Chapter 3.

What about dial-up?

I do have an old laptop lying around that still has a phone jack port of the ancient era of corded phones. I also happen to have an AOL dial-up free trial disk lying around with it as well.

Having thought up to here, I rushed over to my closet where I stored the relics from my thirty years of life on this planet. Not long after rummaging through the junk, I found the disk buried along with my ancient antique of a Toshiba laptop; thankfully, its power cable was still intact. I rushed over to the power outlet, plugged it in, and booted it up. A glorious Windows Vista logo appeared on the monitor, which had me nearly jumping for joy at first; only until it registered in my head. Windows Vista! Why this godforsaken trash OS of all things! Was I an idiot five years ago!

Of course, two minutes later, to my dismay, it entered the bios setup utility.

I moved over to the exit tab and selected, save changes and exit, in hope that it would somehow miraculously start. Once again the Windows Vista logo popped up, but again another failed boot crushed my fleeting wishes of finding an easy solution. This piece of junk hadn’t been turned on for at least five years, what was I really expecting? Damn it! It was probably over ten bloody years old by this point in time. It was all in all, practicality a freaking antiquated pile of scrap metal now. 

However, I tested my pitiful luck one more time and went to the exit tab and selected to save changes and exit one more time. The Windows Vista logo popped up once again and I closed my eyes tightly for a solid five minutes while thinking of my next course of action when it failed for the third time.

When I finally reopened my eyes, a wide smile bloomed on my face like a beggar had been given a shot at newfound life. It actually got past the boot screen and displayed a familiar beloved anime character that I still proudly used as part of my present gaming laptop’s wallpaper on shuffle. It was only natural that I named my laptop after my anime waifu.

Now was not the time to reminisce over the past though. I opened up the disk drive and put the disk in and waited patiently. It took a good five minutes before anything popped up on the screen and I struggled through the agonizingly slow installation process that had me pulling at my hair. I grabbed a phone cable from the box and plugged it into the socket in the wall and ten minutes later I came to the sudden realization that I was a complete idiot. There was no way an AOL free trial disk from all those years ago would actually still work. If I’m remembering correctly, they even discontinued distributing them in 2006. Weren’t they essentially useless collectibles gathering dust now?

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If I wasn’t under such a stressful situation, there was no way I’d make such a rookie mistake. Once I realized I’d reached another dead end, I knew I needed to think of another way to call for help without her catching on.

I looked through my box of keepsakes that I stashed away in the closet and found a powerline adaptor which could potentially allow me to access the internet through a power socket. Before I rushed over to the power outlet, I thought about it and realized there was no power cord for the modem to begin with. Since it needed to be connected to the router to start with it was another dead-end idea.

What if I just created a new power cord for the modem? I could use my old laptop cable and just strip the wires and touch the live wire to the center pin and the ground wire to the outer shell to complete the circuit. I rummaged through my closet, but I soon discovered all my tools were missing. She even went so far as to hide those? Aren’t I a bit too boned here?

As time continued to tick by, the pressure weighing down on my back only intensified. Damnit, I even built a stupid mini supercomputer in my closet, but without an internet connection, what good was that thing to me right now? Shit! It’s because of building that stupid piece of junk that I never had any spare money to afford a second smartphone in the first place. I shouldn’t have been so damn frugal and stingy with money. I really should have taken some out of the budget that I’d allocated to building it to at least get a second smartphone.

Building it was a bit of a hobby of mine, but I hardly ever used it since it was inconvenient compared to my laptop which could easily be transported anywhere.

Also, the amount of heat released by it would turn my room into a sauna, which was of course extremely uncomfortable. I even went as far as using a liquid nitrogen cooling system instead of an inefficient fan, but it still turned my room into a desert if left on for too long. 

Another factor contributing to why I hardly used it was the gigantic electricity bill I’d rack up. I actually needed damn generators as a supplementary power source since I’d blow the fuses in the apartment complex due to drawing too much power. Another money drainer was that I needed to completely soundproof the closet with prism-shaped shock absorbers plastered along the walls to avoid disturbing my neighbors. I learned that the hard way after they filed noise complaints with the cops. Explaining it to the cops definitely wasn’t a fun time.

Every cent I earned went into that pile of junk in my closet. I mainly just made it for fun to pass the time and relieve some stress from my job. Working as an electrical engineer was exhausting with all the deadlines, pressure, and expectations after all.

If being an electrical engineer wasn’t enough, I’ve always found myself together with the craziest of women. It’s like I’m just a magnet for bad unhealthy relationships and life decisions.

Ugh, what am I even thinking right now? Focus, I’ve got to concentrate on the task at hand or I’m doomed. What else can I do?

I picked up my old laptop from the ground and placed it beside my gaming laptop and blankly looked at the monitors while in deep thought. 

I need to keep thinking. I must find a way, anything, but what can I possibly do in a situation like this? 

How about leaching off of someone else’s Wifi network? Could that work?