Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead - Andrew Cartmel [18]
‘This is the brain of the building. If you could say this place has got a brain. Operates the elevators, sniffs for fires, checks ID cards. It chews mine up about twice a year. Big expensive system but not exactly what you’d call smart. A lot of bespoke software, communications, security, maintenance, stuck together over the years.
‘It controls the sprinklers?’
‘The sprinklers, the cameras. All the doors and windows. Here’s the interesting bit. Central or back‐slash Cen, or Big Ken to his friends also has to interface with all the company networks in the building. If you’ve got offices here your computers have to talk to Big Ken. If there was a fire or something the Central has to know where everybody is, who’s logged in at what location. Figure out optimal escape routes for everybody in the building.’
‘It draws vectors,’ said the Doctor, thinking aloud. ‘Or it deals with it as a problem in topology.’
‘It probably uses voodoo,’ said Maria. ‘This thing is so old it used to have a command line you typed on. Remember those?’
‘But you can access any data in the building through this route.’
‘Absolutely. And not only access. Big Ken has to be able to slot an evacuation message across their screens. So Central can pre‐empt any process that’s running on any computer in the building.’
The Doctor smiled.
‘Took me years to learn my way around. I know it pretty good by now.’ Maria flexed her fingers over the keyboards. ‘Central also controls a lot of the cleaning hardware. Stuff I have to operate. Maintains the schedules. Reminds me when the air conditioning ducts need doing and helps me route the scrubbers. Don’t want any of that legionnaire virus floating around.’
The Doctor reached over her shoulder and punched some buttons on the keyboard. The office directory appeared on the screen, listing all the companies who leased space in the King Building. From Amoco to Zenith. Polychrome logos and badges flashed up beside some of the names. You could tell how well a company was weathering the corporate storm by the sophistication and expense of its computer graphics.
‘How long have you worked in this building?’ The cat was beside the Doctor now, looking at the screen. Maria had noticed that before with cats. They were interested in what you were interested in.
‘Forever,’ she said.
‘That’s a very long time. Always for the Butler Institute?’
‘No. Anywhere in the building. I cleaned for other companies plenty of times.’
‘But who pays you? Always the Butler Institute?’
‘Yes.’
The Doctor was smiling again, but something was different this time. ‘Does that suggest anything to you?’ He was looking directly at her now. The light of the screen was reflected in his eyes. Like two tiny screens looking out at her, full of data she’d never be able to read.
‘Tell me something. Why am I helping you?’
‘Perhaps because you know what the Butler Institute is. And perhaps you can see what it will become. Can you get at their current projects directory?’
‘That’s highly classified stuff.’
‘Can you get at it?’
‘No problem.’
As she typed, Maria realized that she was making a noise. Low and rhythmic. She was singing to herself. It took her a few moments to place the song. Something by The Clash.
The system security had been improved since the last time Maria had hacked into the Butler Institute records. That had been at Christmas, to authorize a bonus for herself. Nothing too flashy, nothing that would get noticed. She’d earned it, cleaning up the wreckage after the office party. The workstation had had a sprig of mistletoe fixed over its screen and it had taken her about fifteen minutes. This took her an hour and a half, and all she found were some personnel records. Details of two cops called Mancuso and McIlveen. When the stuff flashed up on the screen, the Doctor smiled. ‘Just confirming a theory,’ he said. He retreated through levels of memory, closing each window down as he went. It was like retreating through a series of Chinese boxes. Sometimes he pulled down menus and ran through