The Original
Bastard Geo From Hell
(Still a work in progress)

Part 14: "Trouble A-Brewing"


Sooo... the Adsquare was history, and GeoManagement was mad. The Bastard Rookie In Training (2) was disinterested, and one accountant was no where to be found. Pretty much par for the course. The Techs were in the docs room feverishly shredding/burning any evidence of their ever having the security-hole-ridden Sendmail 4.0 installed at all, and--they still had a lot to worry about--just as feverishly licking any upper-management boot they could get their tongues on. BRIT2, meanwhile, sets his telephone to Don't Bother Me mode. 

Of course, not too long after, *Ring Ring Ring*

"Konnichiwa. Pleese leeve message aftah tone..."
You could actually feel your own eyes beginning to slant while hearing this message. Setting his custom phone to Don't Bother Me mode worked wonders for getting those pesky customers off his back, but he didn't think it would work on his own boss calling his own private extension....but then again...

"So why exactly is management pissed?" BRIT(2)

"Some hackers got in yesterday...destroyed our AdSquare. The boss thinks we didn't do enough to secure our systems." Tech A, with a pathetic, grovelly tone in his voice. Hmmm...

"Like getting rid of that Sendmail 4..." BRIT(2), feeling an exponential increase in blackmail potential. "...or those Back Orifice NT installations."

"How did you know abou--" Tech B, realising who he was talking to.

"Network administrator, remember? And don't look now, but here comes the boss..." BRIT(2)

(scampering) Too bad, they escape just in time before the upper-management type trundles in with an angry look on his face.

"Oh, glad I caught you.  I've had a heck of a time trying to get ahold of you. I keep calling, but all I get is this Japanese electronics firm..."

*Sigh* I was almost afraid of this...or looking forward to, mostly. This is the same guy who'd built a mini model submarine for his office mantel, complete with screen door. 

"Anyway, as you may know we've had some hacker problems with our new AdSquare...specifically, they destroyed the damn thing. I have reason to believe poor security practices were involved. Do you by any chance know anything about this?"

An obvious accusational tone if ever there was one.

"No... and unfortunately I couldn't really tell you who does..." BRIT(2), nonchalantly gesturing toward the room where the Techs are hiding.

It wasn't long before an ominous voice came over the public-address in the Techs' hideout room. He wouldn't go down there in person, of course--the boss-man may not be the brightest light in the building, but even HE knew about the electrified doorknob.

"This is the Boss. Report to my office immediately!" Loudspeaker

"What?" Tech A

"You know what." Loudspeaker

What makes him think it was ME who deleted all his porno?

Three whimpering Techs (Tech C being dragged by A and B so as not to get shortchanged in the blame department) were seen heading toward the head cheese's office with their tails between their legs. Luckily for them, they were spared by the fire alarm! *BZZZZZZZZ.....*

Having everyone out of the building for a phony fire drill was the perfect opportunity for the Bastard (Ex-)Geo From Hell to sneak back into his favorite old haunts. Removing his patent-pending fire-alarm-setting-off-device from the wall, he did just that. It was still rather cold out, so the rest of the staff wasted no time returning to the building upon finding out there was no fire. (Or it could've been that there was an Unreal tournament in progress on their network.) After the last of the stragglers (the ones not engaged by Unreal) had returned, the BxGFH wandered up to the 2nd floor to pilfer a couple doughnuts from the secretaries and maybe round up a little action for the lunch hour.

Being the Bastard (ex-)Geo From Hell means a little action is a little action, whether you work there anymore or not.

So, what does a fired system administrator do when he's in a bad mood? Share, share, share. The first gift to the GeoStapo staff was making sure they had on-hand plenty of *hot* coffee (none of that 170°F practically-still-frozen shit). The second was making sure their head PR stiff "Dave the Machete", who'd been acting more uptight than usual, stayed nice and regular. The BxGFH staked out a spot in the hallway and waited for the fireworks.
 
Sure enough, moments later the lesser PR stiff and forum censor, "Geo Queen of Rain", stepped out of the lounge with his afternoon king-size coffee mug--containing about 2 cups of ice and a couple P6 heatsinks for good measure. Upon seeing the ex-employee waltzing about the hallway, the forum-censor extraordinare approached and demanded to know what he was doing back in Geo headquarters.

"Idunno...Exterminating cockroaches or something. Got a problem?" BxGFH

"Yeah, you're the Bastard Geo From Hell. You were fired, and are not supposed to come within 500 ft. of our building at any time." Geo Queen of Rain

BxGFH snickers.

"Just wait'll Security finds out you're here. We'll see if you're still snickering." GQoR

Probably. The BxGFH was snickering because he changed all of security's keycards with Pop Tarts, and they're *still* trying to get in.

"Hey, I remember you..." says the BxGFH, waiting for the laxative to kick in. "You're the guy who tried to string himself up with a length of Cat Five a couple weeks ago." BxGFH

"You shuddup. I was having a bad day." GQoR

Don't look now, but I think you're about to have another one.

From the crossing hallway came the sound of sneaker squeaking, growing louder by the second. It could only mean one of two things: either someone was trying to piss off one of the janitors by leaving rubber marks all down the hallway, or someone was moving at an extremely high rate of speed. From the sound of the "Move, move, outta my way, I think someone fed me a powerful laxative!" shout accompanying it, probably the latter.
 
To make a fun thing funner, here came the coffee guy in the other direction, wheeling out several bubbling pots of Geo's finest brew. He was wearing about 6 layers of bandage on the hand nearest the coffeepot and cursing the poor quality of modern coffee-machine thermostats, but generally not paying attention to where he was going. Apparently, nobody noticed the sticky adhesive-type stuff squirting from the BxGFH's well-concealing fist toward GQoR's shoes.
 
So, there were a marketdroid, a marketdroid, and a "Refreshment Services Engineer" all converging rapidly in the same hallway. Einstien would have called the result a singularity, but the BxGFH called it the most fun one could have with a pack of X-Lax and a bottle of airplane glue. I don't think I have to elaborate on the results.

It wasn't McDonalds coffee, so nobody chanced to receive any fat and juicy settlements. The RSE was lucky enough to escape with only minor injuries. Two hospitalized marketdroids swore revenge against the BxGFH, by whose doing, two hospitalized marketdroid crotches were presently wrapped up like birthday gifts. Not a tremendous loss, as the marketdroid, erm, "packages" had never been taken out of their wrappings more than once a year anyway......
 
 
 

Page Fifteen



Bastard Geo From Hell ©1999 Bill Webb. It may be redistributed, but not for profit, so long as appropriate credit is given.