Try as he might, Colton struggled to fall asleep that night. Camille was horrified when he finally sent her a text, but she’d already committed to spending another day with her sister. She offered to come home and console him, but he wasn’t hurt and didn’t want to be selfish. They talked on the phone for a few minutes before she had to go play with her nephews again.
Today was a blur and Colton’s mind was running a million miles per hour. He kept playing the events of this afternoon in his mind. The victim, the aggressive cops, the questions, and the blood… so much blood. Colton shouldn’t have been freaked out by the amount of blood since he grew up hunting and had killed a few large game animals. However, the sight, smell, quantity, and knowing it came from a man brought shivers down his spine now that he had time to reflect on the day’s events.
Colton thought he remembered the victim putting something into his hand, but the more he thought about the experience the less he was sure anything was there. He never opened his palm once to look. Why? He couldn’t understand why he didn’t look. He had just assumed something was in his palm and… forgot it was there. It wasn’t until the cops tried prying his fingers open that he’d realized he clenched his fist. At that point, his palm was empty, and he was just as befuddled as the jerks who’d abused him.
Colton had seen on the news about cops being too aggressive, but up to this point, he’d experienced nothing like it. I suppose he wasn’t too bad off since they hadn’t shot him, but still, it shattered his preconceived notion that those attacked by cops were up to no good. Hell, he’s the one who called them and they treated him like a common criminal.
Colton sighed and was grateful the Captain showed up before anything worse happened. He convinced himself that they would have continued pressing the issue had the rest of the cops hadn’t shown up when they did. It wasn’t right nor fair.
Colton snorted when remembering his father flirting with the Detective. His dad was harmless, but then again, his parents had an open marriage. His parents acted more like teenagers in public than old people. It used to be embarrassing, but he’d gotten used to their antics and laughed it off with his friends whenever they noticed.
Detective Lopez was hot for an older woman, not his type but then again… she seemed nice enough. Colton could see his dad hitting on all the nurses when he’s in the nursing home one day. The thought made him smile and helped him finally to stop thinking about the negative thought.
Colton had classes in the morning and as his mind shifted from Sunday to Monday and the classwork he’d have to do, he began to doze off. His mind started listing off his assignments in his CS 440 class just before he started dreaming of Unix.
###
Colton thought he was awake when a UNIX terminal screen opened up. He tried to look around, but his body didn’t respond and he started to panic until it dawned on him that he must still be asleep. Commands were being entered onto the screen even though he wasn’t doing anything, the line command began to appear on the screen
sudo passwd root
[sudo] password for solearth8675309d42: ▋
The cursor began flashing and Colton just stared at it for a few seconds trying to remember ever using that username before. However, before he could contemplate it further the screen cleared and a new line of text appeared.
Enter new ∑´ßƒ´£ß•¶ password: ▋
The nonsensical ASCII symbols for the server name confused Colton for a couple of minutes and he watched to see what would happen next. The black cursor kept flashing in anticipation for the new password to be entered. However, after three minutes Colton grew tired and thought about the typical master password he’d used in school.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Retype new ∑´ßƒ´£ß•¶ password: ▋
What? Colton tried to wake up at this point. To be honest, he was scared out of his mind at this stage of his dream. He didn’t type command he only thought of his old password.
passwd: password updated successfully
su -
Password:
Rather than waiting for Colton to think of his password again, the terminal started flashing commands he couldn’t understand nor read. The language was mostly gibberish and the only thing Colton was able to figure out was that there was a software update taking place. The language was unknown, but it looked as much as a YUM like installation process as anything else he could figure.
Colton’s thought processes stopped after the screen froze for a few seconds then everything went black.
###
Colton woke to his iPhone alarm without feeling drowsy or fatigued. One second he was asleep and the next wide awake. As he rushed into the shower, he remembered the odd dream he had the prior evening.
“What a weird dream,” he muttered just as he jumped into the shower.
Fifteen minutes later and Colton was rushing out the door to his Audi. The door hinges squeaked and the steering column was loose, but it was his baby. Once Colton turned the ignition, he slammed it into gear and took off towards campus.
He always pushed his luck with getting to his first class of the day on time, which is why he always scheduled his easy electives for the start of each day. Today, was a good day since he arrived early.
“It’s nice of you to join us on time today, Colton,” Samile Belafonte, said in a dry tone.
Samile was the grad student who taught his writing class. The course was a complete waste of time, but it filled one of his liberal arts core requirements. On the plus side, he’s learned how to write papers for scientific journals. That might come in handy if he worked in research.
“Miracles happen, Samile,” Colton said.
“Try to make it a habit, you’ll perform better in this class if you attend the lectures.”
“I attend,” Colton half-heartily protested with fake indignation.
“Showing up late every lecture doesn’t count as ‘attending’, it’s more ‘popping in’.”
“At least I try.”
Colton found a seat and settled in for another boring class lecture, he looked that class syllabus. ‘Bloat and cut.’ Colton snorted. He could think of a million things which were bloated, like this class for example.
The class progressed as did so many classes Colton had attended over the years of school. He looked around the class and saw the Note Taker, Class Clown, Class Drunk, One Term Freshman, and every other student who didn’t want to be here but needed to fulfill their liberal arts core. Oh, there is the Class Zombie. He smiled at the sight of the cute blonde two rows up. He wondered if the girl ever slept at home or if she just waited until class started to catch up on her sleep.
Colton was taking notes when his pen ran out of ink. Frustrated he started banging it on the edge of his desk to… get the ink flowing again. If he had a lighter on him, he would have lit the ballpoint up. After several attempts to get the pen to write again, he lifted the pen closer to his face to see if he had cotton lint stuck on the ballpoint. After focusing on the tip for a few minutes, he near dropped the pen with a pop-up box appeared over the pen. It was small and expanded once Colton focused on the box itself rather than the pen.
Brand: Zebra
SKU: 22218 ⁕
Spec: … ⁂
Durability: 1/3 ⁕
Quality: Poor
Status: Low Ink ⁕
“What the fuck?” Colton squeaked.
“Mr. Bridges, do you have a question?” Samile asked as the entire room turned their attention to Colton.
Colton looked up at the TA and back to his pen, then back to the TA and swallowed the lump forming in his throat. Clearing his throat, he said, “N… No. I thought I saw something on my pen. It was just earwax.”
The students all broke out in snickers before Samile brought their attention back to her. “In that case, do you mind if I continue?”
“We’re good. You have my permission.”
“Thanks,” Samile said dryly.
When Colton brought his attention back down to his pen the pop-up was gone. He wiggled the pen around for a few minutes to shake the box out, but after a few side glances from the surrounding kids, he put the pen into his bag and grabbed another.