Our Insecurities

Chapter Fourteen

Chisimdi hurried briskly past a group of students towards the laboratory building, an urgency to her steps. The laboratory building which was located between the junior and senior block allowed for close proximity to every student. Her destination was the computer laboratory on the seventh floor. It's just been a day since they last met the principal and an idea has been brewing in her. She has already twirled the idea over and over in her mind for the past hours.

After much contemplation, she had decided to do some searching on her own. She figured trying to get the group together would take some time. They didn't exactly have that at the moment.

According to what Abigail told them, the slides to be used during assemblies or any social activity at all were usually copied into a compact disk and inserted in the computer at least eight hours before the stipulated time. If she played the disk from beginning to end to be sure it was well arranged like she said, that meant three out of two things. First, the culprit surely waited until they had set up the compact disk before making a move. Secondly, it was either the culprit edited the content of the already inserted compact disk or he had a different compact disk that he inserted.

Whichever was the case, Chisimdi figured there would be traces of the intruder's activities in some part of the laptop history. She needed access to the said laptop in order to find out anything.

It had only taken bringing up Abigail's bruises to have her throwing the keys at Chisimdi and running off like she always did. Chisimdi still had it at the back of her mind to find out what in particular was her deal, but that had to wait for another time.

She wasn't a computer expert but having a computer geek as one of her four brothers, surely she knew some basics like how to boot a laptop. Merit had laughed so hard at the piece of information and requested that she call him when she was ready to make use of her detective skills.

The computer laboratory in Primestone Academy housed at least seventy desktop computers for student use. Once, Chisimdi heard the principal and the head of the computer department making arrangements to make it hundred. She greeted the two teachers discussing in the laboratory and made her mission known to them. They directed her towards a door at the left corner of the room. Behind the door was a room not more than sixteen by sixteen square meters. The room known by most students as the projector room had been birthed after the pornography incident three years ago.

A laptop sat closed on a generic desk. Chisimdi sat carefully on the chair and took in the room. The desk and chair were mismatched and appeared to have hailed from whatever department had budgeted a refit. Other than the chair and desk, the room didn't house much. Just an extra chair in case there was more than one visitor at a time, a laptop charger to keep the laptop alive, a set of headphones and an extra projector as backup in case the one in use developed any fault. Other than that, the room was completely bare.

She pressed the power button. While she waited for the laptop to boot, she put a call through to Merit. He picked on the third ring.

"Yo little sis. Whatcha want from ya boy?" he hollered loudly, sounding way too excited.

Chisimdi moved the phone away from her ear with a grimace. "Just tell me how to check for the history of compact disks inserted or taken out of a laptop."

"And you want to know this why?"

"Like I said earlier, it's confidential."

Merit chuckled. "What do you think you're little sis? The FBI? CIA? NIA? This is exactly like I told Will, those movies you watch are messing with your head."

Chisimdi smiled at the mention of her immediate elder brother. Will was the mama's boy amongst all her brothers. From Zenith, to Merit, to George and then to Will who would have been the last if she hadn't come along six years later. She adored her brothers, but there were times they got on her nerves or she pretended they did like right now.