Caerwaen Graeholm
Posts: 108
(6/18/04 3:33 pm)
Reply
|
The Awakening
Sgt. Andy Sweeny, Air Force (E-4) has the graveyard. He actually prefers it this way; he’s a very active and respected member of the “Lugs” (Linux User Groups), and the late hours let him chat it up with his buddies in Asia. Besides, the duties at the night desk are very light and provide him the opportunity to study. Andy has no plans to be career military; he has visions of a future in the IT Industry and his three-year minimum service is a springboard to that goal.
Today, Andy has a practice test program for the CCNE (Cisco Certified Network Engineer) certification loaded and he’s trying to burn through the questions in the allotted time. The questions vary from tricky multiple choice, to complicated mathematical equations he needs to work through in his mind if he’ll have a chance at a perfect score. A passing grade is not enough for Andy, his zeal for perfect scores has already earned him a couple of letters of intent from headhunters that can’t wait for him to finish this tour. But all things in their own time; the military service has not only given Andy free education, and a chance to work with very advanced systems; it will also grease the way through government postings to find the choicest of positions when he begins his climb. Andy is not only brilliant- he’s a planner.
The Morgue, as the pilots have dubbed the armor storage and maintenance bay, is on low-light cycle. Behind the small monitor-bedecked island that serves Andy for a desk is a semicircular wall, bathed by low ambient blue lights. The whole room is kept at a low fifty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, with zero dust or humidity, but the military loves to do things in triple redundancy. There’s a thick glass wall separating Andy from the area where the suits stand, and the suits themselves are held in frames within metal capped glass cylinders with their own atmospheric controls. These cylinders are elevated, so that a pilot climbs three broad steps before reaching the suit; the Pit, or space directly beneath each suit, is a series of monitors alight with the status of each suit.
Andy is knee deep in a test problem that has him reconfiguring several routers when the bell announcing an incoming mail begins its irksome tones. He ignores it for the few minutes it takes for him to jot down a series of IP addresses, then throws the switch that changes between workstations so he can silence the noisy alert. His head is still swimming in a deep sea of complicated octets as he quickly scans the message. It’s a work order, of all things, and a program upgrade packet to be sent to every suit. The mainframe has accepted and stored the electronic signature authorizing the work so Andy doesn’t give it a second glance; with a few quick keystrokes he switches the attached program to the execute mode and sends it to work while he returns to the test problem. A quick glance at the countdown tells him he’s lost three valuable minutes of testing time; he groans as he rushes back to the mental calculations and the executable is forgotten.
When the test is done, Andy’s score is one question off perfect. Swearing to himself, he begins the review process. Feverishly he scans the explanation from the test mentor, and bites his lip to contain his anger. He switches to online mode and locates the test mentor online, and begins a heated discussion during which he intends to have his test score modified, and the testing procedure itself corrected. He’s attacking the keys with a fervor that makes for some very loud clicking noises, indignant at the mentor’s stubborn stance and so it takes a few minutes before the noise from the Morgue impinges on his consciousness.
Andy emerges from his virtual world with the laggard sensory response of someone coming out of deep sleep. Slowly, he stands and scans the room for the source of the unusual sound; an electronic chirping of different tonalities. When his eyes come around to scan the Pit side of the Morgue, his eyes widen. Each containment cylinder has opened as if in expectancy of the suits going live, and the suit helmets are blinking through a quick sequence of multicolored lights. Reluctantly, Andy palms the access panel and steps into the pit; the suits ominous above him like gods perched in judgment of his incompetence. The monitors are displaying full activity beneath each suit! Andy reaches for the override keypads, and mentally stumbles through the memorized sequences that will shut the Pit down. But several failed attempts later, the need is negated by each suit going dead and silent again, one by one.
Andy takes two steps back and scans the monitors. They’re all showing normal activity. Nervously, he steps back to his desk and briefly considers his options. He should report it, of course. Probably some scheduled maintenance procedure he wasn’t brief on. Or was he? He should review those long procedural emails they send every day and see. But the main screen of the desk draws his attention back to the test mentor, who has continued to state his case. He’s so wrong, he’s five days into fantasy land; Andy idly enters a brief spurt on the night log that he’ll update later, and returns to the mentor’s chatbox to proof his point. It will take three more hours and two more mentors before Andy is vindicated, his score corrected, and the test taken off line for modification. The log update lies forgotten in the convoluted miasma of his brilliant mind.
Shift Log 0413 hr 061804 Bay 4: maintenance procedure check suits out of schedule SGT ASweeny
|
Email This To a Friend
Topic Commands
Click to receive email notification of replies 
Click to stop receiving email notification of replies