4a: To the Cloud

The doors close to the elevator. Amanda takes off with Daria down hallways dimly lit by low power fluorescents that speak to being in the building after hours. The air is cold and stale. Maybe as a result of the weather outside or maybe as a result of housing the heat producing servers. Occasionally the lights dim slightly, seeming to change in intensity. As they move, Amanda mentally maps their passage along the layout she found on Rich's computer. The women come to the final turn that will taken them down the hallway that has the access door to the server room. Amanda pokes her head out and ducks back as she spots a security guard walking down the hallway toward the pair.

The women find the few doors near at hand locked. They can hear the echo of the guards footsteps approaching.

The guard moves up to the hallway. He whistles to himself and crosses the hallway to a door the women had tried. He fumbles with some keys and then opens the door moving inside, apparently oblivious to Daria squatting down the hallway.

The women make their way back up the hallway and around the corner to the long hallway with the server room door. As they move, there is distinct flashing of the fluorescents overhead. A flickering in and out. The women get to the door. They can see through the window the mass of networking cables terminated in neat rows and highlighted red and green twinkling lights signaling the data transmissions throughout the building and to the remote servers. Amanda tries the door and finds it locked.

Daria moves back down the long hallway to the turn, where the guard entered an office. As she turns into the hallway, she can just make out the guards muffled voice through the door to her right. …weird shit has been happening since the courier left, Frank. I… I swear someone’s in here… Just then, the lights flicker and go out, blanketing the hall in darkness.

Daria and Amanda brace in the darkness. Both women feel an odd breeze in the hallway that brings a faint smell of ozone. Daria hears the muffled voice of the guard. Shit! Frank?! What the hell... Daria hears the door open and turns on her phone flashlight. What the.... Ahhh! as the spray coats his face he blinks and begins wiping his eyes frantically. As the man struggles, Daria sees a woman walking up behind him entering the illuminance of Daria's phone. She is barefoot and as she walks she places her feet in an odd side stepping gait towards the man. Her dress is black as night with pinprick lights twinkling amidst its folds. Daria recognizes Yvette Somers from the Basalt Cliffs of the Space Between. Her eyes empty and... hungry.

Daria sucks in a sharp breath as Yvette stalks up behind the guard. The man yells at Daria, …Why would you do that?! Why would… The man’s voice cuts off as Yvette touches him. Like air escaping a balloon the man seems to just deflate in front of Daria. As his loose skin, clothing and items crumple to the floor in a heap, his keys fall out of his hand and slide across the floor towards Daria’s feet. Yvette’s empty eyes focus on the woman, an infinite pool of blackness and void within.

Daria fumbles with the keys her hands shaking as she tries to force them in the lock. She drops them two times and as she finds the key and inserts it into the lock Yvette rounds the corner. As she moves there is a warped distortion to her movements as she seems to flicker in and out of the hallway. An ethereal voice flits ahead of the woman, wispy, vacant and ominous

I have such wonderful things to show you…

The women run in the door and slam it behind them. The room is full of three rows of server cabinets housing computers and a mass of ethernet cables that are neatly organized in bundles that vaguely resemble a circulatory system. Even though the lights are out, the servers still have power, blinking status light giving the odd effect of twinkling stars down the rows of cabinets.

Daria spots a breaker box tucked behind a cabinet to her right. Amanda notices a small foldable table and chair down the one row of infirm looking server cabinets.

Amanda rushes over to the table, pulling her phone and switching on the flashlight. She looks at the screen and sees a prompt in the lower right corner of the screen that says "Safely to Remove Hardware Your Mass Storage Device can now be safely removed from the computer". Just as Amanda registers the prompt she feels a cold wind stir the back of her neck. Turning she sees the eyeless form of Yvette reaching a hand out to her when Daria throws the switch and the power goes out. The room plunges into darkness save for the weak light of the phone's flashlight for a brief moment before the emergency lights kick on casting dim lights against the surrounding walls and doorway. Amanda looks about as Yvette seemed to disappear in a flash.

Amanda finds an empty hard drive port on the front of one rack mount server. It is in close proximity to where the screen is located.

Daria hears an odd sound coming from the phone. Shuffling, some panting, a door slamming and then a swishing sound.