Chapter 1 - Arrested

	Chapter 1 - Arrested
Some People's Parents	No previous file \| TOC \| Next

Roger went over the problem again as he climbed the well-maintained stairs. As he opened the door to the bright hallway in his project partner's old apartment building, he concluded once again the simulation should be working. What was different about the down quarks that the simulation didn't create any?
Then he saw three policemen, by the open door to Astalf's apartment. He restrained himself from running forward and yelling. He barely noticed Mrs. Cauliflower watching from just inside her open door. He forced himself to speak calmly to the nearest policeman. "What happened? Is Astalf all right?"
"Why do you ask?" The nearest policeman asked.
"I'm his project partner in PH4863."
"What's PH43 - whatever?"
"University class in Internet applications. Look, was he mugged or something? Is he in the hospital?"
The next policeman, the tallest one, looked at the first one and snorted in disgust. "Huh. You find them all over the place, don't you?"
"Find who all over the place?" Roger was confused.
"Drug dealers. Your buddy is under arrest for trafficking."
"Drugs? How could Astalf be a drug dealer?"
"We think he was freelance, and picked up his latest supply from Guatemala a few weeks ago, in December."
"You mean Christmas? When he was visiting his family?"
"No, I mean Dec. 10 and 11, when he was in Guatemala."
"Dec. 10...", Roger snapped his fingers. "He was in an exam on the 10th, from 2 to 5pm. We both went to a party from 7 to 10pm. You got the wrong guy."
"Frank?" asked the tall policeman of the near one, "Should I take this guy's name as a witness? The defense might want to believe him."
Roger interrupted, "The University records show who was at the exam. They check the photo ID pretty carefully."
"Tell it to the defense."
Another policeman came out lugging a computer. "You know he's got about 10 computers in there?"
"10? There's only 8. Where did the other two come from?"
"I didn't count them, kid. Why would an honest university student need eight computers?"
"To simulate part of a black hole. And seven of them are old. They only cost us $50 to $100 each, second hand, when we decided we needed them for simulations."
"Right. Let's make this official." The first policeman pulled out a note pad. "I'll take down your name and address and a summary of what you just said. Until Lieutenant Sandson says otherwise, you're a witness. He will want to talk to you sometime in the next week. If you leave town before he's done that, you'll be in serious trouble."
When Roger was done with the repeated, sometimes senseless questions, he turned to leave, feeling as worn as the linoleum on the hallway floor. He found Mrs. Cauliflower standing in the hallway by her open door, arms crossed and frowning. She smiled at him, moving all the wrinkles on her leathered face in her usual transformation from dour to beaming, and beckoned him in. "You look like you could use some of my famous Cauliflower restoration soup, or maybe a cup of coffee."

"Professor Nickelbert?"
It was Monday. Class was over. The professor had answered questions at the front of the room for several minutes. "If you wanted to ask questions, you should done so in the 'scrum' just now."
"It's not about course material, Professor. I need to ask for an extension on the project. My partner and I couldn't work on it on the weekend and we can't really work on it until we get our computers back."
"All right. Let's hear it. And make it convincing, I get bored easily." The professor sounded bored already.
"Our computers were taken by the police. They think he was in Guatemala during December exams smuggling drugs."
"And where is he?"
"He was arrested and they set the bail at $100,000, so he couldn't get out."
"Well, I must say that's an original story. I think it's good for an extra 2 days. You can have until noon Thursday, instead of noon tomorrow. That will still give me time to mark it before I leave for the weekend."
"Umm, professor, I was hoping for a couple of weeks. We will have to set up our network all over again when we get the computers back, and maybe reinstall stuff, and we don't know when he will be cleared."
"Cleared? Oh no. You have to assume you've lost your partner. You just start from backups. You do have backups, don't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you were using incremental delivery practices?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, if you are mostly done, you just have to debug your latest changes and do a few simulation runs with different parameters. You should be able to do it by Thursday. If you've only got small runs, with only 2 or 3 computers, your data will be a bit small for reliability. I'll mark you easy for doing it without a partner."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, Professor." Roger tried to keep his voice neutral, rather than disappointed and angry, but the professor still raised one eyebrow at him condescendingly as he turned to go.

Some People's Parents

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