Deadline Y2K (21 page)

“Yes. I called them. They don't have anyone qualified to work on capacitors or voltage regulators. They said they checked them.”

“Are you prepared to isolate ConEd from the grid?”

“I am, but the company isn't. They've been arguing about it all day. I have to go. God bless you, Doc, whatever it is you think you're doing.”

She handed him three Zip disks and disappeared into the crowd.

*   *   *

Crossing Washington Square, an urban oasis with trees, chess players and a children's playground, Doc sat on a bench to watch a young father push a two-year-old on a swing. Back and forth, back and forth. The toddler giggled with delight. Somewhere nearby a dog barked. Cars milled around the perimeter, hunting for parking. Tranquil and unassuming, the park beneath the triumphal arch at the foot of Fifth Avenue was heedless of the coming storm.

Things were either deadly serious or so trivial they were laughable. There was no middle ground. Bombay was ablaze and with it probably half of India. He could walk over to the newsstand on the corner and find out, or go back to Nassau Street and watch TV, or sit in the park and watch a guy push his kid on a swing. He could think about this being a perfect moment for a military strike. India's computers were malfunctioning, her communications failing, her populace in massive disarray. She was weak and vulnerable. Her hostile neighbor Pakistan had a two-hour window in which her systems would be in order while India's were breaking down, giving the Muslim nation an advantage over her Hindu rival. Pakistan could attack India with a preemptory strike without fear of immediate retaliation.

Doc was certain every nation was on yellow alert, including the United States, and bracing for the worst. The worst wouldn't happen. If men wanted to wage war on this day, they'd have to kill one another with small arms, broadswords and bare hands. A modern nation's ability to make war and defend itself depended on computers. Military computing was several generations behind civilian technology for the simple reason that military computers had to be exceptionally reliable. Anything that worked was never replaced. As a consequence of this inherently practical conservatism, military computers running old software were extremely vulnerable to the millennium bug. An F-16 was a maze of cybernetics. A tank had a dozen computers and hundreds of embedded chips, a ship several thousand. Guns, rockets, missiles, helicopters, torpedoes, radars, sonars, mines, bombs and communication devices all depended on computers. Some would work, but enough were infected with the bug to reduce the world's military capability to the lowest level in a hundred years. That, thought Doc, will be our saving grace in the days to come.

The bug was producing only the first of the 21st Century's computer meltdowns. Such a tiny bug, and it wasn't a bug at all in strict computer parlance. A proper bug was an inadvertent programming error. The millennium bug was a deliberate programming decision made for financial reasons. In 1960 a megabyte of memory cost three million dollars, and dates ate memory. Drop the “one” and the “nine” and save dough. That's all there was to it. Cost considerations. The millennium bug was about money from the beginning, and it was going to be about money in the end. It was burning Bombay. It had ravaged Tokyo. It had left a half billion people without heat on a freezing night, all because the world had adopted the American way: save a buck today and to hell with tomorrow.

Tomorrow would arrive like a firestorm in less than nine hours. Tick tock. It was after 3:30 and counting.

Bo needed the files on the Zip disks, so Doc reluctantly left the park and walked south toward Nassau Street. If he didn't get the override passwords, it was Plan B. Life didn't arrive with operating instructions, or if it did, he'd thrown them away.

*   *   *

Copeland and Jody entered the Chase Manhattan building in the Metro Tech Center and approached a granite desk staffed by two women in blue security uniforms. On the counter behind them Jody spotted a six-inch ball of white fuzz, a toy polar bear wearing a tiny T-shirt inscribed, “Year 2000. We're Ready.”

“Donald Copeland and Jody Maxwell to see Dr. Schwarz.”

“Welcome to the Tech Center, Mr. Copeland. I have badges ready for you.”

“We're expected?”

“Oh, yes, by all means.”

A clipboard appeared and they signed in. A guard clipped plastic visitor ID cards to their lapels, and at the elevator another guard checked their badges. A moment later on the fourth floor their IDs were inspected again. Copeland led Jody down a corridor lined with heavy security doors marked with incomprehensible acronyms. Suddenly a pair of doors swung open and Jody glimpsed rows of computer screens, a crowd of people in New Year's Eve hats, balloons, confetti and a blue-and-white banner stretched across the room, “Year 2000! We're ready!”

The day shift of sixty-five Y2K programmers stood at their terminals and broke into applause.

“Cope-land, Cope-land,” they chanted like a herd of college sophomores, whom they resembled.

“Did you know about this?” he asked Jody.

“I had no idea.”

Two older women in business suits emerged from the crowd and came toward them, Dr. Schwarz, head of the Tech Center, and Dr. Neiman, chief of the Y2K group.

“Donald! Welcome,” gushed Dr. Schwarz. “We've been expecting you. Dr. Downs said you'd drop by today. And this lovely lady must be Jody Maxwell. Hello, dear, welcome to the Tech Center.”

At first stunned, nonplussed, amused, then thrilled, Copeland beamed like a movie star at the applauding crowd and held up his hands to receive the accolades. Introductions were followed by champagne and a rendition of “For he's a jolly good fellow.” Dr. Schwarz pinned “Year 2000. We're Ready” buttons on her guests, and Copeland, feeling ready to die of anxiety before he discovered what was in Doc's hidden program, had to endure an impromptu receiving line, accepting congratulations and shaking hands with the troops. Someone took his overcoat and handed him a glass of champagne.

“You did a great job, Mr. Copeland.”

“Thanks.”

“I heard the Bank of Manila came through with flying colors.”

“Thanks.”

He forced himself to make nice and answer a battery of technical questions. Finally, he whispered tersely to Jody, “Find a terminal, access diagnostic 18B and have it check File 437 in the EFT subset. Can you do that?”

“Give me your authorization code.”

“Use yours.”

“No.”

He hesitated, then hissed, “Micro.”

“That's your dog's name.”

“Go on, Jody. Do it.”

He nudged her toward the work area, and she wandered among the rows of cubicles that filled the windowless room. Curiously, she saw no TVs or radios and realized the Tech Center was isolated from the bedlam rushing toward New York. Not completely isolated—she spotted a
Daily News
someone had brought in from lunch—but buffered. The people surrounding Copeland had been cooped up all day. When the swing shift came in at 4:00, things would be different. They'd been at home watching TV.

In the last row of cubicles she found a schoolmarmish young woman still working.

“Too busy to party?” Jody asked.

“Some things can't wait. This is the daily close-out.”

“How's it going?” Jody asked, peering at the woman's ID badge, “Martha?”

“Slow,” Martha replied. “The Federal Reserve closed the banks and all our branch managers are totaling out for the day, so it's slow. It's always like that at the end of the day, even if the day ends early. Do you work here?”

“No, I'm from Copeland.”

“Oh, gee, your people have been great.”

“Thanks,” Jody said. “Do you mind if I run a diagnostic on your terminal when you're finished? We've been meaning to test one here.”

“I guess so. Sure. This is over now.”

Jody glanced at the screen and saw a fireworks screen saver and a message, “Hello, Martha. Happy New Year.”

“Do you mind?” Jody said as she eased her away from the terminal, hit the keys and brought up Diagnostic 18B. The screen asked for authorization, and she typed in “Micro.” The monitor went black and then the fireworks popped up and, “Hello, Donald. Happy New Year.”

Jody thought: Oh shit, what next, and Martha giggled. “It's been doing that to everybody all day. Is your name Donald?”

“He's my boss,” Jody said. “Donald Copeland.”

“
The
Donald Copeland?”

“The very same.”

“Are your sure you can use his password?”

“He's here,” Jody said. “Let's ask him.”

Jody went back into the crowd and returned with Copeland in tow. He stared at the screen and blinked several times, his mouth frozen in an idiotic, toothy grin.

“Well?” Jody asked. “Should I run it?”

Intrigued, the tech center's senior staff had followed him to the terminal. He glanced at them crowding around, full of good cheer and sipping champagne, and their closeness made him feel lightheaded, as if he were being led to his execution. For all he knew, Doc's program could kill the bank right then and there.

“What is this, Donald? A little preview?” asked a smiling Dr. Schwarz.

“It's just a minor diagnostic,” Jody said. “We don't want any surprises, do we?”

Copeland was white with terror, but he said, “Run it.”

Jody accessed file 437 and hit “run.”

The diagnostic file presented a simple graph that showed the number of lines of code to be checked and the percentage checked. The number quickly jumped from 1% to 12 to 35 and right up to 100%, and then presented a message:

Code Compliance 100% Verified

For reverification go to Old Blue

Reverify now? Y/N

Copeland fainted, crumpling to the floor as if he'd been shot. The crowd gasped. Eyes flicked back and forth between the fallen man and the screen. Within seconds he regained consciousness, and when he opened his eyes, Jody was leaning over him.

“Donald?” she said, her voice trembling with panic. “Donald? Are you all right?”

The message was reverberating in his head, “Old Blue, Old Blue.” Doc was sending him home to his pet computer after bouncing him to Brooklyn as part of a ridiculous practical joke. There was nothing he could do about it. Perhaps, he thought, he deserved to be the victim of Doc's morality play.

He blinked. Jody's face was inches from his and he noticed her look of alarm. He asked, “Why am I on the floor?”

“You passed out.”

“I what?”

“You went out like … like a Russian power plant.”

“Are people staring? Oh, God,” he groaned. “I did. I've made a fool of myself.”

“It's a good day for that,” Jody said. “It's perfectly understandable.”

“He fucked me,” Copeland muttered. “The bastard fucked me.”

“Shut up, Donald,” Jody hissed. “Just be quiet.”

“Is he all right?” several people asked at once.

“Yes,” she said, turning to face them. “He's okay.”

“The code isn't here,” he said to her. “It's in Old Blue.”

“Will you be quiet?” she whispered forcefully. “Can we talk about this later?”

“They'll know. They'll all find out.”

“Shut
up,
Donald, for God's sake.”

“What happened, Ms. Maxwell?” asked Dr. Schwarz, coming over and helping Copeland raise himself to a sitting position.

“I'm not sure,” Jody said, thinking to herself, by God, I'm covering for him again. “It's been a very stressful day. I don't think the champagne was a good idea.”

“What does this mean, go to Old Blue for reverification?”

“I can tell you,” Copeland said. “Old Blue is a proprietary internal diagnostic we use to verify the diagnostic programs themselves. Jody must have used a Copeland password instead of a Chase authorization. Hit ‘Y' for yes and you'll see the program. You have it under a different name.”

Martha punched the button, and the computer ran a conventional verification program with no surprises, as he knew it would. He pushed himself to his feet and tried to recover his dignity, but it remained on the Tech Center floor.

He walked unsteadily to a chair, sat down, asked for a telephone and dialed Doc's cellphone.

“Doc here.”

“I'm at the Tech Center,” Copeland said.

“That's a nice place to be. Having a good time?”

“What's the point to all this, Doc?”

“Go home to Old Blue and find out.”

“And if I don't?”

“Then you'll find out something else,” Doc said.

“Don't you have anything to say?” Copeland whined.

“Nope. I'm busy.”

“Where are you?”

“Not in Brooklyn. Call me when you get home, as I'm sure you will. Bye, Donnie.”

Click, dial tone. Copeland stared at the phone and hung up, defeated. Jody forced him to drink a cup of coffee, be polite, say thank you and good-bye before hurrying onto the elevator, past the security desk where they turned in their badges, and out of the building.

“I'm going to kill him,” Copeland shouted at Myrtle Avenue. “I'm going to murder the son of a bitch.”

Copeland was so enraged and Jody so concerned that neither noticed immediately that no traffic was moving on Myrtle Avenue. A stillness filled the air, pierced by the wail of a police siren not far away. Then came the crackling din of firecrackers. The acrid sting of tear gas caught them by surprise. Jerked to their senses, they looked around and saw a blue line of police in riot gear and gas masks stretched across the four-lane avenue and moving at a steady pace from right to left toward Cadman Plaza, a block away.

The plaza was filled with smoke and gas, and they heard shouts and more firecrackers detonating in the distance. A white van painted with the logo of New York 1 cablevision followed ten yards behind the cops.