Leo, I Have a Problem by Susan Evelyn (reading eggs books .TXT) 📕

Leo, I have a problem

By Susan Evelyn

The mobile phone bleeped in alarm. Leonard reached for it instinctively. He noticed the caller identification as he flipped it open.

“Hello, how are you?” he began cheerily.

“Leo, me ol’ friend, mate, pal.”

He winced. It was Henry. When Henry began a conversation like that it meant that the next hour at least would be spent solving the problems of the world, Henry’s world.

The situation had been unchanged since they had attended the same college. Leonard remembered how the nerd and the geek, the unlikeliest of friends, had joined forces at first by accident of class assignments and continued as a matter of mutual support. The good-looking but nerdy scientist, Henry, was never far from his geeky mate with the techno-babble and unusual electronic gear, Leonard.

Since then, Leonard had made his mark in the world of computers before recently establishing a business in the industry. Henry was still steeped in scientific research and seemed always on the verge of discovering something of immeasurable benefit to the world, and he was still oblivious to his good looks.

“What’s up?” Leonard answered, trying to quell the rising dread of what may come next.

“I’ve got a ton of stuff to type up. I mean, I could write it out but no-one can read my handwriting, even me. Help!”

“What? Read your writing or write your notes? I don’t know, mate. I mean, I keep telling you to get one of those personal tape recorders.”

“No, no, not that. I have a computer but it doesn’t work now. That’s what I meant to say. Something weird happened, like it went ping, and I have a heck of a lot of data to put in and then I need to upload it and there’s so much more work to do and I don’t have time, and, well, you know about this stuff.”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down, man. Sheesh!” Leonard answered feeling the overload of too much information. “Now back up a bit, will you? You lost me back there.”

“Back where?”

“Oh! right back at ‘computer’. What’s all that about, Mr. No-way, No-how, Never?”

“Argh. It’s this new research. There are teams around the world working on different aspects and we need to compare notes and stuff so the company funding it gave us these computers. So I had to bring this thing with me. It’s one of those portable things, y’know?”

“Laptop,” Leonard automatically supplied the necessary word.

“Yeah, like that. But now it doesn’t work.”

“Try turning it off and back on,” Leonard suggested hoping the machine would reset.

“I tried that,” Henry sounded pleased with himself, as if he had figured out something correctly on his own.

“And?”

“And now there’s just that blue screen with a dot …”

“Cursor,” Leonard corrected.

“Yeah, that. It sits up there just blinking at me, and you know there’s a reason they call it a cursor, don’t you? And I did, curse, that is,” Henry’s aggravation was obvious from the grumbling.

“Okay, so tell me exactly what happened and what you have done so far,” Leonard dropped into diagnostic mode.

“Well, I turned it on,” Henry told him. Leonard sighed inwardly but said nothing. He knew that it was easier to just let Henry keep going. It was like listening to dot points on a scientific report. “And everything started up just as usual, and then I had to log onto the internet using this weird connection thingy to the mobile, y’know, we don’t have standard phone connections here. Anyway, that all loaded okay. So then I opened the menu and double clicked on my last entry to copy the format. So it started to load and umm.. it just flicked off and that’s when it just sort of blinked and became the blue screen.”

“You said something about a ping,” Leonard remembered. “Was that an actual sound or just a flicker on the screen?”

“Well, it seemed like a sound but I don’t know now.”

“Uh, huh. So that’s when you tried turning it off and trying again?”

“Yeah, but now I don’t even get the blue screen. Nothing’s happening at all, man.”

“Did you do anything else?”

“Well, umm.. err.. I shook it a bit,” Henry confessed.

“You what?” Leonard was incredulous.

”Well, it works for some things, y’know.”

“Like what? A torch? Give me a break. Sometimes, y’know, you’re bloody amazing. Whatever possessed you to do that?”

“I dunno’. It was worth a try. In case something was loose, or whatever. What did you think I’d do?”

“Well, I was expecting something like check the power cable or the batteries if you’re not plugged in.”

“Yeah! Of course I did. All properly connected and the battery was recently charged. And it was switched on.”

“Okay then, it’s starting to sound like hardware,” Leonard guessed. “You’re going to have to take it to a local computer shop,” Leonard suggested.

“Not really possible, mate. Nothing like that around here. Nothing much of anything at all, actually.”

Leonard groaned inwardly remembering that Henry spent a lot of his time in the field.
“So, where exactly are you then?”

“Don’t know exactly. Like, there was a little village here but I don’t know if it ever had a name. We have a big camp with this enormous generator that you can hear humming no matter where you are.”

Leonard reminded himself to not be so specific when talking to Henry. “So generally then, where are you?”

“Brazil, the Amazon’s virtually just up the road.”

“Okay, okay. So. No local shop,” Leonard agreed. After a deep breath, he asked patiently. “Can’t you get another one sent to you?”

“First, I don’t want to admit that I broke this one just yet, and second, it would take too long to get one organized and sent out, and third, there’s data on this one that I need to access,” Henry counted off his reasons for trying to get the machine fixed.

“What type is it?” Leonard gave in to the inevitable.

“A computer, sorry, laptop. It’s got a screen and a keyboard that folds out, and a CD player but nobody likes it when I try to play music. Needs ear phones to do that, anyway.” Henry replied.

There was silence from the mobile.

“Leo? Leo!” Henry repeated. “Leo, I know you’re there. I can hear you breathing.”

“Do you really want me to try to help you? Or are you just bored and want someone to complain to?” Leonard replied eventually.

“Sorry, man,” Henry had the good grace to at least sound a little contrite. “What info do you need? And remember this was given to me so I didn’t buy it.”

“Do you know the brand?” Leonard restated his question more specifically.

Henry gave him the company name, and the name of the model.

“Ah, yes! I know them,” Leonard felt as if he had made a major breakthrough. “They are normally very good. They aren’t prone to breaking down. I’ll just log in and see if there is anything on the net about anyone having problems.”

“You can do that?”

“What?”

“What you just said. Find technical stuff like that on the internet?”

“Yeah. There are tech. sites on just about everything as long as it’s fairly recent. Some are quite helpful. And while I’m doing this, you can tell me exactly what you did, what happened and what you have done to fix it.” Soft clicking sounds could be heard as Leonard made the on-line connections.

Leonard muttered to himself for a few moments before something Henry had said suddenly registered. “Brazil? So what’s the temperature like?” he asked casually.
“Sizzling hot, mate,” Henry replied.

“You really do pick some of the remotest places. You’ve only got the poles or Himalayas left to explore, haven’t you?”

“Don’t joke, man. I wouldn’t mind some days in the snow at the moment. And it’s ten times worse when it rains. But at least it fills the water tanks. We only have running cold water at the moment. Man, it’s rough as, but they are working on getting the hot water re-connected as we speak.”

Sporadic tapping could be heard as Leonard continued to search for information.

“Say, when did this happen?”

“Yesterday, actually, about this time. Been wondering what to do about it all night.”

“Uh huh! And how hot was it?”

“Dunno for sure. We’d just had a doozy of a storm. Biggest I’d seen and it was enough to bring the temp down a bit .”

“You turned a computer on in the middle of a storm?” Leonard shrieked.

“No, no. I’m not that crazy,” Henry assured him. “It was well and truly over. But everything was swamped and we called off working for the rest of the day. The humidity was getting bad and I didn’t feel like doing much so I thought I’d catch up on some computer time.”

“Okay then. So let’s see if I’ve got this right. It had been extremely hot and then the temperature went down fast but the humidity had increased?”

“Something like that.”

“Think I’ve found your trouble then. It is hardware. There’s a part that gets temperamental in the heat and doesn’t take well to any changes and sends a bad signal. The motherboard shuts down and doesn’t reset.”

“I’m not going to pretend I understand what you just said,” Henry was mumbling.

“Looks like it. They re-engineered the part. You are going to have to order it.”

“Yeah, well, that’s something like they told me,” Henry confessed. “But they said it could only be ordered by a computer retailer. That’s why I called you.”

Leonard groaned, rolling his eyes. “And you couldn’t tell me this before?”

“Well, you were having a good time working it out, mate, and they never said why it happened or what to call the part. Besides, you had to understand my situation,” Henry’s tone was apologetic but also pleading.

“Alright,” Leonard gave in. He never could say no to Henry, and he was not about to start now. There were more tapping noises as Leonard navigated his way through multi-layered web pages. “I just ordered it. Now where does it have to go?”

“Oh, you want an address? Um, mail comes in by air every other day with the fresh food supplies,” Henry then gave him the convoluted address for mail.

“Okay, got that,” Leonard mumbled distractedly while he was transmitting the information. “I’ll see what can be done about speeding it up. Here we go,” he announced with some pleasure. “Confirmation of the part .. and.. looks like, yep! They’ve shipped it and it should be on your next drop, day after tomorrow.”

“Marvelous, man, that’s fantastic. I owe you.”

“You sure do.”

“And I’ll pay you back for the part when I get back. Okay?”

“Sure. I think you’re good for it,” Leonard laughed.