Genesis - Keith R. A. DeCandido [11]
Barr had said the same thing ten years ago at MIT, word for word. No surprise he programmed it into his greatest achievement.
Luckily, Umbrella's higher-ups were a bit more far-sighted—or, at the very least, had seen 2001. No matter what happened, there was always to be some human oversight to anything the Red Queen did.
In the last two months, Lisa had learned that Barr had not been thrilled with this, and had tried to have Lisa's position eliminated after her predecessor transferred to another department.
Instead, they took the job out of Barr's purview. Although she worked with the computer system, she was not part of the Computer Services staff—she reported to Security Division.
Though most of their work involved the physical security of Umbrella's various corporate headquarters and their employees, Umbrella's bosses decided to include electronic security. That meant that she reported directly to the head of Security Division, a taciturn man who went solely by the unlikely codename of "One."
They still put her in with the other techies, though, giving her a sleek metal desk indistinguishable from all the other sleek metal desks. On the far wall was a large window, covered in blinds, that gave a spectacular view of the Raccoon City skyline.
All the more spectacular by virtue of its being fake. They even piped muffled street noises in. It was Umbrella's way of making them feel like they weren't a thousand feet underground. After all, despite the size of the Hive, it could still get damn claustrophobic, knowing you were spending all your time in a big hole in the ground, surrounded on all sides by earth, rocks, mud, or whatever the hell made up the underside of Raccoon City. Lisa had no idea, nor did she care to. She just tried, like everyone else did, to pretend that the view out the window was real, that the sounds she heard were genuine.
Sometimes she even believed it.
She often wondered how anyone stood this for five years, and was grateful that—one way or another—she was not going to find out for herself.
Even as she found the error in her patch—which was a simple typographical error, one she would have caught five minutes ago if the Red Queen hadn't insisted on getting huffy about it—the phone rang.
Wanting to keep her hands free to type, she plugged the headset into the appropriate jack in the phone, hooked it around her ear, adjusting the mic so it was near her mouth, then hit the speaker button. The phone routed the sound, which would normally go out on the phone's speaker, to the headset. "Broward."
"Lisa, it's Alice."
Smiling at the familiar voice, Lisa said, "How's life among the rich and famous?"
Dryly, Alice said, "Oh, thrill-a-minute, like usual."
Unlike One, who was at HQ in Raccoon City proper, Alice—currently in charge of security for the Hive, stationed along with Spence Parks at the lavish mansion that served as one of the main entry points into the Hive—was approachable and easy to work with. Like One, she didn't take any shit. Unlike One, she didn't give any, either. As long as there wasn't a crisis, she could actually talk to you like a real person.
Although Lisa's desk was in the same general area as the other Tech folks, they viewed her with disdain, as she wasn't really one of them. Unfortunately, she didn't really have much in common with the gaggle of ex-cops and ex-cons that made up the Security Division, either.
Alice, though, was different. She didn't treat Lisa like some kind of weird other being who didn't belong in the club because she couldn't field-strip an M16, or whatever kind of fancy weapon the thugs in Security hauled around.
Not that it mattered all that much whether or not Lisa made friends. Not given her long-term goal.
Still, in the short term, it was nice to have someone to talk to.
Especially when that someone also had the potential to help out with the long-term plans.
"So what's the problem?" Lisa asked.
"I can't get into my account."
Again, Lisa sighed. "I know, I know, there's a problem with the protocols. I should have it fixed in a few minutes,