothing, right?” He looked at her so hopefully, that she had to agree with him, but…it was kind of like trying to watch a movie on a TV where only a fourth of the pixels were working. Yeah, you got the idea, but it wasn’t…enjoyable.
But she thanked him as sincerely as she could, and the two of them went back to the bookstore. At least…she had people she could talk to now.
* * *
Three days later, she had given up on the trips to Makeout Hill. The texts from her friends had dwindled to a handful, and more of them had unfriended her. The only unsullied bright spot was the delivery of the mattress and goodies. Now, at least, her bedroom looked nice and she had a bed she could sleep on without ending up feeling like she’d slept on rocks. The featherbed had gone to rest on top of the equally bad mattress in one of the other three bedrooms upstairs.
Dad had sent her what had at first glance looked like a huge score, two enormous boxes of DVDs and CDs. But on closer inspection, they were all used, and three fourths of
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