Cory Doctorow's "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth": Pretty mundane doomsday story

This one reminded me of the dozens of nuclear holocaust novels during the cold war period - only this is not a particularly good one.

Story sometimes contains language that some will find offensive. Also contains computer jargon.

Full text of this story is available online.

Story summary.
Felix Tremont is a sysadmin (computer systems maintenance engineer). He lives in Toronto with his wife Kelly & baby son William (aka 2.0 - inspired from common software version numbering schemes!). He works for Ardent Financial LLC; job is to ensure that their data center keeps running.

He gets a system trouble call in the middle of the night. Goes to data center, & finds a lot of chaos. Looks like a major internet-based worm attack - lots of sysadmins in data center, including his deputy Van.

They work all night. Early morning, he gets a call from wife that their child has died. While getting out of building, he sees a nearby tower collapse. Goes back in. Slowly, it is revealed that there have been concerted attacks the world over on all cities - nuclear, biological, ... His son died of biological attack; he wife will also die of it. Data center is sealed, & those inside will live.

Over the following days, we learn that all governments in world have collapsed, except China. Zero response from military or security forces. Apparently, China survived by acting fast & ruthlessly against attackers.

We never learn who the attackers were or what they wanted. Only conjectures that they were all different organizations working to different purposes, & they probably used internet to coordinate the attacks.

Rest is the story of living through the next few days quarantined in data center with dwindling supplies. When they emerge, the world is gone. Only a few survivors. They try to make the best of this bad world.

Fact sheet.
When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth, short story, review
First published: Jim Baen's Universe, August 2006
Rating: C

Included in these anthologies.

1. David Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer (Ed)'s "Year's Best SF 12".