"So, they'll have to invite us in."
"Sure."
"We monitor those two unknown lines until one starts to transmit to the computer. As soon as the transmission starts, whoever's monitoring throws the switch that opens the line, cutting them off in the middle. After that, it should be easy."
Pol shrugged. "If you say so."
They dragged sleeping bags out and settled in on the bare floor. Gadgets took the first four-hour watch on the telephone lines.
Nothing came into the computer modem until shortly after noon the next day. Ti was monitoring at the time. Her hands fluttered over the small switchboard, breaking open telephone lines, routing outgoing calls to the three telephones she had spread around the floor of the empty office. At 12:25, an outgoing call rang one of the telephones. An automatic LED display showed the number that had been dialed.
"This is it," she said calmly as she picked up the telephone. "Repair service," she said into the mouthpiece.
Gadgets came and flipped other circuits to allow the office below them the usual telephone service. The important call had been intercepted. The computer line was left dead.
"Hold on for a moment, please," Ti told the caller from WAR.
She grinned at Pol and Gadgets, letting the caller wait ninety seconds before going back on the line. "We have a repairman in the building, now. I've talked to him. He'll look at your problem as soon as he's finished the job he's working on now."
She hung up.
"You're up next," Ti told Pol.
He stood and started to change into appropriate clothes.
Twenty minutes later, toolbox in hand, Pol was ushered into the computer room and to the area where the mainframe was hooked into the telephone line. Pol carefully set out his tools and began dissecting the modem. The two men who had ushered him into the computer room sat down to keep an eye on him.
"Before I get too deeply into this I'd better do a line check," he said when he had the modem into easily reassembled sections.
He pulled a lineman's handset from the toolbox, hooked it up and dialed a seven-digit number. Pol knew that the number did not matter because Ti would intercept the call.
"Yes?" Ti's voice was carefully neutral.
"Just checking on the line. Everything here looks okay. Call me back on..." He paused and raised a gray eyebrow at one of the watchers.
The watcher left and soon returned with a slip of paper on which he had written the computer's unlisted number. Pol relayed it to Ti and hung up.
Twenty seconds later, his handset rang. Pol answered. "Are you still being carefully watched?" Ti asked.
"That's about it."
"Gadgets wants to know if some smoke would help."
"Seems like we should do that," Pol acknowledged.
"Ten minutes," Ti told him and hung up.
Pol continued to pretend to work on the computer modem. A few minutes later, he smelled smoke. He kept busy, waiting for someone else to notice it.
By the time someone did, there was a noticeable amount seeping under the door to the hall.
"You smell something?" someone asked.
"Look," said one of the men guarding Pol.
The two guards made for the hall door while the rest of the staff gathered around. The guards looked into the hall.
"It's only a smoldering wastebasket. Somebody's playing tricks. I'll take care of this. You get back to the repairman," one guard told the other.
Attention was off Pol for only ten seconds. That was sufficient. He whipped a pressure can of self-setting Styrofoam out of his toolbox, shoved the nozzle into one of the vents on the side of the computer mainframe and squirted for five seconds. The spray can was back in the toolbox before anyone's attention returned to the repairman.
Politician carefully reassembled the modem.
"That should do it," he announced. "Care to give it a try?"
A computer operator was called over. She telephoned Seattle and told them to try their transmission again. In twenty more minutes, she pronounced everything in order and Pol left.
Politician went back upstairs and reported to Gadgets and Ti.
"Terrific," Gadgets said. "The computer should go down in two or three hours.''
"If that foam is going to take the computer out, why didn't it take it out right away?" Pol asked.
"The Styrofoam isn't conductive," Gadgets explained. "It doesn't affect the computer directly, but transistors generate heat, and if there isn't sufficient cooling they fry themselves."
"So the computer has to operate for a while to build up enough heat to cook the circuit boards," Pol concluded.
"That's right. Now, we wait and intercept the next repair call."
"We have to prepare. Let's hope the computer lasts a few hours," Ti reminded Gadgets. She then got the computer's make and description from Pol.
"It would be best to buy the entire computer," Gadgets suggested. "Then Pol can show us where he squirted the foam and we can figure which circuit boards will be cooked."
Ti agreed.
Gadgets took off on a shopping expedition. The computer went down before he returned, but Ti just promised them service within the hour.
When Gadgets finally lugged the six cubic feet of mainframe into the office, Ti was intercepting the second call to see why the serviceman was not there. She assured them he was on his way.
Once the cover was off the central processing unit, it was easy to see which circuit board was going to be out of service. Gadgets quickly removed several and put them into his toolbox. He put on a pair of yellow coveralls and left.
Gadgets took the elevator to the main floor. When the door opened, he found the lobby milling with people.
"Anyone here know where the office of Workers Against Redundancy is?" Gadgets shouted.
A hard case looked him over, took in the toolboxes that looked like attache cases. "You the computer repairman?" he asked.
Gadgets nodded.
The hard guy stepped on to the elevator. "Where you been?"
"Getting misplaced," Gadgets answered. "What floor?"
The WAR man hit the button for the fourth floor. "I thought I'd see you coming in," he remarked.
"What's wrong with the computer?" Gadgets asked.
"Hell, I don't know. I'm part of the security detail."
They arrived at the fourth floor. The hard case led the way.
Once on the spot, Gadgets opened one of the attache cases and went to work. The security man found a chair and sat to watch.
Gadgets raised part of the metal cover, slid his hand under and lifted the blob of Styrofoam with the cover. That safely out of the way, he took out a tester and probed here and there.
When one of the computer operators went past, Gadgets asked some questions about the malfunction.
"This section was overloaded and is on the modem regulation part of the board," he said. "Did you have modem trouble late yesterday?''
The computer operator was impressed. "Actually we only found out about the defective modem today. It could have gone out late yesterday. We wouldn't have caught it until information came in today."
Gadgets nodded. "No problem. I have a spare board with me. I'll rewire slightly so this can't happen again."
"Terrific," the operator replied and went away, content to have Gadgets working on both the computer and the modem.
Forty minutes later, he was done. The computer would operate normally, but Lao Ti had direct terminal access through extra telephone lines.
"Our problems are over," Gadgets told the security guard while putting tools away. "Call us if you do have more trouble, but the way I've set that up, you won't be worrying about the computer."
"Yeah. Thanks," the security man replied.