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Nobody else would have that level of permissions.”
    I rubbed my eyes. “Someone owes me a head. Let’s go see what we can do.”
    Not much, as it turned out. I could restart the system, but would still need the new password to log on. Since we couldn’t get in, Syndee and I worked on figuring out who was responsible. I planned to use the imperative form to get the password, followed by some recreational waterboarding.
    Twenty minutes later, one of the contractors on our desktop team knocked on the door. When Syndee answered, he said, “I can get you in, but I want immunity from reprisal. In writing.”
    I said, “Fix this and you have a job, unless we find out you’re the one who caused it in the first place. What’s your plan?”
    “Reset the local admin account password. Once you’re in, you can find out who stayed active after everyone got booted.”
    I looked at Syndee and asked, “Do you know how to do that?”
    “I know how it’s done, but I don’t have the tools to do it.” I must have grimaced or something; she rolled her eyes and said, “Damn it, David, I’m a sysadmin, not a hacker.”
    “We need a hacker, then.” I nodded to the contractor. “You’re on. What’s your name?”
    “Most people call me Oaken. Can I get that immunity note?” He didn’t look shifty, but I got a definite feeling that he was hiding something.
    I pulled out a business card, wrote “Oaken has immunity from reprisal for the next fifteen minutes,” signed and dated it. I showed it to Syndee and said, “You’re a witness to all this. Feel free to testify against me if I renege.” I handed Oaken the card.
    He tucked it away and took a CD out of his tool kit. He rebooted the system from it, entered a few commands, and said, “There you go. Reboot and use ‘password’, no spaces, all lower case.” He popped the CD out and stepped back to make room for Syndee. She restarted the server and logged on without issue. A few minutes later, she looked up and said, “Larry Hooper was the only user to stay logged in this whole time, and he’s set as a domain administrator.”
    “Document what you find and we’ll deal with him once the paperwork is done.” I turned to Oaken and met his eyes. “Tell me the truth. Is this a scam intended to hurt myself, this company, or anyone we’re associated with?”
    “I was going to steal and sell your models, but I like working here too much. I like the money and the people I work with. I don’t want to lose either.” His eyes widened and he took a step back. “I don’t know why I said that.”
    “You said it because I asked you for the truth,” I said. “Is Oaken your real name?” Given his reason for coming to work here, the odds of him having given us his real name seemed a bit remote.
    “No.” He grimaced and toed the floor. “I don’t like my given name. My folks are…kind of random. They picked ‘Sherwood Birch’ by pulling a name out of a hat during a convention after-party. I think they were tripping on acid at the time. I went with ‘Oaken’ after the Sherwood Oak in Nottingham Forest.”
    “No problem. Fill out a new application and put down name and nickname. Welcome aboard.”
    Syndee locked the server and stood up. “I have an open spot on my team. I’ll get the onboarding started.” She led Oaken out of the server room and off to her office. I went to have a talk with Larry Hooper.
    He provided the password just as I expected, and I unlocked the security team. While they were sorting things out, I asked Larry what he’d been thinking.
    He scowled at me. “My work is critical to the success of this project, and having it delayed to accommodate code that’s of no consequence is not acceptable. I have repeatedly asked you to give me dedicated use of the environment from noon to five. I got tired of waiting. Now, thanks to you, I have to start this run from the beginning. Are you happy now?”
    “Getting there.” I met his eyes, and poured all