Page 72 of Wild Fever

I helped him out. "Look around for an alphanumeric passcode. It's probably written down somewhere or on a Post-it.”

A moment later, Haskins said, "Is this it? A-245-6D7X?”

I hesitated for a moment. "Yep, that's it. What can I do for you?"

"The entire system went down. The screen is glitching. All the camera feeds are down. I can't access anything. Nothing works,” he said, his voice growing ever more panicked. “I tried turning off the computer and rebooting it. Nothing’s working.”

"How long has this been going on?"

"It just started.”

"Have you contacted anybody else?”

"No, you're my first call.”

"Good. Can you tell me what you see on your screen now?”

"Just junk. Some kind of glitch."

"And the reboot didn't work?"

"No," he said, frustration creeping in.

"Look, I'm going to send a recovery team to your location. Just to confirm, you’re at 112 Research Lane.”

"Correct.”

"I don't want you to do anything. Any further tampering could make the situation worse. This could be some kind of software glitch, a virus, or we could be dealing with some kind of ransomware."

"Ransomware?”

"Has anyone made any demands?"

"No. Not that I'm aware of.”

"Okay. That's a good sign.”

"Should I call the police?”

"No. I don't think that’s necessary at this time. Just hold off until we get there. Don't do anything. Let's not jump the gun.” I paused. "Does your central computer system control any mission-critical operations?”

"I'm sure it does. That's out of my area, but I think it controls and monitors just about everything.”

"Okay. No problem. We'll get this sorted.”

"How soon can you have a crew out here?”

"We can mobilize our emergency response team in 15 or 20 minutes. In the meantime, sit tight, don't make any additional phone calls. In case this is a ransomware situation, they could be monitoring calls. Some of these dirtbags have been known to delete all data when agitated.”

"Okay.”

"We'll see you shortly.”

"Fantastic," he said.

I ended the call with a smile and said to the group, "We’re on.”

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