Turnabout !

Debbi was proving to be a creature of habit. Her daily lock down routine followed a regular pattern so it was easy for her fans to follow her antics live if they so wished, though replay was always available too. Diane sat down to celebrate quietly with a glass of wine when the number of views on 'Join Debbi In Lock Down' hit a quarter of a million ! And that was without considering the other sites on which her clips were now circulating.

But lock down was changing subtly. There was talk of tentatively restarting some work activities. Jeff had tasked both Diane and Debbi to prepare for this. Diane was to source supplies of hand cleanser and face masks. No easy matter. While Debbi was to prepare a rota so that half the personnel would work on one day and the other half on the next, thus facilitating adequate social distancing. This wasn't just a case of eeny, meeny, miny, mo. She had to consider that each job function was adequately covered on either shift.

Reluctantly, Diane thought it best to disable the bug on Debbi's laptop again, just in case it should somehow come to light in a work environment. There were predictable howls of protest on the web site forum but they had plenty of archive material to keep them going. It was a surprise therefore, when an anonymous email popped up for Diane titled 'Debbi In Lock Down ?' She opened the message.

'So, I see you've taken down the link to Debbi's laptop. What are you going to do about it ?' Diane was disconcerted. Her tracks were well covered, she thought. Was someone just trying it on ? She decided to simply ignore it. Later that day, another message appeared. 'I'm still waiting for an answer.' This time, Diane sent off a response. 'I don't know what you're talking about.' Her unknown correspondent was quick to counter that. 'Oh I think you do. I think you know very well that that you inserted a bug onto Debbi's laptop that would keep her webcam broadcasting when she thought it was switched off. To humiliate her in front of the board and the Koreans. And then you activated it again during lock down.'

Diane tried stonewalling once more but to no avail. Whoever this was knew too much and seemed to have some kind of audit trail. 'I think you realise well enough that such misconduct would be subject to instant dismissal' the next follow up message continued. 'What do you want ?' Diane finally half admitted. 'Well, there are lots of unhappy punters now that Debbi in Lock Down's gone dark.' Diane quickly replied 'I can reactivate it' and then cursed that she had incriminated herself. 'I've got a better idea. How about you take her place ?'