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chair, making eye contact with Ryan. “So far, all of the
treatment errors have been caught in time, and no one has been injured.”
     
    “Ryan,” he said, “having this problem
at our facility is an embarrassment, and it could lead to serious attention,
especially if someone is harmed. My people can’t seem to get a handle on where
the problem lies. From what has been reported, I don’t believe this is a coding
problem. That’s why we hired you rather than another programmer. What we need
is a detective who can answer the question, ‘Under
what circumstances is this glitch going to occur?’ After that I can have my
staff scrutinize that bit of the program and make any necessary corrections.”
     
    Smiling again, Ben said, “I realize it
must sound overly complex and ambiguous at the same time, but there you have
it. Ultimately, I’m hoping that you will be able to reproduce the error, and we
can move on from there. Any questions?”
     
    “Not at the moment, I believe I
understand. Probably I’ll have thousands after I’ve had a chance to get deeper
into it,” he said.
    “Sure, sure that’s to be expected,”
said Ben as he looked out the window and took a long drink of water.
“I’m sure it will take some digging just to figure out where you should even
start your search.”
     
    Glancing at his watch, Ben said, “Let's
go over to the programming staff. These are the guys that can answer questions
for you and write test queries, that sort of thing.”
     
    With that Ben stood up, walked around
the desk, and out the door. Ryan followed as they went back down to the 75 th floor and headed to a series of cubicles on the far right-hand side.
     
    This was an area where it looked as if
the people, who worked here, might actually live there too. There were lamps,
mini-fridges, pillows, a small vid player here, another one there. Cheap
headphones lying about, and papers, pencils and raggedy binders were
everywhere. There was a doll of some sort pinned to the outside a cubicle wall
with a note saying ‘Death to the Pizza Mongers’ . Soda cans and pop tarts
seemed to be the meal of choice. The waste cans were full to over-flowing as if
even the cleaning staff were reluctant to come here.
     
    Ben was unperturbed as he stepped over
a guitar that had fallen to the ground. Without hesitating he reached in and
squeezed the shoulder of a young man with long hair sitting in front of a
multi-screen array. With earpieces playing some sort of techno jam, he appeared
to be watching lines of code rapidly moving by. A text editor of some sort was
waiting for him on another screen, and the others displayed a series net apps
and mail programs. Ignoring the clutter, Ryan thought it was an impressive
set-up.
     
    As Ben shook him from his cyber
reverie, the young programmer turned and pulled the audio pieces from his ears,
“Yes sir, Mr. James what can I help you with?”
     
    “David this is Ryan Dane, the fellow I
told you about yesterday. I would like you to introduce him to the rest of your
group, and explain how you can help him on the data-collisions project.”
     
    “Yes Sir. I’ll introduce you to the
guys right now; they’re all here.”
     
    Ben turned to leave, “Ryan, you’re in
good hands. Call me if you need anything. I’ll check in with you later next
week to see how you’re coming along.”
    “Thanks Ben!” Ryan said.
    He wasn’t sure if Ben heard him or not.
It looked like he was making a hasty retreat.
     
    Turning back, Ryan saw that David had
already stood up and was trying to get around a gap between the cubicles.
Turning around in a circle David said, “Hey everyone listen up! This is the guy
working on the hospital data collisions. Poke your head out, and say, ‘Hello’.”
     
    With a few groans and at least one
muffled curse, the rest of the group stood up. No one made a move to shake
hands, or even come out from their cubicles. Ryan got the feeling this wasn’t a
project anyone was