The Golden Bond

Chapter 43

"Are you Sofia?" a man standing at my door asked. He was taller than me, but he was far from a giant. He could have been almost forty. His jaw was edged with stubble and a pair of olive green eyes stared at me through a pair of fine frameless glasses. "I'm Massimo, the boss of the data centre," he spoke again.

I remained silent.

"I came here to take you on a little grand tour. The Gran Maestro sent me."

I was still silent. Just a while ago, I was standing in front of a wardrobe full of clothes, helpless, looking for an outfit which could at least be classified a little like work clothes. All I found were sexy dresses, short skirts, blouses, court shoes, and the latest fashion items which might have suited Valentina but not me. Finally I chose a short black A-line dress and sandals which looked like flip-flops with a strap around the ankle. "Of course," I said at last, "we can go."

Massimo looked me up and down and then pointed to my shoes. "Take something else. It's not as warm down there as one might expect."

I rolled my eyes in disgust and turned back to the wardrobe once again which was more of a punishment for me than a reward. Finally I fished out a pair of ballet flats with a subtle flowery pattern hoping that this time, fashion policeman Massimo would approve of my outfit. I also took a light cardigan just in case and walked towards the lift with Massimo. We got in and he pressed the minus five button. While going down, he tried to make conversation but I answered mostly with just one word. I didn't know what to talk about with him. I was there half as a prisoner and didn't even properly know what I would actually be doing yet. But that would soon change, in fact, in a few floors down. It actually changed the moment the lift door opened in front of us. For a short while I just stood there in astonishment. Massimo watched my reaction amused. I'd never seen anything like it before. In front of me there were long rows of giant black boxes lit by a deathly white neon light. They were towering high like dark knights, just about to come to life and set off on a deadly march. I could hardly see the ends of the rows. Here and there, I got a glimpse of tiny sinister green and red lights. The whole room buzzed like a beehive. Everything hummed gently, making a monotonous sound which would certainly help you fall asleep if you tried just a little bit. The air there was heavy, slightly cold and flowing continuously.

"The cooling from the metro," Massimo explained as I wrapped my cardigan tightly around myself. Thank God I'd brought it with me. The boxes radiated heat but the air conditioning immediately chased it away. "In the immediate vicinity of the building there's a disused metro line. We're using it as an air tunnel – sucking in cool air and releasing the warmed air down there too. That's how the server rooms underground are kept cool, as well as part of the server rooms on the floors aboveground."

"Are there even more of these up there??" I asked, amazed.

"Sure, Sofia, there are ten floors with server rooms in total and another three floors of administration. The rest is the spa and private areas belonging to our Gran Maestro, like your floor for example."

Private floors. A spa. But most of all... ten floors of this. Wow.I was still amazed, largely because the whole thing was kind of incomprehensible for me. I knew my notebook for work. I had a rough idea about how the Internet worked and that it was de facto hidden in places exactly like this one all over the world. Seeing it with my own eyes was a different cup of tea though. "What does it actually do?" I asked like a total idiot.

Massimo smiled kindly, as if he was about to explain quantum physics to a child. That's exactly how I felt for the next few minutes. He lead me through the server towers, explaining patiently the basics of how a data centre works, which I as a lay person had no chance of grasping anyway. "It's quite simple. Everything that you see here is actually one huge piece of memory. It's like a brain with billions of pieces of information running through it per second and it remembers and processes them all. Each server room has its own operators who repair the boards that aren't working. Everything must run at 100%. We've got backup diesel generators in case there's a fault with the electricity supply. The data centre operates non stop, it's never switched off. Actually, the simile with a brain is quite appropriate," Massimo said, pleased with himself.