Aaron fought the shiver skating up his spine as he turned to see Pastor Helps leaving his office and walking toward Julie’s desk. Aaron had to school his features as the creepy factor in the room quickly escalated. The guy looked a million times older than the statue outside. The vibe rolling off him wasn’t good at all. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what caused it, but he knew his blood pressure spiked right then. It took everything for him to stay put and not move away. Aaron looked around to see if any of the others experienced those same sensations and no one seemed to notice, which was odd for how strongly he was picking up the bad juju standing next to him. Aaron narrowed his eyes and looked back at the pastor.
“Let him look at it. I’ve gotta get this out soon,” Pastor Helps snapped.
“Can you call instead of email? You can use my phone,” Julie offered. She was clearly the most sensible of the bunch. As much as he wanted this to play out the right way, it was never wise to let anyone off the street in their systems. Just look at what I’m planning to do if you need proof.
“You know I can’t use your phone for this! Let him try. Can you fix it, son?” A hand clamped down on his shoulder, and the shiver he could no longer hold off rolled down his spine.
“Maybe God had this young man coming in when he did because of the evil in this world always fallin’ down upon us, Julie,” Stella, the receptionist, piped in from near the doorway.
“Amen, sister Stella,” came from someone behind him.
“Can I use your computer, Julie? I need the most up-to-date one you have,” Aaron said carefully, wondering if anyone in the room would know how ridiculous that sounded, but he figured the pastor probably had the most updated equipment out of anyone here, just based on his position, and it would kill two birds with one stone if he could get inside that office.
“That would be Pastor Helps. Do you mind, sir?” Julie asked, clearly caving under the pressure.
“Of course not, if you’ll get it working,” he said, shuffling aside to let Aaron up. Okay, this was working out better than planned. He couldn’t believe it. A large part of him had been prepared to walk inside the church offices and be immediately denied, turned away before he got his foot in the door. Instead, this played out in the best-case scenario. Thankfully, the timing helped. Pastor Helps was on a deadline.
Aaron followed the slow moving pastor into his office. Once behind the door, he resisted the urge to do a thumbs up in front of the cross pin clasped to his shirt. He was just so excited to be getting this far inside already.
“What do you need from me?” Pastor Helps growled, drawing him from his thoughts.
“Nothing, sir. Let me just take a look.” The pastor stood between him and the computer. When he didn’t move, Aaron lifted a hand toward the CPU.
“How long’s this gonna take?” Could he use any other tone than that snarled-sounding timbre? Did he preach sermons with that voice?
“There’s no way to know until I can sit down and see what’s going on, sir.” Aaron started forward, scooting around the pastor. He wouldn’t let the old man get cold feet now. He needed in their system. That was the only reason he continued talking. “If it’s a standard system restore, it won’t take thirty minutes.”
“Well, don’t touch anything on my desk.”
Aaron nodded and kept his face passive. The guy sounded more like an extremely old, grumpy grandfather than a motivating godly pastor of such a massive complex.
Aaron sat in the large leather chair and turned toward the monitor. He could see the pastor standing behind him through the darkened screen. Who knew if he planned to move or stand there watching him the whole time, which meant he’d have to hide the paths he took. Centering into himself, Aaron took a deep breath and began. He worked for several minutes before Pastor Helps moved from behind him to a seat at a small table nearby.
“What’re you finding?” Even though the sudden noise startled him, the evangelist’s voice might not have been so cold and annoying that time.
“It looks like a virus was downloaded, probably in an attachment somewhere. The staff needs to be more careful of things like this. People are too evil in today’s world,” Aaron said, watching the pastor in the reflective screen.
“I swear computers make the world a worse place. Can you tell who downloaded a virus? We don’t allow random searching on the internet. It goes against our doctrine. There’s nothing but the homosexual lifestyle of soul-damning, nation-destroying filth out there on the internet,” Pastor Helps barked.
“Yes, they do, sir. And yes, I can see if it’s traceable.” Aaron picked up his pace. He was currently working on creating a virtual tunnel. He kept his eyes down at the keyboard as he registered the webcam’s little flicker from the corner of his eye. It would be the only time that happened, but provided the verification he needed that he’d done this right. The screen went dark then wild numbers and letters flashed for a moment before going dark again. Accomplishment washed over him. He’d gotten in.
“Where do you call home?” Pastor Helps asked. Aaron was almost done. He rebooted the system and waited.
“Kansas, sir.” Between Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, he wasn’t sure there was much more of a Bible-beltish area. He hoped that gave him street cred in the religious community.
“I spent some time there. What church were you raised in?” The pastor seemed talkie now which made him a little nervous. He had hoped he could bullshit his way through any conversation thrown his way. The anxiety made his palms sweat, and he brushed his hands down his trousers at the same time the monitor lit up, drawing his attention to the screen. He was surprised they didn’t have password protection on this machine. That was a pretty standard requirement in today’s world. Actually, that made no sense.