GENESIS (GODS CHAIN) (25 page)

‘
Si
.
I
will
have time to do
it
later tonight
,
once those
g
eeks have gone for the night
and
there is no more money on the table
,
’ she replied with a hint of sarcasm.

Working late was a requirement of the job
,
and
night was a time when
many tasks could be
performed
without affecting most normal users on the Vatican Network Systems.

‘
Grazie
, Francesca
,
’
he grinned,
happy to be let away early.

Later that evening
,
the office was deserted
as Francesca settled down to maintain the disciples
. The
c
ontract staff had all picked up their jackets on the dot and quick marched to the door bang on
the
five o’ clock whistle.

Francesca checked the system logs
and found
nothing unusual or out of the ordinary, only a few login
s
left on the system
—
probably
employees
who forgot to log out earlier
.
Francesca let these be, knowing that
the intruder detection alert
system
w
ould
sort
out
th
ese users
later
in the evening
.

There seemed to be no obvious reason for the previous security breach
,
and yet something
gnawed
away at the back of her mind like a sensitive tooth, hurting
her
now and again
...
something did not ring true
of everything she knew,
but she could not figure out
what.

Let’s get on with this node problem
,
then
, she reminded herself.
The girl began to go through in her mind the step by step procedure of power down and start up for the
s
erver. Picking up her notepad she headed for the fifth floor, the
one directly
below the Executive
floor
.

Passing the front entrance
,
Francesca
saw
the Swiss guards outside yawning until they
noticed her through the glass doors
. Smiling
,
the men prepared themselves for another long night on guard duty outside the security doors.
The evenings were starting to get colder
,
a
nd
both men pulled up their collars
, shivering slightly
.

Mario had left for the night
, and
Francesca was surprised
to find
that no one was
stationed at
the helpdesk
.

That’s too bad—
Ciriaco
might
have been about
for me
to talk to for a while.
Feeling a little miffed
,
Francesca got out the lift at the fifth floor and entered the deserted corridor
,
which ran about fifty metres straight along past
the
offices used by the Estates and Office services.

All the office lights were out
;
the office
was
as
quiet as the grave.
Along the corridor
,
Francesca
walked towards the
s
erver room
which was hidden behind
a secure door on her left,
roughly about twenty metres ahead.
The floor was carpeted with a dull
-
blue
flat carpet
, very uninspiring and corporate in its look.
There
was no natural light in the corridor and only poor, dimmed artificial light from sporadic fixtures above.
P
ictures
to her
left and right
lined
the walls
,
depicting
bizarre
,
distorted images of absurd
situations that seemed to have some meaningful significance, although Francesca hadn’t a clue what that might be
.
Yes
,
it’s a bit spooky here
,
she
thought,
f
e
el
ing like she was
rather
out on a limb.

A
door suddenly opened
to her right
with a loud noise!

Francesca’s head turned quickly and her
deep auburn
hair swung round as she jumped a little, putting her hand to her chest
and
letting out a yell
...
.

‘Oh!’ she felt
as though
her heart had missed a beat.
Start
l
ed
,
Francesca turned right to the Events Office!

             
‘I am very sorry
,
my dear,’
Agata,
the
c
lean
ing
lady
,
said kindly as she
entered into the corridor from the office opposite
,
staring regretfully at Francesca
.
‘I did not want to startle you.
Just cleaning up
—
all done now. I’ll be going down to the stairs
now
and then the next floor.’
The woman’s voice was
rough
and
deep
, as though she had been
smok
ing
for many, many years.
Holding Francesca’s arm in friendship, Agata’s carved face showed deep wrinkles almost like crevasses
;
she’d
had a hard life and been exposed
to
the erosion of years
of
toil
.
Despite
her hard
exterior
, the woman was a friendly person and showed genuine sympathy.

‘Thank God it is you
,
Agata
.
I almost jumped out of my skin just
now
!’ Francesca replied to the small
,
concerned
clean
ing
lady, trying to make light of the moment
.
She
giggled
,
a little hesitantly
, and then Agata joined her in a laugh.

‘
Ciao
, see you tomorrow
!
’
Agata nodded understandingly
. She picked up her green cleaning bucket—Francesca wrinkled her nose at the sight of the dirty rag
s inside
—
and made her way to the stairs.

At the
server room
door
,
Francesca swished the security card and spoke her name into a voice recognition receiver
.
H
er eyes
glanced
left
,
looking down the corridor as the little woman turned the corner and descended to the stairs on the right of the lifts.

Francesca
listened to the buzzer alarm while
she
push
ed
the heavy metal door open and entered the main communications and
s
erver room.
Francesca suddenly remembered scenting a
brief wisp of alcohol from the
c
lean
ing
lady
’s
breath when she passed her a moment earlier.
Then, e
lectronic noises began to intrude and take over her thoughts.

The long room was well
-
equipped with a multitude of
s
ervers secured fast within metal communication cabinets. Servers were precision pieces of computer hardware
that
provid
ed
the Vatican with all the IT services expected
in the modern world,
from
e-
mail
and
Web Servers
to
Finance Servers and Vatican Banking Systems, provisioning file and print and other large mission
-
critical operations.

The
s
ervers
were
organised and arranged one above
the
other and housed in metal rack
s
or cabinet
s
. The cabinets stood side by side
at six feet tall,
extending along the length of the room. Periodic gaps were spaced out to allow access to the other
side of the light grey
-
coloured walls. These
c
abinets also contained and connected many of the super fast fibre switches from these
s
ervers to other areas throughout the old Vatican City
—
from the Administration building to St Peter’s Basilica
—
and fanned out
from there
to the rest of Vatican City.
Cryptic instructions for
the
emergency shutdown procedure for
s
ervers now long
-
outdated remained stuck on the walls.