This is a Test

Ch. 15

Cashe stood up. *I will go to the Garage and wait by the door for her."

"She wouldn't go there. She'll be at the entrance near our office."

"Oh," Cashe said. "What about the other entrance?"

"What other one? We only have the two." 

Good. "I assumed there would be a third one in case of a fire for you all to exit." Cashe typed a message out for Lia. *That is not very safe."

Alan went on about Anoptica's building processes, unaware of what Cashe was really asking. Cashe knew Karina didn't miss it by her suspicious, squinting eyes, and he was pretty sure the others were cognizant as well.

While Alan rambled about how great this Dee person was, Cashe texted with Lia.

THE BOSS WOMAN DEE IS COMING HERE.

SHE IS NOT COMING INSIDE.

SHE HAS ADMIN RIGHTS. SHE MAY HAVE HIGHER PRIVILEGES THAN THIS GUY.

NOT FOR LONG.

Good girl, Cashe thought. Before leaving, he send a call request to Lia, who accepted it, then placed the tablet on the center of the table. "I am going back downstairs. We can conference call through here. I will be back."

He left the room again, followed by the sound of Dante's protests, and was back downstairs in two minutes. The headphones did not seem to be in use, based on the blaring music echoing through the halls. He entered the server room, got Lia's attention, and indicated that the volume needed to be lowered. When she complied, he checked her tablet to find it had already been muted, which is why the music wasn't coming through on their end. "They are communicating with her through the radio. We need to know what they are saying."

She considered a moment before nodding and returning to her work. Her typing tossed characters across the screen. Through the tablet, the radio transmission crackled with the Dee woman stating she was on her snowmobile or whatever and should be there soon. Wisely, Dante must have prevented the other guy from responding, so she was driving blind without realizing that her partner had already been found out. "Can you send me their real schematics of this building?" Cashe asked.

Annoyed, Lia took three seconds to open a folder and send the information to the other computer. Cashe walked off to stay out of her way and examined the technical floorplan. Following the routing of the electrical cabling through the image, he said, "We should pull the breaker again."

Lia's head whipped around. "No." An English, 'no,' not whatever the word is in Chinese.

"She had been in a plague-riddled town." Cashe said as she returned to work. He could swear her typing sounded angrier now, keys punched heavily. "She has higher access than that guy. If she opens the door, we could all be infected." And it could happen, if the virus was real. This was a nice, time-sensitive test of teamwork, leadership, and ingenuity.

"No." Her voice was deeper. She may have learned only one word in English, but she had it down pat. She spoke Chinese now, which her translator altered to say, "I will beat her."

This was a test, a test for Cashe. Did he think that she could break the password? With everything he knew about her, yes. Could she do it in under ten minutes? Of that, he was not so sure. Cashe picked her tablet and left the room with no acknowledgment from her that she noticed.

His first instinct was to climb upstairs, ignore what she said, and pull the power. That would be the definitive answer, but he understood her point. They needed the server room, and if they powered it back up and the woman was still out there, she could swipe in once the entry pad showed life, or from her repeatedly doing it. The keypad was the issue. Either Lia could dismantle it with code, or Cashe could with his hands.