When she finally paused to take a ragged breath, he spoke.
"Brenda Larson," he said, his voice carrying with official finality, "you are under arrest for the violation of U.S. Code Title 18, Section 1362: destruction of a communication line."
With a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of all the suburban madness he'd ever witnessed, he pulled out a pair of handcuffs. Brenda stared at them as if they were venomous snakes and let out a sound that was half gasp, half sob as the reality of her situation finally, irrevocably crashed down upon her.
A day later, I was back in my natural habitat. The gentle hum of the server rack was my background music. The glorious, steady green lights on my network switch blinked in a soothing rhythm.
Outside, the ISP crew—a sullen-looking pair of guys who seemed deeply unimpressed with the whole situation—were painstakingly fusion-splicing the thousands of tiny glass fibers in the main trunk line back together. My own internet was still being piped in from a DHS satellite somewhere over the horizon. It felt exclusive.
I was on the phone with Sarah, recounting the saga. She had been getting updates via text, but hearing the full story was something else entirely.
"Okay, let me just get this straight," she said, her voice a mixture of amusement and lawyerly concern. "To solve an internet outage, you illegally accessed a secure Department of Homeland Security network, became the de facto IT department for the entire Serenity Springs police force, and instigated the arrest of the HOA president on charges that could be construed as domestic terrorism?"
"It was more like willful destruction of property, technically," I corrected. "But let's not get bogged down in the legal minutiae. The important thing is my latency is back down to four milliseconds, and I was able to finish the Odul data migration. They only lost about $3 million in productivity, which for them is a rounding error."
"You're unbelievable," she laughed. "I leave you alone for one morning..."
My other line beeped. It was a call from the police substation. I told Sarah I'd call her back.
It was Officer Miller.
"Alex! Hey, just wanted to let you know things are crazy over here," he said, his voice buzzing with excitement. "The story is all over the precinct. They're calling you the 'Fiber God.'"
"Some of the guys want to get a plaque made for the server closet," he continued.