RIVER STREET — At 3:17 a.m., a pair of visitors in dark coats walked into the Delancey data center wearing matching badges, carrying a clipboard, and shining a flashlight with a very long beam. The badges were fake. The clipboard was real. The flashlight was optimistic.
What the report said
Cold Spot Dave held the aisle between racks four and five at a steady 61 degrees. The room has no air conditioning on that side. The taller visitor noted it twice. The shorter one noted it once, quietly, and put the clipboard down.
Then a ghost from a different story drifted up through the floor in search of a missing heartbeat. We laughed. It laughed. We agreed we had this one covered. It left through the cable tray, and the visitors left through the door, at a run, with nothing they had not walked in with. The flashlight stayed on for a full minute after they were gone.
The answer is out there, in the aisle between racks four and five.
Status
Unresolved, which is our favorite kind of file. The night technician, who is paid to be there and was in the break room throughout, asked only that Dave be allowed to stay. Dave has accepted. He brings his own sweater.
Corrections. An earlier version of this article said the flashlight “gave up first.” The flashlight was on a break. It stayed on for another full minute.
