by brodea
* * * *
“Whatcha in for?” came the voice from the gray concrete cell next to Jason’s. All the cells faced out onto a corridor, with that side consisting only of bars.
“Missing a mandatory assembly,” Jason replied.
His jailmate laughed. “One of Rex’s bullshit speeches?”
“Yeah. About handing out worker awards, of all things. You?”
“Pruno,” he said, referring to the illegal brewing of alcohol from fruits and other regular foods.
“Got it. The name’s Jason.”
“Neil. I’m a power plant guy.”
“Gardener.”
“Keep sendin’ dat fruit my way!”
“Hah.”
There was a pause, as both men collected their thoughts.
“It wasn’t always like this, you know,” Neil said.
“What wasn’t?”
“People. The ones in the movies we’re always told are bad. They didn’t have to go to something at a certain time or get thrown in jail.”
“I bet they did. They just edit those parts out.”
“Nah, man. There was rules, alright, but there was also rules the rulers had to follow, such as not lockin you’s up in jail for the smallest thing, not searchin’ yer house if you’s didn’t do any’ting wrong. Stuff like that.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I got dem ‘istory books, see.”
Jason grabbed the bars, pulling himself to them and cast panicked looks up and down the hallway. “Christ, aren’t you worried about someone overhearing that?”
“Nah, man. I got it all memorized, see. I could write it all down again if I had to. Dey can put my body in prison, but dey can’t take away my mind,” he said, defiantly.
Jason was too stunned to speak. Nearly a minute passed before the other man continued, “Dere was moighty ‘uman societies. Entire cities full of buildings bigger dan dis place. Dey moved about in metal machines, some along da ground, some in da air. Dey could go anywhere.”
“Yeah, I got that from The Fugitive.”
“But den somethin’ happened, see,” Neil continued, undeterred. “De air, water, and ground was poisoned. Only da lucky few survived, like our great grand parents. Dat’s where da history books stop. But da story I been told is dat it was a war, de most terrible, far worse dan any of de ones in de books. All of de people died, but dis place was built before den. It’s up on legs in case de polar ice caps melted, but dey never did.”
Jason slid down the wall of his cell, the one adjoining Neil’s, until he was sitting on the cold gray concrete, his knees up in front of him. He exhaled slowly. “Makes sense. But I don’t think it’s as bad as they’re telling us out there.”
“Why not?”
“I saw humans outside.”
* * * *
“I knaa you been tryin’ to escape,” Julia said, through the bars, her eyes wet with tears.
Jason tried to looked stunned. “What? No way! How could someone do that?”
“I’m not the sharpest tool in the box, love, but yer said it in yer sleep that night you fell asleep on the couch. Yer said there was people outside and yer was goin’ to join ‘em.”
“Escape? You’s insane, you is!” Neil said, as Jason absorbed the fact that his secret was out.
“Shut up!” Jason said. He would really have liked a private place to visit with Julia, but there was none. The only consolation was that the guards weren’t within earshot.
“I’m not trying to escape. I know there’s no way out,” Jason lied.
“Yer’d get killed if they caught yer, and I don’t think I could handle that.”
Her remark hit Jason like a boot to the chest, as he saw the tears in her eyes. He gulped, unsure of what to say next.
Julia put her hands through the bars, and Jason grabbed them. “Promise me yer’ll stay on good be’avior,” she said. “I miss ‘avin yer next to me doin’ gardenin’.”
Jason smiled. “I’m the best prisoner they’ve ever had. One of them told me so.”
“Are they feedin’ yer properly?”
“Yes. They’re actually treating us pretty well considering they’re Rex’s cronies.” If they knew what I was up to it’d be a whole different story.
Julia nodded and squeezed Jason’s hands. “Aalreet then. Me shift’s startin’ in ten minutes. Oh, and yer mother said to tell yer ‘Hi’. She’s doin’ okay.”
“That’s good. Will you come and see me tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Bye for now.”
“Bye.”
There would be no ‘for now’ if Jason ever did manage to find the way out. And yet, in Jason’s chest beat the heart of a wild animal, fierce and free. He yearned to feel the wind on his face and see the countryside up close by moonlight.
An hour or later, when Neil was being mercifully quiet, Jason said, “Any chance you could give me a tour of the power plant when we’re out of here?”
“What, so you can escape?”
“No. I’m genuinely interested in how you guys generate electricity.”
“Nah. Ya’d be spotted bein’ outta bounds,” and I’d be thrown back in ‘ere for taking you’s down dere.”
“I could put on blue coveralls. It’s pretty unlikely anyone’d question my being there.”
Neil sighed. “Well, lemme ‘tink about it.”
“Okay.”
An enormously risky gambit had begun to form in Jason’s mind, which would require the cooperation of several others.
* * * *
Pruno is absolutely disgusting, Jason thought. He held up a plastic tumbler of the creamy yellow liquid, obtained from Neil. It smelled of rotten fruit and alcohol. Jason had a passing familiarity with rotten fruit, from working in the garden, but alcohol was entirely new to him. He took a sip and screwed up his face in disgust.
Having made Mother a special meal, doped with a powdered sleeping pill, and served it to her in her room, he was sure he had the living room to himself for a few hours. Right on time, there was a knock on the door, and Jason opened it to a skinny, slightly dark-skinned guy wearing round glasses. “Come on in Dex,” Jason said. He entered the darkened living room, appearing nervous.
Jason had spent the better part of a month cultivating a friendship with the wiry little guy who worked in IT, by eating with him in the cafeteria. It was now time to take it to the next level.
“Now, I’ll warn you, it tastes bad at first, but the headrush is worth it,” Jason said.
“Oh this is that stuff you were talking about?”
“Yeah.” Jason handed him a glass of pruno. Dexter wrinkled his nose as he stared at the concoction. “Don’t be nervous, just gulp it down,” Jason said. “I’ll go first.” Jason held his nose, tipped his head back, and downed the whole glass. “Now it’s your turn.”
Dexter bravely followed Jason’s lead. “Ugh. You… you… invited me over t…to drink this?”
“No, I invited you over for the after effects! You have to go through the bad to get to the good.”
“It’s w…w…warming my insides up!”
Jason nodded in satisfaction. His glass was watered down considerably, leaving him mostly sober.
“What does your job involve on a typical day?” Jason asked, after some small talk.
“I s… swap the t…t… tapes in and out,” Dexter said, his pupils growing large. “Each one can s…store a gigabyte of data,” he beamed proudly. “And I r…run the pro…programs when they tell… tell me to.”
“Right. So someone writes a new program and they call you to run it for them?”
“They d…don’t write new programs any m…m…more. Haven’t in y…years.”
“What do they do?”
“I…I’m not p…p…p…privy to the o…output.”
Time to go in for the kill. “D’you think they have the plans of the pod stored on the servers?”
Dexter shrank visibly. “I w…w…w…wouldn’t kn…kn…kn…kn…kn…”
“It’s okay. Just take your time,” Jason said, touching Dexter’s shoulder. “Write it down if you have to.” He looked around for paper and pen.
Dexter breathed in deeply. “I don’t know,” he blurted, before letting the air and the burdens he carried out.
Jason nodded. He’d thought as much. Dexter was just a low-level operator.
“How’s the security on the server room?”
“Ev…everything’s… en…en…crypted.”
“No, not that. I mean, how hard would it be to get in physically?”
“Guards. T…t…twenty-four seven. Seven. Only one… one… one… way in and out.”
Jason nodded. “So supposing someone gained access to the system, are there any computer commands that I could use to search the system?”
“J… j… just the ones I use, like ls, run, dump, print. Oh and there’s grep too.” Jason noted that Dexter’s face seemed to light up and his stutter all but vanished when he was talking about the machines, which were his world. “Oh, but I j… just told… told you how to search…”
“It’s okay. Thank you.”
“W… w… what are you p…planning?”
Dammit. Jason hoped he wouldn’t be lucid enough to ask questions. He took a deep breath. “I’m trying to find the way out of the pod.”
Dexter almost fell over. “I could… be… ex… ex… executed if they f… found out I helped s…someone try to es… es…”
“You won’t be connected in any way with this.”
“B…but they’ll have seen us… t…together.”
Jason nodded and exhaled. “True. Then I promise I’ll leave it at least a month before I try anything. Meanwhile, is any information you can give me about how to get past the guards?”
“Th…they ch…change shifts at eight, f…four and twelve m…midnight. There’s sometimes a sh… short gap before the next shift takes over.”
“You mean they knock off early sometimes?”
“Y…yes. Maybe f…five m…m…minutes early.”
Dexter looked deeply disturbed. “B… b… but don’t…”
Jason clapped a hand onto Dexter’s back. “That is great information. You know my avoiding you in the cafeteria from now on isn’t personal, right? It’s for your protection.”
“Y…yes.” Dexter looked downcast. Jason knew he had no friends besides himself. What if I introduce him to Neil? Might bring him out of his shell a bit. Jason owed Dexter that much, before breaking into his beloved facility.
* * * *
The entrance to the IT Department was far grander than it deserved to be, Jason thought. The lobby was roughly half the size of a tennis court. It had black and white checkerboard tiled floor. Two frosted glass walls swept back at an angle, converging on a wide doorway with an armed guard standing at either side. Large pot plants flanked the guards—evidently someone’s idea of making the space less look official and intimidating. It didn’t work.
Jason had first reconnoitered the space by pretending to get out at the wrong floor. He had taken in as much of the area as he could, while the guard looked him up and down suspiciously. Now, wearing ragged gray coveralls purloined from the janitorial supply area, which had J. HARKNESS stitched onto the chest roughly by hand, Jason exited the elevator into the sterile IT lobby, pushing a yellow bucket on wheels along with the wooden handle of the mop within it. Without looking up, he squeezed the water from the dripping woolen mop head using the roller mounted to the bucket and went to work.
“This just got done yesterday,” said a frowning guard with short black hair.
“New orders to clean it every day,” Jason said, still focusing only on the floor.
“Hmph,” the guard grunted. The time was 7:55am. He yawned, and turned to the other fellow to his right. “An omelette’s looking really good right now,” he said.
“It sure is,” the chubby man replied.
“What say we…”
“Knock off now?” Chubby interrupted. “Pearson’s been cracking down on that. Says just because IT’s never been breached it doesn’t mean it couldn’t be.”
Black Hair sighed, and remained at his post.
Jason had now completed a quarter of the lobby, and was working his way ever closer to the guards. He fought the urge to look at the men, which would give them a good view of his face.
“Pride in the job, huh?” Black Hair said.
“Yes, sir,” Jason replied, without looking up.
“We could use more people with that level of diligence on our force,” Chubby said. “But, we’re stuck with our assignments.”
Go the eff home or get some breakfast, Jason thought.
“Right. Top o’the hour. I’m done,” Black Hair said.
“We should probably stick around until Chuck and Mike make it here though.”
“Ugh. Screw that. My time’s up. This door is no longer my responsibility.” He headed towards the elevator.
“Fair enough,” Chubby said reluctantly. He followed his colleague. “Sorry about your floor, man,” he said to Jason, as they walked over the newly cleaned area.
“S’okay.”
The elevator dinged, and the two guards got in. It was now or never. Jason ran towards the door, dragging the bucket. Some water slopped on the floor. “Crap!” He wrung the mop out and cleaned it up as quickly as he could, before resuming his rush into IT. Jason had no idea what to expect now, nor any clue how to deal with any obstacles that might come up.
Once inside, he was facing an orange wall that partially separated the lobby inside the door from the main work area. Nobody was present. He hurriedly stripped off the coveralls—as far as he could tell, IT people just worked in their regular clothes—and looked around frantically for a place to stow his disguise and the bucket. There was a door to his right, but that involved going into view from the main office. He hoped the door led to a closet, and that nobody was about. At least I’ll die trying. He calmly walked over to the white door, set in a red wall, not looking around, pretending it was something he did every day.
The door opened, and led into a janitorial closet. Jason couldn’t believe his luck. Once the items were safely stowed, he turned towards the main office, which consisted of several rows of desks, facing the rear wall. There was a door there, which stood ajar. Only two workstations were occupied, by men staring intently at their screens, typing commands once or twice a minute. They didn’t look at Jason. Now what?
He would have to sit either beside or in front of the operators, since they occupied the back row. There was no way to fall in behind them. Damn. Jason stood rooted to the spot, suddenly paralyzed by the pent-up fear from his smooth entrance to the facility. Breathe. Think. What if the door at the far end led to somewhere private? He could work in secrecy if he could get there without being caught. There was no choice but to go for it, and act naturally.
Jason, his forehead now starting to glisten, walked calmly towards the door.
“Hey,” one of the guys said. His tone was friendly.
“Hey,” Jason his speech stilted from the tightness in his throat.
“Who is that?” his greeter said to his compatriot.
“Um, not sure,” came the reply. “Electrical, maybe?”
“Didn’t know we were having problems in there.”
“Dunno then.”
“Should I go check?”
“Sure,” came the absentminded response. This was the last word Jason heard as he stepped into a room packed with rows of server racks, each about six feet tall. The heat and the loud noise of cooling fans and rushing air took him by surprise. The guy from the main office would be asking him questions within about five seconds. Think.
“Um, may I ask who you are?” came the voice from behind him.
Breathe. “I’m looking for any evidence of a short circuit. There are abnormally large electrical loads being drawn by the servers,” Jason said, walking up and down the rows of server racks and pretending to inspect them.
“Huh. We’d have had a fire by now if that was the case.”
“Trying to catch it now before there is one.”
“Makes sense, I guess. Let me know if you need anything.” He walked back out. Jason breathed a huge sigh of relief.
At the end of the fifth row of servers, there was a terminal mounted on the side of the cabinet at waist height.
Jason pressed the ‘enter’ key. The screen came to life, showing only the text usrhomestavros> in white text, with a blinking cursor after it. Okay, now to make like a computer expert.
Jason typed grep site plans. A progress bar of dots crept along the screen, agonizingly slowly. Jason looked over his left shoulder. The command had turned up nothing. Jason tried again: grep pod plans. Nothing.
grep blueprints. Nothing
grep exit
grep way out
grep escape
grep door
grep level 0
Jason ground his teeth. He felt prickly heat rising up his back and neck, as each command turned up no results. He was muttering curse words under his breath and wondering what to do next, when he heard voices approaching the server room. Crap! He looked for an off switch for the terminal, but found none. Their footsteps were almost at the door. Jason headed down the last row of server cabinets, which extended twenty feet to the far wall of the room. Looking around feverishly, he found a miracle: the last cabinet was empty! He stepped up onto its metal floor as quietly as he could. Its width of a little over two feet was just enough for him to fit.
Jason was now sweating profusely, from the heat of the room and the fear of getting caught.
“It… looks like t…two blades are down.” Dexter.
“I wish they’d installed them sequentially,” an an unfamiliar voice grumbled. “Now we’ve got to scan all the racks.”
Jason almost vomited. They were going to search the whole place!
* * * *
Jason closed his eyes and forced himself to inhale and exhale. Beads of sweat ran itched on his scalp and ran down his face. He heard the men shuffling about and talking. With every minute that passed, they came closer to his location.
