GENESIS (GODS CHAIN) (41 page)

Bugger this for a carry on
,
he thought, exasperated.
I drew the short straw on this one.
His thought changed direction quickly.
It’s bloody tight down here and fucking freezing!
I’ll be suffering from hypothermia soon!
The
air
was very cold below ground level
, with no sun to warm the rock
.
Mass was a young man
,
used to the hot and pleasant Italian weather.
He hated the cold!

Stuck down here when there would still be some gorgeous and good looking tourists walking about in the gardens to gaze at topside
?
C
ome on Massimo boy
,
let
’
s hurry up and get this crap over with.
Th
e
place was beginning to drag him down
,
so
he
turn
ed
his attention to Francesca.

It would be nice if Fran was with me right now
.
M
mm
....
N
ot only for her looks,
but
she might warm
me up a bit
...
if I was dead lucky!
His mind twisted direction again, ping
-
ponging from one subject
to
the next
,
and finally again
...
do not think of the dead, not in here!
The oppressive
atmosphere affected
him more than he really knew.

What a stunner she is
...
Francesca
.
H
is
mind refocus
ed
back
on the right track
.
She
is good company,
he
tried to cheer himself up,
expect
ing that
the girl
would be
follow
ing behind
him very soon.
The technician rounded another slow bend and then found himself peering along with outstretched and aching neck to see a distant alcove. That was where the communication cabinet was located
.

His bent back ach
ed
but,
still crouching
,
he managed to unlock the heavy wooden door
,
which was about chest height
and four f
ee
t wide.
He used
a special large key that the T&O team used to open similar communications and power ducts throughout the city.
Massimo tugged a few times at
the door
handle; it would not move
,
so he used both hands and pulled again at the door
.
The door finally
opened
,
making a horrible creaking noise as it came towards him.
Not a good sign
,
he thought.
Obviously
,
the door
had not been opened for some time.

He e
nter
ed
the dark room,
which
was lit only by the eerie orange light
splashed
in from behind Massimo.
He was able to stand upright again inside this large area
, which had
apparently
been
carved out of stone and earth a while ago. The technician stretched his shoulder blades
,
easing his stiff back
,
and gave a sigh of relief.

This area
had been
acquired unofficially by Anatolio’s team in
the man’s
great wisdom
,
because it was useful to
have
a small communication room for switches and servers down here secure and out of the way.
Access
to LGB2 was
difficult.
The domineering
,
heavy atmosphere was more difficult to handle
;
i
t
was
cold and dry
;
d
ust coated every
thing
!
No wonder the equipment was going faulty!

A familiar small set of flashing
LEDs
lit up brightly in the dark room from the switches in the dull area. Mathew stood by himself
on the left side of the fixed cabinet on the wall,
like a guardian keeping watch
over the room
.
Massimo
switched on the main electric light next to the doorway
;
a single light
bulb burst brightly into life
.
A
fter walking along the dimly lit passage
,
th
e bulb
caused a momentary blindness
.

‘Hello Mathew
,
my old friend
.
F
eeling lonely?’ speaking aloud,
Massimo
sat on an old stool next to the Mathew server. ‘Not as lonely as me.’
L
et me login to you
.
The technician typed in his login name and then his password.
Waiting for the system authentication to let him in, he looked around the room
.
A
s his eyes became accustomed to the brightness,
he became
a bit bored and disinterested
with the view
during this long logon stage.
He couldn’t help but notice
a small
,
white
-
painted metal door just behind the
s
erver
,
which he thought
might
lead to a duct onwards and up to the nearby church above.

Turning his attention to the electronic data switches in the small metal cabinet
,
Massimo
could observe that the bottom switch only had a few cables running from it.
One
led
to
an
other second switch just above it
, and
a few cables trail
ed
away underneath the space below the small internal duct door at the far wall, sandwiched into the corner next to
the duct’s
hinge and easy for any observer to miss.

Massimo noticed that the power light of the data switch
was on the green,
but the rest of the small
LED
s were not flickering!
Might be
g
oosed
.
T
ypical
,
and just as well I brought the spare
.

The other data switch above
,
installed in the comms rack
,
was fully functional
.
Its
lights flicker
ed
madly
, rejecting the darkness of the catacombs.
Good connectivity on that one,
he thought.
A patch cable ran off from the switches
,
trailing and joining to another patch panel, which in turn fanned out
to
a
vari
ety
of
rooms, where individuals
c
ould connect their computers almost by magic
to the network
.
A computer or
printer
could
then be attached physically to some wall point elsewhere from here
, and a
technician could trace an individual person right to their desk
,
if need be.
One could
trac
e
this physical route
to
locate potential problems
, and
Massimo had just the tools for the job.

He was now logged in and began a quick analysis of Mathew before his planned shutdown and restart of the
s
erver.
Checking the current health logs
,
the technician confirmed the reason for their current problem
.
‘Yeap
,’ he drawled.
‘T
his shit is still losing
its
logical memory
.
A
s well to sort this
out
now and then look at the data switch afterwards. I’ll probably need a hand with
the switch
anyway.’