Shadows by Peter Cawdron Read Free Book Online

with his head,
silently signaling for her to follow Charlie.
    Susan scooted after
Charlie, passing through the turnstile with him.
    “ Thanks, ” Charlie said to the
guard.
    The guard nodded and turned
back to his station.
    As they
walked through the empty floor, Susan whispered, “ Don't you ever worry about getting caught? What happens if
you get busted? What then? ”
    “ Hey, it's
OK, ” Charlie assured her.
    “ No, it's
not, ” she insisted, keeping her voice down even though the
rows of computer workstations within the open plan floor were
empty. “ What if he'd stopped us. What if he'd turned us
in? ”
    “ You're not
thinking like a guy, ” Charlie replied. “ He thinks
I've brought you down here to score, to impress you with where I
work. Honestly, it was a safe bet he'd let us through. Guys are
like that. ”
    Susan batted
him on the shoulder, saying, “ This had better be
good. And if you think you're getting any down here, you're sorely
mistaken. ”
    “ Hah, ” Charlie replied. “ I wouldn't
dream of it ... well, actually. ”
    Susan batted his shoulder
again, this time, more playfully.
    A series of meeting rooms
dominated the far end of the floor. Charlie led her through to the
back of the floor where a large metal door blocked off what could
have been a storage room. Charlie punched a series of numeric
buttons on a keypad and the door slid open.
    “ What is this
place? ” Susan asked.
    “ This is
where Barney shadows, ” Charlie replied. “ He's
brought me in here a couple of times. This place is beyond top
secret. Oh, and the best is yet to come. ”
    They stepped inside the
room and the door slid shut behind them.
    A gentle hum filled the
room, whispering of untold computing power busily undertaking some
unknown task with lightning speed. There were several rows of
computer servers encased in black towers, each of them reaching up
to shoulder height. Above and below them, bundles of wiring and
cabling wound its way into the floor and up to the ceiling. Susan
had never seen anything like this before. Her world was one of
primitive survival, of pots and pans, knives and needles, but never
electronics, at least, nothing on this scale. The only computer
terminals she'd ever seen were like those on the main floor. They
looked old and strangely archaic, but the servers were pristine.
They spoke of another time, when the world thrived on
technology.
    “ Come, ” Charlie said. He led her to the end
of the far row and removed a grate from the raised floor, only the
grate lifted to reveal a darkened tunnel. A ladder led down below
the floor.
    “ You've
noticed before, haven't you? ” he asked as he
began climbing down the ladder.
    “ Yes, ” Susan replied with a sense of
dawning awareness. “ The concrete slab
that supports IT is thicker than all the others. ”
    “ Because it's
hollow, ” Charlie replied.
    Susan felt overwhelmed, in
awe of what she was seeing. Charlie was right, he couldn't have
told her this, she had to see it for herself or she would have
never believed there was a secret level within the silo.
    “ And Barney
comes down here? ” she asked as Charlie reached the
bottom of the ladder and turned on the lights.
    “ Yeah, pretty
cool, huh? Sometimes, we'll come down here on a Friday night and
sneak in a little distilled juice. Have a few drinks and bullshit
into the wee hours of the morning. ”
    “ I don't get
it, ” Susan said, stepped off the bottom rung. “ Why would there be a secret room? ”
    Charlie
replied, “ Because our silo was built on
secrets. ”
    As they began walking down
the tunnel, Charlie stopped and pointed up at the concrete ceiling.
A thin join-line ran along the concrete, down the wall and across
the floor.
    “ Do you know
what that is? ” he asked.
    “ No. ”
    “ Think about
it. Where were we within the silo? ”
    Susan thought about it for
a second before replying.
    “ The far wall
of the silo! ”
    “ Yep. You are
now about to step OUT