Necessary Evil
Eric: 9/9/99
He hated all the sneaking around, but given the circumstances, it was a necessary evil. Popping another disc into the drive, Eric repeated the command, thankful there were only a few left. One benefit of having the place to himself at such an ungodly hour was he could sabotage the project in secret. Thanks to a natty little virus, it would all happen without him even being there. His untimely vanishing act would raise suspicions, but that couldn’t be helped.
He’d infected both sets of backup disks so they would appear normal to a cursory glance. But the instant anyone used them in earnest the thing would activate, gobbling up the code and spitting out a jumble of nonsense. Irretrievable nonsense. He spared a thought for his deputy, Ron, who would have several nightmare weeks trying to piece it all together. But a couple of suspicious incidents suggested the guy wasn't totally blameless.
Having returned the backups to their secure drawers, he set about replacing the motherboard. An article about clever forensic techniques to reconstitute deleted files made this essential. He was on the floor, hidden by his desk, screwing in the cover of the tower unit when he heard someone open the office door and walk in. The unmistakable stench of Lynx deodorant identified it as Ron.
“Eric? Are you there?”
He froze as the guy wandered up and pressed a couple of keys on the keyboard.
“Typical. Bloody jobsworth would power down after he finished. Assuming he even turned up. If Harry thinks I’m gonna waste time double checking, he can think again. I need bacon and coffee.”
Suspicions confirmed.
Thankful he hadn’t parked in the main car park, Eric left it a while before emerging, and exited the building spy-spoof-style, checking around every corner. Sure, it was overkill, but the consequences of failure were unimaginably high.
Haring down the narrow country lane, Eric glanced at the clock. Fifteen minutes to do a journey which should take five, leaving fifteen more to do what he needed before zero hour. Ample time under normal circumstances, but this morning had taught him if anything could go wrong, it would do.
Right on cue, he spotted the worst possible thing – the cab of a tractor rising above the hedgerow as though conjured up by his negative thought. He tried Naomi’s trick, willing it to turn off, but the beast trundled along at half an inch a fortnight, the rear design forming a mocking grin.
Several expletives later, he shuddered at the memory of six months ago when he’d uncovered the MD’s plans to weaponise his latest invention. Eric had volunteered to become Y2K liaison, the perfect excuse to delve into the technologies required to ensure the MD’s scheme never came to fruition. The guy was in bed with gangsters and dodgy foreign militaries, for Christ’s sake.
Sending another blast of turn-off-the-lane energy at the oblivious farmer in front, he thanked the insecurities of his manager who’d fallen prey to the Y2K scaremongering, the latest one being that today’s date could trigger some kind of meltdown. With all the nines and everything. The farmer chose that moment to succumb to Eric’s repeated mantra and turn into the next field and he let rip. Resisting the urge to scream up the drive and exit the car like The Sweeny’s Reagan and Carter, Eric parked carefully and hustled up to the front door, surprised to find it locked.
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