Robert had finally begun to feel more like a manager in the club. It wasn’t just that he knew everyone and was a good guy to get along with, but recently he had become the go to guy for Victoria and by extension for everyone else. The club refit had been the thing that defined him as a defacto manager of the day-to-day doings at Power Exchange. The remodeling had driven everyone but him nuts and he had simply stepped up and done what was needed. It felt like the building was an unwieldy motorcycle project and he loved working on it.

He had been the guy to set up security at Victoria’s request and that had opened the door to leadership and he just kept growing his base of responsibility. No one wanted to deal with electronics, so when the design and maintenance of security and video systems came up as an issue, he was the natural choice; that gave him incredible authority in the building. If a system went down, he was instantly notified. He always carried his head set with him. It made him feel pretentious; but, also needed. His was the only receiver set to hear all communications but it was critical. Power Exchange was the sort of place things could get out of hand and his boss recognized that. Clients had to be watched for their own protection and the protection of those who played with them. He knew that was Victoria’s primary agenda.

It was Robert who suggested video security in every room and today was the day for testing those systems; the geeks would be here any minute and so would Victoria. He fired up the full security system and computers. He had been the one who wanted the computers and security linked. He hadn’t been too impressed with the geek squad they had hired and had told them that today was put up or shut up.

The knock on his office door immediately followed the system start up sounds that melodically drifted from his wall mounted computer speakers. He straightened his tie and decided to leave the blazer off. He just wasn’t a blazer guy.

Victoria’s head peeked in the door, “Everything ready?” Robert suddenly didn’t feel ready. Nothing ever seemed ready in his world when he was near her.

As Victoria swung the door open two techno guys, who at least had the sense to emulate the Geek Squad and wear shirts and ties, appeared at the door. Robert snuck a peek at the video monitor to the parking lot. No Geek Squad black and while Volkswagen bug, but there was a battered Toyota Celica that would, on a club party night, have been the only under twenty thousand dollar car in the lot.

Everyone in the club knew the pseudo geeks, Jeff and Jerry, as the two Js. The Js didn’t look all that much alike but no one could ever keep them straight. They always came across as a pair of milk cartons, side by side, their faces indistinguishable in a “have you seen me” sort of way. No one ever really saw them and if they went missing, the memory of them would have been tossed away just like the unexamined half gallon milk container. Side by side, the milk boys sat, having obvious hard-ons for the technology.

For some universal, unspoken, but fully known, alpha male reason, Robert enjoyed the discomfort of the geek brothers. Robert thought that it must be difficult to split focus on two different objects of complete and total lust and pick between them. One of the Js, Robert assumed correctly that it was Jerry, went to the system and jacked in his over used portable computer and fired up his keyboard. J One, Jerry was lost in network wires as J Two, Jeff was getting warmed up to start into his techno-babble spiel, when Victoria took the room over simply by walking in.

Once all eyes were on her, she spoke, “Please, Jeff, have a seat. I understand you have a system that will protect my clients. I want it prefect.” She paused to make her point, and asked “Is it perfect for me Jeff?” Robert understood why men paid so well for that voice, for that command. Robert almost had empathy for the Js.

Jeff punched a key, and his voice trembled, “Security starts at home.” He hit a key, “and we have a new employee file system that tracks everyone in the club, each person has a photo and small electronic key that lets them into only the rooms where they belong.” A picture of Donna instantly materialized on the large monitor, he continued, “For instance, this woman, is basically an independent contractor, her key will only let her into the main club, the back room and certain assigned private rooms.”

Robert doubled his empathy for both Js. Now Robert couldn’t focus between the live Victoria and the stunning picture of Donna that filled the screen. Jerry noticed and seemed to appreciate Robert’s choice in women.

Victoria watched Robert eye the screen and waited for all the testosterone to mist down to the ground and then ask, “Who makes and manages the keys?”

J2 held up a chain filled with waiting keys, “Who ever you like. You can do it yourself or Robert would be the other person with pass key knowledge. Or anyone else you wanted.” He tossed the keys to Robert. “Just plug the key into the coding device, link it to the profile and it will only open authorized doors. Very cool, huh?”

Robert asked, “How do we change key access?”

J1 reached over to the keyboard, “Just change the profiles. It is fool proof.” Robert didn’t like the implication, but let it ride.

Victoria was surprised at her protective feelings for Robert’s ego, “We don’t have fools in here.”

Now tell me about the audio video connection to security. Jerry perked up. He was the video guy. “I don’t know if you noticed, but we came in with the electricians during the club rebuild.”

Robert responded, “I noticed by the billing, you must have gone a bit past what we agreed upon.”

Jerry seemed to be used to people bitching about upgraded bills. He continued, “The networking was insufficient to the video and data transfer requirements.”

Victoria took control again, “I know what I asked for. This isn’t my first time in surveillance so don’t jerk me around. Now tell me how the video is set up, I want both Robert and I to be able to monitor everything, at any time from any screen we log into.”

Jerry paused, clear frightened of Victoria more than her resident muscle boy. Jeff looked more excited than scared and said, “Primary access to all video feeds can be accessed only by SysAdmin accounts. We call them SAs, and we have set up priority access through your SA log-ins, which are initiated when ever you sign onto the system through either of the turn key encrypted modules.

Victoria wasn’t happy yet, “What about remote access through my home office or other offsite non-proprietary systems into our secure servers?”

Jeff bristled, and went to balls up front. “Nothing is secure, trust me, but this is as close as we can get without the NSA on your door step. You wanted off site access, you have it. It comes through the same system as your intruder alarm. Basically, we hid it there so you wouldn’t be likely to be monitored by, well outside parties.”

Robert looked confused and switched his gaze to Victoria. She spoke to him as if the boys were too busy covering their asses to care, “Robert, I wanted something more, covert, in case I somehow became interesting to the locals. I had Jeff put in a redundant monitor line. The obvious one — that might be monitored by our local constabulary — is set up to track just the main club, limited viewing areas of the back room and the most public of the private rooms. The secondary feed keeps an eye on every room of the club except your office and mine. I couldn’t live without some privacy and I thought you might want some too.”

Robert blushed, his face showing his recall of the earlier office incident, “Kind of a … I won’t show you mine if you don’t show me yours type thing?”

Victoria laughed, “More like, I respect you, you respect me and everyone else can piss off.”

Jerry jumped in, “We didn’t put bathroom cameras in; we didn’t think you were into that stuff.”

Together, Robert, and Victoria said, “Shut up Jeff.”

“I’m Jerry.”

Jeff jumped in next, “Shut up Jerry, Jesus.”

Victoria looked to Robert for his reaction and saw that he understood. Robert said, “That’s why the diagnostics were always off, the video feeds from the system as it was split caused the drag on the system. That was attributed to unknown factors.”

Jeff nodded, “There is only so much you can hide from a good diagnostic.”

Victoria was finally getting what she really needed to know, “Will anyone but you two know?”

Jeff’s smile said he finally understood the system’s purpose, “Nope, the diagnostics software was proprietary to the system. Hacks and bugs will find the safe video first and assume they are in, sort of a ghost system designed to lure them into a false reality. I even produced a back up if they check for expected rooms that they know or suspect should be online but are not.”

Robert pressed with an obvious need to know, “Explain.”

Jeff continued, “It’s pretty simple. You wanted a back up system for all processes and video, for proof against any allegations.” Victoria nodded and Jeff kept on, “My idea was to take video of empty rooms and set it aside from real time video in the storage network, when the normal network or anyone bugging the network would look in those rooms they would appear to be empty or would be looped with acceptable video already in the system. Only the secondary live, RT system would monitor the critical rooms you are worried about. Only your in-house system will record the real stuff. No one else will be able to see it from the outside. Even the best hacker’s we know couldn’t get past this. It is bullet proof.”

Robert saw something, some question pass across Jeff’s eyes that implied that might not be entirely true. Robert stood tall over the geek, “Best hackers you know? How come you aren’t the best hackers you know?”

Jerry grimaced, “We are, he means, aside from us, no one else could get in. Can’t you tell we are the best from this design?”

Robert looked like he was going to respond until Victoria shook her head.

“Remote access to the full video feed then?”

Jerry explained at length, the intricacies of the system to both. Then for the benefit of comfort of both he made a big production of producing the SA portables requested by Victoria. Each had a finger print system initiation device and key code number locks. The main system was set with finger print initiation; the hidden system could only be gotten to by use of both forms of ID. Jerry explained that it was perfect for this club. Victoria agreed.

The Js coded in voice and finger print access for the portables and each user put in an additional password that the Js couldn’t see.

Thank god, thought Jerry, they had pre-hacked the entire system, or the boys wouldn’t be able to sit in their offices and watch the really fun stuff. After all, hacking was the right of boys who will be boys.

He desperately hoped a bit of tech speak would back her off enough to get the check to clear, he had new portables to buy and if they didn’t implement the system as set up, he stood to lose a really interesting evening viewing opportunity and some great video clip mpegs he would be using to barter for hack assets.

Victoria stood, “Once Robert clears the system you will have your payment in full. Thank you and I am sure you will be immediately available if we have any problems.”

Jeff was on his feet now, “We will try to be here the instant you have problems.” He meant it; because the boys would know even before she did something was wrong with their “secure system”.