Chapter 1

The garage darkened unexpectedly. Jake didn't feel anything, just sensed the sensations draining from his body. His mind fogged over as his senses dulled and his memory faded. A couple of times new thought started to appear only to be halted suddenly when his mind failed to connect with the memory he was searching for. The darkness wasn't light, it was life. He felt it drain from him slowly, yet he had no desire to stop it.

He could barely remember what had just happened. A lady? Yes he was almost certain that the figure had been a woman. She approached him as he walked to his car on the fourth floor of the parking garage. She said something that didn't register with him, and as he turned to look at her a figure moved. He had been startled by that, but before he was able to think further he was enveloped by a gentle but firm force. He thought that it felt cool; much to cool for a Florida parking garage in August, but then the memories started disappearing.

"What was that?" his mind caught on another thought, one that almost made sense, but then it was gone. He didn't care it was over, but at least he wasn't in pain. The voice inside his head was that of a child, yet it was also him.

*******

Carson walked briskly from his desk to the elevator. Ever since Enduron moved IT from the fourth floor to the tenth it had meant five or more trips a day back down to the data center on the fourth. Sometimes these trips were a blessed retreat from the gossiping of the secretarial pool that shared the bank of cubicles with him, but this time he was really interested in what they were talking about.

For some reason people always seemed to assume that if you knew anything about computers then you had bad eye-sight, poor hearing, and weren't able to lift more weight than a CCNA study guide. Much to the contrary Carson had 20/20 vision, and could hear better than most people. Not a body builder by any means, he had been taking Muay Thai ever since he left the Air Force, and after four years of training thought he'd be able to defend himself in most situations.

"Sorry!" Carson barely caught himself before running over Jessica. She had only been with the company three months, still in within the 90 day "You could lose your job for wearing the wrong shoes" phase. She seemed competent, and never wore the wrong shoes so it was a pretty good bet that she would be around for a while.

"No, that was my fault", Jessica stated directly, "I wasn't watching where I was going."
"Well, that makes two of us then, how about we call it a draw?"
"A draw? Doesn't there always have to be a winner?" Jessica stated coyly.

Carson acknowledged the mild flirt by cocking his head to the right, slightly raising his eyebrows. “I thought only wars require that there be a winner and a looser."
"Working here it feels like a battle is raging almost daily!"
"Oh, so you're assimilating nicely!"
Taking a moment, Carson couldn't help but enjoy the playful banter that had transpired so naturally. Unfortunately, he knew from experience, this is where he usually managed to screw things up.

"I gotta run, the servers are calling me. It was nice almost running into you." He thought about adding more, and was impressed by his ability to control his tongue.

Jessica caught herself and quickly transitioned, "You too, I'll see you around." Not her best moment she decided. Despite her best efforts she blurted out, "What are you doing for lunch today?"
Carson turned on his heals and very eloquently said, "Um, I don't know, why?" With all the courses he took in college would a speech class really have killed him! Now he struggled within trying to find the right words to redeem his last gaff.
"Did you have something in mind?"
"I wanted to go this German restaurant that people keep telling me about." She found herself rubbing her hands together.
“Sounds good” replied Carson, “Meet you here at Noon? Sorry, I really have to get the server room.”
“OK, have fun; I’ll see you at Noon.” Jessica replied, turning to resume her journey down the hall.
Carson got on the elevator feeling more confident than before, he had never allowed himself to dwell in illusions of grandeur where his romantic prowess was concerned. He knew far to well how awkward he was in romantic situations. It never seemed to go away either. There had been a few, well two relationships that had lasted more than a month. One of them lasted almost two years, but even then he still felt awkward with any type of intimacy. His friends told him that he was pushing it too hard, the first thing he needed to do was let go. That seemed to be a constant in life, he cared about doing his best. Not just in relationships, but in every aspect of his life. Meema, his Grandmother on his Father’s side used to say, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.” He had lived with those words in his mind for the past twenty plus years, and they served him well in his education, schooling, and job. The only place that it seemed to be problematic was in his love life.

As he entered the server room he paused briefly to feel the blast of cold air that characterizes server facilities the world over. Even though it had been a wet summer, particularly for Dallas, August had brought with it a number of over 100 degree days. September wasn’t shaping up to be quite as warm, but it definitely wasn’t down into the low 70s where he liked it. The blast of cold air brought a blessed relief from the heat, but would make it feel that much worse when he left.

The first server rack held the server he was looking for, a problem child named “Kermit”. Some IT guy with a strange sense of humor had named all of the servers after Jim Henson characters long before he joined the company. It had stuck, and while he had initially thought it was a silly, even unprofessional idea, he had come around. These days it offered a mild relief to the pressures of the job, and also made him feel less stupid when he talked or yelled at a server that wasn’t doing what he wanted it to do.

Kermit was a data base server that held all the data for the accounting department. The fact that a little green amphibian was the namesake of the box that controlled the companies green was ironic. Much less amusing however was that it was rebooting itself about every two hours. Gerry Prett, the CIO had handed down firm instructions that all of the other projects Carson was working were on hold until Kermit had been nursed back to health.

Two hours later Kermit was still alive, even though it had taken restraint on Carson’s part. He had checked system setting, hard drives, RAID devices, NICs, even the power supplies and still hadn’t found anything that would cause the problem. Now the only thing he could do was let the log run, and wait for it to happen again. “Hopefully I’ll still have a job tomorrow.” Carson thought.

Finally at 11:15am it happened. The server’s lights suddenly went out and it went down. Carson jumped from his chair and went quickly over to the server to see if there were any signs of life. All of the LEDs that usually indicated the status of the components housed inside of the HP Proliant G4 were dark. He walked around to the back of the rack, and noticed that those light too were out. Reaching into the rack he started to fee around the back of the server. Checking one cable after another, trying to determine if any of them were loose. Frustration set in, and he gripped the back of the server tightly. Suddenly images filled his head, it was as if he was looking at in depth diagrams of Kermit, the server, not the frog. But it wasn’t diagrams, intrinsically he knew that he was seeing the actual circuitry of the server, and exploring it.

His eyes were open, yet he wasn’t using them to see. All of the imagery was coming from somewhere else. Somehow he was seeing what was inside the case, and even more interestingly he understood it. “There it is!”, a small crack, one that was probably imperceptible by the naked eye, and right between the processor and memory. He could tell that it was only a problem when the server reached peak operating temperature, and once the motherboard cooled down it would be fine again. He rushed over to his make-shift work station and quickly dialed his CIO’s extension. Gerry would know it went down again by now, and Carson’s call would go a long way toward easing his tensions.

“Hello?” Mr. Prett answered sounding at least a little pissed.
“Gerry, I mean Mr. Prett, this is Carson. I’ve found the cause of the problem!”

Carson spent the next ten minutes explaining what the issue was, without going into how he knew. He also told him they should be able to get a replacement from HP before the end of business the next day.

“Are you sure this will fix it?” Asked Mr. Prett unconvinced.
“I can’t be totally positive, but I would say that I’m 95% sure.”
“Fine, do it, but tomorrow is no good, we need it today.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but I don’t know how we are going to get one today.” Carson answered nervously.
“I don’t care how you do it, just make it happen.” Prett replied caustically, “This isn’t the web server for My Little Pony, this is our financials.”

Suddenly the line was dead. Carson wasted no time in dialing his rep at HP. Gloria answered on the second ring and having heard Carson’s predicament started to explain the available options. None of them were good enough. She offered him numbers of local companies who might have the part he needed on hand, which he jotted down on a yellow note pad. He thanked her and ended the call quickly. He started working his way through the list of vendors and quickly found that he was looking for a needle in a haystack. Finally at 11:50 he reached a warehouse in Mesquite that happened to have one of the motherboards in stock. He jotted down the information Googled a map and headed for the door.

He got on the elevator and headed back up to the tenth to retrieve his wallet and car keys from his desk. A blister of reality popped when the doors opened. Jessica was standing there with her back toward the elevator, he hadn’t spent any time looking at her from this angle, and was surprised by how shapely her legs were. His eyes traveled upward and snapped to her face just in time to catch her turning around. She looked right at him and smiled.

“There you are!” She said joyfully. “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show.”

It took a second for the meaning of her statement to sink in. Carson had been so wrapped up in his work that he had completely forgotten about their lunch date. His brain rushed scenarios trying to figure out how to tell her. Finally he thought, “Tell her the truth, and ask her if she wants to join you.”

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t forget, well I did a little, what I’m trying to say is…” Carson stammered on. “I got hung up on a project, and I have to drive out to Mesquite to pick up a motherboard for a server.”
“Oh, I see, I guess we’ll have to do this some other time.” Jessica replied a little dejectedly, “At least it’s Gyro day down at the deli.”
“Would you like to go with me?” Carson asked, “I mean if you want to, I wouldn’t mind the company.”
“Great” he thought, “now I sound like a desperate looser.”
“Sure” came the unexpected answer, “Could we stop by the deli and grab some food for the road?”
“Um, sure, let me grab my stuff, I’ll meet you down there.”

They quickly switched places, Jessica boarding the elevator, Carson stepping into the hallway and heading for his desk.

After retrieving his things he headed back to the elevator. While he waited for the elevator to arrive Gerry Prett came around the corner.
“Going to lunch?” Prett asked accusingly.
“I’m heading to Mesquite to pick up the part, happened to find one in the Metroplex.”
“Good, how long till we are back up and stable?”
“Two-thirty, three at the latest.” Carson replied sheepishly.
“That’s a pretty big outage, isn’t it?”
“Um, yes sir, I guess it is.” Carson stammered, “But you know how it is with hardware…”
“No, I don’t, that’s why I pay you to do this job.” Prett said his eyes going cold, “I want a full incident report before you leave tonight. I want to know why this happened and how to keep it from happening in the future.”
“Yes Sir!”

That uneasy sinking feeling came over him. Reports were not Carson’s strong suit, and they took hours to write correctly. Tonight was going to be a long night typing and struggling with writer’s block.

By the time he got downstairs to the deli his stomach was in knots. He opened the door to the deli trapped inside his own head trying to sort through the mass confusion of thoughts that were bombarding his mind. So lost was he that he almost walked right past Jessica, who had just finished paying at the cashier and was heading for the exit.

“Do you like Greek?” She asked cheerfully, “I got two gyros just in case you wanted one.”
“Haven’t tried it, but sounds good. Sorry I’m running behind.”
“That’s OK, you seem a little… Frazzled.”
“Yeah, Mr. Prett is all over me and I’m getting a little buried.”
“Is that part of this whole roadtrip to Mesquite?”
“Yes” he said blankly. Then suddenly thinking, “Are you sure you can be gone for a while? It might be a couple hours before we get back.”
“No problem, I’m so far ahead of my team that I’m actually running out of things to do.”

They walked to the garage and headed up to the 4th floor. The air was warm and humid, and they skies were threatening to rain. “It will probably just sprinkle enough to make things unbearably humid.” Carson thought. As they approached his car Carson gave the obligatory apologies for the messes in his car. In reality his car was cleaner than most, and it was obvious that he took care of it.

“Dot”, as the car was affectionately called, was a 1985 BMW 325e. It was technicaly old enough o buy itself a drink, and had been a hand me down when his Grandmother passed away. For the past two years he had spent a lot of time maintaining and rebuilding her into a car that he could enjoy. The only downside was, that he had a hard time looking at her without seeing the things that he needed to do next.

“That’s your car?!” Jessica exclaimed.
“Yeah, it’s a work in progress.”
“It looks great, how long have you had it?”
“I got her two years ago, my Grandma left her to me when she passed away.” He replied, a little embarrassed that he had shared so much personal information.
“Well, either your Grandma took really good care of her, or you’ve put some work in.”
“A little of both I guess. Grandma did all the maintenance, but she was a large lady and the seats weren’t in great shape.”
“Well, I’ve always been a fan of the E30s.” Jessica stated using the name BMW used for the 1984-1991 3 series body.

Carson walked around to the passenger side door, unlocked and opened it for Jessica. Smiling as he walked back to the driver’s side. This was going to be a good day.

The drive was enjoyable for both, the conversation ranged from cars to life histories, and by the time they arrived in Mesquite Carson felt like he had known Jessica all his life. She was from a small town north of Denver Colorado, and had grown up watching her parents struggle to make ends meet trying to run a farm. By the time Jessica graduated from high school her parents had stopped talking to each other, and were only staying together out of financial necessity. She had three siblings, two sisters and a brother. Both of her sisters had stayed in the same town where they had grown up, and each had been pregnant before graduation day. Her brother had developed a drug habit as a teenager, and had disappeared six months ago.

The drive had also given Jessica the chance to learn more about Carson. He had a much happier childhood than her own, but had lost his mother while he was in college, and his father two months after graduation. His Grandma had been his only remaining relative until she passed away two years ago. He had a small group of friends who he saw occasionally, but he wasn’t a fan of the “Happy Hour” scene, and really hadn’t dated much recently.

The subject of relationships had come up very accidentally, and caught them both off guard. Like the rest of their conversations, talk flowed smoothly, and neither of them felt the need to hide themselves from the other.

As they pulled into the parking lot at the warehouse, Jessica looked at Carson and realized she wanted to spend a lot more time getting to know him. Carson caught the look on her face, and was a little surprised by his gut reaction to it. He was scared. The look conveyed longing, intimacy, and surprise. Most of all it carried a hint of sadness. He walked into the warehouse wishing he hadn’t seen that look. It had caught him off guard. Did he feel the same way?

The door closed behind him and he focused his thoughts on the mission at hand. He walked to the counter and dinged the bell. Please let them still have the motheboard.

Here I go again

A few months ago I dedicated myself to blogging more... Yeah it looks like that didn't happen. Of course when I did that I thought that I'd be in Iraq in a couple of days. That didn'thappen either, which probably led to the other thing not happening. Do you want to hear the story? I thought you might.

It was a dark and rainy night, the wind was coming from the north, which is never a good omen. In my bed room the bags were being packed, and I was prepairing myself to travel half way around the world. I went to bed tired, but restlessly tossed and turned thinking about the new experiences that awaited me.

In the wee hours of the A.M. we loaded the kids in the car and drove off toward the airport. Hugs and kisses all around and then I boarded the airplane to El Paso, TX.

OK, I'm already tired of telling this story. Four days and 8 shots later (Ouch!) I was ready to go to Iraq. Yet with less than 24hrs till lift off, my company called me and tole me that my security clearence had not come through. The next day I was on a plane heading back to Dallas and looking for another job.

On the positive side, I am working again, and the position that I have now is not in the desert. I haven't heard a single gun shot, and no body armor is required. All is well...