by Mark Joseph
Fifteen million barrels of fuel oil were stored next door to the East River power plant on 14th Street. Pipelines delivered oil from these storage tanks to the other plants in the city. The reliable supply of fuel oil was the first link in the automated process that transformed petroleum into electricity, and the flow of oil through the pipes was controlled by date-sensitive computers. At the power plant, using computers at every stage in the process, oil was weighed, tested for quality, processed with additives, transferred to furnaces and burned, heating boilers in which water was turned into high-pressure steam that pushed against turbines spinning at dizzying speed, rotating generators and producing electricity. The average fossil fuel power plant had 600 computer applications running on forty systems. Five thousand embedded chips controlled valves, sensors and gates. The electric current manufactured by the plant was transmitted, distributed and blended with the output of other plants through a matrix of systems, substations, transformers, rectifiers, relays, and switches with computers at every step. The grid connected the power plants together into one unified system that made the most efficient use of the moment-to-moment capacity of the grid as a whole. At the same time, the computer-controlled connections between components of the grid were the part of the chain most vulnerable to the millennium bug and the least tested. Large utilities that had spent hundreds of millions on Y2K remediation could be pulled down by smaller companies without the resources to become fully compliant.
Doc and Deep Volt had exchanged e-mail for a year before they met, then played cloak-and-dagger games, meeting in odd places, passing information back and forth, learning to trust one another. An outspoken but thoughtful systems operator, her name was Sarah McFadden, an overworked, good-humored, middle-aged African-American mom with four kids.
On 14th Street, Doc leaned against a wall to scan the crowd. The intersection was jammed with traffic, the twelve-foot sidewalks bustling with urgent errands. Harried people crowded into little groceries and delicatessens to buy as much as they could carry. Doc guessed half were preparing for New Year’s Eve; the others were laying in supplies for a siege. There was an end-of-the-world giddiness in the air and an edge in people’s voices. If the power went out, it wouldn’t be like Tokyo. People in New York owned hundreds of thousands of guns. In the 1977 blackout, looting had started seconds after the lights blinked off. Mayor Giuliani’s new, improved, polite New York was a thin veneer of civility that could vanish in an instant.
No one was shooting yet. Instead, music was in the air, a weirdly incongruous country and western tune blaring from a car radio about a hard-luck truck-driving man whose woman still loved him no matter how bad he screwed up. “Oh, America,” sang the cowboy, “you know how to forgive. You are vast and have room for us all, even sinners like me.” Doc tapped his boot to the simple beat as he searched the stream of faces for Sarah.
To his left Doc could see the red brick stacks of the East River Power Station, a key component in his plan to keep power up and running in Manhattan. Left on its own, the plant would fail. Bo had broken into every system, copied every application and database, and found fatal errors he knew were not corrected. At one minute after twelve, the Midnight Club’s first order of business was to take control of the program Con Edison called “the functional override” that transferred operational control from the primary to the first backup. Authorization to open the functional override file required the missing password.
Deep beneath the sidewalk, an accelerating subway rattled the concrete, and a flood of humanity issued from the exit. Sarah was among them. A quintessential New Yorker, she carried herself with a magnificent confidence that reminded him of the tall woman he’d seen that day in midtown. It made no difference that Sarah was five-six and weighed two hundred pounds. Her eyes shined with intelligence, and she never lost her smile.
“There are some passwords I just can’t get,” she said. “The functional override controls are among them.”
“We’ll manage,” Doc said, disappointed.
“I don’t see how.” Sarah’s brow developed a tiny furrow, the closest she ever came to a frown.
“Maybe I’ll break into the control room with a machine gun and say, ‘Hands up! Give me the password or eat hot lead!’ Just like in the movies.”
“If you do, I’ll let you in,” she said with a chuckle. “We could use a little cowboy action to get people off their asses. Otherwise, Bombay.”
“India? What about it?”
“Haven’t you heard? Bombay is on fire.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“They lost everything, power, phones, water, and fires started that they can’t put out.”
He saw it in his mind’s eye, Bombay and all of India and its billion people and their unique interpretation of the chaos engulfing them. The wrath of Shiva, the wrath of Allah, the wrath of all the gods the world had ever known. He shuddered. “What do you think, Sarah?” he asked. “Is this the Apocalypse?”
“Doc,” she said, “tomorrow the whole world may be on fire, and if it is we’ll just have to find a way to put it out. And we will. Keep the faith.” A twinkle danced in her eye. “You know, I’ve figured out what you’re trying to do.”
“How’s that?”
“You have a mainframe somewhere, and you think you can simulate a ConEd backup system when the primary connection to the grid crashes.”
“That’s about the size of it, yeah.”
“I don’t care who you are, but I wonder why you’re doing it? Is somebody paying you?”
“No. I’m paying other people. I can pay you if you like.”
“I’m not doing this for money.”
“I didn’t think so,” Doc said.
“I’m just glad to learn you aren’t, either. I wish I could do more. I’ll keep trying to get those passwords.”
“Sarah,” he said, “it may come to that. There may be much more you can do if things look bad. I’ve told you about Vermont, right?”
“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 ex
ceptionally 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?”