Page 60 of Coldwire
I count five security bots, lined evenly outside the front of the data center. Their heads begin to shift when I draw nearer. I glance down at my watch to have something unsuspicious to do. Nik’s remote access is moving around the cursor. My arm drops, slicing through the light rain.
I jog past at a leisurely speed, refusing to look at the bots. The one closest to the road shifts to track me as I go, but the others straighten their heads when I continue onward, running along the east side of the facility. Thereare two more guards here, but they don’t track my motion. The fence is high—it’s unlikely anybody would succeed in jumping over without snapping their neck.
I catch movement in the parking lot as I’m passing by. Employees slowly getting out of their vehicles. Putting on coats, masks. Changing their shoes and leaving the spares in the trunk. Holding still enough to hopefully, hopefully get a scan of the credentials dangling off their key chains. In no time, I’ve reached the end of the facility, and the dead end of the road, too. Rather than run into Upsie’s reeds, I pivot, starting my second lap.
“What’s taking so long?” Miz’s voice emits clearly into my ear. “If you come in any later, you’re going to get noticed.”
“Almost there,” I mutter back.
“Wait, where’s—”
“Blare’s in the car. It’ll be just me and Nik.”
I pass the same bots at the side again, huffing and puffing. I don’t dare glance down at what’s happening on the surface of my watch, because if Nik is failing to connect, then this plan all falls apart. Back to the drawing board.
The bot guard closest to the main gate turns to look at me. I keep jogging, holding a constant pace until I’m out of view from the security line. Just as I’m looking for Nik again in the greenery, a hand shoots out from the bush and drags me down by the arm.
“Ow—”
“We’ve got it,” Nik says in a rush. He holds my wrist out in front of him, syncing the watch with his handheld device. “All right. It’s activated.”
“It’s copied?”
“Copied. Let’s go.”
Nik doesn’t bother with a pretense for the guards. He marches up the road, forges straight ahead for the open gateway. It’s not that I don’t trust the technicalities of infrared, but that bot before looked me square in the face, even if I was showing up differently on its radar….
The guard doesn’t turn at all. Its beady orange eyes stare ahead, staying level. I follow Nik quickly, striding through the gate and up the steps to the building before any of the employees still in the parking lot can collide with us on the way in.
“About time,” Miz breathes when the door opens for us, letting us into the lobby. We’re damp from the rain. There are dried leaves sticking to the backs of my legs. Nik and I don’t say anything when we walk to the turnstile. I’m through first, the watch on my wrist buzzing while the turnstile scans my credentials and lets me proceed. As Nik angles his handheld to scan, Miz pushes a folded square of fabric along her desk. I grab it as I pass, tucking the two lab coats onto my arm. Nik proceeds through the turnstile and offers Miz a quick nod.
“Take a left here,” Nik murmurs when we’ve stepped into the facility atrium. I pass him his coat and shrug on my own, freeing my ponytail while I’m at it. A red carpet bleeds the length from the front entrance to the center of the atrium. It’s the most amount of color in the building, yet still the threads appear matted and worn, smeared with old mud that has been tracked in over time. The lobby echoes with Miz faking a cough behind her mask, keeping her face down when she opens the door for the next employee coming in. With another gesture from Nik and a second left, we’re already deep enough inside the facility that I can’t hear her coughing.
“It’s so empty.”
Each room we pass appears desolate. Dust-covered computer screens. Dark workstations, lamps installed with various settings on the surface but the cords unplugged.
“The facility was built at a time when they needed more manpower regulating the data, but most of the work is automated now,” Nik replies. “It’s still a lot of employees for downcountry.”
He pauses and glances at an exterior door that lies to the left,EXITmarked overhead. Nik proceeds onward. I let him guide the way, more interested in observing how he reacts to our surroundings. Two corridorslater, after passing a large portrait of Medaluo’s current prime minister, we come across a door with a complicated latch, a two-sequence scan on credentials and retina. Nik is clearly expecting the process, because he offers his handheld easily, then switches to a new page, holding it to the laser rather than his eye. The panel turns from red to green. The door opens to a set of stairs. Without taking the extra time to confirm where he’s going, he steps in.
“You’ve been here before,” I say when I follow Nik down. The hum of the servers sings a one-note chorus.
“Medaluo’s data centers are broken up by departments,” Nik replies in lieu of an answer. “The Ministry of National Defense only has two server rooms. Highly secure. Lots of redundant servers to prevent information from getting lost.”
Highly secure, and yet he’s made getting in seem so easy. A metal plaque flashes at the bottom of the stairs, greeting all entrants before they make the turn into the server aisles.SUPERVISOR,the first line declares, but the name on the second is covered up with black tape. There’s a phone number underneath to call in case of error or emergency. I wonder who that goes to, given the state of its anonymous employee.
“You can take the main controller screen,” Nik instructs. “Find what you need. I’ll plug in with a handheld for my file.”
Nik heads straight for one of the ports, connecting up to his handheld. I make a slower route to the central screen, the controller where on-site engineers can run maintenance from.
“Whose credentials did you copy?” I call over. I indicate the watch on my wrist. “Will it have access?”
“Technician. I don’t think it’s going to log in.” Nik doesn’t look up from his typing. “As soon as you get an idea of which box you want to get into, you need to message Blare for remote hacking. They’re user ‘dazzling underscore star.’ Connect the watch to the interface.”
I do as he says, then pull open a chat window.
me:Hi Blare, are you there
