At Precisely 10am the university’s private intranet system went down. One second she was watching the six tiny bobbing heads, jerkily failing to synchronise with the sound and video of the speaker. When everything - or rather, everybody - on the Apple iMac froze.
“Bloody Information Systems centre” mumbled Professor Dame Margaret
Ritchie, Vice Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh. She picked up her mobile, scrolled down to “UEd ISC” then pressed the green retro-telephone icon. Nothing. SIlence. She pressed the desk button on the intercom, which connected her to the room next to hers, where her secretary, Alex Baldwin (MA Public Management, Oxford Brookes University, 2::1, 2015), was located.
Her desk was wonderful retro tech. It looked like something that would have been fitting in the 19th century; grand, dark and very, very heavy, but with the addition of various nobs and switches from the 1990’s. It had been the long-lasting toy of Sir Timothy O’Shea, a former holder of her office, a Computer Scientist with a sense for the slightly bizarre.
“Yes, ma’am?” came back a slightly echoed voice.
“There seems to be an issue with the ISC. I was on Zoom when everything went, well, went nothing. Can you check up for me on it?”
“Right away, ma’am”, Baldwin crooned in his fake Oxbridge drawl. He had been playing a video game on his phone - Super Mario Cart - when his boss had interrupted him. He stood up, placed the now guiltless phone on his desk; the screen was back to the home picture of Old College and some work-related icons. (The icon of the City of Oxford hid a wonderfully rich plethora of stand-alone video games from his youth.)
Baldwin stretched as he stood. His Hong Kong tailored suit was perfect, and he knew it. He looked and sounded the part. He walked over to the view of the quadrangle. The same view of idling students sitting on benches, wrapped up against the circling icy wind off the Firth of Forth. It reminded him that he was so far from his southern home. Still, his James Bond looks had captured a small part of the icy heart of Ms Ritchie. Not that there was any hairy-chested hanky-panky, but just enough to get him this plum job, and work for a boss who liked him.
Baldwin straightened out his vest - a beautiful waistcoat of madly rich Paisley pattern - and he thumbed his sombre richest black bow-tie, a tad big for his person, but enough to allow the boss to ascertain that he was being careful not to cross that crushingly invisible line between senior academic and mere secretary.
But, there was something unfamiliar about the view of the square with its binary mix of pigeons and students. He stood staring trying to recollect and pattern-match what was different. Wandering back, he picked up the phone, started the mirror app, and examined himself; “a modern Adonis” he mouthed as he watched his perfectly presented person. The the bell rang in his head; his heart suddenly beat more quickly.
“Why is no-one looking at their phone?” he spoke out loud. At this Dame Ritchie opened the oak connecting door.
“What did you say?”, she asked casually. She was no time-and-motion boss trying to catch out her lazy servant. She employed him because he was trustworthy, loved the perks of the job, obeyed her (eventually), was pretty, and was just dim enough to know never to step out of line.
“Ma’am, would you come here, please”. She stepped across the huge room, high heels silent on the Edinburgh tartan carpet. She stopped inside his personal zone, just about a foot away. Had he been wearing less cologne he would have been aware of the sudden influx of French scent.
“Yes. What about it?” She was playing with him like a favourite kitten. Her time was suddenly free for - she checked her watch - twenty-three more minutes now the online conference had failed.
“Ma’am, can you see anyone looking at their phone?”
“Apart from you?” she smiled, looking slightly towards him, but still out of the window.
“Quite so, ma’am. You have caught the issue rapidly, as usual. No-one in the square is using a mobile phone.”
There was a silence between them for, perhaps, half a minute.
“Call my phone” she ordered him. He swiped and finger-pressed his phone. Nothing.
“There seems to be no signal. I wonder …” He almost made a suggestion, but he knew well he wasn’t paid to think or conclude independently.
“Call your mother” she instructed. He went through the scroll, and press routine again. Nothing. There was a knock on the door.
“Wait!” Baldwin spoke clearly, but not so loud as to annoy his boss, and manly enough to ensure the visitor knew that it was not ever Dame Ritchie who spoke. That was his job. He stood looking out the window, just long enough to not overstay his one-foot-away welcome, then walked to the far-off door. As he did, his shoes squeaked. Brown leather, shining like the reflected light that he was; the squeak had cost him an extra one hundred and fifty guineas.
He opened the door. It was Dr Tom Berberger, Assistant Principal, and Head of Information Systems. Baldwin walked him to the centre of the floor and stopped him with a slight lift of the hand. Dame Ritchie, turned at the waist to consider this always-slightly-scruffy tech-head.
“Well?” she asked.
“There appears to be a total systems black-out across the city - or at least the Old Town. Can’t get a response from anyone out there. The entire university system is currently down. We’re looking into it.” There was an almost visible sigh from the slightly-built woman. Having responsibility for this operation, costing over one hundred million pounds a week to run, she was remarkably able at all times to remain calm. It was something genetic, she was sure. But, she was, after all, a Geneticist.
Another knock on the door. “Wait”, the word again from Baldwin. Berberger stood as he was, uncomfortably unwelcome in the hallowed halls of the Management Suite. Like all IT professionals he was aware of being a bit like a dustman at a dinner dance.
“See who it is, Alex”, and Baldwin dutifully crossed the large floor. He re-opened the door. Without welcoming the visitor in, he spoke, “It is Professor Hummelstrom from the School of Informatics, ma’am.” Hummelstrom waited outside the door, patiently. He had very little time for the thinly-oxygenated air of the world of senior ex-academics.
“Show him in too”. Dame Ritchie liked the open, almost schoolboyish style of such serious field academics as Hummelstrom. As he entered the room he nodded curtly to her flunkey, ignored the techie, and walked up right to the Principal.
“Hello, Margaret. I expect you are wondering what has happened?” Dame Ritchie waited patiently. “Well, it’s a planet-wide IT attack. I predicted it in my 2022 paper at the 13th Singapore International Conference on Silicon Securities. The paper bombed, but it was before its time. I said that we were putting all our eggs in the same basket. It’s probably” - he leaned over, rather too close to the slight woman, and hissed - “Martians!” He straightened up, reset his ample girth, and stared knowingly at the group now gathered.
“Martians?” spoke Berberger. “Poppycock!”
Hummelstrom didn’t look at the man from tech support. “Just you wait and see now. I think that the next stage will be an ultimatum - a demand for our rich resources of rare earth minerals which can only be found here on Earth.” Hummelstron was always ready to share a more complete thesis on the situation when, suddenly everyone in the room’s phone bleeped loudly. Outside in the courtyard everyone - everyone! - was reset back to normal mode, scanning their social media feeds to see if this was just them. O how happy to be the news-sender of such a unique experience. The students were rarely so happy, even when they passed their exams.
But, as the day progressed it became clear that there was a certain oddity to this network crash. It only happened in certain countries: the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and Poland. In each locality every digital network had stalled for between 13 and 17 minutes. And there was no electronic footprint for the failure, just the plain, confused memories of around two hundred million people. Then, life just went back to normal.
But, to be forgotten? Unfortunately not. As it was to turn out, the cause was far more serious than imaginary green men walking about with antennas on their heads saying, “Bleep!” For, in London, Paris, Brussels and Warsaw, they had been in touch, and their demands had been made clear. It was unconditional surrender. Nothing less.
to be continued …