The Rainbow Maker's Tale by Mel Cusick-Jones

made my way to the staircase
at the back of the building. Springing up the empty steps, I kept
going until I reached the top floor. It was usually busier here
than the other levels because the information stored here was
geared towards recreation and entertainment. I smiled to myself
when I saw that many of the workstations were occupied, with a
steady stream of people waiting to use them.
    Perfect . I grinned and
headed off in search of some data cartridges.
    The queue of people reduced
quickly and before long I found myself seated at a workstation with
a stack of five data cartridges clenched in my hands. With a
cursory glance at the occupied stations around me – as usual no one
was paying me any attention – I reached below the workstation and
began feeding the cartridges into the waiting slots. Once all five
were securely loaded I loosened the ties on my school sack and
rummaged around until I found what I was looking for at the bottom:
another data cartridge. Pulling it out, I slipped the final
cartridge into place in the data unit and then sat up.
    Another swift peek around the
room told me that nothing had changed in the ten seconds it had
taken me to load up the machine. Everyone nearby was still absorbed
with whatever was on their workstations and paying me no attention
at all. Pulling the lightweight keyboard towards me I ran my mark
over the integrated scanner and began logging in to the system.
Once the initial login had completed, my fingers flew across the
keys typing in a range of commands to activate the data cartridge
I’d brought with me.
    The screen flickered once –
barely visible – as the program inside my data cartridge took over
the workstation operating system. The camera built into the
workstation viewing screen activated and began filming me. I sat as
still as I could so that the images being recorded could be easily
looped over one another to create the impression I was sat at the
screen quietly reading. Allowing my eyes to flicker slowly from
left to right over and over again, the camera continued recording
me for three minutes before clicking off and switching from the
live feed to the recorded images now stored inside the data
cartridge.
    First step completed . I
nodded to myself as my fingers found the keyboard again. I entered
the command string to begin running the second stage of the
program, that would activate the cartridges I’d picked up from the
library. It would begin slowly running through the various data
files saved onto the cartridges; combined with the camera
recording, it would give the impression that I was sat here,
reading the contents. Five cartridges would keep anyone occupied
for a good few hours.
    The program began and I watched
the screen as the first couple of text files opened before me.
Nothing changed for thirty seconds and then the next stage of the
program kicked-in. The image of the text files disappeared, to be
replaced by the message OUT OF SERVICE in large white letters on
the blank screen. This was the standard holding page that indicated
a piece of equipment was not functioning and had been flagged for
repair – the program code for this was a nice acquisition from one
of my numerous excursions into Father’s office – and never drew any
attention.
    “Oh no,” I muttered softly as
though to myself, but really for the benefit of anyone overhearing
me. “This system’s malfunctioned,” I added, as I pushed my chair
back from the now inoperable workstation that was running my hidden
program behind the standard breakdown notice.
    No one was listening, or even
turned towards me as I stepped away and walked to the back of the
room. Perfect execution , I thought as I descended the stairs
and slipped the waiting metal band from my pocket onto my wrist.
Even if my parents bothered to wonder where I was this afternoon –
which I didn’t think they would – they would see that I was being
as studious as ever, happily occupied at the library.
    Passing