China Blue ©

Su Ming stumbled across the tiled floor, slowly making her way to the kitchen to make her morning tea. She glanced out the window only to see another gray rainy day ahead of her. It had been raining everyday since he left. "How appropriate." she thought to herself. The weather seemed to reflect her mood perfectly. As she stood at the basin filling the teapot with cold water, she stared mindlessly out the window over the back garden, it had been 6 days since Travis left and it started raining the moment he stepped on the plane. She could still see his brown eyes looking into hers and his scent still lingered from her holding him. A tear slowly made it's way down her cheek and landed on the back of her hand. "Why him?" she asked herself. A question she had found herself asking more than once since he left. She put the pot on the stove and returned to the window. Crossing her arms she tried to compose herself, but the tears would not stop. All she could think of was the way she felt about him, how she missed him and how in such a short period of time, he had become so much a part of her life.


She remembered the first day she saw him. She worked as an accountant for Memdec, a micro processor manufacturing concern based out of Texas. He worked their Loss Prevention department in Technology Security. A smile crept across her face as she remembered him that day, looking lost and confused. Immediately she rose and went to him and asked if she could help him. "Just trying to get a feel for the place." was his awkward reply. "Let me know if I can be of any assistance to you. Lots of halls here one can get lost in." Su Ming informed him. "We had a delivery boy come in last week and we have yet to find him." Travis cocked one eye and looked at her, "Thanks, but I think I can manage." She watched him walk away and then disappear around a corner. Su Ming looked after him for a few more seconds, shrugged her shoulders and went back to her desk. Not giving him another thought for the rest of the day.


In the distance she heard whistling and then realized it was her teapot. Slowly she let her arms drop to her side and took a cup from off a small shelf near the stove. Placing a bit of tea in the steep, she poured the boiling water over it, covered it with a saucer and started back to the window with it. Su Ming thought about how he had entered her life and how before, after a failed marriage and twins, would she ever manage to have a life of her own again or survive. Certainly, this is not where she had imagined she would be at 35. This was not the life she thought she would have. At 20, she walked through the doors at the university in Beijing and was full of promise and hope. Taking accounting and business courses, she planned taking her place in the newly immerging China. A China full of promise for a better life. The old restraints were slowly being lifted to allow for a more prosperous country. China had finally realized that it's people had to be happy if they expected to survive. So slowly capitalism was being introduced and instead of thinking for the people, they started encouraging them to think for themselves, inviting them to embrace this new thinking as entrepreneurs and self motivated individuals. Not only to make a better life for themselves, but help build a stronger China and be contributors instead of wardens of the state. Yes, China had finally realized to start utilizing it's resources instead of wasting them. And she planned on being a part of it, a vital part. As she sipped her tea small bits of her past entered and left her mind. When she had met her husband at the university, he was ready to graduate and she remembered his enthusiasm, his eagerness to start making his way. She remembered the night he asked her to marry him and her shyness in accepting his proposal. The day she graduated from the university and seeing her parents smiling in the audience as she took her diploma and felt as if she could conquer anything set before her. How doors would open because of this piece of paper she held in her hands. So much she remembered as she stood there. The day she came home from the doctor and told her husband that she was pregnant. How everyday she would stand in front of the mirror and look at her tummy, rubbing it and the anxious feeling she had to watch this life grow within her. Little did she know at that time, she would be blessed with twins. She heard the clock on the wall in the hallway chime six times and she shook herself out of her trance. She hadn't even realized she had drunk all her tea until she put the cup to her lips and noticed it was gone. She set it down on the counter and slowly turned to go and get ready for work. Not really feeling like going in at all today, but in the back of her mind she hoped he would call. This revived her a bit and gave her reason to go ahead and go in.


As she entered the doors of Memdec she looked at all the faces she saw everyday and realized how she knew nothing about any of them. Nothing to familiarize herself to them just faces of the people she worked with. As she sat down at her desk, she picked up the phone to check her messages, nothing from him. She logged on and checked her email, no nothing there. Then she checked her instant messages, only to be disappointed, nothing from him here either. "Maybe I was nothing more than someone to fill the emptiness while he was here." she thought to herself and could feel the tears welling up again in her eyes. How she wanted to hear from him. She looked down at her desk and noticed the little splatters of tears on it. Taking a Kleenex out of the desk drawer, she wiped her eyes and then the drops on the desk. Trying to stiffen her resolve, she started looking at the spreadsheets from the day before, checking each new entry, line by line. Trying to forget about him, she buried herself in her work. It was a tedious job, but it helped her pass the morning without letting him enter her thoughts. She noticed it was still raining when she finally looked out the window. "Is it ever going to stop?" she wondered. "Will the sun ever break through those gray clouds again and chase this lonely chill away?" Then she noticed she was starting to think about him again. Shaking her head, she turned back to her monitor and starting going over the spreadsheets again. She noticed she was getting hungry, but didn't really feel like getting out in the weather to eat. Looking across the office, she noticed her office mate had already left to go to lunch. Now she was sure she did not want to go and eat, she hated eating by herself. It just reinforced the lonely feeling she felt inside. And as it was, her stomach was in knots anyway. Turning back to her work, she picked up where she had left off. She was so engrossed in what she was doing; she never even noticed when her office mate had come back from lunch. When she looked up, there she was busy with the daily correspondence to the corporate headquarters in Dallas, Texas. "Hey, why didn't you tell me you were going to lunch?" she asked, looking across at her? Without even looking up from her work her office mate replied, "I did, but you acted as if you were in another world. You never answered, so I went on without you." Su Ming lowered her head thinking to herself again how he has affected her. How since she met him, nothing mattered to her. How things around her went un-noticed as if she was blind to it all. "I can't let him have this much control over me." she thought to herself. She did not know how long she had sat there thinking about him before she heard, "Hey! Are you going to go home or are you going to be so dedicated to your job and work all night?" She looked up and saw her office mate standing in front of her desk, her purse strap over her shoulder and an umbrella in her hand. "I am just finishing up." she lied to her, trying to hide her eyes from her so she would not notice she had been sitting there crying for half the afternoon. "We are going out for drinks, want to come along with us?" she asked Su Ming. "No, not tonight Lucy, I have things to do when I get home and the girl's father will be dropping them off early this evening. I appreciate it though." "Suit yourself, but you really need to let go of him and start seeing what is going on around you." Lucy shot back. Su Ming looked up at Lucy, "Let go of who Lucy? I don't even know what you are talking about." Lucy looked at Su Ming as she was rising from her chair, grabbing her purse as she did. "Sure Su, anything you say." They walked out of the building together, the city lights were just starting to come on. Dusk was settling in and the wet sidewalk was washed in the glow of the setting sun and the neon signs. It reminded her of how oil looks floating on water. She bowed her head and opened her umbrella into the rain and started for home. "See you tomorrow Lucy." she said and turned and walked away. "Yeah, tomorrow." Lucy answered. Su Ming couldn't tell if it was her tears are the rain that was running down her cheeks as she entered her door. Setting her door keys on a small table, closing her umbrella and setting it in the corner, she walked back to the kitchen and set the teapot on the stove to boil again.


Su Ming was sitting in a chair by the window, going through her mail and listening to the rain falling from the roof of the house when she heard the front door open and the sounds of her daughters calling for her. "Be sure and take those wet shoes off at the door." she called out to them. She smiled to herself; she knew they were already halfway to her before she had said anything to them. She listened as she heard their shoes hitting the stone floor by the door. Su Ming looked at her daughters as they walked into the room, smiles on their faces; they greeted her and kissed her on her cheek. "Your father too busy to walk you to the door?" she inquired of the girls. "He had someone with him, I think they were going someplace." Li Ling answered first. "He said he would call you later, probably tomorrow." she continued. "Do you two have any homework you need to do?" she asked. "No, we did it at father's." Mi Lei said. "What's for dinner?' she asked. "Go wash up and I will set it on the table." she told the two and watched them run off down the hall to the restroom to wash up for the evening. "Do not throw your clothes on the floor either." she said after them. Standing up she headed to the kitchen, setting the table for dinner. She remembered the first time she set more than three places since her divorce. Travis was coming to eat dinner with them. She looked over at the empty chair where he had sat that night. He had worn a dark sports coat, a button down collar shirt and jeans. He wore boots that night and she could still see the fascination in her girl's faces as they noticed them. They had never seen cowboy boots before, other than on television and they bombarded him with an endless stream of questions concerning horses and cattle and Indians. He regaled them with stories of pure fiction, their eyes as big as saucers and mouths wide open, they hung to every word he said. It was a pleasant evening. After dinner was over, the girls readied themselves for bed and said their good nights. Su Ming and Travis sat in the garden, quiet, peaceful making small talk. He asked her if she had a stereo and if she did, would she mind playing something. Putting on a slow soft song, Su Ming returned to the garden to find him standing, looking at her. He smiled as he took her hand and pulled her to him. They danced. Being held close to someone again felt good for Su Ming. It had been so long since she had felt the warmth of another against her and she felt herself wanting to be held the rest of the night. It was the girls who had bought her out of her trance. "Mommy, aren't you finished setting the table yet?" they both chimed. Su Ming looked down and saw she still had a plate left in her hand. "Is he coming back for dinner tonight mommy?" Li Ling asked. She looked down at the table and noticed she had set three places and held the forth in her hand. "No Li Ling, he is not coming for dinner tonight, I just grabbed too many plates, that is all." she answered. She could feel the tears welling again. She turned and went to the cupboard to replace the plate.


She was settling down in bed when she decided to check her email and offlines one more time before going to sleep. She logged on and an instant message popped up, her heart skipped a beat. It was from him, now the flood of tears started as she read it. "Su Ming, I am sorry I have not contacted you before this, but it seemed that as soon as I got off the plane I was called in to the office. I am sorry if I have worried you. I miss you and I cannot get you off my mind. Seems since I left I cannot focus on anything but you. It looks like I am going to be busy for the next few weeks. Something has come up and it doesn't look too good. Will be returning soon, set an extra plate at the table. Travis." Su Ming sent her reply, "It was so good to hear from you. Glad to see you made it back okay. Sorry to hear it was work as soon as you landed. I know that flight must have been tiring. Funny you should say set an extra plate. Tonight for some reason, I did. Take care, see you when you get here." She realized it was very reserved and nothing like she wanted to say. She wanted to ask him why he waited so long. Tell him how she has cried since he left. How lonely she felt now. But she had held back. She settled back into bed and turned the lights off. As she lay there, he came back to her. If only in her dreams.


The next day was the same as the seven days before and the forecast was predicting even more before it would clear up. "Why should today be any different?" she asked herself, then started out on her morning ritual. Arriving at work there was a small vase on her desk with three pink peonies in it, a fourth lay on her desk with a note under it, "Maybe one of these days, we can add the fourth one...." It was from Travis. She smiled and held the card and the single peony against her. Finding a straight pin, she pinned it to the lapel of her jacket and started to get busy. Even though it was still gray and raining, Su Ming felt warmer than she had for days.


Opening up the spreadsheet she started in again, only this time in a much better mood than she had been in for days. The spreadsheet required a password in order to open it and it had to be changed each time she closed it. So, she typed in the password, it was just a variable of one she used often, and hit the enter key. The error message said that the password was incorrect. She sit back and thought for a minute, she knew she typed it in correctly, she checked the caps lock to make sure it wasn't on and tried it again, this time paying attention as she entered each character and pressed enter. Once again, "the password you have entered is incorrect". Now she was puzzled. She tried the password from the day before, still the same error message. Knowing she had changed it before she had left the previous day, she could possibly not know what the problem was. She logged into the help desk and issued a priority help request. Within minutes, she got a response. Entering the information and the problem she was having, she waited for an answer. A few minutes later a young man arrived at her desk and said he was from the IT department to look at the spreadsheet. Su Ming got out of her chair and moved to one side. The young man quickly slid in and asked for the filename. "Chinablue" was the answer. Highlighting the file and checking it's properties he asked Su Ming the last password she had created and the time she created it. She informed him of the changed password and that it had been changed at 5:56pm the previous day. He asked if she had come back to the office later that evening and worked on it again. She said that she hadn't. "Strange, it shows to have been modified at 8:40pm last night." he said, half talking to her and half thinking aloud. "Does anyone else have access to this file besides you?" he asked. "No, no one except my supervisor and he is in Dallas, Texas at the quarterly meeting.” she informed him. "And the file is local to my drive and can only be accessed from my computer." she continued. "Maybe it was accessed from the network. You didn't happen to leave your computer on when you left work yesterday, did you?' he inquired of her. "No, I am sure I shut it down." she answered, "But it would have shut down anyway after 30 minutes if no activity had been sensed." she continued. "Then it had to be accessed form your computer." he said. Su Ming stood silently trying to think of anyone who had access to her computer. No one immediately came to mind. "Okay, I have reset your password and encrypted it for you. You shouldn't have this problem again. I applied 256 bit encryption, someone tries again, they will leave something behind we can use to find them." he told her smiling. It was all babble to Su Ming, technoese or geekese as she called it. She thanked him and politely ushered him away from her desk and got to work.


The first thing she wanted to see was if the spreadsheet had in fact been altered or modified. Opening the file, she ran a macro against it to see which columns or cells had been modified, if any had or if it had just been opened. As it was running, she checked her print spool to see if anything had been sent to a printer. She also accessed the events to see who might have logged on the evening before. Printer spool showed no activity and the macro was still running. She did notice on the event screen that she had logged in at 8:27 the evening before. "That is impossible!" she thought to herself. Her logon for her computer was different than the one she used for the spreadsheet and even though she had not changed it in a while, unlike the password on the spreadsheet which requires her to change it every time she closes it out, she was sure no one knew what it was. But it was getting very apparent to her that someone did. The macro had finished with the spreadsheet, SuMing unlocked her desk drawer and took out a cdrom and placed it in the reader. Renaming the file on her computer to chinablue01, she copied the chinablue backup file to her computer and ran the macro again. While she waited for it to run, she made a phone call to the network administrator to see how someone might have obtained her password.


Wong Fey was going over the server logs when his phone rang, "Wong Fey, network support" answering his phone. "Mr. Wong, this Chang SuMing with accounting. I need to find out a few things concerning my password." SuMing informed him. "Yes, how may I be of assistance?" He asked her. SuMing continued, "I have great concern that my password has been stolen and used to access my computer. When I came in this morning to work on a spreadsheet, I could not access it because it would not accept my password for it. I called the ITsupport center and the tech there came and took care of the password issue, but could not tell me how my password was stolen." "Hmmmmm....there are several ways a person can find out your password Ms. Chang. Most are done with using a virus that retrieves such information then sends it back to it's owner. Another way is to hack the login server and obtain the validation file that verifies your password before logging you into the network. And the last way is if someone has seen you type it in." he said finally. "Have you been keeping your virus definitions updated?” he inquired. "Yes, it is done automatically when I logon." she answered. "Any error messages after updating? Like unable to update a specific file?" he continued to ask her. "Honestly, I do not really pay attention to that, I just hope that it is updating properly." she said to him. "Have you run a scan on your computer lately? A complete scan?" he continued to ask. "Just the scheduled scans that support initiates." she answered again. “We need to check and see if your definition files have been updated and when the last scan ran." he said. He instructed on where to look for this information and she dutifully did so. It showed that the updates had been disabled about two weeks earlier and that no scan had ran since then. "That could be the problem." Mr. Wong informed her. He told her to enable the update and had her run the update program. When that was completed, he instructed her to run the file. "Be sure and close any active programs before you run the scan." he instructed her. She let him know she had a macro running at that moment and he suggested she close it until the scan completes. "You can always run the macro later.”The scan would see it as an active virus and delete it." he said. Once stopping the macro, SuMing started the scan. "Do not let the program try to clean or delete the file, if one is found. Quarantine it and I will retrieve the file to examine it." he further instructed her. "Call me right back if anything is found or if you have any further questions. I will keep my line open for you." he finished up.
It ran for about ten minutes or better when a splash screen appeared. "A suspicious file or possible virus has been detected. Would you like to clean, delete or quarantine this file?" She chose the option to quarantine and wrote down the path. It was in her system folder and it was linked to the file "chinablue". She immediately called Wong Fey back and informed him about the file. He thanked her and told her he would get back to her as soon as possible and to be sure a write an incident report on this as required. Now she was worried, she could not think how she could have been sent that file. Or who might have sent it to her. She racked her brain trying to think. The only person outside of the IT support group that had been on her system that she knew of was Travis. Her heart sank at the possibility it was him. And if it was Travis, then why would he do it. She trusted him. She slowly sank down in her chair and waited for Wong Fey's call.