Into the Fourth Universe

by Robert Wingfield

  “There’s no power on the socket, sir.”

  “I know that. Can you find out why?”

  “Oh, no, sir. I’m not qualified to look at the power. I’ll call a power engineer.”

  Twenty minutes later another man turned up. He took a look at the socket and gave a low whistle. “Ah, you have a non-standard fitting here, sir. I’ll have to return to the workshop and find a replacement…”

  At least it kept Tom occupied for the day, as he watched the various operations. The socket was duly dismantled and was discovered to lack any power to the floor unit, so another engineer had to be called to trace the circuitry; in doing so, an inactive listening device was discovered and removed. Eventually the four engineers put everything back together and dragged Tom’s desk back into position. Apparently there was no power at all to the socket. They then left the room, promising to advise the supervisor, who would apologise for the delay and devise a way forward. Tom sat back down and thumbed through a local guidebook in the meagre light from the window. The supervisor eventually turned up, and after spending some time under the desk with the meter was also unable to help.

  “Sorry, sir. Going forward, I think the only course of action is to call a recovery meeting.”

  “It really isn’t that important thank you.” Tom tried to decline the offer.

  “Really, sir, I have to insist. My team’s performance is not good enough in this instance. We must escalate as per due process.”

  “How long is this going to take?”

  “I’ll have a qualified recovery manager on the line as soon as possible, sir. I’ll return to my office and open the call. May I buzz you back when the meeting is convened?”

  “Of course.”

  The conference was quickly opened, and Tom counted over a dozen names, mostly from ‘Broguemine’, but the recovery manager was from Nishant and to Tom’s relief, fluent in Pangean. After the introductions and while the background of the problem was being discussed, Tom noticed a switch on the wall. He put the meeting on speaker and went to look more closely. ‘Auxiliary Lights’ it said in small letters. He depressed the switch and the ‘faulty’ device came on, along with a few standard lamps arranged in the corners of the room. He sat back at his desk. “It’s okay,” he said into the conference call. “I’ve resolved the problem.”

  There was a silence, and then the recovery manager came on. “We have to follow process I’m afraid, sir. We will have to detail an options analysis, and then submit a full report to prevent the issue recurring.”

  “There is no need; as I said, the problem is solved.”

  “May I ask how, sir?”

  “I switched the power on at the wall.”

  There was a silence as the Broguemine engineers put their unit on ‘mute’. It clicked back on and the supervisor’s voice came through.

  “I had no idea you were an engineer, sir.”

  * * *

  The downpour outside ceased, almost as abruptly as it had begun, and the room filled with sunlight. Tom operated the wall switch to turn off all the lights, and gazed out of the window. As he watched the exotic creatures scurrying around the jungle, he thought of his own exotic creature; Suzanne. They had said he was married in this universe; perhaps he could contact his wife; there was a chance she would be the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with (again). He got up and went into Amber’s office to ask her to check. She was working her way through the company web site. “I have my access now, sir.”

  “Good. At least something works.” He stood beside her and studied the screen. “Amber, I need to contact my wife. How do I get in touch with her?”

  “I think we can find it through ‘Constrictions’, sir.”

  “Right, can you show me what is available please?”

  “On ‘Constrictions’, sir?”

  “Of course. You can start by telling me what it is doing for us.”

  “That might be a bit difficult. I’ve been trying to work that out myself.”

  “Does it have a ‘home’ page?”

  “Yes, here.”

  “There’s a clue.” Tom pointed at a paragraph at the top of the screen.

  “We have been asked to justify why we have ‘Constrictions’,” it said, “and what it should be used for, so the Governance Team thought that a quick explanation would be in order.

  “The tool is specifically to enable interactive collaborative working across the whole organisation; it should now be used for all of your day to day operations: telephone lists and dialling, office documentation, document sharing, social interaction, customer orders and invoicing, payroll, human resourcing, joke sharing, fault tracing and rectification, security leaks, whistle blowing, incident management, change management, knowledge management, evil management etc. Please note the company standard usage policy, and that all interactions will be subject to scrutiny by the security forces because personal privacy and data protection laws are being specifically ignored by this organisation.

  Regards

  Abrams Tadd—Mass Infrastructures.”

  “Harsh, but transparent,” said Tom. “As a matter of interest, would you call up my office problem in the incident management section to see how it’s been reported? Here’s the reference number.”

  Amber typed in the details. The message, “We are remorseful but this component has not yet been mounted. Please revert to the original systems,” appeared.

  “No help there then. Can you try the telephone list instead, and get me a number for my wife?”

  The same message appeared. Amber tried several of the other links, always with the same result. “It doesn’t appear to work so good, sir.”

  “You seemed to be doing all right on it earlier. What were you looking at?”

  “The joke sharing section seems to be running fine, sir. I say, I say, I say, my doku has no nose…”

  “Yes, thank you for that. What else?”

  “I was also checking some of the three thousand forums you are a member of…”

  “Three thousand?”

  “Give or take…”

  “So how in Pangaea can I keep up to date with all those? How would I know which ones to check?”

  “Most of them have been set up but are not being updated. You will get an email when there is a change to any of them.”

  “Which reminds me, how do I get email?”

  “Through ‘Constrictions’, sir, but…”

  “The module hasn’t been installed yet. I know. See if you can get me a number for my wife through Reception or someone.”

  An hour later the intercom rang. Again there was that suspicious click. Tom decided not to report it; he simply did not have the time for the investigation. “I have Suzanne on the line for you, sir.”

  His heart leaped. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Tom, how are you?” It was the same voice he remembered from the other life, if a bit huskier. His hopes mounted but there was a background of music and voices which made conversation difficult.

  “Fine, thank you.”

  “I heard you had a blackout at the airport.”

  “Not a problem. Can we meet?”

  There was a short silence. “Face to face, you mean?”

  “Is there any other way?”

  “But we don’t ever meet,”

  “Don’t we?”

  “It isn’t seemly.”

  “But we are married aren’t we?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then why don’t we meet?”

  “Have we got business to discuss? Last time we met it was for business. Oh Phoist, you don’t want to start all that unpleasantness making babies do you?”

  “Not right at this moment, no.”

  “Then why do we need to meet?”

  “But we are married. Why shouldn’t we meet?” Tom was losing his patience. “I would like you here. I’ll send a plane for you… Where are you by the way?”


  There was another silence on the line and Suzanne’s voice came back faintly, “At home, where else would I be?”

  “Is that a party going on?”

  “I’ve got a few friends around for aperitifs and charcuterie.”

  “Shark? Have you been sea fishing?”

  “No, cooked meats; it is one of my hobbies.”

  “I never knew that.”

  “A new hobby.”

  “Good, then pack your friends off, pack the meat in ice, pack your bags and be here as soon as you can.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Don’t waste any time.” The line dropped. Tom went back to the other office. “Amber, can you organise a plane to pick my wife up?”

  “I would, but ‘Constrictions’ seems to have gone down again. I’m getting the message ‘Mist connection dropped’.”

  “Mist?”

  “Yes, apparently all our systems are now in the ‘Mist’. It’s a cheap way of getting rid of all our own hardware and hosting all operations over the internet on somebody else’s. That means we can blame them when things go wrong instead of our own people. The hosts also use it for selectively divulging secret information to foreign governments and occasionally for extortion if their company goes into liquidation.”

  “This is a weird universe. I can’t see anything like that happening in my own.”

  “Pardon, sir?”

  “Nothing, I was muttering to myself; first sign of madness, so I’m told. Anyway, what can we do about this ‘Mist’ connection?”

  “I’ll call Maintenance, sir.”

  Tom gazed at the supervisor with mild annoyance. “This is the second time you’ve been in here, today.”

  “Most regrettable, sir; it seems we have been unfortunate. I have a team investigating and there is a recovery call on-going.”

  “Why does that give me a sinking feeling?”

  “I’m sure they will sort it out, sir.”

  “Good. What have you checked?”

  “The internet line into the ‘Mist’.”

  “And?”

  “The telecoms company say it’s nothing to do with them; the line is normal and they can see activity.”

  “So it’s the ‘Mist’ provider?”

  “We spoke to them; they say that all our systems are operational and there are no problems recorded.”

  “Oh good. So where do you go from here?”

  “We have a recovery meeting, sir. Would you like to join it?”

  “No, I’m going home. Amber, call my car please.”

  * * *

  The following day, Tom was back at his desk. ‘Constrictions’ was still unavailable. He called in the maintenance supervisor. “Go on.” He steepled his fingers and gazed at the man. “What can you tell me about the problem?”

  “Good news; we’ve solved it, sir, and it wasn’t a problem…”

  “Then what was it?”

  “An issue, sir. We don’t use the word, ‘problem’, because it gives people the idea that there’s something wrong.”

  “Good; then why isn't my terminal working?”

  “Only a slight delay, sir.”

  “Go on, and no bullshit please.”

  “What, you want the true story?” The supervisor fidgeted. “I was always told to only give good news to the executive. Can I call my manager first to check policy, please?”

  “No, I want the details from you, not some massaged bollocks from middle management, who I fully intend to sack if their stories don’t match yours, by the way.”

  “Sack, sir? Management, sir? Why ever would you do that? We need to have management.”

  “It’s a common fact that the drawback with some larger organisations is that the leaders are deliberately kept in the dark by the lesser managers, who are so scared for their jobs that they massage the truth into what they think their leaders want to hear. Once I get email, I will be able to trace those people from the mails they send out.”

  “Mails?”

  “Yes, I’ll be able to spot the useless ones simply by looking at how many communications from their bosses they pass down with the heading, ‘for your information’, or worse still ‘FYI’”.

  “It happens a lot, sir, I’m afraid.” The supervisor was getting more confident.

  “Good. I’ll immediately promote you to Head of Operational Examination with a 100% pay increase and you can search out those people in your own emails and pass the list to me. Now, let’s relax in the comfy chairs for a chat.”

  The supervisor settled down with the drinks Amber brought for them. Tom passed some time in idle chat, finding out more about his new HOE and allowing the effect of the drink to loosen the man’s tongue, and then he began the real interview. “Right, tell me the actual truth behind what’s been going on. You can start with this ‘incident’.”

  The supervisor had a sip of his drink and then took a deep breath as the spirit bit into his throat. “It was a software upgrade, sir.”

  “Don’t they all? Systems are designed to run perfectly reliably until they are changed.”

  “It was a standard upgrade,” the supervisor continued, “the sort of thing that’s been completed many times before.”

  “Of course.”

  “We gave the Nishant people full step by step instructions.”

  “Who did?”

  “Our own specialists, sir, from SCT. Anyway, the Nishant guy was working late night because of the time difference, and was on his own.”

  “I thought they promised four people for every one of ours.”

  “They did, sir, but the rest of them didn’t turn up; one was sick, another had to pick his wife up from the station and the third was having a baby.”

  “The third one’s wife?”

  “No, the engineer herself, sir.”

  “I thought they didn’t let women do this sort of work over there.”

  “Not normally. We interviewed a man for the post, but it seems someone different turned up to do the job, and that someone was apparently a woman in disguise.”

  “I see. So we were left with only one man over there, tired after a sixteen hour shift—I presume they come in to work at their normal time, but go home when we do?”

  “No, they have to stay later so that they can make changes after we’ve gone home.”

  “Why do they come in early then?”

  “So that they can make system changes before we all start work, sir.”

  “A very long day. Anyway, he followed the steps…”

  “It has been done many times before.”

  “By?”

  “Our own people.”

  “And where are they at the moment?”

  “Laid off last week, sir.”

  “I see; go on.”

  “Unfortunately, he missed out one of the steps.”

  “Which one?”

  “System backup. He was running short on time.”

  “Oh dear. And the software upgrade didn’t work, I suppose.”

  “You are a techie, sir. I knew it!”

  Tom nodded. “I used to be, before I came to my senses.”

  “So he followed the back-out procedures, and when he came to the ‘restore’ section he restored from the last good back-up.”

  “Which was how much out of date by then?”

  “A week, sir; apparently nobody had been doing back-ups since our engineers departed…”

  “…were sacked, you mean—please be straightforward with me. I presume our guys didn’t want to leave?”

  “They did seem unusually cheerful about it as they were actually going, sir, being all professionals. However, I believe they resisted in the first instance, as did we all.”

  “Yes, I forgot you worked for Broguemine. Consider yourself rehired by SCT. I’ll get Amber to do the paperwork.”

  “Thank you very much, sir. Anyway, by then the next batch of overnight trans
actions was downloading, and overwrote some of the restored data.”

  “A bloody great mixed cock-up. So what happened next?”

  “The Nishant man panicked and tried to fix it himself. Apparently it would be what they call a ‘loss of face’ if he’d admitted there was anything wrong. It was only when the helpdesk lit up with customers complaining that there was an investigation started. We called a recovery meeting.”

  “I’m sure you did.”

  “The Nishant recovery manager panicked and was quite aggressive, trying to find out what the engineer had done. He shouted because the man was in a lower clutch than him, and in the end the engineer told him that he wasn’t employed to do twenty-four hour shifts and be abused, and walked off-site. We haven’t heard from him since.”

  “So how did we find out what had really happened?”

  “Guesswork and deduction, sir; Nishant couldn’t tell us anything because there were no records of what had actually been done.”

  “So where do we go from here?”

  “I don’t think anyone knows.”

  “I do. Get in contact with the engineers we’ve sacked and offer them anything you like, to get them back in.”

  “I think I can swing that, sir.”

  “Good, I’ll get Amber to type you a letter of authority, which I will sign, and you can use that.”

  “Type, sir? We don’t have any ability to type, what with ‘Constrictions’ being down.”

  “I’ll write it by hand then. I assume we still have pens and paper in this organisation?”

  He drafted the note, got it photocopied and put in the internal post to as many heads of department Amber could find. He gave the original to his new HOE. The man paused in the doorway of the office. “I hate to bring this up, but I have one last problem, sir.”

  “Go on.”

  “My 100% pay increase...?”

  “Active immediately... once we get Payroll back on line.”

  “It’s not a lot of help.”

  “It isn’t? Why?”

  “Pension, sir.”