Nick

НИК

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Ник

I was slowly walking right though paddles, swearing at my boss in my thoughts. Nikolas, my boss and the owner of a company 'Analysis and Business', called me at 1 a.m. and insisted that I come to work on Saturday. I should have switched off my cell, but I just came out from the internet web, and still had poor judgment, when I pressed the answer button. That is why I have to walk under the rain today. Finally, the servers we ordered last month were delivered, and for some reason they have to be connected to our network right away. That work could be done on Monday; we do not have any work anyway. We'd loose absolutely nothing if the work was done on Monday. And I had plans for today, which, thanks to my boss, were canceled.

I work as an IT guy in one, nowadays respectful, firm. The firm does analysis of different sort of information, as well as it makes forecasts for the nearest future of our clients' deals. Most often trade companies ask us to analyze market trends in their sale niches, though sometimes we get interesting work coming from institutions, which luck software resources or smart programmers.

I personally get most joy from such work. To get it done I often have to dig deep to get the new information, and I learn a lot. Desire to learn is deep in my character.

Also, my boss is a smart and proactive guy, who gets the current information technologies. Those current technologies are a hard thing to follow. In the past, once he got some start up money, he hired and motivated (not only financially) a bunch of geeks. He bought software and hardware, and started an analytical company, which produced analytical forecasts for clients. Some of forecasts given to clients, who are not that law obeying, saved them from big trouble. In return, we got a reputation of good fortune tellers. This gave the company good profits.

I am a lead programmer here. You wonder how my job is related to the servers. Simply, I am a sys admin as well. Nicolas could not find a sharp system administrator for a while, and, it turned out, surprise to him, I am pretty savvy in that area. So, he gave me all the additional duties, along with a raise. I did not mind. Over time he stopped looking for the person for this position. Good for me. I worked a few months to make the equipment work well, installed good virus protection system, and ever since I don't have to do much with it. The extra money, on the over hand, keep coming to my account.

... Tired of swearing, I put my glasses on, opened a book on my body-comp, switched on music, checked my bag with the instruments, and headed towards a bus stop.

Really don't like to carry around bags with instruments. It isn't heavy (two pounds at most), but gives me some discomfort. In the notebook I keep all the software our company had developed. Just in case. If my boss knew, he'd kill me. He'd say I was brain dead before he even touched me. This software is a know-how, you know. Though, I did hide all the information in the notebook. Not easy to get it. My boss is better not knowing, anyway.

I got off at the last bus stop and slowly walked though the park. Our office is located in the outskirts of the city. Long time ago boss rented an empty building, which at some point was a military factory. Who knows what they manufactured in that factory before. The building was renovated, and looked good. Lots of space gave us room to walk, think, smoke... And a park is right here. Among trees of the park I meditate. Very few people walk here .The park is too far away. I love spending time here.

Boss met me in the office, he was alone. With a happy face he shouted:

— Hi you, Namesake! Come in! — He waived happily.

— What's up with him? — I though, still being moody. Is he drunk?

— Boss, why did I come here today? Can't we do it on Monday?

Boss and I are sort of buddies. We respect each other and, at times, I feel like we are real friends. Chatting informally is a usual thing for us.

— Cant's do it on Monday, Nick. Can't do.

Sitting in Olga's chair (his secretary), he drank coffee, smoked a cigarette, and smiling for some reason, looked at me.

— If Olga sees the ash, she'll eat me alive — He smiled, looking nasty.

Olga is perfectionist; she is nit and hates mess at her work place. I courtship her from time to time (read: try to get into her bed), but yet my attempts were unsuccessful. She likes the game, however it is unclear if she likes me.

— Ok, tell me, what's up. — I mumbled, threw my bag on the table and went to make myself some coffee.

— You see, Nicolas... — I hate to be called Nicolas, most people call me Nick. But boss, likes to annoy me. — We've got a new order... — he raised his thumb — a large order. We have to start working on it tomorrow. And I do not want you to be distracted by servers once we start the work. In addition, new server capacity will be helpful.

I see now. Boss probably got the order, by getting around all of the competition and now is happy with the smart move he did. Realistically, we do not have any competition. But boss is happy to every, even the smallest, victory.

— I'll download the info to your notebook. At home you can read it and later e-mail me what you thoughts. Most of, all I am interested in project timeline, and which programmers you'll involve in it.

Boss got his body-comp from a pocket and said quietly something into it. My comp showed me a message that it connects boss's comp, and it began to downloading the info. Our comps are configured in such way, that we don't have to do anything to connect to each other.

— Ok — I said — Did they bring the right hardware, or like last time?

They tried to full us last time. Delivered a few pieces of hardware, but wrong one. Boss figured the scam right away, and, since then, he tests all incoming hardware himself. I guess he likes to deal with this metal. And he's worried he'll lose the skill if he does not work.

— Yeah... — Boss nodded — I unpacked it all. Just connect it.

He inhaled the smoke from his cigarette.

— Where is it? — I asked

— In the fifth room.

— I thought so! We don't have back up power there! — I was quite mad, and almost broke my cup of coffee. The sys admin in me could not stand poor judgment at work. — What if there will be a black out? You'll drill my brain for months for lost work and, God forbid, broken hardware! We have spare spaces in other rooms!

Boss smiled:

— You see, Nicolas, the hardware delivered is better than the one we ordered. I won't say more, you'll see yourself. It comes with its own power back up. So, just go work. It's going to be great. I'll figure out our own backup power next week.

Still mad, I grabbed my bag and went to the room with the new hardware. I was curious, what the heck was delivered. Hardware we ordered was not bad at all. Better hardware we can't afford yet.

I opened the door, and understood right away, that we got lucky. The hardware we got was significantly better than the one we ordered.

One look, and I knew, that we got almost experimental type of hardware.

'I wonder where he got this magnificent equipment.' — I thought. I rolled up my sleeves and stated working. Threw away all the packaging, connected the blocks, connected the wires and connected all to power.

— Well... — I whispered quietly and pressed the power button.

....Japan crap!! — I swore, as nothing happened.

I looked at the switch socket and realized that the indicator, showing whether there is electricity or not, does not shine. I got the tester and checked the switch socket.

Just as I could expect, there was no power. The equipment showed that it was fine, and the socket seemed fine, which meant that there might have been a loose wire somewhere else.

Angry, I sent some swearing to my boss's body-comp, along with a message that I am going to check the wires in the basement. He did not reply to me.

I've put all my tools in the bag and went down the ladder. Needless to say, the basement was sizeable, noticeably bigger than the factory itself. We never checked it really, just a bit... around the entrance.

As I came down the stairs, I approached a metal door with a digital lock. Not sure where the lock was connected to the electricity, but it worked. It had a red indicator light on. Connected though body comp to our server, I quickly found the combination to open the metal door, and dialed it.

The lock paused for some time. 'What takes so long?' I though. 'Is it based on a calculator?' On the door, next to the lock, a word 'Clear' eliminated. The indicator light changed to green, and door bolts loudly opened inside. Judging by the sound, those were quite powerful bolts and they went through the whole perimeter of the door.

I shuddered. Unpleasant feeling. The door ached and slowly started opening. 'What was storaged there?' I wondered. Can't imagine what for doors like that were possibly needed. The door widely opened. It was dark inside. I swore again, since I did not bring a flash light along. I lowered my glasses from the forehead to the eyes and transferred the body-comp into a night vision mode, transmitting an image from cameras on my glasses.

First, only colorful spots were visible, but in a few seconds body-comp attuned the video image. Now I could see a good picture of the corridor, which was partially generated by the body-comp, based on data it got from internal sensors.

So, where shell I look for, and, most importantly, what shell I look for?

As I looked around, I noticed a distributing board, from which the socket in the room with equipment was supposed to be powered. I opened it and tried a few connections. Strange, there is power in here, but no light in this corridor. One would think it should automatically switch on as the door opens.

Baffled, I decided to walk along the line till the next distributing board, and check everything there to find a malfunction. I adjusted the glasses and went down the corridor. The corridor was very quiet, only water, dripping somewhere far away, disturbed the silence. It sent shivers down my spine. Not very much did I want to go down the corridor. Even though I could see the road though the glasses.

Silence and sound of water dripping, unpleasantly touch shattered nerves of an experienced gamer. Well, I have no choice anyway. Slowly, looking into all approaching corners, I went along the power line. As I moved long, I searched for a building plan or a drawing of its power lines in the internet. To my deep surprise, nothing useful could be found. With no choice left, I had to rewind the recording back and copy an evacuation plan, hanging by the entrance. The plan is now right on the body-comp screen. I checked out the distribution board I examined, and made comments.

About an hour passed by, since I began moving from one board to another, examining each one. In the area of the second board the body-comp biped letting me know about the loss of connection with the base. It's too deep in the basement.

About a mile of power lines were examined, and all looked fine. I was quite tired, decided to check a few more boards and take a break. Approaching the next one to examine, I saw some light. The board melted and sparkled. Apparently, this was the place of a short circuit. Putting on rubber gloves, which I providently put in my bag earlier, I opened the board and was amazed. All wires melted.

I rested a bit and started the work: cut the melted wires and began building a jumper. The right thing would be to switch off the power in the next board, but it was too far away, based on the distance between previous boards. So, I decided not to.

The job was almost done, I was about to connect the last wire, as behind my back I heard a sound. Acting out of fright and suddenness, I jumped and turned around, forgetting about wires squeezed in pliers I held. After that I could not see much, as my body arched and teeth clenched. Из глаз посыпались искры, and my consciousness kindly left me.

Chapter 2.

Sound of dripping water brought me back to reality. Opening my eyes with great effort, I tried to see at least something. It was too dark. Suddenly I felt pain in my whole body. The nerves work. I tried to remember what has happened. Aha, apparently I was electrocuted. What the hell scared me? Moving my jaw a bit and feeling pain in the teeth I tried to move my hand. It moved a bit.

I rested for a moment and continued attempts to recover my muscles. One-two, one-two. Squeeze and let go. How did Sansay taught to do it? Having pumped the blood through the muscles, I felt better. In half an hour I managed to crawl to the wall and lean on it.

Meanwhile I tried to figure out what has happened to me. It's clear that I was electrocuted, it's not clear how it happened. For I was wearing rubber gloves and was holding the wires with pliers. At that moment I smelled scorched hair and decided to feel my head. I felt sharp pain in the back of my head. My hair had scorched. Now I realize what happened: when I heard the noise and turned around, I accidently moved back and touched bare wires with the back of my head. Now thinking of it, I am surprised to be alive.

In addition, the wound hurts only when touched. I tried to remember whether this is good sign or not, but could not remember.

I felt my head once again. Well, the glasses are missing, I need to find them. Whistling in a certain way, I saw the flashed out light with relieve. The light hurt my eyes that got used to the darkness by now. At home I used to lose the glasses all the time, and thus installed a program which activated the light on glasses once I whistle the melody. According to body-comp reaction, it was alright. No surprise, those body-comps are well protected these days. People drop them all the time. So weirdoes even take baths without taking body-comp off.

In short, some time passed till I managed to get up , put the glasses on and look around. I planned to check what has happened with the board, finish the work and come back to the office. I would take care of my head injury later, it did not heart all that much. Though the first glance at the wall where the board was supposed to be, made me freeze.

There was nothing on the wall. No board was there. 'Maybe I jumped off it too far?' — I though and walked along the wall about 30 feet each way. Could not find the board. No matter how far I jumped, the board is supposed to be somewhere here. Though it was not. I looked at the walls. Staring at them for a moment, I realized that those were different walls. I could not believe myself, to the body-comp to be exact, so I switched on an extra light in the glasses. The extra light looked like a bright line along their upper edge.