I.S.A.A.C.
Three
The hacker felt proud of himself as he entered the last line of data into his program and typed 'make'. The complex script started running as all of the dependences were scheduled to be built first, along with all of the libraries. The 14 year old boy yawned and decided to catch some sleep. It was now 4 o'clock in the morning and he did have school in a few hours. The program would take several hours to compile anyway, he wished he had a faster computer.
Robert's legs, and part of his torso were visible sticking out of the access panel in the bottom of the X-35's fuselage, while the rest of him was jammed into the aircraft's electronics bay. Working in the tight quarters of the confined space was giving him claustrophobia, and he was sweating profusely. Finally as waves of panic rolled over him he pushed himself out of the hole and crawled out from under the aircraft.
“Done?” Simon asked.
“Almost,” Bob replied. “Between my muscles cramping up, my eyes crossing on me, and the claustrophobia, I just had to bail out and get some fresh air.”
Simon opened the ice chest he'd brought along and handed the computer expert a bottle of cold water from inside of it.
“Thank's, I needed that!” Bob laughed.
Atom stuck his head though the access panel that Robert had just escaped from. “I'm smaller than you and my hands more nimble,” he said. “Maybe I could finish the work here?”
“Yeah, I bet you could,” Bob replied.
He spread the schematic diagram that he had brought with him out flat on the ground and showed it to the boy robot. “Here, study this wiring diagram. I've already marked in pencil the connections that I've finished.”
Atom quickly scanned the diagram and memorized it. “Got it!” he smiled sticking his upper torso into the aircraft's electronics bay.
“You might need this,” Bob said grabbing a pair of long nosed pliers, a wire stripper, and a few small screwdrivers; handing them to Atom.
It was dark inside the compartment but Atom's eyes were well equipped for the task, equipped with low light cameras and built in illumination. Normally he'd have used the IR illumination, but as he needed good color rendition to identify the various cables he switched on the white search lamps located in the white sclera areas of his eyes.
He worked quickly, following the wiring diagram that Bob had showed him. After ten minutes he had the last of the connections locked down.
“Want to double check the wiring before powering it up?” He asked.
“Oh, I'm sure you've done it right, Atom,” Bob laughed, “But yes I will give it a once over.”
Atom slide himself out of the access panel. Bob grabbed his flashlight and stuck his head into the aircraft again and he quickly looked around. This time, with only his head inside the wiring bay he didn't get the sickening feeling from the confined space and was able to take his time checking all of the wiring. Finally, Bob dropped back to the ground.
“Looks perfect,” he smiled. “Now we can power it up and let Isaac and Cobalt get the feel of her!”
“Reno Felix Guzmán!” The boy was jolted back to attention by the teacher's yelling of his name and the resulting laughter of his classmates.
“Yes?” he replied, sheepishly.
“Can you solve the problem on the board, young man?” Mr. Waxmann asked, for the second time.
Reno rubbed his eyes and looked up at the blackboard. “Sure, piece of cake!” he replied.
The teacher stuffed a stick of chalk into his hand and pushed him out of his seat. “Show us then!”
The boy marched defiantly towards the front of the classroom and quickly filled the blackboard with computations. He then tossed the chalk stick back in Mr. Waxmann's direction, “The problem actually has several solutions, but I only solved it for the most obvious one.” Reno took his seat with a smug look on his face.
The teacher had a look on his face of someone that has just been 'had'.
“Very good, Mr. Guzmán, your answer is correct,” he said, “But I'd still appreciate your napping on your own time! Perhaps you should spend more of your nighttime in bed!”