"Service for what?"
"Basic Systems Error. The whole building"s down.
I"ve been monitoring the individual units; that"s how I knew you were still up, trying to access your system.
Bet you"re not having much luck."
"Well," Don answered a bit reluctantly.
"Yeah."
"Well, it"s a bit of luck for us, actually--the fact you"re up this late. If we don"t get to each of these units individually, and soon, the whole place could fry."
"I"m sorry, but--" "We think it"s a stealth obsolescence program." The serviceman wasn"t going to give Don time to object.
"We got news of it this afternoon. We have to purge each subsystem individually. It"s a real hands-on experience.
If we don"t do it now, your whole system might have to be replaced."
Stealth obsolescence? Don had heard of that sort of thing when he"d been out browsing, some of the big conglomerates trying to goose their profits, but he hadn"t really paid it any attention. Rumors of that sort were so paranoid, he generally ignored them. Like a lot on the Web, paranoia was a great way to waste your time.
But this was beyond paranoia. This was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his place, messing with his system.
He stared hard at the image of the serviceman.
"I.
a.s.sume you have some identification? And a work order?"
The repairman laughed.
"What was I thinking about, this time of night, too?" He placed his hand on the apartment palm-reader as he read from his digital clipboard"Securiteam Member Jason Taylor here to check and clean Unit 21B-Rear, occupant Donald Winslow. Authorization Code B79988-"
The screen went blank. That signal was gone, too.
Don guessed he"d better open the door while he still had electricity.
But not before he took some precautions of his own.
He walked quickly into the bedroom and pulled the revolver from the back of his sock drawer. The gun, a Smith and Wesson .38, had been in his family for generations. What had his father always told him? A man had to protect his home, He tucked the gun into the back of his jeans, and pulled on a loose fitting sweater to hide the bulge.
Only when he felt his weapon was secure, and hidden, did he move to the front door.
The identigrid was flashing on the inside of the door. Half the security guard"s information had made it here before this system, too.
had frozen:
JASON TAYLOR, SECURITEAM AUTHORIZED.
PALM PRINT. OK. RETINAL SCAN--the read-out stopped, followed by a whole bunch of garbage.
You had to take some chances in life. Don opened the door.
The repairman smiled at him. He had a very faint scar that ran from his cheekbone down across his chin; the sort of thing low-res cameras didn"t pick up. It made him look somewhat more dangerous than his video image.
"All right. I was about to give up on you, Mr. Winslow.
Can I call you Don? Everybody calls me Jace."
He pushed past Don, into the apartment.
"Now we can really get to work."
Don felt like he was already losing control here.
"Just what is it exactly that you have to do?"
"I"ve got to get at the heart of your system. Once I see just what you"ve got, we can figure out what to do. Where"s your primary?"
Don pointed toward his office.
"You"re a bachelor, right? Mrs. Mac Shea down in 21C-front? She has her primary operating out of her kitchen. Some women are like that, huh?" He glanced back at Don as he reached the office door.
"You know her, right?"
Actually, Don didn"t really know any of his neighbors.
What with so many people plugged into home offices, the building"s occupants kept wildly different hours. You certainly didn"t talk to anybody out on the streets these days, and it was impolite to make eye contact on the elevators. He had seen two or three middle-aged women in the hallways. He guessed Mrs.
Mac Shea had to be one of them.
The repairman stepped into Don"s office and looked around.
"Pretty up-to-date for this building." He walked over to the main access panel and opened a pouch at his belt.
"Well, Mrs. Mac Shea--actually, she asked me to call her Julia--sweet old broad, she could barely tolerate what we had to do." He pulled the smallest electric screwdriver Don had ever seen from his pouch and rapidly went about freeing the panel.
"Fooling with her kitchen was like cutting out her heart, I guess. I had to call in one of the other techs to take her and sit her in the bedroom until she calmed down."
He pulled the panel free and looked inside.
"You, though, a guy living alone like you--I guess you live alone?" He glanced back at Don, who didn"t give him an answer one way or the other. This guy was here to fix a problem, not learn Don"s life story.
Jace nodded for him.
"Yeah. You go into enough apartments, after a while you can tell.
Well, Don, being a bachelor, living alone, you"re not going to get emotionally involved in the same way. At least I hope not. The stealth program gets worse with time. If we can catch it in the early stages, though .. ." Jace shrugged.
"Look at it this way. The less time I"m here, the less problems you"re going to have."
The repairman took a small flashlight from his pack and shone it into the innards of Don"s primary control panel. He grunted in approval.
"Your system has some built-in safeguards. It"ll make my job easier."
He pulled out a small set of wire cutters.
What now? Don didn"t like this at all. Ever since his system had started shutting down, Don had felt like he was losing control.
"Look," be began.
"Why don"t you let me handle some of that? I actually know what"s inside there pretty well. I personally customized--" Jace shook the wire cutters at Don.
"Don"t worry," he chided with that same smile.
"I"m not going to mess with anything I can"t easily replace."
He flicked the light he had in his left hand on and off and on again, making clicking sounds with his tongue as he examined the computer"s innards.
"I do like to talk. You wouldn"t think so, but it helps me to focus on my work. Say, you wouldn"t happen to have something to drink around here, would you? A can of soda or something? This troubleshooting can be thirsty work."