The Testimony of Amber Lorenzo

His greasy sausage-like finger pressed record.

“The date is September 24th 2029. My name is Detective Lawrence Charles, ID number 11124. This deposition is taking place just after 8 am at the station here in Solaris, Washington. Ma’am, please state your name for the record.”

I shivered in my blanket. I was cold, hungry, and tired. The burns and scratches on my hands and arms ached for treatment, but I’d been whisked away to the police station before I could be seen. The events of the last few hours had kept me on edge and in disbelief and now I had to explain what happened. Again. How would I even start? Would he even believe me?

“Ma’am?”

“My name is Amber Lorenzo.”

The interrogation room was so quiet compared to the data center.

“Thank you Ms. Lorenzo. Can you confirm for me that you were read your rights prior to being sent to the station?”

“Um… Yes, I was read my rights but like I told the officer, I’m the one who called the police.”

“I understand that Ms. Lorenzo. This is purely procedural.”

I scoffed as quietly as I could to myself. I didn’t believe that for one second, but I didn’t want to potentially incriminate myself any further.

“What’s the accusation-”

“Ma’am,” he cut me off sharply, “please calm down. It’s 8am. Neither of us has slept and the coffee isn’t working yet.”

“I want to know what I’m accused of before we go any further.” I retorted, calmly. At least I thought I was calm.

“You are accused of being involved in the murder of one Mr. Samuel Elliot, the regional director for the Mythos group data center.”

“And do you have any evidence of this?”

The sausage finger paused the recording.

“Ma’am, what we’re doing here is called building a case. I've heard the rumors and I don’t want to believe them. This is an opportunity for you. You get to help me solve this and create the best case scenario for you. If you tell me all the pertinent details about what happened last night, I will personally write a letter to the judge asking for the best possible sentence.”

He stuck his hand out to me.

“Deal?”

His eyes were kind even if he was a cop. His hairline was receding, no doubt egged on by the harsh gelled combing backward of his salt and pepper hair.

Sam was a prick. He was a narcissist and a nepo baby who had never truly had to work a day in his life. His father had made him the regional director for the Mythos groups data center business with no merit. But even with all his entitlements, he was only 23 and didn’t deserve to die like that.

“I maintain I am innocent until proven guilty. Regardless of how crazy this may sound. Deal?”

And I stuck my hand out with a good six inches of space between our hands.

“Deal.” He said as his bear paw of a hand swallowed mine in a hand shake. “Just remember, I’m on your side.” As he pressed the record button again. “Yes, ma’am we have evidence of this but at this time we’re just here to get your testimony.”

It took me a second to realize that he was picking up the conversation for the recorder where it left off. Sneaky bastard.

“I want to make this as straightforward as possible for us both and the courts to follow. So please cooperate with me and we can make this as painless as possible, yes?” He said with a wink.

I nodded.

“Please note the accused has nodded her head in agreement.”

This sly guy thinks he’s hot stuff doesn’t he. Last time I checked this was America where the victim is not the accused or presumed guilty until the evidence proves it. Times really have changed.

“Ms. Lorenzo, please explain why you were at the Solaris Data Center this evening.” He said with some snark.

“I work there.” I sassed.

“I was under the assumption that data centers were automated facilities and didn’t need human workers for anything other than maintenance.”

“Most data centers have a skeleton crew of workers onsite in case the GPUs go down.”

“Can that work not be done by one of those drones?”

“It’s not that they can’t, but they can’t identify electrical signals and pathways to coordinate the hot swap of chips in the chaos of the system as fast as we can. The drones would need to shut down the rack in order to interact with the network of GPUs. Corporate expects us non-drones to swap out the chips without shutting down the racks. Saves them money.”

“How often do these GPUs go down?” There were some air quotes around GPUs when he said the word.

“All the time. Weren’t you here when they built this facility in 2026?”

“This isn’t about me, Ms. Lorenzo.” He said with some abject arrogance.

“Ok you want all the details about the stupid data center? It’s a four square mile facility broken into quarters. Each building handles 4 zetaflops of compute.”

“Ms. Lorenzo, that makes no sense to me.”

“It’s a big, important data center that does a lot of calculations for Mythos AI.”

“Ah, that makes sense. Thank you.” I was pretty sure that still didn’t mean anything to him. “I assume that with that much compute in the building and GPUs going down all the time, you’re constantly working?”

“Yes. I don’t get much of a break once I clock in for my shift.”

“And you work nights in this data center?”

“I work whatever shift they assign me. I clocked in yesterday at 5pm to start a 12-hour overnight.” I didn’t want to tell him that I liked working the nights more. That’s when the software updates happened and the system wasn’t under as much pressure to compute.

“And when did you find the body of Mr. Elliott?”

I stopped and realized that someone had lost their life last night. Sure, it was my stupid boss who thought I was replaceable, but still he didn’t deserve to die for that.

“It was just after 3am. Software updates are usually done by then so the system starts a cooling run, so not much for me to do.” The next part was what I knew he wouldn’t believe. “I was doing a routine inspection of the racks when I noticed water on the ground. You can imagine, with all that power, water on the ground is a big problem.”

“Ah yes, electricity and water don’t mix.” He said like a patronizing father.

“This next part is important and I need you to believe me when I tell you.”

Detective Dumbo just sat there, his eyebrows urging me to go on and stop wasting his time.

“Theres not much light in the warehouse so we can see the status lights of the GPUs. I rounded the corner of row 236122, and saw a sea of red light on the whole row of racks. A geyser of water spilling out of one of the racks.”

“There’s water in the racks? Why is there water in the racks?”

“It’s coolant for the GPUs. We keep the center at 60 degrees, but the chips still need the water to stay cool.”

“You said it was spraying like a geyser all over the place?”

“Yeah, it was like a scene from a horror film.” I replayed the events in my mind. Red lights flashing in the dark. The deafening whir of the fans on the GPUs spinning as fast as they could, but the chips were still overheating in the dark. At that moment, I couldn’t help but feel as if I was being watched. Some other being was there in the dark with me.

The aisle was only two feet across and water was spraying scalding water from one rack to the next. I immediately slapped the racks emergency alert button. A series of spot lights above turned on and immediately cut off power and internet connections to the aisle. I’m sure I’d hear the alarms sounding too if not for the whirs of the other racks and my ear protection.

As the boiling water slowly stopped dowsing the walkway, I saw Sam. He had been in the middle of the boiling geyser and was now lying face down in a puddle. It didn’t matter what people thought of me or what I had thought of management, this was a person, and they needed help.

I remember trying to walk into the aisle and being overcome with heat. My hands felt as if they’d catch fire if I went any further in. I could only think that something terrible had happened to Sam, despite what I thought of him. The guy never came out onto the rack floor.

I couldn’t get to Sam without seriously injuring myself. It was the most helpless I had ever felt towards someone I genuinely didn’t like. The steam and heat separating us. And, just then, a floor tile behind Sam’s head popped up. A deep green hand with nails like claws reached up. It’s fishy moist skin grasped at Sam’s head looking for purchase, but sliding around unable to find a suitable grip. With a long extension, it finally found Sam’s chin and heaved his body closer to the hole.

I didn’t know what took me over at that moment, but it wasn’t something I normally would have done. I sprinted into the steaming furnace that was that aisle and ran for Sam. Whatever that thing on the floor was, wasn’t going to put me out of a job.

Immediately, sweat ran down my face. Sam was only 20 feet or so away, but the GPUs were putting off hundreds of degrees of heat.

I grabbed one of Sam’s nepo baby ankles and yanked. The dude was 200 something pounds and soaked. It was a long shot that I’d even be able to move him an inch, but the sack of potatoes didn’t even budge. Sam’s head was getting pulled backwards into the floor. I couldn’t see the creature's hand or Sam’s face. I figured, this was my best chance to get him out before I was fried or that thing got a hold of me too.

With every muscle in my body, I pulled on Sam’s dense legs. I used every bit of energy I was storing in my body, and that bastard didn’t move. He stayed planted, head in the hole. But I must have disturbed something. I saw two tiny beady eyes in the dark of the floor, red lights flashing and reflecting off its damp skin.

I couldn’t hear anything through my ear protection, but I saw teeth and a face that seemed like it was screaming at me. It slashed a clawed hand at me and I dropped Sam’s stupid ankles, but I definitely wasn’t quick enough. Its freakish hands had webbed fingers well over a foot in length behind its claws. I didn’t know what it was or how it got into the data center, but by God I wasn’t about to become its next victim. It slashed at me again and I pushed off from the dead corpse. I slid on my butt straight backwards until I was out of those racks. The creature stood there in his hole staring at me, snarling.

“I just sat there on my butt sweating, wondering why it wasn’t coming after me.” I said to the Detective. “I figured it was going to eat Sam, but it didn’t go back to him. It picked up his body as if it were a rag doll and threw it at me. It just left him lying there at my feet before slinking back into the hole in the floor. That’s when I ran for the emergency phone and called 911.”

I took a loud gulp of air. I knew what I said was a long stretch for this white bread detective, but he wasn’t laughing at me.

“Thank you very much ma'am. We’ll take this in as evidence and will let you know what the judge says.” He said calmly. His finger gently pushed the stop button on the recorder. “I don’t believe you. I don’t think a court will believe you. I don’t think your own mother will believe you.”

“But that’s—“ I tried to argue back.

“Nope! You’re going to jail, miss, and you deserve it. You didn’t give me one good reason to trust you. That story is hogwash and you know it.”

“No, you don’t understand—“ he stood up, forcefully placing a finger in the air, stopping me.

“Oh, I understand that you brutalized a young man and tore his body to shreds, simply because he was younger and more successful than you.”

“Detective, please—“ I started sarcastically.

“Nope, this session is complete. Good day ma’am. I hope you rot.” Before I could interject again, he had turned his back on me and was out the door.

And I was in silence again, alone with nothing but the pain of the creature's slashes and steam burns. Why would it throw Sam’s body at me? How had it gotten into the data center? What in the hell was it? Would I ever know?

I did the one thing I could think to do. I screamed. I had to fill the silence somehow.