Randy jumped ship to another company, finding many of the same problems and none of the solutions. After realizing his career would be all but over if he stayed on board, he decided to find a more stable position.
That position was found in the CDC’s Threat Assessment division, as the Director of IT for a new department. It was a laid back job, never causing too much stress or overwhelming work duties. Keep email running, dust off the servers that provided intranet support through their SecuNet portal, and keep the coffee in the main office hot.
But while the job itself was decent, it was the boss that he couldn’t stand. David Livingston. The man was more callous, abrasive, and downright rude than anyone he’d ever met.
Crack! Another rifle shot snapped Randy back to the real world. Vacation, one week, a friend’s lake house. There was nothing in the past year Randy had looked forward to more than this moment.
He saw his son smiling back at him, and only then noticed the crumbling bits of clay skeet falling into the lake. All equal sizes, all the same relative shape.
“Wow — did you get it?” he asked.
His son nodded. “Right in the center.”
Randy stood from the picnic table and clapped his hands, rotating them around in a large circle. A “round of applause.” His wife groaned. A “dad joke,” but, well, he was a dad.
“Seriously, dad?” his son asked. “You’re still using that joke?”
“What? It’s still funny.”
“It was never funny.”
“Hey,” Randy said, walking toward the edge of the lake where his son stood holding the rifle. “You know what would be funny? If I took that thing from you and out-shot you with it.”
The gun was a gift for Drew, something he’d wanted for quite some time. The three of them, Randy, his wife, Amanda, and Drew, had taken the trip to the lake house for a short vacation, and to celebrate Drew’s seventeenth birthday.
“You’re welcome to try, old man,” Drew said. He handed the rifle to Randy. Randy eyed the weapon, admiring the craftsmanship and build quality. Before he could lift it to his shoulder, his cell phone rang.
“Your phone works out here?” his wife asked. “Looks like it’s work.” She grabbed the phone from the table and walked it over to her husband.
Randy saw the number and shrugged. “Government’s paying for it, so I guess they’re using the best network.” The number came up on the screen just below the name of the caller. Juliette Richardson. Well, at least it wasn’t Livingston.
He poked at the phone to answer it. “Hello?” he handed the rifle back to Drew and walked back toward the table.
“Randy — hey, it’s Julie. Sorry, I know you’re on vacation. You have a minute?”
“Of course, what’s up?” Unlike David Livingston, everyone liked Julie. She was fun, pretty, and adventurous, never waiting around for the red tape.
“Thanks. Listen, I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up with the news, but something’s going to break, and I’m trying to stay in front of it.”
Randy hadn’t been keeping up with the news, which was part of the family covenant of their vacation. As he was constantly bombarded by technology, industry news, and media during his job, his wife had made him promise to give it up for the week they were out of town. No TV, no internet, no computer. Just them, the lake, and peace and quiet for a week.
He glanced over at her now. She did not have a happy expression on her face, knowing that Randy’s cellphone breached their covenant. He shrugged apologetically.
“Uh, yeah, okay. What’s the deal?” The CDC often had something they were “trying to stay in front of,” so it wasn’t out of the ordinary for Julie to be asking for a work-related favor. But the fact that she’d called his cell directly seemed odd to Randy.
And her hurried tone of voice.
“Sorry, I can’t explain it all right now. Can you get me access to a computer?”
“Sure — is it connected?” Randy didn’t hesitate to answer. Even though it was an explicit part of his job description, he considered it to be “hacking” when he needed to gain access to another CDC machine. And he loved hacking.
“Uh, yeah, it is, but it’s not onsite.”
“What do you mean? It has SecuNet access, right?”
“No, sorry, I mean, it’s connected, like to the internet, but…”
“Aw, geez, Julie, you’re asking me to hack an outside machine?” Randy asked.
“Not hack, just… gain access. I need to get some information on—”
“That’s called hacking, Julie. That’s literally the definition of hacking.”
Randy heard his wife let out an exasperated sigh from next to him on the picnic table bench. He looked at her, covering the phone’s microphone with his palm. “Sorry… I… it’s just something real quick.”
“Hello? Randy? Hey, come on. This is a serious request. Can you help me out?”
Randy didn’t know what to say. “Julie, this is… you can’t. It’s not legal, and I could get fired for even trying. Why can’t Livingston put in a formal seizure of data request?”
“You know how long those take, Randy. And come on. Livingston? I haven’t even seen him for the better part of a week.”
It was true. Their boss had been enjoying a series of “work related” excursions, including golf, four-hour lunches, and strip clubs. How he managed to expense everything to the company’s accounting division was beyond Randy’s comprehension.
“Okay, fine. I assume you’re on to something big, but I still can’t—”
“It’s a matter of national security, Randy.”
“Seriously?” Randy almost laughed out loud. “You’re going to try to guilt me into this with that line?”
“Randy, turn on the news. You can’t honestly be that out of touch. After the bomb at Yellowstone, there was—”
“What? A bomb at Yellowstone?”
“Yes, Randy, a bomb. And it released something into the air. Some sort of virus that’s killing everyone who came into the area close to the explosion. It’s contagious, highly deadly, and we need to find out if anyone has anything on it.”
Randy stared out at the water in shock. Never, in his year of employment with the CDC, had Julie ever seemed so… frantic. She was always calm, pleasant, and laid back, albeit in a hard-driving, get-it-done sort of way.
He wasn’t sure how to respond. “I… I guess…”
“Okay, great. I need it quick, too. Can you get it, Randy?” She paused. “Randy? You there?”
Crack! Drew fired the rifle again, missing the skeet shot. He immediately prepared a second shot and launched the disc from the skeet launcher next to him.
“Sorry, yeah, I was thinking. I don’t know, I have my laptop but I’m—”
“Randy, I’m sorry, but there’s no time. I can’t wait on this. Really. Please.”
Crack!
“Randy, what is that? God, it sounds like a gun.”
“It is — sorry, it’s fine. My son’s skeet shooting—” he took the phone off his ear. “Drew! Knock it off for a second, alright? I’m on the phone!”
“Randy, you know I wouldn’t ask you this unless it was serious. Trust me.” Julie paused on the other end of the line.
Randy sighed. “I know. I do trust you. It’s a pretty big deal, that’s all. But I get it. Yeah, I think I can do it. Give me until tomorrow afternoon—”