The Wired Man

4

Gary Serdinal. Everything I have about him comes from commercials I was able to dig up from before the Integration and these videos. Apparently, he was the Director of Development at Livespace, and, when it transformed into the SPA, Robert gave him the title Network Supervisor. He was involved with Robert in a set of stock speculation events, manipulating the company ratings of lower profile companies to short sale them. This is how it looks like Robert got his access, or at the very least how he set his plan in motion.

—TWM

Entry Re: Gary Serdinal

Name: Gary Serdinal

Employment: Network Supervisor at the Social Protection Agency

Score: 2517

Globally Unique Identifier: bdcf54ce-3059-4060-8506-3956684ebd67

Gary took a long look at his computer screen, his mental index finger hovering over the nonexistent enter key he hadn't pressed since the advent of the neural implant interface ten years ago. The central control room was empty as it normally was, and he had sole access to do whatever he pleased. The lights on the old style control panels in front of him flickered. He was about to ruin a man's life. This man didn't do a single thing in his life that merited this kind of action, yet somehow Robert had selected him for virtual termination. A small pang of guilt hit Gary in the gut, but he willed it away with a sadistic smile. Robert had already done the damage; this man was sabotaged no matter what Gary did.

Gary initiated the script Robert had given him and watched the green text run across the terminal projected onto his vision.

$garyserdinal:suspendStocks.ay

--Tunneling to system server st023br122--

--Suspending activity on server st023br122--

--Activity suspended--

--Tunneling to system server st511br609--

--Suspending activity on server st511br609--

--Activity suspended--

...

...

--All services suspended. Enter any input to reactivate the suspended services--

Gary massaged his chin and switched to a different terminal window. He entered his script and initiated the stock sale. Unlike Robert's verbose programming style, Gary's was sleek and silent. The code churned away until he read the words: Database change successful.

Without wasting any time, Gary switched his terminal back and unpaused Robert's script.

--Reinitiating server activity--

Gary stared at the terminal text, puzzled. The server activity was controlled by a basic state machine and some database flags; it shouldn't have taken longer than a few seconds to reactivate, and then another couple seconds to clear out the log trail. A minute passed, and Gary began to feel a hard knot in his stomach. If this went south, there would be no trace of Robert's involvement. He'd be left to take the blame for everything, and lately that meant accepting a prison cell in the Dregs. Gary felt his arms start to tingle and was about to open another terminal to start clearing out any evidence when he saw the message he had been waiting for.

--Server activity restored--

A long exhale escaped through Gary's gritted teeth as he leaned back in his chair. He ripped the uplink cord from his implant port and wiped the cool mat of sweat off his brow. Everything was fine; there was just some latency, that's all. The services were restarted and there were three million more credits waiting in his early retirement account. Gary wanted to believe that, but he had manually restarted those services too many times to be fooled.

The uplink cord beckoned, lying limp on the panel in front of him. He knew he should hook back in and try and find out what Robert was doing. He should try and foil whatever his newest plot was. It was his duty as Network Supervisor to defend the system at all costs, even against Robert.

He stood and retrieved his coat from the back of his chair. Whatever Robert was planning, Gary wasn't involved. That meant he had no duty to anything but himself. If he left things alone, he would be able to collect the credits sitting in his safety account and slip away into the night if things went bad, but if he opposed Robert.... Gary had seen Robert tear too many people to shreds financially and emotionally to take that risk. Whatever Robert was planning, Gary was going to leave it well enough alone. He didn't need to know; he didn't want to know.