... 88 Hours and Counting ...

Computer networks and those who maintain them rarely sleep. The world’s largest network, the Internet, has many thousands of hubs, and many thousands of sleepless operators attend them. In the early morning hours of Thursday, two such people still worked on the main campus server for U. C. Davis.

“Who’s eating eleven gigs of my bandwidth?” demanded Brenda Hastings, the sysop. “It’s three fucking A.M.! We need to shut down the internet link for maintenance.”

Dr. Raymond Vance smiled to himself, his fingers clittering rapidly over the keyboard. Brenda always spoke to him (and everyone else) in a very informal fashion. People often assumed that she was his boss, not the other way around. He never made a big deal out of her cursing and her loud “suggestions” that often sounded like orders. That was just... Brenda.

A bluish light bathed his face, flashing in time with the screen. He used a net-sniffer utility to learn who the user was, although he already had a pretty good idea. “Just a sec,” he said.

Brenda pointed toward her monitor accusingly. “Twelve! They just cranked it up! Twelve gigs! Who’s sucking up all of my resources?”

The answer swam into being on Ray’s screen. “It’s Nog,” he said simply. “He’s probably just surfing.”

“Of course—surfing with twelve sessions at once. He’s probably running full audio on all of them and mixing it into his headphones too,” muttered Brenda, suddenly deflated. She flopped her bulky body back into her chair, which creaked in protest. She rubbed her forehead and made a wry face. “I’m sorry, Ray. I shouldn’t be yelling. Well, I suppose we could hold off on maintenance until four. Send him a warning note,” she told Ray with a sigh. She sucked in a breath and paused a moment. “Make it a polite note,” she added.

Ray nodded and smiled discreetly at his screen. His keyboard clicked and rattled as he e-mailed the note. No one wanted to screw with Nog unnecessarily. Not even Brenda, famous ass-chewer that she was. Nog was a self-made multi-millionaire that was heavily connected to the college and donated generously for research projects. Sure, he was a nerd and still in his twenties, but that didn’t mean anything. He didn’t talk much, but his money spoke volumes.

Ray’s smile faded as he recalled that he had “screwed with” Nog just last year. But he had deemed it necessary. Nog had taken his AI (Artificial Intelligence) class in the spring term and had never turned in his final project. Despite his acing the tests, Ray had seen fit to give him a B for the class.

Nog had been quietly furious with him ever since. To Ray’s knowledge, he had never gotten a B before. Never.

“Eighty-Seven percent is still a B,” Ray muttered to himself, “Money or not.”

“Are you talking to the keyboard again, Ray?” chuckled Brenda. “Maybe you should go home. There’s not much more you can do tonight.”

“Maybe you’re right,” sighed Ray, rubbing his eyes. “Lecturing tomorrow is going to be rough.”

“Balls!” shouted Brenda suddenly.

“I have to ask...” said Ray, smiling again. Brenda always made him smile.

“Oh, it’s nothing. I was just queuing up the overnight and noticed that the anti-virus sweep tested positive again. Second time this week that the server caught a bug.”

“Nothing that the anti-virus program can’t handle, I hope.”

“Nah. If it can detect it, it can clean it. I just hope it hasn’t ‘done it’s thing’ yet, whatever that might be.”

“I’m off, then,” Ray said, standing and stretching. The swivel chair groaned tiredly and bounced against the back of his knees. On the way home he yawned at least six times before he managed to steer his Ford Explorer into his driveway.