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although William Morris had lost out to white with a hint of
apple blossom. The intricate moulded symmetry of the large
plaster ceiling rose shamed the complex web of tangled cables
running across the floor below.
123 
As he worked on the CD, writing decryption algorithms and
running them one after another against the data encoded on the
disc, the Doctor was in a world of his own. Around him people
wandered in and out of the room, cleaning, tidying, worrying
about the opening ceremony rescheduled for the next morning.
He was making progress. Still the Doctor did not know
exactly what was on the CD, but he was getting closer. He was
beginning to understand the data structures and catalog
systems. There was one file  the largest  which still worried
him, though. The complexity of the internal data was
staggering.
'Now what's that?' the Doctor asked himself yet again.
'Blowed if I know.' The Doctor had spoken out loud, and a
face appeared next to his own, examining the catalog reference
on the screen. 'Tried a hex-edit?' the young man asked.
'No, but that's the next step.' The Doctor looked round,
aware suddenly that it was nearly three in the morning. 'What
are you doing?' he asked the gangly youth with greasy hair
who was staring at his screen. His badge identified him as
Denny Lucas.
'Sorry.' He stepped away and went back to a trolley he had
been pushing. It was loaded with what looked like video tapes,
all labelled and in boxes.
'No,' the Doctor said, 'I mean, what are you doing? It's the
middle of the night. Even the traffic wardens are asleep.'
'Back-up,' said Denny helpfully.
'Back-up? Of what?'
Denny gestured round the room. 'Of everything. One of the
LAN servers is in here, I need to take a tape back-up of
everything on it.'
'You back-up the entire network?'
'Yeah, everything the system can see on the local net. Every
night we load it on to a separate resource on the InterNet 
well, the Highway now. Then on Wednesdays we take tapes
off site.'
'Do you really?'
'And today's Wednesday, well, more like Thursday now, I
s'pose,' Denny offered helpfully.
124 
'Hmm.' The Doctor was interested, but the question of what
was backed up and how hardly helped with his current
problem. 'Well, that's fascinating. But can I get on with this
now, do you think?' He turned abruptly back to the screen and
was at once absorbed in it.
'Sorry,' Denny muttered behind him, and went to the
network server machine in the corner of the room.
'Thanks for the suggestion,' the Doctor called as Denny
wheeled his trolley out of the room. The screen in front of the
Doctor was filled with the numbers 0 to 9 and letters A to E
paired off to represent bytes of data.
Sarah had been at her desk from just after seven in the
morning. The rest of the office seemed to be deserted.
Stabfield arrived just before seven-thirty and complimented
her on her punctuality.
But Sarah hardly noticed. Stabfield was wearing a white
jacket over his usual serge suit. In one hand he was carrying a
tall chef's hat, which he put down on the desk. In the other
hand he held a silver promotional I2 plastic bag. He handed it
to Sarah. 'You'll need this.'
Sarah looked in the bag. 'What for?' she asked, confused.
The bag seemed to have clothing in it. A white silk blouse and
black skirt and tights. There was also a pair of black shoes with
heels higher than she cared for.
'Change into it, then meet me in the car park in ten minutes.'
Sarah was still sitting at her desk, plastic bag in hand and
mouth open when she heard the door close behind Stabfield at
the other end of the office.
'Oh well,' she said out loud, 'anything for a quiet life.'
In the car park there was a white minibus and a maroon
Toyota van. Both had Finesse Catering painted on the side and
the back together with a telephone number. Sarah looked out
from the door. There were about twenty people milling around
the car park. As she watched, Lewis began to motion them on
to the minibus. Sarah recognized most of the people as I2
employees, though it took her a moment or two. What was
confusing was their clothing. Stabfield and another man were
125 
dressed in chef's uniform; Lewis wore a dinner suit  perhaps
head waiter?  and the rest of the men were similarly dressed.
Seeing the women dressed in identical attire to herself, Sarah
realized she was costumed to play the part of a waitress. 'What
is going on?' she murmured.
Nobody seemed to have noticed her, so Sarah sneaked [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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