Nymphomation(18)
The one good thing about being an Asian boy in Britain was that the white girls thought you all looked the same.
Jazir walked through the bookshelves, freely.
On the way he had to bat a blurbfly out of his vision. Not just any old blurbfly, mind; a University of Manchester blurbfly. A blurb full of educational messages: ‘Study hard, my students,’ it sang. ‘Stack your knowing bones for a good life. Learn to win! Win to learn!’ The blurb was a Saturday-morning loner, supplied by AnnoDomino, as all the legit madverts were. Working overtime for the chance of being upgraded.
Fat chance.
Jazir sat himself down at one of the ugly but powerful computers the university had bought a few months ago with a sponsorship grant. He pushed the borrowed card into a hungry slot and had to wait a whole two minutes whilst an animated Whoomphy burger floated around the screen, proclaiming the health-giving benefits of a regular intake of special beef. All the boundless joys of corporate logos to sit through, until, finally, the burger actually asked for the diner’s name. Jazir tapped in Pandit’s name, to make a general enquiry menu appear. Punched on an item called Motherlode, got back a ‘Password please?’ message. This was expected. Jazir then reached into his shoulder bag, pulled out a disk of his own making. He looked all around as he fed the disk into the computer’s mouth. Nobody was there, nobody watching. Jaz’s disk caused a wave of animated curry sauce to form on the screen, and a rogue window to open up, called ‘Chef’s Special Recipe’. A box within the recipe demanded ingredients, so Jaz dragged the ‘Password please?’ icon across the screen, dropped it into the chef’s karahi pan. A whir and a click, and then a ‘Currently Cooking’ message came along, to apologize. Minutes going by…
INFO JOSH
Ginger, garlic and water. Put them all into a karahi. Add chunks of information to brown. Cardamom, bay leaves, cloves. Peppercorns and cinnamon. Sliced onions. Stir and fry. Add the secret curry paste. Coriander and cumin, paprika and cayenne. Mix some yoghurt with dish. Stir and fry. Add some more water. Bring to the boil. Cover and cook for an hour or so. Boil away the liquid. Sprinkle with garam masala. Stir and serve. The wanted knowledge will be revealed.
Heat Rating: red hot
The library’s blurb landed on the screen, as though trying to eat the image of curry sauce. Jazir knocked it aside, angrily.
Jazir tried to be patient, he really did. The Chef’s Special had never failed him before. It could surely give up the university’s password. ‘Come on, Father,’ Jaz whispered to the screen, ‘cook me a hot one, please.’ That’s right, he called the intruder program after his father. Well, wasn’t his father the best chef in all of Rusholme’s curry corridor? Wasn’t his father the guardian of the secret spice mixtures? You bet your last dancing domino he was! Father Saeed Malik cooked up the spices; Jaz, the son, cooked up the info. Mutual engineering. That was the way of the world, if only his father would one day see it.
Five whole minutes of cooking it took, until the father finally delivered the goods to the son: ‘Kind sir, the recipe you have ordered is called “Maximus”. Enjoy your meal’. Excellent service! Give my compliments to the chef.
Jazir tapped ‘Maximus’ into the ‘Password please?’ box. The screen went dark for half a second, and then came back to life with a new menu:
ADMINISTRATION
SPONSORS
SUBJECTS
STUDENTS
BURGERNET
Jaz pressed on STUDENTS, got the next window…
OLD
CURRENT
Pressed on CURRENT, got the name? enquiry. Jaz tapped the words ‘Love, Daisy’ into the name box, waited for the file to download…
Love, Daisy Marigold
First year, Mathematics
Date of Birth; 13/2/80
Marigold? Daisy Marigold Love? Jaz could only think her parents must have been raving, fucking neo-hippies-a-gogo! And it was Daisy’s nineteenth birthday today! The chances of chances, most very excellent!
Mother: Love, Marigold. (née Green). Deceased.
Father: Love, James. Deceased.
Personal tutor and guardian: Hackle, Maximus.
OK, so Daisy got the middle name from her mother. Both her mother and father dead, as expected. But Maximus Hackle? That was more interesting. Jazir knew, from his contacts, that Max Hackle was the big guy at the university. Max Hackle was Daisy’s personal tutor, OK, but also her guardian? Jaz had often heard Daisy talking about the professor, but never for a moment had he considered what the Max stood for. But Maximus? Which, of course, was the password into the Motherlode. So Max Hackle must have programmed the university’s defence system. It made sense: Max Hackle was the best mathematician for miles around. And Jaz was suddenly smiling, because his own invention, his Chef’s Special Recipe, had managed to break through the defences of the greatest mathematician. Back to the screen, pressing the mouse. A new menu, unfolding on the Love, Daisy…