At Virtual Enterprises, Server Cloud Alpha was the code name for the fleet of super computers connected more than a dozen different ISPs. Lead Server Technician Jose is busy pulling and testing components. He’d taken the facility off-line at the request of the FBI. It was proven that someone was hijacking at least one of the Server Clouds. Due to the nature of their business, each cloud contained the most sophisticated firewall available on the continent to the corporate sector.
Jose had spent fifteen hours on just one of the many server stacks and found absolutely nothing. Code, Hardware, and connections between each stack had to be verified. If he couldn’t find the backdoor, their entire company would be in jeopardy. Kicking yet another batch of spare parts toward to the evidence pile, he felt suffocated. ‘Should he not find anything, would he be the scapegoat? He’s new here for crying out loud!!!!’ Frustration leads to tunnel blindness for too many people under investigation.
His meal was delivered on an auto-trolley. Safe distancing measures proved ineffectual for some of the pandemics in the last 5 years. Airlocks and robots have become a norm for any company worth its salt. Every day for the past 15 days intrusion detection alerts have sounded every hour. Four hundred stacks in the Alpha site and only 3 people working it. The other two have just turned in their reports and resignation. They don’t want to be involved after that video.
Included in the meal packaging was letter:
Jose:
It has been decided that you will be working this facility alone. The system is configured to prevent your departure at this time. If the intrusion continues to occur at Alpha after this day, it will be judged that the hacker must be you. Evidence of such is already on the way to the FBI. This letter will dissolve within a minute of coming in contact with the oils in the skin leaving no record of this decision. Thank you for being the fall guy!
Virtual Enterprises Management Division
Putting the letter down he is glad of the two things his A+ and Network+ certification class required of all their students. The first, diamond level rule, was to wear gloves at all times; and the second was to keep separate all components and stations. Moving his food to another station and the letter to a secure pouch he finally removes the gloves and dials a number he’d received only the day before.
