After the Desert Storm mission, Daniel and Brad recuperated together in a Washington hospital. With nothing else to do, they played cards, ogled their pretty nurses, and made a pact—the first to succumb to marriage would pay for the more resistant man’s honeymoon. Brad had sworn that he’d be able to remain single for the rest of the century, but then a young elementary schoolteacher named Christine had walked into his life and changed everything.
Now Brad was suggesting that Daniel consider a vow of celibacy.
“Marriage isn’t for everyone,” he told Daniel the last time they spoke. “Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m the weaker man. But you, Daniel, are going to bankrupt me if you get married! You move in lofty and expensive circles, you date rich women, and you’ll want to honeymoon in Tahiti or some other exotic place. Remember, I’m just a lowly civil servant—”
“Right,” Daniel had interrupted, laughing into the phone. “Lowly like Henry Kissinger. Give it up, Brad, you’ll be running Washington in a year or two.”
Though he had blustered his way through the compliment, Brad couldn’t deny that his heroism in Desert Storm had placed him on the fast track to success. He had transferred from the elite Navy SEALS to the National Security Agency, and now he served as a deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs. Daniel wasn’t exactly certain what Brad did in Washington, but he knew his friend was an official mover and shaker.
Daniel touched the save key, consigning Brad’s message to a storage folder. He’d respond to it later, when he had time to think of some witty comeback. Perhaps he’d reply that he was dating a European princess and would need extra security if he brought her to the wedding.
He smiled devilishly. Brad would be so distressed by the thought of Daniel’s dating a high-maintenance woman that he wouldn’t have time to worry about his own wedding.
Daniel pressed the receive button one final time, then frowned as another message flashed across the gray screen. This one, from HKriegel@ Prenticetech.com, was heralded by one word in the subject line: “Eureka!”
Daniel pressed the enter key and the message filled the screen.
Daniel:
A breakthrough! Have devised a program to flag category II and III date codes in need of modification—decided to underline them. Color not compatible with monochrome monitors.
Come see.
Howard
Daniel felt a surge of excitement flow through him. The most difficult and time-consuming aspect of repairing COBOL and FORTRAN computer code involved finding the hidden category II and III date codes. To the human eye—trained or untrained—binary machine code looked like nothing more than a long string of zeros and ones in random sequences. Computer experts had accurately compared the manual search for hidden date codes to looking for needles in haystacks. If Dr. Kriegel had indeed been able to write a program to find and flag the hidden codes—why, this capability alone would speed their work beyond calculation!
Daniel snapped the Nokia shut, tossed it onto the passenger seat, then slammed the Range Rover’s back door. This wilderness retreat hadn’t paid off in the way he had hoped, but it had pulled him out of the office and away from Dr. Kriegel. And that gifted eccentric, thank goodness, had used the quiet hours of Daniel’s absence to once again prove his genius.
Daniel climbed into the car, closed the door, and smiled in satisfaction as the powerful engine roared. Though the sun had begun to set, the future seemed much brighter than it had an hour before.
The jet touched down at 9:00 P.M., and Daniel promptly took a cab to his office in Mount Vernon, New York. He’d chosen to establish his company in Westchester County because the area was close to Manhattan without being in the thick of things. With a population of just under seventy thousand, Mount Vernon offered schools, playgrounds, and community spirit for the few employees of Prentice Technology who had time to care about such things.
Daniel had little time for family or community, but he wanted his employees to be happy. So he bought a dilapidated block of buildings scheduled for demolition, brought in the wrecking ball and explosives crews, then watched a gleaming white stone edifice rise from the rubble. The Mount Vernon Urban Renewal Agency adored Prentice Technologies and demonstrated its affection with low taxes and various community perks.
The taxi driver pulled over to the curb, then twisted in the seat and gave Daniel a dubious look. “You sure dis de place, man?” he asked in some indistinguishable accent. “Nobody here dis time of de night.”
“This is the place.” Daniel ripped three twenties out of his wallet and dropped them over the front seat. “There’s always someone here.”
He fumbled for a moment with the broken door handle, then stepped out onto the curb. A bitterly cold wind whipped down the deserted street, and as he moved toward the entrance he was grateful for the warmth of his wilderness clothes.
A pair of deceptively simple glass doors and a small black box marked the entrance to the sparkling white building. Daniel lifted the lid on the biometric security system’s sensor pad and pressed his thumb to it. The pad immediately glowed with a green light, then a husky female voice poured through the concealed speakers. “Good evening, Mr. Prentice. You are cleared to enter.”
“Thank you, Roberta.”
“You’re welcome.”
The locking mechanism inside the glass door clicked, and Daniel opened it and stepped inside the vestibule. He would face three more checkpoints before reaching his office, and each time his unique thumb- and voiceprint would serve as the entry key. The security system at PT was neat, tidy, and precise, shunning external cameras, guards, and guns in favor of cutting-edge technology.
Sophisticated technology guarded the interior of the building as well. Soft recessed lamps lit the windowless offices and computer labs; rubber-lined drapes covered the cafeteria’s wide windows to absorb vibration in the event that an industrial spy might try to use a microwave laser to read conversations off the glass panels. Complex combination locks guarded each filing cabinet behind the assistants’ desks, and a shredder sat atop every waste container except those in the cafeteria. The state-of-the-art personal computers at each desk lacked floppy and zip drives, so no information could be copied to disk and carried out the door. A secure network of Daniel’s own design governed the sharing of information, files, and e-mail. Finally, Daniel banned photocopy machines and required that paperwork be kept to a minimum. Any sensitive reports were printed on flash paper, which burned in an instant and left no ashes.
When at last he passed through the double oak doors that opened into his office, Daniel fished the Nokia from his jacket pocket and tossed it onto his desk. Walking to his computer, he pressed his index finger to the touchpad and listened to the reassuring sound of the whirring hard drive.
“Good evening, Mr. Prentice. It is 9:47 P.M. What would you like to do?”
“Find Dr. Kriegel, please.” Daniel sank into his chair.
The screen flickered, then filled with the professor’s black-and-white security photo.
“Dr. Kriegel is in his office. Would you like me to page him for you?”
“Please, Roberta.” Daniel leaned forward, ruefully wishing he could create a real feminine presence to match the luscious voice that purred from his computer. He and Dr. Kriegel had decided to name the security system Roberta as a play on the word robot, but the Voice Operated Security System, or VOSS for short, had taken on a life of its own within the environs of Prentice Technologies.
On a mischievous whim, Daniel had programmed the operating system so that the words please and thank you performed the action of an enter key, so Roberta would execute no command unless spoken to politely. Inside the building, anyone—employee or intruder—who gave brusque commands or attempted to override Roberta’s protocols would find himself ignored or yelling at a system that had shut down. Outside the building, any intruder who failed to pass either the fingerprint or the voice recognition test would discover that while Roberta stalled wi
th a brief and pleasant monologue on the origin and vision of Prentice Technologies, she had faxed his voice- and fingerprints to Daniel’s office, the local police department, and the FBI.
Dr. Kriegel’s photo remained on screen while Roberta queried the professor. Daniel could have programmed his computers to eavesdrop on his employees, but he knew how he’d resent the knowledge that someone could spy on him at any moment. More than one hundred digital cameras were mounted throughout the offices and labs of Prentice Technologies, but they served more often as tools for communication than surveillance.
“Daniel?” The photo faded, replaced by a close-up shot of the professor’s bulbous nose. “Glad you’re back. You got my message?”
“Of course. Is this a good time for me to see a demonstration?”
“Is it what—what time is it, please?” The nose shifted, and Daniel was treated to a tight shot of the professor’s graying eyebrow. The cat must have been sitting atop the computer again and upset the camera adjustments. “The time, Dr. Kriegel, is 9:50 P.M.” Roberta’s polite voice floated over the speaker.
“Thank you, Roberta,” Daniel answered. “Dr. Kriegel, I’m coming down.”
“Oh yes.” The professor shifted again, and as Daniel stood he saw a large eyeball, dark and wide, peering out from the computer screen. “It’s most extraordinary, Daniel. Come whenever you like, come now, come tomorrow. Most extraordinary. Amazing, in fact.”
Daniel shrugged out of his coat, tossed it over his chair, then crossed the room in four long strides. After he’d seen the demonstration, he really ought to make the professor get some sleep.
TWO
10:00 P.M., Thursday, November 5, 1998
“WATCH THIS.”
Dr. Howard Kriegel slid his finger over the touchpad on his computer keyboard, then lightly tapped it. The monitor’s screen filled with what seemed like an infinite pattern of zeros and ones, a marching army of digits moving to its own haphazard beat.
“Binary code,” Daniel said, watching the numbers.
“Yes.” The professor absently reached out to his cat, Quark, and scratched the animal’s head. “This particular machine code is COBOL. Bob Bemer has come up with a rather elegant solution to the Y2K problem, but he still can’t find the hidden dates without a painstaking manual search.”
Daniel crossed his arms and leaned back upon the professor’s cluttered desk. “What’s his solution?”
Dr. Kriegel held up a finger. “Mr. Bemer’s Vertex solution is based on the fact that date fields in COBOL do not make use of the complete number of eight bits available to them. By using the extra bits, new numbers can be created that represent centuries. On COBOL systems, characters are contained in eight bits of data, but single digit integers never use more than four bits to define a digit. The upper four bits define what the next four bits mean. But out of the sixteen possible combinations, some were never used.”
“Well, Bemer should know.” Daniel shrugged. “Since he helped write the code years ago.”
Dr. Kriegel nodded. “Now he is making use of these unused combinations of bits to identify a number as a decade-specific BIGIT. For example, the top four digits might be 1000 for the century 19xx, and 1001 for the century 20xx. In combination with the next two digits, a century-specific year can be specified in the space of only two characters.”
“Well, that’s fine for obvious date codes,” Daniel said, squinting at the screen. “But searching for hidden date codes will still take thousands of man-hours. How do we find them?”
Like a parent amused by the questions of his child, Dr. Kriegel gave Daniel an indulgent smile. “We call the program X 2000,” he said, tapping on the keyboard. “Watch.”
The screen flickered and flowed with numbers as the professor typed and talked. “This little program scans the machine code for all arithmetic operations, whether hidden or obvious. X 2000 is linked as a library at compilation with source code. The program replaces the arithmetic operation with a jump instruction, and the replaced instruction is placed in a table, intact. The jump instruction takes the program to the table, where X 2000, not the mainframe hardware, executes the arithmetic operation in virtual memory. The program knows how to add or subtract two BIGIT numbers to get the proper year difference. The resultant values, now in BIGIT format, are returned to the program just as if the original operation had calculated the results. And, voilà! The new codes are underlined, so the programmer can identify and test them in a fraction of the time he would have required. The beauty of our program is that it works on the machine code regardless of the original programming language used. It will work on COBOL, FORTRAN, or even the military’s old favorite, Jovial.”
Before Daniel’s eyes, the numbers of the screen shifted as underlining appeared under various codes. It seemed so simple . . . why hadn’t he thought of it?
“That’s it?” An anticipatory shiver of excitement rippled through Daniel’s limbs. “The underlined digits I’m seeing now—that’s replaced code? It’s ready for testing?”
Kriegel nodded, then squinted at Daniel through his glasses. “Of course, we could mark the modified code in color if you’d like—I myself am partial to a nice chartreuse—but too many old systems still operate with monochrome monitors. Color just wouldn’t be feasible.”
“It’s perfect!” Daniel slapped the professor on the shoulder, then bent to watch the numbers scrolling by. “How quickly does the program compute?”
“The average programmer can examine and repair a hundred thousand lines of code per year. With our advanced microprocessors, I estimate that X 2000 will find and repair a hundred thousand lines an hour. The procedure could be accelerated, of course, by increasing the speed of the computer, or assigning more computers to the task.”
Daniel did quick computations in his head. “So a typical IBM 390 workstation running twenty-four hours a day, for an entire year—”
“Will correct 876 million lines of code,” Dr. Kriegel finished. “Multiply that by x number of machines, and you have solved the entire nation’s problem.”
Daniel stared at the flashing digits, mesmerized by the possibilities. He exhaled in relief. “It’ll work. We’ll finish the First Manhattan project with time to spare.”
“Not much time.” The professor held up a restraining hand. “The code must still be tested. And don’t forget Murphy’s Law: What can go wrong will go wrong. You’ve got to allow for the occasional system crash and even minor things like power outages. And we’ll have to debug this program as well as the revised code, allowing for the standard one error in every hundred lines—”
“The solar panels will give us backup power,” Daniel interrupted. He sank back to the desk and crossed his arms, thinking. “And we’ll set up twenty workstation computers running at full tilt to give us an edge. We’ll divide our people—one team will supervise the decoding, another will test the revised codes.” He looked up at the professor. “You and your team will debug the new program, of course. I know you’ll do it at top speed, and I’d trust it to no one else.”
“Well, then.” Looking faintly pleased, the professor folded his hands at his waist and smiled at his cat. “We are glad to be of service, aren’t we, Quark?”
Daniel gazed at the professor in silent amazement. He had studied under Dr. Howard Kriegel at MIT, and after graduation he’d been almost embarrassed to ask such a brilliant teacher to leave education and work in the private sector. That Dr. Kriegel had accepted Daniel’s job offer was almost beyond belief. But Daniel would never again regret stealing MIT’s best professor. The world would benefit from Dr. Kriegel’s work today.
“Howard, you just earned yourself a huge bonus.”
The professor dismissed that with a wave. “Daniel, there’s really no need. And I had help, you know. The others all contributed.”
“Then I’ll dish out bonuses all around.” Daniel nodded as he stood. “Money is important, and we need to fulfill our dreams. Besides, if I don’t treat my peo
ple well, some other firm will hire you all away from me.”
The professor looked at him with rounded eyes. “Why would I want to leave? Life here is so—” he spread his hands, indicating the cluttered room. “Life here is perfect,” he finished, dropping his hands to the keyboard. “Absolutely complete.”
“Even so, you’ll soon find an expression of my gratitude in your bank account.” Daniel walked over to the communications PC, where Quark was batting at the wide, unblinking eye of the camera. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for your hard work.” He set the animal in a chair, readjusted the focus control, then turned back to the professor. “Now, professor, why don’t you get some sleep? Tomorrow you and I will make copies of that program and divide the bank’s code into manageable sectors. And when it’s all done and First Manhattan is year-2000 compliant, you and I will have a rich laugh at everyone who doubted that we could pull it off.”
“A nap.” The professor tilted his head. “A very good idea. I am feeling a bit drained. But I think I’ll just curl up on my couch. No sense in going home if I’m coming right back tomorrow.”
“Fine, Dr. Kriegel.” Daniel paused in the doorway, studying the cluttered room, the paper-strewn couch, the chalkboard scrawled with computations. He had seen the professor’s one room apartment, and it didn’t look much different than this place. At least here the professor had Roberta and Quark to keep him company.
Without further ado, the professor perched on the edge of his couch and removed his glasses. As the older man shoved papers from the couch to the floor, Daniel turned toward the corner computer. “Roberta?”
Flee The Darkness Page 2