Cloud to Cloud

Episode 17: Back in the Saddle - But What Horse?

"It's good to see you back in the saddle, Fred."

Fred rotated in his office chair to see a young woman with a mailroom cart blocking the entrance to his cubicle.

"Thank you." Fred frowned at the disheveled stack of envelopes and file folders. "What's all this?"

"Afternoon message run, and packet distribution." The woman flipped through the stacks. "Better known as my midmorning tour of the campus."

Fred's attention turned from the young woman as he flipped through the envelopes.

"You are looking pretty good." She winked as she handed over yet another stack of folders and letters. "That little vacation did wonders."

"It was mandatory." Fred frowned. "I would've been back sooner had they allowed me to be."

"Oh." The woman shrugged. "Well, you may need a real vacation soon. It's like a war around here. Everyone has their boxers in a twist."

"I'm a new man, ready to bail you young slackers out of this little mess." Fred nodded.

The woman waved off his statement and continued through the cubicle maze.

Fred turned his attention to the dusty early 2000's desktop computer in his office space. The chair wheel hung up on a wire as Fred rolled closer to the desk.

"Crap." Fred shifted and lifted the chair.

He tracked carefully toward the desk. "Maybe this is a little different than before the crash. A bit more like the old days than I would like to admit."

Fred adjusted the cascade of wires across his desk. He checked connections between tower and screen, wiggled the tail protruding from the keyboard, and adjusted the wired mouse on the pad. Use of the Cloud had not been limited to data transfer. Everything wireless was forced to rely on hard line connection to avoid strain on the already unstable bandwidth of the data stream.

Fred scowled as he ran his fingers through his hair. The building had maintained a backup infrastructure. There were enough wired devices in storage, it appeared. Somewhere, he was certain, there was a warehouse of rotary phones.

Fred depressed the switch on the face of the tower and waited for the machine to boot up. He sighed as he heard the shriek of the connection. Things were indeed different, but at least he was linked in. There was comfort to the familiar hum of electronics and the bright white of a Cloud-connected screen.

"Takes me back to college." Fred muttered as the screens connected to the computer tower blinked to life.

He settled in as loading screens abated and a familiar desktop image appeared. He set his fingers flying across the keyboard. It was strange to feel the haptic feedback of solid keys beneath his fingers.

Windows of code filled the screen. Fred's eyes flitted across the alphanumeric strings as he deciphered incoming errors and messages. ITower was a mess.

Wired connections seemed to be functioning, yet wireless cellular connectivity was a mystery. It appeared to be a hardware issue. Yet, that made sense only if the disease of the data stream infected only certain devices.

Fred removed his glasses a moment. He rubbed his weary eyes. Returning his glasses on the bridge of his nose, he stared at the cluttered screen. His eyes wandered to the icon tray. He slid the mouse and the cursor hovered over the browser icon.

He clicked.

The window appeared to be a typical information center start page. The difference, information center connections contained locks and nanny-bot programs. It was like working in a small, cramped cage with the whole of the data stores on the outside.