by Melissa Good
Totally against protocol. However, Dar figured the two people involved would know who was speaking without her announcing who and where she was and, given that the apocalypse was showing on television at the moment, who really cared anyway?
There was a moment of somewhat shocked silence. Then Kerry sighed audibly. "Boy, is it ever good to hear your voice," she said, in an achingly sincere tone.
Alastair chuckled softly under his breath as Dar's face tensed into a mildly embarrassed half grin.
"Uh...okay, boss, I'm leaving," Mark responded meekly. "I don't want your pop thumping me," he said. "Or you thumping me."
Dar cleared her throat. "Good job, Kerry," she said, mindful of the global audience. "Everyone please just stay as calm as you can, and follow the plans we've laid out as best you can. This is horrific." She paused and exhaled. "This is unprecedented, and there are a lot people out there, both in the company and our clients that are going to need our help."
"Miami exec, this is Herndon." The voice almost sounded apologetic. "Excuse me, Ms. Roberts, but I have one of the folks at the Pentagon on a land line and he said part of that building just collapsed. They're going to need infrastructure support there."
What next? Dar rubbed her temples.
"Let's get some mobile units assembled," Kerry said. "Lansing, are you on?"
"Lansing here," a voice answered. "We have four vans."
"Lansing, this is Houston ops." The Houston office stepped up. "We have portable satellite units here. Miami exec, can we roll them east?"
"Going to need those in New York too, I'm afraid," Alastair murmured.
"Miami exec? This is Halifax," a crisp male voice broke in. "We have heard all the inbound international flights are going to end up diverting to Canadian airports and they're worried about the phone and data backhaul."
"Houston, go ahead and roll the units toward Virginia right now," Kerry said. "Halifax--Dar, do we have any spare capacity in that area to shift?"
Kerry could, Dar knew, have looked it up in the painfully detailed dynamic utilization chart she designed, but she knew that Kerry knew, she would know off the top of her head and, in fact, she did. "Well, I've got spare capacity right now in the Niagara node. I'm getting pretty much nothing from New York."
A small silence.
"We can land the net traffic. The phone backhaul is going to depend on how much damage the interchanges took." Dar went on. "There's a three carrier interchange that holds most of the big international circuits that sits right under 2 World Trade."
Another silence. Then Mark cleared his throat. "I guess that's why we're seeing red across the board up there."
Alastair clicked his mic on. "Ah, Houston," he said. "Let's get the community support teams rounded up and headed out. Not sure they'll let anyone near Manhattan but we can get to DC." He paused, and then added. "This is Alastair. I realize I'm probably not as instantly recognizable as some other people."
"Houston ops, we copy sir."
A loud crackle and everyone jumped. "Hello? Anyone there?" A breathless voice came through. "Oh hell. This is Danny at the Pentagon. What a mess. We need some help. I just managed to get my cell connected but they took out one whole side of the building and they're evacuating."
"Danny, do they need a trunk for backup?" Kerry asked. "I'm glad you're all right."
"Well," the tech sighed. "I've got a broken arm or something. We got lucky though. The side they plowed into was the side they just finished the renovation on and we were just pulling cable. Not many people were there."
Dar closed her eyes and rubbed the back of her neck, feeling a little relieved.
"But they say there are more planes out there so everyone's scrambling," Danny concluded. "I don't know if they're thinking about backup. I'll find out and let you know."
"Just text us, Danny," Dar broke in. "You'll probably lose cell."
A crackle, and there was no answer.
"Miami, this is New York," a new voice spoke up. "It seems we've moved the office to the Central Park Starbucks, but there are ten of us here now. We can't get cell to pick up, even for SMS. Can we get someone to log us in as okay?"
"New York, this is Miami HR--go head," Mariana answered. "Glad to hear from you."
Alastair clicked off his mic. "What the hell's going to happen next? This is nuts!"
Dar merely nodded, and then shook her head.
KERRY SUCKED SLOWLY at a cup of tea, her throat already a touch sore from talking. There seemed to be a slight lull for the moment, or else everyone was just a little shell-shocked and holding their breaths that nothing else bad happened.
She was resisting the urge to ask Dar to explain something esoteric, like node density, just to hear her voice.
"Ker?"
Kerry looked up over the edge of her laptop screen at her sister. "Hey."
Angie took a seat in one of the leather chairs on the other side of the desk and leaned forward. "What are you doing?"
"My job," Kerry said. "We're on a--I guess you could call it a big conference call, sort of," she explained. "But it's on the computer. We can all talk, and text message each other, and we try to make sure everyone knows what's going on."
Angie got up and came around the desk. "Is it okay for me to watch?" she asked. "I can't look at that television anymore."
"Where's' Mike?" Kerry eased over. "You can watch, sure."
"Getting some food. I think he's getting some for us too." Angie settled down next to her sister and peered at the screen. "Wow. That's a lot of stuff."
"It's what we call our Global Desktop." Kerry found herself glad to be just talking about something that wasn't a catastrophe. "That's a chat room in the back. Those are people all around just talking to each other over the computer."
"Uh huh."
"These folders are all the offices we have, and those dots are the people in them." Kerry indicated the other side of the screen. "These three over here are for our New York and Washington staff, and the people at the Pentagon."
Angie peered at her. "People at the Pentagon?" she asked, in a puzzled tone. "Why do you have people there? Is your company part of the military?"
Kerry heard people starting to talk again on the conference bridge. She keyed the external speakers so Angie could hear also. "The Pentagon is really just a humongous office building," she said. "We do their IT. Just like we do the IT for lots of other companies. We have about two hundred people there."
"Wow."
"Yeah." Kerry rested her head on her hand. "We can only find about half of them."
"Oh."
"Miami exec, Houston ops." A new voice came on. "This is Harold. I'm taking over for this shift."
"Go ahead, Houston. This is Miami exec," Kerry answered. She leaned back and tried to ease the stiffness in her back.
"Ma'am, the satellite trucks are ready to roll," Harold said. "We dug up enough gear for six."
"Good work," Kerry said. "Get them on the road, and please send at least three people in each one so they can spell each other driving and get rest."
"Yes, ma'am," Harold said. "We've got a lot of volunteers. Everyone wants to help."
"Miami exec? This is Danny in Virginia."
"Go on Danny. How's your arm?" Kerry responded.
"Um--it's okay," the tech said. "We just heard here that another plane is heading toward us." He added. "Two of the guys who were off got through all the barricades and we're going to get away from here for a little while. I think I could use a coke."
"This is New York!" Sherren broke in. "We just heard a bomb went off at the White House!"
"Maybe that's where the plane hit!"
Kerry drew in a breath, and then released it. She turned her mic off. "I just had the most unchristian thought of my entire life." Then she clicked the mic back on. "This is Miami exec, let's try to take in what facts we can, and not react to what we're hearing on television or rumors until there's some substantiation, please. "
"Miami ops h
ere," Mark said. "From home," he added hastily. "I'm going to start cataloging the down circuits."
"Miami ops, this is the air hub," an unhappy voice interrupted. "Another plane just went down, but they're not sure where. "
"Pentagon here," Danny said. "At least it wasn't us again."
"New York here. Us either." Sherren sounded profoundly relieved. "I have a great view of the Empire State Building from here and that's where everyone said it was headed."
Kerry exhaled. "This is Miami Exec--everyone check and advise if there is any indication of an attack in your areas," she said. "Air hub, do they think there's more?"
"Air hub, Miami exec--they have no idea," the voice answered. "There are a lot of people in tears around here. They just evacuated LAX."
"LAX?"
"Miami Exec, Air Hub, this is LA Earth Station," a voice answered immediately. "Local news is saying they're not evacuating LAX, but they are evacuating a lot of buildings in downtown and the studios."
"LA Earth, this is Seattle Netops," a new voice said. "We heard they were going to close down LAX and SFO also, they think that's where the planes that hit the towers were going."
"Seattle, this is Herndon control--that's confirmed," a woman responded. "American Flight 11, America flight 77, United flight 175. Those are confirmed so far as the planes that hit."
"LA Earth station, Miami exec," Kerry broke in. "Do you have transponder space for 24 channels? I have Newark Earth station on text, they're getting overloaded."
"Miami exec, we'll check. Hold on one please."
"Wow," Angie whispered. "This is unbelievable."
"What is?" Distracted, Kerry whispered back.
"You know more than CNN does," her sister said. "I've heard more about what's going on in the last five minutes than I've heard all day on the television."
"Well, I wish I didn't," Kerry replied, turning her mic off. "The only reason we know as much as we do is because we're in the middle of it. We have a lot of government contracts. I know you remember our father complaining about that."
Angie blinked. "Oh," she said. "Wow. Was that what he meant?"
"Miami exec, this is LA Earth, we're good to take 24 channels," the LA satellite center responded. "Tell Newark to switch to our coordinates."
Kerry turned her mic on. "La Earth Station, thanks." She typed into the text box open on her desktop.
"Miami exec, Miami HR," Mariana said. "Miami office confirmed closed. The management company has locked the doors and verified that the generator is tested and ready to go."
"Thank you, Miami HR," Kerry said. "Houston ops, Miami exec. Do you see everything stable at the moment?"
"Miami exec, Houston ops. Standby we're verifying."
"Macro level looks stable," Dar's voice broke in, deep and rich and reassuring all out of proportion to what she was saying. "The autonomic programming expanded bandwidth across the northeast and it's doing a decent job of handling the backhaul, but I can see retransmits at a very high rate from the cell services."
Kerry smiled. "Thanks boss."
"You're welcome, Kerrison."
Kerry felt like melting, just a little, at the warm affection so evident in Dar's voice. She knew the rest of the company could probably hear it too but heck, if they didn't know by now about them the hell with it. She caught a small box blinking at the corner of her screen, and she clicked on it.
I am so damned proud of you.
"Aw," Angie said. "She's so sweet, Ker."
"I'm sure she wouldn't agree with you." Kerry typed in a response. Boy do I wish you didn't have to be right now. But thanks, honey. I'm doing the best I can.
"Oh!" Sherren's voice cut in. "Oh! Oh, there it goes! Oh! Oh my god! The North tower's falling! Oh! Oh no!"
Kerry and Angie looked up at the television, and stared as the screen showed a shaking picture of the second big tower collapsing into itself, the stories just dropping down and down and down as smoke and dust went up and up and up, outlined by people running toward the camera as fast as they could being chased by a roiling, thundering cloud.
"Miami Exec, this is the Air Hub," the Air Hub called out. "We've got a confirmation that the fourth plane is down, but it's in Pennsylvania."
"This is Danny at the Pentagon. We're still here. Now we heard a bomb went off at the state department and some helicopters just took off fast from the yard here," Danny said. "I can hear fighter planes going overhead."
"Miami, this is Seattle Netops." Another voice. "Vancouver hub's asking for more bandwidth. They're taking the Pacific overseas flights."
"Miami exec, Miami ops, Newark Earth Station just went down," Mark said. "We just lost the international telecom links in the Northeast. Only the Miami ones are up."
"Confirmed," Dar's voice said. "Everything from New York is down. I'm shifting the overseas banking through Miami."
"This is Herndon, Miami exec. We just got word another plane is inbound to Washington."
"Herndon, this is the Air Hub--we heard the same thing."
Kerry looked up again as Mike entered, carrying a big tray. "How much more of this can we take?" she asked. "Jesus."
He walked over and set it down, looking over his shoulder at the television showing the collapse of the North Tower over and over and over again. "This just sucks."
"This is New York," Sherren said. "People are screaming all over Central Park," she reported. "Just screaming. Screaming. Crying."
"Miami exec, this is Mid Atlantic Operations," a new, female voice interrupted. "We've gotten word they're evacuating all of Washington DC."
"New York too!" Sherren said. "They've got the bridges and tunnels closed south. Everyone's trying to get out north. You can't move. You can't move. Everyone's crying. Oh my god."
Kerry took in a deep breath, and then released it. "Seattle, give Vancouver what they need," she said, quietly. "Mid Atlantic, are you in a position to shift control to Lansing? Lansing, can you take that?"
"Miami exec, this is Lansing, we're working it," the local to her center said. "We've got a lot on our plates."
"Miami exec, this is Charlotte, we can take it," the southern center replied. "Mid Atlantic, give us five minutes and we'll be set up."
A soft knock made Kerry and Angie look up at the door to find their mother there, peering back at them.
"Children," Cynthia Stuart said. "I don't want you to be alarmed, but some very serious things have happened. Everything is under control, and I don't want you to worry, but you should plan to stay here for a few days while everything gets sorted out."
Angie looked at her mother, then at Kerry, then at the screen in front of them. She looked back at her mother, and then she looked at Kerry.
Kerry merely shook her head, and went back to the screen. "Thank you, Charlotte. Herndon--have you heard any more about that last plane? Is it confirmed in Pennsylvania? Miami ops is seeing a trunk down in the west there, but we don't want to assume."
Cynthia took a step into the room. "Whom is she talking to?" she asked Angie.
"The rest of the planet," Angie said. "Do you think you could ask the kitchen to make some fresh coffee? I think Kerry's going to need it."
Chapter Nine
"DAR, DID YOU say all the transatlantic phone lines were down?" Alastair pulled his seat a little closer to Dar.
"Alastair, don't talk to me for a minute," Dar said. "I'm rerouting traffic and you don't want me sending financial data streams to Tibet."
"Oh. Well, no, I sure don't."
Dar kept her eyes on the screen and her fingers on her keyboard, going through the somewhat delicate task of rerouting traffic across alternate paths they were never intended to travel. At stake were a lot of American tourists in Europe who needed to get to their ATM accounts, or use their credit cards.
Including herself and Alastair, of course.
There were four links across the Atlantic from New York, from four different providers, going to four different head ends in Europe. Absolutely rock
solid redundancy unless you happened to lose the major landing point offices for all four providers on the same day.
What were the odds of that? Well. Dar exhaled, blinking a little as she peered at the screen. It was too bad she hadn't taken a bet on those odds, wasn't it? Probably could have paid off ILS's outstanding debt with the winnings.
She finished typing and reviewed the results, switching over to her network monitor to watch the lines out of Miami branching to South America, across to the Bahamas, and out to Africa. The traffic would have to take a back route across Africa to Europe, and the access would be hundreds of milliseconds slower.
A thousand milliseconds was a second though, and the end result would be an extra tap of someone's fingernails on the top of an ATM before it barfed out the local currency.
"Damn," Dar sighed. "The world's getting smaller every damn day."
"What's that, Dar?" Alastair turned around in his chair. "Can I talk to you now?"
Dar sat back and let her hands rest on her thighs. "I'm done," she said. "For now anyway, until the next damn thing happens." She flexed her fingers a little, reviewing in her head the details she knew she had to send over to the operations group soon.
Twenty changes that, in normal times, would have gone through four levels of approval, been scheduled weeks in advance with carefully coordinated validation from the individual banks and networks involved. No one except for Dar would have even considered doing it on the fly, but that was her role in this type of situation.
Anyone could have made the changes, one by one. Only Dar had the comprehensive understanding of the intricate spider web that was their network to do it without documentation, trusting her instincts and getting the moves done at the speed at which events were actually transpiring.
Had she not been there, or had net access, it still would have happened. Dar wasn't nearly so arrogant as to write a single point of failure into either her network design or their corporate processes. No one was indispensable.
Sir Melthon entered. He crossed over to Dar's borrowed desk and stuck his hands in his pockets. "My people are telling me it's no good trying to call over to the States. We've got resources in New York we can't contact, and it's a bit worrisome."