The Weakest Link

by Anthony Ivins

video of the office instead. He would study the footage in detail when he got back to his apartment.

  “Michael?”

  Jack almost forget his ‘name’ and whirled around when he realized the person was talking to him. A woman with blonde frizzly hair, a bright red dress and matching red stiletto heels was standing with her hand held out.

  “Yes,” replied Michael, shaking her hand. Of course, Jack already knew that. He had done some research on her, looking at her Facebook, Twitter and Instagram profiles. He knew more about her than most of her friends. He kept a blank look on his face, trying not to give away that he recognised her.

  “I’m Angela.”

  “Oh, Hi Angela, it’s nice to finally meet you.”

  “Yes, you too Michael. Why don’t you come this way?”

  Jack stood up.

  “You can bring your coffee with you.” said Angela.

  “Thanks,” replied Jack as he picked up the cup of coffee. “This is really good coffee.”

  “That is one thing we pride ourselves on. You won’t get a better cup of coffee anywhere else, not even Starbucks.”

  Jack followed Angela as they walked through a large glass door that had to be opened with the security tag strapped to Angela’s waist. They continued down a long passage containing security cameras that focused on them. Jack was in full observation mode, making mental notes of everything he came across.

  Angela led him through another glass door and into a large open plan office. Jack looked around. This must be where the developers sit.

  “Please have a seat here Michael while I go and fetch William. He is in the next block so I will only be a few minutes.”

  “No problem.” replied Jack with a half-smile.

  Jack sat down on the chair and looked around him. Where is Morgan? He scanned the desks, looking for Morgan. He had to be quick. Angela would only be away a few minutes. Jack stood up, hoping to get a better view of the offices. Suddenly a side door opened and in walked a man. It was Morgan. Jack watched him walk to a desk. It was now or never.

  Jack tilted the cup of coffee, spilling half of it over his resume. He stood up and cursed, shaking his hands and holding out his resume, coffee dripping off the pages.

  “Dammit!” he shouted, just loud enough to get Morgan’s attention.

  A few heads had popped up from their desks to see what the commotion was about. Morgan stood up from his desk and walked over to Jack. This is exactly what Jack had planned. He knew that people of Chinese origin were, by nature, caring and would more often than not be the first to help anyone in need.

  “Are you alright?” asked Morgan as walked up to Jack.

  “My resume, it’s ruined. I have an interview now with Angela and William and my resume has coffee all over it,” replied Jack, putting on his most despairing voice, bordering on tears.

  “Is there anything I can do?” asked Morgan.

  Jack paused for a second and then reached inside his pocket and pulled out a memory stick.

  “I have another copy of my resume on this stick. Could you print one for me? Please, I really need this job.”

  Morgan paused for a brief second and then took the memory stick. “I’ll be right back.”

  As Morgan was walking away Jack called to him, “Thank you. You’re a life saver!”

  Morgan plugged the memory stick into his computer, opened his file explorer and looked at the contents of the memory stick. He only saw a document called Resume that he opened and printed. As the print job finished Morgan pulled the memory stick out of the computer and collected the resume from the printer tray.

  Morgan handed Jack the freshly printed resume. Jack was grinning from ear to ear.

  “Man, you saved my life, thank you.”

  “No problem. Good luck with the interview.” Morgan turned around and walked back to his desk. He always enjoyed doing a good deed but deep down inside, something didn’t feel right. He shrugged it off and sat down at his computer, shaking his mouse and bashing the keyboard. The damn thing was frozen.

  Jack opened the door to his apartment and threw his bag on the sofa, flopping down next to it and heaving a huge sigh of relief. He was back in one piece, mission accomplished! He had failed the interview deliberately, answering questions incorrectly and asking some stupid ones. The last thing he wanted was for them to contact any of his fake references. He chuckled to himself when he thought of them phoning his college professor but getting through to Chuck E Cheese. Angela couldn’t believe it, she was so sure he was perfect for the job. At least I have three other good candidates, she had thought to herself.

  The special software that Jack had embedded in the memory stick was a key logger. This software captured everything that was typed into the keyboard and then uploaded this information to his server every hour. When Morgan plugged in the memory stick on his computer the software had installed itself silently, easily bypassing his anti-virus.

  Jack went to the kitchen and dished out some cat tuna - he had learnt his lesson and didn’t wait for Scuzzy to give him any urgent reminders. He then made his way to his desk and logged onto his server where he saw, to his delight, information being uploaded from Morgan’s computer. It would be a day or two before Jack would have enough information to go through it all, looking for the source code. If somebody was willing to pay a million dollars that for software, it must really be something special.

  Scuzzy had discovered his food and was devouring the tuna, making grotesque noises as he gobbled greedily. He dragged his bowl around the counter, trying to lick up all the food from the bottom. The noise was irritating Jack and he grabbed the bowl away from Scuzzy, firing off a glare at him in the process. Scuzzy stared back at him, the question in his eyes What’s wrong with you? Jack’s heart melted. How could he be upset with this bundle of fluff.

  “Sorry Scuzzy,” he said and tickled his back, making amends for his outburst.

  Jack went back to his phone and plugged it into his computer, transferring the video he taken earlier that day of the Tesla offices. He opened the video in slow motion and, with a notepad and pen in hand, started watching vigilantly. If he noticed anything, he would jot down the time and then go back later and look at the footage in detail.

  He had made twelve notes by the time the video finished. One scene showing several cleaners at work stuck out in particular. They each had a bucket and mop and were cleaning the floor. They were wearing standard brown overalls with the badge embroidered on the front pocket. Jack zoomed in on one of them and noticed a badge on the uniform that read Unique Cleaning Services. They also had ID tags that were attached to the left-hand pocket. Jack managed to zoom in on the ID tag which had a name, employee ID, a picture of the employee and then a signature. Jack wondered whose signature it was.

  Jack was meticulous and made notes of everything he did on each job. He kept all this information neatly catalogued, for future reference. Once he had updated his notes with this latest piece of information, he logged onto his server and started going through the data from the key logger installed on Morgan’s computer.

  Of lesser interest, was an email to his girlfriend about what he wanted for dinner and a search on the internet for a hotel in Vegas. Jack started going through the work-related emails, scanning each one for certain keywords that would be of interest to him because they might lead to the location of the source code. Most of these emails were technical in nature and even Jack didn’t understand some of the jargon used.

  Jack paused when he came across a word that stood out: Freedom. Where had he heard this word before? It was fresh in his mind. He wracked his brain, trying to remember its significance before it hit him like a thunderbolt - Freedom was the codename used by the Tesla spokesman! Jack carried on reading the email. Morgan had found a bug in the software and was reporting it to the Senior Developer. He detailed the potential problems that could arise from the bug and what the solution should be.

  Morgan ended off the email by saying t
hey should copy the fix onto the sandbox server once they had finished and he would be happy to test it. Jack was right, they did keep a copy of the source code on a development server. He just needed to find the location and the name of the server and he would have the information he needed. A smile crept across his face. This was easier than he thought; the easiest million bucks he had ever made.

  Now to find out where this server is, Jack thought to himself. He had to come up with a plan. He opened Linked In and began going through all the Tesla employees again, looking at them from a different angle. He scanned the job titles, settling on the Service Delivery Manager, Peter Buchanan. If there was one person who knew every system in a company, it would be the person in charge of IT support. Jack looked at his profile. He had been with the company since it was formed in 2003. Peter had started as a desktop technician before being promoted to a server engineer and then, a few years later, moving across to service support.

  Jack looked at all the Linked Groups that Peter belonged to. There were the usual suspects: IT professional groups, IT security groups and some general information groups. Jack looked through each of them to see how actively Peter participated. For most of them he was a spectator and didn’t get involved in any of the forums. However, for one group in particular, Peter was very active and answered a lot questions. He seemed knowledgeable and had a good reputation