Two more palm trees came crashing down on the beach as the computer finished final preparations for automatic shutdown. The automated weather station had triggered a shutdown when the rains and winds had hit certain marks.
The solar panels and a small wind turbine, that generated power that ran the inverters and batteries that ran the station, began to shake on their foundations as the winds and rains picked up.
Meanwhile, deep inside the stone and concrete building, an automated computer had been monitoring communications on the tiny island of Leetown, a private island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The waves began to crash against the outside of the building. Within minutes the tiny island was covered in twenty feet of water which crashed over and through everything. While most of the smaller less well-built buildings lay flat in a matter of minutes, the old stone-and-block building didn’t completely submit to the water. It remained standing.
However, the ancient mortar-and-cement casing did partially give way to the intense weight and pressure of the water as it swept across the small island. Water found its way into every little nook and cranny that had an opening at all, forcing blocks and stones to shift and let in more water. When it was done, three feet of water made itself home throughout the tiny building. Computers and electronics were waterlogged and fried.
Several weeks later, Cole Webber made his way back to the tiny island.
In the weeks following the storm, he had made a financial killing off the data siphoned off the internet and private networks he had been tapping into for several months. The cost to set up the substation had been high. But the need for secrecy was higher. This particular island had been chosen because of its location to the main backbone of the internet running under the ocean and to the nearest land-based server center—thus allowing him direct access to the main trunk traffic of the internet and the ability to piggyback on others who were spying on the internet. Also because it was so far out in the middle of nowhere, it would never occur to them that anyone would set up a hardware system to tap into the servers.
The usefulness of the substation was now past. He had what he needed from it, and with the storm destroying everything, he thought it was time to come in and rip everything out.
As he expected, the island was a total washout. By now most of the water had subsided and found its way back to the ocean. However, there were still pockets where several feet of water sat and the bugs were making themselves at home.
The solar panels and inverters and all of the external hardware that had run the small computer station were in ruins outside the building.
Pushing the door open, he was greeted with water up to his knees. The water came gushing out of the door around his legs. Using his flashlight he looked around inside the small building.
There on the far wall, mounted high, was a single monitor, its cords dangling against the wall. To his surprise, a single light was flashing. The screen had a small blinking oblong dot in the upper left corner. Cole recognized it instantly as a DOS prompt.
Stepping into the room, now covered with slime and mud, he saw computer components lying all over the tables and floor. He approached the one screen still working.
And the built-in speaker spoke to him.
“Hello, Cole, we’ve been waiting for you.”
The solar panels and a small wind turbine, that generated power that ran the inverters and batteries that ran the station, began to shake on their foundations as the winds and rains picked up.
Meanwhile, deep inside the stone and concrete building, an automated computer had been monitoring communications on the tiny island of Leetown, a private island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The waves began to crash against the outside of the building. Within minutes the tiny island was covered in twenty feet of water which crashed over and through everything. While most of the smaller less well-built buildings lay flat in a matter of minutes, the old stone-and-block building didn’t completely submit to the water. It remained standing.
However, the ancient mortar-and-cement casing did partially give way to the intense weight and pressure of the water as it swept across the small island. Water found its way into every little nook and cranny that had an opening at all, forcing blocks and stones to shift and let in more water. When it was done, three feet of water made itself home throughout the tiny building. Computers and electronics were waterlogged and fried.
Several weeks later, Cole Webber made his way back to the tiny island.
In the weeks following the storm, he had made a financial killing off the data siphoned off the internet and private networks he had been tapping into for several months. The cost to set up the substation had been high. But the need for secrecy was higher. This particular island had been chosen because of its location to the main backbone of the internet running under the ocean and to the nearest land-based server center—thus allowing him direct access to the main trunk traffic of the internet and the ability to piggyback on others who were spying on the internet. Also because it was so far out in the middle of nowhere, it would never occur to them that anyone would set up a hardware system to tap into the servers.
The usefulness of the substation was now past. He had what he needed from it, and with the storm destroying everything, he thought it was time to come in and rip everything out.
As he expected, the island was a total washout. By now most of the water had subsided and found its way back to the ocean. However, there were still pockets where several feet of water sat and the bugs were making themselves at home.
The solar panels and inverters and all of the external hardware that had run the small computer station were in ruins outside the building.
Pushing the door open, he was greeted with water up to his knees. The water came gushing out of the door around his legs. Using his flashlight he looked around inside the small building.
There on the far wall, mounted high, was a single monitor, its cords dangling against the wall. To his surprise, a single light was flashing. The screen had a small blinking oblong dot in the upper left corner. Cole recognized it instantly as a DOS prompt.
Stepping into the room, now covered with slime and mud, he saw computer components lying all over the tables and floor. He approached the one screen still working.
And the built-in speaker spoke to him.
“Hello, Cole, we’ve been waiting for you.”
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