Harry was immediately greeted by Brian Calhoun, the technician in charge of general upkeep on the Capitol's servers. "Harry, my boy! How goes it these days?" Brian was a large burly man in his mid-fifties with arms of steel, and as he put his arms around Harry in a big bear hug, Harry could barely breathe. "So," he continued, "how's my favorite tech wizard? Life treating you fine?"
"Well, I've still got my head, still breathing, still with the most amazing woman in the world. I'd say I'm doing great!" Harry had a smile on his face as he talked with Brian about Kate and his night. They talked about how both their families were doing, both Harry's fictional one and Brian's real one.
They always talked when Harry came in to help out, and from their many conversations, they had become close friends. Last year, Harry took Kate to a barbecue that Brian threw every year for the capitol workers and other government workers. After seeing how happy he was with Kate, Brian always liked to know if they were still together, and how things were going between them. He was always doing that, asking how things were going. But he was one of those rare people that actually wanted to hear truthfully how things were going, and would listen for hours if things weren't going well. He would know if someone wasn't telling him the truth, and would ask what was really going on. He was one of those people that really cared, and that made him and Harry really close, because they shared everything. Well, everything that Harry was allowed to share.
"So when are you kids gonna' get married already?" Brian blurted out.
"Well..." his voice trailed off.
"Well, what?"
"Well, don't tell her, but I'm thinking of asking her this Christmas Eve." Brian's eyebrows went up and he had a goofy grin on his face. "And don't you dare tell any of her friends either. They can be blabbermouths sometimes."
He rolled his eyes at that. "Don't I know it!"
They talked some small talk for a while, and then they started their work. Brian described the problems his personnel were having with a string of viruses that were going around. As they walked around the facility, Harry took note of everything -- the position of the workstation, the color of the keyboard and if it was a new one, the position of the servers and cables, the line of sight of the security cameras. He needed every little bit of info to do his real job of planting his devices and installing software later tonight.
For the remainder of the day he worked on the workstation, clearing out the more obvious viruses from it. But a couple of viruses were being annoying, as they needed to be deleted from every server machine individually. This was going to be a long night. So he settled in to his routine, remotely deleting files from all of the servers from his seat at the workstation.
"How ya doing?" He turned around his chair and there was Brian, holding out a cup of coffee for him. He gratefully took the proffered cup and took a sip.
"Oh, boy," he started. "Sometimes I think the world would be a better place if we stuck to rocks and chisels."
"That bad, huh?"
"Ugh. There're these two strains that are just nasty. They're on everything. You'd think that because we're on a closed system, that we wouldn't get any of these." He ran his hands through his hair, fatigued from battling electronic monsters all day. "I gotta tell you, Brian - this might take awhile. You could head on home to Sally and I could finish up here, if you'd like."
He hesitated. "Well, I guess that would be okay, but when you get done, come on to my house and sleep in the guest bedroom. I don't want you driving all the way back to Naas when you're tired. Okay?"
He nodded. "Okay."
---
He used his key that Brian had given him before, and called Kate. She didn't answer, so he left her a message that he wouldn't be coming over in the morning to cook her breakfast like he usually did, but that he would be by later to see her.
As he walked into the house and headed for the guest bedroom, he reflected on how easy his task was tonight. He did not even need his gear for breaking in to the facility, as he was already there and by himself. No avoiding security cameras, dodging infrared detectors, or looking out for overzealous security. Maybe his life was beginning to improve. Maybe this was where he really belonged. Maybe, just maybe...
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