by Mark Joseph
Seventy-two million dollars, half of it his. Ordinarily, he was already eating breakfast at Bernie’s, but this was going to be a long day and he was in no hurry. Shower, shave, ablutions, blue pinstripe, wingtips, a check in the mirror to verify his standard-issue yuppie good looks, then coffee and exactly two minutes of frenzied affection with the dog while he read e-mail in the kitchen. Old Blue had scanned the morning papers, culled his name and that of his company from seven articles, all of which referred to a new software contract with the bank to be formally announced that day, and displayed the news on the kitchen terminal of his house-wide net. He rapidly looked through the articles, reading only the headlines.
“Copeland Solutions to Announce Another Software Partnership with Chase,” declared the Wall Street Journal. “A Revolution in Dial-Up Banking Software to Be Unveiled by Venture Capitalist Donald Copeland and Chase Manhattan,” said the headline in the New York Times. All the articles carried variations on the theme, and Copeland reminded himself to congratulate Jody Maxwell, his PR director, on a job well done.
It was all a charade. By tomorrow morning the world would be in such a mess that neither the Times nor the bank would care a whit about new software for telephone customers. Copeland’s problem was getting through the day without revealing his giddiness over the robbery.
He flipped on the kitchen TV in time to see a report from Wellington, New Zealand, the first major city to be hit by the bug.
“… and so, to reiterate, an explosion in an oil refinery on the outskirts of Wellington at twenty minutes past midnight is competing with millennium fireworks to light up this charming city. So far, local electric power here and in Auckland has remained stable, but we have reports of blackouts in outlying areas. Rural districts seem to be the hardest hit, and local authorities are broadcasting instructions on emergency power. It’s not known at this time how many people in the affected areas can receive them.”
“John,” said the anchorman, “is it cold there in Wellington?”
“Well, we’re in the Southern Hemisphere here, William, and it’s midsummer, so the answer is no, it’s not cold, but many people are very, very frightened. The rest are, shall we say, seriously inebriated. After all, it is New Year’s Eve.”
Copeland turned down the sound and watched commercials flash across the screen. The world was beginning to disintegrate, but that wouldn’t stop anyone from trying to sell product. He turned back to the computer terminal and was ready to move on to personal messages when the phone interrupted his ritual. He grabbed it.
“Copeland.”
“You watching TV?” asked Bill Packard.
“Yes,” Copeland said. “It’s quite a show.”
“You predicted this,” Packard said. “You were right.”
“I wish I wasn’t,” Copeland lied. “You at the deli?”
“We’re all here.”
Bill Packard lived three blocks away with his wife and two kids. Partly by chance and partly by design, Copeland, Packard, Garcia and Spillman still lived in the Upper West Side neighborhood where they’d all grown up. Over the years Copeland had come close to bragging to them about his plans for Chase Manhattan. He would have loved to deal a hand of five card stud to his buddies and casually say, “Guess what I’m gonna do, fellas?” Packard and Spillman might think the scheme was clever and laugh it off, but he had no doubt Ed Garcia would put him away. It was hard to bullshit guys he’d known since he was three years old, but he’d been doing it for five years. What the hell, it would all be over in the morning.
“It’s going to hit Siberia in about forty-five minutes,” the doctor went on, “and two hours later, Japan.”
“Fuck the Russians and the Japanese,” Copeland said. “They’ll get what they deserve. How are things at the hospital?”
“I’m worried. Damn near every piece of equipment in the place has embedded chips, and none of them has been checked out.”
“That’s crazy,” Copeland said.
“I know. I gotta meet with the manager of misinformation services. These fucking bureaucrats don’t understand that this thing is serious.”
“Do you need help?”
“Hell, yes, but the powers that be say it isn’t in the damned budget, so I can’t even bring in help on my own. It sucks.”
“Did you sell your stocks?”
“Yes.”
“Take your money out of the bank?”
“Yes.”
“Stockpile food and water?”
“Yes, and batteries, too. What is this, an inspection?”
“Don’t forget candles,” Copeland said. “You can’t run the hospital, but you can look out for number one, right?”
“I suppose so,” the doctor said. “See you tonight?”
“I don’t think so,” Copeland said. “I’ll be in the office until well after midnight.”
“Well, stop by if you can. See ya.”
As soon as he hung up, the phone rang again.
“Copeland.”
“Doc here. You see the news?”
“Sure did.”
“It’s happening all over New Zealand. The refinery, traffic lights, rural power. The water mains shut down in Auckland. You coming in this morning?”
“Just like every other day, Doc. Jody and I have a press conference at nine-thirty with the bank.”
“I think the media people are going to be pretty busy this morning,” Doc said. “Don’t be surprised if they bail.”
“Nothing is going to surprise me today,” Copeland said.
“I wouldn’t be quite so cocksure, Donald. Everyone will be surprised today, even you.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Copeland agreed, sipping coffee. “Look, these air crashes and blackouts might have some of our people upset, but I don’t care. Everyone comes in today and works through midnight. This will be our busiest day ever.”
“That’s my Donnie boy, the slave driver. Don’t worry, boss. Everyone has been briefed.”
Copeland turned on his e-mail and recognized the first address as that of his ex-wife, Marie, a born-again Christian who sent an occasional message urging him to seek Jesus and read the Book of Revelation. He hesitated before opening the message. The old Chambers Brothers tune, “Time Has Come Today” was running through his head for no reason except that it often did. Tick tock, tick tock. Acutely time-conscious, Copeland wore a $12,000 Rolex to supplement the kitchen’s three digitals. Tempus fugit, yeah Jack, you got that right. Feeling his life ticking away as though it were running on an infernal Julian clock, he’d driven himself to succeed at every enterprise he’d attempted. You only get so many hours, he frequently told himself, and if you don’t impose order and discipline on every one, all was chaos. After two decades of this hard regimen, the result was a forty-three-year-old man drawn as tight as piano wire.
Copeland had become so obsessed with the delusional heist of Chase’s millions that anything that got in his way disappeared from his life. Over time, the list included his wife and son. Both had grown to despise his devotion to his business, his computers, and the companies he’d created. It had been three years since Marie had gone off her rocker and joined a Christian cult in Arizona. The previous year his son Eddie, at age eighteen, had declared himself a Luddite, antimachine, anticomputer and antibusiness, and had taken his trust fund and run away to Los Angeles. As it was, Copeland had discovered he preferred living alone with Micro and Old Blue, two creatures that were capable of unconditional love.
He sighed, opened his ex-wife’s e-mail and braced himself for the onslaught.
“Doomsday is here,” her message began. “The Millennium arrives tonight and with it the beginning of the thousand-year reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Only the righteous will be saved. The world as you know it will end tomorrow. Those who worship false gods will tremble before the Lord on Judgment Day. Give it up, Donald. Turn to Jesus.”
He didn’t need any fruitcake, wacko shit this morning, no way. Christ, the rel
igious right had had a field day for months, extracting every bit of mileage from millennium doom and destruction, and the irony was that they had no idea how right they were. The millennium was a big deal, but not the kind these goofballs imagined. Thank you, Marie, and good-bye.
Life, he thought, would be simple if you just got rid of all the people who were stuck on fixed ideas and absurd superstitions and thought they had all the answers. Computers were much better; they did what they were told and didn’t preach.
A thoroughly modern man, Copeland had developed the compartmentalization of his mind into a fine art. Guilt was neatly imprisoned in one lobe at the back of his brain where it couldn’t hinder his business, and the love he’d known in his life was buried somewhere nearby. He didn’t know why his kid was a Luddite or his ex-wife a religious nut; he knew only that they’d disappointed him, rejected his values—but not his money—and left him to pursue his cold passion alone. They were like an airplane crash on the Marshall Islands, a distant disturbance to be ignored.
Before leaving the house, he left an electronic note for the housekeeper to order dog food. He ran a quick scan of the security system, making sure windows and doors were locked tight, and said good-bye to Old Blue and Micro. Family business taken care of, he went down to the garage to drive to work.
* * *
The Porsche burbled quietly down 85th Street to Broadway where Copeland parked in a red zone in front of Bernie’s.
“If it isn’t the king of the yuppies in person,” Packard said as Copeland sat down.
“You’ve been cracking wise with the same shit for ten years, Bill.”
“You gonna eat?” Bernie hollered.
“Not today, Bernie.”
“Then what makes you think you can park in my red zone? Ed, give him a ticket.”
“I should,” the policeman said. “You gonna save the world tonight, Donnie?”
“Nope, but I’m gonna save a shitload of banks.”
“You hope.”
“You pays your money and takes your chances, right? Hey, I heard from Marie. The world is gonna end tonight. Be aware.”
“She’s right,” Garcia said. “You’ve been saying it for years. Bill sent his wife and kids to Maine.”
“Did they go?”
“Yeah.”
Copeland turned to Spillman and asked, “Did Shirley leave?”
“Are you kidding?” Shaking his head, Spillman stood up. “I gotta go run my store. See you guys.”
“I’ll go with you,” Packard said. “Let’s grab a cab.”
Copeland and Garcia remained at the table, and Copeland contemplated his old friend who would become his enemy in an instant if he knew the truth.
“We’re malingering,” Copeland said with a grin. “Is that against the law?”
“Donnie, if I didn’t know you for forty years, I’d think you were a real asshole. As it is, I know you are but I don’t care. You’re famous. People write about you in the Times. You eat lunch with the mayor. You’re smart and you’re rich, but when the lights go out tonight, you’ll be in the dark the same as everyone else.”
“Think so?”
“Hell yes.”
“Bet you a million dollars you’re wrong.”
“I don’t have a million dollars.”
“Okay, I’ll bet you ten bucks.”
“Fuck you. What’s really going to happen?”
“Nobody knows, Ed. Nobody really knows.”
Garcia stood, settled his elegant policeman’s cap on his head, paid Bernie, and added a generous tip that Copeland matched.
“You didn’t eat,” the deli owner protested. “What’s this for?”
“Happy New Year,” Copeland said and followed Garcia out onto the sidewalk. The captain scowled at the traffic flowing by in an orderly fashion and the people walking up and down at a normal, rapid pace. Pigeons fluttered and litter swirled in a mild breeze.
“The calm before the storm,” Garcia said. “What’s really going to happen in our town, Donnie?”
“There’ll be a run on the banks this afternoon,” Copeland said. “It’s been building for days, but today will look like 1929.”
“What else?”
“If Con Edison has its act together and the power stays on, we’ll be okay, but the subway system will die. The railroads will stop running because their control systems will crash, but they already know that. The water mains should be okay.”
“Stop. I get the picture.”
“It will be much worse in other places. New York will survive,” Copeland said, opening his car door. “Good luck.”
“See you in the morning?”
“Right here.”
Garcia waved and a patrol car materialized, slid to the curb and whisked him away.
Copeland started his car, flicked on a radar detector, punched the go pedal and let ’er rip. He howled and grinned like an outlaw down Broadway, busting through yellow lights and weaving in and out of traffic all the way to 57th where traffic finally slowed him down. The streets were deceptively empty, thousands of people having left the city for the long weekend. He continued on downtown to Wall Street. His fastest time for covering the distance between the deli and the garage beneath his office was twenty-three minutes and forty-seven seconds, and every morning his daily race against the clock took him right to the edge and set the tone for the day. No compromises, no discounts, and no surprises. He drove the way he conducted his business, with control that was hardly distinguishable from recklessness, squealing the tires, pounding the brakes, exulting in the rasping exhaust echoing off the stone-faced banks and brokerages.
Wall Street was jammed. Ordinarily, many people didn’t come in to work on New Year’s Eve, especially on a Friday, and everyone knocked off early in the afternoon. Not today with Y2K hanging over the street like a guillotine. Untold billions of dollars were at the mercy of countless computer systems that could never be properly tested before crunch time. There was no way to run proper simulations because no one knew what was going to happen. Copeland knew it would be bad, as the early reports from the Pacific indicated, and the street was already in a tizzy. He didn’t care. He’d have Chase’s millions, and if Doc’s software worked as well as it should, by next week he’d have more megabuck orders to repair failed systems than he could fill.
He zipped the last few blocks to Nassau Street and checked his Rolex: twenty-eight minutes flat, not great but not bad. Pulling inside, he parked next to Doc’s Jeep. Doc had installed a diesel generator in the garage, a satellite dish and solar panels on the roof, ostensibly to keep his legitimate Y2K customer-support people in contact with the company’s clients. If the worst happened, he was ready to transform the building into a fortress protected by barbed wire and automatic weapons, enough hardware to stop any millennium bug havoc at the property line.
Copeland rode the elevator up to Doc’s third-floor sanctuary, and was striding down a corridor when Doc’s office door popped open.
“Come in here,” the engineer commanded.
In nine years Doc hadn’t aged a day. The only thing that had changed was the clutter in his office. There was more of it.
“Take a look at this,” Doc said and gestured toward a TV. “The Secretary of the Interior is issuing the first government statement of the day.”
“Who’s in this morning?” Copeland said, ignoring the television.
“All the customer support people are here. They’ve started a pool to see how many airplanes will fall out of the sky.”
“Oh yeah?” Copeland said. “What a bunch of sickies. You in?”
“Sure. My hundred bucks is on number 12.”
“Don’t you have anything better to do, Doc?”
Doc had more to do than Copeland could ever imagine, but he shook his head and answered, “Nope. I’m gonna get stoned and watch TV all day. I haven’t taken a day off in five years.”
He stretched and grinned and watched the screen. He had his own charade to perform
that day in order to keep Copeland from discovering the Midnight Club during the most critical hours. If the Midnight Club was going to preserve any vestige of civilization in the city, they didn’t need Copeland suddenly throwing a hissy fit in the middle of a crisis.
“How’d you like the oil refinery in Wellington?” Copeland asked. “That was something. How many refineries do we have in metro New York? Four or five?”
“Eighteen,” Doc said, “and they should shut them all down now, but they won’t.”
On TV the Secretary of the Interior was saying, “We caution people not to panic. What is happening in New Zealand and Micronesia is not going to happen here. The Department of the Interior and the Department of Energy have assurances from all the major power companies throughout the country…”
The television director cut away from the secretary to the anchorman, who said, “We can return to the secretary’s press conference in a moment, ladies and gentlemen, but we have more breaking news. We’re going … where? Yes, La Guardia airport in New York City and Ellen Rothstein. Ellen?”
“Yes, William, as you can see behind me, a spontaneous demonstration has broken out here at La Guardia Airport.”
The camera zoomed in on a crowd of protesters who were marching and chanting, “Not safe! Don’t fly! In the sky you’re gonna die!”
“Jesus,” Doc said. “That’s pretty funny, actually, and good advice.”
“People are panicking and refusing to get onto planes,” the reporter said.
“To hell with this,” Copeland said. “What’s up with the bank?”
An irrepressible smart-ass, Doc lit a Camel and asked, “What bank?”
“C’mon.”
“Oh, that bank. They’re waiting to hear from the Federal Reserve. The Fed wants to shut down all electronic fund transfers for 24 hours, but the big banks are protesting. When the banks suggested that two years ago, the Fed said no. Now they’ve switched sides. Typical government assholes.”