Same routine as yesterday. Newsgroups. Its a dirty job but someone has to do it. I'm looking forward to some leave at the end of the week.
This job is enough to drive a person mad.
Even more postings today. A lot of sarcastic replies about my comments yesterday, and even more sarcastic ones about the lack of service.

Why is the newserver still working? Nothing else is? Our company home page is unobtainable, as are our customers; email's on the blink, but has been for weeks.

Where are those engineers? Anyway, I decide on my lunch break to sneak into the basement and see if they've left any obvious switches turned off.

I find the basement door isn't locked. Maybe one of the engineers has turned up. I use my lighter to create enough light to find a light switch.
Its only the emergency lighting - which casts a dim red light around, but its enough for me to find my way down the winding corridors. As I moved away from the entrance the shadows grew deeper, and appeared to move.

This is certainly some basement. It seems to go for miles. I come to the end of the corridor, there's a door.
It has a sign on which says "server room". I open the door. I expected it to be locked, but its open. I reach automatically for the light switch and to my relief I find it. The room burst into light - after so long in the dim red glow I find I'm blinded.
I stand still with my eyes closed for a second. When I open my eyes I realise I'm not in the server room - the room is vast, and mostly empty except for a man sat facing the wall at the far end. I walk slowly across the room, my footsteps echoing on the tiled floor.
There's a fowl smell - it reminds me of the beer at the local pub. The man doesn't turn his head, but I know he knows I'm here.

When I get close to him, he turns and looks at me. I fight the urge to run. I open my mouth to speak but know the man won't hear me, even if I manage to get any words out.
The man has wires and leads connected to his head. A thick cable is going straight into his ear - I feel my stomach churning.

He points to a screen in front of him. I stare at it. The words appear on it. I do not see him move at all, then I realise how he's creating the text. "Do not be afraid."

The words appear quickly after this. I read them, absorbed by the horrific reality of what he was telling me. What it was telling me. This man was the server. He told me he was not in pain, but he was hungry.

The engineers were due to feed him, but they had not shown up. This was why the service had been deteriorating. I asked him why the newsgroups were still working.
Again, the words appeared on the screen. I noticed there were wires into every cavity of the man's head.
He said, that he thrived on the attention, he read every message that the customers wrote.
He was hoping it would have been one of them to work out the puzzle, and call in a rescue team. He'd been sending out hack attacks trying to send a message to someone's computer - but he couldn't get into anyone's computer.

I wanted to sit down, but there was only one chair, and that was occupied. I heard a noise behind me. I turned. It was the supervisor.

I turned back to the screen to see the words "sorry" appear briefly then fade, as everything went dark.

********************************

They've got someone new working in support now. He seems very nice. I'd like to warn him not to drink the local brew, and never to brave the basement. But I won't. We'll need another upgrade soon.