Naked in School-Kevin and Denise
On our way out of class, Linda Grover, our website content guru, rushed up.
“There you are, Kevin, a bunch of us’ve heard that the feds are trying to locate and shut down the site, you know?”
“Yeah, I heard that at lunch. Any news since then?”
“Not about the feds, but the media are trying to find the site too. There’s going to be something on the six-o’clock news about it and the kids who did the website and server setup and some of the others will be watching. They wanted me to find you and ask if you want to watch together.”
“Sure, good idea. Then if something comes up, we’ll be together to make plans. How about at my house again, it seems most of you live not far.”
“Yeah. I’ll get the word out. I’ll do a text and email. We’ll come fifteen minutes early?”
“Sure. And I’ll provide the pizza and everything, too.”
“Cool. See you later, buddy!” and she dashed off. Yeah, that girl seems to be dashing whenever I see her. What energy.
In my history class, the unit we were studying led to a spirited discussion of how civil rights was manifested in various societies in Europe of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as compared to modern times. I pointed out that in societies that were ruled by a king, common people’s rights were never clear and could be violated by royalty’s whim, and in modern times, the same could be said by the high-handed way some government agencies operated, either through mismanagement or even under the authority of laws that could be interpreted to disadvantage some classes of the society. It seemed everyone was clamoring to give modern examples, and the Program wasn’t spared as being a poster-child example of government excesses.
The school day ended with English Lit where we listened to the first group of student analyses of the short works they had chosen to report on. This was fun, listening to what the kids thought of the stories they had picked to talk about.
The final period was assembly and I hoped that there wouldn’t be any surprises. The Program kids straggled in, some red-faced from having to perform some last-minute Requests and clearly looked nervous and apprehensive about what they would hear from Fletcher.
Jane squeaked, “Hell, I’ve got my fingers and even toes crossed. No surprises, please. I’d like to get this over already; it’s been a tough week, you know.”
We all wandered into the auditorium and went to our seats. The low roar of conversation gradually damped down as we saw movement off to the sides of the stage and everyone waited expectantly. Dr Fletcher walked to the podium and adjusted the mike.
“Good afternoon, students; welcome to the end of the week.”
Applause. Teens will applaud most anything given the chance. Mainly the guys. Guys love to make noise. Must be a male sexual display trait, like a peacock’s tail.
“The main topics I want to cover today are mostly about issues related to the Program. First, I’d like to congratulate the first group to complete their week in the Program for the fall term. When school ends today, their week is essentially over because we have no school sponsored activities this weekend. But remember that the Program still encourages Outreach and we want everyone to take advantage of that opportunity. Will the students in this week’s Program stand to be recognized?”
We stood for ten seconds while a cacophony of applause, hoots, whistles, and yells rang out around us.
“I’d also like to offer recognition to a small corps of dedicated students, our Guardian corps, who were instrumental in making participating in the Program safe for our first group. These students did their jobs quietly and effectively, and have our thanks for a job well done. Will our Guardians stand to be recognized.”
They did, and received loud acclaim as well.
“I need to mention this in connection with the Guardians. Despite my words last week about behaving properly and courteously toward Program students, we had eight incidents of improper behavior. One resulted in a sexual assault charge and expulsion, three resulted in three-day suspensions, and the rest in a formal warning placed in the student’s permanent record. I also have been given to understand that there were a few cases of students’ self-policing of behavior infractions and I urge that everyone refrain from doing this in the future. Don’t take the law into your own hands; you might get into trouble yourself.
“The next matter concerns the student advisory committee. We plan to begin setting it up next week and the staff has suggested that we allow the student body to nominate students to serve. We will consider all student nominees as well as staff recommendations; still to be decided is the number of students in the committee and their class distribution. We decided that when the group convenes, they can choose a name for the group. If you’d like to nominate someone, even yourself, please get a form from a teacher at the door when you leave here.
“There is an issue coming up before the state education department, sponsored by the state’s physical education teachers’ association, that the required dress code for all high-school physical education classes be total nudity. State school officials are watching this issue and we will keep you informed.”
There was a rumble of extreme disapproval at that news and a lot of hisses.
“And on a related note. Voluntary nudity in school is still open to students as specified in the volunteer rules in the Program booklet, plus any student who has completed the Program may be naked in school at any time. These students will be given a green armband to wear; they are not subject to Reasonable Requests, and they will not have assigned Guardians. But abusing any one of them will be dealt with, just the same as with a Program participant.
“Concerning Reasonable Requests, the procedure we have previously announced concerning complaints about a participant’s refusal is working well; all refusals have been well justified, so the Program students have been taking their responsibilities seriously, as have been the Guardians. So no adjustments in those procedures will be needed. Remember, don’t ask a Program student to do anything that you yourself would find uncomfortable doing.
“Monday morning during home room we will call the next Program group to participate for the week, two students from each grade, boy and girl. They will strip in the office and be naked in school for that week. Anyone in this room who hasn’t participated can be called. It will be you—you will be called, if not this Monday, then on a following Monday. Think about how you would want to be treated when you interact with our week’s participants.
“Next, I’d like to introduce our new Biology teacher for the fall term. She was kind enough to come out of retirement to cover our junior biology class after the medical retirement of Mr Wilbur. Mrs Edna Payton, can you wave your hand so we can see you? There she is. She’s agreed to cover the junior biology class until spring term while we search for a new teacher.”
Applause.
“Finally, I have a request from the national Program office, as relayed through their district office, that the national Program has become aware of an illegal pirate website that is providing inaccurate, false, misleading, and sensational information about the Program’s operation in schools around the country. The national Program office wants every student to know that accessing the site is a federal crime and students who visit it will be arrested and prosecuted. They are also assuring school officials that the site will be shut down before Monday, and all contributors to the site will be identified and suitably punished.”
A loud buzz of conversation erupted at that news. Apparently a lot of kids hadn’t heard about that yet. Actually, the Program office was doing us a favor, they were giving our site the best publicity ever possible.
The assembly wound down with a few random announcements from the assistant principals, teachers, coaches, and the janitor (just kidding) about events coming up, student parking problems, athletic season ticket sales, all the things that make a high school run, and then Fletcher resumed the podium.
“School dismissed.”
“YES!” The eight of us, who had been sitting together for mutual support, jumped up with arms raised. Kids around us looked and grinned and then gave us the “thumbs up.”
Barbara said to me, “Kevin, are you going to ask to be on that student advisory thing? You’d be great there.” The others agreed.
“I don’t think so. What I really want is to lay low, study and learn, maybe even have a little fun, and graduate with no more excitement.”
“Well, I think you should,” Jimmy said.
Jane was watching as the auditorium emptied. “Hey, guys. You know, this could be a twitchy time right now. Everyone’s leaving and when we go for our clothes, there may not be many people out there. There could be people who want to do last second Requests or maybe even worse.”
“Damn, you’re right, Jane,” Andrew remarked.
“I’ll come with you guys to be sure you’re safe,” I assured them. “Let’s get your clothes quickly while people are still around.”
We hurried to the doors, and sure enough, there weren’t many people left.
Barbara exclaimed, “Look! Where are the clothing boxes?”
They weren’t where they were supposed to be; then I noticed a guy ducking out from behind a row of bushes about twenty-five meters away next to the building.
“Probably over there, near those bushes. See the two guys standing there?” I whispered.
I noticed that I could go in that direction between the bushes and building and keep hidden.
“Make like you’re searching for the boxes. I think they want to keep you here until everyone’s gone and then who know what. Ring 911 now. I’ll check on the clothes.”
I slipped between the bushes that grew along the building toward where those guys were standing while the others went looking near the steps and in other places near the doors.
When I got close I heard one guy say, “Alec has his dad’s van over there and the other guys are inside it. When those last cars leave the lot, I’ll call to the naked kids to tell them you found the boxes here. When they head over here, that’s the signal for Alec to drive up behind them and snatch a couple of girls while we keep the boys busy.”
That was all I needed. And here were the clothes boxes. The two guys—punks actually—skinny kids, were staring at the naked group at the door. I needed to get two at once, but coming from behind made it a little easier. There was one scenario I had learned in jiu jitsu that covered this situation but I had never practiced it. Well, if I mess up, at least I can delay them.
They were concentrating so hard that I was able to worm my way out between two bushes right behind them. The first guy began to call to the group at the door when I jumped out of the bushes right between them and grabbing both with my arms around their necks, I pulled them down to the ground with me. As I fell I drew my arms together. pulling their heads hard in front of me, hitting their temples together as I fell on top of them. I heard a double “oof” as they hit the ground and I used their bodies to break my fall. One was slightly on top of the other so I shifted him to lay crossways on the other and I sat on both bodies, then shouted to the others.
“Guys, it’s a kidnaping! Watch the girls and that black van!”
The girls shrieked and then all seven came toward me on a run; the black van was moving toward us now. Andrew shoved the girls behind the bushes.
I yelled at them, “Don’t touch the boxes—fingerprints!” and the van pulled up and four guys jumped out. “Come any closer and these guys’ll be dead meat. Four of you may be able to take me if I were alone, but I’m not. These hands haven’t killed anyone yet, but I’d really love to see what that feels like, wanna help me try?”
They were uncertain, shifting back toward the van and then toward me, looking back and forth. The two guys under me had been squirming but I had put the top one in a hammerlock and had my knee in the other’s spine. When they squirmed, I just increased my pressure until they stopped. Suddenly I heard an amplified voice.
“Freeze, all of you. Don’t move.”
The cops! They didn’t use their sirens. Cool.
“Now the ones with clothes, you guys, on the ground NOW. If you move in any other direction than down, if you wake up it’ll be in a hospital bed.”
Then I saw two cops come around the sides of the van and then another patrol car pulled up and two more police got out. The first two cops were busy cuffing the guys on the ground and one of the others came up to me where I was still restraining my pair. Then one of the girls called out.
“Officers? Is it safe now?”
The cop near me said, “Let them go, now. What the hell is going on here? We got a call about a kidnaping?”
I spoke. “Yeah. These two took our clothing boxes and hid them. I snuck behind them and heard that they were planning to try to snatch a girl or two when the parking lot cleared out. I found the clothes boxes behind the bushes; they probably left their prints on them.”
One of the other guys called, “He’s lying. No one ever touched the girls or their clothes. We just stopped by to see if they needed help and that kid just jumped two of us.”
Meanwhile the girls were peeking between the bushes.
Barbara said, “Please can we get dressed now? I’m getting cold.”
A cop looked up. “Oh my god, this is one for the books. Rescuing naked damsels in distress. My wife’ll never believe this one. Ok, sweetie, where are the boxes? I can get the clothes out without damaging any prints. On second thought, don’t you think we need to hold the clothes for evidence?”
Three girls screamed “NO!”
“I guess not. Sorry for the mean joke.”
Someone had called an ambulance and another cruiser pulled up with it and two plainclothes guys got out. Good, not Detective Conners and his sidekick. The two morons whom I had planted on the concrete had lots of facial scrapes and bruises but nothing looked very serious, but I was certain that they would have really bad headaches in their immediate future.
The detectives took all of our statements but our attackers wouldn’t say anything other than they were just driving by and had stopped to ask if we needed help. One detective was going through their wallets.
“Hmmm, all 19 and 20 years old. Are you from this high school? Where are your school IDs?”
One of the first cops to arrive said, “I see four cars in the lot. Whose are they?”
Three belonged to Sarah, Andrew, and me. We pointed them out.
“Jim,” he called, run the plate on that Chevy.”
Soon Jim came back. “Ken is running that plate. No high school parking sticker on that car.”
It turned out that the six of them had graduated high school from a different school last year and some had police records. The Chevy belonged to one to the guys I had taken down. The police wanted to take the clothing boxes but they didn’t know how to handle them; their evidence bags were too small, but Sarah came to the rescue.
“I have a roll of garbage bags in my trunk. Will that help?”
It would indeed, allowed one of the detectives. Then a car pulled up; it was none other than Dr Fletcher. He came rushing out of his car.
“What’s happening? I just left the staff lot, passed by, and saw all this.”
The police took him aside and explained; as he listened I saw his face turn white.
“Oh my god, are they all right?” he asked.
Then he came over and I told him that Jane had a premonition about this happening so we all stuck together and being together we were too much for the gang to handle.
“Yeah, right, Kevin. You just stood back and rooted for the team, I’m sure.”
Barbara told him that I had overpowered two of them while they rang 911 and then the others came and I had stood them off.
“Hell, Kevin, you’re a one-person defense force,” he said.
“Whatever, sir. We were in deep trouble and I was really lucky that those two were scrawny twits. What this shows, though, is that you need to provide some protection even after school hours, especially when there are no after-school activities. Even after evening events where kids will have to attend naked and then leave when it’s dark.”
“Yes, true. I’ll have to request an emergency school board meeting to discuss this. It’s really fortunate that, once again, you were around to save the day. Officer, what about those hoodlums? I didn’t recognize any of them.”
“They’re not high school students. We’re booking them all for attempted kidnaping and attempted rape. We found all kinds of personal restraints—handcuffs, ball gags, head hoods, leg bands, things like that, in their van, and photo prints of these girls, so this attempt was planned and they were waiting for the opportunity. The rape charge is permitted because their targets were naked and in the school Program. They’ll be off the streets for years, I’m guessing.”
Denise had grabbed my hand and she was shivering. I asked if we were free to go now and the police told us we could leave. Sarah volunteered to give Jane and Jimmy rides home and Andrew took Nelson and Barbara. Tow trucks had arrived and were hooking up the van and the Chevy to take to the impound lot. Denise and I hurried to the Volvo after telling Fletcher goodbye; he was still talking to the detective.
I looked at Denise, she was crying now.
“It’s ok, everything’s good now.”
“Yeah,” she sniffed, “thanks to you again. Ok, Kevin, what am I going to do? The whole molestation scene with the bastard flashed back at me while that was going on! Will I ever get better?”
“Darling, you saw how everyone came together. I’m sure there wasn’t any real danger, there weren’t any weapons, for example. Besides, Andrew’s on the wrestling team, and is it Nelson who’s on the swim team? Yeah, Nelson has the swimmer’s body. Sleek and trim. So four against six and half of them were ratty runts.”
“You counted wrong, honey.”
“Huh? Oh, you mean the girls? Hell, I wouldn’t want you to fight those scum.”
“Wasn’t thinking of us girls. Thinking of you. Nelson, Andrew, Jimmy, that’s three. You, three more. Even up.”
“Ha. Don’t start that hero nonsense again.”
“Kevin, don’t you see? It’s like you’re the Batman; you swoop in and save the poor students whenever the villains appear.”
“And I suppose the Program is something that only happens in fiction, and the kidnaping attempt is just a comic-book episode.”
She just snorted.
“Say, got any plans for this afternoon before we go to my place to watch the evening news?”
We had dressed and were driving away now. I noticed that my hands were shaking a little; must be coming down from that adrenaline high.
“Not really. Oh, let me leave my mom a message that I’ll be having dinner with you, ok?”
“Sure. How about let’s go to the mall? You can show me around. We didn’t have malls on Mars.”
She giggled and again that sound gave me chills. “Oh! You dummy. Yeah. My favorite place. I used to love to hang there when I was in middle school before...” she trailed off.
“Well, you need to show me the places to get the good stuff. You know, designer clothes and all that.”
“You’d be really surprised at the fashions these days. Skimpy clothes, very revealing. Nudity is everywhere now.”
“No thanks, got enough of that at school. How about parkas and snowmobile suits? I want to cover up for the next twenty years or so.”
“Ha ha. You’re such a goof! Are you competing against Andrew for being the school clown?”
“It crossed my mind. Ah, here we are. Where should I park?”
She guided me to park near one of her favorite stores and we spent a few hours wandering around the mall. We passed a jewelry store; I dragged her in and I went looking for the necklaces. She objected, but I got her to try on a gold chain with a little pearl drop on it; very pretty, but it wasn’t quite right. Then I saw a chain with a locket that would be perfect and she liked it too. Over her objections, I bought both and got her to wear them home.
“That’s for a double celebration. First, you’re my girlfriend, and second, we survived Program week. Last week you thought that your doing it was impossible, so it’s a celebration of overcoming the impossible. Whenever you think that doing something is too difficult, just think of this magic necklace.”
“Oh my god, Kevin, that’s so incredibly sweet! You always know what to say.”
She wrapped me in an embrace and we kissed gently while the passing shoppers flowed around us with smiles.
We needed to get to my house soon, so I called a pizza place and ordered to pick up and we soon were at my place with a stack of boxes, bags of bread sticks, dips, and bottles of soft drinks and water.
Soon the kids began arriving and after a few minutes my den looked like a tech warehouse. Some of the guys were gamers and brought their high-speed gear but most just came with their laptops or tablets.
While they were setting up their gear, I fired up the TV.
“... and stay tuned to the evening news on WVVZ for a special national report from Washington. Coming up in ten minutes.”
The talk show that was currently on resumed.
“So is there any chance that the feds can find us?” one of the boys on the blogging team asked.
Jennifer, one of the students who had worked on setting up the fleet of proxy servers, responded, “We hid the web server so it can’t make a direct connection for normal users. All connections to the web server are made through proxy servers. So even if they found the server itself, there’s be no record that your internet address ever connected to it, so no, they wouldn’t be able to find you.”
“What’s a proxy server?”
“For our use it’s just a computer system that acts as an intermediary between your computer and the computer hosting the site. Your computer doesn’t know the website server’s physical address and the website’s computer doesn’t know yours. They communicate through the third system; that’s the proxy. And we use proxies that are located all around the world, because we’ve seeded the computers that translate address names to internet address numbers—they’re called domain name servers—with the addresses of all those proxy machines. And the list is reseeded every hour so everything keeps shuffling around. If someone tries to trace a connection, the connection will evaporate after a while and the connection tracing will be lost. It’s really complicated.”
“Hey guys, the news is starting,” Linda called.
We stopped talking and turned to the TV. I pushed the volume up.
“Good evening. This is WVVZ News and I am Brian Monroe with Lisa Jenner bringing you today’s news reports from all over the world. We have some new developments in the national news today and Lisa is here with that report. Lisa?”
“Thanks, Brian. In today’s top national news, there are reports coming out of Washington concerning a major investigation that’s being launched within the executive branch of the government involving several agencies. Agency spokesmen have been unable or unwilling to provide any information about which agencies are being investigated, but we did learn that the Department of Education and the Justice Department are involved. When we have more details we will report them to you.
“There’s also major breaking news that involves the highly controversial school program where high school students are required by law to attend school classes and school activities totally naked. Bringing us news of this latest development in the ‘Naked in School’ Program, here is our national education correspondent, Jenny Smithers. Hello, Jenny.”
“Hi there, Lisa. Listeners probably recall that the Naked in School Program was authorized by law approximately four years ago over much controversy and began to become adopted in schools three years ago; it started in a limited number of high schools at first, but since adopting the Program is required for states to receive federal school aid, the Program has since spread widely. The basic premise of the Program, that teenagers are required to attend school while naked and to permit other student to fondle them sexually and even engage in penetrating activities, some claim involuntarily, has been upheld by the Supreme Court.
“The federal agency that administers the Program has been extremely demanding in ensuring that schools adhere to its standards and rules; schools have federally assigned Program officers on their staffs and the agency even has an enforcement division. They carefully monitor all information that’s published about the Program and have quickly shut down all discussions of it in the social media, especially by teens in the Program, but some highly disturbing news continues to become public about suicides and hospitalizations involving participants in the Program. The federal Program agency has been successful in burying or discrediting most of those reports and the media isn’t permitted to investigate because of education privacy laws concerning minors.
“With that background, we have learned that a new website, seemingly being run by high-school students, has appeared in the last week. The site is professionally constructed and managed; as you can see on this monitor, there are several sections in addition to the main page, which basically functions as the editorial content section—blogging posts appear here which comment on Program news from around the country. There is a section where students can post first-hand accounts of their experiences, and as a parent, I can say that many of those descriptions are disturbing, shocking, and even frightening. There’s a forum where students can ask each other for advice or share tips about coping with the problems that forced public nudity can create. There’s even a section that appears to allow physicians to submit their comments and I’d urge our federal legislators to read about the variety of injuries, many fairly serious, which participants have suffered.
“Today, the federal Program office has released a statement that claims that they have identified the server where the website is located and will have it closed down before Monday. The statement says that the operators will be arrested and everyone who has submitted articles or postings will be identified and punished. WVVZ was unable to verify this claim, since this reporter tried to access the site and was not able to find its internet location’s electronic address. We also tried to determine its owner using the domain name registry entry that every domain must have, but that brought us to a maze of shell companies with nothing more than empty rooms in various buildings scattered all over the Far East. So we turned to Mark Johnson, president of the internet security firm WebProtect, to give us details. Hello, Mr Johnson; thank you for joining us.”
“Thanks for inviting me, Jenny. Your introduction was quite accurate in describing access to this fascinating site. I learned of it three days ago from my daughter who incidently was forced to be a participant in the Program at her school and really suffered during her week. I asked my firm’s security analysts to look at the site because I wanted to talk to its developers but we weren’t able to locate the hosting server. It could be anywhere in the world.”
“I thought that the server address, the address that you connect to, would show where it was, Mr Johnson.”
“That’s true; ordinarily that’s how the information knows where to go to get from your computer to the server and back to you. But in this case, the developers used a complex combination of servers—we call them ‘proxies’—that lie between your computer and the website’s server. And in an additional layer of security, those proxy servers, and there appear to be a number of them that keep shifting, maintain a private channel, like an electronic tunnel, to the web server. It’s incredibly sophisticated and has our company totally stumped. We’ve tried sending bugs, little pieces of software that kind of ‘call home’ in messages to the server, but nothing is ever received back. Personally, I don’t see how a group of high school kids could have the knowledge or financial resources to set up an operation of this scope.”
“So who could be responsible?”
“There’s no sign that identifies any possible candidates. It seems that this is a totally student-run operation, just based on the writing styles of the articles, which we’ve had linguistically evaluated.”
“So what about the government’s claim that they’ve identified the server’s location and will have it shut down this weekend?”
“Well, Jenny, unless the government has made a revolutionary security breakthrough in the past day or two—which is unlikely because they have few security researchers—that claim is wishful thinking. If I can say something about the site’s operators?”
“Go ahead.”
“To the person or people who set this thing up: when you graduate, I want you to work for me. I’ll put you through college and even grad school if you want. Our industry needs people of your caliber.”
“Thanks so much for talking to us, Mr Johnson. And there you have it, Lisa. Looks like the kids are fighting the federal Program now, and judging from the renewed scrutiny the Program is receiving, the kids are close to getting the upper hand. Reporting from Washington, this is Jenny Smithers.”
“Thanks for that fascinating report, Jenny. Now, in other national news...”
The kids in the den erupted in applause and there were lots of high-fives being exchanged.
Linda called out, “Hey, Roger and Jennifer, gonna take him up on that offer?”
They were the prime architects of the proxy fleet and VPN system design and had made the arrangements for the needed overseas hardware and registry services with Iwan Pranata from my father’s NGO. He had many contacts with help desk providers in the Philippines and India, where those empty fake offices were set up. The leases were paid up for a five-year term by bitcoin transfers. No way to trace that.
“Nah,” Roger said, “I’ve got bigger fish in mind. I’ve got some really cool ideas and they don’t involve security research.”
“Yeah, me too. But I want to go into artificial intelligence research myself,” Jennifer remarked.
I spoke up. “Ok, guys, now that we won’t have to pull up the drawbridge and lock down the castle, let me tell you what happened when we left school today.”
Wow, everyone’s face wore expressions of shock and concern as Denise and I described what happened. Linda had begun typing rapidly on her laptop.
“I’m getting a blog post up right now warning about this kind of thing happening. Someone get it up in the forum too, and another person put it in the list of Program safety recommendations.”
This was totally cool the way the team swung right into action. It really reminded me of the way Aunt Janet ran the Foundation’s staff meetings and the team there went right to work as soon as an issue was identified. Everyone knew just what to do. I felt such a great sense of pride and I noticed Denise looking at me with a broad grin. She must be able to tell what I was thinking!
One of our “sysops”—system operators, the kids who managed the website operating software and functionality, then called out to everyone.
“Ohmygod, look!”
“What?” came a chorus of voices.
“The site loading! Hits. Up till now we were running a low number of connections, maybe a thousand sessions at a time, max. It just hit 50 thousand and it’s still climbing!”
“It’s not a denial of service attack, is it?” Jennifer asked. “Wait, the way we set up the DNS seeding and proxies, a DOS attack would be hard to do, maybe not even possible.”
“No, looks like active sessions. The logs show requests for actual pages and the proxies are requesting pages with proper delay times between requests, not just requests to connect, so these are real sessions with people at the other end.”
“I thought of this earlier,” I spoke up, “the feds just gave our site the best possible advertising promotion. Probably by tomorrow the only people who haven’t heard about our site will be hermits living on mountaintops.”
“Can we handle the traffic?” Linda asked.
“Well,” Roger mused, “the server specs were for a million simultaneous connections. We didn’t think we’d need anything bigger. If we needed to expand I think we could do it in about 24 hours but the limiting problem is the databases. Let’s see how it works out. This has gotta be the result of the news program so people must be hitting the site out of curiosity. I’ll bet it starts leveling out in a day after all the curiosity-seekers have visited.”
And that is indeed how it turned out. The steady-state user level, outside school hours, leveled off at about 150,000 simultaneous users and we were getting about 300 forum posts per day, well within the database specs. But that evening the team realized that the forum would become so cumbersome that people wouldn’t be able to find specific posts easily, so we decided to break the forum up into topic categories and spent the rest of our meeting session deciding on those categories and setting up forum moderation assignments.
It was a tired but ecstatic group of teens that left my house three hours later. When they were gone, Denise wrapped her arms around me and hugged me.
“My studly hero. Saving the country’s teens now too. Does the world come next?”
“Ahhh,” I sighed, “I guess. That’s what my dad was trying to do with his Foundation. I guess the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree. Say, I need to get you home, right?”
“Yeah. You have that PT thing tomorrow morning and I have to go shopping with Mom in the afternoon, so what time do you want to pick me up after?”
We arranged a time for our date and then I drove her home and we shared a wonderful kiss to hold us to our next time being together.
Copyright © 2015 Seems Ndenyal. All Rights Reserved.