Evasion Read Online Free Page A

professional; the demand for his skills became so huge that he had at first dropped down to part time and took on some tasks. But after a while, the workload was so demanding and the money he was able to make so lucrative, that he ended up creating a business around it.
    Calling his computer services GEEK SUPPORT SERVICES (or GEEKSS) for short, he issued invoices for various innocuous tasks such as network maintenance, computerized consulting, and viral protection software (Yes, he had even developed a popular virus protection and firewall program that he distributed a freemium version of, but which had advanced capabilities for a low monthly fee); half of the time, the invoice stated service X, but they really got service Y, which was some sophisticated hack, and the money issued to him was far higher than the minor amount that appeared on the official invoice.
    So, in the guise of offering a GEEKSS service, Scotty had come up to Sudbury to meet with a client, but was able to perform the “dutiful son” role as well. He hadn’t often been able to combine his personal work-life preferences with a family duty, and so relished the opportunity.
    But, as the morning dragged on, and the hospital staff kept popping in to advise them that the surgeon who was scheduled to see Scotty’s father had been delayed, yet again, with complications in the earlier scheduled surgery, Scotty became anxious.
    He father, ever the jester, had joked about the delay.
    “Maybe,” he said, leaning over to where Scotty had his nose buried in Cuckoo’s Egg by Clifford Stoll, and indicated with a sideways jab of his thumb an older gentleman who had been sleeping quite undisturbed for the past hour despite the hub-bub of the waiting area filled with no less than a dozen patients and their families “I’ll slip my identification wrist bracelet onto that old fart and slip out of here, pop down to the lake and throw a line into the water. Might as well see if I can pull a trout or two out of the lake while I’m waiting.”
    Scotty smiled at his father. It had always been about the fishing, hadn’t it?
    “Go ahead,” Scotty had grinned. “I’ll create a distraction across the room while you make the switch and slip out.”
    The two men laughed, but Janelle Desmond, Scotty’s mother and Lionel’s wife, just shook her head at them before returning her attention to the paperback romance novel she had brought.
    Scotty thought about that. Both he and his mother had brought a book to keep themselves occupied while waiting.
    But not his father.
    Nope. Lionel Desmond could easily just sit there, content to be consumed by whatever he reflected on while he sat there stoically observing all of the other people in that hospital waiting room.  And he had always been like that for as long as Scotty could remember. It didn’t matter where, it didn’t matter when, Lionel Desmond would either sit like a statue or seem to take in the surroundings entirely, or he would, on occasion, connect with those around him, often injecting his trademark brand of humor into a situation, putting others around him at ease.
    Amazing how he could “work a room” like that – seem to almost instinctively determine what a room needed best – either solitude and quiet reflection, which he seemed to do well (and something that likely lent to his ability to sit for hours in a boat on a lake while fishing, just floating there quietly in the calm tranquility of the natural surroundings, absorbing the world around him and patiently waiting for that tug on his fishing line), or forging relationships with strangers and helping to put others at ease.
    It was a skill that neither Scotty nor his mother seemed to possess. And, though he occasionally found himself offering the world a bit of his father’s bizarre brand of humor, Scotty didn’t seem to possess that natural ability to blend and mix with people, to forge friendships and quickly attained relationships.
    He was more