Chapter 2: Down the Rabbit Hole

The next morning, Rosa met Naomi outside their office building, waiting for Naomi. 

“Good morning! Did you get some rest?” she asked.

“I did,” replied Naomi. “Thanks.” 

Naomi turned to the front of the building where a sign was taped to one of the front doors, “Not fixed yet. Try back tomorrow.” Then she turned back to Rosa. 

“So, did you get any brilliant ideas overnight?”

“Well, I don’t know if it’s brilliant,” replied Rosa. “Let’s go for a drive.” 

“Uh, OK.” 

Rosa heard the hesitation in Naomi’s voice, and thought she needed a little convincing. “It’s beautiful today! Do you really want to be cooped up in the office again, banging your head against the wall?” 

“Um, no. I guess not,” Naomi replied with just as much hesitation as before. “But isn’t that basically our job? How else are we going to find a fix for the virus?” 

“Well, let’s see if we can find another way.” 

Soon, they were heading northbound on the 101. The freeway was quieter than usual, possibly because so many people couldn’t work. Still, it took them nearly half an hour to reach their destination. 

When they arrived, Rosa strode up to the front entrance of a modern office building with Naomi tagging behind. They walked up to the front desk, where Rosa politely asked the receptionist to see Jeff Williams. 

It took the receptionist quite a while to find him. Their computers weren’t working either, so she had to go up to the 4thfloor herself to track him down. It was nearly 20 minutes before she returned with a friendly, middle-aged man following her. 

"Rosa! How long has it been? It’s good to see you!” The man shook Rosa’s hand vigorously. 

“Hi Jeff! Thanks for taking time out of your day. You must be swamped dealing with this computer virus." 

Jeff rubbed his head, "No more than you, I imagine." 

Rosa nodded, "Probably true. By the way, this is my colleague, Naomi." 

Jeff thrust out his hand to Naomi, “Good to meet you!” Then, he turned back to Rosa, “I heard you might be able to help? You always were good, but now you’re making house calls too?”

Rosa laughed, “Not exactly. Naomi and I have been trying to figure this out on our own and have hit a brick wall. I thought you might be in a similar situation. If so, maybe we could put our heads together? Assuming it doesn’t violate any of your company’s confidentiality rules, of course.” 

Jeff smiled, “Rosa, I’ll never turn down extra help from you. I think we can find a way to help each other without breaching our companies’ privacy policies.”

Rosa clapped her hands together and declared, “That’s great news, Jeff. Things are looking up." 

Soon, Jeff was introducing Rosa and Naomi to his team, which was also small. Everyone was dealing with cutbacks. 

“Pradeep and Josh, meet Rosa and Naomi. Rosa is an old colleague of mine. She thought it would be a good idea for all of us to put our heads together to see if we could figure out how to deal with this computer virus. Considering we’re all the same boat, it seems like a good idea to me.” 

Pradeep and Josh shook hands with Rosa and Naomi, and the five of them found a conference room where they could compare notes. 

“Can I offer anyone something to drink before we get started?” asked Jeff. 

“Tea would be great,” said Rosa.

“Me too,” said Naomi. “I’ve probably been drinking too much coffee lately.” 

They settled in with their beverages and started with obvious questions.  How bad was your company impacted and what have you tried so far to fix it? Nobody had satisfactory answers. It wasn’t until Naomi asked about the “naptime” link that things got interesting. 

“Have any of you clicked the link? What happens when you do?” Naomi asked. 

“What link?” asked Pradeep. 

“The ‘Shh. It’s naptime’ link,” she said, using air quotes. “It comes up every time you try to search for answers on the web.” 

Jeff and his team all looked at her. 

“We haven’t seen that link. The squirrels always eat the search button or move the cursor when we try to do a search.” 

“The squirrels?” Rosa and Naomi asked in unison. 

“Yeah,” Pradeep responded. “You know, the squirrels that took over everyone’s computers. The virus we’re all trying to fix.” 

“We’ve seen sloths, but no squirrels,” responded Rosa. 

Everyone stared at each other for a beat. 

Naomi turned back to Pradeep, “Can you show us what the virus looks like for you?”

“Yeah, sure.” 

Pradeep pulled up a browser while Rosa and Naomi looked over his shoulder. Then he started to search for “How do I stop the squirrels?” Before he could click Search or hit Enter, a virtual squirrel skittered onto the screen and grabbed the Search button. Naomi’s jaw dropped as the squirrel started gnawing on the button. 

“Huh,” said Rosa. “I didn’t think this could get more interesting, but I was wrong.”

Jeff continued the thought, “Sloths and squirrels. There could be a whole zoo full of virtual animals out there terrorizing people’s computers.”

Rosa continued his thought, “Too bad they’ve taken over everyone’s phones too. Otherwise, we could start calling around to see what other people are seeing.”

And then, as if on cue, Josh’s cellphone rang.