She had taken it all apart and cleaned the inside. She also rebuilt the armature and the field windings. Everything inside was brand new. Mr. Cain was surprised she knew how to rebuild the armature and field winding. The old stuff she removed sat in a green trash can she places old wiring and such to be recycled.

She uses a wooden dowel to turn the generator off. There was a short somewhere near the kill switch. She takes the switch apart and discovers where the short was in the wiring connected to the cutoff switch. She fixes it and starts the generator again.

Maria lets it run for a while before trying to turn it off. She tentatively reaches towards the switch and kills the generator. She was happy that one of the generators was done. She sets it aside and starts taking the second one apart.

She stops and takes her lunch at one in the afternoon. As Maria is walking to clock out. She checks her timecard to make sure her time was right. She grabs her heavy coat and gloves. She couldn’t believe how cold it was outside this morning when she went to catch the bus. She was wearing leg warmers on her legs and a heavy turtleneck sweater.

“Hey guys, I’m going down to Zeno’s for lunch. Do you want me to bring anything back for you?” Maria looks towards Tom and Brad as she walks towards the door.

“We’re good.” Tom knew Brad and he would be taking their lunch break after Maria came back.

“Okay.” Maria steps outside and shivers as the crisp, cold air hits her exposed cheeks.

Maria wraps her scarf around her neck and the lower part of her face. She hated cold weather because it caused her hands and legs to go numb. She walks down Princess Anne Road towards Zeno’s for lunch.

After walking about three blocks, she enters Zeno’s. The place was already busy. She waits in line to place her order. When it is Maria’s turn to order, she orders a footlong Hot Corned Beef and Cheese sub with Russian dressing and an order of homemade onion rings to go with it. She grabs a cold soda from the cooler to go with her order.

Maria pays for her order, and after it is ready, she heads back to Cain Electronics to eat in the break room. Mr. Cain didn’t like it when she ate in her workspace, which was out in the warehouse. The reason her workspace was out there was because of the household appliances she works on.

People brought their appliances to her to repair, because she was cheaper than the appliance repair company in the area. Also, she could rebuild the circuit boards and displays for everything. She sits down in the break room and watches television while she eats.

She only eats half her lunch. She labels the Styrofoam container to let everyone know it was hers. She knew Betty, their cleaning lady, came into the breakroom every Saturday to clean the place. That included the employee’s refrigerator. Anything left in there for two weeks was thrown out.

When Maria was done with her lunch break, she clocked back in and went back to work. The second generator was going to take her more time to fix. It was in worse shape than the first one. While Maria was working, the intercom in her workspace crackled, “Maria, can you come up front, please?”

Maria notices it was Tom’s voice that came over the intercom. Maria takes her work gloves off and wonders what Tom wanted. She walks through the swinging doors that separate the back from the front.

“What’s up, Tom?” Maria looks over towards Tom and notices an older man standing on the other side of the counter.

“This gentleman has a question for you.” Tom motions towards the man standing on the other side of the counter.

Maria walks over and looks at the man. He was old enough to be her father.

“What can I help you with, sir?” Maria looks at the gentleman.

“I was told you are very good at rebuilding electronic things and such. Have you ever recovered information from an external hard drive?”
Stephen has heard from a contact that Maria was good with electronics.

“I have, normally, most people send their external hard drives to the manufacturer to recover the information on the drives.” Maria wonders why this guy didn’t.

“How long would it take you to recover the information?” Stephen watches Maria’s facial expression.

“Depends on whether the information is encrypted or not. If it isn’t, not long at all. But if it is, it will take me a while.” Maria had some experience with cracking codes and such. She had to write a paper when she was in college on encrypting information.

“How long will it take you to retrieve the information?” Stephen wanted to see what was on this hard drive.

“About two weeks. I have several other jobs ahead of you.” Maria still had several jobs for Mr. Cain to do.

“Can you do it any sooner? I need to know what is on this drive.”

“Let me see what I can do. If the information is easy to recover, it shouldn’t take me long, but if it is encrypted, it will take a while.” Maria hopes it will be an easy job.

“Alright.” Stephen hopes this woman is good as he was told.

“I’ll need you to fill this paperwork out and leave a number I can contact you at.” Maria pulls one of the repair work orders out from under the counter and places it on the counter. She pulls a pen from a cup under the counter and hands it to him.

Stephen takes the pen and fills in the requested places on the work order. He notices the bottom had a disclaimer saying that if the item isn’t picked up in thirty days or paid in full. The shop has the right to sell it.

Stephen hands the pen and work order back to Maria. He watches as Maria looks over the form to make sure it was filled out properly. She tears the customer copy off and hands it to Stephen. “I’ll let you know tomorrow if the information can be recovered, sir.” Maria had a lot of work ahead of her.

“Thank you.” Stephen tucks the piece of paper into his pocket and leaves the drive to be worked on.

Maria covers her mouth as she yawns. She wonders what is so important about the hard drive. She takes the paperwork and hard drive back to her workspace. She plugs the drive into a laptop she uses and tries to access the drive.

Her laptop didn’t see the hard drive. She uses some specialized software to access the drive. She manages to gain access and notices that all the folders on the drive were encrypted. She uses another program to break into the folders. The program informs her that it will take six hours to crack the encryption.

Maria leaves the program running while she goes back to work on the generator. By the time Maria got the generator torn down. It was time to go home. She turns the screen off on her laptop and lets the program continue to run while she is gone.

Maria bundles up before she clocks out. She waves goodbye to Tom and Brad as she walks outside and across the street to catch the bus home. She and Vincent went grocery shopping on Sunday, so she had plenty of food for the next two weeks.

The ride home was quiet. When Maria walks into her apartment, she sheds her coat, scarf, beanie hat, and gloves. She tucks her hat and gloves in the pockets of her coat. The food in the crock pot smelled wonderful.

Maria goes into her bedroom and takes her boots off. She puts her insulated socks on because her feet get cold. She scoops up some goulash from the crockpot into a bowl and eats it.