Its lower access panel had been pried partly open. Inside, several bundled fiber lines had been cut cleanly through. The red-handled shears in my yard suddenly made sense.
Vivian had not just cut my internet. She had cut the neighborhood trunk. And Alder Crest was going dark one house at a time.
The outage spread faster than the explanation. By nine o'clock, every street in Alder Crest had lost fixed internet service. The provider's status page showed a red banner over our entire development and part of the shopping strip outside the entrance.
Estimated restoration time: unavailable. That phrase did more damage to neighborhood morale than any dollar fine Vivian had ever issued. People began walking out of their houses holding phones like compasses.
Some stood in driveways trying to catch enough cellular signal to join meetings. Others loaded laptops into cars and headed for coffee shops.
The accounting office at the entrance locked its front door because its payment terminal, cloud phones, and document system were all down.
A home-based graphic designer drove to her sister's apartment across town with two desktop towers in the back seat. A man on Birch Lane shouted from his porch that he had a job interview in twenty minutes.
Vivian stayed beside my driveway and watched the confusion gather. For once, she had nothing useful to say. I called the provider's outage line and gave them the ticket number from the previous week.
When I described the open cabinet and cut trunk lines, the representative's tone changed immediately.
"Do not touch anything in or around the cabinet," he said. "A field crew is being dispatched."
"I won't."
"Was this construction damage?"
I looked at Vivian.
"No."
There was a pause.
"What caused it?"
"A person with pruning shears."
Another pause.
"We're escalating that to network security and damage claims."
Vivian stepped closer.
"You don't need to make this dramatic."
I covered the phone microphone with my thumb.
"You cut a live neighborhood communications trunk."
"It is a cable."
"It is several hundred people's connection to work, school, phones, alarms, and services."
"You are exaggerating."
My neighbor, Nina, had crossed the street by then. She was still wearing slippers and held her laptop against her chest.
"Am I exaggerating?" I asked her.
Nina stared at Vivian.
"My husband is presenting to a client in London from his car because our house is offline."
Vivian opened her mouth. Nina kept going.
"My daughter is home sick and her pediatric appointment was supposed to be virtual at nine thirty."
"That is unfortunate," Vivian said, "but this is being blamed on me without proof."
I pointed toward the shears lying in my side yard.
"You left your tool."
"They are not mine."
I almost admired how quickly she changed positions. Five minutes earlier she had admitted correcting the violation. Now she was preparing to deny the scissors existed.
Harold, the board member who had sided with me, arrived next. He had a printed copy of the HOA's emergency contact sheet in one hand.
"Why is the clubhouse internet down?" he asked.
"Because the neighborhood fiber trunk was cut," I said.
He looked at the open cabinet. Then at Vivian. Then at me.
"No."
"Yes."
He closed his eyes.
"Please tell me she did not do this over your cable."
Vivian snapped, "Nothing has been established." Harold turned to her.
"Did you enter the utility easement?"
"I inspected an ongoing violation."
"That is not what I asked."
She stared at him. He repeated the question.
"Did you open that provider cabinet?"
"I found it unsecured."
"You opened it."
"I moved the cover."
Harold lowered the paper in his hand.
"Did you cut anything inside?"
Vivian's jaw tightened.
"I removed loose cable that had been routed through association landscaping without approval."
Nina made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a gasp. Harold looked as if he had aged five years in one minute.
"That cabinet is in a recorded utility easement," he said.