by Mark Joseph
“Do you know what this means?” Copeland asked Spillman.
“No,” Spillman said. “I dunno. A nifty way to keep the lights on?”
“Christ almighty, Jonathon, it means that while this son of a bitch was fucking with my head all day, he was maneuvering me here to watch this tape. These freaks are going to make me more money than Chase ever did.”
“Will that help us get out of this house?” Spillman asked.
“Who cares? What are you going to do if you get out? Go back to Shirley?”
* * *
Back down on Nassau Street, “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades,” was blasting through the speakers. At 10:30 Doc was lying on a couch in the lounge, hands tucked behind his head, the football game on with the sound off. He was imagining the world as seen from space, the glorious blue of the sea, the white clouds, the polar caps. People were invisible, too small to be of significance. They hadn’t been around long enough to make a significant mark and weren’t nearly as important as they thought. Humans couldn’t destroy the planet if they tried; they could only destroy themselves and perhaps a few other species, which they did every day, anyway.
Feeling serene, Doc tried to find a balance in the tumultuous events of the day. In the end the millennium bug would be remembered as a large hiccough in humanity’s long, grappling struggle with the issue of the collective mind. People invented things: the wheel, the compass, the steam engine, the telephone, the controlled chain reaction, the computer. Other people found ways to use them that the inventors never dreamed of. It happened. Anything a human being could do, another human could understand and duplicate. Technology was wonderful and inevitable, but the organization of technological resources was never as advanced as the gadgets themselves. In time, microtechnology would open the heavens, plunder the depths of the earth, discover the chemical secrets of life, and find new sources of renewable energy, but not yet. High-tech was new. Computing was still in its infancy and having teething problems. By its very nature new technology broke new ground and was always experimental, which meant sometimes it broke. Sometimes the experiments didn’t work out, but people learned. In this case the lesson would be hard won, but they usually were. The world that emerged from this event would be leaner, stronger, and more efficient, if not more just, equitable and fair.
The world would be different in the morning. His universe certainly was going to be different with Jody in it. He had a hard time remembering his last romance, or even the last time he got laid. No doubt it took the edge off and made him feel better. Lying next to him she’d felt like liquid silk, and when he licked the sweat between her breasts, she’d thrown back her head and laughed with pure joy.
For Jody, at the very moment when her world was imploding, when everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong, she’d found salvation. She’d found Doc. The world was falling apart and he was spouting poetry, having a grand old time.
“Why me, Doc?” she asked. “You kept this secret for so long.”
“You can handle it,” he said. “Besides, you’re cute. Do you like old boats?”
When they’d emerged disheveled and a little embarrassed from the bedroom, Ronnie had presented Jody with a Midnight Club T-shirt while the rest of the club whistled and applauded.
“You’re one of us now,” Ronnie said. “You proved Doc is a human being.”
“You weren’t sure?”
“Nope.”
“Hey, Doc,” Judd said. “Rudy had a heart attack.”
“No shit?”
“They took him by boat to Bellevue, and he’s there now. His guys are yapping about it on their radios. Want to listen?”
“Pass. I’m gonna watch the Millennium Bowl.”
Jody picked up the video camera and resumed taping events in the room. Judd looked at the lens and began explaining the current satellite situation.
“As near as we can tell,” he said to the camera, “world-wide we have twelve ground control command centers flying 87 satellites out of 864. Three more ground stations have partial control of another 40 birds. The AT&T installation at Basking Ridge about twenty miles from here in New Jersey is fully operational. This is very good news. We have a total of 127 birds, including 53 communication sats with operational transponders, providing some communications. We’re not dead in the water here. It just looks that way.”
Jody moved on to Carolyn who was watching her telephone screens and drinking a mint julep.
“When I was a little girl there was one phone company, Ma Bell, and a single monolithic structure meant everyone was always on the same page. With a zillion telephone companies, connections often fail even in the best of times. Bell Atlantic and AT&T are functioning properly and with each other, but their voice and data lines are suffering from more traffic than the systems can handle. Since every other telephone company is equally overloaded and the connections among them are malfunctioning, the surviving systems have to take drastic measures to ensure their integrity and survival. There isn’t a damned thing any telephone company can do about overloads except cut off exchanges, and Bell Atlantic is doing that.”
“Can you do it?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to decide who goes down and who doesn’t. Who do you think the phone companies are shutting off first? Harlem? Bedford-Stuyvesant? Guess again. They’re doing in the Russians in Brooklyn.”
“How are the Russians in Russia doing?” Jody asked. “Would you know?”
“Ask Ronnie.”
Jody swung the camera around.
“Russia is toast,” Ronnie said. “The north and far east are cut off, but they have some communications in the Moscow–Petersburg corridor. Some of their phone systems are old and don’t have so many computers, and they’re all right. They have land lines that connect to AT&T in Helsinki and the AT&T satellite up- and downlinks are functional. There’s traffic, probably diplomatic and other high priority stuff, from Russia to New York.”
“Through Finland.”
“Right, but they’re on emergency generators because the power is out in Helsinki.”
“What happened to the nuclear reactor in Murmansk?”
Ronnie turned away from her screens and looked at Jody and the camera. “You don’t know? It must have happened while you were in the bedroom. Just before we lost contact with them, the Norwegian Ministry of Defense radiation monitoring station on the Kola Peninsula detected a uranium isotope in the atmosphere that could only come from a chain reaction exposed to the open air. The implication, unverified, is that the Kola 2 nuclear generating plant near the Arctic city of Murmansk has suffered a catastrophic nuclear accident much worse than Chernobyl. It’s also possible a reactor melted down in one or more of the Russian Navy ships stationed in Murmansk. The possibilities are unpleasant to consider.”
“Consider them,” Jody said. “Tell the camera all about it.”
Ronnie began a dissertation on the effects of the nuclear contamination of the Arctic Ocean. Meanwhile, on the far side of the planet, the Tokyo Electric Company restored full power, enabling the Japanese to discover sixty percent of their mainframes were malfunctioning. The central banking system was dead, although several private banks had survived. A single year-old Japanese military communication satellite system had survived, providing domestic telephony for the self-defense forces.
The clocks ticked over. Doc’s cellphone rang.
“This must be the only phone in New York that’s working,” Packard said.
“Well, actually, that’s not true,” Doc said. “What’s up?”
“You aren’t gonna believe who just showed up here.”
“The mayor,” Doc said.
“How’d you know?”
“I have a good police scanner. What’s the matter with him?”
“A mild heart attack. We did an angiogram and now we’re gonna do a bypass.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Will he live for another hour without it?�
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“Sure.”
“Can he talk?”
“Rudy doesn’t talk. He shouts, only right now he’s scared to death.”
“Does he know you have a working phone?”
“No.”
“Good,” Doc said. “I need a favor, and I have something to give in return. Here’s the deal. A call will come from Copeland. He knows the mayor, at least he says he does. They probably had lunch a couple times. I’ll call Donnie and you sit tight and wait for him to call you. And yes, I can make the phones work. That’s my gift for the mayor. Bye.”
Click. Dial tone. Nebraska 34–Alabama 21. China returned to the abacus. A revolution appeared imminent in Indonesia. Doc punched in the number, and Copeland answered on the first ring.
“Hi there, Donald. Enjoying the videotape?”
“Doc, I gotta tell ya,” Copeland said breathlessly, “this is fucking great. This is fantastic. This is the most amazing software I’ve ever seen. It’s a work of art.”
“Thank you, Donald. I’m glad you like it.”
“If you can keep the lights on in New York—Christ. Do you know what you have here, if it works? Jesus, even if it doesn’t work. It hardly matters.”
“I think so, yes.”
“It’s worth a fortune. It’s practically a revolution.”
“I thought you’d come around and see it that way, Donnie. You have a nose for money.”
“I want in.”
“Do you now. Interesting. What about you, Mr. Spillman? Do you want in, too?”
“Uh, yeah. Damn straight. How do I do that?”
“See, Donnie, they’re already lining up. The package is configured for electric utilities, and they’ll be your market. The bank software is working just fine, and this is better. It’s more systemic. It accounts for all the different ways the multiple systems interconnect. One of my crew wrote it. His name is Bo Daniels and he deserves a medal, as well as a bunch of your dough.”
“I want in,” Copeland repeated. “What’s the price?”
“Care to make an offer, Donnie? You taught me to always make the other guy name a number first. You’re the other guy. Shoot, baby.”
“You’re enjoying this, right?”
“Immensely.”
“You fucked me around all day. Hell, you fucked me around for five years, and now you’re springing this on me.”
“Your insight is remarkably clear. How much, Donnie?”
“Twenty mil.”
“Nah.”
“Thirty.”
“Hmm.”
“Thirty-five.”
“I have a lot of people to take care of here, Donald. A whole crew.”
“Fifty. Fifty million dollars and all rights.”
“Okay. Now we’re in the ball park. And by the way, you know the mayor, right?”
“Yeah. I know Rudy. So what? We’re doin’ business here.”
“Did you know he had a heart attack tonight?”
“What?”
“He’s in Bellevue and Bill Packard is about to open him up and do a bypass. How d’ya like that? Now, I have a little problem. We have a nice software package that might save ConEd’s ass tonight, but we’ll never know unless I get something out of ConEd right now. I need override codes. That’s it, Donnie. That’s the ticket to fame and fortune, the price of admission, yada yada. You know the mayor, and you also know the CEO of ConEd, isn’t that right?”
“Peter Wilcox? He’s an acquaintance, that’s all.”
“You know where he’s supposed to be tonight?”
“At a party at the World Trade Center.”
“Give the mayor his cellphone number. Do what you have to do, Donnie. Get me the override codes.”
“Jesus. Can you get me a phone line?”
“You got it. Call Bill at the hospital on his office line. He’s waiting.”
“Explain to me exactly what these are again, these override codes, so I’ll know exactly what the hell I’m talking about.”
Doc explained and hung up. He turned to the Midnight Club and asked, “Boys and girls, how does fifty million dollars sound to you?”
Adrian swiveled around and squinted at Doc. The number was interesting enough to distract him from his screens.
“Your share will be about four and a half million, Adrian,” Doc said. “That’s on top of your bonus, and before taxes.”
The kid smiled for the first time in two years. “There won’t be an IRS,” he said.
“Yes, there will be,” Doc retorted. “Don’t fool yourself. They may not have computers, but they’ll find a way to take your money without them.”
* * *
Uptown on 85th Street, Copeland stared at the cellular phone in his hand and had second thoughts. This could be Doc’s ultimate trick. What did he actually have? A nice videotape, a view through a security camera of a bunch of freaks in a room full of high-tech hardware: an IBM s/390, workstations and computers everywhere, more monitors than he could count, jabbering police scanners and shortwave radios broadcasting in Russian and Chinese. All of this was on Nassau Street? Christ almighty. How could he not know? It could all be faked.
“What do you think, Jonathon? Is this bullshit?”
“I don’t know, man, but you know what? I don’t care. What I see is a man who is making war on a vicious enemy while everyone else is running around like chickens with their heads cut off. If it’s bullshit, it’s the most magnificent bullshit I’ve ever witnessed. Give him what he wants. Do what he says. The world is completely fucked, and there’s nothing left to lose. Call the mayor.”
Copeland dialed and Packard answered, “Yeah.”
“Copeland here.”
“You talk to Doc?”
“Yeah.”
“He said you’d call, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was about.”
“You ain’t gonna believe it, but I think it’s true. It’s called the Midnight Club.”
Copeland explained and Packard listened, at first with skepticism, and then with the realization that the computer on Nassau Street could very well be the difference between darkness and light in Manhattan.
“So put the mayor on,” Copeland pleaded. “Make him take the call.”
Packard carried his cellphone down the corridor to the mayor’s private room. Rudy was in bed, dressed in a hospital gown with an IV in his arm. “Mr. Mayor, I’ve got a call for you.”
“You have a phone that works? Who is it?”
“Donald Copeland.”
“The investment guy from Wall Street? He did Y2K for Chase, right?”
“That’s him.”
“You know him?” the mayor asked the doctor.
“Since we were kids.”
“How’d he know I was here?”
“Your security people are talking up a storm on their radios. Anyone with a good tuner can listen in.”
“Of all the people I could talk to with a real phone, why should I talk to Donald Copeland? Because he has a fancy radio?”
“He says he knows how to keep the lights on, Mr. Mayor. I think you should listen to him.”
“The lights?”
“You know, incandescent bulbs, florescent tubes, neon.”
“You’re a real wise-ass, Dr. Packard.”
“I take that as a compliment, Mr. Mayor, but I’m snotty to all my patients. Don’t feel special. Listen, you don’t know me. There’s no reason to listen to me. I’m here to take care of your heart, not advise you on executive decisions, but you should take this phone call.”
“Gimme the phone,” the mayor snapped, grabbing the instrument. “Copeland?”
“Your Honor, I’m sorry to hear—”
“Cut the crap. Whaddya want?”
“Mr. Mayor, you’re very well aware that Con Edison is connected to the Northeast grid, which includes many power companies. At least two of them, one in Vermont and one upstate are not Y2K compliant and are going to bring the entire grid down. Con Edison is not prepared to deal
with the rolling blackout when it comes at a few minutes after midnight, but my company is prepared. We’re willing to provide this service free of charge and keep the lights on in Manhattan. Con Edison has other problems we can solve. Communications, for starters. We’ve already done a ton of work on their phone lines. ConEd doesn’t know what we’ve done, and Bell Atlantic doesn’t know, but we did it anyway. Right now the ConEd people are talking to one another while you can’t.”
“Are you shitting me?”
“No, sir. We can do the same for you. Listen, we’ve already fed ConEd an enormous amount of information to help them in their Y2K efforts, and you can verify that, but you don’t have time right now. You must understand, Mr. Mayor, this is the only chance we have to keep the lights on in the city, but to do it we need your help.”
“This sounds like a crock of shit to me, Copeland.”
“We’ve spent twelve million dollars, Mr. Mayor, as an act of civic duty. We know Con Edison’s computers will fail, and we know our computer won’t. We can save ConEd and save New York.”
“Tell it to me again,” the mayor said. “Explain to me what you think you can do, and what you think will happen if you don’t. Spell it out.”
When Copeland finished, the mayor understood perfectly well that if Copeland’s people could do half of what he claimed, and he authorized them to do it, then he could take the credit. If they failed, things were going to be so fucked up no one would remember or even know about the Midnight Club.
“I’ve been trying to find Peter Wilcox, the CEO of ConEd, all night,” Rudy confessed. “I don’t know where he is, and his phone doesn’t work.”
“I know how to reach Wilcox,” Copeland said. “When you get him, you tell him to talk to the supervisor of the command center on West End Avenue whose name is Sarah McFadden. We need the override codes on a disk, and we’ll send a heavyweight cop to be the messenger. I’m gonna have the cop call you. His name is Ed Garcia, precinct commander of the Two-Four in Manhattan. That’s how we want to do it.”