Chapter 1

It was a cold, dreary December day, gray, damp, slightly foggy, one of those days where it seems like everyone and everything is dreading an upcoming funeral. Yesterday was cold but sunny, the breeze scattered the dry leaves that danced across the street, the sound of their moving filled the air. Today was damp and foggy, the moisture gluing the leaves in place. A Jeep Gladiator pickup pulled up to Dr. Paul Jarecki’s cabin on Trevett Road. It was a green truck, that odd color of olive green that made it look like a military vehicle, unless you’ve been in the military and know what kind of green they use. It even had decorative stencils to add to the military look, but the stencils miss that one thing that would make the stencils look authentic: over spray. It was painted a semi-olive green; the stencils were perfect and straight and the finish was buffed to a gloss. This was not a military vehicle, and the driver was not military, not anymore. United States Air Force Master Sergeant (Retired) Josh Gravely stepped out of the truck, walked up to the barn shaped cabin and knocked on the door, then entered without waiting for a response from inside. “Hey Doc,” he said.

Dr. Paul Jarecki looked up from the document he was reading on his laptop. The scent of smoke from his pipe and bacon from the morning breakfast filled the air. It was a manly cabin filled with mementos of hunts and fishing expeditions, photographs of Paul Jarecki and friends, including Josh holding up fish, or ducks, or deer. At one side of the cabin was a wood stove that warmed the cabin with a snap and crackle. The flames seen through the glass door moved in slow motion from the controlled intake of oxygen. A covered iron pot on top of the stove was slowly coming up to heat. There would be beef stew for dinner tonight. “Heading out?” Paul asked without looking up from the document on the screen. “I thought you had the rest of the week off.”

“I did, but Mark called and asked me to come in, he thinks there’s a storm coming and we have a new hospital to bring online,” said Josh as he reached into Paul’s fridge and grabbed a bottle of Genesee beer, pulled up a chair and took a drink. Josh worked at an up-and-coming data storage and networking company and owns the property across the street for recreation, but he lives in Orchard Park, about 25 miles away.

“That’s the problem with you former military types, sergeant,” said Paul. “They call, you haul. You should learn to relax.” The doctor glanced over the top half of his glasses and wrote a note on a legal pad on his desk.

“Said the lieutenant colonel who is reviewing his patients records on his day off,” said Josh. “Here’s the key to my cabin, if there’s a fire you know what to do,” and he rose and hung the key ring in Paul’s key rack.

“I know, save the rifles, clear your browser history, then fight the fire.”

Josh placed a fresh beer on Paul’s desk for his friend, then took a sip from his own beer and said, “Clear the browser history first. I don’t have a barn full of hot chicks to keep me company.”

“My hot chicks are keeping you in eggs. Besides, don’t you have a secretary named McRooster or something like that to drool over?”

Josh sat back down. “It’s von Köster and she’s the boss’s executive assistant. She is keeping this company together.”

“I’m just saying,” Paul took a sip from the beer that Josh set in front of him, “she’s a neighbor of mine. I could put in a good word for you.”

“Thank you, Doctor J, but we are definitely in different leagues. She’s starting pitcher for the Dodgers and I’m a benchwarmer for a pre-school T-ball league.”

Paul took another drink, then said, “Don’t put yourself down like that. You’ll be starting as center fielder for the local Ace Hardware T-ball team soon ... with practice.”

Josh rose and zipped up his jacket and moved toward the door. “See you Saturday?”

“Roger that, the Bills are playing the Broncos, it’s going to be a good game.” Paul then noticed that Josh was still holding the beer bottle as he opened the door and called out, “That’s a nickel!”

“Is this how you made your first million?” Josh groaned and finished the beer, then set the empty bottle on the table so Paul could collect the deposit. Paul did indeed have a million dollars; in fact, he was worth almost 200 million dollars.

“Do you think it’s going to snow?” Paul asked after a swig from his ‘Genny.’

Josh looked out of the door at the lead gray sky and shrugged. “Nah, probably not.”

“Same here. Bring some beers on Saturday, I’ll put on some venison sausage and sauerkraut.”

Josh backed out of Paul’s driveway, then stopped to check his mailbox and double checked the gate on his property then headed to work. It was annoying to come in on a day off, but he wanted this project to succeed, so he headed in. The run down to his office in Orchard Park was about twenty minutes, and by the time he got to the office, the snow was soon flying. It looked like this storm grew some teeth and didn’t warn anyone.

The snow drifting downward from the sky in huge wet flakes were actually massive collections of individual flakes that grouped together to go on the attack and attack they did. The snow started at eleven AM and by the time Josh got to work, nearly half a foot had fallen on Western New York in the area south of Buffalo known as “The Snow Belt.” By the time Josh made it to work, it looked like the snowfall had stopped. “TA-DA! I’m here!” Josh called out to nobody in particular. He stepped into the “mudroom” and hung up his parka and kicked off his boots and pulled on his loafers. A peek out into the hallway showed business as usual. Nobody was running home because of the storm. He headed toward his office and saw that the supervisor of the field technicians, Eli Goldman, was hard at work at his desk. There were two monitors showing spreadsheets that Eli was working on.

“Elijah,” said Josh as he tapped on Eli’s door.

“Ephraim, how is it out there?” Ephraim is Josh’s first name, Ephraim Joshua Gravely, but he insists everyone calls him Josh because he hates it when they mispronounce Ephraim. He and Eli found a brotherhood in their ancient given names. Eli was raised by orthodox Jews who would have preferred that their youngest son had become a doctor or a lawyer instead of a “Computer Nerd.” Josh was raised by strict southern Baptists who named their children from the Good Book and would roll over in their graves if they knew that their baby boy was now living in New York by choice. Explaining that Western New York isn’t New York city would fall on deaf southern ears. New York is New York! He could picture the conversation:

“But ma, it’s country where I live, farms and cows and logging trucks just like home. We just eat oatmeal instead of grits.”

“Your father and I didn’t raise no son of ours to become a jaded city boy!” they would shout, ignoring the fact that a much bigger city than Buffalo, Jacksonville, was just a few minutes away from them up US 1.

Eli finally looked up from his paperwork. He had curly black hair, a thick mustache, and he was wearing a yarmulka. He probably won’t be coming over for Easter dinner. But Eli brought his wife and two kids over to Josh’s place for Christmas dinner last year, as Eli said, nodding to the nativity on Josh’s side table, “He was a good Jewish boy.” They had a good rapport and became good friends. While Eli oversaw the field technicians who worked out in the customers’ offices, the server team was Josh’s job. He was the data hardware manager. In other words, those stacks and stacks of three to eight RU high servers busily churning up the Western New York air and spitting out binary data in the server room were all his children.

“No storm,” said Josh. “It was looking bad down south when I left however.”

“Thought so. It petered out here about eleven thirty,” said Eli without looking up from his spreadsheet. He was doing the man-hour report that Mister Friedman demanded every Thursday. “The storm moved south and is hammering Springville.” That’s where Josh just came from.

Such is the way of Western New York lake effect storms. They come off of Lake Erie in a long, narrow stream. Anything underneath that stream will get pummeled with snow. Anything north and south of that stream probably won’t get a flake of snow. However, sometimes those storms move north and south, like a huge meteorological windshield wiper and they ‘spread the wealth’ from Niagara Falls NY in the north, down to Bradford PA in the south.

Usually, Orchard Park is right in the firing line for a lake effect blizzard. It normally happens just before a big, important Bills game. The Buffalo Bills home stadium, Highmark Stadium (also called The Ralph), was just a couple of miles due west of the Andalon Data Systems building where Josh and Eli were working.

Josh then stuck his nose into his own boss’s door. Mark Post was an intense genius who was about half of Josh’s age, but many long years in the military taught Josh that age is often just a number. Mark had an intellect that went far beyond his years. He knew every part of this network because he designed it and built it and when Josh was hired, he put the server room he built in Josh’s hands just as he put all the sites out in the field in Eli’s hands. “Hey Mark, how’s it going?” said Josh as he stepped into Mark’s office.

“Ready for St. Agnes tonight?” Saint Agnes was a hospital near Rochester that they were going to bring on-line that evening.

“The sanity check I ran yesterday came back perfect, the VPN is clean, and the remote desktop system is perfect.” The remote desktop lets a doctor or nurse access their desktop on any PC, laptop, tablet, or cell phone on the hospital network or Virtual Private Network. It gives a doctor or nurse full access to the hospital’s data from anywhere.

“Ok. I’m heading home before the roads close,” said Mark. He lived in Boston, NY, a small village about halfway between the data center and Springville and it was getting snow. Mark’s wife was expecting their first child and if he was nervous, he didn’t show it. Lately, Mark did most of his work from home.