"Are we there yet, at this lair of all evils? It's that one there, right?"
Aladar's old family Ford was rushing towards the industrial & commercial area, on the outskirts of the city. The sun had already set, the narrow asphalt road was lit only by the headlights of the car. Aladar was driving, Akos was gazing at the distant buildings. Some industrial chimneys with red aircraft warning lights; looming, dark masses, with only their silhouettes discernible; utility poles, flooding their surroundings with yellowish light... and a tall office tower, with lights still up inside, on two of the many floors. It had a neon sign on the top, with an amber glow: "FCI". This is the one!
They arrived at a fence, a long row of poles, with steel mesh stretching between them, crowned by barbed wire. The security guard glanced at them, from the security checkpoint next to the gate, but, seeing that it was just another two high school kids, opened the gate, without even asking anything. Aladar pulled up in front of the building. After stopping the engine, it was clearly audible through the pulled-down car windows as the thump-thump of techno banged against the walls.
"So... we'll go in... I haven't been at a Fenyes party yet anyway...", Akos started the "briefing", "... and then we hang out for some time. Then, we look around a bit in the building. And stay under the radar. Well, I don't think they'll even notice us being here."
"Sure. Most likely." Aladar picked up his not especially empty backpack from the car, then they started walking, slowly, towards the entrance. In the pools of light from the parking lot lamps, they could make out a few people, looking somewhat like their classmates, smoking, drinking beer, along with some others they've never met before.
As they were walking up to the entrance, someone was emerging from it; it was Little Steve, his hands full with around five or six bottles of beer and a large amount of vodka. He was one of Laci Fenyes's best friends, built like a two-door wardrobe, thus the nickname. Swaying slightly, he set off towards the parking lot, the destination most likely being one of the little groups there. Their paths intercepted each other halfway.
"Whoa... you, here?" he came to a halt, almost dropping one of the beer bottles. "No fucking way... is this happening? The UFOs are here! Where'd you park your flying saucer? Ohh, yeah, so this is Planet Earth, and this, this is a bottle of vodka. Drink!" he the bottle in their hands, and continued towards his original destination.
"Well, that's a nice welcome!" Aladar remarked. "Not that it'd be a good idea to drink all this right now though..."
They continued walking. On the ground floor, next to the elevator, they found a sizeable sign with a blueish background, showing where all the different departments were located. Akos pointed at one of the labels: "Information Technology Center: 13th floor". Aladar nodded. The elevator arrived, too, the doors opened silently, they stepped in.
The elevator car wasn't too spacious, but it has clearly been built with much care. Along the walls, there were glowing green stripes, climbing up towards the ceiling, lit from behind. The floor, just like everywhere else in the building, was coverered by a gray, patterned carpet. As for buttons, they couldn't find any, on either on the sides or...
"Welcome to FCI!" the elevator spoke up. "We would like to let you know that your current destination is Floor Eight. If you'd like to change your destination, just ask me to do so. Otherwise, please wait."
The doors closed with a soft hiss. Akos was inspecting the thing with an eager look already.
"At least these guys know what computer science is for..." he finally said.
"It's way too smart. We should rather be afraid, instead."
"Maybe. Hey, elevator! Which floor are we on?" Akos asked excitedly.
"Seventh floor." the voice cooed. "Eigth floor; please leave the elevator."
The door was opening, indeed. It was facing a corridor, with carpeted floors and white walls. They stepped out; towards the right, there was an open door at the end of the corridor, through which flashing lights and booming sound were flooding towards them.... but they couldn't see anyone around.
"Phase one", Aladar whispered to Akos, who nodded, and glanced back towards the elevator once more; to his disappointment, it had left already. Then they set out towards the party.
In the room at the end of the corridor, they couldn't hear each other anymore, the music was so loud. Some of their classmates waved at them, some others were hanging out near the walls and were sipping some concoction... They pretended to be doing the same for a few minutes, too. To make it more authentic, they even opened the bottle of vodka they've got from Steve, taking only a few very small sips.
Despite having barely touched the drink, they were, seemingly, very thoroughly hammered by the time they were heading outside again, not really following a straight line anymore. They barely made it to the elevator and were sitting around against the wall, with a half-smile on their faces. Meanwhile, another group in a similar mood (and state) showed up, also waiting for the elevator.
The doors opened with a hiss. "Hey, aren't you coming? Elevator is here!" someone called out to them. They weren't listening. Asleep, likely. The person shrugged & left them. "Faaaairsht!" someone shouted. Smooth hiss.
Aladar's eyes opened up to a slit. Then, he pressed the the call button again.
When the elevator arrived once more, there wasn't anyone around. Just to make it sure, they glanced into the car itself, but it was empty, too. Finally, they had the place just for themselves. As they stepped in, the elevator greeted them as usual.
"Hey elevator! Could you bring us to the thireenth floor, please?" whispered Akos towards the control panel.
"It's just an elevator, man." Aladar interrupted. "<<please>>? seriously?"
"Unfortunately, the thirteenth floor is temporarily unavailable. Would you like me to take you to the default destination?" the elevator inquired.
"Nope. Let's go to floor twelve then."
"Unfortunately, the twelfth floor is also unavailable. The only available floor is floor one."
"Then... then go to hell. Ideas?" he turned to Aladar.
"Well... hey elevator! Are those floors forbidden to everyone?"
"The listed floors are unavailable for users in your user group."
"And how do you know who I am?" Aladar continued collecting information.
"You are not a member of any predefined user groups. Currently, user group <<guests>> have the first and the eighth floor as available destinations."
"I see. Then... actually, Akos! How about our wonder weapon? I really hope this thing has something resembling eyes."
"What???"
Aladar started sifting through his backpack, eventually producing a sheet of paper.
"This is your positive feedback. Sorry, I have no apples for you" he looked triumphantly at the perplexed Akos, then showed the sheet around towards all the walls of the elevator, even towards the ceiling. There was silence for a while, then...
"Welcome, Mr. President. Also, I'd like to welcome all the Senior Vice Presidents and other esteemed colleagues, too. Unfortunately, I must let you know that the capacity of this elevator is eight people. I'd like to ask at least seven hundred ninety-four ladies or gentlemen to please wait outside of the elevator until the elevator returns. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience."
By the time it finished talking, Aladar has already taped the sheet to one of the sides of the car. He was smiling.
"See? I'm not sure what made it click, but I guess elevators that are this intelligent have something to do with our project. Well, it's not entirely clear how it came up with Mr. President... what do you think?"
Akos stopped laughing and launched into the explanation.
"The idea is genius, thanks! So. I guess the brains of the elevator has still been programmed in a traditional way, so it didn't quite notice that it's kinda unlikely that there'd be suddenly three hundred or... how many people was it?" he laughed a bit more. "It's just a face recognizer that was reacting to this thing, as, most likely, it was tested with the same symbols. And what does positive feedback mean to it? It's looking at us. It starts enumerating the list: is this person the CEO? Sure, yes, positive answer. And... is this some other random person? Sure! So it's thinking we have all the employees of the company here, plus all others it has ever seen..."
"So this is how we became Mr. President. Nice. But... how do you explain to this thing that we're only two people?"
"We should decrease the positive feedback. Or... what if it's the visual recognition part that's doing the counting instead of the brains? For example, if it doesn't recognize someone but it can still count them... Do we have the "number four" sheet here? We'd need the symbol from it!"
The backpack soon produced that sheet, too. The machine was thinking a bit more, then:
"Please specify destination floor. We again sincerely apologize for the eight hundred ladies and gentlemen waiting outside..."
"That was cool!" Akos jumped once excitedly. "So now it's just..."
"Well, so this this solution isn't omnipotent either" Aladar concluded. Outside the open elevator doors, they were both staring at the sign at the wall, announcing "4th floor".
"Never mind. What section is this? Is it something like... finance?"
"Maybe that's not even guarded that strictly. Look! Simple motion sensors. These can be worked around easily" he announced.
He surfaced an interesting contraption from the bottom of his backpack. An openable stand, with a laser pointer, a few batteries, a printed circuit board and some lenses held there by wires. Aladar flipped a switch, causing the laser to switch on, projecting a small, red dot at the wall. He directed this to the closest motion sensor, and pressed a button. A red numerical display, hanging off the circuit board, started a countdown. They watched the dangerous operation in complete silence. Then, a green light came on.
"If eerything is good, we're good to go. Better keep it slow though. I've tested it at home already; it worked."
"Reassuring. By the way, what's this thing and how does it work?"
"So... these motion detectors use infrared flashes at regular intervals, measuring how much change of infra radiation this is causing." Aladar started, while starting to mount another similar piece of equipment at a different section of the corridor. "So if you, say, walk across in front of it, you reflect IR more than the wall, it detects this fast change, and sends a signal."
"Is this why we have to be slow?"
"Yes. By the way, all this thing does is 'blinding' the sensor's 'eyes': it's flashing in a similar rhythm towards it, and it's so bright that the sensor can't detect any changes anymore."
"Got it. And what's the laser for?" They were already striding along another corridor, with the bright, red beam already radiating behind them.
"It shows which direction the signal is going. That's because if our tool was illuminating us, too, we wouldn't be more ahead than as if we didn't do anything at all. As for the countdown, it's to switch it on gradually so that the sensor wouldn't pick up on the changes."
"Cool. And it was you who made all this up? Well, that much for 'two average high school kids'... Maybe we should take a look there, too?" Aladar pointed at a door.
According to the text they could barely read at the faint light of an "EXIT" sign, it opened to the "Communications Department".
Aladar pushed down on the doorhandle, and slowly, cautiously started opening the door. As soon as he caught sight of a sensor through the narrow slit, he aimed the laser on it. And then they waited. "Communications Department"... maybe it has to do something with the Technology Center on the 13th floor, too... Finally, the green light lit up. They opened the door wider, and tiptoed in.
They looked around in the sizeable hall: it had large windows on one side, giving them a view of the farther side of the parking lot, lit by the amber light of regular rows of sodium lamps. Inside, they could see dark silhouettes of desks, with computer displays on them; next to the door there were large printers. Only a couple of blinking green lights, here and there, broke up the darkness.
Keeping their flashlights half-covered by their hands, to dampen their light, they cautiously approached the desks, looking for valuable bits of information. From this close up, the place didn't look special at all: stacks of folders covering the desks, a stapler, a chart full with numbers. One of the faint flashlight beams caught one of the computer monitors; it had a row of small, colorful post-its on both sides of the glass surface. One of them had names and numbers next to them; maybe phone extensions at the company? Another display had a note glued right on the middle: "name: JSzabo pass: 54321. Pls remove once you have arrived!".
"Well, nothing too interesting here" Aladar sighed. "Let's pick another room!"
Careful with every single step, they successfully departed the room; the IR transmitter started the slow shutdown sequence after a button press. A few minutes later, they were still cruising along the corridor, looking for interesting spots.
"Where did your sister get this 'four-eyed mammoth' thing from, anyway?" Aladar grumbled. "At least if it had five eyes, that's some media hub on the 5th floor. This floor is just... boring!"
They have already covered a similar office ("Center for Operations"), followed with the place called "Info Center". Despite its good-sounding name, it was full of multiple shelves worth of reports, legal regulations and a couple computers scattered around. Akos has been busy thinking, trying to find a way of getting up to the 13th, or anything else, really, but here... when suddenly, he heard a "thump" from the direction of Aladar behind him, followed by Aladar careening into him. They almost both tripped over each other.
"Hell! What kind of idiot leaves their stupid bag here??? Well, not surprised, it's the 'finance' department..." Aladar looked back at the culprit object. On the floor, there was an open, hard-cover toolbox... or laptop bag?, with an opened-up computer case next to it; around it, a screwdriver and extension cards, ribbon cables and similar intestines.
"My guess: work hours ended in the middle of fixing a computer" remarked Akos, stepping closer. Instead of a laptop, the bag had a medley of tools, CDs and computer parts, with a few sheets of paper and books underneath, mixed with boxes for the screws, ribbon cables and caseless CDs. Apparently, its owner must not have been a huge proponent of orderliness, and was lazy enough even to shove all this under a desk before fleeing his workplace. Maybe that's the very reason he was assigned to 'finance'?
They decided it's worth spending a couple of minutes inspecting the bag more closely, especially given how this seemed to be the most interesting object they'd ever find in this department. For example... what are those sheets of papers? "Servers on the FCI internal network", it had on the top. Mail servers, web servers, DNS servers: a bunch of names and IP addresses showed up under the flashlights. So... nothing special. Then, a more substantial bundle of sheets: "Structure and configuration of the FCI internal network". Surely useful for those who fix computers all day... Then: "Our experimental IT systems". A single sheet. What if...
"Our new central server, named proj.fci.com, is our testing ground for cutting-edge technologies" it read. "It is the one running our experimental IMAP email server, too. Use the following account to manage it: login syscheck pass: ju3g44dJ. Higher level access is only available to IT center members. Report failures at: exp_errors@proj.fci.com, or room 1322."
Under the printed text, scrawled up there with a blue pen: "sysadmin pass: 4jL4oq19FF", with an arrow pointing at the "o": "not a zero".
"This is it!" Akos whispered. He dug up a post-it from Aladar's bag, and copied down all the passwords onto it. Then he carefully sunk it into his pocket.
"I'm sure this must be it! It was 'proj.fci.com' in the emails, too!"
"Perfect. Nothing else interesting remaining" Aladar finished digging through the bag, too. They placed everything back where they found them, then set out towards the exit, beaming.
"Mission accomplished" Akos announced, as they were getting near to the door leading to the outside. The corridor was lit only by the light of an "EXIT" sign, faintly. "We call an elevator, fly away from here with with your car, and..."
"Wait. I might have some bad news?" Aladar interrupted. He pointed towards the door. "Do you happen to see a little green light there?"
"And by that you mean that..." asked Akos hastily.
"Battery is dead. So, as of this moment, it's likely that about six security guards the size of a small tank each are coming upstairs to check who is around here. Isn't this great?" Aladar analyzed the situation calmly, with a somewhat forced smile. "And, by the way, I have no idea whatsoever what to do in such a situation."
"Well... run!!!"
"Seriously? Why the hell can't they make a decent alarm system???" snapped Janos Szabo. It wasn't even the first time he was interrupted in the middle of the soccer game. It was a Fradi-UTE match, those darn green-and-whites were leading by a goal, and Ujpest just missed its third shot on goal. And it's around the fifth time tonight he was being paged tonight. Probably those dumb high-school kids again. Hell!"
He scrambled out of his comfy armchair, and plodded over to one of the consoles. One side of the circle-shaped room was full of displays, small green lights and buttons. Barely enough space for the coffee maker, the cups and the oversized TV the match was playing on. The amount of available area was further decreased by that one armchair, standing in the middle of the otherwise not especially small space, making watching TV appropriately pleasant. However, everyone on the night shift unanimously agreed that this item of furniture is especially important for a productive work environment, thus it must clearly stay around.
On the floor plan visible on the wall, a little LED was blinking in red, giving a thoroughly unpleasant, shrill beep. "Shut up" Szabo barked back, slapping a nearby button. The beeping went away; the flashing red light didn't.
He was just fed up with this day. Starting with that moronic elevator messing around, and now there is this sensor reporting in right in the middle of the fourth floor. Now, how the freaking hell would anyone just appear there out of nowhere?
Although The Policy has it that all stuff like this must be reported. Sure. Why not. Not his job to take care of it later anyway.
He picked up the phone and dialed.
"'Night, Jani here. Can you check zero four thirty-five for me there? Reported in... no, it was just that one... Yes I'm sure. But wait, lemme tell you what happened today... No, it's not urgent. So... 'bout half an hour earlier, elevator reports the boss is in. I'm like, what the hell? And then it says there were 800 people in it. Yeah... All at once... So it just went nuts or something, surely, 'cause then it went to the fourth... Yeah no of course it shouldn't! ... And if it's really someone around there? ... Good. Ohh and you guys are still ahead by one goal, to hell with it! Bye!"
A couple minutes later, the light changed to "green" again. Nothing at all, after all. And they scored a goal, finally! He did miss it but he could still catch the replay. Not such a bad day, after all...
Three... two... one... the woosh of the door opening. Someone waiting on the other side. An electrician, solidly built, with a blue, steel toolbox in hand. Akos & Aladar were staring at the floor, again the well-known pattern, as they started towards the outside. The line of the elevator door... electrician looks at them, they look back, try looking uninteresting, average length of eye contact is half a second for uninteresting strangers, that's over already, look at the floor again. "Fourth!" they heard from behind them, followed by a swooshing sound. No, it's not over yet.
As they left the building, the air was cold but clear. It must have been raining, too, the sodium-amber glow was shining back from the asphalt.
"They must have thought it was an equipment failure. These weren't the security guys" Aladar broke the quiet.
"Hope so. Where's the car?"
The engine finally started after a few whining rotations. Aladar pulled out (... with such a degree of delicateness that Akos had to hold onto something), then floored it out, forwards. They didn't have any trouble at the entry gate either, no trace of guards could be seen anymore.
The buildings were slowly shrinking behind them as the road was leading them across fields, towards the city. The car thudded over a pothole occasionally, but otherwise, even a bit of monotony felt welcome now. They knew they won't be allowed to rest for a while...