2014

Limited contact to the outside world, bright florescent surroundings, and low-level office dividers. This new office was meant to be an upgrade for one reason; windows. Whenever comments were made about the new office, higher-ranking supervisors would always comment back with, "but we have windows!" in a cheerful reassuring tone that would be underlined with a small amount of sarcasm. No one liked the windows, and no one liked being moved to the new office.

The old office was located in the basement, which had always been cool and relaxing. Relaxing, because no one was around to dictate what sort of entertainment was allowed during work hours. The old office also had walls, one could actually sit at a desk without looking over their computer screen and locking eyes with another co-worker. This accidental locking eye action had begun to get extremely awkward and would happen consistently in the new office.

Dazing off into the distance the young analyst sat at her workstation motionless. A hand came out of nowhere and waved in front of her face. "Hello? Anyone in there?" said the owner of the hand. The analyst's eyes automatically snapped to the individual speaking. The victim of her glare was one of her supervisors, one she wasn't all that fond of. "Why are you staring off into the distance?"

"Well sir, it's because there are no walls." She replied thinking herself a master of sarcasm.

He took a long breath ending in a sigh, "So if there were, you would be staring into a wall."

"Yes," Seeing she may have wanted to cover her distraction with the excuse that she was in deep thought. She gave him a charming smile, hoping that this would pass as a joke. It didn't.

He started to walk away while saying, "Aria, get back to work."

"Yes, sir," She imagined sticking out her tongue out in retort, but of course being too professional to act on it. Get back to work? If nothing is broken, then I can't fix it! Oh, the continuing saga of working on a help desk. Fucking operators. She knew that last thought was hypocritical she was technically an operator herself. But unlike her supervisors she had tech education, and knew how to translate information between the two. In a few clicks she opened a word document, and started to arbitrarily type. Perhaps she would now be seen as a dedicated employee, instead of a lazy contractor. That particular stigma followed just about every contractor, and she hated it. Even though she hated it, she was aware that every stigma had some truth to it. It made her think back to her days in the Army. Her and her fellow soldiers would always poke fun at the government contractors, and would constantly complain about how she did all the work. Ha! Never knew I would end up here so fast.

She separated from the Army about a year ago. She missed being Specialist Gonzales, better known as SPC Gonzo. The army was the first real family that she had known. However, the temptation of making more money in the civilian world made her decline the opportunity to "re-up". Aria's thoughts were still conflicted. A small part of her heart remained in the army, and when she separated there was a hole left behind. She let out a silent sigh as some of the green suits (army folk) passed, joking with each other in a familiar sibling like manner. Aria missed that. Her and her gang would torment sergeants, hide from officers, and were experts in their job field. In those days she felt invincible.

A blinking icon interrupted her tangent thoughts, and the pointless typing. The bright red icon indicated a faulty router. She double clicked it, and found that the ping had been blocked. The goal of her position was so to prevent anything like this from happening, but she could help feeling slightly thankful for something to do. After the blocked ping was discovered, Aria, then attempted a remote log-in. As a result: "CONECTION TO Server1… STATUS: FAILED". Only once before had she run into trouble connecting to the Server remotely, which indicated that there could be a power issue on the circuit. Readjusting her ¾ length sweater, locking the screen, then snatching up the server room's key. Aria made her way out of the office walking with a purpose to her step. This type of step always seemed the spark the interest of fellow co-workers, and as she left an operator, Cliff Michaels interjected, " Hey Aria! I can't access the share folder."

"That's nice, I'm sure everyone is having the same problem. The server is down."

"Oh," he was silent for a second then yelled after her, "are you going to fix it?"

She lifted her hand in annoyance, "What do you think I'm doing?!" she stated loudly before shutting the office door. Cliff turned red in embarrassment, he always liked her. However, he never understood why she was so mean to him.

A light echo bounced off the walls as Aria's knee-high boots met the new surface of the hallway. The hall was long, and the end was a very distant door leading to a section in which she had never been. Much of the building was like this: if one did not have a need to be in a particular area, than one might never see the entire architecture. Luckily for Aria, the walk to the server room was a short one, and she often referred to it as her quiet place. That is if she did not turn on her favorite public radio station. Today was one of those days, she needed the complex melodies. Classical music al had a great affect on her immense rage for social interaction. However, social situations only bothered her in large groups, and was the reason she often had anxiety when she was enlisted.

Aria tugged open the heavy door of the server room, cool air flew at her face, and she stepped up to the main floor on which the server racks were held. She noticed the back-up lights were powered up but nothing else. There goes my radio time. Fearing the worse, she opened the metal screen door to the server's rack. Just as Aria feared, the UPS failed, the emergency power did not kick in. What the fuck? How does the rest of the building have power, but not our server room? A larger light emerged from the main door.

"Gonzo!" a familiar voice reached her ears, "What happened here? I guess this is what goes on when I leave. You could never be trusted in a server room."

"Tai, go back your office. I really don't need this right now," any other day Aria would have been happy to see her longest standing friend, just not today. She didn't know what was going on, and he was already starting to blame things on her.

"I actually came up here to see if your server room had the same problem mine does. Seeing that my speculations were right, I'll be going…" he mockingly turned around about to exit.

"Hold on, forgive me, it's just … I don't know what the problem is. So this is happening to yours as well?"

"Yep, but you already knew because you're…"

"I'm not a witch!" Tai laughed at her retort. Ever since they had been assigned to the same mission in the army it had been a running joke that she was a witch. The only reason was because Aria was the only female soldier on the mission, and it had stayed like that for two years until another female arrived. Back then she would find salt in her hair from the team testing the witch theory.

Tai began a more serious tone as he spoke, fearing that they might actually have to get back to work, "I called the engineer shop, and they said they knew nothing of the outage. I was then referred to the outage team, they weren't aware at first, but then the supervisor got on the line. She told me that there was a scheduled outage, but the outage team was instructed not to inform the System Admins until the event."

"What? That doesn't make any sense. Why would they wait? Unless they didn't want any negative feedback until it was over," Aria's eyes at this point were more focused on the lifeless rack before her, than they were on Tai. Her thoughts wondered to how idiotic this whole ordeal was, and now she would have to perform a full back up on all the devices under her care.

"I think you answered your own question," he let out a small chuckle.

The server room's door swung open once more. A larger sized man stepped into the room. He wore a dark colored suit; it seemed to be expensive and well tailored. The man adjusted his glasses. As he did Aria noticed he had very unique cuff links. They were shaped like a cross, but were squared unlike traditional crosses from most religious organizations. The cuff-links glimmered in the now dim light showing off a tint of crimson. She thought them odd, and didn't seem to fit this professional. He then spoke, "I am looking for a skilled system administrator, and was referred to a Tai Ford," he was staring at Tai, "do you know of him?"

"Yes sir, that's me." Tai answered sounding more confused than Aria felt. Aria thought No security protocol? I guess anyone can waltz into my server room nowadays…

"My name is Brian Lee, and I require some assistance…"

Tai cut him off mid sentence, "Sir I'm afraid I can't help you. It's not in my contract to do free-lace work, and I don't recognize you."

Annoyed with the technician Mr. Lee continued, "I wasn't going to ask you if you could," Aria was shocked Who the hell does this guy think he is? We don't do anything for anyone, unless we know who they are! Aria was about to speak her mind when Tai saw her frustration and silently told her off with a look. Mr. Lee sighed, then reached into his jacket, "I really don't have all day for this, here," He handed Tai a paper, "this should explain your new assignment."

"I haven't agreed to this," Tai stated still taking the paper in curiosity.

"We didn't need you to, and with that said I hope you will stop arguing with me. Now, you might help me find some else I require, an Aria Gonzales?"

Aria groaned inside her mind, why did this man have to be looking for her too? She replied in a flat tone, "I am an Aria Gonzales…"

"Oh?" Mr. Lee then spoke to Tai, smirking, "I thought she was a floozy you brought to this broom closet for a little afternoon delight," He then let out a laugh, "follow me, both of you."