“Jezden?” Ridly accused.
“Why do you assume it was me?”
“Wasn’t it?”
“Of course it was,” Jezden replied, “but you shouldn’t just assume it.”
Ridly shook her head, wondering why she bothered to keep him around. One glance at his nether region reminded her.
“All right,” she said, fighting to stay focused, “let’s have a look, shall we?”
“We’ve spent days poring over this code, ma’am,” said Miles Middleton. “It’s not that easy to find.”
“Yeah,” agreed Grover Curr. “Everyone knows you’re the best developer ever, ma’am, but there’s been a team of ten working on this for weeks and we’ve gotten nowhere.”
Ridly scrolled through the code, ignoring her underlings. She’d spotted multiple issues already. Nothing that would topple the system completely, but any one of them could cause a lock up if the circumstances were just right.
Then she spotted it, about halfway down in one of the database extensions.
“Ah, here’s the problem,” she said, highlighting a chunk of code. “You have a recursive loop that’s allocating blocks during load.”
“So?” said Jezden.
“So you’re only deallocating the ones that you get a success callback on, and you’re not using any error-handling. If you get a bad read, and I guarantee that you will because there are numerous errors I’ve spotted in the code above that will most certainly get tripped at some point, you’ll still allocate and assign this piece of memory. That’ll make a null entry, which in and of itself is not so bad, except for the fact that you’re basing your algorithm on identifiers in your object blocks. That means that when you go to find one, this will come back as undefined, and you have no error-checking mechanism to handle that. Also, when you go to deallocate your memory, you’ve got nothing to reference because your free-up routines also rely on identifiers.”
Their mouths were all hanging open. Ridly was used to this, of course. Hers was the largest and most successful software company ever known for a reason, after all.
“How did we not see that?” said Middleton hoarsely.
“You really are the best, ma’am,” Curr said, clearly mesmerized with Ridly’s superior intellect.
Sandoo’s face glowed. “It’s almost as if you’re able to transcend reality to the degree that you belong in one of those Yogsdon and Lung books. In other words, your ability is utterly inconceivable.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she replied with a wave of her hand. “I’m sure that if you weren’t stuck inside the box you would have spotted it, too.” That wasn’t true in the slightest, but she was attempting to be diplomatic. “Please do a thorough code-review on everything before launch. Like I said, I’d spotted a number of issues already.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sandoo stated.
“One more thing,” she said before dismissing them. “Jezden, if you would endeavor to make your variable names more descriptive of what you’re trying to accomplish, that will go a long way in helping to debug these kinds of issues.”
“What do you mean? My variables make sense.”
“Okay, then what is the variable laserBreasts used for?”
“Easy,” Jezden replied, “that holds a two-dimensional array for the laser chambers.”
“What lasers? This is a business management system.”
“So?”
“Anyway, why are you using an array for that instead of an object of arrays?” asked Ridly, always in wonderment over how Jezden’s brain functioned.
“Because you told me to stop treating women like objects,” he replied evenly.
“Right,” Ridly said with a sniff. Jezden was impossible. “Okay, I’m going to change this to be an object instead of a straight array. And we’ll call it laserChamberObj instead, though again I think the use of the term ‘lasers’ is asinine.”
She glanced at her watch.
“Actually, let me fix all of the errors that I saw real quick.”
She typed for another few minutes as everyone in the room sat in reverent silence. It was unfathomable how many issues that they had missed. Granted, they were probably too focused on finding the big issue that had been holding them back, but this was just ridiculous.
“There,” she said, finally, “that should do it. Run it through your quality assurance tests again, but it should be fine now.”
“You mean you’ve fixed all of the problems?” Sandoo asked, stunned.
“Of course. It was simple.”
“Amazing,” said Middleton.
“Incredible,” agreed Curr.
Moon continued staring at the screen. “Flawless.”
“True,” said Ridly, agreeing with all of their descriptors of her coding prowess.
It wasn’t so much arrogance as it was confidence. She knew she could be a little egotistical and patronizing at times, but she did her best to work with the lesser minds. They were needed, after all … for tax-purposes mostly.
“Okay,” she said pushing her hands at them in a shoo-fashion, “off with you now, I have real work to do.”
They all got up and gathered their things and headed out. She pretended to be looking at her computer screen, but she was really listening to their whispers regarding her superior skills. It gave her emotions chip a nice buzz.
“Sandoo?” Ridly said before he exited, “please tell my secretary that I wish to see him.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sandoo said and then poked his head back in the doorway a moment later. “Sorry, ma’am, he’s not at his desk.”
Ridly groaned and sat down.
“Never is.”
“Anything I can do, ma’am?”
“Thank you, Sandoo, but no. Just keep your mind on getting that software release out on time. I want it delivered by the end of the month or heads will roll.”
THE TEAM
The warden had Harr delivered to Inkblot’s office.
He had to admit that it was a relief to be back in his regular uniform, though it was even more of a relief that he’d not ended up in the Parfait Cell. Only a mind like his former CO could come up with something like that.
He pushed through the main door and found Inkblot walking out of one of the doors at the rear of the room. Following her were Grog, Vlak, and Frexle.
“Frexle?” Harr said, shocked to find his superior officer standing there.
“Long story,” Frexle said. He then paused. “Actually, I guess it’s not. Veli didn’t want you guys here for some reason. Therefore I had to come and fetch you.”
“Why doesn’t he want us here?”
“That’s what I’ve been wondering, and I think I may have found out.”
“Oh?”
“Still working on it, Captain,” Frexle replied, “but rest assured that my searching will buy you time to work on retrieving your man.”
“Right.” Harr had grown accustomed to not getting details about the ins and outs of everything that his superiors were working on. It went with the territory of being a soldier. Truth be told, he was often glad to be left in the dark. It made life less complicated. Sometimes, anyway. “Well, Inkblot, I have some information, but I’m going to need my crew in order to have the best chance of liberating Parfait from his captors.”
“Your crew are all in fantasies at the moment, sir,” Inkblot replied.
“I know.”
“That means we’d have to break into their fantasies.”
“I take it that’s a problem?”
“Normally, yes,” she said and then sighed, pulling out her datapad and typing away like mad. “Okay, there is an allowance for it under certain circumstances.”
“Such as?” asked Harr.
“A few, but dire situations are on the list. Usually this means that there is some type of planetary issue, such as an impending asteroid collision or something of that sort.”
Harr nodded thoughtfully. “Well, this isn’t that dire, unless you’re Parfait, of co
urse, but I’d argue that it would prove to be quite negative publicity if the Intergalactic press learned that the head of Fantasy Planet was murdered by a bunch of ruffians.”
“Agreed,” Inkblot said as she shut down her datapad. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Great,” Harr said, looking around the room. “How?”
INTERRUPTING SANDOO
Harr stepped into the room that had been set aside for Sandoo’s fantasy.
It looked like the commander had selected to be inside of a replica of the Reluctant. It was odd, though. First, this version of the Reluctant was much tidier. Second, the crew on this bridge were all working. There was no bickering between Middleton and Curr. Ridly and Moon were going about their duties—to be fair, they always did. Jezden was even head-down on a spreadsheet of some sort … of course he could have been doing a statistical analysis on various female measurements for all Harr knew.
The most interesting item on the bridge of this Reluctant replica, though, was that Commander Sandoo was sitting in the Captain’s Chair, and his stripes showed that he was no longer a commander. In fact, according to the patch on his shoulder, he was now Captain Sandoo.
Harr was about to say something when Sandoo pressed the button on his chair and called out, “Ensign Harr, how are the latrines coming along?”
Ensign Harr?
“They’re very nearly clean, sir,” Harr heard a copy of his own voice say. “They should be ready within the hour.”
Sandoo sighed and shook his head gravely. “I’ll need you to pick up the pace, Ensign Harr. I understand that you’re a Human, but you asked that I not treat you any differently than the others.”
“Trying, sir,” Fake Harr replied. “I don’t believe the others were instructed to clean the latrines with their toothbrushes, though, sir.”
The real Harr grimaced at that.
“Fair enough, Ensign, but the others were also able to stay up for seven days straight and not miss a single moment of their watch. Last I recall, we were nearly overtaken because you fell asleep after only being on watch for a day and a half.”
“Yes, sir,” Fake Harr replied miserably.
“We’ll be in the heat of battle soon, Ensign. You may want to complete your task before then.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sandoo clicked off the connection and mimicked how the real Harr pinched the bridge of his nose whenever someone on the crew was being rather trying.
“Commander?” the real Harr said.
“What are you doing on the bridge, Ensign?” Sandoo said, swiveling in the chair while looking perplexed. . “I thought I just told you to finish up the bathroom. Also,” he corrected, “I’m a captain, not a commander.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Now, get back to cleaning that bathroom before I put you on report … again.”
“The problem …” Harr started, closed his eyes, cracked his neck from side-to-side, and then looked back at Sandoo, adding, “sir” in a tight-voice, “ … is that I forgot to bring my toothbrush.”
“What?”
“According to your command, I must use my toothbrush in order to clean the bathroom,” Harr said. “I don’t have my toothbrush … sir.”
“So get it from your quarters. Honestly, I’m a very tolerant officer, Ensign Harr, but I think we’re going to need another one of our talks about how you need to step it up if you’re going to stay on this crew.”
“Right.” Harr fought to keep his ire down. “You see, sir, the problem is that my toothbrush is in my actual quarters on the actual Reluctant, which is currently in orbit around Fantasy Planet.”
Sandoo squinted. “What are you talking about?”
“Sir,” Fake Harr said through the intercom, “I have finished cleaning the rim of the toilet.”
“Wait a second here,” Sandoo said with a befuddled look, “how can you be both here and …” He leaped from the Captain’s Chair with a look of dread on his face. “I’m confused.”
“At ease, Commander,” Harr said with a weak laugh. “I get it. You wanted to feel your roots, to see what it was like to be truly in charge of the Reluctant and her crew. Not sure why you made me an ensign, or why you have me cleaning the bathroom with my toothbrush, but I’m sure you have your reasons.”
“I don’t know what to say, sir,” Sandoo replied with the look of a man whose wife had walked in on him while he was wearing one of her oven mitts (Sandoo was too straight-laced to think of anything more untoward than that). “I’m—”
“No need to say anything,” Harr said, holding up his hand to calm the commander down. “It’s my fault for interrupting in the first place, but it needed to be done.”
“Should I get to washing everyone’s undershorts next, sir?” asked Fake Harr.
“Uh ...” said Sandoo desperately. “Having an emergency up here. Just go to your quarters and rest.”
“But I’ve still got a lot do on my list, Captain,” Fake Harr replied. “I’ve got to shine everyone’s shoes, mop both of the lower levels, wash all of the windows and monitors, and straighten up the Boom Boom closet.”
Harr looked questioningly at Sandoo. “You kept the closet?”
“Helps some of the crew to relax, sir,” Sandoo replied, nodding towards Jezden.
“I also have to iron all of the uniforms,” Fake Harr continued, “and then write out the sentence ‘I will not fall asleep when I’m on watch’ one thousand times.”
“Close the channel!” Sandoo shrieked.
“Wow,” Harr said. He would have expected this from someone like Jezden, Geezer, and possibly even Ridly, but not from Sandoo. “I must say that this is all a bit disturbing, Commander. Honestly, though, it’s none of my business.”
“I can explain.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Harr stated quickly. “Look, I’m here because Planet Head Parfait has been kidnapped and I need your help to retrieve him.”
“Of course, sir,” Sandoo said quickly. “Anything you need, sir. I’ll shut this down right away, sir.”
“Calm down, Commander,” Harr said, patting the android on the shoulder. “No need to call me ‘sir’ every five seconds, either.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“Please close up shop here and meet me in the main hall, yeah?”
“Yes, sir. Right away, sir. I’ll not dawdle at all, sir.”
“Ugh.”
POWER SOURCE
Geezer was working on improving the efficiency of the replicator. While it was doing a decent enough job of building out pretty much anything he wanted, it was almost as slow as one of those 3D-printers back on Segnal.
The problem seemed to be in the Plagdoop Trankendamp, or, more precisely, the connectivity between the Plagdoop Trankendamp and the Wegoclacker that Goozer had provided. The signal loss at the connector was nearly 50 percent. What he needed to do was create a seamless coupling device that dropped the loss to a tolerable 10 percent. Alternately, he could use a booster, but that would only boost the noise along with the data.
Building the unit would be the hard part, but it was a labor of love so he didn’t really care how long it took. But the real fun was going to be naming the thing. Creating names was a skill that Geezer was proud of, after all. He had a name waiting in the wings for a while now and he thought that it would fit perfectly with this.
Right as he was about to start in on the project, the tiny ship that he had created to be a case study for the Reluctant appeared on his desk. The little bay door opened and the miniature replica of himself walked down the ramp.
“Oh, hello, Goozer,” Geezer said. “I was about to create a coupler for the Replicator we worked on.”
“Already made one,” Goozer replied. “It’s operating at a loss of less than two percent.”
“Well done, bud.”
“That was the easy part. The hard part is naming the damn thing.”
Geezer nodded. “Have you decided on that bit, yet?”
“I can’t think
of anything.”
“I have a name lying around, if you’d like to use it?”
“Please,” Goozer said anxiously. “What is it?”
“Bondoattachifying Junctionknot,” announced Geezer proudly.
“Inspired,” Goozer said sincerely.
It was then that Geezer noticed something was out of place.
Goozer was walking around on the desk without any wires affixed. There was no tray holding his personal battery either. He magnified his vision and noted also that there weren’t any hair-thin cables pouring from the mini-Reluctant, which the crew of that tiny beastie simply referred to as The Ship.
“Where is your battery?” he asked.
“That’s why I’m here,” Goozer replied.
“You need me to make you a new one?”
“No, I’ve found out how to separate myself from the ship. I am now self-sustaining.”
“No shit?”
“Look at me,” Goozer said, spinning around as deftly as a blocky robot could manage. “No cables, no tray, no external battery.”
“And you’re operating at one-hundred-percent efficiency?”
“I am, but I have to say that it feels more like one hundred and ten percent.”
“Solar panels?”
“Nope.”
“Rechargeable?” asked Geezer.
“Nope. I was going to try that originally, but I got worried that I’d end up with phantom power issues and end up unable to move while stuck somewhere out of the ship.”
“Then what is it?”
“Let me show you,” Goozer said. “Connect to my main server and pull up diagram goozer_power_023.gdd.”
“GDD?”
“Goozer Design Diagram,” Goozer answered. “It’s a new tool that I’ve created to help speed up the swapping of wires so I can see what will happen without blowing stuff up.”
“Oooh,” Geezer said, shocked, “nice name for it!”
“Thanks.”
“Obviously, I’ll need a copy of that tool.”
The screen filled with a wiring schematic that had numerous connections. They all ultimately fed into a single component that sat in the center of the design. It had a skull and cross-bones on it as well as a yellow sticker that spelled it was radioactive.
Platoon F: Quadology: Missions 6, 7, 8, and 9 (Platoon F eBook Bundle 2) Page 30