Cloud to Cloud

Episode 52: A Return to Normalcy

Evan settled into his former office within the ITower high security building. He found himself wishing he had taken the two week bereavement leave before unpacking equipment and kickstarting the process of implementing Fred's system. He considered how much time that would have opened up to visit with his mother. Training ITower geeks on a system based on something that bordered on magic seemed far less tedious.

He fired up the array of computer screens and lowered into the ergonomic seat. Eyeing the smooth glass of the large workstation, Evan felt for a moment all was as before the crash.

A quick look out the window at the late afternoon light and typical summer grey-green of the sky was enough to bring Evan back to reality. There was still not tech magic to shutter out the world.

The now too familiar face of ITower security appeared on one of the screens.

"Evan. We need an update on the issues with the last Tesla site collapse." The man's words were cold.

Evan let a sigh release as he fought his distaste at the mention of the sites. They had nothing to do with a long-dead scientist or recently defunct solar electricity manufacturing entity. To Evan, they were Fred-sites.

ITower expanded on the data and maps decoded from Fred's SD card, as well as information Evan rescued from his things salvaged from Hannah's store. This included his own notes and progress on the project he and Fred had been working on with connectivity. ITower could have at least named one of the new generation sites after Fred.

ITower and the FBI still considered Hannah a suspected terrorist, still Evan was not totally convinced. In the first few days Evan held hope that Hannah would turn up, safe, claiming some vision, an impromptu ayahuasca trip to the Amazon or perhaps to visit a friend. It had been nearly a month though and he was losing hope of a good ending. Evan now hoped she would simply turn up at all, even if the Feds caught her, ending with a peaceful arrest. He wanted her to be alive, hacker terrorist or not.

Evan continued to stare at the flowing streams of code filling the screens in front of him. His fingers flew over the keyboard as he actively ignored the man on the screen.

"What do you need to know?" He paused. "Sir."

"Well, for one, when will that Tesla site be back online?"

"Tomorrow." Evan continued his frantic typing. "Unless I'm interrupted again."

With barely a nod to the man on the screen Evan flicked his hand over a secondary keypad. The chat window flickered out.

The sun, the real sun, continued its path across the Arizona sky as Evan plugged away at the code. The building echoed in emptiness as Evan finally closed the screens and left the office. Deep in the parking garage he clicked the fob on his key ring. The headlights of his car blinked to life.

The city felt so nearly pre-crash as he drove home, Evan allowed himself a momentary pause to shift his gaze to the empty video billboards.

As he pulled into the front drive of his luxury apartment complex, a valet approached to offer a professional smile to Evan and an appreciative nod at the vintage vehicle.

Evan ignored the man. A glass of whiskey and a moment of peace awaited several stories up.

The concierge in the front lobby waved Evan to the desk.

She handed him a letter. Evan barely returned a nod of thanks.

Evan turned the paper in his hands. Another invitation to join the nightlife of irritating tech CEOs patting themselves and Evan on the back for the discovery of a new, more powerful data system.

ITower executives resumed offering gifts, dinners, dates with stunning young women. It was a return to the life Evan had pre-crash, and so much more. The true cost of this quid pro quo was more than the ITower masters understood.

Fred had left everything Evan needed on the SD card and his computer files. There were moments as Evan first opened the files he thought Fred planned it all. With the strange series of events Evan experienced leading up to the final meeting in the boardroom it wouldn't have surprised him if Fred had known he was about to die.

Armed with the work that Fred left behind, ITower wasted no time restructuring their sites to support the new access systems. ITower expedited building new locations based on a list of GPS coordinates in Fred's architectural plans. Evan wished he'd had the wherewithal to review the underlying construction designs. It meant nothing initially, yet his higher ups seemed unwilling to release the locations of the newer towers, especially the ones flagged as Teslas. Everyday Evan promised himself he would dig into the databases once the offices cleared out. With his focus on securing the new network superstructure, every night he was too mentally and physically drained to even think about it.

Evan's mind wandered as he made his way down the hall of the apartment building. He could swear the presence of those he lost lingered around him as he made his way home.

He felt Fred's eyes on him in the curve of a metallic sconce. He could swear he saw Linc in the glint of a beveled glass window. It could have been Coach's smirk in the chrome frame of an art deco revival painting.

Evan let the ice fall into the glass as he shook off the ethereal sense of being haunted. However, the unfortunate reality was how few of these haunting experiences he'd had since his uncle's death. As much as Evan wanted to believe the fleeting visions, his contact with Linc and Coach had come to a halt the day of Fred's final meeting at ITower.

Evan hoped that once he activated the cloud to cloud interconnection that the old man would appear on some screen as Linc had done. To the contrary, not only had Evan not heard from the ghost-soul of Fred, he had also lost contact with Linc, and even Coach.

If they were around, none of them were talking to him.

"Maybe giving the files to ITower was a mistake. Shit." Evan cursed as he filled his glass from one of the bottles of whiskey that graced his kitchen counter.

He couldn't take it back now. At least not without the consequence of being fired, or possibly handed over to the FBI as an accomplice to Wave7. The thought brought Hannah to mind again.