GWOT Armistice

[drewkitty]

The War is over. We signed a peace treaty, an armistice. With the end of the War, people are free to go home, to resume their lives. To code at the projects they choose. To work at the tasks they choose.

The trucks do not stop coming. They deliver food for all. A stream of ambulances start whisking our wounded away, to proper care in real hospitals. The ATM machines are restocked with honest greenbacks. Site Ops meetings discuss how to shift back to normal peacetime operations.

Security's task is now to demobilize, disarm and reintegrate into society. Mohammed's grin as he rigs a phased detonation sequence, with the storage shed the last in the daisy chain. Buddy's fiercer grin as he takes a blowtorch to the barrels then the receivers of our automatic weapons. The Hate Truck being backed up for the last time, then lifted with a forklift to rest on her pedestal.

I proudly set up a burn barrel and toss our blood won Intelligence files into it. Let it all burn, we don't need it any more. I can dimly smell the smoke.

The bells are ringing.

We don't have bells.

I concentrate and hear the words on the PA which accompany the chimes.

"... in the Data Center. Fire alarm. Fire in..."

I sit up bolt upright under my sheet in my cage in the Data Center.

I immediately fall sideways and kiss the floor, without taking a breath. My face and scalp are hot and crinkly and there is no light - none at all - in the room.

"Fire alarm. Fire in the Data Center."

And I am nearly naked in a steel cage behind a padlocked door.

Comments

[drewkitty]

YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE GIVEN ME LIP IN THAT MEETING, ECHO 18.

[drewkitty]

The first problem is to find my key. At first I had slept with it on a chain around my neck. Then I'd calmed down slightly and started wearing it among my keys on my duty belt.

Huge mistake. Huge. Because there was no light in the room, and the only way that could happen was for us to not only lose all electrical power, but for the room to fill with smoke. So even if I could take the time to get out my flashlight, I would turn it on only to see ... nothing.

I had to take a breath. I did so with my lips touching the tile. The air was hot and smoky, but did not sear my lungs. Yet.

I reached out to and found my belt. There was no way to put on either my pants or my boots, and I'd never tried to put on my gun belt over my bare hips. Now was not a good time, either.

I found the two items I needed by touch. Keys and light.

My radio was not making noise. It should have been. Fire alarm equals sitewide emergency equals lots of radio traffic.

Now to feel the correct key by touch. Site master key, building external master key, master truck key, master armored truck door key, small key. I tried that one. Didn't fit. Damn. Must be the explosives shed key. I kept moving down the keys until I found my other small key.

My forearm hairs were crinkling from reaching up to the lock. I got the key in and it turned. I freed the padlock and opened the cage door without precautions. Normally when doing fire response, there is a complex procedure for opening a door to make sure you're not about to star in a remake of _Backdraft_. Not an issue when the door is made of mesh.

Crawling, I clipped my keys back to my belt and slung the fastened belt over my left shoulder. I briefly reached for my boots and pants. No time for socks or shirt.

Now to make the most important decision of my life to date. Which way to crawl? Left towards the nearest emergency exit, or right towards the main entrance which was about 100' further away?

[drewkitty]

I made the stupid decision. Instead of crawling towards the nearest emergency exit, which would allegedly be smart, I would crawl deeper into the building.

Because I had a feeling this was arson, and if it was, someone might be waiting for me at the exit. Or just an IED with my name on it.

I had the interior map graven on the inside of my skull. But I could now see literally nothing. So I would have to count cage sections by touch.

Of course, I could just stand up. If I were lucky, the room temperature would be over 1000 and I would pass out instantly. If I were less lucky, with a room temperature between 400 and 700, I would be badly burned and have plenty of time to enjoy my burns before smoke inhalation finished me off.

So not standing up. Crawling only. Kissing the warm tiles and trying to ignore the sweat pouring off my nearly naked body.

There are several schools of thought in building survival. One of them is simply to survive. Tuck yourself into a bathroom, fill the tub and sink, put wet towels over cracks under the doors, breathe through a dry towel, etc.

Another school is aggressive interior attack. Find the fire and kill it before it kills you. But this requires a lot of training, the correct equipment and a boatload of raw courage. I had one out of three, and knew it.

The middle ground is what is sometimes called incipient stage fire fighting or occupant or bystander response. Fire extinguisher, fire the size of a trash can, thoughtful quick action. Homeowner with garden hose putting out embers before they ignite his roof. But this fire had grown beyond that size already.

So where is our fire protection system?

The Data Center is protected by three interlocking fire protection systems. A state of the art smoke detector system linked to on-site and (pre-Firecracker) off site monitoring. A fire curtain system that allows certain areas to be isolated from others and filled with FM-200 fire protection gas. At last resort, and screw the servers, a "preaction" type fixed sprinkler head system that would flow water all over everything after cutting the power.

Only one of the systems - the smoke detector and alarm - was functioning properly. I did not hear the distinctive hooting of the FM-200 system. I did not hear the mechanical bells associated with water flow. (Yes, the fire protection engineers for the Data Center were old school. Why do you ask?)

I also did not hear anything on radio. I turned the power on and off again. No luck.

Pre-Firecracker, several San Jose Fire Department engines would be dispatched and would already be working the problem.

Now we had our Fire Brigade, which had exactly one (1) municipal fire protection engine, itself so obsolete it had been in Federal service before being "sold" to a nearly broke volunteer fire department, then maintained with baling wire. After we had rescued it post-Firecracker, we had further attempted repairs - but it still had a cracked radiator and leaky pump seals. Then we had portable pumps on a pickup truck and electric carts.

What's more, I didn't know if they had been dispatched.

So I keyed my radio.

"Echo 18, Emergency Traffic, Fire in the Data Center."

No reply. That wasn't good. By touch I detached my hand mike, then transmitted again. No reply then either.

OK, bad radio. So I would be making my way to ...

Gunfire.

Seriously?

Shit.

Six spaced rounds, followed by two long, uncontrolled bursts.

Armed intrusion. During a fire.

No more Mr. Nice Security Manager.

[drewkitty]

I would not be heading to the Network Operations Center. There were controls for everything in the NOC - power, data, lights, locks, cameras, fire systems, you name it. It would also be a high priority target for intruders.

What I needed was a smoke-free space with a network connection and a client laptop.

We had small rooms along one perimeter wall for visiting tech workers. In the old days, this gave them a place to do work without having to clear Security every time they needed to check E-mail. This was now set up as living and sleeping quarters for the data center admins.

I keyed into the first one. It was a mess, as you can imagine if you give a techie a 8'x10' room and tell them it's their new home.

No lights. That was OK, I had a flashlight on my belt. I took it out, set it to lantern mode.

Messier in good light. I closed the door and shoved a blanket to cover the crack in the bottom of the door.

Then I found the laptop.

Change User.

Login: facilities-admin
Password: [a ridiculous string]

We don't do Windows.

I brought up an X-window and a browser. I typed in a URL and it demanded an even more ridiculous password. I typed it.

I opened a chat window. "E18 to SECCNT, EMERGENCY TRAFFIC, FIRE IN THE DATA CENTER. Smell my peanuts."

That last was a password. Life and death.

Then and only then did I go to the Facilities console.

I didn't like the settings it showed me. I dragged and dropped FM-200 from "DISABLED" to "EMERGENCY ACTIVATE." It demanded another password, which I provided.

I now heard hooting from the corridor. Excellent.

I then checked WATER PRESSURE MAIN and it showed 200 psi. Fire Alarm Preaction was set to "DISABLED" so I set it to "ENABLED" and immediately WATER PRESSURE MAIN dropped to 120 psi. I also heard mechanical bells.

Flow the water. Bring the noise.

The next thing I heard was popping and banging sounds as fire water met running servers with predictable results.

The chat window responded.

"SECCNT to E18 immediate deadly gunfire your area, ack now."

I typed "ack" and pulled up camera views.

The front door camera was offline. The NOC camera showed two people down at consoles and a third typing frantically at a console.

I looked carefully and typed.

"One tango in NOC, two friendlies down, ack. React react react."

"Ack. Reacting."

The PA system sounded overhead.

"THIS IS SECURITY CONTROL. INTRUDERS WILL DROP THEIR WEAPONS AND PUT THEIR HANDS ON THEIR HEADS. DO THIS NOW."

The tango I had on camera flinched.

Not much more I could do with the borrowed laptop. So I checked the camera view one more time. Then I crawled out the door with my firearm in my right hand and my flashlight in my left. I left my belt and my keys in the tech's lair.

If I needed to reload, I was dead, it was that simple.

The smoke was starting to clear. The fire system had turned on the vent fans. So I stood up and ran to the NOC door, looking as I cleared the corner and advanced on the locked sliding doors.

The hostile looked up at me.

I dropped the flashlight and used my hands to force the sides of the sliding doors open. They stuck open. "LOCKED" having only an administrative meaning, you see. The "DOOR FORCED" alarm started honking and this distraction allowed me to acquire a sight picture.

Our eyes met and I noted the position of his hands. On the keyboard.

"Hands up," I ordered as I advanced.

He did not move, but a thin trickle started running down his leg from the chair to the tile.

So I thought about it for the second or so I took for me to shuffle-step the fifteen feet towards him and kick him - and his chair - back away from the console.

His hands flew up. Empty.

I kept scanning left and right. Where were his friends? Then I kicked him - not the chair - in the pit of the stomach. As he folded I brought the butt of the handgun down, first on the front of his head and then on the back of his head.

That was when his friend came through the same door I had entered.

And his friend had a submachine gun. That's how I knew it wasn't one of my guards.

Without conscious volition, my handgun barked twice and he fell forward on the hole where his face had been.

The NOC had a crash cart with basic computer supplies in it. This included network cables. I swiftly tied up the hostile under me. Then I, relatively gently, tipped the crash cart over on top of him. It would give me a little warning if he got up.

"Shit," someone said conversationally from the corridor.

How many friends did these assholes have?

[drewkitty]

I brought my handgun and acquired a sight picture on the bridge of the nose of the second man to appear around the corner.

Then I lowered to ready. A tech I recognized.

He immediately took over a console and starting working on his side of the problem - keeping load capacity with half his servers trashed.

I logged into another console and pulled up security camera views. The front door camera didn't work on this view either. But I also pulled up an access control log, with current reader status. The last seven entries:

MAIN ENTRY DOOR FORCE
MAIN ENTRY DOOR SECURE
NOC ENTRY DOOR FORCE
NOC ENTRY DOOR HELD OPEN
MAIN ENTRY DOOR [EMER] REACT 232
MAIN ENTRY DOOR [EMER] FIRE 171
MAIN ENTRY DOOR HELD OPEN

Good. I opened a chat window to Security Control. I didn't have a radio and maybe they would be able to reach React before I could.

"React! React! Hands up!"

Not so much. I turned in profile and put my hands up.

They were in uniform and I was not, that meant I was their bitch.

"Sir!" shouted one.

I turned back to the keyboard and console. The fire system needed my full attention.

The next page was a schematic of the water flow for the Data Center. I could control the pressure all the way down to the individual sprinkler heads.

I compared it to SMOKE DETECT and TEMP SENSOR readouts. I made adjustments.

The tech was shutting down power to entire aisles of racks. Excellent.

I remoted his screen; he remoted mine. This allowed us to wordlessly work together.

Then I mused a moment and toggled FM200 to OFF. It wasn't exactly replaceable at the moment and had served its purpose.

Then I toggled the PA and picked up the microphone.

"Attention to orders. Echo 18 to all React and Security units. Check in immediately. At least one hostile is unaccounted for, use extreme caution."

Janine ran in wearing her Fire Captain hat. Literally - a fire helmet painted white.

There's an old joke to the effect of why fire chiefs have white helmets - so you know where to apply the anti itch cream.

I showed her the display.

"Origin. Spread. Fire suppression turned off. Obviously arson. We need EOD."

"Concur."

Her radio did not work either. The repeater was disabled.

I messaged Security Control to page EOD to respond.

The fun part was the need to track where the intruders had gone in the building, and with what. If they'd come in the loading dock, they could have brought in almost anything.

I received two image files as chat messages - screenshots from camera views. One showed three intruders - the tech behind me, now thoughtfully pinned with his face to the floor as his clothing was cut off; the faceless man whose body decorated the corridor nearby, and a third gun toter. The other showed that third gun toter pushing a roller cart loaded with what looked like vodka bottles with rags stuffed in the ends.

Damn you, Mr. Molotov.

A glass bottle filled with various mixes of flammable liquid - accelerant and emulsifier. Alcohol and motor oil was classic, but other mixes such as gasoline and shredded bar soap were possible.

I gestured to Janine. She needed to know this.

"Class B, accelerant, Molotov," she barked loudly. One of her firefighters immediately turned to the nearest fire extinguisher rack and removed a dry chemical extinguisher.

Two React team members escorted them as they proceeded to hunt fire and arsonist respectively.

I selected HVAC, Air Flow, Exhaust Fan, EMERGENCY FULL and the roar of fans overpowered normal sound.

The hissing spray of dry chemical was interrupted briefly by two short stuttering coughs. Controlled bursts by riflemen who knew what they were doing.

Scratch that third gunman.

The rest was anticlimactic. We kept some of the server farm running while the Fire Brigade put out the rest. Techs worked to restore racks two aisles from where extinguishers were in use. From the initial half dozen responders, we now had several dozen.

And one prisoner. Who had a lot of unhappy explaining to do.

We overcame his resistance with voltage.