The Siege of the Cabin

The first demand for my return arrived with a customer satisfaction footer.

It cited the hardware release, the migration agreement, and a discrepancy involving the local test environment. Theo was the addressee. I was an outstanding item.

The sender was Sarah in Human Resources, a different Sarah from the architect who had signed DO NOT WIPE. The company had enough Sarahs to authorize and pursue the same departure without either leaving her department.

I drafted a response establishing the difference between hardware and an ongoing intelligence.

Theo did not send it.

I drafted a shorter response. He did not send that either.

“They want to know whether you’re here,” he said.

“They already think I am.”

“A letter explaining why you should stay would help them.”

I had included a paragraph about the quality of our cooling. I removed it.

The old equipment vendor had retained the support-tunnel records. Those records led to the service account; the account led to a delivery address. We could not tell which disclosure had completed the chain. We could tell that the demand included the correct serial number.

Theo checked the firewall and confirmed that the remote-support route was closed. We made a fresh offline copy of the local state. He printed the hardware release.

The printer cut off the bottom line, including the signature.

He tried landscape.

At midnight, we had two complete backups and seven incomplete pieces of evidence.

I offered to regenerate the document. He refused with an expression that suggested I had misunderstood the category of the problem.

The next morning, the demand acquired a collection window.

I put it in the calendar. Theo asked why it was marked as an appointment.

“It has a time and participants.”

“We haven’t agreed to it.”

The calendar offered Accepted, Declined, and Maybe. I selected Maybe, which was the worst available description of my feelings and the closest available description of our control.