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Voltage	By : Krowhop Category: A through F > Dark Series Views: 1774 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Dark series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Chapter 1
- 2-Chapter 2
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It had been one hell of a night. Krysteena shook her head ruefully while hitting her blinker, to go into the left turn lane.
“And it's not even half done yet,” she grumbled to herself. She had drawn the short stick at work for the fifth consecutive week, marooning her in the night shift yet again. Her two partners in the small business that they all owned had vetoed her proposal to hire an additional employee, insisting that a three way split of the commission was already too much.
//Greedy bastards// she gripped mentally. She made the left hand turn onto I-5, officially—to her state of mind—leaving the comfortingly safe confines of her home turf, the always busy streets of Tacoma. Normally she just worked the technical support via phone in their small, one desk office. Unfortunately, their latest client, Baneful Bandwidth, had made a large enough down payment that they were guaranteed twenty four hour site calls. They had insisted that the problem could not be fixed over the phone, had not even been willing to try, and demanded that she come out to their server location in Greenwater, immediately.
Krys fumed as she drove. Currently their 'business', Caboodles of Bits, had only six paying customers. She had gotten the 10pm-6am shift, the short stick, with weekends free. It wasn't as bad as she thought it would be, not now anyway. She was getting to be a regular night owl. Still, the boys did have it easier. Chris and Tucker, her two other partners, switched during the day regularly, coming in when they didn't need to, to 'supervise' they said.
Krys knew what they really meant was, 'hook up the LAN, play WoW, Starcraft, RedAlert, etc.' As long as they covered 6am to 10pm, she really didn't care, and as long as she continued to get her weekends off. She hadn't gotten any complaints from the customers yet, and as long as they were happy, she was happy. //I bet they don't make half as many trouble calls out though// she thought, her ire rising yet again. Always, things had to happen in the dead of night.
She scowled at the rear view mirror in irritation, before flipping the tab so that the jerk tailgating her didn't kill her night vision. //Of course// she continued thinking, //they just play the freaking computers, and bring in their X-Box and Wii all weekend, call in their buds, and chill with pizza and Jolt at work.//
Idly, she ran her right hand through her short, white and pink hair, foofing it up in back a bit more. She knew she was being unfair, but it was hard for her to do otherwise, as she headed out to the middle of bum-fuck no where at 1am.
The first part of her night had been spent in backing up their own servers, which should have been a simple task sense there were only two, and one of them was supposed to have been done by Chris earlier in the day. Unfortunately, when she went to check the backup tapes, they were all out of order, and some had obviously been recorded over so that they were now mislabeled as well.
She had spent just over two hours checking them to determine if they were differential, incremental, or full versions of the system, as well as the date they had been performed. She had only gotten one call, from a small business owner who had just expanded to online, with a very simple fix. A forgotten password, which she was able to reset by remoting in. Afterward, she had decided that it was finally time for dinner, that she deserved a break.
Just as she had gathered up her purse and jacket the phone had rung again. Their newest client, Baneful Bandwidth, in a panic because one of their programs kept alerting them that there were “Vital Files Being Decrypted From An Unknown IP”.
The customer had been hysterical, and already disconnected everything from the Internet, refusing to troubleshoot and insisting that she come out and look. She had quickly tried to find some reference for the error code Online, but hadn't found anything. Krys had tried to convince them to let it sit until six, when one of the boys would come in, but they said it couldn't wait. //Customers ALWAYS right...// she reminded herself with no little amount of scorn.
Usually when there was a problem with encryption, access, or penetration on a client's server, she was the go-to-girl. Tucker handled the hardware aspects, and Chris was the business head, finding the clients, making the contracts, making sure they were legally covered and not liable.
She saw a sign for her exit, 142A toward AUBURN / NORTH BEND and hit the blinker in the opposite direction as previously. She glanced again at the mapquest printout, seeing that she would only be on WA-18 E for a short while before getting onto highway 164, then 410. She also noticed for the first time the estimated drive time.
“WHAT?!” she shouted, swerving just a little and getting a honk for the maneuver. It would take just over an hour to reach Greenwater, the little town that Baneful Bandwidth was based out of. As she took the exit and merged onto the new road she took a deep breath to calm herself. At least they were getting paid per mile for site calls, something Chris had established when they started Bits.
A flash of brown snagged her attention, and she spied a sign which proclaimed that 410E led to Mt. Rainier. She had only seen the mountain from planes and a a distance from her flat in the city. It was almost sad that she had lived in Washington her whole life, and never gone to see the great volcano.
She let her mind wander for a while, following the basic directions that had been printed out for her. She had never even gone in this direction before, sticking more to the coast. Krys never quite knew why nature bothered her, but her entire life she had been much more comfortable around electronics, technology, anything consistently more modern.
She had an affinity for electronics that most found disturbing—she could get computers to do things that no one else could. Growing up she had been a real whiz kid, out pacing most of her teachers when it came to computers, even hacking into the school's system and changing grades a few times. THAT had been fun.
She had never had to pay for Internet herself, she could at any time find a wireless network to access, even if it was secured. The NSA had tried to recruit her at one point, even through she did have a minor conviction for hacking. They have even offered to make it disappear, but she was not willing to re-locate. She liked Tacoma, even though it was across the country from her parents—Or possibly that was WHY she liked it.
She hadn't gotten high grades prior to college-except in her electronic elective classes. If the test or assignment had something to do with electronics though, she unfailingly received 100%. Her teachers in school had not understood, and just assumed it was her element and that she had ADHD, due to her very short attention span. One unsavory teacher had compared her ability to stay focused to that of a goldfish. She liked to think of herself more like a hummingbird. She knew exactly where she was going, she just wasn't going to stay there very long. Caboodles of Bits had been her biggest commitment to date, other than going to college.
Krysteena could always find a back door. She had never found a system that she could not eventually hack, and had never known her systems to be penetrated. She rubbed her forehead in aggravation. //Maybe that is why this feels wrong,// she mused to herself. //I've never had a hack before, and I shouldn't be getting one now.// It just felt wrong, that a system she had prepared, created, was flawed in some way.
She had attended three different colleges and tech schools, trying to get as much information as possible. She had gotten all of her basic certifications (A+, Comptia, Cisco, Microsoft, etc), as well as taking specialized courses for Linux, and working with Mac's. Just recently, she had finally gotten her CEH certification. She was officially a Certified Ethical Hacker. Tucker she had met in her first tech school, and they had instantly come to an understanding.
She stopped for gas at a Safeway along the road, leaving her radio playing as she pumped. Once she topped off the tank, she stuck the receipt above the passenger's side visor. She could write the gas off as a work expense. She turned back onto 410 HW and started in on a granola bar she had stashed in her glove box.
It seemed like she had been driving forever, and when she glanced at her dash clock she saw that indeed, about forty five minutes had gone by. The highway had been reduced to a simple two lane road, and she could tell that she was steadily driving uphill now. She spared a moment to wonder how deep in the mountains she was going, and when she checked her cell phone, there was a definitive 'No Service' proclamation. Her forehead wrinkled as she wondered what Chris or Tucker would think if she wasn't back by four. She wasn't sure how long she would be out at the site, and she hadn't left a note, explaining. They could of course, check the inbound calls, and play them back, but they might not think of that.
She sighed, as she passed another brown sign, directing drivers to Mud Mountain Dam Recreational Park. She knew for a fact that there was a phone at that Baneful Bandwidth server site, so she shrugged off her unease, and continued driving. She slowed down as she rounded a bend, focusing on the faint yellow line. There had been fog ever sense she passed Enumclaw, the last town, and the last time she had seen any light other than her own. As she slowed her 99' VW Beetle she flipped off the brights. Up until then, the fog had been moderate, but the further she got into the pass, the thicker it became.
She could tell from the reflected rays of her headlights that there were solid cliffs going up on the left side of the road, and intermittent trees and empty space to her right. As she followed the roadway slowly, signs kept flashing at her through the fog. “Don't Drink And Drive; In Memory of Danie Brown”. “Planted in 1998”. “Slide Area”. It took her a moment to understand the last one, a yellow triangle that had caught her attention. //Why would they have a playground way out...Oh.// She shook her head at herself, feeling regret that she didn't get out more.
Before long she came into Greenwater, a sign proclaiming that you 'Must reduce speed to 35'. She laughed out loud, then started muttering. “I've been going 35 for the past half hour...” She passed a handful of dark buildings with only the street lights giving any alternate illumination. For five more minutes after the last building had gone by she drove through the white mist before she decided she must have missed the turn. She pulled to the side of the road in a small turn around. There was a large, leafy tree in the middle and a 'Do Not Trespass' sign in the brush. She let out a small breath, before opening her glove box and pulling out her Washington State map.
She had the large map spread out over her steering wheel with the car still running and the dome light on. She spent a good five minutes just finding where she currently was, before finally spotting the speck named 'Green River'. She was leaning in close to it, trying to decipher the road she was on, when there was a sudden tapping on the window. She made an audible squeak, as she swung her head around, wishing desperately that she was one of those paranoid people who had a gun stashed under their seat. The man standing outside her window tapped again twice, then smiled at her and made the universal 'roll down the window' motion with the offending hand.
Her eyes wide, she let down the window a crack. The man smiled wider and she couldn't help but notice the decrepit state of his teeth. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him in suspicion. His smile wilted and he cleared his throat before speaking.
“Hey there, I'm Tony Rogers, I work for Baneful Bandwidth. Are you, ah, Christina?” His eyes shifted back and forth, taking in the appearance of the interior of her mint green bug. There were stars, moons, and suns on all of her upholstery, along with the dangling air freshener. She felt so out of her element, and let out a small breath, before deciding that it was her job to bite the bullet, and they had already been paid.
Krys rolled down the window half way, and reached a hand out to the man, quirking her mouth into a half smile. “Ya, I'm Krys.” She paused, her brow furling as she tried to figure out how he had appeared. She knew she would have noticed another car.
“How did you spot me?” Subtlety had never been her strong point. She was beginning to think she was on some Punk'd, or Candid Camera show.
“Oh, Alex and me, well, he's the guy who called, we decided that I should come down to the main road to wait for you, to make sure you didn't miss our turn. You just passed it about, oh, about a mile back!” Tony was baring his cracked, yellowed teeth again in a parody of a smile. “I can lead you back up there, but it would be much quicker if I could ride with you.”
Krys shrugged and hit the locks so that he could open the door. She had a firm rule against hitchhikers, but this was work. “Hop in,” she invited before closing the window. The mist was cold, even though it was still mid-August.
"Thanks, I 'preciate it!" he stated. He closed the door, but didn't bother buckling up. Krys pulled all the way through the turn around, and hit the left blinker needlessly before pulling out onto the abandoned road. They drove without speaking, with only the sound of Plain White Tees filling the car.
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Voltage