The Teacher

The Teacher: Part II Graduation Day, Chapter 22

Chapter 22

SLEEP DID NOT COME EASILY AFTER the surprising success Birkhoff had. Feeling much more confident that we'd have all the technological problems solved soon, my mind was already racing with ideas on how to best deploy our new communications smart bomb. I managed to get a few hours of shuteye before it was up and off to Corellian. When I walked past Birkhoff's workstation he waved me over. Without saying a word, he opened his cell and showed me a phrase he'd typed on the screen—Bring Kristen Home Now!

I wanted to scream and plant a big juicy kiss right on his studly lips, but I knew better and instead cracked a slight smile, added a modest nod of approval, along with a you-are-the-man wink, and calmly ambled back to my desk. Now I knew what to work on—writing the code that would send the letter message out to everyone on a person's contact list. My brain was multitasking all day, one channel trying to make progress with my company project, and the other playing with lines of programming on the virtual white board in my mind. I seldom saw Elizabeth except at lunch because she was stationed in manufacturing. With the workday finally over, and after a quick dinner at home to check on my parents, we all met back at the Nest.

"Birkhoff, show Elizabeth what you came up with today!" I prodded, grinning from ear to ear.

He quickly keyed in the phrase I saw at work. Elizabeth could not believe her eyes.

"How could you crack that nasty problem in just a few hours? Can you explain how it came together so quickly?" she begged, delivered with a tone of genuine respect and reverence for his amazing and innovative IT accomplishment.

"You know, since I wrote the current code connecting the numbers to the screen, it wasn't much of a problem to get the letters to launch by holding down the space key while hitting a number. Starting with the number 1, if you hold the shift down and hit 1 you'll get the letter A. Hit 1 twice and you'll get B, three times C, then, you go to the number 2 for D, E, and F, and so on. Here, you want to try it?" Birkhoff proudly offered.

"That is so impressive...I thought it would take a lot longer. Tonight I was going to start working on the code to send out the message to more than one contact at a time, but if you're done we can work on that together," I suggested, knowing that Birkhoff's super-geek-hero buff brain would push things along more quickly.

"Why don't you go ahead...I still have to write the code to get the receiving phone to see the message. Then, the code needs to be bundled into an executable that will load on other phones. After that a delivery mechanism to distribute the program is critical, so I still have a lot to do," Birkhoff replied, while returning to his mainframe screen to punch in more code.

I turned to Elizabeth.

"So...spill...I can see you've got something you want to tell me!"

"Well, on my lunch break I picked up the phone for Kristen, paid with cash, and right after work I went down to the shipping department to talk to a guy I know who halls truckloads of phones into the Citadel. He agreed to smuggle her phone into the restricted area!"

I COULDN'G BELIEVE WHAT I WAS hearing...so much progress and so quickly. I truly felt blessed, like the hand of a Higher Power was somehow making all this easier. For me it was all about getting my sister back and doing something to make life better for my family, my friends, and everyone else who didn't live inside the privileged and protected walls of the Citadel.