SB2-07

“Technically, this is neither breaking nor entering,” Jayne says as she unlocks the door with one of the generic basement door keys.

“Huh?” You’re still too busy studying the morgue to make sure nothing unholy jumps out from one of the (empty) specimen jars at the back of the room.

“I have the key, so no breaking, and in my position I have the authority to enter any room in the building I think. So no entering... not a B&E.” Jayne finishes unlocking the door but pauses before opening it.

Nodding pensively, you reply, “Hallsy, you seem very aware of burglary laws and, even more, keen to point out that you’re not breaking those laws. Anything you need to tell me before I ask you out on a date?”

With a wicked grin, she replies, “Legally, I don’t have to tell you shit Zach. I’m a woman of mystery, and if I have a shadowy past then I suggest you accept it as part of the charm.”

“Fair enough.”

“... but honestly I watch a lot of Law & Order. I also read mystery novels with a crime solving caterer or a small time burglar who keeps stumbling on dead bodies and has to figure out whodunnit to stay out of jail.”

“That’s all I need to know to be reassured you are an upstanding citizen. Do you want to go out, like, tonight?”

Smiling, Jayne mock rolls her eyes and says, “Finally. And, yes.”

You can’t help but smile back, “Not going to ask where? I might just need help moving a piano.”

“I’ll take the chance on the certainty that you could not afford to live anywhere in Toronto big enough to house a piano.”

“Yeah good call, there are pianos bigger than my apartment. There’s a neat restaurant near my place that has a great looking patio. Being a loser with no friends I’ve always wanted to try it but haven’t yet.”

Jayne moves in a little closer and gives you a quick hug, “You are not a loser with no friends. You’re just new in town. And I’d love to go to dinner with you. Tonight or whenever.”

“It’s a date. Now, uh, I guess we’ve stalled for as long as we can right?” You both look at the now unlocked door to SB2-07. With a sigh and a (hopefully) joking look of fear, Jayne gestures for you to open the door. Which you do, with only slight hesitation that Jayne might not have even noticed.

The interior is dark, and the first thing you notice is a large rack of equipment to your left, just inside the door. It’s not a network rack but rather an old set of metal shelves built into the wall with some wiring running around. To the right of the door is another old empty shelf, set so close to the door frame you almost brush up against it walking in.

You and Jayne both take out your phones to use as flashlights, and a quick scan shows the room to be mostly empty. A table and old office chair sit on the opposite side of the room, and a thin layer of dust covers everything.

Well, if you were hoping for a big whiteboard with the a detailed explanation of TAM and how it worked you’re a little disappointed. You look at the rack mounted equipment - mostly old telecom gear. It is clearly not in use anymore and likely hasn’t been for decades, and the only thing you really recognize is an old electromechanical phone exchange switch. You learned about it in school just as a precursor to digital communication equipment that started coming out in the 1970’s.

Jayne walks over to the other door, where the power switch is. As the single functioning fluorescent light reluctantly starts up, you turn off your flashlight.

“Zach!” Jayne has gone to the desk, but she actually reaches down and grabs a piece of paper off the ground that had fallen partially underneath it.

Hurrying over, you look at it as Jayne holds it to the half-light of the old fluorescent tubes.

“Damn,” you say as Jayne holds the paper. It is a full colour printout of a wiring diagram, like a rough network topology. Jayne looks triumphant as she holds it, and you can’t blame her. At a glance, it’s clearly showing TAM and how it’s connected.

“Well this is definitely the SGI, it even says it is the ‘TAM Primary Test Housing’! Holy shit, this is great,” you say, “and it mentions Panopticon!”

“What’s it for?” Jayne asks as you scan the details.

“Well it’s just to illustrate how the server is networked. It shows some other SGI hardware, but I never saw any of that. Oh, and someone crossed some of it off. Presumably the same person who hand wrote those names on the bottom.”

Peering at the paper, Jayne said, “So is this from when they set up TAM the first time? Would that mean it was in here?”

You shake your head, “TAM could very well have been in this room, but this printout probably is more recent. This sort of full colour printing is fairly modern, looks like an inkjet did it. I don’t think many places had the ability to print things out in full colour in the ‘90s, or if they did they wouldn’t have done it for a simple diagram like this. Do you recognize those user names? The ‘ntdbhc’ domain indicates it must be fairly recent, like probably in the last 20 years.”

“Yeah I recognize some of them, hang on something familiar about this,” she mutters as she continues to study the sheet.

As she racks her memory, you duck down and look under the desk where she found it. Turning your flashlight back on you’re first struck by the sheer amount of dust on everything. But then you see another small flash of white, which you reluctantly crawl under the desk to grab.

“Ugh, it is disgusting under there, but check it out Hallsy there was another piece of paper.” You hold it up so you can both read it. It is a small strip of paper, perhaps a few inches high, with a single short line of text printed out.

The paper itself felt thin to you as you picked it up and with excitement you can see why. “Hey, this is definitely old, printed on a dot matrix printer.”

You read the short phrase “Unlock: flashcricketthunder,” out loud. “Well, not as cool as what you found certainly, but it might be related to TAM too.”

With a pleased smile, Jayne looks at you and says, “Take a look around in the desk and then let’s get out of here. I think I know who these people are, and even better I think I know who wrote this. But let’s go back to your office and talk about it, this dust is killing my sinuses and I’m still not completely sure this basement isn’t going to turn into Silent Hill at any moment.”

You’re looking through the desk drawers but they are all empty, and as you do it you say, “A Silent Hill reference too? You’re just showing off now if you’re casually talking about playing Silent Hill.”

She chuckles, “Just one of them, on Xbox when I was a teenager. Well, I didn’t play it, a guy I dated did. I just watched and screamed in terror.”

Finishing your search of the desk, you both look around but the room is clearly empty except for ancient telephone gear, so you quickly retrace your steps. The return journey only takes maybe 5 minutes, and it amuses you to realize that for all the excitement and the thrill of your kiss with Jayne you really only went to a slightly different part of an office building and found a couple of pieces of paper.

Back in your office, it feels strange to be in such a familiar location. Jayne sits in the chair across from you and you lay out the diagram in front of her and wait for her to begin.

“Ok, so these names are familiar. Well, two of them are for sure, Alan Scheer used to be in IT like 10 years ago, before my time but I saw his name on some documents. James Woo was actually here when I was briefly, but he got a job somewhere else and left. I don’t know who ‘fborbato’ is, but the last one is the one who I remembered. He was the manager of the IT department, say, 20 to 15 years ago before amalgamation, when Bathurst had a full IT team here on site. He’s long gone too, but he was on the old org charts.”

Leaning forward, Jayne continues, “But the reason I remember him is because last year someone asked me about him. The woman you replaced, Karen Harding! She asked me about Ric Ganbarg, if I had ever met him or anything. Didn’t say why, and I never really asked. But she quit her job suddenly around that time, maybe a few weeks later!”

“Holy shit! So she wrote this?”

Nodding, Jayne says, “She must have! It even looks like her handwriting! I worked with her for a few years. She was a nice woman, a few years older than us, and since this was her office I got to know her pretty well. When she left just before Christmas I remember she gave only 2 weeks notice, and even then used up her banked OT and holidays so she was out the door very soon after she gave her notice. With the holidays it was a bad time for hiring which is why your position was empty until you started in February.”

Your mind racing, you lean back in your chair. “So, we can be sure she was the one who found this diagram somewhere, printed it out, and then wrote the names of old IT staff. Just whoever she knew or other people could remember probably. Then look at the diagram again Jayne, she crossed off the port server and SGI console in pen. She wrote a question mark beside this “Panopticon Control Ogilvie”, so she must have actually had the TAM up and running.”

“I think so too Zach! Now we just need to find her. I think I may have a-” Jayne pauses as she notices you looking at the doorway behind her and turns around.

“Hi guys!” Karissa says, “I didn’t mean to interrupt I just heard you two talking in here and I was so happy I had to take a look. I knew that you two were going to kiss and make up.”

You can’t see Jayne’s expression, but you know you started visibly at Karissa’s comment about kissing.

The young clerk’s eyes go wide as she looks between you and Jayne and she gasps. “No! Way! Ahhh!” She quickly enters your office and closes the door behind her.

“Did you guys kiss! I can tell you did, Zach looked like super guilty and Jayne you blushed beet red! Ohmygod that is so freaking awesome!!” Karissa is deliberately talking quietly but her excitement is clear.

With a huge smile she walks up to Jayne as if to hug her, but Jayne groans and holds up a hand to ward her off, “Oh for the love of... Karissa you can’t say anything ok? It’s nothing.” As she says it, Jayne shoots you a guilty look for downplaying it.

“Nothing?” Karissa frowns. “So, you’re not together now? You didn’t kiss him?”

Jayne stammers, “W-well kind of, but we are just going for dinner tonight. I don’t want anyone to know about it, until we get to know each other better.”

A part of you wants to act insulted to troll Jayne, but you completely understand what she means. The last thing you want is for all your coworkers to be talking about you two as a couple before you can even go on one date.

Karissa replies, “Hmm. Ok, that sounds fair. I won’t say anything of course, I don’t want you two to have to put up with weird comments until you’re properly dating. But I insist you both tell me how the date tonight goes. Ugh, I almost wish I could go too, I just worry one or both of you will mess it up somehow and then I’ll need to mend it before everything can move along properly.”

You are usually at least a little befuddled by Karissa’s stream of consciousness conversational style, but now you are extra confused. “Uh, what? Move what along?” you ask.

Karissa pauses, then gives you an adorable but very unconvincing smile and chirps, “Oh, nothing! Just want you two to have a great time tonight! I’ll be here to check up on you both in the morning, but I better get back to my desk. Doris has been so strict about me not being there when she needs help doing something she should be able to do herself.”

“Well, your job is literally to assist her,” Jayne says dryly.

Unconcerned by mere workplace norms, Karissa shrugs and says, “Yeah I guess. Anyway, it is a Tuesday, so a simple dinner date should work. Keep it low key, kind of casual, just some drinks and a good meal. That sounds really good for both of you, I mean you know each other really well and get along great so just a chance to hang out in a non-work setting should be ideal.”

“Uh, glad you approve?” You say. This girl just truly is on a different plane of reality in some ways.

“I do and I’m thrilled for you guys. Talk to you both tomorrow! Anticipating some really happy stories of a great first date from you both!” And with that, Karissa floats out of your office to, probably grudgingly, give some managers some clerical assistance.

A few seconds of silence hangs in the room until Jayne snaps out of it. “Well, that was... something. But I need to get some work done too. Zach, we can talk about this more at dinner maybe?”

Regaining your footing, you smile and say, “Deal. Did you want to meet at my place? Or I could meet you at the restaurant of course. And what time?”

Blushing slightly, Jayne looks away and says, “I hope it’s not too forward, but I live a fair drive away. If you want, we can hang out for a bit after work and then just have an early dinner? If it’s any problem just say so, I don’t want to impose!”

“I would love to spend the whole evening with you Hallsy, surely you know that.” You both smile shyly at each other.

“Good.” She says, “Then whenever you’re ready to leave come grab me and we’ll take my car to, uh, your place?”

Visions of your empty apartment flood your mind. Thank god you have two chairs. “Sounds great Jayne.” Somehow, after everything that’s happened today you’re not terribly concerned Jayne will judge you harshly for your half furnished bachelor pad.