long, you use them to make a square plug into a round one', being able to produce the required part in a few seconds goes a long way towards assuring one's job security [16] .
— [16] John worked as an IT drone in what he refers to as the “bad old days”, and he retains a strong sympathy for those still in the trenches. One of his (few) redeeming features.—
This office was typical, which means it looked like an apartment from which the police have just extracted a four-month-old corpse, except full of bits and pieces of tech instead of old newspapers and cat litter.
A small desk and chair were pressed into a corner to occupy the absolute minimum possible space, leaving the rest for stacks of keyboards, tangles of cables, and piles of anonymous brown cardboard boxes.
Behind the desk was a young woman, banging away at a keyboard with evident frustration. I put her in her late twenties, with nut-brown skin and straight black hair drawn back in a no-nonsense queue.
She wore the techno-geek uniform of jeans and black t-shirt, and wire-rim glasses framed a face that was quite pretty, in a mousy sort of way [17] .
— [17] Here we go. I'm hardly a fit judge in such matters, but I'm not sure that 'quite pretty, in a mousy sort of way' justifies the number of surreptitious observations that John felt obliged to make over the next few minutes. (Though I suppose it wasn't her face he was looking at.)—
As we entered, she cut loose with a string of profanity that would have blistered the ears off a Bangkok sailor. Falmer's smile didn't even flicker.
“Nice to see you too, Deli.”
She looked up and sighed. Lack of sleep was written on her face, and I recognized the way her fingers drummed on the desktop as symptomatic of someone in the last stages of a caffeine binge. I winced sympathetically.
“Hi, boss,” she said, slumping back in her chair.
“ No luck, I take it?”
“ This is not possible,” she said flatly. “I have checked, and re-checked, and double-super-secret checked. It can't be happening.”
I couldn't help myself. “Come on. I'm sure you're proud of your security system, but every system breaks down eventually. Everyone knows that.”
She gave me a withering stare. “Because I am not an idiot, I am aware of Oberon's Law [18] . I am referring not to the fact that something got in, but rather to the fact that it appears to have left no evidence of how it got in while doing so. That should be impossible.” She shifted her glare from me to Falmer. “Who is he supposed to be, anyway?”
— [18] The aforementioned homily about a system only being secure when it is turned off.—
“This is John Golden, the expert I told you about. Give him everything we've got on the problem and whatever system access he needs. Help h im however you can, all right?”
“Ah.” She turned back to me, and I recognized her expression. It was the pained smile of the geek preparing to swallow her pride and kowtow to an idiot because he's higher up the org chart. I'd worn that smile almost continuously, back in the bad old days. “Good to meet you, Mr. Golden.”
We exchanged a tepid handshake. Falmer clapped his hands together and said, “All right. I've some things I should take care of upstairs. Deli, if anybody gets in your way and you need a word from me to sort it out, let me know. Mr. Golden, good luck! I look forward to your report.”
The words 'I look forward to your report' pushed a button deep in my soul labeled 'Panic', a leftover response from my years in the trenches. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw 'Deli' flinch. Falmer appeared not to notice, and gave us another dazzling smile. Then he left, and an awkward silence descended in his wake.
I cleared my throat. I'd gotten off to a bad start with the one person whose help I would genuinely need, but it wasn't too late to start making amends [19] .
— [19] Excellent justification. I'm sure he'd have been just as solicitous if she'd been some
— [16] John worked as an IT drone in what he refers to as the “bad old days”, and he retains a strong sympathy for those still in the trenches. One of his (few) redeeming features.—
This office was typical, which means it looked like an apartment from which the police have just extracted a four-month-old corpse, except full of bits and pieces of tech instead of old newspapers and cat litter.
A small desk and chair were pressed into a corner to occupy the absolute minimum possible space, leaving the rest for stacks of keyboards, tangles of cables, and piles of anonymous brown cardboard boxes.
Behind the desk was a young woman, banging away at a keyboard with evident frustration. I put her in her late twenties, with nut-brown skin and straight black hair drawn back in a no-nonsense queue.
She wore the techno-geek uniform of jeans and black t-shirt, and wire-rim glasses framed a face that was quite pretty, in a mousy sort of way [17] .
— [17] Here we go. I'm hardly a fit judge in such matters, but I'm not sure that 'quite pretty, in a mousy sort of way' justifies the number of surreptitious observations that John felt obliged to make over the next few minutes. (Though I suppose it wasn't her face he was looking at.)—
As we entered, she cut loose with a string of profanity that would have blistered the ears off a Bangkok sailor. Falmer's smile didn't even flicker.
“Nice to see you too, Deli.”
She looked up and sighed. Lack of sleep was written on her face, and I recognized the way her fingers drummed on the desktop as symptomatic of someone in the last stages of a caffeine binge. I winced sympathetically.
“Hi, boss,” she said, slumping back in her chair.
“ No luck, I take it?”
“ This is not possible,” she said flatly. “I have checked, and re-checked, and double-super-secret checked. It can't be happening.”
I couldn't help myself. “Come on. I'm sure you're proud of your security system, but every system breaks down eventually. Everyone knows that.”
She gave me a withering stare. “Because I am not an idiot, I am aware of Oberon's Law [18] . I am referring not to the fact that something got in, but rather to the fact that it appears to have left no evidence of how it got in while doing so. That should be impossible.” She shifted her glare from me to Falmer. “Who is he supposed to be, anyway?”
— [18] The aforementioned homily about a system only being secure when it is turned off.—
“This is John Golden, the expert I told you about. Give him everything we've got on the problem and whatever system access he needs. Help h im however you can, all right?”
“Ah.” She turned back to me, and I recognized her expression. It was the pained smile of the geek preparing to swallow her pride and kowtow to an idiot because he's higher up the org chart. I'd worn that smile almost continuously, back in the bad old days. “Good to meet you, Mr. Golden.”
We exchanged a tepid handshake. Falmer clapped his hands together and said, “All right. I've some things I should take care of upstairs. Deli, if anybody gets in your way and you need a word from me to sort it out, let me know. Mr. Golden, good luck! I look forward to your report.”
The words 'I look forward to your report' pushed a button deep in my soul labeled 'Panic', a leftover response from my years in the trenches. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw 'Deli' flinch. Falmer appeared not to notice, and gave us another dazzling smile. Then he left, and an awkward silence descended in his wake.
I cleared my throat. I'd gotten off to a bad start with the one person whose help I would genuinely need, but it wasn't too late to start making amends [19] .
— [19] Excellent justification. I'm sure he'd have been just as solicitous if she'd been some
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