Irina wiped down another smudged glass, routine motions guiding her hands while she monitored the worn Электроника display behind the bar, its curved screen mirrored in the bottles stacked behind her. Compiler messages scrolled upward in luminescent green, demanding more attention than the swaying drunk at the counter's end.
Flux fumes wafted up from her concealed soldering project beneath the bartop, mingling with stale cigarette smoke and caustic bottom-shelf vodka. On the diagnostic board, a red LED pulsed its silent accusation—the timing crystal persisted in its desynchronisation.
“Bollocks.” Her Irish lilt sharpened the curse as she decoded fresh error messages. Her latest scheduler optimisation collapsed under the compiler's scrutiny. Three weeks of coding, yet the kernel resisted every modification.
Glass met wood with a soft clink as she reached for the next tumbler. The methodical cleaning anchored her thoughts while solutions took shape in her mind. A priority queue adjustment might just work…
The monitor's green glow traced circuit board patterns across her fingernails. Halogen lights cut through the bar's gloom, throwing harsh shadows across weathered vodka bottles and mysterious Turkmen spirits. Heat from the overcrowded server rack peeled their labels, curling them like autumn leaves.
Wet rubles slapped against the counter, pulling her attention from compiler errors. A leather-jacketed bruiser towered over the bar, winter frost crystallising his Georgian accent.
“Two hours. Machine seven.” His finger stabbed at the liability waiver. “This capitalist nonsense—you think paper protects you?”
Her fingers mapped the form into neat keyed patterns. “Standard rate plus deposit.” The Irish edge in her voice sliced through his bluster. “Sign proper, or peddle your prepayment scams elsewhere.”
“FSB doesn't care about your papers.”
“Neither do I, pet.” Crisp Moscow Russian danced from her tongue. “No signature, no service. Simple as that.”
Muscles rippled across his jaw. Grimy rubles spoke of market schemes and back-alley deals. She recognized his sort—new money fumbling at old power games.
He snatched the pen, scribbling a jagged signature. A cold smile played across her lips as she slipped him the access card.
“Welcome to the information age.” Her accent cut through the words. “Best not wreck the pricey bits.”
The screen flickered and died mid-compile. She struck the mahogany bar, fingers clenched in frustration. Damp grain scraped her palm as she analysed the failure, each symptom clicking into place.
Raw memory surged through silicon pathways.
Stack corruption strangled her Z80 emulator—that jury-rigged masterpiece. Again.
Code blazed through her mind like molten solder, the green display reflecting off her lacquered nails.
November 1993. Trinity College. Burnt coffee mingled with scorched silicon. FreeBSD 1.1.5. Systat overflow taunted her through three brutal rewrites until pointer alignment snapped into focus.
Now the same bloody mistake.
“Jaysus, Mary and the wee donkey.” The words echoed off the vodka bottles, pure Trinity computer lab frustration. Fingers struck each key with mounting force, Dublin consonants sharpening with each syntax error.
Muscle memory from countless all-nighters took over as she hammered at the keyboard. The compiler waited, indifferent to which accent cursed its output.
Three hundred lines of fresh code, and her hands stilled. Stack discipline achieved, error silenced.
Dark amber liquid sloshed against glass, casting rippling shadows across the screen. Taking a sip of the contraband cognac, she parsed its complex notes.
Too much vanillin.
Soviet chemists masked inferior barrels with synthetic flavours—a counterfeit legacy. Artificial sweetness lingered, mocking memories of finer spirits.
She clicked her tongue against her teeth, acrid warmth burning down her throat.
Phrack text scrolled past, characters reforming against darkness. Understanding Buffer Overflows: Practical Exploitation & Countermeasures. Each phrase twisted in her mind, transforming into Russian syntax that basement hackers could grasp through their flickering terminals.
A misplaced modifier, corrected. A technical clarification, expanded. Moscow's damp seeped into the bar's wooden counter, the grain swollen from years of spilled drinks and forgotten ambition.
She blinked.
Pearwood panelling.
Trinity College's computer lab, the varnish worn smooth by decades of restless hands. Cigarette smoke in the stairwells, the Dublin rain against stained glass. C code rolled across her SPARC workstation as an SGI IRIS hummed beside her.
Taking another sip, she let instinct override the artificial taste. Russian translations flowed through her fingers, each word precise and unambiguous.
A customer bumped the power strip, making the screen stutter. Reality snapped back to Moscow's concrete and condensation. The counterfeit cognac's ghost lingered on her tongue.
Steam curled from Katya's wool coat as she stepped inside, the November sleet melting in uneven patches along the dark fabric. Moving through the space with fluid grace, her fingers drummed TR-DOS error codes against the tattered spine of a pirated compiler manual, each tap precise and rhythmic.
The monitor cast its glow against moisture-beaded sleeves while keyboards clattered beneath murmured conversations. Without looking up from the terminal output, Irina balanced a glass in one hand.
She slid a magazine across the counter.
Katya's fingers hovered, then grasped the dog-eared Linux Gazette. Russian annotations crowded the margins in Irina's precise handwriting, recasting the English text.
No words passed between the two. Silence spoke for them.
The glass fogged beneath the cloth as she worked through the stack. Keyboards clicked and speakers crackled through the dim café. The screen's verdant light washed over her features while she parsed buffer overflow documentation, calculating hash rates between pouring measures of suspect Georgian cognac.
At the bar's end, undergrads sprawled with alcohol-sharpened laughter. Polytech boys, barely old enough to touch assembly, but drowning in confidence like they'd invented it.
One leaned in, bleary-eyed, grinning. “You really build kernels, or just pour drinks and read Phrack for fun?”
His mate swayed forward, vodka sloshing against the rim of his glass. “Five buffer overflows in the Linux 2.4 kernel. Name them.” He smirked, the expression of someone who'd memorized a few Bugtraq posts and thought himself clever.
Irina didn't look up. “You want a ports list?” She spun the rag once around her fingers, letting it snap against the counter. “Enumerating SIGINT exceptions burnt out my NICs in '96.”
The first one blinked, processing. The second scoffed. “Oh yeah? What, you personally brute-forced GRU's firewalls as a teen?”
The lacquer on her nails caught the monitor's glow as she rapped them against the chipped wood. “Not GRU. They ran Novell.” Her lips curved, sharp. “You'd be amazed what a misplaced ACL can expose.”
Doubt crossed the first student's face, but his companion pressed on. “Bullshit. You expect us to believe you cracked Soviet infrastructure before you could legally drink?”
Irina's nostrils flared as she turned back to her monitor, scanning the cascading hash rate calculations. She adjusted the Mikrotik estimates with swift precision, the keyboard clacking beneath her fingers.
“Tell you what.” She poured amber liquid into a fresh glass, sliding it just beyond their reach. “Since you're so eager to prove yourselves—explain why every router on this subnet resolves 192.168.88.1 with a TTL offset of minus two.”
Drunk silence.
The first student's jaw went slack, confusion etching his features. His mate shot him a panicked glance, searching for a lifeline.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Irina finally met their eyes. “No? Someone's running a Mikrotik clone with inconsistent clock skew. Can't spot that? Then you don't belong at this table.”
Blood drained from the first student's face.
“Doesn't prove anything,” the second spat through clenched teeth.
“True enough.” Her mouth curved into a razor edge. “But missing it until I pointed it out? That speaks volumes.” She drummed her fingers once against the wood. “Corrupt a cache without crashing the process—then we'll talk.”
She returned to the terminal, hands flowing across the ЙЦУКЕН layout. Behind her, bar stools scraped against tile as the undergrads skulked away, pride deflating with each step.
Numbers danced across her screen—Mikrotik hash rates calculating beyond projected speeds. Interesting.
She lifted her glass, savouring the amber liquid.
Not much happening tonight, except the sweet sound of mathematics proving her right.
Steam rose from the porcelain cups in delicate arcs as the baby-faced FSB recruits stirred their tea with deliberate care, their movements rehearsed. Irina observed from behind the bar, arms folded, hip resting against the counter's edge.
They aped their seniors—cheap navy suits, stiff collars, belts unbowed by wear. But the shoes gave them away. Factory-issue leather, soles too thick, laces arranged in perfect cadet rows. Fresh from some backwater GRU academy last winter, raw recruits still naive enough to splash out on imported tea as if it granted sophistication.
The thin one, all angles and edges, jabbed at a stolen Motorola flip phone. Keys clicked beneath his fingertips while signal strength wavered on Irina's concealed monitor. She studied the room, neck motionless. The cell tower handoff lagged—half a second too slow. Cloned SIM. Amateur work.
His bulkier companion nursed his tea, smirking as he surveyed the dim cybercafé. False confidence leaked through darting eyes that counted faces and mapped exits. Irina knew the type—fresh officers flexing their authority, measuring themselves against a room populated by their intellectual superiors.
“Good souchong,” the bulkier agent drawled, measuring each word. “Almost like the real thing.”
Irina tilted her head, Dublin lilt slipping through betraying her boredom. “That so? Guess you've been to Fujian, then?”
His mouth twitched. Doubt flashed across his face.
“I have sources,” he muttered, noncommittal.
Irina exhaled through her nose, swiping the cloth across polished wood. “Aye. And I'm the Queen of England.”
His companion stilled, fingers suspended over the Motorola's keypad. Cold eyes fixed on hers—calculating, probing. The drone of capacitor decay mingled with whirring fans and murmured conversations. In the back room, a floppy drive wheezed through another CRC check, the sound of the past dying in increments.
At the far end of the bar, an old man hunched over an Электроника СМ 7238, its beige casing yellowed with heat and years. His arthritic hands worked the germanium circuitry, a jeweller's loupe clamped over one eye. Vacuum tubes cast soft light in the monitor's glow, the machine's pulse slow but steady.
She struck the counter's edge. “Running an op, lads, or just playing spy?”
A forced chuckle escaped the heavier agent. “Do we look like spies?”
“Like conscripts fresh from basic, LARPing as Ivan the Terrible.” She slid a coaster beneath his teacup, protecting the lacquered wood. “Want information? Order vodka. Otherwise, finish up and clear out.”
Pocketing his Motorola, his companion's expression hardened. “Questioning our credentials?”
Irina pressed forward across the bar, voice dropping to ice. “Real FSB wouldn't be carrying a phone with a cloned SIM sputtering through tower hand-offs like a dying rat.”
The bulky agent's shoulders tensed.
His companion—the sharper of the pair—offered a measured nod. “Noted.” Rising from his seat, he adjusted his coat. “We'll be in touch.”
She wiped down the counter as they departed, watching their reflection in the display. The old Электроника hummed behind her, its Soviet circuits persisting with quiet defiance.
The monitor's glow illuminated Katya's hands as she navigated the hex dump. Three ELF headers, malformed just enough to slip through naive detection. Sloppy work from someone too confident—or too desperate. Intruders, probing where they shouldn't.
Her mechanical pencil moved in quick bursts as she transcribed the signatures onto a weathered receipt. Though her thumb smudged the ink, crisp numbers stood out against the faded paper. She swept the note across the polished bar with practiced ease.
Irina's fingers snatched the paper mid-slide, her other hand tilting emerald Tarkhuna into Katya's glass. The tarragon-infused soda hissed against dissolving ice, its herbal aroma cutting through the stale air.
The note drew Irina's gaze downward, eyes narrowing to slits.
“Three headers?” The receipt vanished beneath the counter with a precise flick, her tone deceptively casual.
Katya pushed her glasses higher. “Someone thinks they're clever.”
Circuit board lacquer caught cathode ray glow as Irina's nails drummed against wood. The terminal window snapped open. Firewall rules cascaded past faster than most would follow—but the anomaly stood out starkly. The shoddily constructed payload, straight off of a Minsk assembly line, slithering toward root.
A sharp exhale through her nose. “Bloody shkolniks.”
Swift keystrokes locked firewall.conf while she snatched a Baltika bottle, cracking the cap against the bar's edge. Foam spilled over the rim as she slid it down the wood to the waiting customer without looking up from the screen.
Somewhere behind the walls, the hidden UPS system engaged with a soft click, rerouting power before anyone noticed. The cybercafé's background noise shifted, a subtle change in frequency as the backup grid took over.
The RVSN-spec relays overhead signalled their approval, mechanical switches salvaged from military supply chains snapping with metallic precision. The ceiling fluorescents flickered in time with each switch, their electric drone matching the rhythm of closing circuits.
Katya took a sip of Tarkhuna, eyes fixed on her terminal. “Did you trace the origin?”
Irina smirked, fingers flying. “No need. They used a stock obfuscator. I've seen cleaner work from students bootstrapping their first Linux box.”
A sharp gleam passed through Katya's expression, though she didn't smile—she rarely did. “Then they're about to learn a very expensive lesson.”
Without looking away from the terminal, Irina reached for her own drink. The Baltika was warm, but the code ran clean.
The snort logs scrolled in cold green phosphor, line after line of failed authentications. Seven login attempts against her IPMI service, all from Osaka-prefixed addresses. Sloppy, hopeful, or automated—she hadn't decided yet.
The vinyl stool creaked as she shifted her weight. Around her, the cybercafé thrummed with its usual chaos—murmured conversations mixing with static-laced drive whirrs and the sharp percussion of shot glasses against wood. Beneath the bar, her fingers found the Stolichnaya bottle, its measure collar worn smooth from years of use.
Whisky streamed into the tumbler in precise increments, each drop measured with bartender's instinct. Amber swirled under the halogen light while her other hand danced over the keyboard. The honeypot's mailserver banner: Postfix 1.1.9. Standard. Pristine. Suspicious. A real Russian sysadmin would have left the defaults in chaos, misconfigured just enough to betray frustration and neglect.
One strategic typo in the HELO string would do it. Just enough to mimic genuine incompetence.
A shadow fell across the polished wood as a lanky youth from the terminal bank slouched forward, drumming nicotine-stained fingers against the counter.
“Another forty minutes.” Caffeine trembled through his voice.
“Up front.” The monitor held her attention.
Crumpled rubles scattered across the bar. She thumbed through them, pocketed the extra, and flicked a punch card towards him.
“Same machine. Touch my subnet with those DCCs again, you're banned.”
His grunt dissolved into the terminal hum.
On her screen, the Osaka traces flickered. Attack patterns arrived in measured intervals—too precise for random probes. A scripted ratelimit. Someone lurked behind, testing for weaknesses.
Shell commands flowed beneath her fingertips. The restarted daemon spat its malformed SMTP banner at the next connection, betraying mangled locale settings.
Amber liquid caught the fluorescent glare as she tilted her glass.
SYN flood counters ticked over steadily, their cadence almost soothing.
Let them try.
The Беста-88 whirred beneath the bar, its cooling fan rattling like a loose gear in a Moscow trolleybus. At first, she barely registered it—her thoughts tangled in stack corruption and dodgy memory allocation. The screen flickered, lines of green text collapsing into nonsense before the terminal froze entirely.
A sharp exhale. Of course it's dying now.
She crouched, touching the warm metal casing. It had always been temperamental, but tonight seemed different. Before she could reach the reset switch, the machine jolted back to life. The System V boot scroll unfurled down the screen, white text lost amongst dull phosphor burn.
Her pulse slowed.
The present dissolved. She wasn't behind a bar in Moscow, wrestling failing Soviet hardware. Instead, she was twenty again, hunched over Sun SPARCstations in Trinity's basement lab as her thesis project teetered toward catastrophe.
Rain struck the windows, turning the sodium-orange city into impressionist smears. The examination panel loomed in judgmental silence. Thirty seconds remained before the cluster must reach runlevel 3 and sync its system clock.
A single station's disks ground to protest their stall. Sweat beaded at her collar as she watched the keys.
Misaligned pointer? Bad sector on the boot disk? Time slipped away like water.
Professor Laird's raised eyebrow delivered the ultimatum—fix it or fail. No room for explanations, no mercy for the hours lost to debugging.
Her slow inhale steadied trembling hands as she studied the terminal. A flicker revealed the truth—timestamp drift. The bastard machine had lost sync. Quickly rerouting the NTP daemon, she bypassed the faulty node and forced the secondary clock into reset.
The cursor blinked.
runlevel 3
Relief curled through her spine.
The panel took notes. Someone muttered about resilience in distributed systems.
She barely heard them. The hardware had revealed its secrets, and she'd understood.
A sharp beep from the Беста-88 yanked her back. Blocky Cyrillic characters marked the completed boot sequence. Moscow's sleet struck the windows instead of Dublin's drizzle, but that electric possibility remained.
The CRT dimmed to a soft green glow. Her final command sent logs spiralling onto magnetic tape, the drive clicking as it preserved the night's transactions. Beside her debugging scrawls, Katya's notes sprawled across the counter—Cyrillic characters intertwined with Latin function calls, two languages expressing a shared technical obsession.
She lifted the page, studying Katya's precise mechanical pencil strokes. “LD A, (HL)”—Z80 assembly with meticulous cycle counts. Her own hasty notation questioned: “context switch timing suspect—preemptive slice too aggressive?” Their work unfolded in layers of ink and graphite, a dialogue between architectures.
The papers aligned into a loose stack under her hands. In standby, the server's hard drive settled like a submarine finding port. Cooling fans spun down, their pitch dropping gradually. One by one, amber LEDs winked out on the rack-mounted machines, leaving only sodium glow from the streets to illuminate the cybercafé.
By the door, Katya stood with hands tucked into her coat pockets. Silent since the last customer's departure, she watched the floor as if reading memory addresses in the patterns. Against the bar, Irina rolled the mechanical pencil between her fingers.
“You left these,” she said, tapping the stack of notes.
After a moment's hesitation, Katya stepped forward to gather them. Her debugging notes had left impressions where the ink bled through. She studied them briefly before folding them with care.
The last power strip clicked off under Irina's hand. Only the distant rumble of trolleybuses filled the silence between them.
Katya slipped the notes into her bag with a soft exhale.
“Good night,” she murmured.
A nod from Irina, and then the door swung shut. The machines waited in standby, their circuits holding the last traces of executed code.
