“Or anything, want a mammoth as a pet?” Albert looked at him, “it's their stated mission, to repopulate Siberia with Woolly mammoths that died off with the last Ice age, ten thousand years ago. It's a thing in Russia.” Their government investigator shrugged his shoulders, to which they all agreed.
“Smoke screen?” Jabo got a nod from Albert, who appreciated how fast this very successful fighter picked up on the essentials, then applied them. Jabo had grabbed the torch. It was only a matter of time...
“Did you get any confirmation that Missange even worked in San Marcos?” Cathy kept acting as a referee for the two men who spoke so heatedly it felt like a pissing match. They were both used to being the Alpha male in their worlds.
“No, which means we need to go deeper than I've been able to get, put a worm inside their network, something,” Albert looked to Cathy who nodded while Jabo paced, used to his own tech guys babbling on about this or that program on their wondrous computers. At some point they'd need to point him at a human or a real world target. He wanted it to come soon, like tonight.
“Can we use the Internet to get inside their server farm? You said they built their facility in San Marcos to bring it 'inside', so they wouldn't have to depend on anyone for their computer networking and storage. It's the most secure method for keeping data secret and impossible to copy.” Cathy was showing her worth, as a technical adviser, something Jabo had no interest in learning or mastering. There was enough on his plate.
“No can do, unless you want to spend weeks developing a way to get past their physical security. There are five levels of entry, all different, all run by different systems before you get to the actual computers, stored in racks. It's been tried before. Similar data centers house banking systems, we're talking billions of dollars in accounts and transfers, flying around on high speed cables. It's like Fort Knox in most of these places. Forget it.” Albert sighed, wishing they'd suggested something useful, a look from Jabo showed he felt the same thing.
“Are they using the Rosario area facility?” Cathy asked.
Albert tapped at his laptop then turned it to show her a google map, blown up to display the warehouse sized building. Jabo had expected a hardened facility, surrounded by razor wire and roving patrols, mimicking the nuclear bomb depositories on Air Force bases, guarded by very alert, heavily armed teams, 24/7, backed up by alert units all the way up to battalions of armored infantry on call. Ground level 'street view' showed a concrete warehouse, no different from the other ones around it, except it was painted sky blue. Albert checked the location, seeing a small label pop up that said 'LazaRuss Labs, Rosario Business Park, San Marcos Texas'. How did she know that?
“I can get us in, well I can go in, get us someplace near their cage at least, is that close enough?” She looked at both of them, “we built it, that's our best equipment inside, the racks and power, air conditioning, building control systems, security doors, sensors, all Batemen stuff.” She smiled, happy she could contribute, ready to go in.
“No,” Jabo said, seeing her dead would devastate him, or if she got hurt, losing a limb, torn up after a fire fight – it would be impossible to handle emotionally. Anyone else was expendable, including him and Albert who was looking at him, wondering why Jabo was killing their only chance to sneak in and plant something inside the LazaRuss server farm network. That nixed any plan that included his loving, gorgeous wife – the future mother of his three sons. No way Jose'.
They fought back and forth. Cathy was the magic key that would open their tight security. She had to come along, at least in the first few minutes, walking Jabo past the first two levels of security – the front door inspection then getting a visitor badge to the right area. Over his strident objections, that was the plan they finally agreed to do – reached with grumbling agreement three very long, tedious hours later.
Cathy made some calls to set up a training class for her low tech husband. She found a technician who wouldn't ask any questions, an experienced trainer who'd taught a variety of people from all over the world to service their equipment. They didn't have any time to waste. Cathy drove him to their corporate offices three miles away where he hooked up with the short, studious trainer. Cathy waved him goodbye, sentenced to the worst kind of hell Jabo could imagine. The quiet, confident man taught him jargon, while pointing out the various components on the front of the standard computer server panels Jabo would be working on.
“I doubt they'll let you inside their cage,” then saw Jabo's eyes glaze again. All this random sounding tech talk was making him dizzy. He could name every piece of a fifty caliber machine gun, field strip it and assemble it blind-folded, along with nearly a hundred other combat weapons from all over the world, but this, a 'scuzzy' port? Did it look unwashed or frayed?
“Right, I think I understand what I have to do, can we practice?” he looked at his watch. Cathy was still negotiating with the company that ran the Rosario facility, their main target, exclusively built to house the LazaRuss server farm. The technician showed him the miniature USB stick, with its squared off shiny end that slipped into a corresponding rectangular slot. The smooth plastic on the end contained the electronics, basically a memory chip that would automatically load and execute its program. All Jabo had to do was find the USB slot and insert the memory stick.
It was absurdly simple compared to shooting at someone who was shooting back at you. His task was to push the plastic USB stick in, count to ten, and pull it out, taking care to hide what he was doing. If they caught him or suspected he'd slipped in a special program they could find and erase it, blowing the entire operation. They needed thirty minutes for it to embed itself completely then disappear forever – into the bit bucket. They didn't have any more options, Albert was clear on that. That put a heavy burden on Jabo's shoulders, exactly where he wanted it to be.
“You can't leave it in for them to find, or its game over. They video everyone who comes in, but I know they don't have 100% coverage inside, just at the heads of the rows and the major hallways. The technology was too expensive five years ago when they built it. Now its a tenth the price and they should have retrofitted the place to cover their ass. But it's only a server farm, so nobody pushed for it.”
“I can put it in and they won't see me?” Jabo felt very exposed, knowing he'd be without any kind of weapon, at most a hidden knife. The sort of goons they might have walking the hallways were serious fighters, some ex-military every bit as good as he was, armed or hand to hand.
“Who knows, maybe they upgraded security, or they might have articulating cameras on drone disks skidding around on the floor, we have them in our secure areas. People think they're sweeping the floor, not tracking them. The women would die if they knew they have cams that can look up their skirts when they scoot by.”
“Really?” Cathy was aghast, remembering little floor sweeping units in her family's flagship headquarters. Had they been used by their low dollar Camera watchers to amuse themselves, at the expense of their female workforce, including her? Heads were going to roll if that was the case.
“No, we'd be sued for a zillion dollars. It's a legend more than anything.” The techie swallowed, cursing himself for nearly revealing what had made reviewing thousands of hours of video recording worth watching. There were cameras roaming the floors, never noticed by the people who dodged around them. Their cameras swiveled on demand, under human control. Any of them might provide an upward view with their increasingly very high resolution cameras. When a female human walked by, wearing a skirt, if the person running the cameras knew what they were doing they could be programmed to make the camera swing up when it scooted by. Image recognition was off the shelf and anyone with a decent programming education could integrate it into the software used to operate the little units, always thought of with 'Star Wars' in mind. Maybe 'Blade Runner', the XXX version was more appropriate.
With that ability the tiny, toy like units became the extension of a perverted watcher's fantasy li
fe. The floor models had become increasingly ubiquitous lately, the most recent means of cheaply guarding a high security area, so commonplace nobody paid attention to them or where they might look. Did it ever stop – the dead end of fantasy – perversion.
The cameras were inside a clear dome that effectively hid it's quick swiveling up for a few seconds as it drove by a human, male or female. The perverts used their little machines to do all the dirty work, even flagging the video stream, making it easy to review later, to see if they got anything interesting. Like all computer systems, it was completely automatic. Management, which Cathy represented, would hang them up by their thumbs. How could he have been so stupid to joke about such a nefarious, well kept secret, until now?
The guy's flippant, joking attitude made Jabo wish he could put him under his Marine drill instructor for a few hours – teach him how to respect his betters, starting with his wife. Cathy was the boss's daughter but the garrulous nerd didn't seem all that concerned about impressing Jabo. Like everyone else he'd encountered on this planet, except a few dinosaurs like himself, the technician checked his phone every minute or so to see if someone had sent him a text or his favorite celebrities had died or screwed some other star. How can you have a complete thought if you're being distracted continually?
“I think I'm done, thanks,” he shook the man's hand then reminded him this never happened, squeezing his hand firmly, crushing his fingers so he started to wince. “You don't want me to find you if you talk, this will be nothing compared to what I'll do to you, so be professional and enjoy your money.”
“Hey, its cool, shit, no need to hurt me man,” He gave Jabo a dirty look that had a hint of fear, exactly what he wanted to see.
“I'm ready, can we go?” Cathy looked at him. Jabo wore Bateman company overalls, a plastic hard hat, safety glasses and steel toed boots. It was overkill for walking around a bunch of computers stacked up in metal boxes. Where they were going was as sanitary as a hospital operating room which is why he needed hairnet style covers for his boots.
“Here's the map, memorize it, you can't have anything on you that could bring in a virus or worm, exactly what we're going to do.” She smiled at him, handing him the same USB unit he'd practiced with, but this one was in a prophylactic, tied off then trimmed, with a small string around the knot so he could pull it out.
“Don't break the string because I'm not going to dig it out for you.” It looked like a high tech Tampax for male Metrosexuals suffering through that 'triggered' part of the month. It was also clear to both of them where he needed to hide it.
“So you don't really love me, do you?” Jabo smiled at her, hoping that joke worked.
She kissed his nose, saying, “you got it” then they were off, driving to the Rosario server farm that housed the LazaRuss data center, two miles away from the local Bateman offices. Her calls smoothed the way and her recent work as the manager of the offices in San Marcos provided enough clout to ease his entry to the highly secure LazaRuss Server facility.
Security at the front door checked out his small tool box, looking at every tool, then popping open the battery compartment of his digital volt-meter, replacing the battery with a new one, revealing someone had used that as a way to get contraband inside. If they did a strip search and anal probe he was dead.
The USB was a special one, made mostly of plastic, with minimal metal so it could safely dupe most metal detector walk through units. A test, using a similar metal detector at the Bateman offices, which had the same equipment, also sold by Bateman, didn't produce a beep of recognition. They'd defeated themselves, which was another memo Cathy would have to write later.
The security guard snapped his tool box closed, ran his wand over Jabo one more time, then said he could go. He gave him a map to the building he didn't need. Jabo had already memorized the route to the LazaRuss server cage where their most isolated computer systems stored their most closely guarded information. The less important, administrative systems he was going to 'service' was two cages away, about fifty meters. He'd be working on another company's servers, filled with interoffice memos on promotions, new rules about vacations and birthday celebrations. Compared to the LazaRuss machines down the hall they were relatively open. Using his work order Jabo would set up shop there. A facility guard would open the cage door so he could start his 'tests'. Hopefully the guy wouldn't stand around, watching him work. The tough security measures up to that point should make them confident as well as bored, what every security team had to deal with, doing an important job that required constant diligence with very little change with rare intrusions or challenges.
The random factor that set him free turned out to be a woman, who found him cute. Her interest made her keep dogging him, making it clear she wanted a date or maybe they fucked technicians in the bathroom if the females thought they were attractive. Jabo had no idea what kind of behavior was normal these days in the 'real world'. He had little moral authority to judge, but it was damned annoying. He'd have to leave in fifteen minutes and this woman wouldn't stop. She wasn't that bad looking, which gave her confidence that she'd prevail, eventually. It was just his luck she didn't seem to be needed anywhere else in the facility.
He got up, needing her gone. “Are you going to suck me or what?” He was channeling his friend who'd showed up at his wedding, who'd told him the crude, direct way was the best because 'they either put out or they slap you so you can move on to the next one'.
The woman was disgusted, thinking her suggestive talk was flirting she could disavow if he responded, toying with Jabo to amuse herself. Angry, she immediately warned him he'd be in trouble if he ever came back when she was working. She spun on her feet and stomped off. He filed that away – married now, he didn't need the temptation. Leaving his tool box open on the floor, his excuse for wandering off was to find the bathroom, an old pretext, one he hoped he wouldn't have to use. Hopefully the woman was telling her other female co-workers to avoid the nasty guy working on the servers. Works for me.
Sprinting to the high security section, he got past the gate with a quick pick of the padlock, pathetic security comparatively. He moved to the racks, his eyes racing over the panels covered with blinking lights, trying to find the familiar square hole, what he needed to slip the USB into. But these computers were completely unlike the ones he'd worked on at Cathy's office. Looking over the dull colored metal shields he didn't see any small slots he needed for his USB stick, fresh from its warm hiding place. Jabo was terrified he was going to waste his sole opportunity to get inside the enemy's computer network, providing a 'backdoor' that Albert would use find what they needed.
He heard someone, a quick look showed it was a supervisor walking his way. Barely able to exit the LazaRuss cage before he showed up, Jabo leaned casually against the wall. Looking to the side he saw the man's face was firm and angry, clearly the woman had talked and this was his comeuppance. The guy looked like he'd stepped out of shoot for 'who's da nerdiest geek in the world?' Jabo ran his eyes over him, taking in his dull white shirt, a white plastic pocket protector stuffed with identical ball point pens, thin black tie and black plastic glass frames Jabo remembered his father wearing, the other squarest guy he knew, like most engineers. This guy was not going to draw a crowd at a bar full of hot ladies, but what did Jabo know? Maybe this was the hot look.
“Did you say what Linda said you said?” He was flustered, never actually confronting a technician for this sort of thing. Most of the hardware guys were like him but with a different company shirt. Focused on technology, they were rarely womanizers or flirts, which was why the woman admin had been so certain she could flirt with him, certain he'd be too shy to respond to her not so subtle hints she was interested.
“She's a hot little piece ain't she?” Jabo smiled, then cracked his knuckles, a move that for some reason scared piss ants like this.
“I got a question, since this is all settled, right?” Jabo's calm, take no prisoners stare disarmed the man w
ho'd assumed his blue collar job and the lowly status of most technicians would assure his obvious executive position would be intimidating. Jabo's physical prowess scared the thin man who knew he'd be trashed in seconds if he tried to fight him. Suddenly he felt very alone and vulnerable.
“What do you want to know,” the pasty faced supervisor swallowed as he glanced back in the direction he'd come. Like all bullies, once confronted and thwarted, his new plan was leaving as fast as possible. Answering Jabo's question might placate the bothersome technician, diffusing the situation long enough for him to escape.
“These stupid rack computers, they're a new generation, right? Probably made last week for all I know.” Jabo hoped he had the tech talk down, since he had nothing to back up his seemingly practiced jargon.
“So?” the man was more in his element, being smarter than most people he met, in computers mainly. “What do you need to know, I'm really busy.” His combative attitude was starting to resurface so Jabo switched gears, to get him on his side.
“Right, ask her out for a drink, when a woman asks you to protect her she's got the hots for you, understand?” He jacked his eyebrows and the guy actually smiled, thinking of hitting on the woman who'd complained about being hit on. “So where are the fucking USB slots on these things? I'm totally lost here, nobody tells me when this stuff changes every damned week.”
His trash talk identified him as a lowly community college trained worker, unlike the lean nerd who was working on his MBA, at night for two hours, Tuesday and Thursday, with one full day every weekend. He was ready to move on up and double his annual salary, doing essentially the same thing he was now – absorbing and spitting out computer BS.
“They're there, just lift this, see?” He reached in and flipped up the outer plastic cover, released after you pressed in the bottom. It sprang forward, showing it was ready to lift up.
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