by A. American
The gate at the bottom of the ramp was already going up as he descended. By the time he got to it, there was enough room for him to pull through. It immediately began to lower as soon as he cleared it. A short, chunky man in a gray work shirt and charcoal-colored pants was standing in an open door waving at him. Daniel looked around at the massive machinery inhabiting the cavernous space under the building. Most people that work in office buildings have no idea of the myriad of systems required to support it. They go through their day completely oblivious to them until a door won’t open or the air in their office is too cold, hot or in between.
Daniel got out of the van, slung his pack over his shoulder and headed for the open door. Getting close enough to the man in the door to see him, Daniel read the name tag sewn to the breast of his shirt, Eugene. In the pocket on the other side protruded an amazing array of items, pens, pencils, screwdrivers and even a little thermometer.
“You Daniel?” The man asked in a nasally voice.
“Yep, that’s me.”
“Let’s go up and see Bob before you head off to do whatever it is you’re here to do.”
Daniel followed Eugene into an enormous elevator.
“Not like the ones you’re used to, huh?” Eugene asked. Before the doors closed, he pressed the button for fifteen.
Daniel looked around as the two big doors came together. From the diamond plate on the floor to what looked like moving blankets hanging on the walls, it certainly was not. “No, the ones in the lobby don’t look anything like this” he said as the car started to lift.
“Guess not. Gopher farm folks wouldn’t really like having to ride to work in one of these.” Eugene replied.
Daniel watched him as he spoke, noticing he couldn’t see the man’s mouth that was hidden behind an enormous mustache, just the bristles moving as he spoke. He had to pretend to look around the car as the image of Wilfred Brimley came to mind. They could be brothers. Nothing more was said on the ride up. The car stopped, the doors opened and Daniel followed Eugene out into a nondescript hallway.
Unlike the parts of the building Daniel was familiar with, no pictures adorned the walls, no artwork occupied the corners, and there were no tables with flower arrangements. At the end of the hall was a single door. Eugene pulled his prox card down. It was attached to a small retractable reel clipped to the already overburdened pocket. As he waved it at the reader, a beep was followed by a green light, and the door clicked open. As Daniel passed the reader, he raised his right hip. He kept his card clipped there where it was tall enough to hit the readers. Instead of the chirpy beep, he got a lower grating sound and a red light, he didn’t have permission to enter the door.
They entered a large dark room. To their right was a big console with the wall above it covered with flat-screen monitors. Each of the screens was subdivided into a grid with a different camera view in each one, sixteen views per monitor. A large monitor in the center of the wall had a 3D image of the building on one side and a floor plan of one of the floors to the right of it. Two operators sat at the console watching the screens. They didn’t even look up as Eugene and Daniel entered.
Eugene continued through the room towards a glass-enclosed office, and Daniel followed him.
“Help yourself to the pot, Gene. It’s fresh,” The man sitting behind the desk said without looking away from the monitor on his desk. “You want some coffee, Daniel?”
“Thanks, Bob,” Gene replied as he lifted the carafe from the heater.
Inside, Daniel let out a little sigh of relief, not having to rely on his few encounters with Bob to ensure it was him. “No, thanks, I’m good. What’cha need?”
Bob looked up from the monitor. “I just wanted to meet you. I know we’ve met a few times, but it’s been awhile and we will probably be working together.”
Daniel cocked his head to the side. “Working on what?”
“You’ve seen what’s going on outside and it’s only getting worse. You’ve got to get busy on the network stuff; and that’s a real problem, by the way. And I have to protect this building. We’ve been lucky up to this point, but the riots are getting closer and larger, more violent. If they kick off around here, I’ll need everyone’s help.”
“Yeah, sure.” Daniel replied. Then the phone on Bob’s desk rang.
Bob pressed the speaker button on the phone. “Yello.”
“Robert, this is Malcolm. Has Daniel arrived yet? I thought he would be here by now.”
“Yes, Malcolm. He’s here in my office. We were just having a little talk. I’ll send him down to you.”
“Thank you. Tell him to hurry. There’s no time to waste.”
“You just told him yourself. Goodbye, Malcolm.” Bob pressed the button again, ending the call, not waiting for Malcolm to respond. He looked up at Daniel. “What’s up his ass? Is he always so wound up?”
Not sure what to say, whether it was a set up or not, he simply replied. “Yeah, he’s a little intense.”
Bob was busy typing away at his keyboard. Daniel just stood there for a moment, looking around. Gene was sitting in a chair in the corner soaking his whiskers in the edge of a coffee cup while he blew on the hot brew.
“I guess I’ll head down. Good to see you again, Bob. Or do you like to be called Robert?”
Bob looked up. “My mother was the only person that called me Robert, and that only happened prior to a grade-ass whoopin from my ole man. No, do not call me Robert.” Bob looked back at his monitor, then back to Daniel. “I just gave you access to the entire building. Your card will open every door on the campus. I also just added Gene’s contact info to your contacts so you can reach him if you need to.”
Daniel pulled his phone from his pocket. “How’d you get access to my contacts?”
Bob smiled. “It’s my job to know about the people that work here. Don’t worry. All I did was add Gene. If you need anything, you can call either of us. Oh yeah, I added mine too.”
“Just do me one favor” Gene said from behind Daniel, who turned to look at him. “jus’ don’t need anything.” Gene’s face broke into what Daniel could only imagine was a smile as the ends of the whiskers turned up slightly.
“Don’t worry about him, Daniel. Gene’s not exactly a people person. He’s more at home with the boilers than people.”
“I understand boilers,” Gene said.
Daniel said his goodbyes and left Bob’s office. He looked at the wall of monitors as he passed them and was soon in the hall again. After shutting the door, he paused there for a moment. This all seemed a little weird. Without much more thought, he headed for the elevator. The doors slid open and he stepped into the big metal box.
Daniel found Malcolm in his office. He was sitting at his desk with his chin resting in his hands staring at his monitor. When Daniel came in, Malcolm didn’t even look up. “I’m fucked,” he said and shook his head. “We are so fucked.”
The language caught Daniel off guard. He’d never before heard Malcolm swear; so to hear an F-bomb, two, no less, was a shock.
“It can’t be that bad.”
“Oh yeah?” Malcolm swiveled his monitor around to where Daniel could see it. The screen displayed numerous rows of numbers, big numbers; and they were counting down.
It took a moment for what he was seeing to register, Daniel stood there watching as the numbers rolled down. These were huge numbers, but they were not infinite. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Yep. I’ve tried everything and I can’t stop it. We’ve already lost billions.”
“I can stop it!” Daniel shouted as he bolted from the office.
He ran down the hall to the largest of the server rooms in the building. Slamming his hip into the card reader at the door, he rushed in. He headed for the rack that contained the switches that were the portal to the o
utside world. It took several minutes to disconnect all the fiber from the switches. Networks of this size are not like the ones at a typical home. It isn’t just one line. There are lines that connect to the internet and others that connect to a myriad of banking networks.
When everything was disconnected, Daniel wiped the sweat from his brow. Even though the room was maintained at 68 degrees, he was sweating profusely. The room was loud on a normal day. From the fans on the servers, to the wall-mounted AC units that kept the room cool, there was a lot of noise. It was even louder now that all the servers were sounding their various alarms about loss of network connectivity. When he returned to Malcolm’s office, he found him still sitting behind his desk; though now he looked even worse than he had previously.
“What the hell did you do?” Malcolm asked, obviously confused.
“I pulled all the fiber from the switches. The network’s isolated now.”
“You did what!”
Daniel reached over and spun the monitor around. The figures on the screen had stopped, and a curser blinking in the corner was the only thing active on the screen.
“Looks like it worked to me.” Daniel spat back. “What the hell else were we gonna do?”
Malcolm jumped from his chair. “We can’t take the bank off the network. You know what kind of shit storm this is going to cause? The SEC will crucify us!”
“Losing everything the bank has to some unknown hacker would be just as bad. Have you let anyone know about this yet?”
Malcolm slowly fell back into his chair, the fear that gripped him obvious on his face. “No.” Looking at the phone sitting on his desk, he appeared to become physically ill. Taking a deep breath, he said. “I guess I need to.”
“Yeah, I think so. I’m going to call Bob. He needs to know what’s going on.”
Daniel left Malcolm’s office, heading for his cubicle where he flopped into his chair. He sat there for a moment then palmed the receiver from the phone and dialed Bob’s extension.
“Yes.” Was Bob’s terse answer.
“Bob, do you know what’s going here?”
“Not entirely, just that you guys had some trouble on the network. What’s up?”
“Someone breached the network, and billions of dollars were siphoned off before I stopped it. At least, I think I stopped it.”
There was a long pause before Bob replied. “Come up to my office.”
“Sure.” Daniel hung up the phone and headed for the elevator.
He was standing there waiting on the car when he remembered the little hallway that led to Bob’s office. There was no other elevator, just the freight car. The ding indicating the arrival of the car sounded and the doors opened as Daniel turned to step in.
A sly smile cut Daniel’s lips as he lifted his hip at the reader outside Bob’s office. In the corporate culture he was a part of, something as trivial as having access to a door that others didn’t was something to be coveted. Now, according to Bob, he had access to the entire building. Inside, the two men were still sitting before their monitors. Daniel glanced over at the wall of videos and stopped in his tracks. The view from the hundreds of cameras routed to this office showed a truly disturbing scene.
“So, what’s going on?” Bob asked over Daniel’s shoulder.
The question startled him and Daniel spun around. “What the hell’s going on out there?” Daniel asked pointing to the bank of monitors.
“Looks like more of the same.”
“Yeah, but it has spread around the metro, and increased exponentially around Tower Place here. What the hell’s going on?”
Bob walked over to the console and manipulated a small joystick. A video feed that filled one entire monitor began to move. The image swung then zoomed in to a line of police. Daniel stepped toward the monitor. “Holly shit, those aren’t riot cops. They’ve got shotguns.”
“They probably have less-than-lethal rounds in them. Let’s see what happens.” Bob replied.
The crowd opposite the police was taunting them, throwing bottles, bricks and anything else they could find. The police used shields to block the missiles, maintaining their line. Though the observers in the bank couldn’t hear it, they could see an officer using a loudspeaker, giving orders to the crowd. The crowd responded with more bottles. Then, from somewhere deep in the crowd, came a Molotov cocktail. On the video feed, Bob and Daniel watched as the flaming bottle arched towards the line of officers. Landing in front of them, a ball of flames erupted, followed by a large cloud of smoke.
The smoke obscured the crowd for a moment, but not the officers. They immediately replied with a volley of tear gas and mini beanbags fired from shotguns into the crowd. The crowd started to run, pushing and shoving to try and get away. Some people fell and were trampled by others trying to vacate the area as fast as possible.
“Oh, they’re gonna be pissed now,” Bob said, watching the crowd as it began to break up.
“Not nearly as mad they’ll be tomorrow.” Daniel replied.
Bob glanced over at him. “Why’s that?”
“Do you know that we handle EBT card transactions?”
“Nope, but what’s that got to do with this?” Bob asked, pointing at the monitor.
“I had to pull our network down. Right now there are millions of credit, debit and yes, EBT cards that don’t work.”
“That was how you stopped the problem with the network? Are you nuts? You know what kind of shit that’s going to start. Look at what’s already happening.”
Daniel looked at the monitors for a moment. Shaking his head, he asked. “What is going on?”
“Ah. Now that’s the question, isn’t it?” Bob replied. “What’s got all these people so stirred up? You notice how all of these riots seemed to start at the same time all over the country?”
Daniel shrugged. “Yeah, but there’s a lot for people to be mad about. The election got a lot of them pissed off. Then the whole gun thing; that was bound to cause trouble.”
Bob pointed at the monitors. “Look at those people. Do they look like the kind of people that are pissed the government’s taking their guns?”
Daniel looked at the faces on the monitors. It was a diverse crowd. Men, women, black, white, old and young. “Looks like a little bit of everyone, really.”
Bob manipulated the joystick, bringing a group of people into focus. “How about them?”
It was a group of young men, at least that’s what they looked like. They all had their face covered with a bandana, except for two of them who were wearing the V mask. Daniel pointed at the screen. “I saw two people like that on my way in here.”
Bob nodded. “Those, my friend, are professional agitators.”
“Huh?” Daniel asked, confused.
“Look at them. Backpacks, that one has on elbow pads,” Bob said, pointing at the screen. “And that one has a gas mask around his neck.”
Daniel said, “That doesn’t really mean much. You can get that stuff anywhere.”
“Except that mask costs about three hundred fifty dollars.” Bob looked at Daniel. “Not exactly the kind of thing you can find in the hood.”
“So, who sent them here then?” Daniel asked.
Bob shrugged. “Don’t know. You tell me.”
“I’ll give you a hint. It’s the government,” One of the guys manning the security monitors said.
Daniel looked down at the man who was still watching the cameras. “Why the hell would they do that?”
Bob rubbed his chin. “Do you remember what happened in Ukraine at Maidan?”
Daniel scratched his head. “Yeah. The people gathered there to protest the government or something.”
“They were protesting the government’s decision to side with the EU and not Russia.”
“Oh, yeah. Then the protestors, the ones that wanted to side with Russia, started to get violent.”
Bob waved a finger at Daniel. “That’s what you were told.” Pointing to the group of men on the monitor, Bob continued. “What really happened was the government sent in guys like these to start the trouble. The separatists, as they’re now called, simply wanted the freedom to choose. But the Ukrainian government wasn’t having that.”
“What the hell does that have to do with us? With this?” Daniel asked, pointing at the monitors.
“The point is that governments, even ours, will do whatever it takes to get what they want. If that means killing a few cops, so be it,” Bob said.
Daniel was shocked. “You think our government is behind this? You think they would sacrifice innocent people like that?”
“I know they would. Now, I’m not saying this is all their doing. But those guys you see outside are on some alphabet-soup agency payroll. I guarantee it.”
Shaking his head, Daniel said, “I call BS.”
Bob turned and headed for his office. “Guess we’ll have to wait and see who is right. Let me get a cup of coffee and I’ll show you where you can crash for the night.”
Daniel followed Bob into his office. It was the picture of clutter and disorganization. The desk top was completely obscured by stacks of paper, unrecognizable pieces of dissected electronics and more Styrofoam coffee cups than should be acceptable. A large safe sat against one wall beside a well-worn couch. To Daniel, it reminded him of a dorm room.
Looking around, Daniel asked, “Damn. You live in here?”
Pouring a cup of coffee from a stained pot, Bob shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“Why do we have a place to sleep here?”
Placing the pot back onto the crusty burner, Bob smiled and said. “Follow me.” As he headed towards the elevator, he talked. “When this place was built, a small area was set aside as a shelter. We have the occasional winter storms and other things that can cause people to get stuck here. It was actually a good idea.”