"Hey Maggots, I'm here for school," Stephen said while strutting into the office. His mother was forcing him to be there and he was not happy with it. School was endless tedious hours of boredom and he was tired of it. In an attempt to end this travesty that was called education, Stephen planned on being obnoxious.
"The name is Magus."
"That's what I said — Maggots," Stephen said. He smirked. Most people would have found the smirk on his face particularly irritating. Magus ignored it.
"Catch!" Magus gently tossed a CD in a plastic case at Stephen.
Stephen made no attempt to catch the disk. As a result, the corner of the case bounced off his chest. Rubbing the spot where the case had struck him, Stephen said, "Hey that hurt."
"Go in the office at the far right end of the reception area. You can watch that on the computer in there," Magus said.
"What is it?"
"Your first assignment," Magus answered cryptically. He picked up a paper and looked down at it as if he was reading it.
"Why should I watch it?"
"So that you learn something," Magus answered without looking up from the paper. He had suspected that Stephen was going to be a tough nut to crack. Of course, tough nuts often times cracked quickly and thoroughly when the right pressure was applied.
"You don't have anything to teach me that I want to learn," Stephen said. He crossed his arms across his chest and gave Magus a look that suggested that the older man was more than welcome to take a long walk on a short pier.
"I'm going to have to insist that you go into the office at the far right end of the reception area and watch the contents of that disk on the computer in there," Magus said.
"You can't make me do shit. You aren't my daddy," Stephen said.
"That's true," Magus said. He touched a button on the side of his desk. The desktop rose up six inches and slid forward eight inches. A projected image appeared on the wall opposite the desk.
Unable to hold back his interest in the unusual desk, Stephen said, "That's pretty cool."
Magus typed on the keyboard that was revealed under the desktop. He said, "I guess we could watch it together."
"What is this?" Stephen asked looking at the video being projected on the wall. The quality of the video was pretty poor compared to a professional television production.
"Selected sections of a surveillance tape," Magus answered. He pointed at the image and said, "That fellow looks a lot like you, doesn't he?"
"Kind of. He's a little bigger than I am," Stephen answered. He glanced over at Magus thinking that the expression on the man's face suddenly looked positively evil.
"Oh look at that!"
Stephen covered his mouth and watched the events unfold. Unable to believe what he was watching, he mumbled, "Oh my God."
"With two guys holding him down like that he doesn't stand a chance."
"What are they doing to him?"
Looking over at Stephen, Magus asked, "What do you think they are doing to him?"
"I can't believe it."
"Believe it," Magus said. He continued to watch the video.
"Shit!"
"No. That's blood; not shit. That was a good guess, though. That is the right place for shit to come out of a body," Magus said while leaning forward as if he was trying to get a better look.
"This is wrong."
"Look at the expression on his face."
"You are one sick fuck showing something like that to someone my age," Stephen said. His face was white as a sheet.
"I'm not showing this to you for our entertainment. This is your first assignment," Magus said.
"What do you mean?"
"I want you to calculate the dimensions of those cocks from the video tape. It is a very good lesson in image processing. I think you'll learn some very tough mathematics," Magus said.
"Why would I want to do that?" Stephen asked. He had never seen anything so disturbing in his life.
"Well, it is quite simple really. I figure you can get the dimensions of those cocks from this video tape today or experience them for yourself in about two weeks when you get sent to the juvenile detention facility," Magus answered. "In case you're wondering; that's where this took place."
"That tape has got to be illegal," Stephen said.
"No. I was actually hired to find out who raped and killed a kid there. The Department of Corrections paid me to make this video. What you are watching is evidence for a murder trial," Magus answered. He sat back and watched the film. Shaking his head, he said, "It is an ugly world, isn't it?"
"Uh..."
Magus pointed at the screen and said, "Look at the monster on that guy. It is hard to believe that something that big can actually go in such a small hole."
Magus rose from his chair and looked over the desk. He said, "Stephen? What are you doing on the floor?"
When there was no answer, Magus smiled. He said, "I guess he fainted. Ah well, he'll come around eventually."
Stephen walked into the office and said, "I finished, sir."
"You did?"
"Yes, sir," Stephen said. This had been the most difficult thing he had ever been asked to do. It wasn't that the subject matter was so disgusting, but calculating sizes had required more mathematics than he had ever used before. He had to take into account angles, distances, and heights. Everything had to be scaled so that the raw measurements could be mapped into accurate values.
"Let me see your answer," Magus said holding out his hand. Stephen handed over the sheets of paper. Magus reviewed the results and nodded his head. He said, "I came up with a half inch larger circumference than you on the big one. If you study the video, you'll see that it isn't exactly a cylinder."
"I guess I missed that," Stephen said.
Magus said, "You've got to watch out for little details like that. It is attention to details that makes the difference between excellence and mediocrity."
"Yes, sir."
"You don't want to be mediocre, do you?"
"No, sir."
"I didn't think so," Magus said. He smiled and pointed to a stack of papers on the corner of his desk. "Read those papers. I'll expect you to write a report on them Wednesday."
"What kind of report?" Stephen asked. He stared at the huge stack of papers wondering if he could possibly get through all of that material before Wednesday.
"I'll tell you Wednesday morning," Magus answered.
"Why can't you tell me today?" Stephen asked.
"I don't want you to read those papers predisposed to extracting only certain information from them," Magus answered.
"Okay," Stephen said. He wasn't sure that he understood what Magus meant.
"If you don't understand something in those papers, don't be afraid of looking it up on the web," Magus said.
"Isn't that cheating?" His teachers always yelled when he included information from the web in one of his reports.
"Not if it is done correctly."
"Okay," Stephen said. He stood there for a moment thinking about it and then asked, "How is it done correctly?"
"If you let the stuff on the web do your thinking for you then you are doing it incorrectly," Magus answered. He looked up at Stephen with a knowing smile.
"Ah."
"Understand now?"
"I think so, sir."
"Toddle along and start reading. There are a hundred and fifty papers there," Magus said.
"Yes, sir," Stephen replied. He picked up the stack of papers surprised at how heavy it was. He figured that there were fifteen hundred pages of material there.
Holding up a finger to get Stephen's attention, Magus said, "Before you go, there is one question I would like to ask you."
"Sure."
"Are you bored?"
"No," Stephen said.
"Excellent."
Feeling like he had missed something important, Stephen carried the papers out of the office. He looked at the top page spending a couple of seconds reading the title. Talking to himself, he asked, "Who in the hell was Thales and why would Herodotus write about him? For that matter, who was Herodotus?"
Stephen was about to head into his office when three men entered the reception area. He stopped to examine them. They were all built like football players and wore dark suits, sun glasses, and shiny black shoes. Deciding that he wasn't a receptionist for Magus, he started back towards his office.
The oldest man looked at Stephen and said, "We have an appointment to see Magus."
"He's in his office," Stephen answered. The stack of papers was beginning to get heavy and all he wanted to do was set them down.
"Aren't you going to announce us?"
"Who are you?" Stephen asked.
"I'm Special Agent Matt Sanders of the FBI."
Stephen shouted, "Hey, Magus. The FBI is here to see you."
"I could have done that," Matt said rubbing his forehead with two fingers.
Magus shouted, "Send them in."
"Go in," Stephen said. Not having a spare hand, he gestured towards the door to Magus' office with his head.
Matt said, "I hate dealing with Magus. I know he moved in the middle of Bumfuck USA just to chap my ass."
"Aren't we all lucky?" Stephen said sarcastically. He went into his office and dropped the stack of papers on his desk.
After sitting down in his chair, he picked up the top paper and started reading it. After five minutes, he dropped the paper and said, "Oh my God. This is going to kill me."
Magus announced, "It is five o'clock."
"Already?" Stephen asked. He would have bet that it was closer to midnight.
"Your first day of school is officially over," Magus said with a smile.
"Oh joy," Stephen said. He got up and picked up half of the stack of papers.
"What are you doing?" Magus asked.
"I'm taking these papers home to read," Stephen answered.
"No you're not."
"Why not?" Stephen asked.
"Nothing leaves this office unless it is a solution that I've handed to someone. There is a lot of sensitive material in this place," Magus answered.
"These are papers written by or about philosophers. I don't know if you noticed, but they are all dead. I don't think there is anything particularly sensitive about them," Stephen said.
"It doesn't matter. Those papers stay here," Magus said.
"When am I supposed to read them?" Stephen asked.
"Monday morning."
"I'm not going to be able to read all of them before I have a write a paper about them," Stephen said.
Magus said, "You're here to learn. I think learning to read and understand material quickly is an important lesson."
"I guess," Stephen said.
"No guesses about it. You are surrounded by information. The only way to thrive is to learn how to process information quickly, extract the essence out of it, remember where the details are, and synthesize new information. You are building a knowledge map in the form of a huge lattice of connected concepts and relationships. Each time you learn something new, you are adding to the knowledge map. With practice you will get to the point where you are reshaping it and refining it all of the time. The larger and more complex your map is, the more problems you can solve with it," Magus said.
"Is that what I'm doing?" Stephen said. No one had ever told him anything like that at his old high school. It was always sit up straight, do your homework, and don't talk unless you are answering a question. All answers are supposed to be the ones the teacher told you to say.
"Yes it is."
"I'm doing that by reading dead philosophers?"
Magus said, "You are doing that with everything you learn."
"I guess I never thought about it like that," Stephen said.
"There are some folks that remember every little factoid. I think it is so much fun watching one of them attempt to solve a problem. All those little factoids get in the way so that they can't grasp the truth underlying the facts. They struggle with this minutia and that triviality without ever coming up with a solution," Magus said. "Abstraction — that's the key to effective problem solving."
"You need the facts," Stephen said.
"Yes you do, but you need more than that. You need knowledge and insight. That is what differentiates a violin maestro from a fiddle player," Magus said.
"Maybe," Stephen said.
"We'll discuss it more at a later time. For now, you need to head home," Magus said.
"What did the FBI want?"
Magus answered, "They wanted what everyone wants -- a solution to their problem."
"Do you have problems?" Stephen asked.
"Yes," Magus answered.
"Don't you have answers to your problems?"
Magus nodded his head. He said, "Yes, I do."
"So why do you still have problems?"
"That is the human condition."