The Liberation Paradox

"That'll do 'er."

Danny

12:39

(8hrs, 29min left)

Danny was a little nervous as he stepped off of the elevator onto the 14th floor of the Paradox Hotel. If he were recognized, he would be a dead man, but he was relieved that none of the goons standing guard looked familiar to him nor did they seem to recognize him. They patted him down, used a hand-held body scanner on him to ensure that he had no hidden tech nor implanted devices. They checked his entire tool belt and every tool in it to make sure that they were all just tools.

They never found the blank data chip disguised as a button on his shirt.

When they got to the stethoscope, one of the ogres looked at Danny with a quizzical look on his face. The big man was close to having an intelligent thought, but Danny squelched that thought before the other man's slow mind could fully form it. "It helps me listen for the buzzing of current. Good for finding cables behind walls."

The goon just shrugged and said, "I never heard o' that." But he didn't question it any further and just went on inspecting the rest of Danny's tools.

They also inspected the device he had brought with him. It was some kind of heavy, clunky electrical device with a few wires coming out of one end.

"What's this?" another of the three goons at the checkpoint asked him.

"That there's a top-of-the-line, XT-4 kilowatt booster." Danny had no idea what the device was, but "XT-4 kilowatt booster" sounded good. He'd found it in the same electrician's service van from which he'd stolen the tool belt. "That baby's gonna boost your draw rate and drop your resistance ratio down to practically nothin' so your fancy computers can draw as much power as you need 'em to. Just gonna haveta be careful you don't overheat your circuit boards."

"You just fix the power and let me worry about the processor temps." This came from a skinny, nerdy-looking guy standing just beyond the goons' checkpoint. He looked to be about Danny's own age. He had short-cropped, blond hair, a patchy neckbeard, rumpled clothes, and bad teeth. Sky Meussen, Danny presumed. Danny noted that Sky had said "let me worry about the processor temps," not "let us worry." Interesting.

"You the guy?" Danny asked Sky.

"Yeah, apparently I am. It never even occurred to anyone else to call for an electrician. Their brilliant solution was just to let the servers run slower."

That smug sense of superiority, Danny thought. He's hiding a serious inferiority complex. It must really gall him that Marcio outranks him.

"Well, I'll get ya' taken care of real good, sir. Super said this was a priority job for the union. Also said I'd have to stay the rest of the day for security reasons."

"Yeah, the area is in lock down. Nobody leaves. We had to get special permission just to allow you in."

"That's okay. I get paid by the hour."

"How nice for you," Sky remarked condescendingly. He clearly had no respect for Danny's blue collar.

Good. He looks down on working class people. He sees me as an idiot and therefore not a threat.

As expected, the goons took his new, cheap cell phone away. "You get this back when you leave. We tell you when you can leave, got it?"

Danny knew he'd never see that phone again.

"Sure thing, dude. Now if you guys'll show me where them fancy computers are, I can get ya all the power you'll ever need."

One of the goons gave Danny his ill-gotten tool belt back and failed to notice as Danny picked his pocket. No one noticed because Danny was smooth as cream.