Page 29 of Girl, Empty (Ella Dark #27)
The humans had cleared out hours ago, replacing one screen with another at home, and Amanda should probably do the same.
But this was her company, and because she’d built it, she sometimes felt obligated to stay here, to make all the love she’d given to it worth the effort.
It was like when you decorated the spare room.
You found any excuse to spend more time in there.
Amanda had founded Blackglass herself ten years ago, and had luckily joined the tech software game at just the right time.
It had been that magic window when companies realized they could slap apps on things like refrigerators and toasters and convince the world it was the pinnacle of innovation.
Once even household appliances were shackled to phone apps, it meant every new product then needed an app to go with it, and that’s what Blackglass specialized in.
Amanda closed down the news article on her screen.
Apparently, there’d been another murder in downtown Indianapolis, the second in two days, but details of the second one were minimal.
She’d like to say she was surprised, but murders here were more regular than people thought.
One downside of working in tech was that you built a digital cage and you had to live in it, so you were always a little too informed for comfort.
Enough for tonight.
She had to go home sometime. It might as well be early enough to catch some trash television before bed.
A minute later, Amanda had shut everything down, collected her things and left her office in darkness.
Out in the corridor, she saw a rectangle of light seeping out one of the office windows.
Apparently there was still another human being here.
Ten dollars said it was Noah, the man who thought he could code his way to immortality.
That was another thing about tech boys. They didn’t realize that empires could fall if someone just unplugged the power cable.
Amanda popped her head around the door. There he sat. He’d come to Blackglass from rural Maine, and he’d brought his country skills with him. He was the only man Amanda knew who could hotwire a tractor, not that it ever came in use. ‘Oi, why are you still here?’
Noah wheeled his chair back then spun around in a 360. ‘Because there’s nothing out there for me. This is my life now. Working.’
She stepped into the office and saw he was playing a video game on his computer. ‘Looks like it. Video games on our network? Are you mad?’
‘Relax. It’s as secure as a chastity belt. No one is hacking us through this.’
Amanda wanted to be upset, and as the CTO around here, she should probably put a stop to this right now.
Installation of any external programs had to go through her, but of course, Noah found a way around that.
But she couldn't be mad at him, because Noah was irritatingly appealing, especially with that floppy hair and those stupid glasses. 'You should have asked me.'
‘Asked you? Do you want to play too?’ Noah spun back to his keyboard. He was playing some fantasy game, with a cluttered interface full tiny icons and red health bars. It hurt her head just trying to make sense of it.
‘Play games? I’m 36.’
‘I’m 37. What of it?’
‘Hmm. What is this crap, anyway? Some Dungeons and Dragons rip-off?’
Noah shot her a look, then went back to riding a virtual knight on a virtual horse through some virtual grasslands. ‘This is World of Warcraft, I’ll have you know. Don’t pretend you’ve never heard of it.’
‘I have heard of it, but that’s where it ends. Why are you playing this here instead of at home?’
‘Connection is faster here.’
‘Isn’t your partner wondering where you are?’
The question came out before she could stop it.
She'd been curious about Noah's living situation for months now, ever since he'd started working late more often.
Not that she cared. Not that she was keeping track.
Or so she told herself. On the screen, Noah's knight stopped mid-gallop.
The virtual horse began spinning around, as if Noah had suddenly forgotten which keys controlled forward movement.
‘No partner. Not anymore. She, uh, kicked me out.’
‘Oh no.’ Heat crept up Amanda’s neck. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s for the best. That’s what they say, isn’t it?’
‘That is what they say. I’m divorced, if it’s any consolation.’
‘It is, actually.’
‘What happened?’ Amanda asked. She knew she’d overstepped the mark, but surprised herself with how little she cared. Maybe you could talk to your employees on this level without making it weird.
‘I’m digital. She’s analogue. Quite literally. She dumped me by fax.’
‘Fax? Who has a fax machine?’
‘My ex, apparently. Are you going home for the night? I can lock up if you want.’
‘I might. I was just…’
Noah unglued himself from the screen. ‘Just what? You weren’t going to ask me for a drink, were you?’
‘God, no…’ Amanda stuttered. ‘Sorry, not God no . I didn’t mean it like that. Just…’
Noah laughed. ‘Relax. If you want to, we could.’
Amanda’s heart fluttered. This was not what CTOs were supposed to be doing. You couldn’t date an employee. It was a conflict of interest.
Then again, who said she wanted to date him? It didn’t have to be that much commitment.
She was about to suggest something stupid when her phone pinged. If it was a regular ping, she’d have ignored it for this moment of odd connection with Noah. But it wasn’t that. It was a shrill note. One of those notification sounds that you rarely heard.
Amanda checked it.
It was a pop-up notification from the server room security system.
BLACKGLASS SECURITY ALERT TEMPERATURE ANOMALY DETECTED SERVER ROOM B-1 IMMEDIATE ATTENTION REQUIRED.
‘Oh, shi…’
‘What is it?’
'Temperature anomaly in the server room. I have to go check it out.'
'Which server room?'
'B-1. The basement.'
Noah frowned. ‘The big one. Probably just an error with the thermometer though. It happens in this cold.’
‘I hope so. Are you coming?’
‘Been a while since I heard that.’
Amanda barely caught the joke, and she couldn’t find the will to laugh. If their servers failed, the company would bleed cash until they were fixed. ‘Come on.’
Noah fell in step behind as they made their way along the corridor and down the stairwell. By the time they reached the bottom, Amanda could see her breath in the air.
She pulled out her keycard and pressed it to the panel. It flashed green and Amanda pushed through into the downstairs corridor. The server room lay at the deep end.
‘Whoa, kinda chilly down here isn’t it?’ Noah said.
‘Yeah. Even for January.’
‘You know, chilly is the only word that means something both hot and cold. Think about that.’
With every step down the corridor, the temperature dropped that little bit more. ‘I will,’ Amanda lied.
‘Jesus Christ, do we have air con in here or something?’
‘No. Haven’t you been down here before?’
‘I don’t have access down here.’
‘It’s the building’s armpit so you’re not missing much. The only air con is in the server rooms.’
They reached the entrance to server room B-1. It was an electronic door, like an elevator. The thermostat outside drew Amanda’s attention.
‘What the hell? 30 degrees?’
‘What’s it supposed to be at?’
’64, constantly.’ Amanda jabbed the up-arrow on the panel, but the number wouldn’t rise. It remained at a constant 30. ‘This is freezing. Did someone screw around with this? Was Jeff down here?’
‘He couldn’t. Only you have access down here, you paranoid freak.’
Amanda swiped her keycard and the door to the server room slid open. The cold air blew out in a violent breath and sucked the air from her lungs. It was like opening the front door mid-storm. ‘Holy… this is all wrong.’
‘You’re not kidding.’ Noah wrapped his arms around himself. ‘I should have brought a jacket.’
‘I’m going in. Stay back. Keep an eye on the temp gauge. There might be something screwy with the air con unit.’
‘Hurry up. You’ll turn to a snowman in there,’ Noah said as he prodded the thermostat. ‘I’ll work my magic on this thing.’
Amanda crossed the threshold into the Arctic conditions of the server room and checked the conditions of the hard drives themselves.
They’d already developed a layer of frost on their cases, which meant it had been freezing down here since before she got that notification on her cell.
The cold burned her lungs, and only worsened when she got closer to the air con unit on the far wall.
Nothing about it looked screwy. There were no control buttons on the thing itself, so Amanda wasn’t sure what she expected to find. She needed to get out of here and call the company that installed it, because while she could design apps in a heartbeat, she knew very little about air con tech.
She rushed to the exit and breathed a sigh of relief. She found Noah attacking the thermostat controls with two thumbs. ‘It’s dead. Can’t turn it off or anything. It’s been overridden.’
The door shut behind them and brought brief respite from the cold. ‘Can you unlock it?’
‘Me? What am I, some kind of air con guru? I don’t have a clue how this thing works. Did you check the access panel?’
‘The what?’
‘You know, the bypass. The manual override. The look on your face says no.’
‘The look on my face says I don’t know what that is.’
‘Modern units all have maintenance ports, for diagnostics. There’ll be a reset button underneath it.’
‘You just said you knew nothing about air con units.’
‘I don’t. It’s any modern contraption – you should know this. Is there a ladder in there?’
‘There’s a metal staircase on wheels. It’s to reach the servers up top. It’ll reach the air con unit too. What does this maintenance port look like?’
‘Leave it to me,’ Noah said. ‘Open up.’
'Are you kidding? You're not dressed to go in there? It's –Amanda checked the thermostat again. It had gotten lower. '29 degrees.'
‘This is beach weather in Maine. And you’re shaking.
’ Noah put a hand on her shoulder, and she was taken aback by the sudden inconvenience of her bodily reaction.
She suddenly felt like a teenager sneaking off behind the gym with her high school boyfriend.
Wrong place, wrong time, wrong everything. But there it was anyway.
‘I’m not shaking,’ she lied.
'Open it up. I'll hotwire it. You stay out here, see if the temperature gauge unlocks.'
Amanda swiped her keycard in the door again. Noah disappeared inside and didn't seem at all bothered by the sudden temperature drop. Hopefully, he could genuinely handle it and wasn't just putting on a performance for her.
‘You got it?’ she shouted.
‘Gimme a minute.’
Amanda jabbed the panel again, but it was as frozen as the equipment that kept her company running.
If she didn't fix this tonight, the whole thing could seize up, and six hundred companies would be without phone apps for their appliances.
It wouldn't usher in Armageddon, but it meant a fortune in reconciliation costs.
‘Got it, I’m just-,’
The electronic door slid shut.
Stupid thing? Amanda thought. The LED panel had switched from green to red. She swiped her keycard again to open it.
Nothing happened.
‘Dammit.’
She tried again. Red.
One more time. Same again
What the hell was going on?
‘Noah?’ she shouted. ‘Can you hear me?’
There was a sudden bang against the door. ‘Hey, there’s no override. Let me out.’
‘I can’t. The door’s locked.’
‘Quit joking. I’m freezing.’
Amanda swiped her keycard in a frenzy, but all she got was red, red, red. ‘I’m not joking! It’s jammed. I’m swiping but nothing’s happening!’
‘This isn’t funny. Come on.’
Amanda swiped her card, kicked at the door, hammered her fist on the temperature gauge. Nothing. A cold fist of panic gripped her, spreading from her gut to her scalp in a blink. Her hands went stupid and she dropped the keycard.
Ping.
The sound came from the thermostat. It was the electronic chirp you heard when you pressed the up or down arrow. But Amanda wasn't touching anything.
She turned to look at the display.
27 degrees.
26.
25.
Someone was turning it down.
Someone was freezing Noah to death.
‘Noah! Try the manual release! The red handle!’
He was banging furiously on the door now. Probably kicking it, shouldering it. ‘I’ve tried it. It’s not working. Call the cops. Call someone. I need to get out of-’
Then it came. A sound that reminded Amanda of when she watered her plants – but the hose head broke off and watered violently gushed out. Noah screamed from the other side, but Amanda couldn’t hear anything but the sound of pouring water.
More pings. More cold. The temperature dropped to 14, and the panic nearly made Amanda collapse.
‘I’m calling the cops! Hold on!’ she cried.