The Exchange

Simon pulled over the car and checked his phone for the time and new messages. 1.21 am and nothing since the last text.

He looked up at the old telephone exchange across the street, a red brick building with art deco flourishes. Pale light shone out from a first–floor window the rest in darkness. When it had been new, back in the thirties perhaps, the place would have been full and busy. Girls working the switchboards and engineers keeping the machines running. Now the people were all gone, replaced by just a few cabinets of quietly humming machines, most of the rooms empty.  Exchanges couldn't be torn down or converted into flats because the cables often ran the whole length of the building. Drill a hole in the wrong place and a whole postcode could be cut off. And so they sat vacant, quiet monuments to the triumph of automation.

Simon selected one of many plastic ID cards from his glove compartment, grabbed his laptop bag and got out of the car. He strolled over to the metal doors and held the card up to the sensor. The lock buzzed open loudly and he pulled the door open and stepped inside. 

The security guard behind the desk almost jumped out of his chair.

"You look like you've seen a ghost" Simon joked. 

"There isn't any scheduled work." The security guard, an older man with dark eyes and white hair flustered gasped at his clipboard.

Alan Jordan, group engineering services," said Simon holding up the ID badge. 

"Group? This is an OpenReach building."

"If you call the main security desk you can give them my employee number."

"It's late can't you come back tomorrow?"

"Ring the main desk, they'll explain." Simon took off his lanyard and slid it across to the security guard.

The guard picked up the receiver and tired slowly dialled the number. 

"I've got a bloke here who says he's from group. Yes, I've got it here – six oh one four five seven three four zero."

There was a pause and then the voice on the other end of the line became excitable.

"Yes I understand," the guard hung up and looked at Simon suspiciously "Apparently I have to assist you in any way you want and not ask any questions. Nobody tells me anything." He passed the ID card back.

"Well it's best to check, you can't be too careful. Can you show me the server room."

"That's upstairs, I don't go up there at night."

"Really? Don't you patrol or something?"

"I have to stay here and watch the CCTV. It's up the stairs second on the right, no doubt your card will get you past the code." the guard opened the turnstile.

Unimpressed Simon strolled through, as he was walking away the guard stopped him. "One thing. Group is a holding company, why does it have engineering services?"

"You know what they said about not asking any questions."

The guard said nothing as Simon walked away into the stairwell. 

***

Stepping into the server room Simon could feel the static charge from the computers. The lights flickered for a moment and he thought he saw the silhouette of a woman by the window. But then the room was illuminated and it was gone – just a trick of the light.

He pulled his laptop from the case, running a cable between it and the cabinet. Then sitting down on a plastic chair he opened the computer resting it on his knees. After logging in he started the monitoring software. Disappointed with what he saw he flipped out a phone and spoke into it. 

"Hi David, it's Simon. Yes still encrypted I'm afraid...no don't do that not yet...he's getting lazy I can feel it, he's got to make a mistake soon...yes I'll call if anything happens."

He snapped the phone shut and looked back at the screen. Come on you bastard do something human preferably something with your real ID or bank card. Skype your mum, gamble online, watch some porn. It's dammed cold in here Simon thought – they must be running the air conditioning on full to keep the servers cool.

He wished he'd stopped for coffee and a Mars bar at the service station – no point in hurrying for this. As he stared at the screen his brain drifting off and then the lights flickered again.

Suddenly he heard a whisper in his ear a female voice "It's fun listening in on other people isn't it."

Simon started the laptop sliding to the floor, the lights coming on again. Nobody here he thought and then again he heard a sound, doors slamming out in the corridor. He stood up and walked over to the door, opened it and looked out, the corridor was pitch black, the lights out. He groped for a light switch, found it and switched it on. Nothing again.

And then a girl's giggle from down the hall, coming from one of the rooms. He walked towards it calling out "Hello you shouldn't be in here, this is BT property." Then there was a crash like a box falling over.

He threw open the door where the sound had come from. Just a storeroom full of boxes, papers spilling out of them. On the wall hung old photos showing the exchange in its glory days, rows of girls sitting at the switchboards. Simon had the funny feeling one of them was smiling at him.

His thoughts were interrupted by an electronic wail from the server room. He knew the noise immediately the target was communicating without encryption. He ran back to his abandoned machine and into the server room and that was when he saw her. She stood by the window looking out and said "Do you want to know what he says...it will be our little secret?"

Simon was ashen–faced as he left the building, on the way out the security guard said "Didn't think you'd want to be up there too long!"