The ELI Event B007R5LTNS

where the day had gone, only that for some reason he had slept through most of it. It was dark; he was upstairs in his bed, still clothed. Sitting up, he noticed an arm dangling from the top half of the normally empty bunk bed. He stood and looked into the bunk. Tom, the new boy, was sound asleep, mouth open, spittle running slowly from the corner.
    He knew immediately why Tom had been put in with him. The orphanage was short on beds, as always, and none of the other boys wanted to bunk with him. Seeing Tom reminded him of the cruel joke Mike and the others had played on him again. His hand drifted to his jeans pocket and felt the reassuring bulk of the coin sock, and he took some comfort in knowing the real joke was on them.
    Tilting his head, he squinted to read the time on the cheap digital watch on Tom’s arm. Perfect. With everyone asleep, he could at last escape to his private hideaway and have a chat with his only real friend. He quietly removed his shoes and slid them under the bed. As he stole from the room and tiptoed down the stairs he thought only of calling Eli as soon as possible.
    At the foot of the stairway he removed a key from his jeans pocket and carefully, quietly unlocked the broom closet. He stepped inside and closed the door securely before pulling the string which turned on the bare bulb in the center of the ceiling.
    Being the problem boy, awkward and slow and prone to unexplainable blackouts, Robin was assigned perpetual janitorial duties. While the other boys were playing outdoors, he often had to sweep the floors or wash the dishes. But that dubious position had its advantages—Mrs. Faraday had given him the only key to the broom closet. She said she’d borrow it when she needed to get in, but she never had.
    The closet was Robin’s refuge, his shelter from everyone and everything that troubled him. Here he could read, count his nickels, or work on his electronics. Tonight, all he wanted to do was call Eli.
    The closet was a large walk-in, cluttered with brooms, dustpans, bottles of cleanser and furniture polish, rags, and assorted junk. One wall contained both the fuse box and telephone cables, and a jumble of wires ran into and out of the junction boxes. An old sink trap lay on top of a cardboard box containing a few rusty tools.
    A large piece of plywood paneling, left over from the rec room’s overhaul, leaned from the middle of the floor to the back wall. Carefully, Robin moved it aside, exposing another cardboard box stuffed with rags. He stopped for a moment, held his breath to listen. Silence.
    He threw the rags aside and revealed his treasure. Handling the old typewriter case with great care, Robin lifted it from the box and set it on the floor beside him. He raised the latches on either side of the handle and opened the hinged lid.
    He smiled at his favorite thing in the whole world, a curious-looking contraption made from parts of old radios, televisions, and obsolete video games. Circuit boards holding an array of transistors, diodes, capacitors, and memory chips lay loose in it, held in proximity to each other by everything from hardened gum to masking tape. Wires ran from one board to another in no apparent order—some were insulated in white, red, or orange, some in blue or green, many not at all, like a plate of Technicolor spaghetti.
    On one side of the affair, a set of pushbuttons cannibalized from a telephone was wired into one of the circuit boards. On the other side was an oblong metal box with a vertical slot at one end. The slot was covered by a small hinged door of black plastic, and at the other end of the box was yet another jungle of entering and exiting wires.
    From the video game’s chiclet keyboard ran a single flat, gray cable, which split several times before ending up in the middle of the thing. Another cable seemed to start as separate wires near the back and come together near the center. This was attached to a tiny television screen, which was held in place above the keyboard by a bent coat hanger. Overall, the thing looked ridiculous, grotesque, useless. It was laughable. It was a mess. It was a joke.
    It was a computer.
    Robin unwound two pairs of wires from the top of the television tube. All four wires ended in alligator clips, which he examined in turn. He opened the fuse box and carefully attached the thicker pair of wires inside it, then clipped the thinner pair to two terminals on the telephone junction box. Then, remembering that he