Programmer 59

Programmer 59 had been sitting for hours, at work in an enclosed space, accompanied with a programming PowerBook and a VR interactive kiosk, as well as with one distraught supervisor.

"The Rock's not moving, sir."

She let these words out cautiously, seemingly afraid that a slightly facetious slip of the tongue could risk her having to spend a few weeks in the Valhallan equivalent of purgatory. She would hate crunching such extremely trivial numbers, dealing only with the least significant aspects of the Corporation's workings. She wondered how that job would compare with this task, though, when it came time to ask which job was more frustrating.

As she had expected, she had good reason to guard her response. Behind her, the temperature seemed to rise a degree as Mr. Vern produced an extra bit of animosity to fill the atmosphere. She disdained letting him watch over her shoulder; she could never attack a problem quite as creatively with that added hindrance attached.

Valerie Davenport tensed slightly. Her supervisor Mr. Vern had led her to take up this habit, teaching it to her by example. Her orientation to the art of worrying had begun promptly at noon, when Mr. Vern had first brought their current programming predicament to her attention. She wasn't very good at getting nervous yet, but her supervisor was easy to emulate, and he was acting like a perfect example of shattered nerves himself.

Mr. Vern grimaced. "Any progress at all?" he questioned sarcastically. His guttural tone of voice indicated an unspoken presumption that her response would be negative.

"Some," she lied. "At least we know more about this virus than we did before."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Frank asked in baffled frustration.

She turned in her seat, attempting to look him straight in the eye to hide her inner anxiety. She paused for a moment, distracting herself with the thought that he looked old today. "Well, I hate to say this," Valerie began, cursing her luck within the confines of her own mind, "but it's been more resilient than we expected. Whatever we've attempted to use as a remedy has been met with failure."

"Oh, fine," Frank began to rant. "You call that a beneficial discovery? Why don't you just predict that nuclear war will erupt within 24 hours?"

" I wasn't finished," Valerie snapped at her superior, unaccustomed to his new-found sense of sarcasm. "The benefit is that now we know WHY the virus has been so hard to destroy."

Frank's face became a warmer color. He felt ashamed of his loss of composure and gestured for Valerie to continue.

"All right," Valerie accepted the hint. "The problem is severe, because the virus is adapting to whatever we throw at it. As we fight it, it grows more resilient. When we try to destroy it, it just puts up a better defence. It reminds me of how whenever we catch chicken pox, our antibodies fight it off, and our blood cells adapt and build up defences so that the chicken pox can't hurt us the next time it comes by. Understand so far?"

"Of course," he answered.

>"That means that we're dealing with a very sophisticated virus here," Valerie reasoned. "Its ability to adapt to change is almost organic in nature. I'd like to study it further, if you'll let me."

Mr. Vern shook his head tentatively. "Sorry. If you can't tell me what it is, I can't let you know what it is either. It's classified material. The only way you can learn more about it is if you find out more on your own."

The programmer was curious, and squinted at the sound of his cryptic monologue. It sounded almost like a challenge to study it further. But if she couldn't have his input, how could she learn more?

"I don't understand," she confessed. "What do you mean by that exactly?"

Frank was ready to leave, and grudgingly stayed to present her with a little clarification. "If you want to keep going over the reports as they come in, fine. If not, fine. But I can't discuss it with you any longer. From here on out, I'm on my own." With that, he turned to the exit and left her sight.

As she turned back to her kiosk and program Book, she puzzled over the predicament, and wondered if Mr. Vern could handle it on his own. As she considered the matter, she felt like the one who was on her own. She felt she had been intentionally tempted to *investigate* further. Perhaps Mr. Vern needed more help than he'd wanted to admit, and thus handled it this way on purpose. He certainly seemed to need some kind of 'help'.

Upon further reflection, she tried to recall how he had phrased the revelation of this emergency. Had he called it a virus or had she? To be quite honest, she was sure she'd heard him say something to the contrary. When he first came in, he hadn't said that "A virus is trying to damage the system." Hadn't he said, "there's someone out there trying to wreck the system"?