Fatal Exception Read online

  At first, Phin kept looking over his shoulder, expecting Elliot Storm to show up with that awful spider bot and drag him away, but nothing happened at all. After a few calls, Phin started to ease into his daily grind, when that was broken by an instant message.

  Cecil: Log off the phone and meet me in the north conference room in 5 minutes.

  Cecil has gone offline.

  Great, now what? Phin thought to himself as he punched the Unavailable button on his phone.

  Upon arriving in the conference room — a lonely, cavernous space with too many chairs and not enough table — Phin laid eyes on a tall, lanky man with glasses and slightly crooked teeth.

  “Phinnaeus?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can you close the door, please?”

  Phinnaeus did so without question. Cecil had a soothing, crisp British accent that instilled trust immediately.

  “Nice to meet you, Phinnaeus. We have mutual friends. My name is Cecil Peabody, and I'm the network security analyst here on the Storm campus.”

  “Hey, if this is about the VPN . . . ”

  “No, no, although I'd tread lightly if I were you. No, like I said, we have mutual friends, the kind who eat waffles very early in the morning.”

  Phin nodded.

  “They've asked me to help you out, and of course, I've agreed. I can't help them directly — my position is highly monitored — but what I can do is assist you.”

  Cecil handed Phin a computer disk.

  “You can use this from anywhere on the company network to access things that are way beyond your meager salary, if you catch my drift. Anything you access while you're running the program on that disk won't be logged. I've taken care of that, along with obscuring any activity that comes in from certain untraceable phone sources.”

  “And what exactly am I looking for?”

  “I can't say. I've merely been instructed to give you the means, not show you the path.”

  Phin rolled his eyes. “Do you always talk like a fortune cookie?”

  “No, sometimes I talk like Yoda. Now, unless you have any more questions, I have to get back upstairs before my absence is noticed.”

  “Alright. Thanks.”

  “One other thing: remember that spider thing from the big press conference?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It does a little more than just surf the Web. Stay out of its way.”

  “I was planning on it.”

  “Good luck.”

  Phin returned to his desk and popped the mysterious disk into the drive. A brief message popped up on screen saying “Access Granted. Stealth Navigation is Active.” Then everything went back to normal, except for a single new icon on his desktop: Storm Corporate Network.

  So as not to attract any attention from around him, Phin went back to taking calls. During the lulls in conversation, however, Phin went exploring the network.

  At first, he didn't find much that he hadn't already been able to find though the VPN. The standard corporate garbage — training materials, press releases, human resources records. He puttered around in the employee files for a little bit, unable to resist the urge to find out how much everyone in the call center was being paid.

  To his surprise, everyone appeared to have started at around the exact beginning pay, regardless of experience level, education, or any other factor that normally brings in a higher salary.

  Having quenched his thirst for unlawful capitalist knowledge, Phin moved on, occasionally having to pause his exploration to tell a customer to “please reboot” or “please call us back when you're not driving and can sit down at the computer.”

  Winding his way through a maze of directories, he stumbled across a folder without any of the typical file attributes — no name, no date, no size, no owner — it didn't appear to even exist, except he was looking straight at it.

  “There must be something good in here,” he muttered to himself. The customer on his phone at the time overheard.

  “What? In where?”

  “Oh,” Phin stammered. “I, uh, my buddy just brought me a burrito from the Taco Loco and it smells really good.”

  “Oh,” the customer said. “I can't eat their stuff. It gives me the shits.”

  Me too, Phin thought.

  He opened the invisible folder and found himself neck-deep in a cornucopia of cryptic-looking files. Under normal circumstances, the security measures on this part of the network would have locked him out long ago, but the magic disk he'd received from Cecil seemed to punch right through every block and crack every password without having to do anything.

  Phin quickly found that, even though he could open the files, the contents were apparently encrypted and unreadable without the proper key. He'd already spent half the day exploring this forbidden zone of the network, and even though he was seemingly in the clear, he didn't want to risk someone walking past him and asking what he was doing.

  The magic disk appeared to have plenty of empty space on it, so Phin copied over a few interesting looking files so he could take them home and inspect them further on his own system.

  Already exhausted from the pounding adrenaline rush, Phin ejected the disk and stashed it securely in his pocket, then continued on with the day's phone calls.

  * * *

  4E45564552474F4E4E4147495645594F555550

  * * *

  WHEN QUITTING TIME CAME, PHIN logged off without delay. Eager to get home and take a look at what he'd swiped from the network, Phin rushed around a corner in the hall and crashed into Tiffany.

  “Hey, watch where you're going, buddy!” she said playfully as she dusted herself off.

  “Sorry, sorry! I was just in a hurry to get out of this place.”

  “Yeah, I know the feeling. Lucky you — I got ‘volunteered’ for the night shift tonight.”

  “Ouch, that sucks.”

  “Yeah — looks like it's going to be just me and Zook and a few temps over in the annex.”

  “Well, I won't keep you.”

  “It's okay. I'm a few minutes early for my shift. So, how've you been?”

  “Good, good.” Phin had to exert all his self-control to hold in the things that had been happening — Zook, the titty bar, the FBI, the network espionage.

  “You okay? You look like you've got something on your mind.”

  “No, no, just been a long day.”

  “I hear ya. Hey, I only have a half-shift tonight, so I'll be out of here around 11:30. Want to meet me someplace afterwards?”

  Phin raised an eyebrow. “You mean like, you and Justin, bar hopping again?”

  “No, I mean, you and me, midnight show at the Alamo Drafthouse. They're showing Evil Dead 2.”

  “Why Tiffany, are you asking me out on a date?” This really was a strange day for Phin.

  Tiffany smiled playfully. “I guess so, yeah.”

  Everything else melted away from Phin's mind. “Sure, I'd love you . . . I mean . . . I'd love to . . . meet you.”

  Tiffany cackled. “Now don't get all carried away on me — it's just dinner and a movie.”

  “Yeah yeah yeah. Meet you there at 11:45?”

  “Groovy.” She grabbed his hand and gave him a peck on the cheek. “You're cute when you're flustered.”

  “Thanks.”

  Tiffany turned and walked off, taking bigger steps than usual — a kind of childish victory dance. Phin just smiled.

  * * *

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  * * *

  THE OVERNIGHT SHIFT FOR TIER 1 support was still staffed by a half-dozen temporary employees hired from various staffing agencies around town. For reasons unknown, the agencies had no idea where their people were being sent, only that a check for each temp's services would arrive at the agency from a shell corporation on a monthly basis.

  All six of the temps were college students, working part-time away from home. None of them had any sort of technical knowledge of computers; they were hired simply to answer the phone and
follow the on-screen prompts — save one.

  Everybody called him Dave. Nobody was quite sure of his real name, but on the phone he identified himself as “Mike,” “Frank,” “Joe,” “Josh,” “Eddie,” “Jay,” and on one night “Spider-Man.” Dave always had three days' beard growth at all times, and spoke at a volume most people would call “yelling.” But this loud voice also made him a little bit intimidating, especially when he was low on his medication. You could always tell when he was low on his medication, or hadn't taken his medication, because he would announce it to anyone within earshot.

  Dave didn't bother learning anyone else's names — this was just a temporary gig for him. His main passions were arcade games, air hockey, and abusing customers. Not maliciously, of course. He'd wait until someone had attacked him without reason, or proven himself to be really, really stupid, then he'd put them on hold for ten minutes at a time (a.k.a., “putting them in the penalty box”), disconnect the call, or, if the customer was especially douche-tastic, give the customer instructions to wipe the hard drive of the ailing computer and render it completely unusable.

  This mean streak was one of Dave's many redeeming qualities, and it's why, whenever she had to work the night shift, Tiffany always chose a seat near him. She was always careful to make sure he didn't get the wrong idea, and constantly talked about her outside social life, who she was dating at the time (often fictitiously), or how her lunch had given her the runs.

  Tonight, Tiffany dropped a mention of her date with Phin later that evening, thus diffusing the potential romantic advances of the Dave — at least for this shift. That tension dissolved, the two were free to bullshit and mess with customers all night.

  Zook was the supervisor on duty that night for the half-dozen reps in the call center, but he spent much of his time peeking out the door into the dark hallway.

  “Here it comes again. That goddamn spider,” he'd turn around and whisper every so often.

  Tiffany and Dave did their best to ignore Zook for the most part.

  “Is he always like this at night?” Tiffany asked Dave at one point.

  “Yeah, ever since the SpidR started patrolling the halls.”

  “You have to admit, it is a little creepy,” Tiffany said.

  “I feel safer with that thing that I would with a human security guard. Humans are weak. They have emotions, they make mistakes. Computers don't feel. They just act.”

  “Guess it depends on who's telling it to act. Whoops, just an hour left 'til my daaaaate!”

  “Wish I had a date,” Dave pouted.

  “Oh come on, a handsome guy like you?”

  “Don't make me put you in the penalty box.”

  “Oh, I'm so scared.”

  CLICK.

  All the lights in the call center went dead, along with all the computers and phones. A hushed but enthusiastic cheer rose up from the cubicles.

  “Quiet, everybody,” Zook barked. “It's just a power outage. The emergency generator should kick in here in a minute.”

  Sure enough, seconds later, emergency floodlights around the room shot out beams of cold luminescence.

  Tiffany hit a few buttons on her phone. “Hey Zook, phones are still dead.”

  “Well crap. Hold on a minute. We need to check with maintenance and see what's going on. I gotta stay here. Anybody want to go?”

  Dave stood up, cracked his knuckles, and pounded his fist into his palm.

  “I'm on it.”

  Digging into his tattered knapsack, Dave produced a small AA battery powered flashlight, which would provide just enough light to get him between the floodlights while navigating the labyrinth of halls.

  “Hey,” Zook said. “You know where maintenance is?”

  “Yep. First floor, right next to the elevators.”

  “Okay. Just watch out for the SpidR. If it doesn't see you, it'll knock you over trying to walk past.”

  “Don't worry.”

  Dave walked through the call center. The heavy door closed behind him. He descended the nearby staircase, consulting a wall-mounted emergency map to get his bearings straight.

  “Okay, go north here, then west, then south, then west. Got it.”

  As he rounded the corner, unbeknownst to Dave, the door to the call center locked itself.

  He hadn't worked in the building very long, and rarely left the call center, so he moved slowly in case there were any unseen obstacles like potted plants, doorstops, or water fountains that building designers liked to place in people's way.

  After the third turn, he entered a long hallway. He could see light spilling out of the maintenance office.

  “Home free,” he whispered to himself.

  Tick tick tick tick.

  First he just heard the sound. Then he saw it coming down the stairs, the monitor front casting a pallid glow, filling his eyes with dead light and obstructing his view of the hideous mechanical legs carrying the thing toward him.

  “Great.” He looked for an alcove or an office to duck into to get out of the thing's way as it made its rounds, but all of the doors were locked. He had no choice but to turn around and head in the other direction, toward the restrooms at the end of the hall.

  It would take him halfway back to the call center, but he didn't have a choice. It was either backtrack and get out of the SpidR's way, or be run over by the blindly patrolling computer-thing.

  He turned and started walking at his normal speed.

  Tick tick tick tick.

  Was it speeding up?

  Tick tick tick tick tick tick.

  It was. He started walking faster.

  Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.

  Dave broke into a sprint. The emergency lights cut out, leaving him in complete darkness, and causing him to crash head first into the locked men's room door.

  He fell to the ground and looked up to see the SpidR standing over him. He was breathing heavily, and would have felt slightly better if the SpidR was too — but it wasn't. It sat perfectly still, aiming its tiny camera at him.

  An accented voice sounded from the speaking on the side of the SpidR's monitor. “I don't need zat one. SpidR, dispose.”

  Without delay, the SpidR pounced on top of Dave, first digging two of its powerful steel legs into his chest, then raising a third and smashing it into his face.

  He let out an awful, guttural cry as his lower jaw came unhinged and split from the rest of his face. Bloody teeth hit the ground and scattered like pebbles. The scream kept coming until the SpidR hit him again, this time smashing a pointed leg through his sinus cavity and bisecting his brain. A few twitches, then nothing. With two of its legs still embedded in Dave's chest, the SpidR rotated its body and dragged him away, leaving a smeared crimson trail down the center of the white tile floor.

  Back in the call center, nobody heard a thing. The walls were designed to absorb sound — the latest in modern design. The techs sat around bullshitting for a while — all they really could do without computers or phones. After a few minutes, Zook got fed up with all the waiting.

  “Alright, I'm goin' after him.”

  “Come on,” Tiffany said, “just wait a minute. He'll be right back.”

  “He should have been back already. I'm going.”

  Zook headed for the door and found it to be locked tightly. Four unseen deadbolt locks held it firmly in place — it wouldn't budge an inch.

  “Okay, that's not cool. Not cool at all.”

  * * *

  4848484F4C4D455300

  * * *

  UP IN HIS OFFICE, ELLIOT Storm sat watching the call center through hidden cameras in the walls. When he saw Zook discover the locked door, he picked up the phone and called the basement laboratory.

  “Time to start the harvest,” he croaked, then hung up the phone.

  Elliot had been preparing for this night for a long time — the entire building was constructed with this event in mind. From his desk, he was able to control every door, every window, and e
very other hidden goodie around the campus.

  The call center, in particular, had been built to some strange specifications. When the doors were closed and locked — as they were now — it was completely airtight. It was a large area, though, and with the half dozen people in there, it would take quite some time before they ran out of oxygen. That was time that Elliot wasn't willing to waste.

  With the flick of a switch, Elliot triggered the release of a colorless and odorless nerve gas. He watched in silence through the monitors as the techs in the call center began choking and gasping for air. After just a few minutes, they all collapsed to the floor unconscious.

  Once the last person had fallen, Elliot turned off the nerve gas and activated the air filtration system to clear the area. He picked up the phone and called the lab once more.

  “It is done. Time to collect. I will send the specimens down Chute 4.”

  Elliot knew there would be no way to explain to Crockett and Tubbs exactly why the entire night crew in the call center had fallen unconscious and needed to be stuffed down the hidden chutes to the basement laboratory, so he had to go to the call center himself and perform the task.

  When each body slid down, it landed on a soft pad — they wouldn't be any good to the project if they had concussions or other head injuries. The “receiving room” was set up with a large crane-like robotic arm that, guided by a control panel manned by Dr. Reinhart, scooped up each of the sleeping bodies and laid them on separate tables.

  The nerve gas would keep them out cold for about four hours, but the two conspirators knew they had to move quickly to get each one strapped down and intubated. Once they were hooked up to their intravenous injectors, they would remain unconscious indefinitely, but if any of them woke up before the process was complete, it could jeopardize the entire operation.

  After coming this far, Elliot wasn't willing to take that chance, so he stuck to the schedule he'd carefully created, and luckily for him, they finished with time to spare.

  With that bit of business taken care of, Elliot went around and boxed up all the techs' personal belongings, called the wreckers to haul off their cars, and then returned to the laboratory to oversee the next phase of the operation.