A green checkmark appeared. The host’s summary page loaded—CPU usage, memory, the names of the VMs. He clicked on the SQL Server VM. The console window opened, not a black rectangle of despair, but an actual, responsive VGA console showing the Windows Server 2008 login screen.

“It’s the client,” Leo muttered, rubbing his eyes. “The web client is a lie. It’s a beautiful, single-page-application lie. It shows me the datastores, but it won’t let me browse them. It shows me the VMs, but the console window is just a black rectangle of despair.”

The page loaded. It was a monolith of links, a frozen museum of binary artifacts. There was “VMware Tools 5.1.0 ISO,” “vCenter Server 5.1.0 Appliance,” “ESXi 5.1.0 Update 3,” and a dozen other files with names longer than a Tolstoy novel. But what he needed was specific.

Maya grinned. “You saved the Midwest’s perishable goods.”