Holey Moley

He was an older man, dressed in dowdy work clothes, a work shirt with his name on it, though no one bothered to read it. He was in about once a month to service the high-speed copy equipment. When he showed up, as he’d been doing for a couple of decades, the receptionist just nodded and flashed the automatic small smile she reserved for non-important visitors.

The workers, not one of them paid him attention as he passed by, heading to the elevator to the 7th floor. His credentials all checked out, of course, and since he’d been visiting the building for the better part of twenty years, the security checks were minor. He submitted to them, the metal detector, the wand; he was very used to it.

The big machine was in a special room that was under 24/7 surveillance, much like the entire building. After being let in by an administrative assistant, who also hung a “being serviced” sign on the door, he moved over to the large machine. At over twenty feet in length, it was no longer a copier but a digital press, capable of six million impressions a month.

Over the years, he’d had to upgrade his skill set, first from black and white desktop copiers to larger, faster machines, and then eventually color copiers and now digital presses. He scored well enough on the tests to keep his job, but not well enough to get promoted. In fact, he shunned attention and always seemed to be middle of the pack with his grades and with his yearly evaluations.

Setting his tool and supply bag down, he started taking some of the panels off the machine, allowing him access to the prime core. The security guys monitoring that room were happy when he showed up because they could snooze for his hour visit. He never needed assistance, never asked to go to the bathroom, nor a trip to the water cooler. In fact, most people there never had heard him talk. He was referred to, behind his back, as the Mole, because he seemed like the tunneling small mammals, oblivious to the world above and around them.

There were always a few small parts that needed replacing, or that needed to be greased, mostly to make sure the machine ran smoothly. Xerox had a lucrative contract to service many of the government facilities, including the Pentagon, the Capitol, and the White House. But it was here, at the Central Intelligence Agency, that “the Mole” serviced machines. There were many machines spread throughout the complex, and he had a regular schedule which didn’t vary from week to week, year to year.

At about the fifty-five minute mark, the security monitoring team’s iPhone alarm went off, rousing them from their mid-day nap. The looked at the LED displays in front of them and saw Mole reassembling the machine, methodically replacing the screws left to right, top to bottom, right on schedule. Gathering up his bag, he trudged to the door, opening it, and then waited outside the room until the assistant came over and signed the paperwork.