Candace Biggerstaff sat at her security desk, scanning the monitors for ... well, nothing really. Friday evenings at the Wasserman building were typically nothing more than a one-way flow of businessmen and women who simply could not get out soon enough. Sure, there were always the ones who worked later into the evenings, but even they were fewer on a holiday weekend.
Candace had hoped to spend this Memorial Day weekend escaping the city herself, but unfortunately her boss needed to make a last-minute schedule change. He promised her extra time off for Independence Day but that was small consolation today.
She was watching the steady egress from the building when there came a lone figure moving as though a salmon swimming upstream. The downstream flow was all business suits and ties and briefcases, while the upstream man wore coveralls and carried a toolbox.
"Hi, Don. It's the west one today," she said with a smile.
"Isn't it always?" Donald replied with an even bigger grin than hers. "Well, the sooner I get to it, the sooner I can get out of here."
Candace watched as Donald ambled his way to the hallway off to the right. His slightly rumpled blue coveralls were not especially flattering, and his rugged work boots were rather clunky, but still she could not peel her gaze from him as he walked toward the escalator that was needing repair.
As Donald disappeared around the corner Candace was startled by the voice of her co-worker Tom.
"Now, now, Mrs. Biggerstaff. What would the boss say if he knew I caught you ogling the repairman?"
"Oh, hey, Tom. Did you finish the five o'clock sweep?"
"Yep. Looks like it's gonna be a quiet night around here tonight. I think I'll order in a pizza."
About an hour later they sat at their respective stations, Tom with his feet kicked up onto the desk beside the sign-in log book, and Candace at her bank of security monitors.
Video surveillance was her specialty, and she had designed many systems for her company including this one. And to pass the time she often tinkered with the various software settings in an effort to improve performance and efficiency.
As she clicked through the various cameras she saw empty hallway after empty hallway, but then she came to the camera trained on the west hallway where the escalator was. She activated the joystick and swiveled the camera's view to the base of the escalator where Donald was lying on the floor with his head poked into an access panel. His body would shift slightly from time to time as he reached for one thing or another within the hole in the wall.
With her hand still wrapped firmly around the joystick controller she stared at the hunky repairman's prone body and began to entertain a naughty thought.
But how to pull it off?
she thought.
Candace's fingers began flying across the keyboard, opening a menu here, a file directory there. What she devilishly schemed to do was to put the camera feed from the east escalator's hallway into the monitor rotation where the west one was. By electronically flipping the image from left to right it would look correct, and with the building being as quiet as it was it could easily go unnoticed.
Then Candace maneuvered the console's joystick to zoom in on the repairman's body. Lastly she activated a sequence to record the feed of this camera onto a separate hard drive.
Her fingers trembled slightly in anticipation of what she was planning. She tried to calm her excitement and put on the air of boredom that would have been expected on this particular evening.
"Hey, Tom," she called across the desk.
Damn! That didn't sound bored at all!
She needn't have worried as Tom had his earbuds in and was listening to a game. His concentration was rapt as she walked around to his side of the desk. She was glad to have a second chance to begin her scheme.
