Blake Schwendiman's Blog and Blook

Chapter 20

Thursday, 10 March 2022 – 10:00 a.m. MST

Bryan shuffled down the hallway. His eyes were solidly fixed. His normally unhappy demeanor bubbled and churned into a frothy anger. It was not in his job description to deal directly with the couriers and he was certainly not going to do it today. In the eighth floor break room, Bryan finally found his personal secretary.

“Margot,” he wheezed. “What the...” He stopped. He had recently been reprimanded for using objectionable language at work. “This parcel needs to be at off-site within the hour.”

Margot rolled her eyes and took the parcel. Bryan was religious about ensuring that critical data was moved to off-site storage. Each day it was an emergency, each day he made it a crisis, and each day Margot ensured that the delivery to the off-site storage was completed.

“Of course,” she said. She wanted to say so much more, but she refrained. It was a good job. She reminded herself of that often. “This is a little earlier than usual.”

Bryan squinted. He hated people most of the time. “It’s a separate backup. I’ll get the regular set to you at the normal time ... if I can find you.”

“I’ll be at my desk.”

“You’d better be.” Bryan smirked as he turned. He understood the pull he had at Q-Morrow. More low-level analysts, temps and interns had lost their jobs because of him than he could remember. He smiled.

Bryan returned to his office. The short walk was a marathon to his underutilized heart and lungs. He slumped in his chair and cracked open a can of soda. He turned to his display and found the message from his anonymous contact then entered a simple reply, “the package has been sent”.

Almost instantly a new message appeared. “Second half of payment will be wired on receipt of package.” Bryan smiled and wondered about his anonymous contact. He had done business with her several times in the past. He had always thought of the buyer as a woman. It was more intriguing that way, he mused.

Bryan had established an elaborate, but simple delivery system. The off-site storage facility was owned by a personal friend. From time to time, instead of sending data to be archived, he sent packages to be delivered. Occasionally, the packages were physical – things to be re-delivered by another courier – but more often the packages were digital – electronic files to be sent through an outside network. Bryan was fairly confident that he could circumvent Q-Morrow network security if he needed to, but he knew it was an unacceptable risk considering the simplicity of sending it through another network. The off-site manager would simply drop the packages off at the appropriate delivery service or digitally send the data and then pocket the cash that Bryan included.

By tomorrow morning, the data he had just sent would be in the hands of the buyer and Bryan would have another five figures in his personal account.

Not bad for twenty minutes of work, he thought to himself.