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Arnold's Story - Chapter 1
By Davembryo
Ray Arnold crouched in the shadows of his cell. A slant of light cut through the room creating a spotlight on the steel bars. Arnold lit up and drew on the cigarette. The glowing embers defined the tired lines round his eyes and the gritty stubble on his chin. He removed the cigarette from his mouth, leaving a thread of dark yellow smoke suspended in the air.
Arnold looked up and saw a pale orange light flicker through the bars of his cell. He heard the tap crunch of somebody entering the aisle outside his cell. The orange beams danced around the walls of his cell as Arnold noticed a large stone of amber attached to a bamboo cane sailing up into the hands of an old man dressed entirely in white. He stood directly in the spotlight.
‘The name’s John Hammond.’ He announced with great showmanship ‘You could call me a sort of entrepreneur.’
Arnold drew from the cigarette again. ‘I see.’
‘I heard you managed to get your way into the US Navy’s defence computers, externally?’ Hammond leant forward, grinning into the cell.
‘I am not a hacker.’ Arnold stated ‘I don’t usually do that sort of thing.’
‘Ah yes.’ Hammond chuckled ‘You did this for attention, right?’
‘Seems to have worked.’ Arnold said through the cigarette pinned between his lips. He laughed. ‘Are you going to offer me a job?’
‘Well I do have a proposal for you, yes.’ Hammond explained ‘I am nearing completion of a complex I have built in San Diego, it’s a kind of zoo. We have just installed the computers and we need someone to boot up the system and maintain it for the next couple of years. This person could find that they have enough work for a lifetime, and so the role might be theirs until retirement. Now, I am willing to organise your release if you promise me that you will come and work for me at my park..’
‘Where did you say this park was?’
‘San Diego, near the waterfront complex’
‘I live at Long Island!’
‘I must say, the pay is considerable.’ Hammond smiled.
‘What sort of kit are you talking about?’
‘State of the art supercomputers, the latest UNIX systems, the works’ Hammond began slowly rotating his cane as he waited for Arnold’s response.
Arnold withdrew the cigarette from his mouth, tossed it onto the cell floor and stamped it out. ‘Okay …I’m in.’
Hammond stopped rotating his cane ‘Good.’ The ball of amber perched on the end of John’s cane struck the light. Arnold looked up as the silhouette of a trapped mosquito leered over Hammond’s shoulder.
The circular complex stood out for miles. It thrust out of the San Diego skyline like a volcano. Ray Arnold sat in the diminutive chopper as it thudded towards the structure. Sitting opposite him was Robert Muldoon, Hammond’s new Game Warden. He was drenched in sweat.
‘Can’t stand this heat.’ Muldoon said in a soft yet abrasive voice. Arnold nodded.
‘So you’ve met Hammond before?’ Arnold asked.
‘Yes. He funded my work in Gambia, I ran a wildlife reserve there.’
‘Is he a decent man?’
‘If there’s anything I’ve learnt about people, it’s that everyone has their own personal goal.’ Muldoon bit his lip and studied Arnold. ‘And they will do anything within their power to achieve it.’
‘Is that what Hammond is like?’
‘His goal is to wow people, to shock and impress. I have no problem with that goal.’
‘Shock and impress…’ Arnold turned to look at Hammond in the cockpit, his pink round face crested with swathes of white innocence.
7/4/2006 7:50:09 PM
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