Spike and Roger had been working with Pete Warwick on the diagnostics file that came in piggybacked on MEMOREX 333's status message. They didn't notice that three hours had gone by. Roger was having the time of his life. It showed in the way he grouched about everything they were doing. Everything he ever knew about D.O.D. and Intelligence Agency data handling was coming back to him like he'd never left it behind. Roger enjoyed showing off for Spike.

When Pete said he needed a few minutes to reinstall a compiler, Roger decided a fifth cup of coffee was in order. What the hell, why not? He'd only had three hours of sleep before the goon squad showed up. Off to the Pentagon ordinance kitchen, complete with its lowest-bidder coffee-maker. Yum!

Roger was moving like a zombie as he walked down the hallway. What mental energy he had was entirely focused on the problem of deciphering the diagnostics. He came out of the trance when he walked in the kitchen door. Nancy had beat him to the coffee-maker by a minute or so. Roger was glad to see her. And alone, even better.

Nancy: Roger, I'm glad to see you. I was just wondering how I could get you out of there.

Roger: You know how to whistle, don't ya?

Nancy: Knock it off. I need to talk to you.

Roger: Sure, just let me get at the coffee before you say another word. I'm starting to fade.

Nancy: Starting!? You look pretty bad.

Roger: Is that what you wanted to talk about?

Nancy: No, I've seen you a lot worse than this.

Roger: This is getting better all the time.

Nancy: Listen, I've got a strange feeling about all this. I don't think we've been getting the whole story. Something else is going on here.

Roger: Yeah, I've had that same feeling. I thought it was just me.

Nancy: Have you noticed anything specific?

Roger: Yeah, a couple things. First, Pete doesn't seem to be himself. He's kind of jittery or something. Maybe it's nothing. I mean nobody here has had any sleep and all hell is breaking loose with their project. I figure I'd be a little tight if I was him.

Nancy: You said you noticed something else?

Roger: This one bothers me more. They said they had Internet listeners set up for agent communication. I've seen enough of the raw data in that message to know it did, in fact, come from the Internet.

Nancy: Then what's the problem with that?

Roger: It just doesn't fit to a wartime scenario. 333 can't rely on Internet communication in a battle situation. That's ridiculous. And let's say it's just for simulation purposes. Why multiple listeners? Why any listeners? Just have him route straight into home base. I can't figure that out. It seems like he's better suited to peacetime operation, but then what's he going to do with all those weapons? It doesn't add up.

Nancy: Well, here are a couple more things to add to the list. What is the FBI doing here? I don't think D.O.D. would work with civilian authorities on some project gone haywire. They'd have to be in a bad situation to ask for help from the FBI, wouldn't they?

Roger: That's a good point. I never heard of this kind of cooperation while I was in intelligence.

Nancy: And get this, at my house this morning, Agent West went off on a rant about how he got his butt chewed up one side and down the other by his section director. West said their people are really worried about what might happen. What I don't understand is how would they know to be that worried? Is D.O.D. keeping the FBI up-to-date on their secret software development efforts? I doubt it.

Roger: This is starting to feel really strange. Why would Dunn keep us in the dark? He's just making it worse for himself.

Nancy: don't think he knows. They just sent him out here to shut down the project. How much does he have to know to shut it down?

Roger: That one's hard for me to buy. It would have to be a pretty good secret to risk not telling him.

Nancy: And you think Washington recognizes the risk? You give them too much credit. In this world, stupidity explains a lot more than conspiracy.

Roger: Well we're about to get some answers. I think there's a lot more information in that diagnostics file. Now, I can't wait to see what that message meant.

Nancy: Which part?

Roger: The big question now is the targeting status. Remember, 333 said it had a secondary target definition loaded. Pete kind of skimmed over it quickly, but the clock is definitely ticking. I think the targeting profile is in the diagnostics data. Maybe I can copy a section off while no one's looking. I'll play dumb until I get a shot at it.

Nancy: That shouldn't be too hard. I'll try to find out if Dunn is holding back anything.

Roger: Hey, I've got secrets too, you know.

Nancy: None that I want to hear about.

Just then Malcolm Dunn's voice came over the intercom paging Roger and Nancy to the control room. He sounded like he had something big going on so they hurried back to join the others. When they got there, everybody's eyes were glued to the big screen. A CNN stringer was making her live news report from in front of an airplane hanger. Field personnel were hurrying back and forth to get cargo bins moving. The caption at the bottom of the screen read: Louisville, Kentucky.

Reporter: As you can see behind me, things are in a state of utter confusion here at AFX's hub. Company officials have said the problem is a minor computer system glitch. They were expecting everything to be back on track an hour ago, but that obviously hasn't happened. An early report this morning speculated that a computer systems analyst who was fired last week may have set off this string of system failures through a time bomb left in the computer. Company officials are now denying that anyone in the computer department was fired last week.

They are also denying that the problem is significantly impacting their operation. They state that customers should remain confident in their shipping, and I'm quoting now "though a small percentage of customers may experience a one-day delay in their shipment deliveries." Our sources say otherwise. To quote one of AFX's own international cargo handlers, "if it absolutely, positively has to go anywhere this week, you better have somebody else do it."

Indications now point to a series of critical breakdowns in AFX's data systems. One senior computer engineer told this reporter that the destruction they've experienced must have been caused intentionally. She indicated that very specific data had been destroyed. Unlike the random damage caused by software or hardware failures, these looked to her like the work of someone who knew what they were doing. No one is saying it yet, but many people here have wondered if this crime is the work of some kind of new, high-tech terrorist group.

This is Kelly Anderson reporting from Louisville.

Pete Warwick clicked off the volume and the group stood looking at each other. They all knew the reporter's guesswork was wrong. And the project team members knew it was their creation that had just decimated the operation of one of America's favorite business success stories.



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